The Sickness of Christian Politics & Christian Nationalism

[goldenvalley]

Another county of lunatics, this time in Michigan. (link is gift article so you can read the whole thing.

The eight new members of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners had run for office promising to “thwart tyranny” in their lakeside Michigan community of 300,000 people.

In this case the oppressive force they aimed to thwart was the county government they now ran. It was early January, their first day in charge. An American flag held down a spot at the front of the board’s windowless meeting room. Sea-foam green carpet covered the floor.

The new commissioners, all Republicans, swore their oaths of office on family Bibles. And then the firings began. Gone was the lawyer who had represented Ottawa County for 40 years. Gone was the county administrator who oversaw a staff of 1,800. To run the health department, they voted to install a service manager from a local HVAC company who had gained prominence as a critic of mask mandates.

A guy named Moss became the ringleader of move to purge people from county agencies.  He seems to be religiously motivated.

On a typical Sunday at Moss’s Wellspring Church, people swayed and sang as the band worked its way through the 30-minute set that began every service. Then they settled into the pews and listened as their pastor warned of the “many people” in the country who were “trying to destroy everything that is righteous and good and pure and holy.” They were the sort, he said, who were demanding free condoms at school, “gender fluidity books” in the public library and drag queen story hours.

By his own admission, Moss had not paid much attention to local politics. He ran a small technology business and was focused on raising his children. Then, in the fall of 2020, the Ottawa County health department learned of a coronavirus outbreak at his daughter’s Christian school and ordered the school’s leaders to comply with the governor’s mask mandate. When they refused, state and county officials chained shut the school’s doors for more than a week and warned parents that continued resistance could bring fines and imprisonment.

Suddenly, Moss realized that those dangerous people that his pastor had been talking about on Sundays were not just in Washington and Lansing, the state capital. They were in West Olive, where the county government was headquartered. “In 2020, I became a threatened parent,” Moss said on the campaign trail. “I was threatened specifically … by Ottawa County.”
In 2021, he and Rhodea formed Ottawa Impact to recruit and raise money for local candidates who ran as a slate. Moss, Rhodea and most of the other Ottawa Impact candidates declined to speak to local newspapers or television stations during the campaign. Moss and Rhodea also declined to comment for this story. Instead they relied on the more than $150,000 Ottawa Impact had raised from mostly local donors — the biggest was Moss’s mother — to spread their message via online videos, fliers, billboards, yard signs and Facebook posts.

In late January, Moss came face to face with the head of the department that he saw as most responsible for trampling freedom in Ottawa County. Adeline Hambley, a 43-year-old with long gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses, had started with the county’s health department 19 years earlier as a field septic inspector.

In one of the previous board’s last acts, the commissioners had picked her to replace her retiring boss. To the old board, Hambley seemed like a person who could work with the new Ottawa Impact board members. She had a reputation for being steady and calm. As the longtime head of the health department’s environmental division, she had nothing to do with coronavirus policy or the mask mandate that had so infuriated Moss and his supporters.

Moss and the new board members did not seem interested in any of it. “I just want to be clear that the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners has a very firm stance on mandates, and there will not be mandates in Ottawa County,” he told her.
“We do issue orders regularly as far as systems that have sewage on the ground,” Hambley replied.

“I was referring to mandates regarding parental rights and the once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic. That kind of thing,” Moss said.

insert quote here

[LFC]

The new commissioners, all Republicans, swore their oaths of office on family Bibles. And then the firings began. Gone was the lawyer who had represented Ottawa County for 40 years. Gone was the county administrator who oversaw a staff of 1,800. To run the health department, they voted to install a service manager from a local HVAC company who had gained prominence as a critic of mask mandates.

Now think about what Rod Dreher, without any real evidence, said the woke libruls were going to do to people of faith. As always when it comes to Republicans, every accusation is a confession.

[LFC]

Apparently Tucker Carlson is an instrument of God(tm). And here I thought he was just a tool.

“I sit and look at Tucker Carlson and I’ve been coming on his show, it seems like, for eight, nine, years. I don’t even know how long, but I was living out in Los Angeles and I’ve was coming on his show.

“I don’t know how long it’s been but it’s been a long time. I’ve watched Tucker Carlson get closer and closer to God, and get closer and closer to the understanding what’s at the heart of what’s going on in America.

“There’s a spiritual war going on. Good versus evil. People promoting a satanic agenda that wants to sexualize your kids, want drag queens at school and want to mutilate kids’ bodies.

“And he’s a parent. And he’s a man around the same age as me. And it’s like, you start looking at it, and if you look at it objectively, you have no choice but to reach certain conclusions, like, this is an attack on God! And what side am I going to be on?” – Fox News regular Jason Whitlock.

Whitlock last appeared here early this month when he called for red states to secede because “the bible tells us to separate from unclean people.”

Before that he appeared here in November 2022 when he ridiculed the attack on Paul Pelosi and claimed that Nancy Pelosi recently got breast enhancement surgery, claiming that Pelosi “invested in a pair of cans at 82 years old and comes home to find out that her husband’s playing hide the hammer with a Black Lives Matter guy.”

In May 2022, he appeared here when he blamed inaction by Uvalde police on “pansies in California and their social media apps.” We first heard from him in 2021 when he declared that transgender people are “satanic.”

Whitlock? More like witless.

[goldenvalley]

I was raised in a mainstream Protestant church and have never heard anything like what was coming out of this guy's mouth.

[LFC]

The interconnections between so-called mainstream Christians and the frothing maniacs are tighter than they would like to admit. And to go back to what these people told mainstream Muslims, they are responsible for calling this out if they don't want us to assume this is representative of their faith. Where are the voices calling it out? Virginia's governor sure as shit ain't one of them.

A group of Christian nationalists committed to “re-dedicating (re-marrying) the nation back to God” gathered Wednesday in Virginia Beach, Virginia, for an “Re-Covenanting Ceremony & Gala Dinner Reception” featuring the likes of Glenn Beck, former Rep. Michele Bachmann, pseudo-historian David Barton, and others.

Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the day in 1607 when English settlers landed at Cape Henry, Virginia, erected a cross, and “dedicated the new world to God,” organizers insisted that the event was not intended to “promote any political figure or party, but rather to bring the nation as a whole back to God through prayers, repentance and proclamation.”

Many speakers at the event, of course, had different objectives, judging by the fact that the first two speakers spent a good portion of their remarks attacking drag performers, transgender individuals and the Biden administration.

The very first speaker was Craig Johnson, a conservative commentator who bills himself as “The Hatchet Man” and railed against “demon-possessed people” who are reading “homosexual pornography” to school children.

“It took several generations for the universities to devolve culturally, to where many, not all, but most are today: dens of iniquity doing to our young people for evil what used to be done for our young people for good,” Johnson said. “In godly culture—America, the good—we used to read scripture to children in school and lead them in prayer. In today’s culture—America, the not-so-good—school prayer was abolished in most schools over 60 years ago—my whole lifetime—and replaced with a big, burly transvestite man in a dress, sitting in the seat where the word of God was once showered down upon our children. Now ungodliness infects our youth with evil, and they call it a woke culture. These demon-possessed people use cute little picture books for the kindergartners, but they read outright homosexual pornography to middle schoolers and high schoolers. Every teacher, every principal, every public leader that allows this is a yielded servant to what St. Paul calls the daemonium: demonic entities.”

Father James Altman, a radical right-wing priest who was removed from his ministry in 2021 after making a series of controversial statements, lived up to his reputation as he hurled viciously transphobic attacks on Biden administration officials and others.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Altman asked. “Certainly not some mentally ill tranny freak show of a four star admiral in Biden’s cabinet. Why don’t the bishops at this Catholic Church say that? That’s why they hate me, because I do and they don’t and they know it!”

“If God is for us who can be against us?” he continued. “Certainly not the mentally ill—and they are mentally ill!—not the mentally ill tranny freak show man in Biden’s Department of Energy, who stole women’s luggage at the airport. … Do not take offense when I call out the freaks in their freak show. It’s not my opinion. Almighty God said it, ‘A woman shall not wear a man’s garment nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing, for anyone who does such a thing is an abomination to the Lord your God.’ So, we should crush like the vermin that they are—and they are—every filthy school board member or teacher who tries to shove their mentally ill tranny freak show down the throats of our precious children.”

That whole man/woman clothing bullshit is from Deuteronomy 22. Here are some other tidbits from it:

9 Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.

11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels[c] of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

Here's one of the sponsors of this poison filled event.

Among the sponsors of the event was the Virginia Christian Alliance, which managed to secure a “certificate of recognition” from Gov. Glenn Youngkin recognizing the “pastors, governmental leaders, and others from the Commonwealth and around the Nation” who had gathered for this event “to rededicate this land according to the 1607 Jamestown Covenant of Land Dedication.”

[LFC]

The Satanic Temple held its second annual convention in Boston which drew about 800 people, larger than their inaugural meeting in Arizona. As you can imagine the nutjobs came out in force, not at the convention but outside of it. A Catholic group came out to make "reparation" (their password used repeatedly) and a bunch of silly noise for the evil inside the building. Maybe they should go to headquarters of the local archdiocese.

One group that showed up was Patriot Front which is described as a white nationalist neo-fascist hate group. I'm putting them here since they and the right-wing Christianists clearly have common cause. These videos of them being recognized (by their cute little outfits and face masks) and called out on the subway are hilarious. Such big boys, completely wilting especially when one of them is identified.

[LFC]

Yes, they are desperate to drag their sickness into our schools.

Oklahoma Education Chief: Teach The Bible As History

“Oklahomans, we have a clear choice in front of us. When it comes to our schools, do we want the radical ideology in our classroom that pushes gender theory? That pushes graphic pornography in order to push a social experiment on our kids?

“Or do want the US Constitution? Do we want documents like the Federalist Papers and the bible? So that our kids understand our history and how our government was put together?

“Those core fundamental principles have made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Real Americans know that we’ve got to support our kids by giving them a great understanding of our history.

“Radical leftists and Biden administration, they would prefer to sexualize our kids.” – Oklahoma superintendent of public schools Ryan Walters.

Walters, who was appointed state secretary of education by Christianist Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2020, faced calls to resign in 2022 after it was revealed that a Koch-funded group that advocates for privatizing public schools was paying him $120,000/year.

This is the same guy.

[goldenvalley]

May 3, 2023 16:09:18 GMT LFC said:

Yes, they are desperate to drag their sickness into our schools.

Oklahoma Education Chief: Teach The Bible As History

“Oklahomans, we have a clear choice in front of us. When it comes to our schools, do we want the radical ideology in our classroom that pushes gender theory? That pushes graphic pornography in order to push a social experiment on our kids?

“Or do want the US Constitution? Do we want documents like the Federalist Papers and the bible? So that our kids understand our history and how our government was put together?

“Those core fundamental principles have made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Real Americans know that we’ve got to support our kids by giving them a great understanding of our history.

“Radical leftists and Biden administration, they would prefer to sexualize our kids.” – Oklahoma superintendent of public schools Ryan Walters.

Walters, who was appointed state secretary of education by Christianist Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2020, faced calls to resign in 2022 after it was revealed that a Koch-funded group that advocates for privatizing public schools was paying him $120,000/year.

This is the same guy.

Surely there are more pressing needs in Oklahoma's education system; something more real than fictitious take-overs by non existent leftists.  

[LFC]

They're sick, twisted, superstitious, and anti-science, but somehow they're doctors. Now we know more about where they're getting their "information" from.

A doctors’ organization at the center of the ongoing legal fight over the abortion drug mifepristone has suffered a significant data breach. A link to an unsecured Google Drive published on the group’s website pointed users last week to a large cache of sensitive documents, including financial and tax records, membership rolls, and email exchanges spanning over a decade. The more than 10,000 documents lay bare the outsize influence of a small conservative organization working to lend a veneer of medical science to evangelical beliefs on parenting, sex, procreation, and gender.

The American College of Pediatricians, which has fought to deprive gay couples of their parental rights and encouraged public schools to treat LGBTQ youth as if they were mentally ill, is one of a handful of conservative think tanks leading the charge against abortion in the United States. A federal lawsuit filed by the College and its partners against the US Food and Drug Administration seeks to limit nationwide access to what is today the most common form of abortion. The case is now on a trajectory for the US Supreme Court, which not even a year ago declared abortion the purview of America’s elected state representatives.

The leaked records, first reported by WIRED, offer an unprecedented look at the groups and personnel central to that campaign. They also describe an organization that has benefited greatly by exaggerating its own power, even as it has struggled quietly for two decades to grow in size and gain respect. The records show how the College, which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes as a hate group, managed to introduce fringe beliefs into the mainstream simply by being, as the founder of Fox News once put it, “the loudest voice in the room.”

The breach exposes some material dating back to the group’s origin. It includes mailing lists gathered by the group of thousands of “conservative physicians” across the country. (One document outlining recruitment efforts states in bold, red letters: “TARGET CHRISTIAN MDs.”) The ongoing recruitment of doctors and medical school students seen as holding Christian views has long been its top priority. The leaked records indicate that more than 10,000 mailers were sent to physicians between 2013 and 2017 alone.

Many of the College’s most radical views target transgender people, and in particular, transgender youth. The leak, which had been indexed by Google, includes volumes of literature crafted specifically to influence relationships between practicing pediatricians, parents, and their children. It includes reams of marketing material the College aims to distribute widely among public school officials. This includes pushing schools to adopt junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder, one that’s capable of spontaneously causing others–à la the dancing plague–to adopt similar thoughts and behaviors.

This is one of the group’s most dubious claims. While unsupported by medical science, it is routinely and incuriously propagated through literature targeted at schools and medical offices around the US. The primary source for this claim is a research paper drafted in 2017 by Lisa Littman, a Brown University scholar who, while a medical doctor, was not specialized in mental health. The goal of the paper was to introduce, conceptually, “rapid onset gender dysphoria”—a hypothetical disorder, as was later clarified by the journal that published it. Littman would also clarify personally that her research “does not validate the phenomenon” she’d hypothesized, since no clinicians, nor individuals identifying as trans, had participated in the study.

The paper explains that its subjects were instead all parents who had been recruited from a handful of websites known for opposing gender-affirmative care and “telling parents not to believe their child is transgender.” A review of one of the sites from the period shows parents congregating to foster paranoia about whether there’s a “conspiracy of silence” around “anime culture” brainwashing boys into behaving like girls; insights plucked in some cases straight from another, more insidious forum (widely known for reveling in the suicides of the people it has bullied).

[LFC]

Oh noes! How can they be so mean to such a devout man? His hypocrisy is boundless.

A Texas legislative committee recommended Saturday that GOP Rep. Bryan Slaton be expelled for inappropriate sexual conduct with a 19-year-old intern. Slaton, from Royse City, could face an expulsion vote by the full House as early as Tuesday.

Slaton, 45, has declined to comment on the allegations, and did not immediately respond to a phone message left by The Associated Press Saturday afternoon, but his attorney last month called the claims “outrageous” and “false.” The House General Investigative Committee’s recommendation was first reported by The Texas Tribune.

In the written investigation report, the committee said Slaton gave the 19-year-old intern and another young staffer alcohol at his home, that he had sex with the intern after she was intoxicated, and that he later showed the intern a threatening email but said everything would be fine if the incident was kept quiet. Slaton also asked a fellow lawmaker to keep his behavior secret, the committee said.

“Slaton’s misconduct is grave and serious,” the committee members wrote in a report, and that he furnished alcohol to a minor, violated employment laws, abused his position of power and engaged in harassment.

“The fact that Slaton has not expressed regret or remorse for his conduct is also egregious and unwarranted,” the committee wrote. “It is the Committee’s unanimous recommendation that, considering the factors stated above, the only appropriate discipline in this matter is expulsion.”

Slaton’s legislative biography describes him as, “a proud East Texan with values and principles that represent the great people of East Texas” that were formed by his participation in church and family gatherings. It also sites his degrees from a Baptist seminary school and his work serving as a youth minister.

Slaton has repeatedly pushed to ban drag shows for kids and has tweeted his support for laws prohibiting gender-affirming healthcare.

“Children don’t need to be focused on sex and sexualization, and we need to let them just grow up to be children and let them do that as they’re getting closer to being an adult,” Slaton said in an interview last year.

[andydp]

It also sites(sic) his degrees from a Baptist seminary school and his work serving as a youth minister.

Anyone else spot this ?

[LFC]

They really don't believe that laws apply to them.

hree churches in West Texas have made financial contributions to a pastor running for a hotly contested seat on the Abilene City Council, a clear violation of federal rules prohibiting nonprofits and churches from endorsing candidates, financial disclosure records show.

Fountaingate Merkel Church, Remnant Church and Hope Chapel Foursquare Church donated a combined $800 to the campaign of Scott Beard, senior pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship church, who is running for a seat on the seven-member City Council in Saturday’s election.

The donations represent a new level of brazenness as some churches across Texas and the United States become more active in political campaigns, a prominent expert said. Rules posted on the IRS’ website say campaign contributions from churches and other nonprofits “clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.”

“This is absolutely something every church should know — and probably does know — that they’re not allowed to do,” said Sam Brunson, a law professor specializing in religion and tax exemption at Loyola University Chicago.

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reported last year that church leaders in Texas and across the country endorsed candidates from the pulpit at least 20 times in apparent violation of the Johnson Amendment, a law passed by Congress in 1954. Three experts on nonprofit law, including Brunson, reviewed the sermons and said they crossed a line.

Let's cut this shit out. The power is there. We just have to wield it.

The IRS can strip violators of their tax-exempt status, but there’s only one publicly known example of it doing so, nearly 30 years ago. Brunson said this lack of enforcement has emboldened bad actors, and he called on Congress to explicitly tell the IRS it can also fine violators.

[LFC]

These people are f***ed up, and they want to f*** up everybody else too.

A Republican congressman representing Allen, Texas — where a mass shooting with at least nine victims occurred on Saturday — said people who don't believe in the power of prayer following a violent incident aren't believers of an "almighty god" after he was asked what his response would be to people who feel prayers are not the solution to mass shootings.

Authorities responded to a shooting at Allen Premium Outlets — a mall near Dallas, Texas — around 3:40 p.m. Allen Fire Department Chief Jonathan Boyd said in a press conference that seven people were found dead at the scene, while two more died after they were transported to area hospitals. Seven others were also injured, according to the fire chief. WFAA-TV reported that some of the victims could include children.

During an interview with CNN, Rep. Keith Self called for prayer in light of the mass shooting, which included injured victims as young as 5 years old.

When a CNN reporter asked what his response was to people who feel "prayers aren't cutting it," the congressman said, "Well, those are people that don't believe in an almighty god who is absolutely in control of our lives."

"I'm a Christian. I believe that he is," Self said.

He then babbled on about big cities and Chicago in particular. No mention of how much worse red areas of the country are in reality.

While overall homicides increased domestically in 2020, an analysis by Third Way, a public policy think tank, found that murder rates are higher in "Trump-voting red states" than "Biden-voting blue states."

"In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden," according to Third Way's report.

[LFC]

Christian nationalism is a problem in this country, not a solution, and it's a problem the Founders foresaw.

These sick f***s want to groom everybody's child, as if it's not bad enough that they're grooming their own.

Waving a copy of the Ten Commandments and a 17th-century textbook, amateur historian David Barton recently argued that Christianity has always formed the basis of American morality and thus is essential to Texas classrooms.

“This is traditional, historical stuff,” he told a Texas Senate Education Committee last month. “It’s hard to say that anything is more traditional in American education than was the Ten Commandments.”

For nearly four decades, Barton has preached that message to politicians and pews across the country, arguing that church-state separation is a “myth” that is disproven by centuries-old texts, like the school book he showed senators, that reference the Ten Commandments and other religious texts.

Now, Barton’s once-fringe theories could be codified into Texas law.

Emboldened by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the growing acceptance of Christian nationalism on the right, Barton and other conservative Christians could see monumental victories in the Texas Legislature this year.

They are going completely over the top, trying to enshrine their hateful theology in the state's schools at multiple levels.

Senate Bill 1515 would require a poster of the Ten Commandments to be in every public school classroom in the state. Under Senate Bill 1396, public school districts would be able to adopt policies allowing for a moment of prayer and a reading from the Bible or other religious text during the school day. To participate in prayer, students and faculty must give written consent and conduct their activities away from students that have not provided consent. Finally, Senate Bill 763 is a measure that would allow school districts to employ chaplains to serve as school counselors.

Republican state Senator Mayes Middleton of Galveston authored both SB 1396 and SB 763. During the layout of SB 1396 on the Senate floor, he told his fellow lawmakers that the bill is needed to expand religious liberties in public schools.

“The reality is that our school children and faculty spend much of their lives in the school building and classroom…and our schools are not God-free zones,” said Middleton.

For Cantor Sheri Allen, the three bills represent less of an expansion of religious freedom and more of an attempt to instill Christian dominance. Allen has worked for years as a member of the Jewish clergy in the state and is co-founder of Makom Shelanu synagogue in Fort Worth, Texas.

In an interview, Allen said that SB 1396 and SB 1515 would create a toxic learning environment for children who do not practice Christianity.

“That is just exclusive and will heighten bullying which will heighten antisemitism and islamophobia,” said Allen.

As for SB 763, Allen, who has worked as a chaplain at a hospital, said she would be “completely unqualified to do the work that a school counselor does.”

Traditionally, chaplains provide spiritual care to people in medical settings, the military and for workers in government services such as police and firefighters. Chaplains offer this care to more than just people from their faith tradition, meaning a chaplain who is Jewish would still be able to provide pastoral services to someone who is Christian. Senate Bill 763, does not require chaplains to be certified by the State Board of Education, as school counselors are, or receive accreditation through a pastoral education program.

Allen fears that spiritual leaders, acting as school counselors, would result in children receiving religious teachings in place of real counseling services.

[goldenvalley]

May 8, 2023 20:09:26 GMT LFC said:

These people are f***ed up, and they want to f*** up everybody else too.

A Republican congressman representing Allen, Texas — where a mass shooting with at least nine victims occurred on Saturday — said people who don't believe in the power of prayer following a violent incident aren't believers of an "almighty god" after he was asked what his response would be to people who feel prayers are not the solution to mass shootings.

Authorities responded to a shooting at Allen Premium Outlets — a mall near Dallas, Texas — around 3:40 p.m. Allen Fire Department Chief Jonathan Boyd said in a press conference that seven people were found dead at the scene, while two more died after they were transported to area hospitals. Seven others were also injured, according to the fire chief. WFAA-TV reported that some of the victims could include children.

During an interview with CNN, Rep. Keith Self called for prayer in light of the mass shooting, which included injured victims as young as 5 years old.

When a CNN reporter asked what his response was to people who feel "prayers aren't cutting it," the congressman said, "Well, those are people that don't believe in an almighty god who is absolutely in control of our lives."

"I'm a Christian. I believe that he is," Self said.

He then babbled on about big cities and Chicago in particular. No mention of how much worse red areas of the country are in reality.

While overall homicides increased domestically in 2020, an analysis by Third Way, a public policy think tank, found that murder rates are higher in "Trump-voting red states" than "Biden-voting blue states."

"In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden," according to Third Way's report.

So maybe God killed the folks at the Mall?  And that's means "too bad, so sad" for the killed and injured and their families?  Gee maybe God is trying to tell Self that he and the Texas legislature should be outlawing the sale of assault weapons in Texas.  Why don't they ever respond to that message if God is the one doing this?

[LFC]

This one's for the "we need to reach across to the other side and understand their concerns" crowd. I think her concerns are really quite clear.

[andydp]

Seems the "Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword." Bible verse does not apply to anything Trump.

Matthew 26:52  New International Version:
52 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

"Absolute blasphemy" – Trump's pastor called for violence to return Trump to the White House

Mark Burns, a pro-Trump pastor, used his interpretation of the Bible to justify the potential violence needed to return Trump to the White House in 2024. Pastor’s Claims on ReAwaken America Tour Burns used several passages from the Bible to quote violence during the ReAwaken America Tour event that started at the Trump National Doral ...


www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/absolute-blasphemy-trump-s-pastor-called-for-violence-to-return-trump-to-the-white-house/ss-AA1bzap7?cvid=e9823d7f8f234c4ba70820de301ac808&ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&ei=4

[goldenvalley]

Looks like Chic Fil A is on the naughty list:

[andydp]

Jun 3, 2023 0:49:09 GMT goldenvalley said:

Looks like Chic Fil A is on the naughty list:

I'll have to drown my sorrow with a Bud Light, while wearing a Disney T shirt.  

[AnBr]

Jun 3, 2023 11:31:46 GMT andydp said:

Jun 3, 2023 0:49:09 GMT goldenvalley said:

Looks like Chic Fil A is on the naughty list:

I'll have to drown my sorrow with a Bud Light, while wearing a Disney T shirt.  

[LFC]

This story is so drenched in hypocrisy it's downright Onion-esque.

MAGA channel Newsmax is currently offering its viewers a “free” copy of The Christ Cure, a “10-step Biblical blueprint for healing” written by a “pro-life” Republican who resigned from Congress in disgrace after it was revealed he had an extramarital affair and pressed his mistress to get an abortion.

Additionally, the Newsmax offer appears to be part of an ongoing scheme by the network to sell newsletters to its audience by centering “news” segments on a specific book, which viewers can then get “free” as long as they sign up for an “introductory subscription” that then automatically renews annually at $42.95.

During Wednesday’s broadcast of American Agenda, former Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) ostensibly appeared on the program to provide his “serious research” on the issue of gender dysphoria and children, claiming that the “trans agenda targets” kids.

After spending a few minutes claiming that laws meant to protect trans kids and their parents were being based on “flawed science,” Murphy then went on to quickly hawk his book by claiming it shows that people can “overcome the trauma they’ve lived with” if they just refer to scriptures in the Bible.

[LFC]

Love this!

He's apparently an actual priest!

And he's still at it.

[Bact PhD]

This is a long read, but bone-chilling. I also wonder why I should be surprised?? Big $$ strikes again…

www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/#:~:text=The%20state's%20most%20powerful%20figure,energy%2C%20and%20non%2DChristians.

You may not think about Tim Dunn. Indeed, unless you’re a close observer of Texas politics, it’s likely you haven’t heard of him. But Dunn thinks a lot about you.

For two decades he has been quietly, methodically, and patiently building a political machine that has pushed Texas forcefully to the right, sending more and more members of the centrist wing of the Republican Party into exile. A 68-year-old oil billionaire, Dunn seeks to transform Texas into something resembling a theocracy. If you ever wonder why state laws and policies are more radical than most Texans would prefer, the answer has a lot to do with Dunn and his checkbook. If you question why Texas’s elected officials no longer represent the majority of Texans’ views, the reason can be traced to the tactics employed by Dunn and the many organizations and politicians he funds and influences. He has built his own caucus within the Legislature that is financially beholden to him. And despite his Sunday school pleas for comity, Dunn has deepened Texas’s political divisions: there are the Democrats and what remains of the mainstream conservative Republican Party. And then there are Dunn and his allies.

[snip]

…The Dunns are one of Texas’s wealthiest families, having acquired inexpensive leases in the Permian Basin years before fracking made it possible to extract oil and gas from fields previously thought to be in decline. As a political power broker, he mostly operates behind the scenes, routinely writing six- and seven-figure checks. This money is only the visible portion of a political operation that shapes the agenda in Austin and is feared by many Republican elected officials.

Throughout its history, Texas has seen plenty of influential men who have shared their message from the pulpit. And a steady march of rich men have opened their wallets to get politicians to do what they want. But we’ve never seen the two archetypes merge in quite this way. Dunn has said he believes we’re in the midst of a holy battle that pits Christians against those he refers to as Marxists, who he claims want to control all property and take away freedom. Marxists “are increasingly becoming bolder and more brazen in their quest for tyranny,” he has warned. “It is becoming clear they want to kill us.” The founder of Marxism, he argued, wasn’t Karl Marx. It was Satan.

For Dunn, politics, work, and religion all run together. “I have very deliberately unsegmented my life,” he said in 2022 on a podcast hosted by Ken Harrison, the chair of Promise Keepers, a national evangelical group for men. “I don’t have one approach in business and another approach in ministry and another approach in church . . . I work for God, and God has given me a bunch of jobs to do.”

[goldenvalley]

Mar 4, 2024 19:32:15 GMT Bact PhD said:

This is a long read, but bone-chilling. I also wonder why I should be surprised?? Big $$ strikes again…

www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/#:~:text=The%20state's%20most%20powerful%20figure,energy%2C%20and%20non%2DChristians.

A rich man on a mission from God.  He's like the tech bros who are successful in one thing, think tech provides all the answers to every problem, and decide to tell the rest of us what to do. Where are the poor humble men of God that people listen to? I don't count the mega church dudes because they're  like the tech bros or the oil man only in a different type of business.  

[andydp]

Chic-fil-A owner arrested for rape of 15 year old.

Ohio Chick-fil-A owner drove across states to commit statutory rape of 15-year-old: sheriff

(From the article)

Austin allegedly admitted to engaging in sexual acts with the teen inside the home and deputies found his underwear along with some of the teen’s clothing in a bathroom trashcan, according to the local station.

He had developed an online relationship with the 15-year-old after messaging via social media and had driven from Ohio to North Carolina to meet up, deputies said.

After allegedly confessing, Austin told officers that he was concerned about losing his job as the owner of a Chick-fil-A franchise.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ohio-chick-fil-a-owner-drove-across-states-to-commit-statutory-rape-of-15-year-old-sheriff/ar-BB1jsK7b