[Sen. Josh] Hawley’s idea of freedom is the freedom to conform to what he and his preferred religious authorities know to be right. Mr. Hawley is not shy about making the point explicit. In a 2017 speech to the American Renewal Project, he declared — paraphrasing the Dutch Reformed theologian and onetime prime minister Abraham Kuyper — “There is not one square inch of all creation over which Jesus Christ is not Lord.” Mr. Kuyper is perhaps best known for his claim that Christianity has sole legitimate authority over all aspects of human life.
“We are called to take that message into every sphere of life that we touch, including the political realm,” Mr. Hawley said. “That is our charge. To take the Lordship of Christ, that message, into the public realm, and to seek the obedience of the nations. Of our nation!”
Go deep. Use every ounce of pornographic imagination you have for this one. What are you envisioning?
You’re holding back. You’re not letting yourself go there. But think of it this way. Desecrating the Capitol is nothing, killing and injuring people is nothing, almost destroying our democracy is nothing. It’s time for Trump to desecrate the delicate, vulnerable, spiritual lives of millions of Americans.
See him grab randomly at one of the fundamentalist idiots – his equivalent in tricksterism among the bible thumpers – who still think he’s god. See him go in front of the cameras clinging to this person, introducing her as his spiritual advisor, and then crying like Jimmy Swaggart (the men look identical – Trump doesn’t even have to do the theatrics – he can release Swaggart’s tape and say it’s him).
America, I have sinned before thee. Look upon me, a broken man with only his Lord and Savior to love and redeem him. More than half of America hates me! Hates my children! Hates my grandchildren! [Wails.] Have pity on the innocents, my fellow Americans! My grandchildren are not to blame for the sins of their grandfather. Do not scar their lives with rejection and contempt. I know you hate me but Jesus loves me and it doesn’t matter what I do he will always love me!! Right here and now I will be baptized again in the healing waters! [Spiritual advisor lowers him, fully clothed, into a bathtub.] Watch me! Watch the lord transform me into a born-again, humbled, leader! I let power go to my head I fully admit it! And the lord saith pride goeth before a fall and lord I have fallen so low! [Returns, dripping, to microphone.] I hereby renounce Satan and all his ways.
And here’s the best news: He’s only 52! Decades of thuggery and thievery lie ahead of him, thank God.
Thank God, for the crime-ridden Esformes family (Esformes’ crooked father established the Esformes health care fraud business) also presents itself as way way way godly.
Not that certain branches of Orthodox Judaism (the religion in this case) need any more bad publicity, what with their anti-vax, anti-mask, pro-large-gathering, pro-welfare-fraud thing; but the newly-sprung Esformes will significantly add to the enlightened, law-abiding profile of this group.
Not only did God immediatelyforgive Paul Ewell for writing that post; no less than the President of the United States enthusiastically tweeted said post. Despite these votes of confidence, Dean Ewell finds himself out on his ass because Jesus Saves, Moses Invests, and Virginia Wesleyan University Fires. It’s a university, see. Totally close-minded punitive fanatics are not really what most universities have in mind. As such.
What holds [evangelicals] together is not any centralized command structure, but a radical political ideology that is profoundly hostile to democracy and pluralism, and a certain political style that seeks to provoke moral panic, rewards the paranoid and views every partisan conflict as a conflagration, the end of the world… The point of conspiratorial narratives and apocalyptic rhetoric is to lay the groundwork for a politics of total obstruction, in preparation for the return of a “legitimate” ruler. The best guess is that religious authoritarianism of the next four years will look a lot like it did in the last four years. We ignore the political implications for our democracy at our peril.
“There was concern for the safety of children because it was very clear the [Jared] Kushner parents were violating public health recommendations,” one mother [at a school the Kushners were reportedly asked to leave] told the [Jewish Telegraphic Agency].
Donald Trump doesn’t merely want to criticize his opponents; he takes a depraved delight in inflicting pain on others, even if there’s collateral damage in the process… There’s something quite sick about it all.
A lot of human casualties result from the cruelty of malignant narcissists like Donald Trump—casualties, it should be said, that his supporters in the Republican Party, on various pro-Trump websites and news outlets, and on talk radio are willing to tolerate or even defend. Their philosophy seems to be that you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet. If putting up with Trump’s indecency is the price of maintaining power, so be it. Will Trump’s white evangelical supporters—Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Eric Metaxas, Mike Huckabee, Ralph Reed—defend his behavior as the perfect embodiment of the New Testament ethic, the credo of Jesus, the message from the Sermon on the Mount? “Blessed are the brutal, for they shall inherit the Earth.”
…
There is a wickedness in our president that long ago corrupted him. It’s corrupted his party. And it’s in the process of corrupting our country, too.
He is a crimson stain on American decency. He needs to go.
The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track… Once malice is embraced as a virtue, it is impossible to contain.
… The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected…
We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era… It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump… [Their community] is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them; [they] have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life… Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty…
The president’s ability to execute … cruelty through word and deed makes [his followers] euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.
“To my Mormon friends, my Latter-day Saint friends,” [Utah Senator Mike] Lee said. “Think of [Trump] as Captain Moroni. He seeks not power but to pull it down. He seeks not the praise of the world or the fake news, but he seeks the wellbeing and the peace of the American people.”
One imam apologised today after his mosque shared details of [Samuel] Paty and his school on Facebook following a campaign by an outraged Muslim father.
‘Given what happened we regret having published it,’ said imam M’hammed Henniche…
Hitchens told France, long ago, how your country gets to a place where its teachers of free speech are beheaded in school courtyards, in front of crowds of children.
What happens to children who watch a man film their headless civics teacher, in order to delight Islamists and terrify secular France with it?
In time, the French Rate My Teacher app will feature, alongside “hotness,” a beheaded body emoji.
This much we know: It is always too late to take seriously the statements that religious fundamentalists make. They tell you until they’re blue in the face that they will kill people who act on their belief in the freedom of speech. Y’all just think they’re joshing.
“We’ve been sounding the alarm for years,” Iannis Roder, a historian and teacher, told French radio. “I hope this is a turning point in recognising the reality of what happens on the ground.”
The incident was one of a number of attacks on journalists in Israel and the United States, as they reported on the high virus transmission rates in ultra-Orthodox areas and the mass gatherings that may be helping fuel that rise.
Actually, after this latest one there was yet another one, reported only a few hours ago. Ultraorthodox men – and women – in Israel and the United States are beating up anyone they perceive to be a threat to their illegal gatherings.
Virtually all cults, as you know, eventually devolve into violence. (“LOCK HER UP LOCK HIM UP LOCK EVERYBODY UP”) Ultraorthodox Jewry is textbook cult.
