‘Bacon: I wasn’t sure about the Jesus Christ parts of the sermon… I was struggling with whether I believe this….

So if I could find a church, and this may already exist, where the Sunday school is very low on the beliefs of Jesus and very high on the community part, that’s what I’m looking for.

[I’d like a church] focused less on Jesus rising from the dead and more about being compassionate, caring people…

Martin: Do you think though, to even loosely wear the identity of a cultural Christian, don’t you need the resurrection part?’

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America is secularizing at an astonishing rate, and this NPR interview with a young man raised in the Black charismatic church tells you part of the reason why — and it’s a very simple reason: Increasingly, the very content of the Christian faith strikes a lot of people as untrue.

Zat all you got? 2.5 kids a month plus at least one adult gun death a day by homicide or suicide? Give me a call when citizens’ brigades are mopping up twenty buckets of blood every morning in Civic Plaza and getting shot at while doing it! Okay?

Meanwhile, Guv, if you think a few pulverized brats justifies seizing our AKs, you are looking at a world of pain.

America’s Number One most dangerous city!

“It’s very scary, and then you’ve got police officers telling you don’t come down here without a gun. I just won’t come anymore because if you have to go somewhere with a gun, why do you go?” the witness said.

Another man, who did not want to be identified, brought his wife and three small children downtown to enjoy the new playgrounds in Tom Lee Park. He said he heard a gunshot while they were walking back to their car, and when they got to the parking lot on Wagner Place, he saw the shooting victim next to his vehicle.

“It’s actually normal down here. It’s crazy in broad daylight,” he said.

Far out: New Mexico’s gun-splashed city is so unstaunched at this point that the governor has declared a health emergency! As in like you can’t leave your house, man, without some chance of being pulped; and that goes for your kids, too — so parents are increasingly reluctant to send their kids to school.

A pretty dire outcome for America’s dumbest state, and recent winner of Worst State Overall in which to live.

Suicidewise as well NM vies with The Headblaster Three (Montana, Wyoming, Alaska) for Berettas to the brain. It’s right up there (this is from 2020), almost always securely in the top five.

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So for 30 days the cowboys can’t carry their guns in public, says the governor, and ‘course they’re all pissing their high-waisted Y-fronts at the news. ‘Course the governor’s a fucking dictator and when Trump comes back he’s putting her in front of a firing squad.

Andrew Sullivan (no link) tells Biden to step aside, and he’s got a point.

Yes, Trump is almost as old as Biden. But he has the energy and stamina and obsessiveness of the truly mentally ill. I started to read his interview this week with Hugh Hewitt, and yes, it was a festival of delusion and lies and occasional decent points. But what struck me also was the zeal, untempered by time, the persistent, angry passion, the untiring drive to regain power. He is not what he was, and, appearances to the contrary, is mortal. But up against Biden, he seems like raw energy.

…  Trump now has the aura of the American outlaw, a victim of the Biden DOJ, a man on the run. Look at that mug shot. He’s trolling the Constitution. I once wrote about Trump in the context of Shakespeare’s Richard III: it’s hard not to root for the monster in some mischievous way. 

I get all that. I don’t quite get this:

 [W]hen I think of the presidency right now, it feels like an empty space. The drift so many now feel as religion recedes from American life, as social media eats away at any sense of the common good, as all the worst elements of society are replayed on our phones over and over, is palpable. 

I’m not palpating it. I see plenty of healthy civic activism – environment, reproductive rights, gun control – in large parts of this country. And since when does the recession of religion equal destructive drift? Looked at Norway lately? Looked at any list of the best countries in the world by any measure you’d like? Not a non-secular one among them. OTOH I won’t waste your time listing the God-fearing catastrophes. I mean, break it down by state. Among the worst elements of our society are the fundamentalists and the bigots breathed air into by Trump, and I agree with Sullivan that Biden’s a dangerously weak candidate to go up against them.

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UD‘s very keen, if we’re talking Biden-subs, on Buttigieg, and not just because he’s read Ulysses (his father was a Joyce scholar). Unflappable, likes a good fight, smart as a whip, likeable, YOUNG, serious, military background, politically experienced, sense of humor. Americans are even willing to vote for intellectuals lately (Obama)! But I fear they’re not yet, in sufficient numbers, willing to vote – at the level of the presidency – for out gay people.

“And your defense for that,” Vivek Ramaswamy’s interviewer continues, “is that you didn’t have the money to pay for law school. Even though you had already made over a million dollars at the time.”

It is hard to understand: A rock-solid Trumpian with virtually homicidal hatred of George Soros — because, as Rudy Giuliani has explained, Soros was pulling the strings at Dominion Voting Systems, which allowed Biden to steal the election!! — Ramaswamy never returned/denounced the Soros money he got even though he didn’t need it… He hasn’t even expressed regret for a youthful mistake, or whatever.

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You don’t have to dig too far to figure this one out. Scramble the letters in the word VIVEK and then drop the duplicative V and what do you get?

KIEV.

Who is one of the strongest, richest, and most powerful defenders of Ukraine? George Soros. What is his next move after successfully stealing the election from Donald Trump?

In a classic Manchurian Candidate move, Soros has, over many years, through gifts of unimaginable sums of money, taken over Vivek/Kiev, and planted him smack dab in the middle of the Republican primary. Where did the dude come from? everyone’s asking. Who the hell is he?

He is the creation of the brilliant and visionary George Soros. Thoroughly brainwashed, exquisitely programmed, Ramaswamy awaits activation as an assassin of whatever Republican rises to presidential candidate.

A small handful of students at French public schools have refused to remove their full-body-swaddling abayas in response to a new government mandate. But even though it’s obvious that compliance is happening, people who think it’s fine to force veiling on children are squawking. Parents should be free to swaddle their ten-year-olds!

It’s such a grossly bad argument. Of course UD understands that some little girls who’ve been blanketed by their parents from birth because of their obscene female equipment must feel pretty shitty, pretty scared, at the prospect of anyone catching a glimpse of their ankle. I’m sure it makes them feel whorish and evil. But that feeling will pass; and after all they can still swaddle at will (at their parents’ will) outside of school hours.

No one ever said educating reactionaries in the principles of equality was easy. For some of them, you never will get there. But you can certainly educate their daughters.

One robbed one Seattle non-profit, and the other robbed another Seattle non-profit.

Susana Tantico told the court she – She #1 – is a good person, but she has an evil twin – She #2 – that spent years and years and years embezzling money intended for suffering impoverished children. She #2 seems to have killed She #1, because She #1 never did anything. It was all She #2, stealing, stealing, stealing, stealing.

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Certes, UD could have chosen from about twelve trillion almost identical stories in the last six months or so. Everyone, as you know, steals.

No, no, UD: Not everyone. Not everyone!

Per the John Eastman disbarment trial, new, yummy details about the traitors’ January 6 plot and the grand historic role reserved for Iowa’s own hayseed, Chuck Grassley.

The Constitution requires the vice president — who also serves as the president of the Senate — to preside over the counting of electoral votes to certify the presidential election. Historically, however, this job has at times fallen to the “Senate president pro tempore,” typically the most senior senator in the majority. In 2021, Grassley held that position…

Eastman … hinted [in an email] that he thought [Sen. Chuck] Grassley might play a role on Jan. 6. In the message, Eastman told Epshteyn that he hoped members of Congress would avoid taking any actions that might “constrain Pence (or Grassley)” from asserting the power to block Biden’s election…

Grassley started a furor on Jan. 5, 2021, when he told reporters of Pence “we don’t expect him to be there, I will be presiding over the Senate.” His comments prompted an urgent rush by Pence’s staff to correct the record, eventually resulting in a statement from Grassley’s office indicating the senator had been “misinterpreted” and was merely saying he might fill in for Pence during some portions of the proceedings that day.

Yes, of course – misinterpreted.

Apparently plans were afoot to smother Pence in a hay silo in Pocahontas County, but his staff asked if it’d be okay if he were allowed to survive the proceedings and then take his chances with the crowd trying to hang him.

Lots of questions about the very dangerous man who somehow escaped police custody at George Washington University Hospital and has now put the whole campus in lockdown/shelter in place.

There was the debraining community of Antwerp – ultraorthodox Jews pissed that the government was refusing to let them debrain their children:

The parents argued that the restrictions [the government was placing on their refusal to educate their children in basic literacy] limit their freedom to educate their children according to their beliefs and asked the court to fine the government $6,780 per child for every day the limitations are in place…

Datz right! YOU give US thousands of dollars per child per day for as long as YOU refuse to let US debrain our children!

UD loved that.

Unfortunately, and to the shock of millions, the court “strongly” rejected this demand. But I mean what the hell go for it! The worst they can say is no!

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So UD also loved this, from one of the bad boys of Jan 6.

In one set of court filings, [Eric] Bochene unsuccessfully asked the court to pay him $75,000 an hour in fees for his legal services in his own case. 

Again, what the hell! Give it a whirl!

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Here’s a quick Jan 6 bad boy sketch that includes chutzpah, bad luck, mental retardation, and I don’t know what else. If you can read this flash fiction without laughing, you’re a better man than I am.

Marc Bru of Vancouver, Washington, failed to appear for a June 30 hearing in his case, but allegedly continued to post social media messages about the prosecution and the federal search for his whereabouts, as agents sought to track him down.

Justice Department prosecutors said, during the search for Bru, Bru shared tweets about his case that said, “I’m drawing a f*** line in the sand” “I’d rather die than submit to f*** tyrants.” Nearly a month later, authorities found Bru in Montana.

A Justice Department court filing said “the defendant encountered Montana state police officers after he was involved in a car accident in which he states he accidentally drove into a ditch and was then hit by a drunk driver. The defendant informed the responding Montana state police officers that he did not have a valid license or car insurance, and that he had a federal warrant out for his arrest. The officers arrested the defendant, confirmed the existence of the federal arrest warrant, notified the U.S. Marshals Service.”

Bru was charged with obstruction and entering a restricted building two months after the January 6th attack. Bru had opted to represent himself in his case, before allegedly absconding.  

Defendants who fail to show in court and run from authorities risk facing stiffer or additional charges.

[The] official GOP platform … accepts widespread, preventable death and suffering. I don’t actually believe most Republican voters accept that … , but the GOP apparatus does — not because party officials do not comprehend the gun-created, blood-splattered abattoirs in community after community, but because they need the votes of everyone who believes that any constitutionally reasonable laws to reduce gun-related deaths and injuries are a coordinated conspiracy [among] Democrats, RINOs, communists, socialists, globalists (aka a global Jewish cabal), Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the Marxists. 

... Was a nation awash in guns what the framers of the Constitution intended?

… We are now a nation held hostage by trauma entrepreneurs who wield and brandish firearms as weapons of holy war. Believe it or not, the vast majority of my fellow firearm owners will broadly agree that [serious gun] reforms are necessary. 

‘I love when fans are loud, I love when fans are emotional. But I think me being German and not really proud of that history, it’s not really a great thing to do and I think him sitting in one of the front rows, I think a lot of people heard it. So if I just don’t react, I think it’s bad from my side.’ 

A German tennis player at the US Open deftly handles an asshole. The stadium applauded when guards threw a man out for singing the Nazi anthem as the player was serving.

People want to know who the guy is, but rumor has it he’s gone to ground in Northern Idaho.

A post-football-game brawl in UD‘s Bethesda between between fans of the two high school teams (it’s not clear if players were involved) really failed to rise to prevailing American standards. The brawl featured UD‘s high school (Walter Johnson) and its traditional rival (Bethesda Chevy Chase), and managed only this much beyond the usual thefts and punches:

[T]he principals [of both schools] wrote that there has been mention on social media that a student may have been in possession of a weapon. 

And hey that might not even have been a gun…

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Anyone who, like UD, follows the national trend of shootings during as well as after high school football games knows that ‘thesdan culture is way behind football mad/gun mad Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, South LA, Baltimore, and other hot spots. These places kill people during/after football! And it’s becoming a routine part of game day! ‘thesda’s just taking baby steps and UD‘s thinking it’s the parents’ fault for not having enough guns lying around the house for an easy grab when you get home pissed off cuz you lost.

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Vey, vey, the grownups say; what can be done?

Well, as you probably know, lots has already been done. Look at professional soccer if you wanna know where we’re headed. Massive fights and carnage means that in some places games are played in empty stadiums. It means police state level security, including elaborate surveillance of/barring of known trouble makers. It also means 100% young male audiences, as women, older men, and children flee screaming from the violence, which is to say that the very worst demographic has now been isolated in stadiums and thus you’re practically guaranteed violence.

Of course Europe doesn’t have all our guns. In Europe they have to content themselves with beating the shit out of each other and burning cars. Here we see what our firepower superiority implies: Forget fighting. Just go ahead and massacre the other team.