If You Need a Gun, You Are Not Free

I peeked into the Trumpverse a bit and what I saw was unsurprising, but it surprised me anyway. I did not go to Breitbart or some similar far-right downright fascist propaganda sites. I just went to a YouTube channel that I had a reason to believe will have a high percentage of Trumpists in its following and I looked at comments under the only one video about recent politics the channel is hosting. I did not linger for too long, I did not even watch the whole video, just a few minutes and a few comments sufficed. This tiny window into the mind of a regular trumpist was informative, although I do not know what can be done with that information if anything.

From where I stand, Trumpism is just a new flavor of fascism. It is about the government controlling people, dictating what they can and cannot do with their private lives, in their private homes, sometimes even with their own bodies.

From where at least some Trumpists stay, the opposite is superficially true. They think that Biden is a socialist and that he is going to try and control them and take their personal freedoms. Their position with regard to him is the same as the position of leftists is in regard to Trump. And they despair and fear for their future after Biden’s win just as leftists despaired and feared for their future four years ago.

The problem seems not to be whether one values freedom, but what one considers to be freedom. Due to the main focus of the site I was visiting, there was a strong bias towards one uniquely American thing – guns, guns, guns. They see the right to own guns as the most important freedom one of them all, and they think that by having guns they are safeguarding all their other freedoms against a potential governmental overreach.

Which is, of course, bullshit. In modern times any uprising in which the government’s armed forces do not join in with the people is doomed to fail. Rifles, handguns, and knives are no match for tanks, rockets, and drones. But they really, really believe their fantasy that the right to have guns keeps them free and that is why they are/were voting for Trump and Republicans. They fear Biden is going to confiscate their guns and thus, by proxy, take away all their freedoms.

I do not believe these people can be reasoned with, but it seems to me they are overlooking one important aspect. If they need a gun to feel safe from an imminent governmental overreach, then they already are not free. Not only are they shackled by an unreasonable fear of something they would be powerless to oppose if it happened anyway, but they also keep the whole society in shackles of another fear – of random mass shootings, of armed militias going berserk, of random gun accidents. And if their fear of governmental overreach necessitating armed opposition were justified, then the government is already completely dysfunctional.

I lived my whole life in a society without guns, and a third of that life in a totalitarian regime. Fear of random stranger shooting up a school or a workplace never was on my radar, indeed I did not even know such things exist on the scale they do in the USA well into my thirties. And when the totalitarian regime fell, it was not because people took arms and stormed the whatever, it fell because the armed forces refused to shoot unarmed citizens and/or the top brass were hesitant to give such orders (personal anecdotes and historian descriptions vary). Having more guns in that situation would not make a difference except turning the Velvet Revolution into a Scarlet Revolution. I am not saying that armed revolutions are not sometimes necessary, or that they neer worked, but I am saying they do not work as these people imagine them.

But as far as I could see, the gut-wrenching fear and despair at Biden win were genuine. They really think that socialism means the state is going to get them, shackle them, and ruin their country. They really, honestly believe that Republicans and Trump were and are doing a good job, for them personally and for the American people as a whole.

Guns and abortins, these two issues are the only ones that matter to them. And only Republicans give them what they want.

And I am at a loss how to mend divides soo deeply entrenched in society. How do you snap someone out of a whole life of propaganda?

Wackaloon

Liz Crokin, right wing “journalist” has recently lost the tips of two fingers in a surfing accident and is blaming Hilary Clinton as the cause.

While she realizes that it was probably “just a freak accident,” that didn’t stop her from also asserting that it may have been the result of a curse that had been placed on her by Hillary Clinton or artist Marina Abramović or some other “witch” that is targeting her due to her efforts to expose the secret satanic cannibalistic pedophile cult that supposedly runs the world.

Is it just me, or do other people think that the right wing of America have lost their minds. I can almost get past their belief in their God (almost, but not really), but what is up with the belief in witches and spells and curses. Do they really think we live in Harry Potter World full of magic, and if so why isn’t their all-powerful, all-seeing God doing something about it? It seems to me that it just highlights the impotence of their sky God. It all seems so totally illogical and totally ridiculous. The full story is at Right Wing Watch, if you can stomach it. Just a word of warning, if you click on the links inside the story be prepared for even more ridiculous right wing thinking.

 

“Its Rightful Position.”

Howard Chandler Christy's Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States.

Howard Chandler Christy’s Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States.

Jerome Corsi has been opining about how overwhelmed he is, it’s just so much work exposing non-existent satanic pedophiles and “red-pilling” people. In the midst of his rant, I was caught by one odd thing. Odd to me, at least.

“The corruption, the evil of devoting yourself to Lucifer ends up in satanic sacrifices, children abused, human rights kidnapping, just incredible human torment, torture, snuff films,” Corsi said. “The evil depths and corners of this are so abhorrent to me, and should be to every right-thinking American, that we need to expose this, we need to bring it out, we need to show it the light of day despite how many people it’s going to be disturbing to.”

“Those of us who are going to know every aspect of it are ourselves going to have to pray to God that we come out not so damaged that we become somewhat dysfunctional,” he added. “We are going to have to make sure that we pray and approach this with the light of God and the help of God in order to get through this crisis.”

“These days, I am overwhelmed with hundreds of emails and I barely have time to function,” Corsi said, wearily. “But I can’t sleep thinking that there may be one more radio show, one more opportunity to get the word out, one more mind to red pill. That’s what drives me is the desire to serve God and to have the Constitution of the United States restored to its rightful position.”

Personally, I think Corsi is already dysfunctional. Anyroad, what caught me was the line about having the constitution restored to its rightful position. It has a position? What might that position be? It’s very strange to be talking about a document as if it were a person…is there a little constitution throne somewhere? A nice, little flat crown? Asshole christians and conservatives already damn near worship the thing, they talk about it constantly, or at least bits of it. I’ll admit, I’m a bit confused about just what this rightful position might be.

RWW has the whole story.

“Clock Activated. Red Castle. Green Castle.”

Oh, all the conspiracy theorists are having themselves a little meme war, which they think will set the stage for a video which will take down all those nefarious liberal elites, who are busy with demonic activity, and doing horrible things to children, all this stuff they just know is true, but there’s never even the slightest scintilla of evidence. They are now positive that “the storm” is going to break.

Conspiracy theorists tapped in to “The Storm” have declared today to be the day in which they “post a continuous barrage of memes” in order to prepare the nation for the release of a video that they believe will serve as the “nail in many coffins” for liberal politicians who are involved in a massive alleged pedophile cult.

The Storm is a conspiracy theory that has captured the imaginations of “Pizzagate” truthers who believe that the highest ranking liberal political and business leaders are engaged in a secret satanic pedophile ring dedicated to trafficking and abusing children. At the helm of The Storm sits an anonymous poster on 4chan and then 8chan message boards known only as “Q.” Many followers of The Storm believe “Q” to be a high-ranking government official whom President Trump has ordered to leave cryptic clues—dubbed “crumbs” by conspiracy theorists—about supposed behind-the-scene efforts to unravel the alleged pedophile ring. An archive site of QAnon posts has documented nearly 1,000 cryptic messages since late October of last year.

Since the theory began in October, hordes of people have been engaged with it. YouTube videos about “QAnon” regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. The most dedicated participants in the conspiracy theory, including Infowars Washington bureau chief Jerome Corsi, spend hours per day in Discord chat rooms attempting to decode posts written by “Q.”

I don’t know who is behind the whole Q business, and I can’t say I much care, but they must be laughing their ass off on how easy it is to manipulate these people. You can read and see more of the full conspiratorial stew at RWW.

Paranoia, Thy Names Are…

Persecution complexes infused with paranoia are making the rounds. We’ll start with Liz “Red Shoes” Crokin:

“I did not post the weird video!!! The Deep State is trying to kill me!!!” (In all caps).

I have no idea. Source. Moving on…

Last night Steve Bannon hosted a special edition of “Breitbart News Tonight.” Sean Hannity joined Bannon and Fox News political analyst Pat Goodell to discuss, among other things, the federal investigation into suspected Russian ties to Trump campaign officials during the 2016 election. It wasn’t long before the panel began to speculate about a secret plan orchestrated by “deep state” officials to remove Trump from the White House.

“I think they’re coming after Trump because they understand they have to destroy Trump, because to destroy Trump is not to destroy Trump, it’s to destroy this movement. They want to take that voice away from the forgotten man,” Bannon said.

Sigh. The “voice of the forgotten man.” That voice is awfully damn loud if you ask me. All of you fucking nazis and fascists, you never shut up. Every single day, there are stories of all you hateful bigots spewing your hateful rhetoric all over innocent people who are just going about their business. Kind of hard to ‘forget’ you flaming doucheweasels. And y’know, if you assholes got all the things you wanted, your first order of business would be finding something to ceaselessly complain about.

…“The ultimate goal—Andy McCarthy had a great piece. This is about the impeachment of the president. This is not about Trump-Russia collusion,” Hannity said.

It can be about both. Amazing that didn’t occur to you geniuses.

Goodell brought up the idea that the government is carrying out a “slow-motion, steady effort to basically have a coup d’etat.” He said that he believes America is experiencing a “post-constitutional society” and that secret government forces are “willing to destroy this country to keep control.”

There are people willing to destroy this country to keep control. Look in the mirror, Mr. Goodell. As for being ‘post-constitutional’, no, we are not there yet. First, you have to get people to acknowledge that the constitution is seriously outdated and needs a rewrite, desperately so. The fact that it makes provision for slave owners should be a smack in the face, but no, you have to keep insisting on constitution worship.

…“By the way, people like us may end up in jail. Let me tell you. They will stop at nothing. This is what I’m trying to get across to people. This is serious. This is the rule of law in this country now,” Hannity said.

“Amen, Amen,” Bannon said.

Christ, the persecution complex conservachristians have is out of control. The projection is in your face, too. They are so desperate for the power to oppress that they think any opposition is looking to imprison them, and that the rule of law has changed, so that they are fair game. I wish they actually believed that crap, just so they’d run off and go into hiding. Obviously, they aren’t terribly concerned.

Via RWW.

The Hounds of Heaven.

Lance Wallnau is getting worse, in every respect. He’s now into becoming a parody of himself territory. Or perhaps he now considers himself a comedian for Jehovah or something, I don’t know.

Citing a prophecy from the book of 2 Kings that Jezebel would be devoured by dogs, Wallnau railed against “the Jezebel spirit” that is “working through the media to bring depravity and perversion” to America and prayed that “the hounds of heaven” would be let loose to destroy the “coup” being led against Trump by Robert Mueller.

With “Who Let The Dogs Out?” playing, Wallnau prophesied against the late night television hosts Bill Maher, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert, though he did not seem to actually know their names.

“We’re going to see a season of dismantling of Jezebel in media,” he proclaimed. “Bill Maher, coming down! Steve Oliver, coming down! Carvell, coming down! God is going to release his comedic armies against you and you are going to be absolutely confused because you are thin-skinned and incapable of taking it the way you dish it out.”

So, Jehovah has comedic armies now? If you’re the lead, Lance, you all leave a great deal to be desired. I wonder, does this answer for Jehovah’s notoriously bad aim when it comes to those big punishments?  There seems to have been a big backfire here, because it seems it is you, Lance, who is absolutely confused, and you lot are among the most thin-skinned of all. You can’t take it, and you can’t dish it out.

“The dogs are being loosed, heaven’s canines are coming out,” Wallnau declared, as he began to pray in tongues for Trump and his family. “We loose the dogs on Jezebel’s lies, on all the media lies; chase ’em down. May the favor of this president go up.”

Perhaps you should have gone with Shakespeare: “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war”. (Julius Caesar). Would have added a slight touch of class to your clown show.

Via RWW, where there’s video, if you can cope with seeing Lance with his tongue hanging out.

In the “oh fuck” terrifying department, we have Robert Jeffress, who has the Tiny Tyrant’s ear, approving of nuclear war:

Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor and a top evangelical ally to President Trump, responded to Trump’s threat to rain down “fire and fury” on North Korea yesterday by issuing a statement declaring that “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.”

These fucking idiots talk as though a nuclear missile would launch, land conveniently on their target, all nice and clean, no fallout. It’s been more than obvious, from the campaign days (those seem so long ago) that Donny has been itching to use nuclear weapons, and now he has “reason”. I grew up under the threat of nuclear war, and I hated it. That is a horrible sword to be hanging over heads, especially those of children. Tends to fuck up your viewpoint a lot. Now, in old age, I get to live with that clear and present threat once again. I really don’t want to die just yet. I really don’t want millions upon millions of other people to die just yet. Fuck, I hate this. If “god” wants to “take out” Kim Jong Un, fine, let him do it without the nukes.

RWW watch has the full story, and the rundown on Jeffress and his hold on the Tiny Tyrant.

Donald J. Queeg.

I was reading about the latest feverish paranoia spilling from the Tiny Tyrant, over the horrible lack of loyalty on the part of Sessions, why that evil man, not protecting his tyrant! Trump now wants Sessions gone, and wants him replaced with someone who will fire Mueller, then go crazy prosecuting the Clintons and anyone else Queeg Trump doesn’t like.

While I was reading, this particular scene from the Caine Mutiny kept playing in my head. This is very much how I see the Tiny Tyrant these days.

Trump publicly humiliates Jeff Sessions, demands arbitrary prosecution of political opponents.

“The velvet tyranny of political correctness.”

Richard Spencer and William H. Regnery II.

Lance Williams at Reveal has an absorbing article up about the person and money behind neo-nazi Richard Spencer. For many years, Regnery’s notions about race got him kicked out of one organization or another, but the rise of the Tiny Tyrant has made many of  his dreams come true.

Long before Donald Trump’s election ushered in an era of resurgent white nationalism, a disaffected Republican named William H. Regnery II was brooding about the demographic plight of white people and plotting their rescue.

Like Trump more than 20 years later, Regnery, the wealthy scion of a famous GOP family, had an increasingly dark view of a changing America: As he wrote, the U.S. had become a crime-ridden society with bad schools, high taxes, an intrusive government and a penchant for political correctness that was “morphing into an intellectual tyranny.”

Worse, “a flood of immigrants were changing the look of America from a palette of prime colors to a third-world monochrome,” he wrote in a rant that would be at home on the bookshelf of Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon. “Instead of a lingua franca, the country clanged with many foreign tongues.”

By 1999, he had come to believe that the only future for white people in North America was a reconfigured continent with a white-only homeland carved out of the former United States.

[…]

Through his family’s famed conservative publishing house, Regnery had been on a first-name basis with the cream of the Republican establishment. But by 2006, his public views on race left him ostracized from the GOP.   

Now, he’s back. Working behind the scenes, the retired Chicago business executive has played an important role in making his ultra-right views a part of America’s political conversation in the era of Trump.

In what he has described as his crowning political achievement, Regnery discovered Richard Spencer, the mediagenic agitator who invented the term “alt-right.” In 2011, Regnery made him the frontman for his white nationalist think tank, the National Policy Institute, providing Spencer the platform to launch the alt-right movement.

The full article is here, recommended.

Not Dead Does Not Equal Healthy.

Jim Cooke.

Mike Huckabee is once again wearing his folksy, backwoods preacher coat in an attempt to defend the Tiny Tyrant. It’s one helluva bad attempt, I’ll say that much. “The Tiny Tyrant has kept America Alive!”

“Donald Trump is kind of like a doctor who sometimes has a rather gruff bedside manner,” Huckabee said. “Nobody’s going to argue that point.”

Oh, I could argue that point. I imagine lots of people could, and would argue that point. If you want a more accurate comparison, how about: Trump is kind of like that old dodderer of a small town doctor, stuck in the past, with no notion of how to treat people in a modern and effective manner? Personally, I think even that descriptor is too kind. The reality is more akin to ‘con man fakes being doctor, kills half the town before caught’.

“He can be crude and he can come across sometimes less than people think, but, by golly, the patient is alive and I’d rather have this president, who gets things done, than one who comes in, he’s nice and he’s polite and he smiles, but my family member dies in the hospital bed,” Huckabee added. “America needs to say two words to Donald Trump: Thank you.”

Gets things done? What, exactly, has the Tiny Tyrant done? Rolled back every regulation he could, ensuring mass pollution will once again take over. Making sure all working people are fucked into the ground. Destroyed the slight healthcare people had. Arresting and deporting citizens for no good reason. Being a stone cold killer when it comes to those seeking refuge. Screamed exhortations of bigotry, hate, guns, and violence, to the point that “America” is now a splintery mess, with mass shootings taking place every. single. day. People being attacked and murdered for no reason other than irrational bigotry every. single. day. Made sure to engorge his already bulging pockets. Spreading his filthy disease of corrupt criminality.

Thank you? I don’t fucking think so. All the Tiny Tyrant gets from me is: FUCK YOU, AND GET THE FUCK OUT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

Via Raw Story.

The Tiny Tyrant’s Vacancy Problem.

It seems that the Regime has a vacancy problem. A big one. Not only are appointments not being made, and many a key position left unfilled, it seems that all the qualified people don’t want to work for the Tiny Tyrant. Golly, I wonder why. Could it be people don’t want to be served up a shit sandwich at the Bates White House?

President Donald Trump’s volatile temperament, an intensifying investigation into his aides’ possible collusion with Russia, and his firing of FBI Director James Comey, have made it a challenge to recruit and fill top leadership posts across the government, according to the Washington Post.

The cloud of uncertainty hanging over the Trump administration has complicated what the Post described as an “already slow pace” in filling the government’s top ranks.

“Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous,” according to the Post, which interviewed 27 people — including federal officials, Republican party activists, lobbyists, as well as candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit — as part of its investigation.

The White House told the Post it doesn’t have a hiring problem, and blamed the slow pace on the vetting process that each candidate must undergo before being announced publicly. But data cited by the Post shows that compared to Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Trump is lagging in confirmed appointees to senior posts: Trump currently has 43 appointees, compared to the 151 appointees by Obama as of mid-June of his first term, and 130 appointees by Bush.

Oh right, the vetting process. So, in plainer parlance, you can’t find people willing to get on their knees and sell themselves lock, stock, and barrel to the Tiny Tyrant. I guess there aren’t many people left who haven’t said something critical about Trump. Time to lower your standards, I’d think, to at least somewhat match the compleat lack of standards present in Trump.

Some vacancies, including the U.S. ambassador to Japan and the Navy secretary, became a diplomatic issue this weekend, as some criticized Trump’s delays for “leaving a communications vacuum” while the United States and Japan dealt with the collision of a container ship and a U.S. naval destroyer off the coast of Japan on Saturday.

Former Obama administration official Brandon Friedman told The Guardian that the U.S. ambassador to Japan and the Navy Secretary would have played key roles during the search, serving as communication links between the U.S. Navy and government officials from Japan and the United States.

“The USS Fitzgerald might sink off Japan and the US President can’t call our ambassador or our navy secretary because we have neither,” Friedman told The Guardian.

I expect the Tiny Tyrant cares about these veterans as much as all the others he has gone out of his way to disrespect and dismiss. The collapse of democracy might be slow, rather than explosive and showy, but it’s real, and the crushing weight of it is being felt by all of us.

Think Progress has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm.

Yesterday, I posted about The Tiny Evangelical Tyrant, and that’s a serious problem.  Today, we visit some of the Religious Reich who fervently back the Tiny Tyrant. It is so very easy to roll the eyes over what seems to be, and is, such irrationality, and it’s okay to have the eyerolls and facepalms. After that, though, there’s a need to realize how serious these people are, and what they want to do. The longer the Tiny Tyrant stays in office, the more he’ll give them what they want, and what they want is damn scary. These people never shut up about how awful Islam is, sharia this, sharia that, sharia everything, and so on. What they want, however, is no different. They talk of demons and witchcraft. They talk of the slightest shake of the head against authoritarianism. They talk of degeneracy, of a woeful lack of modesty, looking at women, of course. They decry all the harlotry of the modern age.

The Religious Reich thinks this is time for the crusades again, literally. They are screaming and praying for blood, in an orgy of self righteous lust. They think only in terms of enemies. They wouldn’t have a problem with reinstating an Inquisition, or witch trials. They don’t see that type of thing as bad, and yes, they do believe in witchcraft. So do their congregations. This is what they’d like as the law of the land, along with belief in their psychopathic Jehovah to be the rule of the day everywhere, in schools and the public square. And yes, I know, there’s a tendency to dismiss it all as simply too fantastic to actually happen, but we’re half way there already. Most women are already all too aware of that. Same goes for most of the queer community, as well.

So, take a little delight in the silly, but remember that the Religious Reich is deadly serious about all this, and we must stand as a great wall of resistance and open opposition to their idea of America.

Lance Wallnau is indulging in imprecatory prayer.

“I pray that the words they have spoken even turn back upon them,” he continued, “and that you will cause everyone who dishonors the office of the president, who disrespects the authority of this government, who mocks the president—who is, in effect, mocking you, Lord—I pray now that you are going to turn upon those that are ministering a spirit of strife and contention and dishonor and disrespect and sowing rebellion and witchcraft in the nation, I pray that you cast them out of their position!”

“Those people that are falsely prophesying impeachment, falsely prophesying the destruction of this administration, it’s time this stopped!” Wallnau ranted. “Deliver us from evil.”

Wallnau said that this “warfare prayer” must spread across the nation because “when you’re nervous and worried about the president of America, go on the offense. Just don’t pray for peace; kick that demon! Bam!”

Goodness, I do believe he’s talking about all of us Resistance types. Of course, we’re small potatoes. Wallnau would like that ugly god of his to curse all media outside Fox and christian channels. Fortunately for us, Jehovah/Yahweh/El Shaddai/Adonai doesn’t seem to be the most motivated entity. I guess all that energy expended on tantrums, genocide, wars, murders, rapes, and so on, detailed in the old testament, must have really tuckered him out. Unfortunately, that won’t stop those who adore that mythical psychopath from trying to do “his will”.

Via RWW.

David Whitney, a very nasty piece of work coated in the slime of deep bigotry, has been preaching the evil of … Ariana Grande. Yep.

“Everything she stands for is quite eye opening,” Whitney said. “She is an open advocate for sodomy. She frequently speaks of her interaction with demons. That’s right, demons. She was raised, actually, in a Christian household but now clearly rejects everything that Christianity stands for and she states that she did so for a particular reason—because her brother is a sodomite and so, Christianity she threw out lock, stock and barrel for that reason. She has embraced not only sodomy, but a satanic cult religion … that is called Kabbalah, it is a Jewish cult belief system that is the opposite, in a sense, of our Christian faith.”

No one is as obsessed with sex as much as religious fanatics. They never shut up about it, and they cannot stand the idea of anyone, anywhere having any type of sex they don’t approve of, which is pretty much all of it. As for the whole Kabbalah business, I have no idea, but this goes back to yesterday’s post, and the insistence of christian thought that they are being horribly persecuted if other people believe differently than they do.

“It appears this Ariana is like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, leading a whole generation of young people, and indeed some very young people, to a very dangerous place,” he said, adding that Grande is “indeed a dangerous woman.”

Yeah, yeah, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. We’ve heard this nonsense before. Pretty sure this particular type of idiocy has been heard since the second generation of humans. What was the particular plaint in 200 BCE? In the 10th century? And so on. Every generation of young people are always immersed in the most dangerous of behaviours, and that music, whatever it was or is, is very, very bad!

“What is not surprising,” he continued, “is that she is wildly successful, famous and rich because people who make a pact with the devil and sell themselves to Satan, he often rewards them with riches and fame and power.”

Well, no. It has to do with talent, first and foremost, a little luck, and a fucktonne of hard work. I have no idea what Lucifer is up to these days, but he doesn’t seem to do much either. Perhaps he and Jehovah/Yahweh/El Shaddai/Adonai are busy playing poker or something.

“This dangerous woman is promoting every form of immorality and indeed she is promoting satanism by her music and by her lyrics and by her gyrations,” Whitney said.

Oooh, evil gyrations! I don’t know how old Whitney is, but he sounds like he’s about 200 years old. And promoting love and acceptance! Oh, yes, you don’t get more satanist than that. FFS.

“So while we can measure accurately the damage that the suicide bomber accomplished—we can count the body bags, we can read the list of those in the hospital recovering from their injuries that the suicide bomber caused—it is far more difficult to measure the damage done by this dangerous woman. Exactly how many souls has she led down the path of destruction?”

And there we have it. Religious fanatics, even those on the enemy side, well, they’re just doing what they think is right. A woman singing and dancing? There’s an evil which must be stomped on immediately!

Via RWW.

The Tiny Evangelical Tyrant.

Donald Trump in Cleveland prayer huddle -- (YouTube screen grab)

Donald Trump in Cleveland prayer huddle — (YouTube screen grab).

While the Tiny Tyrant is embroiled in scandals, and the senate is busy doing all manner of evil and nefarious things while people are distracted, Donny found himself in need of people willing to shovel endless amounts of praise into the black void of his ego. He found them in the Road to Majority, an annual evangelical meet up.

While millions of Americans spent Thursday glued to television coverage of former FBI director James Comey’s testimony, Donald Trump took time to bask in the adulation of Religious Right activists who gathered in D.C. for Road to Majority, the annual conference hosted by Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Amid these conservative Christians, Trump didn’t need to worry about hearing a discouraging word or being challenged about his habitual lying. “We love him because he is our friend,” said Reed. Trump returned the sentiment, saying, “You didn’t let me down and I will never, ever let you down, you know that.”

And he hasn’t. About the only group Trump hasn’t screwed into the ground is the Religious Reich. As will be made clear as we go on, this is the reason I have no use for the ‘president Pence would be worse!’ excuse to keep Trump in place. No, he wouldn’t be. He’d be the same as far as all the christian crap is concerned. These hateful zealots are Donny’s über faithful, the core of his cult which has actual power.

Reed and Trump both cited the overwhelming support Trump received from white evangelical voters. Trump recalled that he had appeared at the conference last year asking for their support and prayers, and “boy did you deliver.” Reed praised Trump for focusing “like a laser beam” on winning evangelical support “and that’s why he’s the president of the United States today.”

Trump touted his accomplishments: the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, filling the Cabinet with people who “share our values,” withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and his proposed “historic” tax cut. And, of course, he bragged about having signed an executive order “to protect religious liberty in America” and to “stop the Johnson Amendment from interfering with your First Amendment rights.” Perhaps in a nod to those Religious Right activists who were disappointed that his order did not include sweeping exemptions for LGBT discrimination in the name of religion, Trump assured the audience, “Believe me, we’re not finished yet.”

And there you have it. Not finished yet, not by a long shot, and unless this catastrophe masquerading as a human being is ousted, the theocracy will continue marching in, with brutal oppression for everyone.

Trump cited the Bible, reading from a verse in Isaiah, as well as more vaguely stating:

[A]s the Bible tells us, we know that the truth will prevail, that God’s glorious wisdom will shine through, and that the good and decent people of this country will get the change they voted for and that they so richly deserve.

That’s pro forma for Trump, a bunch of shit wrapped in shiny gold foil, but if there’s one thing the Religious Reich is good at, it’s reading into things, deciding “ooh, he meant ____” and then applying pressure for whatever filled the blank.

Trump seemingly, but vaguely, endorsed Christian-nation activists’ goal of returning official prayer and religious instruction into the nation’s schools, saying schools “should not be a place that drive out faith and religion, but that should welcome faith and religion with wide-open beautiful arms.”

Oh goody, shades of Bush Jr with his faith based initiatives and abstinence only crap. This promises to be worse.

Trump also endorsed Religious Right fearmongering about the religious freedom of conservative Christians being under attack in America, saying “It is time to put a stop to the attacks on religion.” He promised, “As long as I’m president, no one is going to stop you from practicing your faith or preaching what is in your heart.”

I am beyond sick to death of this shit. No one stops anyone from practicing your faith (as long as you’re christian, or profess to be) or standing on a street corner screaming yourself hoarse. I don’t care what religion you might be, however, I appreciate it if you keep it in your pocket. I can handle my own affairs, thanks. You aren’t being fucking crucified if someone isn’t interested in your brand of psychopathic salvation, and you aren’t being oppressed if there are people who believe differently from yourself. It’s a free market – a marketplace of ideas, yeah? If people find what you’re selling to be nasty, stale, cruel, and stupid, time to change your product, not insist that everyone else get shut down, so shut the fuck up already.

And in a line recycled from his speech at Liberty University last month, Trump said, “In America we don’t worship government, we worship God.”

And, I repeat, In America, we don’t all worship “god”.  Sure as shit, theists certainly don’t all worship the same “god”. Christians don’t worship the same fucking “god”, for fuck’s sake. First, catch your god. Then define it.

Trump trashed Democrats as “obstructionists” and urged the activists to give him bigger Republican majorities in the House and Senate in the 2018 elections.

There’s something which needs to be fought, tooth and nail.

Reed had kicked off the luncheon by bragging about conservative electoral victories since his coalition was formed in 2010, and mocking mainstream media predictions about the Religious Right’s demise. Among the speakers who preceded Trump were Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Senator Ted Cruz.

Paxton bragged about how many times Texas had sued the federal government during his tenure. Among the cases he cited was a challenge to federal Department of Education rules on transgender students’ access to bathrooms; he said the state’s legal challenge to the Obama administration rules had delayed their implementation until the Trump administration dropped them. Paxton said that if Hillary Clinton had been elected and was able to name a Supreme Court justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia, “we were likely going to be in a post-constitutional America.” That didn’t happen, he said, thanks to the prayers and political work of Christian conservatives, “Praise God.”

We all know that prayer is utterly useless, but the Religious Reich will work harder than ever on the political front, and that has to be met with an overwhelming wall of resistance. I know I’m feeling burnt out, burnt crispy, but we cannot afford to stop, we cannot afford to stop countering this evil everywhere.

…Perdue praised Trump for doing what he said he’d do on the Supreme Court, regulation, and immigration and praised his trip to the Middle East. “Look, this president is nobody’s choir boy, right?” said Perdue to chuckles from the audience, “But he is a man of action.”

“No choir boy.” They know exactly what the Tiny Tyrant is, and they are perfectly okay with that, because he’s the instrument by which they think they can bring about the Theocalypse™. This is their one chance to see that hatred and evil win. This is a fight we cannot afford to lose.

Full story at RWW.

And, The Idiot Fucks Us All Into The Ground.

President Trump announced Thursday afternoon that he is withdrawing the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, a move that honors a campaign promise but risks rupturing global alliances and disappointing both environmentalists and corporate titans.

But Trump said he would seek to negotiate a new climate deal that is, in his view, “fair” to America’s interests.

“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers,” Trump said.

“We’re getting out,” he added, “but we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. If we can, that’s great. If we can’t, that’s fine.”

Trump argued that the Paris agreement would “punish” the United States and instituted “onerous energy restrictions” that would stymie economic growth, especially in manufacturing industries. The president claimed that meeting the accord’s greenhouse gas emission standards would cost the United States close to $3 trillion in lost gross domestic product and 6.5 million industrial jobs.

I can’t go on. Not right now. Jesus Fuck, the idiot is going to kill us all. Full story is at The Washington Post. Read at your peril. Also, stay the hell away from twitter, it’s infested with fucking idiots, waving their tiny flags, which are considerably bigger than their brains.

There’s also this, but there’s no funny business with Russia, no, no.  And this: Trump’s argument for withdrawing from Paris agreement contains multi-trillion dollar math error: In a cost-benefit analysis, you’re supposed to analyze the costs and the benefits.