Ineligibility of 50 Electoral College Voters.

Getty Images.

Getty Images.

More than 50 Electoral College members who voted for Donald Trump were ineligible to serve as presidential electors because they did not live in the congressional districts they represented or held elective office in states legally barring dual officeholders.

That stunning finding is among the conclusions of an extensive 1,000-plus page legal briefing prepared by a bipartisan nationwide legal team for members of Congress who are being urged to object to certifying the 2016 Electoral College results on Friday.

“Trump’s ascension to the presidency is completely illegitimate,” said Ryan Clayton of Americans Take Action, who is promoting the effort. “It’s not just Russians hacking our democracy. It’s not just voter suppression at unprecedented levels. It is also [that] there are Republicans illegally casting ballots in the Electoral College, and in a sufficient number that the results of the Electoral College proceedings are illegitimate as well.”

[…]

It may be that the efforts to convince Congress to challenge the ratification of the 2016 Electoral College amounts to little more than a Hail Mary aimed at derailing a Trump presidency. As of late Wednesday, Clayton thought there would be House members willing to object to certifying the Electoral College vote, but he was less certain about finding a senator willing to go along.

But even if a challenge is mounted and fails, it underscores the illegitimate basis of Trump’s presidency and the deep opposition to it, and refutes the GOP’s outrageous claim that it has a mandate for dismantling government programs across the board.

“We have a list of 50 illegal electors,” Clayton said. “That puts Donald Trump below the threshold that he needs to be elected president. Let’s debate it in an open session. According to the Constitution, the Congress, if nobody wins on the first round of balloting, picks from the top three candidates. That will be Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Colin Powell.”

I won’t be holding my breath here, everyone knew that the Bush jr presidency was illegitimate, but it didn’t matter. I don’t think it will matter this time, either. This is, however, yet another reason to dismantle the electoral college.

Full story at Alternet.

Let’s Compare, Shall We?

fruit-grapefruit-oranges-kiwi-lemons-limes-green-apple-174349

Credit: fourever.eu

Looking at America today, we have repubs going nuts over porn; the active dismantling of ethics and ethical oversight in favour of open corruption; and Donny “Pendejo” Trump waging twitter war with Kim Jong Un, because nothing screams “Greatness!” like two sociopaths with all the maturity of a toddler in full meltdown. And nukes, can’t forget the nukes.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, there’s a move to break the consumer cycle of “buy, it breaks, toss it out, buy another.”

Sweden’s Minister of Financial Markets and Consumer Affairs Per Bolund says we need to change that mindset.

“Part of that is making it more affordable and economically rational to stop the buying and throwing away, instead repairing your goods and using them for a longer time,” says Bolund.

He’s trying to push people in that direction through tax breaks; he’s spearheading a 50-percent tax cut for Swedes to repair items like clothes, shoes and bicycles. The new rule takes effect on Jan. 1, 2017, with a goal of decreasing waste in the world’s landfills, which are filling up at an alarming rate.

This idea — not just discarding stuff — it’s not exactly revolutionary.

A 50% tax break. I just bet that wouldn’t get the attention of Americans, nooooo. [Serious, deadly sarcasm there.]

And in Finland, they are breaking out a guaranteed universal income pilot program.

Giving people money regardless of whether or not they’re working seems to defy common sense about personal responsibility and how to boost productivity. But supporters of UBI have argued that it just makes sense as public policy, for several reasons. First, in the long run, it might be simpler and cheaper for the state to give people money than to oversee a complicated welfare bureaucracy. And it looks as if technological advances might level industries that may have seemed impervious to automation, such as truck driving: driverless vehicles will soon be out of the experimental stage, journalist Gwynne Dyer has noted.

So, America: bowl full of rotten apples.

“A lie, is a lie, is a lie.”

Dan Rather speaks to 'All In' host Chris Hayes on July 11, 2016. (MSNBC).

Dan Rather speaks to ‘All In’ host Chris Hayes on July 11, 2016. (MSNBC).

An actual journalist has weighed in on The Wall Street Journal’s declaration of not calling a lie a lie. Dan Rather did not mince words, and I am so thankful.

On Facebook, Rather blasted Baker by opening with “A lie, is a lie, is a lie.”

“Journalism, as I was taught it, is a process of getting as close to some valid version of the truth as is humanly possible. And one of my definitions of news is information that the powerful don’t want you to know,” Rather wrote.

“It is not the proper role of journalists to meet lies—especially from someone of Mr. Trump’s stature and power—by hiding behind semantics and euphemisms. Our role is to call it as we see it, based on solid reporting. When something is, in fact, a demonstrable lie, it is our responsibility to say so,” he continued. “As I have said before and will say as long as people are willing to listen, this is a gut check moment for the press. We are being confronted by versions of what are claimed to be ‘the truth’ that resemble something spewed out by a fertilizer-spreader in a wind tunnel. And there is every indication that this will only continue in the Tweets and statements of the man who will now hold forth from behind the Great Seal of the President of the United States.”

Rather concluded by warning news consumers, “You as the paying, subscribing public, can use your leverage and pocketbooks to keep those who should be honest brokers of information, well, honest. ”

Thank you, Mr. Rather.

Via Raw Story.

Ethics? We don’t need no stinkin’ ethics!

ethics

In a secret vote held behind closed doors Monday night, House Republicans voted to cripple the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent body created in 2008 to rein in corruption and other misconduct by members of Congress.

The move was spearheaded “by lawmakers who have come under investigation in recent years,” according to Politico. Among those speaking in favor of the changes were Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX), who was accused by a staffer of sexual harassment, and Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL), who allegedly received “an impermissible gift when he and his wife traveled to Taiwan in October 2011.”

Under the new rules, the Office of Congressional Ethics would be renamed the Office of Congressional Complaint Review and, critically, lose its independence. It would be placed under the auspices of the House Ethics Committee, which famously has turned a blind eye to wrongdoing by members of Congress. It became clear that an independent body was necessary after scandals largely ignored by the the Ethics Committee sent several members of Congress, including Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Bob Ney, to jail.

Ooooh, a complaints department! We’re all so sure that will work wonderfully, right?

Many of the new restrictions on the body appear designed to make it easier to sweep misconduct under the rug.

The new Office of Congressional Complaint Review cannot make any of its findings public — or make any other public statement — without the approval of the House Ethics Committee.

Ah, how cozy. All the corrupt, unethical, immoral republicans now have a lovely shelter, and no one will ever tell them they are wrong.

Even if the Office of Congressional Complaint Review finds evidence of criminal conduct, it cannot report it to the police without prior approval.

Even better! If caught, they can’t be punished.

The rules also prohibit the new office from considering anonymous complaints or investigating any conduct that occurred before 2011.

Very convenient. That effectively prohibits any investigation via a complainant who might have every reason to be concerned about retaliation.

The House leadership will get a chance to prove their opposition Tuesday, when a public vote on a rules package that includes the changes to ethics oversight will occur on the House floor.

Yeah, I’m not gonna hold my breath. More American Greatness™ folks, Look Ma, no ethics! Via Think Progress.

The Conservative Rally Cry: No More Porn!

Todd Weiler (Facebook).

Todd Weiler (Facebook).

The attempt to legislate a pre-loaded porn nanny is here. Now we move on to the anti-porn crusade being spear-headed by Utah republicans, alarmed over the porn consumption stats of Utah, which are very high indeed. A couple of decades ago, I live in Utah, SLC specifically. It’s not difficult to understand why porn consumption is so very high there, it’s a state based on serious repression, and a deliberate suppression of knowledge. Naturally, Utah is going with the “won’t anyone think about the children!” whine to defend their latest draconian measures. You could seriously counter the importance of porn among children by providing proper sex education. Demystifying goes a long way in making something a whole lot less interesting. It helps if you aren’t always muttering “forbidden!” too, but I expect that’s a road too far for Utah. All that said, the majority of porn consumers in Utah are not children. They are adult, hetero men.

Now that he’s successfully declared pornography to be a public health crisis in his state, a Utah Republican wants to allow lawsuits against companies that put explicit content online.

State Sen. Todd Weiler (R-Woods Cross) sponsored a resolution that passed last year to declare the public health crisis, and he said the new bill would focus mainly on underage children and teens who become addicted to online pornography, reported the Salt Lake Tribune.

“I’m trying to kind of track the same path that was taken against tobacco 70 years ago,” Weiler told KSL-TV. “It’s not government coming in and saying what you can and can’t watch. It’s just basically a message to the pornography industry that if someone in Utah can prove damages from the product, that they may be held liable financially.”

That’s not likely, given that the whole notion of porn ‘addiction’ is a false one.

The lawmaker is working on a second bill that would close a loophole requiring public libraries to filter out adult content on wireless internet connections, and not just wired connections, and he also wants internet service providers to filter explicit content for all users, although they may opt out.

Intransitive has the best, simplest idea about the filtering question, which means it would never be implemented.

Weiler, who is an attorney, admits the first two or three dozen cases against pornographers would most likely be dismissed, but he believes they would eventually gain traction.

“I’m looking at where we can push the envelope as a state of Utah,” Weiler said. “To pretend that this is not having any impact on our youth, on children’s’ minds as they’re developing, as their attitudes towards sex and the opposite sex are being formed, I think, is foolish.”

Lawmakers in Tennessee and Virginia are considering measures that would declare pornography a public health crisis in their states, as well, and the Republican National Committee issued a warning in its 2016 platform about health concerns related to pornographic materials.

The new rallying cry of repubs everywhere, oh gods, porn! Perhaps if all republicans stopped their porn consumption, I’d bet the reduction in numbers would seriously impress them.

Via Raw Story.

The Wall Street Journal: We Will Not Call A Lie A Lie.

Credit: Screenshot

Credit: Screenshot.

Since President-elect Donald Trump won the election, he has continued his campaign habit of making inconsistent, unverifiable, or even just obviously false statements. The American public is left to rely on the media to learn the truth and make sense of his proclamations.

That’s exactly what the media is supposed to do with any politician—when the President lies, it is the press’ obligation to tell the public. But it’s doubly important with a politician like Trump, whose entire political career has often been punctuated by flagrant lies.

But when Trump lies, the Wall Street Journal—the second largest paper by circulation in the country—will not call it a lie, according to the its editor-in-chief Gerard Baker.

“I’d be careful about using the word, ‘lie.’ ‘Lie’ implies much more than just saying something that’s false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead,” Baker told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on Sunday.

Well no shit, Sherlock. A lie is a deliberate intent to mislead. That would be why it’s called a lie. A falsehood. A fabrication. For fuck’s sake, it truly is Nineteen Eighty Four, and Doublespeak is here.

Instead, Baker said the paper would investigate the claim, and then present both sides: What Trump said, and what the paper found. Then, the readers will be left to decide which account is correct.

As an example, Baker cited one of Trump’s more outrageous lies: When he claimed that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey gathered on rooftops to celebrate 9/11. Baker noted that the WSJ investigated his claim and found it baseless.

Right. That’s an excellent example of a lie, a deliberate intent to mislead people into thinking this made up bullshit was true. So, it’s a LIE. Big, yuuuuge LIE. It’s okay to say so.

“I think it’s then up to the reader to make up their own mind to say, ‘This is what Donald Trump says. This is what a reliable, trustworthy news organization reports. And you know what? I don’t think that’s true.’ I think if you start ascribing a moral intent, as it were, to someone by saying that they’ve lied, I think you run the risk that you look like you are, like you’re not being objective,” he said.

Oh fuck you, with bells on. You can leave it up to people to decide whether or not they are okay with someone lying, you can’t prevent that anyway. What you can do is call a LIE a LIE.  That’s not a moral judgement, it’s reporting the truth. Idiot. And fuck all this “both sides” bullshit, too. I’m not interested in being fair to tyrants, facsists, compulsive liars, or nazis, among others.

The full story is at Think Progress.

Phobie of the Year: Pat McCrory.

00_pat-mccrory_phobie-treatement

The competition for Phobie of the Year was devilish in 2016, but one man out-hated all the rest. Pat McCrory, the outgoing governor of North Carolina, even outdid Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

At least in Indiana, where Pence was governor, he backed down when business representing millions of dollars threatened to leave the state over its Religious Freedom Restoration Act — also known as a “license to discriminate.” Pence signed a fix to the law so discriminating against LGBT people wasn’t allowed under the RFRA’s protections. In North Carolina, though, even as jobs left the state and performers canceled concerts and millions piled up in lost revenue, McCrory and Republicans refused to rethink what they passed in House Bill 2.

Lawmakers hadn’t approved a RFRA exactly. Instead, they passed a law banning any locality from including LGBT people in antidiscrimination ordinances. In other words, they wanted to ensure that discrimination against LGBT people remains legal no matter where you go in North Carolina. They also barred transgender people from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity in any government building, without citing a single incident caused in North Carolina by letting transgender people use the bathroom of their choice.

There’s much more at The Advocate, including the Phobie Finalists:

[Read more…]

A Pre-Loaded Porn Nanny.

Chris Sevier (WZTV).

Chris Sevier (WZTV).

There is a state-by-state campaign underway in the United States to pass legislation that would require laptops and all internet-connected devices to come preloaded with an unspecified porn blocking mechanism.

It’s a mission led by Chris Sevier, a Tennessee man and Christian music producer who previously sued Apple for his alleged porn “addiction” and fought marriage equality by filing a stunt lawsuit asking for the right to marry his laptop. He’s an attorney who was disbarred in his state for “mental infirmity or illness” — and, despite the outrageousness of Sevier’s back story, let alone the nature of the legislation itself, the push to block porn across the country appears to be gaining some traction.

A bill of this kind has been pre-filed in South Carolina — but Sevier says that North Dakota and Indiana will soon pre-file a version of the bill ahead of the next legislative session. He claims that, in total, sponsors from 27 states have agreed to introduce a version of the bill, which Sevier drafted. The text varies somewhat state by state, but the overall aim is largely the same: to force manufacturers of “products that distribute the internet” to sell their devices with technology that broadly blocks pornography as well as websites that facilitate the sale of sex. Consumers can opt out of the block if they are over the age of 18 and pay a $20 fee to the state.

Oh, North Dakota, always eager to be regressive. I thought repubs didn’t care for the whole “nanny government” they constantly whined about over the last eight years. Oh right, that’s whenever there was any sort of program meant to help people. I guess nannyism is just dandy if you’re using it for oppressive measures.

“The reason why this bill is constitutionally sound, this isn’t like a prohibition. It just makes it by default, it’s blocked,” Sevier told Vocativ. “There are a lot of adults who don’t want access to that stuff.”

The push behind the bill — which is titled, the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act” — is largely being done in the name of fighting human trafficking. What, you might ask, does human trafficking have to do with pornography? Sevier argues that “pornography is an advertisement for prostitution,” and that it “erodes consent,” “promotes sexual voyeurism,” and “cultivates female objectification.”

The big ol’ fly in the legislative ointment is that Sevier makes no distinction between those who have been forced into sex work, and those who are consensual sex workers. For the conservative minded, yes, there is a difference, a very big difference.

The bill also gestures toward the alleged social harms of pornography and the need to protect children from obscene materials. (As for the harm of pornography, several studies have contradicted the common anti-pornography claim that adult content is linked to domestic violence and sexual abuse. There isn’t reliable evidence to support the existence of “porn addiction.”) In addition to blocking regular porn, Sevier highlights that it would also filter out “revenge porn” and child porn, which is already illegal. Despite a lack of evidence, Sevier sees consensual adult pornography as a gateway to child porn and abuse. “It sends them down a slippery slope where before you know it, they’re starting to get more and more into hardcore forms, like worse and worse, like grosser and grosser, and the next thing you know they’re on a plane flying to Thailand to molest a child,” he said.

There’s no stupid quite like conservative stupid. If you find the idea of fucking a child repugnant, all the porn consumption in the world is not going to cause you to suddenly decide to do that. Also, a whole lot of hetero couples find sharing porn increases their fun and intimacy, many of them conservative. Regardless of orientation, who gives a shit if people enjoy porn? I don’t care. Then again, unlike the majority of christian conservatives, I don’t spend my time with my nose in other people’s crotches.

Sevier’s text relies on state obscenity laws regarding the display of adult or “girlie” magazines. Commonly, states require brick-and-mortar vendors to place “obscene” material behind blinders. Sevier argues that the manufacturers of digital devices should be held to the same standards. (Although, it’s worth noting that if you want access to an adult magazine at a 7-11, all you have to do is buy the magazine — you don’t have to pay an additional fee to uncensor the product that you’re purchasing.)

[…]

Apply these same standards to all of the internet, and it’s easy to imagine not just hardcore pornography being filtered out, but also art and sex education materials. It’s a critique Sevier has anticipated. “There’s a lot of scenarios where a parent, a grownup, or a minor could possibly be okay without having access to that content,” he said. “If they really want access and they’re over 18 they have to go get the filter removed. There are a lot of people that are gonna say, ‘Yes, there might be a few things I’m going to miss out on, but I really don’t need that stuff.’”

You know what stuff I can do without? Prudish assholes so afraid of human bodies and sexuality that they attempt to legislate everyone else’s choices. Yet another reason to get the fuck out of this country.

There’s more at Vocativ.

Sunday Facepalm.

Shutterstock.

Shutterstock.

Pendejo-elect Trump, who at one point said hacking may have been the work of someone sitting on their bed weighing 400 pounds, and more recently said it was time to let it go and move on, has now declared himself an expert in hacking, and in a move already seen too many times to have become boring, promised a secret which will be revealed on Tuesday or Wednesday. If there’s one thing we know already, it’s that Trump doesn’t know jack shit about computers, and there’s no juicy secret with special sauce waiting in the wings to be revealed.

He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

Sigh. No, you don’t know anything about hacking, Donny, not one teeny, tiny thing. No, hacking is not hard to prove. Also, proving hacking and proving exactly who did the hacking, not the same thing, your dipshittedness. Of course, clarity isn’t exactly Donny’s middle name. As for this whole “I know things other people don’t know”, oh, grow the fuck up already. This childish isht is already beyond annoying, I cannot cope with the thought of years of this “I know something you don’t know, na na na!” garbage, especially when it isn’t so. Donny keeps saying this, and every time, it turns out there’s no there there. In the earlier post, linked above, he didn’t know about the imposed sanctions, because he never knows about anything.

Mr. Trump, who does not use email, also advised people to avoid computers when dealing with delicate material. “It’s very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way, because I’ll tell you what, no computer is safe,” Mr. Trump said.

“I don’t care what they say, no computer is safe,” he added. “I have a boy who’s 10 years old; he can do anything with a computer. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.”

:Laughs: Oh, I just can’t wait to see how that one is going to turn out after Jan. 20th. This fucking idiot is going to be in charge of some very complex systems indeed, and doesn’t know one thing about them, but hey, he can tweet! The idiot knows more than all the intelligence agencies (not that there’s much boasting to be done there, but still), and doesn’t understand that hacking isn’t something done solely by the so-called bad guys. Hacking is not dependent on someone using email, either. There is every possibility that in the coming years, an eyeroll will actually prove fatal.

Trump also said “I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” which is beyond laughable, given his penchant for spreading baseless bullshit and lies all over the place, insisting they are true, such as insisting President Obama’s birth certificate was a fake, and that thousands of American Muslim people in NJ celebrated the 9/11 attack. Pretty much everything Donny says is unsubstantiated at the least, and an outright lie at the worst.

Via The NY Times.

Sean Spicer is also sprinkling his stupidity all over:

“Why aren’t we talking about the other influences on the election? Why aren’t we talking about Hillary Clinton getting debate questions ahead of time?” Spicer said in response.

Y’know, just because someone is intelligent enough to perform well in a debate, and did things like prepare, doesn’t mean it was cheating.

“No one is asking those questions. The fact is that everyone wants to make Donald Trump admit to certain things. When do we talk about the other side, which is what did Hillary Clinton do to influence the election? Is she being punished?”

Yes, Donny does need to admit to things, people tend to hold presidents accountable, so best get used to it. So, Clinton tried to influence the election, but Donny didn’t do that at all, no. FFS, couldn’t they at least get someone with a modicum of intelligence in their team? This level of stupid is too close to fatal.

Via Think Progress.

More Jobs? No, More Lies.

President-elect Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

President-elect Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump made a huge announcement: because of his presidency, Sprint has decided to bring back or create 5,000 jobs in the United States, while satellite startup OneWeb will create another 3,000.

The claim, however, was false. Those jobs are part of a $50 billion investment from SoftBank, which owns 80 percent of Sprint and has made a large investment in OneWeb, that was previously announced as part of a deal with a Saudi investment fund before Trump won the presidency. Meanwhile, not all of the jobs promised by Sprint will be at the company itself, but instead at contractors.

But it’s in both the company’s interests and Trump’s to create glowing, if misleading, headlines about cooperation between the administration and the corporation.

For Sprint, cozying up to Trump is almost certainly related to the hope that it can get approval of its previously failed attempt to merge with T-Mobile. Sprint was in the process of making a bid to buy T-Mobile in 2014, and thus combining the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in the country, but ended up abandoning the plan in the face of regulatory opposition from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Both agencies have stated an intent to keep four major carriers in the country, rather than let them combine, under current leadership.

While Sprint has been able to remain solvent since then, it hasn’t turned an annual profit since 2006 and has more than $30 billion in total debt. SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son, who personally met with Trump after the election and re-announced his company’s intents to invest in the United States from Trump Tower, has made it clear that he sees consolidation as a must for getting the company to profitability. “We need scale,” he told Bloomberg in 2014. And he still reportedly has his eyes on T-Mobile.

If the FCC and DOJ become more friendly to mega-mergers under Trump, that would be an enormous win for the company. And even before Sprint started currying favor with Trump, his administration has been shaping up to be just what the company is looking for. One of the president-elect’s top policy advisers on technology has suggested abolishing the FCC altogether and is a proponent of industry mergers, writing, “Telecommunications network providers and ISPs are rarely, if ever, monopolies.” Other advisers are staunchly against net neutrality regulations that aim to keep the internet a level playing field but have been opposed by giants like AT&T and Verizon.

Rarely monopolies. Right. In what fucking universe? Have people forgotten Ma Bell already? It wasn’t that bloody long ago.  Living rural, I already get screwed royally when it comes to net access, and I’m capped, too. No streaming for me, I can’t afford it. Whether or not I’ll be able to afford net access at all once the incoming administration guts everything, who knows? I really hate interesting times.

There’s much more at Think Progress.

Ah, Heresy.

Donald Trump with Pastor Paula White (Photo: Facebook).

Donald Trump with Pastor Paula White (Photo: Facebook).

Oh, the evangelical crowd is happily crying “Heresy!” over the choice of prosperity gospel huckster Paula White being chosen to perform the inauguration prayer.

“I’d rather a Hindu pray on Inauguration Day and not risk the souls of men, than one whose heresy lures in souls with promises of comfort only to damn them in eternity,” wrote Erick Erickson, an outspoken Trump critic on the right. “At least no one would mistake a Hindu, a Buddhist, or an atheist with being a representative of Christ’s kingdom.”

Oooh, look, someone actually said even an atheist would be better. Sort of.

“Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian, of whatever tribe,” said Russell Moore, of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and an outspoken Trump critic.

White, who is the third wife of Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain — also her third spouse — takes in up to $80,000 a week, according to a 2007 report by the Tampa Tribune, and owns multimillion-dollar homes in Trump Tower and Florida.

“Paula White has a long history of bankruptcies, failed business ventures, and unsuccessful marriages, which makes her the perfect choice to deliver a prayer on behalf a president-elect who has proudly proclaimed that he’s never felt the need to ask forgiveness from God for anything,” wrote Paula Bolyard, a conservative Christian blogger for PJ Media.

Trump and White do seem to be a perfect match. And they are neighbours, so cozy.

Erickson was particularly troubled by a video, which he posted, that shows White speaking to a man who says he’s a son of God, and that Jesus Christ was “not the only begotten son of God” — to which the pastor agreed, “He’s the first fruit.”

“Paula White is a trinity denying heretic,” Erickson wrote. “She rejects the Council of Nicaea’s creed that every Christian accepts. To reject the orthodoxy of the Nicene Creed is to reject Christianity itself.”

Oh, theology wars, the meat and drink of Christianity. First fruit, eh? So Yahweh has been busy raping young women and producing more magical sons for centuries? Eeeuw.

Via Raw Story.

“I could never throw roses to Hitler.”

Jan Chamberlin (Facebook).

Jan Chamberlin (Facebook).

A member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has resigned rather than perform at the inauguration ceremony for Donald Trump — which she worries would be “endorsing tyranny and (fascism) by singing for this man.”

The choir’s acceptance of an invitation to sing at the event has divided Mormons, who largely backed Trump in the election despite their uneasiness with the Republican candidate during the campaign.

But Janet Chamberlin, a member of the 360-person choir, has chosen to quit after spending “several sleepless nights and days in turmoil and agony” as she prayed and reflected on her choice, reported the Salt Lake City Tribune.

“I’ve tried to tell myself that by not going to the inauguration, that I would be able to stay in Choir for all the other good reasons,” Chamberlin wrote in her resignation letter, which she later shared on Facebook.

[…]

Chamberlin, who said her resignation was a “hugely moral issue,” said she’s received hateful messages since announcing her decision.

Hateful messages. I can imagine. That only goes to show that refusing to perform and stay with the choir was the only ethical choice.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said that participation in Trump’s inauguration is not required, and the choir’s involvement is not a political statement but is instead a “demonstration of our support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power.”

Well. That’s quite the spin, especially in light of the fact that there has been no demonstration of freedom, civility, or peace of any kind from the incoming administration. Instead, we’ve had open corruption, wide open racism, fascism, open hostility towards swathes of peoples, a distinct lack of civility, and the threat of nuclear war and a brand new arms race.

[…]

“I only know I could never ‘throw roses to Hitler,’” Chamberlin wrote. “And I certainly could never sing for him.”

We’re going to need a whole lot more people like Ms. Chamberlin in the days to come.

Via Raw Story.