Lauren Witzke popped up this past week to explain that she can’t wait for Trump to start executing Democrats …
It’s rather telling that the verdict appears to have been decided prior to any “trial” and there has been absolutely no mention of what the charges might be.
So what prompted her saying this?
It was triggered by Trump’s immunity claim …
Regarding the above reply he gave, I’d really love to have seen his response if asked if that same rule applies to Biden or just him.
The alpha source for all of this goes back to federal appeals court hearing last Tuesday. The legal argument presented by his team is that Trump has total immunity. This is how that played out …
The questioning came from the circuit judge Florence Pan, who noted incredulously that under Trump’s interpretation, presidents could hypothetically self-pardon, sell military secrets or order assassinations of political rivals.
Trump’s lawyer initially sought to dodge the hypotheticals and disputed whether they were examples of “official acts”. But he ultimately acknowledged with a “qualified yes” that presidents could be prosecuted if they had been convicted in a Senate impeachment trial first.
Pan then closed the trap and pointed out that Sauer’s acknowledgement meant he was conceding there was no absolute immunity for presidents.
Be aware that this latest immunity stance is a legal delaying tactic. It’s not actually about that at all. The actual strategy here, both for that and all his cases is delay, delay, delay. His trial is scheduled to start March 4, and so stuff like this is really all about putting that off until such questions are addressed and then appealed, and re-appealed when each appeal is lost.
And yes, the immunity claim is indeed utterly absurd and everybody knows this …
To enable you to wrap your head around the raw stupidity of it all, consider this – apparently it’s now in his mind “undemocratic” to say that a candidate is Constitutionally ineligible for office after engaging in insurrection, but it’s totally fine to say that a President can instead have his opponent beheaded to keep them off the ballot.
So yes, interesting times indeed where the ability for a president to commit crimes–including murder–might now be decided by a $200,000 motorhome.
(That last sentence is a ref to the Clarence Thomas RV “gift”).
If Biden really was actually as malicious and nefarious as the Republicans claim he is, then all he needs to now do is to order Trump’s execution, subject to the final determination of the immunity issue .. but he really is not like that.
Moving on, below you will once again find my usual selection of some truly bizarre and extreme claims that have popped up during the last 7 days. Each is laced with my snarky commentary.
With my usual hat tip to my various sources, let’s once again dive into this very murky pool of absurdity and stupidity.
Christian Nationalism
Pennsylvania state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz vows that she will never co-sponsor *any* legislation with a Democrat because everything they stand for is “vile [and] perverse”: “They need to come a knowledge of their savior, Jesus Christ.”
- Loving her neighbours by calling them “vile and perverse”, just like Jesus would is indeed a rather interesting way to win hearts and minds.
- Pennsylvania appears to be the state where you have Pittsburgh on the western side, Philadelphia on the eastern side, and Alabama in the middle.
- When you elect those whose policy is “my way or the highway”, then you will end up with people who get nothing done.
- Side note: This is the lady who claimed COVID was god punishing us for our sins.
- Fact Check: the majority of Democrats are some variation of Christian.
Oklahoma state Sen. Nathan Dahm says his state can require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom because the Virginia Constitution of 1776 said that “people need to have moral Christian behaviors.”
- He is of course lying, the Virginia Constitution of 1776 does not say that. You can check that here.
- Prof. John Fea, chair of the History Department at Messiah University … “This is just another example of the bad history emanating from the Christian Right, As a Christian historian, it is embarrassing to see Christian lawmakers manipulate the past in this way to promote their political agendas in Oklahoma and elsewhere. Dahm does not seem to realize that the right of states to make their own decisions on First Amendment matters ended with the Civil War and the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
- Since we are on the topic of “moral Christian behaviours”, does that say anything about lying?
- Why do they so desperately want to have copies of the Ten Commandments posted everywhere … is it because it is their to-do list?
After the above was highlighted, Oklahoma state Sen. Nathan Dahm popped up later in the week to claim it really is there. He probably should have read the post RRW wrote about his false claims before baselessly accusing RRW of lying.
- What he quotes as “proof” is not in the Virginia constitution … so still lying.
The Cult of Trump
Mario Murillo declares that Christians must vote for Donald Trump because only “Trump can buy us time—time for the American church to wake up and fulfill their role in redeeming our nation. God has sent Trump to buy us that time!”
- According to Mr Murillo “God has sent” the most corrupt individual to ever sit in the Oval office to help “Redeem the Nation”. So which specific God is it that did this, was it Loki perhaps, the God of complete and total chaos?
Ryan S. Howard declares that “Trump is simply a chosen instrument in God’s hand for today.”
- It’s basically how they wriggle out of the observation that Trump is deeply flawed in so many ways. The response is, yes flawed, but still chosen by God.
- If you even quip that “God appears to have “chosen” the most corrupt inept idiot”, then the “Who are we to question God” card gets played. It really is a cult and they don’t give a damn what he does as long as he panders to their delusions and stacks the courts with bigots.
Maddow: It’s not a Trump problem. It is a Republican party problem. This is what they want. Other right wingers who have charismatic leaders like trump around the world don’t necessarily get behind them when they try violence to stay in power. Our Republicans do.
- The challenge was never just him, it is also all those that refuse to denounce him.
- Liz Cheney, June 9, 2022: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: the day will come when Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
- What we also now appreciate is that “Deplorables” was just not a strong enough word.
It has been reported that Eric and Lara Trump will be joining Amanda Grace, Robin Bullock, Jackson Lahmeyer, Clay Clark, and others for a Night of Prayer for the Trump Family and the Nation on Jan. 14.
- It’s not entirely clear if they will be praying to Trump and just praying for Trump.
- You might think I’m kidding, but that really is how some view him now …
- RRW detailed posting is here – Titled “Their Failure to Consider the Bible Relevant’: Debunking Christian Nationalists’ Favorite Claim About the Founding Era”
- Meanwhile outside Narnia in our reality the founders were afraid of religious fanatics, hence they founded the US as a secular nation, the very first one in history. It was very explicitly not religious, but instead enabled religious freedom and diversity to thrive.
Trump Gaslighting 101
He has so many trials and legal proceedings that you might not know which one this is. It is the civil trial, the one that is taking place in New York City.
Via here is a summary: Trump is accused of defrauding banks, investors and other business partners by exaggerating the value of his assets in order to gain more favorable terms and agreements. State Attorney General Letitia James’ office, which is bringing the case, alleges Trump, his adult sons and the Trump Organization inflated his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion at times.
For this one he faces the possibility of $250 million in fines, being banned from making commercial real estate acquisitions for five years, and also banned from leading companies in New York.
Imagine the utter uproar if this was a Democrat presidential candidate. The sound of crickets from Republicans on this is as always rather deafening.
Homophobia on Steroids
Liberty Council hopes to appeal the Kim Davis case all the way to the Supreme Court and use it to overturn marriage equality.
- The reason these proceedings have been so prolonged, even though they have lost case after case after case, is that Liberty Council uses it to fundraise off over the years by tapping into religious bigotry.
- They tell gullible bigots like Kim that they will pay the legal bills … Kim only finds out later that when they loose, she need to pay, not them.
GOP state Rep. Gino Bulso wants to ban pride flags from public schools in Tennessee because, he says, “most parents want their children exposed to [the values] that were in existence at the time that our country was founded.”
- er … no. Most parents live in the 21st century and are not neo-fascists hellbent on forcing their social views on the rest of the population.
- Not sure he fully grasps that rolling back to 1776 values means banning, not just pride flags, but also banning any non-white or female teachers or students. I’m not sure how much traction he will get trying to sell those “values”.
- Actually, thinking about it a bit more, I’ve realised that in 1776 there were indeed no pride flags on any public schools … because there were no public schools at all. The very first opened in 1821 in Boston. In other words one other 1776 “value” is no education.
- Same guy was part of the group in Tennessee that expelled two of the three Dem protesters, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones. Now what was it again that was different about that third white protester that made her different than the two non-white guys they expelled?
Conspiracy Claims – The revival of Antisemitism
There has been an uptick is antisemitism. It’s a rather blatant attempt by extremists to leverage the strong pushback against the extreme right-wing Israeli government’s brutal war crimes in Gaza and morph that emotional reaction into an antisemitism recruitment tool. It’s actually possible to condemn the current policy of the extreme right-wing Israeli government and also the insane actions of Hamas, and at the exact same time feel empathy for the people of Gaza, and not tar everybody who has a Jewish heritage as participants in any of that or any other grand conspiracy – it really is not rocket science.
Stew Peters says that Jews have infiltrated and overtaken the U.S. government and must be “removed from power by any means necessary.”
- This is so utterly daft because it is such an old Trope. Even Henry Ford was playing this conspiracy card over a century ago, so it would appear we have “snap” here because Stew simply cut and pasted. Can we go after him for plagiarism?
Andrew Anglin is “charging the Jews interest on my personal suffering” and “someone is going to have to pay for my ruined life”: “We are going to ensure that someone – and by that, specifically, I mean the Jews – pays the price.”
- Neo nazi who explains that … “By the Grace of God, I found Adolf Hitler.” and also “I ask myself this, in all things: WWHD? (What Would Hitler Do?),” … is not exactly a guy who has made good life choices.
- In Andrew’s case, there is no “them” responsible for his ruined life. He did it all by himself without any help from anybody else.
White nationalist America First activist Dalton Clodfelter says that Jews should be banned from running for office or holding power, and also tried for treason and imprisoned: “They’re disgusting. They’re freaks. Jews are parasites.”
- Yep, another one who, when faced with life choices, opted to dive into a cesspool.
Deeply Weird
White nationalist Nick Fuentes says that while Protestants are welcome in his America First movement, it will remain controlled by Catholics because Protestant “theology is wrong” and “Protestants are basically Jewish.”
- Their “theology is wrong” … says every single variation of belief when asked about any other variation of belief.
Eric Metaxas knows that “the Lord sovereignly created me in my mother’s womb” to one day write his book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
- Given that his book is “divinely created”, it’s rather odd to discover that academic reviewers find it to be deeply flawed.
- Quote from that review by a Christian: “I trust that Metaxas is my brother in Christ, but unfortunately he simply does not have sufficient grounding in history, theology, and philosophy to properly interpret Bonhoeffer. This is not just my opinion. Victoria Barnett, the editor of the English-language edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, wrote a scathing review of Metaxas’s biography. In her opinion, Metaxas “has a very shaky grasp of the political, theological, and ecumenical history of the period.” She then calls Metaxas’s portrayal of Bonhoeffer’s theology “a terrible simplification and at times misrepresentation.” [2] Clifford Green, another bona fide Bonhoeffer scholar who has edited part of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works and has written extensively about Bonhoeffer, has also criticized Metaxas heavily, claiming that Metaxas’s biography should be entitled, “Bonhoeffer Hijacked.” [3]”
- Least you wonder, what Metaxas does is to give Bonhoeffer an Evangelical spin and painted him as one of them – which is weird because within his writings he was very clearly not Evangelical.
Pope in major policy address calls for universal ban on surrogacy, says it exploits mother and child
- Er … small detail, wasn’t Jesus born via surrogacy … that is the story … right?
Kandiss Taylor feels bad for Taylor Swift: “She has gone off the deep end embracing the occult and leading God’s children into a world of witches and spells. Pray for Taylor. I love her. I don’t want her to burn in hell.”
- Meanwhile, Taylor Swift, who identifies as Christian, will most probably not recognise Kandiss Taylor as a real Christian either.
- For anybody wondering, this is really all about Taylor Swift’s support for progressive policies, and that’s the real reason MAGA hate her. In their eyes, anybody not them is “Satanic”.
The False Profit$
MAGA Pastor and self-appointed “prophet” Shane Vaughn strives to make our charts each week with some weird proclamation. After failing for a few weeks he is now back with this – He explains this past week on rumble that he believes that “fallen angels” are controlling the world and that “there has been insurrection, but it’s not from us, it’s from Barack Obama to fundamentally transform America to these demon ideas that live in his mind.”
- Translation: Racist white guy claims it is all the fault of the black guy.
- Sanity warning, its via a link to Shane talking to camera for over two and a half hours
- Perpetual Reminder: Shane went to jail for a few years for Fraud, not before “finding Jesus”, but was convicted of conducting that fraud while he was a pastor.
Self-proclaimed “prophet” Charlie Shamp claims that one of his “personal friends” was brought into Twitter headquarters after Elon Musk bought the company to anoint every room with oil and prophesy: “We need to begin to understand what God is doing.”
- What we actually need to begin to understand is the con that these people are running.
- Meanwhile, did that actually happen? … hell no, he just made it up.
- This “Prophet” has an entire website dedicated to exposing him as a fraud. It is … https://falseprophetcharlieshamp.wordpress.com
Nebraska Update
Iowa Update
A couple of smart proposals, but alas they will not pass. It’s still a great way to make a point …
Statistic of the Week
Finally…
New definition for “Tourist Visit” now available …
An update on the family of one of those Jan 6th “Tourists” …
Chaz is having fun with his Arabic “In God we Trust” posters
Why are people abandoning Christianity? One observation is that the actual behaviour of Christians is really not helping them …
