Hellfire III (One Of Us... Four.)

Vern Schillinger: Come over here and ask me if you can fuck your wife. Come on, ask me! Now!

Tobias Beecher: Can I be with my wife?

Vern Schillinger: Fuck my wife.

Tobias Beecher: Fuck my wife.

Vern Schillinger: Louder, and say "please" and "sir".

Tobias Beecher: Please, sir, may I fuck my wife?

Vern Schillinger: Louder.

Tobias Beecher: Please, sir, may I fuck my wife!

Vern Schillinger: When you ask me like that, I can't deny you anything. 

~From the HBO Series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and Otherwise."
...

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

...

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

So, apparently, Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley got caught making out with a male escort behind a restaurant by the busboy. 

Seriously are ALL of these Republicans *Checks Notes* Gay??

Oh, right, regarding Hawley in particular I called this one four years ago.

And that would in fact explain how he kisses his wife.

Seriously, What's even the damn point??

I mean, for one thing, I don't know how the hell any conservative women would put up with this crap?

For another, If you're gay, just go be gay, be yourself. It's 2026, nobody but a certain kind of Republican even cares. Repressing your desires just makes things worse.

Keep that shit going long enough, you end up like Dennis Prager, I guess?? His ass got caught trying to say animated child porn was somehow not evil. Bullshit, I have a partner and a kid to worry about. Fuck you.

And then of course Dale Partridge tried to say that Nazis were just a "form of Christian Nationalism."

Is that before or after the Nazis forced their bullshit Black Magic and Neo-Pagan rites on the German churches??

I'll save you some time. Evil is exactly what the fuck is going on here.

Worse, These Fucking People are not even decently-written villains.

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

These are the kind of fucking guys that, having gotten themselves drummed out of Congress, get themselves caught in an embarrassing position with a guy in a Ronald McDonald costume and then try to say they were looking for a good time and great taste (as my buddy Gary often jokes about) and instead of having the common decency to slink off into obscurity like the disgraced Republicans of past eras, these assholes then try to monetize the fucking scandal.

And you know what else pisses me off??

There's a species of alleged-"Liberal" that, given the choice between this fucking Malicious-Idiocracy Republican garbage and voting for a Democratic Socialist, demands the right to not choose.

By not-choosing, you have chosen.

These Fucking People, the Chuck-and-Hakeem and Haley Stevens crowd are why I've stopped identifying as a liberal.

For one thing I'm probably ideologically closer to Bill Kristol than to Bill Clinton, anyway.

For another? When old-school Never Trump Republicans, people like Bill Kristol and Rick Wilson are saying bring out the damn Guillotine and "Centrists" and/or "Liberals" of a certain class want to send a sternly-worded letter (To Abdul Sayed or Mayor Zohran Mamdani, not even to Donald Trump) you know, you people have a fucking problem.

These particular fucking people are fine with the idea of living in a murderous Idiocracy so long as they can afford to hire security and still get to feel superior to the masses.

Never mind those of us stuck having to defend ourselves, let alone the people who cannot do that.

I thought the whole damn point of liberalism was compassion for other people as political philosophy. I thought the point of being a centrist was to be able to pull moderate views from either side of the spectrum and craft something that works? Apparently, for some people, that shit is their political belief because it's their friends' political belief, or the "right" belief to have to be in whatever clique or level of society they think they're in.

White "Moderates" are not living down MLK Jr's allegations anytime soon. Some people demand the "right" to go through life unhearing and unseeing of the struggles of others and then call themselves "Liberals" because they care about Something Something Gazpacho or some other people in another damn country.

This crap, for some people, is just a different shade of the same narcissism that led to MAGA and is now metastasizing into far worse things than that. It's the same horseshit that leads some dude who naturally should be Queer and Out and happy about it to be a Republican and preach against that type of shit because that's what their parents did, or what their friends do, and then privately they're snorting enough cocaine to kill a horse and hooking up with male escorts on the down-low while creating misery for everybody around them.

I mean, what's even the goddamn point??

Some of us couldn't live like that. Addiction, depression or other mental health issues would kill us before we'd get anywhere.

There's people in this world who can't be who they want to be for far more mundane and terrible reasons that "They can make an ass-ton more money pretending to be a rabidly anti-gay rich Republican" if they aren't their true selves in public.

I'm fucking tired of this garbage and I say that as a former Republican myself!

Some people just straight-up deserve the Hell-fire.

And it ain't the gay people or the Muslims or any of the groups that These Fucking Assholes say it is.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

What if God simply asked you to give a damn, or to Love your neighbor?

Because He did.

Слава Україна!

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

Three

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"

One Drop Of Blood (One Of Us... Three.)

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”

Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”

And he answered:

“Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,
until the Lord has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.
And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”

~Isaiah 6 (NIV)

...

Vern Schillinger: One of these Muslim m**keys was trying to tell me that Jesus was a n****r. He even quoted from the Bible trying to back his shit up.

Tobias Beecher: Well, Jesus was from Judea so he was probably of an olive-colored skin.

Vern Schillinger: Look at that picture there. Does that look like a n****r to you?

Tobias Beecher: No.

Vern Schillinger: You're getting awful mouthy, aren't you, prag?

Tobias Beecher: No, sir. I am not, sir.

Vern Schillinger: Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson. Polish my boots.

Tobias Beecher: Yes, sir.

Vern Schillinger: With your tongue.

~From the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin'"

...

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

I keep seeing shit like this.

Massively wrong, AI-generated Slop.

Exhortations to (alleged) Fundamentalist Christian religious extremism, also AI-generated.

Here am I, Send me?

For what? The Machine God??

For Donald Trump's racialized, fake-Christian-Nationalist Prosperity Gospel vision of America?

For Pete Keg-breath's alcohol-soaked, sexually-harassing Calvinism??

For "Whiteness?"

(And worse, their AI bullshit ain't even going to send them to the right place!)

Whiteness is, historically, something that very few people have actually given that much of a shit about when push came to shove. Fight for it? Sure. Do war crimes? Yeah. Move? Naturally. 

But very few people ultimately want to die, themselves, for some notion of Whiteness. It's hard to lord your petty chunk of Power over somebody else when you're dead. Historically they'd rather lose the war, surrender, and then play political games and commit racially-based terrorism from an ethnically-stacked deck later. AKA that's the backstory of the modern American "Conservative" movement.

The funny part is that the whole basis of the thing rests on absolutely bullshit mythology, some idea that God or Jesus was "White."

Except that the Bible doesn't say that.

I did happen to see confirmation of something I'd heard before when I was looking up African Christianity in response to some idiot post by Joel Webbon though, and that's that a lot of African Christians (starting with the Ethiopian Orthodox) believe that Zipporah, the wife of Moses, was Ethiopian (and thus, Black.)

By the way, according to the statistics per the Wikipedia article on Christianity in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia and Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others, are more Christian than the USA by percentage of population.

And this fool thinks we're gonna "Christianize" the place.

Every African Christian that I've ever met is a more serious Believer than most of the Americans I've ever met.

I'm serious.

But Joel doesn't care about that, he just wants to kill people.

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;
And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;
And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon;
And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;
And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;
And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa;
And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias;
And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias;
And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias;
And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:
And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel;
And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor;
And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud;
And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob;
And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.
~Matthew chapter 1 (KJV)

So, according to the viewpoint of all too many White American Evangelical Republican "Conservatives" (who aren't actually trying to conserve anything about America, Christianity or Jesus) If it's true (and we already know for certain from study of the cultures and history of the time, that if Jesus was actually real, He would not have been White, anyway) that the wife of Moses was Black and per the generations of Jesus as laid out in the King James Bible itself, wouldn't that, by itself, by These Fucking People's own logic of "One Drop" rules... 

Wouldn't that make Jesus Black??

Go ahead and think on that, I'll wait.

Funny how in a spiritual sense, One Drop of blood is enough to Save all of Humanity, should they want it, but in another, all it takes is one drop of blood to damn a man to a life of misery inflicted by these same fucking people. I bet if you simply combine the two...and make it stick in enough people's minds, it destroys the entire concept.

You'd think somebody would notice how fucked up that is.

What if God was Black?

Everything, including the eternal soul, is racialized to at least some of these motherfuckers.

I suspect these idiots would de-convert en masse.

Not that I think any of these people Believe in any conventional or meaningful sense of what that word means. But, I think it needs to be said. I also think, if this could be proven...that a lot of "Christians" would rush out and convert to some other religion.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Unfortunately, Trump keeps trying to offer himself as a substitute-Christ anyway.

And don't think These Fucking People wouldn't go for it, all day.

Because the truth is they're opposed to any religion that says everybody should have a bit of dignity and human worth, let alone God-given rights that they or any State they control cannot take away.

Which is pretty much all religion, unless you want to count Atheistic Randian Objectivism as a religion.

These fucking people hate America, they hate God, they hate anything that doesn't boost their narcissism and selfishness and the implicit claim that they are "god." Even the Christians who keep ending up on the Republican side of things are basically just all weird narcissists who think they're holy prophets and little gods and have weird meltdowns on YouTube and shit, like that Whitney chick who got kicked off the Alaska Airlines flight.

There's no religion that exists that could actually suit these people enough.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

That's why I think Evangelicalism in general is no longer a Christian religion, if it ever was. It's about selling Jesus, not obeying Him. It's about Self and Selfishness and Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor." Some of this Pentecostal garbage is right behind that in being so heretical I think that the time to "Bear with it for a season" is long past.

"Ever hearing, but never understanding, ever seeing but never perceiving, their hearts calloused, their ears dull, their eyes closed" very much describes a large plurality of Americans, and not just Republican voters, either.

And they don't see or hear or understand because they don't want to.

And they are too damn comfortable being that way.

This crap is gonna call God's judgment down on this nation.

What do you want to bet these fucking people will deny that, too, just like they did COVID-19?

At the end of the day, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

And I'll add, it ain't freedom if everybody doesn't have it.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

Two

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

...

 [Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"

Rent Seeking In The Kingdom Of God (One Of Us... Two.)

[trying to sell a new stereo system to a teenage couple] 

Ken: Check it out, my man! This is the Dominator X-10. Thirty inches of thigh-slapping, blood-pumping, nuclear brain damage!

Kid: Bitchin'! Hey, what's it fucking cost?

Ken: That's the bitchin' part about it! It don't matter! If you can't afford it, FUCKING FINANCE IT! [turns it on] 

Ken: So what if it's as big as a Subaru and costs as much? You'll never have to trade this in! This is gonna be with you for the rest of your life! And when you die, they can BURY you in it!

~From the film Ruthless People.

...

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

...

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. ~Matthew 25:31-45

I saw this last night.

Some dipshit "Evangelist" that got herself kicked off an Alaska Airlines flight for attempting to preach at the other passengers is now threatening to sue.

Resting Botox Face got herself predictably roasted on social media for it too. Not least because Alaska Airlines is well within their charter and the reserved rights *Of* their compact with the State.

Being a Christian doesn't overrule other people's right to be left alone. The First Amendment protects freedom of religion and speech, but it does not give the religious the capability to compel obedience nor protect them from the public and private consequences of *Checks Notes* their own actions by their fellow citizens. It just means the government can't fuck with you.

Also, Trump torpedoed the GOP's own bullshit "Communism" talking point yesterday by saying that he'd make a "great" Communist.

And apparently Ohio Republican senator Bernie Moreno got himself outed as gay.

Meet the new Lindsey Graham, same as the old Lindsey Graham??

Republicans had themselves a busy day yesterday.

So when all these idiot preachers rant about the "Gay Agenda" are they talking about what Rick Wilson refers to as the Republican "Pink Mafia?" Or what Hunter Biden called the DC "Closetocracy."

They call this the Penal system. But really it's the Penis system. It's about how big, it's about how long, it's about how hard. Life in Oz is all about the size of your dick and anybody who tells you different ain't got one. 

~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz S1.E1 "The Routine."

Personally it seems like it'd be easier to just get counseling for whatever your issues are, be gay, and live your life than to build this whole fake edifice of being some anti-gay conservative Republican Senator only to end up sneaking around on the down-low as a closeted gay man when the truth is nobody cares about any of this shit but a certain kind of White Evangelical Republican. 

(And not even all of them.)

But what the fuck do I know? I'm just a regular person with regular-people morals and I don't have time for all this bullshit. I'd like to live my life without having to hear about this kind of stupidity every fucking day.

The truth is, none of this shit is Christianity, conservatism (or even Anti-Communism) or homosexual adultery or even any kind of politics as you or I might commonly understand that.

You ever notice that Republicans invariably claim to be both hegemon and somehow "Persecuted?" Invariably their "enemies" are somehow always both incredibly weak or super-strong depending on what a given Republican needs them to be in any given moment.

It's Cake-ism on a cosmic level, yes.

And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept...for there were no more worlds to conquer. Benefits of a classical education. ~Hans Gruber, from the film Die Hard.

And trust me, I've personally seen These Fucking People try to be both God and The Devil in their own damn personal narrative...and then they have the balls to try and gate-keep on everybody else too.

Oh sure, it's Narcissism and a whole slew of other Personality Disorder type things. Mental illness doesn't run in a line through all this crap, it gallops like an Arabian Horse with its tail on fire.

Of course it's Self on the Throne vs. God on the Throne, in the conservative-Christian terminology that I was taught.

But to dip back to where I started, some dipshit lady trying to preach to people she don't know on an aircraft she don't own and then having the balls to be surprised when people get mad and there are consequences....I think it's actually worse than that.

It's Rent-Seeking In The Kingdom Of God.

Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house comes, at evening, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning, ~Mark 13:35

These Fucking People don't just want your money, your obedience, your time, or some abstract like political control. They wanna use your Soul...that which per their own claimed religion is in each person's keeping alone...as narcissistic fuel.

But by definition the Kingdom of God is not your house either.

His rules, not yours.

You can be denied entry, or kicked out. Yes, this is how you go to Hell.

These motherfuckers have no "Authority" to demand a damn thing from the rest of us.

Let alone this constant soul-sucking attention they want.

And somehow they thought Donald Trump and/or Fascism would "Get it for 'em" and make them both Gods and Demons so they could suck off all the spiritual energy from both sides and don't tell me that wasn't what they were at least thinking.

I've seen these people in action. it was never gonna work. None of these people are that smart.

None of this even works like that. You have to pick a side.

And that comes with consequences, I don't make the rules, read the Bible (or at least the quotes I helpfully provided) if you want to know what they are.

Naturally, both of these things are failing and everybody but White Evangelical Republicans is fucking tired of this bullshit.

None of this has anything to do with God. As a buddy of mine says These Fucking People's idea of "god" might as well be Ronald McDonald.

"It's Got Electrolytes" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Which really ought to tell you just how overwhelmingly, vastly stupid these idiots are.

But it's still gonna come down to a fight.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

But what if...and hear me out and think about this for a second...what if God is as sick of this bullshit as the rest of us are??

Слава Україна!

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

One

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

...

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"

American Babylon (One Of Us... One.)

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

...

Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

...

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

So I saw this yesterday.

Some diamond-exporting firm gave Trump a ring that literally looks like he's trying to wear Trump Towers on one finger. 

Nobody needs this gaudy horseshit.

What if Jesus was a Poor Man??

Because the Word is rather explicit on the point that He was so.

Calvinism and the "Prosperity Gospel" are heresies and lies. The "Protestant Work Ethic" is not much more than a marketing and control strategy and to provide the example I give you nothing less than the behavior of Evangelical Republican White Men lately.

And the more political or wealthy they are, the worse it gets.

For all their warmongering and wanting to basically go out and fight everybody that isn't a White Evangelical Republican, these guys can't even fight a damn war properly.

Think about that for a second!

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

Then I saw that the Venn Diagram between right-wing "Influencers" and OnlyFans hoes is just a smoothly-polished and waxed circle of stone. I mean, seriously there's at least one of these fucking people that pretty much films all her videos doing softcore porn-model teaser shots. Sorry but I used to be a conservative Republican and none of this is what I was taught. And I grew up when a Playboy calendar at the job site, local auto shop or even in somebody's work office was still not necessarily considered out of line.

Shit like that even made it into movies like Die Hard.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

But nobody that I know ever considered the kind of men who that did stuff like that to be serious Evangelical conservative Republicans, yo. I knew plenty of conservatives and Christians (or both) who were like that but there was a line concerning public behavior and public display.

Even 20 years ago it could generally be assumed if some lady with her boobs hanging out walked up to you or you were watching a video like that, that the next words out of her mouth were not gonna be "Have you found Jesus?"

Same with the Neo-Nazis and the racists, I can remember when even the Southern Baptists could usually be counted on to beat those people up. Even though a large percentage of such people might privately have harbored similar such sentiments themselves, again there was a line between what was publicly permissible and what might be privately held.

And everybody had the sense to know that having that kind of shit in your group made you look bad.

“The moment stretched into eternity as both men brought their weapons to bear. He saw the man's eyes. It was a young face there, immediately below the emergency light, but the eyes . . . the rage there, the hatred, nearly stopped the Colonel's heart. But Bondarenko was a soldier before all things. The Afghan's first shot missed. His did not.

The Archer felt shock, but not pain in his chest as he fell. His brain sent a message to his hands to bring the weapon to the left, but they ignored the command and dropped it. He fell in stages, first to his knees, then on his back, and at last he was staring up at a ceiling. It was finally over. Then the man stood by his side. It was not a cruel face, the Archer thought. It was the enemy, and it was an infidel, but he was a man, too, wasn't he? There was curiosity there. He wants to know who I am, the Archer told him with his last breath.

"Allah Akbar!" God is great.

Yes, I suppose He is, Bondarenko told the corpse. He knew the phrase well enough. Is that why you came? He saw that the man had a radio. It started to make noise, and the Colonel bent down to grab it.

"Are you there?" the radio asked a moment later. The question was in Pashtu, but the answer was delivered in Russian. "It is all finished here,"

~Closing moments of the battle at the Soviet laser installation, from The Cardinal Of The Kremlin, by Tom Clancy.

I ain't saying it was right, and if you read something from even (for example) 20 years ago it's pretty easy to crack the code now...but that's how it was. And even authors you could do that with (Tom Clancy for example) often prominently had Black or female or Muslim characters as both major protagonists and major villains, either being written with a fair degree of humanity.

Now??

All these same fucking people just flipped a massive bitch because Helen Of Troy was played by a Black woman. Naturally, the film was a fucking blockbuster. I have yet to see it but I eventually will.

Sorry, America, but if somebody like Miss Rachel is yelling at you, you done fucked up.

That's about like if Mr. Rogers would have rolled up his sleeves and beat someone's ass back in the day. If things had ever gotten that extreme I don't think anybody would have argued that whoever got beat up deserved it.

But that's not the world we live in anymore and we're all worse off for it.

I'm sick of the ostentatious bigotry, greed, scamming and sexual excesses of These Fucking People even as they try to tell everybody else who we can have sex with or not...while also maintaining the attitude that us older people (at least those of us who ain't rich) should just wander off and die or something. 

Fuck all that.

And JD Vance wants the rest of us to "Sacrifice??"

And Mike Collins runs from reporters?

And "Conservatives" try to Cancel Miss Rachel??

What's next?? 

American families being "Asked" to sacrifice one of their daughters to the Epstein Class??

Because if we keep letting these monsters do this kind of shit, it'll come to exactly that, at least for certain "White" families. And since we're about half a step from open worship of Baal and Dis Pater Mammon, don't think they won't see how far they can push the cult behavior they've already established. It's a short step from tolerating the Epstein files bullshit to actively enabling it to being complicit.

And again, and I'm not sorry to say this, the rot goes pretty goddamn far down.

My partner and I have a daughter, the only answer that kind of shit is ever gonna get is "Fuck You, No" emphasized by racking the action of a 12-Gauge Remington M870 pump shotgun.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

And it'll probably come to that.

And I can tell you exactly how they're gonna do it too:

Start insinuating that God Is Black and the Demons are White.

Imply that the Virgin Mary may have been Autistic.

Accentuate the known fact that King James, who commissioned the favorite Bible of many Fundamentalists, was at least Bisexual.

Fuck, just point out that the next country to pick up the gauntlet that we threw down and fight for their freedom was Haiti.

Because it's at this point a proven goddamned fact that These Fucking People will ditch everything they ever believed in or claimed to for bigotry and an imagined "right" to be shitty to somebody else in public.

If you haven't noticed, the people being faithful to America and God in this mess might range from least being "Far-right but still believes in Democracy" to Social Democrats but it's nearly all people willing to at least say "Hey, wait a minute!" when the bigoted crap gets bad enough.

Meanwhile the Right is the goddamn Fyre Festival but they're still holding the reigns of Power while fighting it out, and there's no limit to what they'll do for another bigotry, outrage or just rage-induced hit of whatever dopamine-fix this Prosperity Gospel Trump shit provides!

America needs to learn the word "No."

We need to stop allowing bad behavior and bigotry. Racism should be a criminal offense at this point for all the trouble everybody knows it's caused. Right now, the Billionaires and Republicans are literally using this shit to kill us.

We need to tax the fuck out of rich people and place hard limits on their behavior and what they can use that money for.

Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house comes, at evening, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning, ~Mark 13:35

We need to start honoring and living out the promise of equality that's the basis of our entire system.

And We the People need to start backing that shit up with the credible threat of Force.

That's what the Second Amendment was even for. We the People are the last line against Tyranny.

We have to say NO.

Fuck you and the data-center-powered cloud-computed Terminator you rode in on.

Enough is Enough.

Elisabet Sobeck: I remember yelling that I didn’t care. And that’s when my mother took my face in her hands and…spoke.

GAIA: Query: What did she say?

Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, “Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death.”

~From the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

I'm tired of this shit.

Whether it's this Mark Of The Beast type Data Center bullshit or just Trump.

The question is why aren't you??

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And either you're gonna fight for it or you're not.

If we ain't all free, none of us are.

I can't put it any more simply than that.

This American Babylon is gonna fall, hard, fast, and soon.

What we do after that??

That's on us.

Слава Україна!

The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high ... [after looking at crowd] but sometimes it's too high. You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore. ~William Adama, from the Battlestar Galactica (2003) Miniseries, Part One.

Prequel

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"