Fuck your outrage, Republicans.

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Apathy and the end of America, Part Two.

Son, I'm just gonna tell you this one time. You want to keep working here? Stay off the drugs. ~Mr. McDowell, Coming To America.

Seriously?

I woke up this morning to find Paula White trending on Twitter, only to find out that she'd said some stupid shit about "Satanic Pregnancies."

Okay, where is that in the Bible? I've read the whole thing, and do not in fact recall reading about "Satanic Pregnancies."

Nor did I read that some dumb blonde with a church and a bunch of dopey followers could "Command" anybody to do anything, and in fact I have extensive experience (unfortunately) with this Prosperity Gospel and Word Of Faith crap. It's all bullshit, these people are always going around, "Commanding" this, "Praying Over" that, and generally sounding like nothing more than a bunch of self-important braying jackasses for no damned good reason. Seriously, what the hell kind of narcissist do you have to be to think that the rest of the world has to do something just because you say it?

And yes, that's exactly what it is. What's in the Bible isn't good enough for these people, so they have to make shit up to try and make themselves seem more powerful. Unfortunately, because there's a generalized lack of knowledge about the Word (and too often, nobody in people's lives to teach about it) and people are just plain dumb, or desperate, or greedy...it's all too damned popular.

Where do I think Easter came from? The Catholic church co-opted Pagan festivals to make it easier to convert people. This is known historical fact.

Of course, Larry here also fails at ancient Middle Eastern religion. Might be a good idea to stick to Football, dumb ass.

I mean, come on "Devil children?" and "Satanic Pregnancies?" First of all, this sounds an awful lot like the Christian Identity white supremacist "Serpent Seed" anti-Semitic bullshit. Second, it's the ultimate elastic, hand-waving, "Magic Words And Phrases" Republican excuse for everything.

War? Devil children. Want to cut food stamps? Devil children. Abortion? fine for Satanic Pregnancies. Medicare? Social Security? God's children don't need anything when they get old. I mean, come on, it's the Swiss Army Knife of rationalizations, and like that's not gonna get abused like a motherfucker on general principle by these fucking people and you damned well know it.

But that's the point, isn't it?

If nothing is factual or true or can be tested, and all is conspiracy theory and hype, then there's no basis for people to push back against Power, is there?

What the fuck do you think the point of stuff like the Prosperity Gospel and Q-Anon is?

If everything is a conspiracy theory, as Q-Anon asserts, then on the one hand there essentially is no hope, I mean, who are you going to believe? The world around you, or us? If nothing is true but whatever the hive-mind asserts...then whatever you do is justified. What is even the sense of communicating with another human being if all is conspiracy theory and shadow forces? If you get enough of this kind of paranoid bullshit, civilization itself starts to break down. People have already committed crimes and terrorist acts because of this crap. This level of lying perverts the purpose of interacting with other human beings, or even of speech itself. What's the damn point of anything if you can't even go get a burger without worrying about...cannibalism, of all things?

By the same token, people like Paula White believe that Jesus died on the Cross not to save humanity from Sin, but to save people from financial hardship.

The entire basis of Prosperity Theology is effectively, send some dude $10 and he'll show you the way to heaven, or you'll get rich, but I repeat myself.

I'm sorry, but that is literally not what the Bible and every bit of Christian tradition I've ever encountered actually says about either of those things...believing stuff like that is how you go to hell, period.

But, if all your moral and spiritual leaders are nothing more than well-dressed adulterers and tax cheats with amazing hair, nice churches and some bullshit nothing job title from the White House, what else is there? If that is what your version of Christianity tells you, you have no moral basis to push back against power, and freedom dies.

In point of fact, if that is what you believe and Donald Trump were to declare himself God, on what basis could you refute it or speak against him?

And that is exactly the point, heresy divides belief from Truth.

And even today there are still too few people in the Church who speak out against this crap, and those that do get their inboxes filled with bile by the angry rubes of Yokel Haram for weeks on end. I know, for several years in the first decade of the 2000's I was one of those people. After awhile, it was just easier to get away.

But truth is what sets us free.

I'm not sure about you but I'm not finding a lot of truth in the Christian church these days.

Part 1

Apathy and the end of America, Part One.

The American way of life is not up for negotiation, period.
~George H.W. Bush

There comes a point in history, sometimes, where the outcome of a thing ceases to be in doubt.

From the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 until the fall of the Soviet Union at Christmas time in 1991, I remember watching and wondering what would become of it, or if the Soviet Union might simply emerge leaner and meaner at the other end of the tunnel. Of course, it turns out that much of what we thought we knew about the Soviet Union was bullshit put out by the Soviets themselves, their economy was a Potemkin village, their military spending excessive, but quantity didn't translate to quality, and post-Soviet Russia was basically revealed to be not much more than a third world country with a nuclear arsenal.

The moment where the decline became irreversible, where I think the world saw the writing on the wall was the August Coup (August 19th-22nd) against Mikhail Gorbachev, when the Soviet conservatives and hardliners rallied to try to save their idea of civilization, and were defeated not by soldiers and tanks, but by ordinary people. This, even though the military and political elements of the coup had basically achieved every objective they had set themselves to accomplish, including holding Gorbachev himself prisoner.

I think this Impeachment thing is a similar inflection point for us.

The republic, at least as a unitary entity, ends not with goose-stepping soldiers and tanks in the streets, but with one side of our political system completely uninterested in Democracy or even its own perpetuation or political or even personal survival. Republican Senators getting up and wandering off, or even going on Fox News when they're supposed to be in the Senate chambers? Fidget Spinners, reading books in Senate chambers, and sweet and salty snacks?

The Democrats have done a hell of a job here, and a majority of Americans are right pissed off, and rightly so. Republicans are going to find themselves trapped between an angry public and Trump, and they know it.

They just don't care.

There's essentially no way that Trump's "revenge" won't hit them as well, or that their heads wouldn't end up being the very first ones on the pikes because there's no feasible way for any of these people to give Trump a pass fast enough for him or his followers.

They. Just. Don't. Care.

Christ, you'd think a threat like that would guarantee impeachment and removal from office based on survival instinct alone.

But it doesn't, not with these boot licking cowardly shits.

And the worst part is, damn near every Trump Supporter up to and including the Republican Senators themselves will agree with such, and think it necessary. Far from "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country" now it's "I regret that I have only one head for you to put on a pike, Mr. President."

So, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die? That's not what I was taught conservatism was.

The Republic ends not with a bang, a whimper, or a thunderous civil war...but with ads for Viagra, fund-raising E-mails, and Tucker Carlson's sneering, smarmy mug. It's like fully one third of Americans have completely lost the plot, if they ever had it in the first place.

The Republic as we know it collapses not because some Hard Right faction fights to the death to save Gingrich-esque or warmed over McCarthyite Conservatism or some such thing, but because insecure dickbags value their graft, greed, homophobia and racism more than their own freedom and lives, or even the entire basis of the Christian religion?

I guess it's par for the course with these fucking people.

Just as with those Russians in Moscow in August of 1991, nobody else is going to save us. We The People have to save ourselves.

They're losing the argument on Impeachment and Trump, so they're literally trying to ignore the facts or the will of the American people and in so doing, turning the election itself into a referendum on Trump.

And when they ignore the election results they don't like and simply try to push on through and ignore them, or Trump tries to label democracy and elections themselves as a coup against his power and says "I'm the legitimate government, follow me" the trouble is that some entire states will do just that, and others will fall into conflict, while still others are wholly or in part against these people.

And as with the fall of the Soviet Union, this is going to go kinetic somewhere.

And whatever survives of the United States, or whatever of its successor states is willing to take up things as simple as UN Security Council duties, will be much harder pressed to maintain its power or place in the world...

But the Republicans? They don't care about that, and they'll piss all over the legacies of Reagan and Bush the Elder to prove it.

But first, hey, could you send me a $10 tax-deductible campaign contribution so I can fight the Commies and the Liberals and prevent socialism from coming to America?

Here's a hint, Comrade. When you've got buildings upon buildings full of luxury condos that nobody can afford to live in and there's not enough rich people to rent, while the people who lived in the city sleep in homeless shelters or the streets, THAT is how you end up with socialism.

When 53 old conservative assholes, 50 of whom are both white and supposedly Christian, can flout the will of two thirds of the population of a country of 330 million people, that's how you end up with some kind of a revolution.

But when the gulf between one out of three of us and the other two is this damned wide, and at least a quarter of us will throw in with the oligarchs and Republicans just for a chance to shoot their neighbors, forgive me for thinking we're not going to survive this mess as a united nation, but more likely as at least two nations, which will be in conflict for decades.

Republicans don't care.

In fact, they seem to be counting on it.

And nobody else is going to stop them, but us.

Part 2

The last temptation of Republican Jesus.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. ~Matthew 4: 8-10

What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?

Such verses were central pillars of understanding Christianity as I was taught it. I mean, if Jesus is, as we were taught "The way, the truth, and the life" what's even the point of following after some human being who tells you what they think you want to hear? Can that person save you from hell?

It was likewise explained to me that Man cannot save Man, so don't follow after your buddy Joe, the crowd, the church people, or your Pastor. I was taught if you were a Christian, you answer to two things, God and your own conscience. I was likewise taught that your word is important. Don't break your oaths, keep your promises, if you say you're going to do something, do it. etc.

Why? Because among other things, it's the right thing to do. Also, if you ever intend to Evangelize people, you have to have the credibility of being somebody they'll listen to. Respect is earned, every action, every day. That's life, them's the breaks, deal with it.

Fast forward about 40 years and it's the people who most harped on this stuff who've been shown to be the most corrupt. If you'd told me 21 years ago that in 2020 Republicans would have abrogated all moral responsibility and reverted to base moral relativism and some kind of squishy situational ethics, I'd have laughed at you.

If you'd told me that the Democrats, that era's practitioners of said moral relativism and situational ethics would be consistently holding the feet of a corrupt Republican President to the fire simply by replaying his own publicly said words on the Senate floor? At best I'd have reminded you that we'd just got done dealing with a Democratic President who spent weeks constantly trying to redefine "Is" to make it sound like if the chubby intern wasn't hiding in the podium giving him a blowjob like the hooker in Police Academy then nothing really happened.

At worst, I'd have punched you right in the mouth.

And what brought about this changeover from moral probity to utter moral relativism and cult-like thralldom among Republicans?

Functionally, I see it as stemming from misogyny, racism and willful ignorance. Or perhaps it could be reduced more simply to fear, hate and unreason.

As an example, I'll point to the ridiculous amount of venom poured out against Meghan Markle by everybody from the British tabloid press to...ordinary everyday American conservatives?

What the fuck?

Why in the hell do American conservatives even in the least give a shit who some British prince marries? Didn't we fight a war and become our own country so we wouldn't have to give a shit about British royalty?

And then, now that Harry and Meghan have stepped away from royal duties on the rather solid grounds of doing something about how abominably they've been treated, these same fucking people don't like that, either. Harry and Meghan more or less get the same bullshit treatment that the Obama family did, mostly from the same people. I'm just saying, when ya'll go around acting like a black or mixed-race person or whoever they're with can never do anything right, the odds are better than average that you're a fucking racist.

And invariably whatever the people so targeted actually do, or stand for, or thing, never seems to matter to the fucking idiot mob.

You can be the most rah-rah American exceptionalist person around, keep two wars going, while very nearly adding two more, expand health care, rebuild the economy from the last big crash and even preside over the mission that took out the Big Bad terrorist who'd haunted our fears and fever dreams for a decade...and it's not good enough and these fucking assholes will still find something to bitch about or even just make stuff up completely out of the blue.

I'm just sayin' if Barack Obama had been a Republican and/or a white dude, the same people lighting their own asses and political futures on fire trying to cover for Donald Trump's lard-ass in the impeachment trial would goddamned well be demanding that space be made for him on Mount Rushmore.

But since he's black and not a Republican...

You do the math.

And if you don't think this groveling, inept, stupid hyper-partisanship on the part of Republicans is joined at the hip with racism and made possible by it, you have another thing coming.

It's exactly this that made Republicans initially think that they could get away with some kind of Kangaroo-court impeachment trial until public pressure and Trump's own loose talk disabused them of that notion. Keep the pressure on, because if there's one think these skells all want to do it's stay in office well past the time when Trump is six feet under.

And they're debasing themselves and the Senate while they're at it.

Either we say no to this fear, hate, misogyny and racism or it's going to destroy us. Imagine Bosnia on steroids, with more guns...and nukes.

Donald Trump promised his supporters and everybody else the world too. It was a lie, nobody but him and some other rich assholes got shit.

Think about that.

What shall it profit a man, indeed?

A Church of Demons, A House of Devils.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
~Galatians 3:28

Yesterday, moments after finishing my previous blog post, I saw this stupid bullshit.

Fundamentalist nut Dave Daubenmire called Meghan Markle a "Demon" because she married into the British Royal Family.

Note that neither she nor her husband were consulted, nor their actual feelings taken into account, nor their presumed belief in Anglican Christianity even thought of. Actual facts mean nothing in the face of Mediocre Idiot White Man's racism. And don't fool yourself, that is exactly what this is.

Yet again, the people who profess to believe the best and the most in the Cross of Christ turn it into nothing more than a flaming lawn ornament when left to their own devices.

And that's aside from other aspects of this man's theology that are so deviant to my mind and what I was taught, that it beggars the imagination. I'm fucking serious, read the article. Daubenmire claims that the British Royal Family is the "Seat of Christianity." Now, hold the fuck on, tell me where exactly that is in the Bible.

I'll spare you the trouble, it ain't.

These people, given the chance, wasted no time in turning the Evangelical Church into a den of devils, supporting a man who treats breaking every one of the Ten Commandments as some kind of a to-do list, spreading division, fear and hate, while enabling Man's inhumanity to Man at the highest levels of our government.

Don't take MY word for it, listen to the kind of stuff these people say themselves, when they think they can get away with it.

One hell of a lot of these people seem to get off on Trump's cruelty, even as he throws them bones while both destroying their futures and commanding their enthusiastic participation in their own destruction. I'm fucking serious, do you really think, especially as the full extent of these people's treason is revealed that any of their illegitimate judicial and political gains will be allowed to stand? Do these fools really think that in five years, or ten or twenty, that the Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches that enabled the Trump Crime Syndicate are going to have much at all in the way of credibility?

Here's a thing that I was taught by Christians. It matters how you get stuff. It matters if you're honest. Do you really think if you lie to somebody while preaching the Word to them, that they're going to think that the Word means anything more than your own worthless talk does?

Does Dave Daubenmire really think that anybody who isn't a flaming racist asshole is the least goddamned bit impressed by his stupid bullshit ass racist talk?

What about People of Color? Are Christians not commanded to go out and preach the Gospel to ALL nations?

Half the damned problem with Evangelicals is that they spend too much time preaching to the Choir and telling people who'll give them money what they think those people want to hear.

And we wonder why the Church, despite all its political power, is slipping into irrelevance?

Let me share with you a pro tip, as somebody who's been around a bit.

Not a damned one of the most Christianized countries in the world is majority White. Oh, sure, in America lots of people claim to be religious but then lead intensely secular lives every time but Sunday mornings. Canada, the UK, most EU countries...most of the people who go to church in the first place are immigrants or old women. Most of the countries in Europe that report higher relative levels of church attendance are Catholic, and thus don't matter to Evangelicals.

Now let's take a look a but further south, over the sea and across the desert, while noting that many of the cultures and tribes that inhabit that desert still live much as they did in Biblical times, with relatively little change. From Ghana and Nigeria all the way to South Sudan and Uganda, there is a swath of countries so heavily Christianized...and not just that, but filled to the brim with Evangelicals and Pentecostals, true Believers and grifters, sheep and wolves alike, as to shame the pretensions of the American Bible Belt....and not just that, but many of those African Believers emigrate to other countries and they take their faith and religious community with them and go out and Evangelize their neighbors!

And guess what? They're ALL Black.

Many of these immigrants are deeply religiously and theologically conservative, homophobia can sometimes be rampant. Hell, you'd think American Evangelicals would be beating down their Congresspersons' doors demanding these people be let into America by the tens of thousands on that basis alone...if they believed what they say they do.

Yes, in a lot of countries, including the United Kingdom I might add, it's the People of Color who are the ones trying to spread the Gospel to the white people...and that even happens on a smaller scale here in the United States as well.

Preach the Gospel to all ye nations, indeed.

For fuck's sake, a friend of mine theorized that if Republicans would do just that, support Black and Brown Christian immigrants and then advocate for and support such people on a pragmatic basis as they once did with Cubans and Vietnamese, they'd be in power forever. Now, that same friend, who is an active member of a large and diverse local Pentecostal church, has also pointed out that most of the Nigerian people who form a large contingent of the congregation are basically socialists...And that's Okay.

I've encountered the same sort of dynamic with a guy from Uganda that I interact with on Facebook occasionally and have written about here as well.

My former co-worker said, when we spoke about this, that it's a trade-off, they might not vote the way he wants if and when they become citizens, but he said he'll take a Nigerian immigrant Democrat that he knows where they stand on a lot of issues (by way of shared religion) over a lot of these Republicans who say Jesus this and Jesus that, but then cut the budgets of federal agencies that support the church's food pantry. It doesn't matter if you're pro-life if you start being pro-death the second that kid is born.

He understood that faith is about community, not about the Self.

He understood that the future of Christianity is most likely in the Global South.

And there are far too few people in America like that guy.

American Christianity not only needs to start preparing for the future, it needs to start adjusting to it, because that future is now.

Looking and reaching back into an imagined white-bread holy past because that's what well-dressed cheats and liars tell you is true has done nothing but turn the American church into a house of demons and devils, and its congregations into mobs of fools, racists and reactionaries who think it's funny to sneer at old veterans or make lewd remarks about younger female reporters and who'd gladly wear the white robes they attribute to Christ, but who'd never take up the self-sacrifice.

I've been saying it for 22 years, Christians, you are what you tolerate. Ironically enough, I started saying it when the impeachment of Bill Clinton looked like it was going to be a thing.

In the late 1990's as a member of a Baptist church men's group and in any college course they'd let me give a speech in, I literally preached against moral relativism...only to watch 20 years later as Republicans embrace that exact same moral relativism with gusto.

Man, do I feel stupid now...

Christians, it wasn't Donald Trump or even Dave Daubenmire that turned your collective Church into a den of demons and a house of devils and threw Christ out like last week's trash, it was you.

You did that.

You are the ones who bought into every partisan hater since at least 1988, who turned Christianity into sacralizing your politics and not much else, and then started worshiping Trump alongside Jesus...and then you gave Christ the old heave-ho at the first available opportunity...even though so many of you can't or won't say why, publicly.

You are the ones claiming that White Supremacy is Christianity.

And if that's what you believe, then you deserve what you're going to get. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, irrelevance is the absolute least of things you deserve if that's what you want to be.

Every tongue and tribe and nation means everyone, all being one in Christ Jesus means all believers treated the same when the Man comes around...not getting to call one woman a demon because you don't like her (or her husband's) choice of partners!

I was taught God does not create junk, and if you put yourself and your judgments above that simple fact trying to say that one person is above another based on their immutable characteristics, then you put yourself above God, and you exchange your religion for prejudice.

In history, or in the afterlife, that doesn't end well.

Cut that shit out.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Joe: Why me? Every time Metzler says, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way," I get out of the way.

Sgt. Keller: Yeah, when he says that, you're not supposed to choose "get out of the way." It's supposed to embarrass you into leading, or at least following.

Joe: That doesn't embarrass me. ~Idiocracy.

Okay, now just a goddamned minute, here, what the fuck did I just see?

Apparently, Trump associates, including Lev Parmas, Rudy Giuliani and Congressional candidate Robert Hyde, among others, were stalking and plotting to murder U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

Hold on, didn't we just go through a whole big deal of violent embassy protests, assassinating an Iranian General and taking a missile strike right in the teeth that, thankfully, we had the sense not to escalate any further than we already did?

And now we're effectively plotting acts of terrorism, indeed acts of war, against ourselves?

Yovanovitch is, like it or not, a Trump appointee. She's one of their people (and this happened before her testimony) so effectively, these idiots want to kill their own now, too?

If that leaves you any illusions where you stand, concerning these people, I can't help you.

These motherfuckers wanted to kill...plotted to kill and kept under surveillance...an American ambassador. If another country did that, Congressional Republicans and various conservative TV pundits would be lighting up Fox News, demanding war against that country.

But what do we do, when that country...is us?

SHRUG...just another day in Trump's America, I guess. As long as he doesn't come for me...

Why do we support him, or conversely on the other side, lack the guts to do anything about him and spend all our time attacking each other?

When polled, a bunch of Trump Supporters in Ohio couldn't say why they supported Trump, only that they did. My guess is, they know why, they just know their real reasons aren't socially acceptable so they don't want to say them on TV.

It's the racism, stupid.

It's the racism and the fact that Trump and some of his people talk bad about Brown people, liberals, women and various non-Christians and suck the Evangelicals' collective golf ball through a garden hose. That's what revs the engines of people like MAGA-hat Beavis here, and the worst part really is that they don't even have the guts to admit it.

It's that one hell of a lot of white conservatives, and no small percentage of white "Progressives" either, think it won't happen to them. It won't happen to them by dint of the color of their skin or their politics or their money or the amount of Facebook and Twitter "Likes" they get or something something Bourgeoisie White Folks.

Ya know, I bet Lisa Page and Marie Yovanovitch and a whole bunch of other people didn't think it was gonna happen to them, either.

And some of them actually had damned good reason to think that.

This kind of bullshit comes for everybody in the end, and if we don't start coming together and tell these people "No" and fucking mean it, this crap is going to end with Americans shooting at each other. If that happens, the only people who will profit will be the weapons manufacturers and the coffin makers. What part of "These people want to kill Americans" don't you get? The whole Iran thing was nothing but a Kabuki dance, a play sword-fight to distract from Impeachment, and then this crap comes out?! On the same day, I might add, as Speaker Pelosi names Impeachment managers. It's not an accident that the pressure and the temperature keep being ramped up. A pipe can only have so much water put through it before it bursts, and the longer this goes on the more I think that's Republicans' basic strategy.

They know they won't get the whole country, or even a lot of the good parts of it, and maybe not even much of the government or the military, but they don't care. 'Tis better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven, and that is exactly what every last one of these sons of bitches is thinking right now, at this point. And the Republican base doesn't care, because they'd rather all be peasants or slaves, so long as they get to be of a higher class of peasant or slave than somebody that they don't like.

It's funny to me that these people equate the "Far Left" with Afghanistan, or think that the underlying cause of all the stuff wrong with that country is "Communism." I mean, the fact that Communists spent almost a decade bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan didn't help, but it was post-Communist governmental collapse, the end of Russian/Soviet aid and warlord-ism that led to so many people thinking the radical Islam of the Taliban was an off ramp that was viable for so many, but I suppose when you've been getting beaten and raped and robbed and shot at for years on end, any port in a storm...and considering what I recall about the Taliban's treatment of women and children and those who kept on fighting against them before we got involved...I find it telling and all too typical of these people's willful ignorance that they'd think any of this was "Far Left." I WAS a conservative in the 1990's, and one hell of a lot of the people who even noticed what was going on over there were people like me.

So what changed?

Racism.

Fox News.

And endless, nonsensical march ever-rightward into fascism, primitive tribalism and ultimate destruction on the part of Republicans.

Constant outrage and hate being ginned up, mostly for money, but also translating into politics and internet or social media presence.

Also, if you think it's just "Conservatives" I humbly invite you to take a look at the Bernie Bro vs. Warren follower flame war on Twitter the last couple days.

And if we don't wise up and stop falling for this bullshit, it's going to destroy us, and it's really that simple.

If we want a better nation, we have to be better citizens and stop thinking somebody else will do the hard stuff and take responsibility, because they fucking won't unless they are made to do it.

And if you think being some kind of upper-class white person or voting the right way or whatever will save you, go ahead and ask Marie Yovanovitch how that worked out.

We have to stop this shit. It's on us.

Trumpmageddon?

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

And he hath on his garments and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords. ~Revelation 19:11-16

I want you to look, carefully, at the boldface text above, and see if you see any references to Donald Trump riding a horse made of Gold and gemstones. Are you seeing it? Because I'm sure not...and I've only been reading and/or hearing about this stuff since I could read or understand basic concepts.

I could be wrong here, but I do believe the existence of God and the need to believe in Jesus was probably the very first "Big Idea" I ever was asked to think about or accept on a (for a kid, anyway) serious level. I think I was all of five years old the first time I accepted Christ.

That said; Because reasons, it's not very often that I go entirely Biblical on people when I write about stuff. For one thing, I'm an Agnostic. Theistic or not, I AM an Agnostic and I don't claim to know the nature of God, and I recognize that His existence is something that requires faith, and therefore not empirically testable. Hell, I've been known to question whether God actually exists, here and there.

But apparently, I have more fealty, still, to that which I once referred to as The Truth, than Paula White does.

I do not, and can not and will not understand the tendency of modern "Conservatives," Pentecostals, Prosperity Gospel nuts and Trump Supporters to constantly embellish, exaggerate, lie, make up wild stories, and in general try to obscure that which is actually true in favor of whatever they want to say. After all, if it is what they say it is, should not the Truth be sufficient, the ultimate defense, the we're-right-suck-it-libs Ultimate Answer To Everything?

Well of course it isn't.

Because what they believe simply isn't true.

But it gets worse.

Because of course, it isn't about that.

They're not happy with what, per their own holy book, is supposed to be true.

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

~The Nicene Creed

They aren't happy with what Christian tradition or creeds or theology tell them is supposed to be true, either, because there's no mention of Donald Trump, of one-upping their self-defined enemies and political rivals or of making "Liberals" (which at this point is basically any non-Trump-Supporter to hear them tell it) mad.

Small, mean people, have small, mean ideas, what else do you want to know?

In far too much of American conservative Christianity, the serious, sober, studious, theological faith I was raised in is basically dead. It's all emotionalism and gossip and politics now, with a dash of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists desperately wanting to be popular and liked by the masses despite the fact that Jesus said that if you actually practiced according to how you were supposed to, most people wouldn't like you and the masses would despise you because obviously Christianity came about in an environment where it too was considered a cult, hunted, and persecuted.

And meanwhile, people who think Democrats getting elected to Congress and not being able to persecute gay people, people of color or women are horrible sufferings desperately long for the lash of persecution...or at least claim to...or seek to invent such "persecution" whole-cloth out of thin air because something something Jesus said so.

Never mind that knowing some of these people, as I do, I know that the very first time somebody crucifies an Evangelical for being an Evangelical, the comfortable, gossiping, soft, well-dressed and well-padded Evangelicals will all be looking for the exits when Barbarian Jesus doesn't show up to rescue them.

Biblical Christianity is about the poor and the downtrodden, not the comfortable, wealthy and well-fed. Seriously, even the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament had a social welfare system of sorts, and a mandated settling of debts and freeing of slaves and such, and these people can't be bothered to support even the most basic social welfare systems in this country?

How does that work, exactly?

These people are drowning in their own Biblical illiteracy and hypocrisy. Modern Evangelicalism isn't about saving souls for the next world, it's about living comfortable, fat and happy in this world. It's about money and politics and race and status and heaping power unto itself not for doing good, or for any purpose...but simply for the sake of having it and trying to force others to do what they want.

And I don't see anything Christian about that.

They don't want a carpenter and itinerant Rabbi, a poor Savior who worked for most of His life, and lived simply but wielded unknown and unknowable spiritual power for a Kingdom not of this world, who stood against the powers of the Empire and religious orthodoxy, only to be crucified for it and buried in a donated tomb, but who rose again and whose teachings ultimately became the basis of a great world religion.

No, they want their ears tickled and to be told how great they are and what they want to hear right now and have glory and power and their supposed "enemies" punished in this life for their own sadistic glee. That kingdom, not of this world? If it even exists, or is given any thought at all? It's at best a stadium from which they can watch the rest of us burn. Heaven is only heaven if they're the only ones who get to go there.

These MAGA-cultists don't want a poor savior buried in a donated tomb of simple stones.

They want that gilded jackass, stuffed and mounted in a glass case by a team of taxidermists like Vladimir Lenin in Red Square in Moscow while marching soldiers with gilded rifles and tanks and ICBM TEL vehicles parade by endlessly, with junkets provided by the State to see it all, because that's what they think strength is, all presided over a "Church" whose sole attributes appear to be cruelty and meanness of spirit and narrowness of mind, because that's what they think holiness looks like.

He who is right is simply he who shouts the loudest and says the worst things.

Truth, whether literal or spiritual, is an inconvenience to their visions.

Where is the grace, or where is the love here? Where are any of the attributes the Bible ascribes to Jesus Christ?

Even as the conquering king of kings, Jesus is adorned simply and riding a plain white horse. As I was taught it, the "Sword that comes out of His mouth" was not some Left Behind style gore fantasy, but simply The Word, spoken.

Because in both ancient and modern times the truth is often likened to a double-edged sword, because if it is the truth it cuts both ways.

Trump, in Paula White's supposed vision, must be seated on some unnatural gold-plated automaton.

And their vision of Armageddon is about revenge, not justice.

And that should tell you all you need to know about these people and what they call religion.

As I've said before; That, my friends, is exactly how you go to hell.

Stop the Hate.

When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken. ~Che Guevara

Last night, I saw that Rep. Doug Collins (R-Georgia) said on Fox News that "Democrats are in love with Terrorists." That's news to me, considering that I'm a Democrat.

Seems to be news to most Democrats that I know or have ever even heard of as well. It's almost like this bitch was just making shit up.

While I'm at it, a lot of those 1960's radicals that wore Che Guevara T-shirts or berets and scruffy beards and dirty green fatigue jackets...a hell of a lot of those people are old white Boomer Republicans now.

Che, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980's, there's a fine line between a beloved revolutionary and a feared and hated terrorist. Lots of those Mujahideen became the Taliban 20 years later, for example. But let me tell you something; I've never seen anybody wearing an Osama Bin Laden T-shirt. People still wear Che T-shirts nearly 60 years after he died.

And despite the fact that he basically was one, relatively few people these days would actually call Che a terrorist, even people like me who spent much of our lives on the opposite side of things.

Does any kind of in-depth, or indeed any (at all) examination of this stuff convey a "love" for revolutionaries or terrorists? No. In point of fact any effective counterinsurgency campaign has to have somebody who can put themselves in the enemy's shoes and see things their way for a minute if only to find some way to assuage or at least counter the demands of the insurgents and reduce their support among the populace? Endless escalating violence only begets more of the same, and eventually the costs become more than either side can bear.

But then Republicans these days seem to think any response to anything that doesn't include cruelty, harshness and violence toward those they deem as lesser (i.e. pretty much everybody else) as well as a lockstep march ever-rightward is somehow suspect or "weak." And then in the next breath they wonder why most people hate them and they're losing elections these last few years.

I for one am getting goddamned sick of Sniffles The Clown and his Tijuana donkey show presidency. Its twin ethics of "Fuck you, pay me" and "What have you done for me lately" piss me right the hell off.

This is not what I was taught.

Representative Paranoid's Twitter bio says he's a military chaplain. I feel damned sorry for anybody under his pastoral care, and that is not  a joke.

As I've asked countless times in the last 12 years or so "Where the fuck do they come up with this silly bullshit?"

Such statements as "Democrats love terrorists" are of course instantly, provably wrong, at least in the modern sense. They imply that the only valid answer to anything is unbending harshness, as if that in and of itself would not bring about a revolution and their downfall eventually. Given the Far-right fixation with trying to connect everyone from Grover Norquist to CNN to that guy who flipped them the bird in traffic to "Radical Islam" because something something gazpacho or they have, ya know, relationships with actual people who happen to be Muslim or don't parrot stupid hateful rhetoric, it's downright ridiculous if you think about it.

And how exactly does anybody expect anybody to survive in this day and age with constant demands that they stop thinking?

More to the point, the day will come when our enemies...our real enemies...China, Russia, and yes, possibly Iran or Islamic non-state actors like Daesh, will start to game the right-wing Fear-Industrial Complex and boomerang the fear and hate that it generates against other people...including at this point over two thirds of Americans...against our country, its government, or our armed forces, with the intention to destroy us. You could certainly argue that Russian election interference in 2016 was just such an effort.

I do happen to catch a little bit of Fox News here and there, mostly in the break room at work, and I'm going to be honest, I find it nothing but depressing and puerile. I used to be a conservative and I simply do not see any upside to believing in any of the stuff they peddle. Pump out enough fear and hate, and eventually people will hit the point where anger becomes hard to keep going, outrage flames out, and they just give in to despair. Like an ADHD kid falling asleep while staring at the TV, the lights just go out. I say this as somebody who was literally angry at my ex-wife for years.

We have this network pushing out all this hateful crap onto the body politic and then we wonder why we have so many mass shootings and suicides and stuff? I'm pretty sure one could get PTSD from watching enough Fox News.

I quite frankly wonder how Fox News viewers have any hope of anything, considering that all they hear all the time is how much everything sucks, how much of our world is an apocalyptic hell-scape, and somehow, our only salvation is Donald Trump?

Get me to believe that, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't make it a month before I took my shotgun and blew my own brains out. But then I've known Trump was an adulterer, cheat and useless loser since I was a teenager. Who the fuck finds that inspiring?

Say what you will about the revolutionaries of prior generations, and for that matter even about the established powers that opposed them.

At least they could offer hope, have plans and stick to them (right or wrong) and might say things that might have genuine insight into the human condition, instead of offering an endless diet of fear, hate, and paranoia.

The only "hope" that people like Doug Collins offer anybody is the hope that they might get to have their boot on somebody else's throat before they die.

And that seems to me like a real shitty thing to hope for. Even the damned Communists could manage better than that. It seems to me like we should be doing better than this by now. At least some Republicans are trying to push back against this crap, but they are too damned few. We gotta find a way to do better than this. Stop the hate. Before we all die.

American Beast.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. ~Matthew 24:24

I saw this the other day.

Serious question, Jim, but can you show me in the Bible where the Book of Trump is located, or where the Prophet Donald is mentioned, or perhaps even where a fourth, co-equal aspect has been added to the Trinity?

I thought not.

The Baptist in me still knows that none of that shit is in there, and that interpretations equating Trump with Cyrus and something something gazpacho are just made up whole-cloth by politicized Evangelicals who know their base is brainwashed and dumb.

If you still happen to need evidence that this Trump shit is a cult, I give you this fucking guy right here. Ex-Convict Jim Bakker, he of fraud and racketeering charges and financial crimes and homosexual affairs, who took a nationally known ministry and ran it into the ground before disgracing himself and ending up in prison. I was just a Christian kid growing up, at the time, and we all laughed at this motherfucker and his stupid Prosperity Gospel bullshit. 30 years ago we knew it was all a lie.

Yet he's still around and only a couple of the churches I attended as a kid...both Catholic ones...still are. Maybe that's part of the problem?

Likewise, yesterday I saw this. A bullshit attempt to tie the Democrats to the Iranians.

Personally, I don't get this stupid bullshit, because before he got killed I had no idea who that Iranian General was. In point of fact the only Iranian people I've ever known were the local doctor and his family in my small northern Michigan hometown when I was a teenager.

So basically, I've known a few of the people who Islamist nuts like General what's-his-name ran out of their own country.

They were refugees, there because of some program or other to provide medical care to under-served communities, and pretty secular. I kissed one of their daughters once. She was my friend, aside from that one time we mostly just loaned books back and forth and she hung out with my friend. She liked poetry and stuff like that, I was into fantasy and science fiction. It was cool, being that we were all nerds in an era when being one wasn't popular and the nearest book store in any direction was an hour's drive. Both she and my friend wanted to be teachers and my life's ambition was to serve in the military. I should add, this being the late 1980's and early 1990's we were all pretty much basic young conservatives.

These people don't care about that General. Hell, Trump could have drone-struck Amal the Goat Herder or Firoozeh the math teacher or Zahir the doctor and these idiots would have called it a win. They just want to see people die, it doesn't matter who as long as they belong to an out-group of some kind. And in fact, these damned people are still chest-thumping and baying for more blood.

How is any of that Christian?

This morning, I read this ridiculous bullshit. Some former Trump administration official went on Fox News and claimed that violence and war are some kind of natural state of affairs in the Middle East, except of course for the Israelis.

Bitch, I've read the Bible. It took the Romans decades and multiple major wars to pacify ancient Israel. Hell I've read up on the history of modern Israel. The Israelis have engaged in their fair share of violence and war and done so well enough to have outlasted all of their neighbors, who have in fact all come at them at the same time more than once.

But more to the point, such a vicious, racist oversimplification of such a vastly complex region of our world does everybody a disservice. Are you an Evangelical or other Christian? A Jew? A Muslim? If you belong or have belonged to any of those faiths, your religion arose out of a deep dark well of Middle Eastern mythology that goes back further than the written word does, that was both influenced by and in turn influenced what we term as "Western" civilization enough to generally be included in it. Hell, many of the roots of modern Judaism were first grown in Mesopotamia, then a part of the Persian empire. Even the briefest summary description of the Middle East and its ancient and wondrous cultures and civilizations damned well ought to evoke awe in the reader. Its influence spread from Northern and Western Africa and Spain all the way to Indonesia, from sea to shining sea in a whole different context long before America was even thought of, and families have often lived in the same neighborhoods in places like Iran since...well, since before the United States of America was even a country.

But yeah, :Normal state of condition is war." How American of an assessment. I'll do ya one better; How much projection can you fit into six words?

Yesterday, the Iranians hit back in response to the killing of their General. Somehow, they managed to fire 15 ballistic missiles at an American Airbase, and not do too much damage or kill very many people, and none of the casualties were Americans.

People competent enough to develop their own ballistic missiles don't actually do stuff like that by accident, and apparently they warned the Iraqis...and indirectly us as well. This was a message, and that message was next time we won't miss and there will be no warning.

And of course, Trump World is trying to make all this sound like some kind of great victory for Trump. Of course, like Rick Wilson said last night, Washington D.C. could be a puddle of radioactive slag and these people would try and call it a win for Trump.

It's a cult.

And then Trump gave a speech about this whole mess early this afternoon. He showed up half an hour late, sniffling like a cocaine addict on a binge, slurring and struggling through eight minutes of nonsense while everybody around him either looked comatose or like they were trying to find a way out. Unless you're Mike Pence, in which case you're mentally working out what kind of drapes you want to hang on the windows in the Oval Office.

There's something wrong with these people, and whatever you may think you're going to get out of it, you probably won't. It's not cute, or funny, or of some kind of partisan benefit to the greater glory of your tribe if these goddamn morons get us into a war and blow up a country or further damage our planet, you know, the only one we have right now.

There's nothing "Christian" or "Conservative" about any of this mess, and all it's going to do is destroy the Republican Party...and if we're not careful, the country or even our world right along with it. These fucking people are simply not competent.

This crap has to stop, and these people have to go, and it's just that goddamned simple. If you can't get that, or you think you'll get something from this mess, then fuck you.

If you're still a Trump Supporter after three years of this mess, you are deliberately disgracing yourself and your religion. If you are a Christian, you are denying Christ and worshiping a false god who openly breaks the Lord's commandments as if such were a good thing. I have nothing else to say to you but those two words.

Fuck. You.

This mess has to stop.

I can't make it any simpler than that.

Idiocracy 2019, Presumed Part 1

Welcome to Costco, I love you.
~Idiocracy.

The fuck, when you find a bunch of US flags dumped on the ground, but they've already had campaign slogans printed on them so what's the point?

I guess, to conservatives, America isn't America unless it's loudly glorifying their shitty beliefs, and apparently they can't even avoid knocking over the apple cart then.

I guess ideals like basic common decency, democracy and rule of law, not to mention love of country and respect for the symbols (like the flag) that they loudly claim to cherish when anyone's watching really don't matter all that much if there's a chance to make a few bucks, right?

And then, they can't even manage that with their own symbols, which have been altered to reflect their belief in their newfound god, who is of course not a god at all but a person, Donald Trump.

It seems to me like there's a Bible verse or three I should be quoting here but, ya know, why the fuck do I bother? It's not like they're going to get it anyway.

Religion, like everything else in the conservative mind, has been revealed to be disposable and transactional. You can't reason with unreasonable people...but it's also damned hard to reason with people who have no set values, whose morals are completely relative.

"Republicans name Ivanka and Don Jr. among top 2024 Presidential contenders?"

How in the flying fuck does that make any goddamned sense?

To be a Presidential contender, you used to have to have accomplishments, experience, and some things you could put your name to so that people knew who the fuck you were and what you'd done so they knew if you were worth voting for or not.

Apparently, to be a Republican Presidential Candidate now, all you need is a name, and apparently that name has to be Trump. Didn't we fight a war and become our own country just to avoid exactly this? Oh, don't get me wrong, there's a couple other names on the list, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley. But seriously, as this Trump mess progresses you can almost watch the political fortunes of those two wilt in real time. I mean, Nikki Haley seems to have barbecued her own political fortunes. And, seriously, even Donald Trump doesn't seem to like Mike Pence. That's ironic, because Mike Pence's chief skill seems to be keeping his lips firmly planted on Trump's over-large ass at all times. Yet no one cares, least of all Trump. In point of fact, like all too many "Conservative" Evangelicals these days, for all his claimed religiosity nobody ever seems to talk much about Mike Pence's religion, only his devotion to Donald Trump and social mores so outdated that it seems not so much quaint as outright deviant, as much because the whole mess is so out of step with even current Evangelical church culture (to say nothing of wider American culture) as because it suggests much deeper issues.

You could be forgiven, I think, for wondering what Evangelicals are even Evangelizing about.

Or could you?

Here's Sandy Rios gamely conflating Christianity with White Supremacy.

Who wants to be the one to tell her there's no white people, or at least no one identified as such, in the Bible?

Seriously the concept of "Whiteness" as such didn't come along until about the sixteenth century or so, when rich European Christian assholes needed some way to justify slavery and to divide slave workers from free ones.

In Jesus' time, much less when the Bible was compiled and written, prejudice was cultural, not racial. One was either a Roman or a Barbarian...just as one had been either a Greek or a Barbarian before that, and Greek was the language of the New Testament and Orthodox liturgy just as Latin was the language of Catholic liturgy and theology for some fairly serious reasons. Thus did many of the ideas, if not the texts, of Plato and lots of the ancient philosophers, not only survive but thrive under new management.

And nowhere in any of that text or those ideas were modern...or even ancient, for that matter...petty ethnic, racial and religious hatreds given airtime, much less oxygen, let alone primacy. In fact early Christian tradition, even post-Constantine, shows a trend toward inclusiveness if only to incorporate anything that would make it easier to convert people as modern holidays like Christmas and Easter show.

Why? Because when this stuff was written down the first time it was necessary to be able to use the text to convert people...and starting off with "I hate you and want to destroy your culture" was not a good way to win friends and influence people especially when the Emperor and his Legions might be thousands of miles away. The Romans had a way of making people want to be Romans, just as for decades people wanted to be Americans...and Americans wanted them to become Americans, because we knew more people, different ideas and the strength of being one nation that incorporated the ideas of many nations made us stronger.

But to small, mean, gate-keeping and purity-policing assholes, such ideas are anathema because they start off by thinking this, that or the other thing has to stay small and understandable so that it stays "theirs" and we wonder why so many fandoms become toxic, and how this has even extended to political and social conservatism? When people are stupid, the number of things that are understandable to them in turn becomes even smaller, which is precisely how one gets a Republican Senator, himself of Latin American descent, to proclaim that Taco trucks on every corner is somehow a bad thing.

When Ted Cruz said that, I was like "Hmmm, Tacos." More to the point I fail to see how the whole rest of the world wasn't as well. I mean, what the fuck kind of small idiotic person do you have to be, to be afraid of tacos?

A Republican or a White Supremacist, apparently, but I repeat myself.

I suppose, exactly the kind of person who thinks that Iraqis should be grateful that we invaded their country, overthrew their leader, destabilized their culture and enabled the worst of their fanatics, who then drove out ethnic and religious minorities, many of whom served actual functions in a highly traditional culture, because...we give the Iraqis money, I guess. Bitch, we started a war that destroyed these people's country, killed half a million people and fucked up countless lives for those who weren't killed. Two billion a year? That ain't shit, how about we not invade people on false pretenses in the first goddamned place, Marco?

Ya know, like that Bible you're always quoting says all who take up the sword will die by the sword?

Fuck these motherfuckers.

If you ever need proof that religion is all a scam, all you damn well need is Marco Rubio's Bible quote Tweets. It's like a fortune cookie, or a horoscope, except it doesn't taste good and it's not even entertaining or worth laughing at after awhile.

It very often seems to me that there are three reasons Republicans do anything. #1 "Fuck you" #2 Get Money and #3 Fooling the feeble-minded. I suppose it would be a mistake to think Republican religion is any different.

And I say that as somebody who used to be a Republican. I'd like to think we were better, or at least different, from this at the time. But on the other hand, as Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert are evidence of, I know that some of us weren't...and those of us who weren't bad actors or crowd followers are the ones who got driven out as all the current manias began to take hold in the years after 9/11.

And now Trump is threatening war crimes live on Twitter, 52 'cultural sites' one each for the 52 hostages taken by the Iranians when I was six years old. No joke, I wonder if Trump can remember what he was doing from 1979 to 1981? I really don't, except for remembering Christmas those years, seeing Empire Strikes Back and watching the first Space Shuttle launch with my Dad. The Iran hostage crisis doesn't even rank up there with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on the 'things I remember' list. But somehow it's rankled Republicans so endlessly for 40 years that they're still trying to start wars over it, wars that we are fast losing the ability to fight, without even having any allies in the region or with NATO standing down in Syria because they're worried about Iranian attacks on their own troops. With the Iraqis ordering us out, we're either attacking from Afghanistan, Pakistan or Turkey...which likely won't allow us to use their territory...or we're launching airstrikes or airborne and amphibious assaults. Anybody want to take a guess how that's going to work out against a large and sophisticated armed forces that has a mix of East Bloc and Western equipment and which largely operates according to Soviet doctrine?

Let me give you a hint. Swarms of flying telephone-pole SA-2 Guideline/S-75 Dvina Surface to Air Missiles won't even be relevant to an F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter, but they'll wreak endless havoc on the C-17A Globemasters that are actually carrying 82nd Airborne infantry troops.

And if you think the morons in charge of military procurement, who can't even make sure our own new ships work, are gonna up their game on keeping enough AIM-9X Sidewinders or JDAM's ordered, produced, in transit and on the ramp to supply a goddamn air campaign of the scale we'd need...or make sure that enough Security Forces are present to adequately defend all these aircraft and munitions based across the Arabian Gulf in Saudi from threats over there...or keep them in jet fuel and spares or food for the pilots and maintainers...you almost certainly have another thing coming.

And then these people, who can't even make sure aircraft-carrier munitions elevators work or that the main guns on Zumwalt-class Destroyers have ammunition (or even a manufacturer for it! For rounds that cost a million bucks a shot, no less!) are going to properly support the kind of war you get when you strike at cultural and religious sites, against the kind of people who will hold a grudge for a thousand years?

I'm not buying it, hell I'm not even renting it, and these idiots need to go before they get a whole bunch of people killed because they're stupid.

And if you're not willing to stand up and vote them out, and fight if they don't go peacefully, then fuck you.

You're part of the goddamned problem.

Republicans don't care about America, fuck, they don't care about themselves. It's all about their shitty ideology.

And they see anything other than a "No" backed by the reasonable threat of force as an endorsement of that shitty ideology.

This crap needs to stop and if you're not willing to stand up and stop it, you're not even going to benefit yourself at this point, unless you already have billions, again, fuck you. I have nothing else to say to you but those two words.

These assholes need to go, it's really that simple.