Who is like unto the Beast?? (American Revelation XVII, Four.)

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.

And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceive them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13, King James Bible.

So, yesterday Trump got shot.

Apparently, he got shot with an AR-15 Rifle by a 20-year-old registered Republican gun-nut who was wearing a T-shirt from some gun YouTuber when he shot at Trump. The Secret Service killed the subject, so we'll probably never know why. But. I suspect like that kid who shot Gabby Giffords, there may have been some level of mental illness involved.

Just gonna say I'm suspicious here. 

Too many things don't add up.

And today, Republicans are making a full-court press, blaming DEI , Democrats and Women. 

I'm like "What the fuck??"

It's as if they think no one would dare attack anybody surrounded by a cohort of Secret Service Agents that was all White dudes wearing Terminator sunglasses and shit. 

The world does not work that way. The color of your skin does not have magical properties.

Whatever belief in "Racial hierarchy" you think you have? It's all horseshit. 

As far as any objective measure is concerned, humans is humans, period.

Ya know, I suppose JFK's detail was probably all whatever passed for white boy "Alpha Male" at the time and that clearly didn't help him any.

From a purely operational perspective, I hate to sound that way but "Shit happens."

From an investigative perspective, clearing the fog on this one is going to suck. 

There's a lot of parties involved here who'd love to use this bullshit to amp people up and continue to destabilizing America.

I hate Trump, but obviously I also think it sucks and it's wrong that he got shot. 

I want Trump to live a long and unhappy rest of his life, looking at the world through the bars of a cell for all the shit he did to this country while he has all the time in the world to think about it. For dudes like Trump...who don't really believe in anything...death is just an escape from other consequences.

And I'm here to tell you, the far-right will use this shit as an excuse for political violence. They do, in fact, long for Trump and people like him to become Martyrs for their "Cause." 

Some other Republican nut might well take a shot at Joe, or at somebody else, and then somebody else will take a shot at another one. That's how wars start! So no, nobody really needs this shit, like at all.

We're there, and I say that especially because the shooter was a Republican. I've always said my trip-wire for worrying about a civil war would be Republicans going after Republicans. 

Well, that line got crossed awhile ago. Now? It's gotten worse.

And while I don't think the quality of the average Proud Boy or other Republican wannabe is up to fighting in an actual Civil War, I think a right-wing insurgency, like an American version of The Troubles in Northern Ireland is a real possibility, it would also be likely to be egged on by the media, on a for-profit bases.

And I absolutely think that if that happens and it ends up in some kind of negotiated settlement that the Far-right gets some small Banana Republic out of, that place would have this Project 2025 garbage be its Constitution.

Think about that, for a second.

Yes, I think Republican unreasonableness has done that much damage to our national cohesion already.

So you better hope that Biden and the Democratic voter base stay the course, because that's the only way we're gonna win this thing.

Now is the time to quit chasing Unicorns and be a Better Citizen.

One side shows care and concern for their fellow citizens, even the ones they don't like.

The other looks at Donald Trump and says "Who is like unto the Beast, who can make war with him?"

One of these things is not like the other one, and it's past time to start acting accordingly.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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Three

You can't separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

~Malcolm X.

...

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan