Wallowing in Lies [POLITICS]

NOTE:  My usual comments. Supporters of President Trump should ignore this post. You won’t like it and it’ll just upset you. It’s 1330 words long. Its 7 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back. So, do yourself a favor and don’t read it. Seriously. You don’t need the aggravation.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

President Trump declares NATIONAL EMERGENCY!!! Hordes of pillaging, raping, thieving, murdering brown people are preparing to invade. They’re cleverly disguised as unarmed Hispanic men, women and children seeking asylum, looking for a better way of life or wanting to work the hard jobs needing workers! Don’t be fooled by these sneaky brown people. The Leader is prepared to spend 8 billion in tax dollars to pay for an IMPENETRABLE WALL to combat these miscreants! Staging of napalm, Agent Orange, mines, tanks, cluster bombs, tear gas, etc. will begin immediately. Strike aircraft will be placed on alert along with Spectre AC-130 gunships, armed drones and attack helicopters. Militias in white hooded robes are encouraged to head to the border to help defend the Fatherland from the brown menace! Martial law is now in effect along the entire border. LEADER! LEADER! LEADER! (I just threw that last part in for dramatic effect.)

In the meantime…

        *To belabor the point as well as reinforce it, President Trump said that a wall along the southern border would be built and that MEXICO would PAY for it! The crowd would cheer when the Leader said it. LOTS! “100%!” The crowd would cheer some more. The Mexican government said that they would NOT pay for the wall. Then Candidate Trump would say “10 feet higher!” The crowd would cheer! LOTS MORE! President Trump said that it would be easy for him to get Mexico to pay for his wall! Cheers from the crowd! “LEADER, LEADER LEADER!”

        *This is a link to some real jazzy music with Trump saying 10 feet higher! < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swQ_2RxRGeE  > It really is nicely done and kind of funky. It’s got a catchy beat and would be easy to dance to. The lyrics are simple and easy to remember.

        *President Trump even said that we should remember him saying that Mexico would pay for the wall. He said it repeatedly. He said that it would be easy. The link below is a compilation of a few of the many times of then candidate Trump saying that Mexico would pay for the wall. He would ask who was going to pay for the wall and his supporters would shout back, “Mexico!” It was great theater. That was his campaign promise. NOT saddling the cost on the back of tax paying Americans.

< https://www.facebook.com/NowThisElection/videos/360168261233542/ >

        *We know how that turned out. Instead, President Trump shut down our government and put 800,000 Americans out of work trying to get the poor and middle class to pay for the wall instead. And he said that he was proud to do it.

        *BREAKING NEWS!!!  Hordes of brown people have taken over the streets of McAllen, Texas! They’re everywhere! It’s chaos! The situation is desperate! They’re being overwhelmed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLGBoL9BWQ4

        *What? McAllen, Texas’ population is 82% Hispanic. So, never mind.

        *But what about this border city? In the clip their mayor does a nice job of explaining what’s going on. He has an excellent grasp of the situation. In short, they don’t want a wall either and there is no crisis.

        *It bears mentioning that every border Representative opposes Trump’s wall. Seems kind of odd, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t these people know that they’re under attack? Shouldn’t they know that they’re being invaded? That brown people are the enemy?

        *Doesn’t it seem that since this has been going on for a couple of decades that we should have bands of roving brown people pillaging in the streets by now? Now I know some people go completely nuts when an illegal brown person commits a crime but really given that this has gone on so long doesn’t it seem that local news should be filled with thousands of brown illegals committing heinous crimes every day? But it isn’t. Why? Because it isn’t happening. There aren’t hordes of looting, raping brown pillagers running amok in the streets.

        *There is no crisis at the border. There is no crime wave. There is no invasion taking place. We aren’t under attack from poor brown people. They come because we created the demand for their labor.

        *Border apprehensions peaked in the year 2000 at 1.64 million and have declined 76% since then. < https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/illegal-immigration-statistics/ > Apprehensions declined 43% in President Trump’s first full year in office. They are now back up to where they were under President Obama. He also had an abysmal record in how immigrants were treated during his administration.

        *Obviously we were ALL lied to by the Leader. The bottom line is that President Trump is no longer trying to deliver on his campaign promise to have Mexico pay for his wall. That’s failed. COMPLETELY! He tried briefly selling the premise that Mexico will somehow be paying for the wall because of the updated trade agreement. That’s yet another lie among the thousands that he has told.

        *Where was I? Oh yes! The Leader’s wall to keep out the brown hordes coming to join the 10 million or so illegals already here working the jobs in the fields, hospitality industry, meat processing plants, landscaping, restaurants and construction trades that can’t be filled. Oops! I almost left off golf courses, hotels and country clubs. President Trump is now busily firing the illegals that worked for him at his various properties for years. Then he can start hiring some more at below market wages. He already imports foreign domestics so it isn’t like he puts all his eggs in one basket when it comes to hiring cheap labor.

        *This is a link to a nice thoughtful piece about the border wall done by the CBC News. (Canadian.) < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzfCZ6W7NeE > I just added this because I like to throw in something thoughtful every now and then.

        *I like making bullet points. Here are a few concerning what the Leader campaigned on.

·       “I will build a great wall!” [Now, I didn’t take that to mean that he would engage in the actual physical labor of building a wall. Having Mexico pay for the wall is now dropping out of the picture. Yet it was a foundational claim that President Trump campaigned on. Foundational.]

·       “Lock her up!” [He didn’t really mean that either and said so after he was elected.  < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix49LjgaTaI > Remember when Flynn chanted it? Irony.]  

·       “Repeal and replace” was another big one. < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-VTbt-i_b4&t=41s > < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q50m4ohVUs > [Another big lie. He had nothing. Republican leadership had nothing. They have been doing their level best to destroy to Affordable Care Act rather than fixing what was wrong with it. Two years they controlled government completely. Nothing.]

·       He was only going to appoint the best people. [He’s had the highest turnover of staff than any President in history. People that he has appointed are not only being found guilty but they are pleading guilty to crimes that they committed working for the Leader.]

·       He wasn’t going to have time to golf. [He’s already golfed more than President Obama did in 8 eight years.]

        *President Trump continues every day to tell a gullible group of people anything they want to hear in order to retain their support, whether it’s lying about tax breaks, tax returns, providing affordable insurance, not being involved with the Russians, throwing Hillary Clinton in jail or lying about immigrants. He is an equal-opportunity liar: no lie is too big or too small. He embodies the worst characteristics of politicians that conservatives say they abhor. He will continue to write checks with his mouth that he can’t cash.

        *This is the president that the Republican Party has been in the process of creating for years. He is the Republican Party. The Republican Party is him.

No King but Caesar [Politics/Religion]

        This is a tough time for Christians to write and maintain civility because the very nature of what we are going through requires us to define events as well as people in negative terms. Unfortunately that’s the world as it is. So what are we to do? Do we let the hateful agenda of right-wing evangelicals define the faith? Can we turn to Jesus for guidance? Should we at least try and use his life as an example of what we should do? How should we respond?

        Jesus didn’t hold back in criticizing the Pharisees. He was the enemy of Rome whether he liked it or not because to them Caesar was God. Jesus was not. The Caesar of Rome let the Pharisees (Religious leaders) keep their people in line as long as the money kept coming in and there weren’t any insurrections.

        But for Christians Jesus was Lord. Jesus was a radical religious LIBERAL. Jesus did NOT go to Caesar for help. He did not go to Caesar to seek power. He did not try to get Caesar to enforce his will upon the Roman Empire. It wouldn’t have worked.

        Fast forward to today and the right wing conservative evangelicals have thrown in with their Caesar, President Trump. They are the Evangelical Party. I already received one of their mailings in regards to November. They are promoting a huge “Christian” turn out for President Trump. Their Christians. They, like the Pharisees and Sadducees before them, are trying to whip their Christians into line for their Caesar by getting them to vote and act for those that will give them power. They want the power of Rome exercised through the President and his followers.

Pat Robertson:  “I think, somehow, the Lord’s plan is being put in place for America and these people are not only revolting against Trump, they’re revolting against what God’s plan is for America.”

Franklin Graham:  “Hundreds of thousands of Christians from across the United States have been praying. This year they came out to every state capitol to pray for this election and for the future of America. Prayer groups were started. Families prayed. Churches prayed. Then Christians went to the polls, and God showed up. While the media scratches their heads and tries to understand how this happened, I believe that God’s hand intervened Tuesday night to stop the godless, atheistic progressive agenda from taking control of our country.” (Did God show up when Hitler took power? Germany was a “Christian” nation as much as the United States is.)

James Dobson:  “The Lord played a role in the election of Donald Trump. He was raised up for such a time as this.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.:  "Plenty of presidents have paid lip service to God, but few, if any, have demonstrated a consistent tendency to walk in Christ's shoes and make the morally correct decision instead of the politically easy one." (Technically I don’t believe that Falwell Jr. qualifies as a right wing conservative evangelical. He father along with Pat Robertson are a couple of evangelicals that put forth the belief that we had 9/11 coming to us.)

Tony Perkins:  “We kind of gave him, ‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here.’” (A response he gave in an interview in regards to the Trump and Stormy Daniels affair. A mulligan! God, please give me a mulligan on that last one! And God said go and mulligan no more.  NIV, Golf Gospel. BTW it’s reported that he cheats at golf. That might actually qualify as a sin but I’m not trying to drive a wedge between golfers.)

Donald Trump (In response to a question asking if he seeks forgiveness.):  “I don’t think so. I think I, if I do something wrong I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture.”

Ralph Reed:  “And I say that not as hyperbole but because we did it to Obama. When we took the House and the Senate, he could do almost nothing. … He couldn’t do anything on climate change, couldn’t do anything more on Obamacare, couldn’t raise taxes–legislatively he was a lame duck.” (A response given as to why Christians should vote Republican in November. I have to admit here that I did not know that he and his buddies were in charge of Congress then.)

Jeremiah Johnson:  “Trump does not fear man nor will he allow deception and lies to go unnoticed.” (This doesn’t exactly explain why Donald Trump avoided the draft.)

        Here’s scripture that Evangelicals are using to support President Trump.

        “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Romans 13:1 (NIV) Evangelicals consider the bible to be inerrant.

        This is scripture evangelicals used for President Obama.

        “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” Psalms 109:8 (KJV) Two options here. Impeached or dead. But wait! Here’s the rest of the story. “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow!” Psalms 109:9. Nope. They just wanted the President dead.

        On the one hand it’s refreshing to see that evangelicals are progressively flexible when it comes to the inerrancy of the bible. On the other hand their interpretations are hypocritical.

        Judas sold out for silver. What did evangelicals sell out for? An embassy in Jerusalem?

The possibility of making getting an abortion more difficult for the poor and middle class? Protection of their religious beliefs at the exclusion of others? Their agenda of getting the right to discriminate against others at their choice?  Tax breaks for the friends of Caesar? Political power? Wealth?

        Christians are far from unified in their opinions of what is taking place in this country. With the faith already in decline the actions of evangelicals will drive an even deeper wedge between the faith and the youth that are needed for the future continued viability of the church. They portray themselves as the voice of Christendom even though they don’t speak for all Christians (or probably even the majority of Christians). They claim that this President is a divine leader anointed by God. (They made no such claim for President Obama.) Evangelicals have become servants to the rich and powerful. They are servants to their Caesar.

        There are evangelicals that believe that President Trump is fulfilling the prophecies by moving the embassy to Jerusalem.  By helping to get Donald Trump elected and helping him stay in power they believe they have become the hand of God. God needs their help!

        The Saudis have their “Islamic religious police” and now the United States of America now has the “Religious Freedom Task Force” (RFTF) being put in place to enforce the doctrines of the Pharisee evangelicals. Their goals are about as unchristian as you can get when it comes to the teachings of Jesus.

        If Jesus comes back and tries to enter the United States at the Mexican border, well, good luck getting past ICE and armed militia citizens. Jesus was real big on taking care of immigrants, the poor, the sick, children, the homeless, families and just people in general. He didn’t care what color they were. Jesus was probably brown. He also wasn’t super-hot crazy about the rich. He wanted them to give up all their stuff and follow him. They lived in communes. Crazy, huh!

        Support for Trump can’t be because he’s moral or provides a good example of how a Christian should act. (Good grief, the Southern Baptist church I was saved at wouldn’t even let a divorced person hold a position in church.) The man is a veritable fountain of lies and hate. He has now, after denying it as fake news for months, finally admitted to paying off women that he was cheating on Melania with. One of which was a porn star. Unprotected sex with a porn star. Talk about high risk behavior. He put his wife at risk as well.

        Another objective that they are striving for is to get abortion made illegal. Now, that won’t stop abortions from taking place. It never has. It never will. They know that. It will just drive women back to the coat hanger days and “back alley” abortions. They want women punished. Hell, they want women to suffer. If they see a pregnant woman out having a little wine they want to be able to sic the police on them for endangering the child that they’re carrying. A woman having a miscarriage would be suspect. Did she engage in behavior that put her pregnancy at risk? Send in agents of the RFTF to investigate.

        They want to deny service to those that they perceive as being sinners. They want to be able to discriminate. They want to discriminate against the brown people coming across the border. They want children separated and families destroyed. It is their righteous justice! They are the mighty evangelicals. They want other religions denounced! They are the power brokers to the Caesar of today. They are God’s agents. They will be the arbiters of the American Christian inquisition.

        President Trump is the man that they hold up for America as the idol of their values. He is the example that they want children to follow. This man that has never said that it was wrong for him to cheat on all of his wives. This man that mocks people’s appearance. This man that calls names and insults people on a daily basis. He encourages violence. A man that mocks the law. A man that lies constantly. A man that doesn’t ask for forgiveness of his sins let alone admit that he has sinned. A man of avarice and greed. A man obsessed with himself. A man that shares the values of racists and white nationalists. They are drawn to his message.  These are the values that the Evangelical Party now supports.

        Pharisee evangelicals certainly don’t speak for me.