We Can't

Don't put these assholes in charge.

Today's IG

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Today's IG

I'm OK with Jesus - but some of his fans really suck.

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This Is Not A Christian Nation

And - as always - the "Christian Nationalists" are talkin' out their ass.

Today's Wingnut

Our rights don't come from a god, and they don't come from a government.

Saying our rights are god-given (endowed by a creator), or granted under the US Constitution - all of that is euphemism. It's just a convenience of language.

Nobody "gives" us our basic human rights - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness - we're born with them. So what we do is create institutions of law to keep powerful people from denying us those rights.

If we allow Mike Johnson's imaginary friend to inform us about our rights, then we're opening the door for Mr Johnson to tell us he gets to fuck us out of our rights because that same imaginary friend said so.

You believe what you want to believe, and sorry not sorry, but fuck you and the god you rode in on, Skeezix.

Today's Brian

Brian Tyler Cohen

Prominent Pastor Speaks Out Against Christian Nationalism as 'Heresy'

The traditional approach to politics and faith is often seen as a competition between two sides: left vs. right, woke vs. unwoke, Red State Jesus vs. Blue State Jesus. However, the Rev. William J. Barber II, a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and contemporary leader who has been compared to Martin Luther King Jr., has developed a different approach: "fusion politics."

This approach brings together coalitions that often transcend the traditional conservative vs. progressive divide. Barber believes that by uniting marginalized groups such as the poor, immigrants, working-class whites, religious minorities, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community, a powerful force for change can be created. (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Barber argues that these groups share a common enemy, citing how the same forces that demonize immigrants also attack low-wage workers, the same politicians that deny living wages also suppress the vote, and the same people who deny the climate crisis and refuse to act are also willing to deny access to healthcare to millions of Americans.

By leading one of the nation’s most sustained and visible anti-poverty efforts as co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Barber has become one of the country's most prominent activists and speakers, known for his fusion politics approach.

Who is Rev. William J Barber II?

Rev. William J. Barber II has made a name for himself as a powerful speaker and organizer, known for his "fusion politics" approach. He delivered an electrifying speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention that was called a "drop the mic" moment by one commentator. Barber also regularly organizes and marches with groups such as fast-food workers and union members, at a time when both political parties have been accused of ignoring the working class.

Barber has also been outspoken about the importance of voter turnout among marginalized communities, saying, "there is a sleeping giant in America." He believes that poor and low-wealth folks now make up 30% of the electorate in every state and over 40% of the electorate in every state where the margin of victory for the presidency was less than 3%. He argues that if these marginalized communities vote, they could fundamentally shift every election in the country.

Starting this month, Barber will take his fusion politics approach to the Ivy League as the founding director of Yale Divinity School's new Center for Public Theology and Public Policy. In this role, he hopes to train a new generation of leaders who will be comfortable "creating a just society both in the academy and in the streets."

Rev. William J. Barber II has announced that he will step down as pastor of the North Carolina church where he has served for 30 years, but he has made it clear that he is not retiring from activism. He remains the president of Repairers of the Breach, a nonprofit organization that promotes moral fusion politics.

Against Christian Nationalism

Barber has recently spoken out against White Christian nationalism, a movement that insists that the US was founded as a Christian nation and seeks to erase the separation of church and state.

When asked why poverty is so urgent to face now, Barber responded: "Doctor King used to say America has a high blood pressure of creeds, but an anemia of deeds. In every generation we’ve had to have a moment to focus on the urgency of the right now. We will never be able to fix our democracy until we fully face these issues. We will constantly ebb and flow out of recessions because inequality hurts us all." Barber also cites Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz's book "The Price of Inequality," which argues that it costs more as a nation for these inequalities to exist than it would for us to fix them. Barber also argues that paying a living wage would not hurt business, but rather it is the lack of it that does.

Rev. William J. Barber II, an advocate of "fusion politics" has spoken out against the concept of White Christian nationalism, arguing that it is flawed because it goes against the core values of Christianity.

He explains that the scriptures say that God loves all people and that if a nation is going to embrace Christian values, then one must know what those values are, and they certainly aren't discriminatory or exclusive. He also explains his view of the word “evangel” which means good news and that when Jesus used that phrase it was in his first sermon, which was a public policy sermon. He said it in the face of Caesar, where Caesar had hurt and exploited the poor. He also explains that he embraces the kind of evangelicalism that Jesus embraces and that is to start where Jesus started, preaching good news to the poor.

He also speaks about his health challenges and how he keeps going year after year and keeps himself from being burned out. He finds inspiration in reading the Bible and seeing that all the people that God used in a major way had some physical challenge, it helped him overcome any pity party and made him see that Moses couldn't talk, Ezekiel had strange post-traumatic syndrome types of emotional issues, Jeremiah was crying all the time from his struggles with depression, Paul had a physical thorn in the flesh, Jesus was acquainted with sorrow.

Today's Wingnut

These ChristoPunks have spent 50 years - and hundreds of millions of dollars - marching in lockstep with the politicians who've been angling and pimping and militating to get Roe overturned, and "suddenly" they have no plan to handle the consequences of their fuckery?

It was never about the babies. Never.

Right Wing Watch Blog

Appearing on "Wallbuilders Live," Texas state Rep Phil King admitted the state's adoption system is completely unprepared to deal with the fallout of Roe v Wade being overturned:

"We feel like the dog that caught the car ... I do not think we are prepared for this."

Eat Your Veggies

YouTuber CC Marie with a dissertation on Christian Dominionism.

'Tis The Season

Christianity Today came out with an editorial saying they support 45* being impeached and removed from office.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

OK, so - I'll take just about anything anybody says that supports getting that malignant toad-squat outa my government. I'm just having a little bit of an issue along the lines of where the fuck have you idiots been this whole fuckin' time!?

Isn't it interesting - the Christianists are bailing on 45* now that their sheeple are starting to abandon them for having supported him from the beginning.

There is no greater hypocrisy than a "church" that covets the economic benefits of its political affiliations - while exalting itself for being "above the fray" - and then tries to distance itself from a politician once it becomes clear that they stand to lose some of those benefits because of their support for that politician.

And the kicker is they're talkin' like they just now found out what a fuckin' slug the guy is.

I think we all know I'd be beatin' you with a stick and runnin' your asses outa the temple
Check yourself, bitches

A Fine Rant

Frank Schaeffer

What's Wrong With The Evangelicals?

Y'mean, besides the fact they're a buncha pinch-faced blue-nosed puritanical assholes?

Daniel Schultz, Rewire News:

Late last week, my friend John Stoehr made a daring argument: “white evangelical Christian support for Donald Trump isn’t rooted in hypocrisy, contradiction or merely straying from the straight and narrow,” he said. “The reason they support a fascist president is simple: They’re sadists.”

You have to read the article to capture the nuances of what John is saying. The kind of sadism he’s talking about doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with sexual pleasure derived from the pain of another. Rather—drawing on the work of the philosopher Richard Rorty—”It’s about the pain, humiliation or even violence out-groups deserve by dint of being out-groups.” Sadism also includes the pleasure of seeing “justice” be done against those deserving punishment.

- and -

First of all, let’s clarify that it really is not all white evangelicals who have become sadists. About a quarter of that group is in fact liberal, and many of them are committed to various forms of social inclusion and justice. But conservative white evangelicals by and large believe, perversely, in a world of justice and order. Each part of that equation is important.

White evangelicals and other conservative Christians believe that God has ordained certain ways of being and doing in the world. That’s the order part. Daddies are leaders, then mommies, then kids. This is the traditional cis-het thing you’re familiar with.

Religion is authoritarian. That's why it always fits perfectly with the Daddy State.

On Any Give Sunday

Dear Trump-gelicals,

Jesus called - while you were all over at his dad's place - on his only day off - suckin' up to him and asking him for a buncha free stuff. Anyway, Jesus called - left y'all a message:

The Lord Speaks

Conservative Christians are saying Donald Trump was sent to do the lord's work and deliver America into the kingdom of heaven.

That's the best argument in favor of atheism anybody's ever made.

-- god

(hat tip = @thegoodgodabove)

Each New Thing

Almost every day, when the newest horrifyingly right radical thing drops into our laps, I think, "this has to be as bad as it gets".  And every time, all I have to do is wait for a day (sometimes less), and along comes something to top it.

Leggings and gerbils, Dave Daubenmire (via Right Wing Watch):

Tim Wise (FB):

America will never be great until people who think like this are marginalized and removed from any position of authority or influence over anything besides their little pathetic tabernacles to the Lord...sadly, large numbers of men think this way and have quite a bit of power and influence.. And that is one of the reasons we can't have nice things. Time for men whose masculinity isn't threatened by strong and powerful women to stand up and demand that men like this are a relic of the past and should be relegated to it...like museum relics.

Tis The Season

...for everybody who needs a quick rebuttal for all those cranks who can't stop eye-guzzling DumFux News - waiting for the annual tradition of bringing the usual and customary crapola about how Obummer and Moochell are alla time slaggin' poor ol' Christmas (and various shit like that right there).

From whitehouse.gov:

Go Baphamet

The Christianistas continue to trip over their own dicks.  They seem to have become completely isolated inside their little bubble.  They've sold themselves on the rhetorical non-sense of "America is a Christian nation and the federal government was founded on Judeo-Christian values etc etc etc".  They believe it, and they're convinced everybody else believes it too, and so they're just charging ahead (like Greaves says) without stopping to think that the all-important First Amendment thing that gives them the right to preach their version of "the truth" cuts the same for everybody else too.

From Raw Story:

This week, the state of Missouri’s draconian 72-hour waiting period for an abortion was in the spotlight again when a conservative state legislator made it clear he would try and stop a graduate student from studying the wait period’s impact on women.

But conservative Christians who have been pushing these ideologically-driven policies may have created their own demise without realizing it. The Satanic Temple sprung up to challenge the attempts to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. And as the constitutional activists point out, they fight theocracy using the same laws and legal arguments pushed by conservative Christians.

“We’re fighting an enemy now that hasn’t had to think things through, and that’s what gives us such an advantage,” said Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves in an interview with The Raw Story. “They’re used to being the only beneficiaries of the privileges that they have fought for, and that kind of monopoly has made them complacent, stupid and weak, and it’s just made it that much easier for us to come in and assert ourselves the way we have.”

As for me, on the whole Abortion Issue, I think I know maybe 4 things:

1. A caterpillar is not a butterfly.
2. A tadpole is not a frog.
3. A fertilized chicken egg is not a chicken.
4. Nothing that's going on in my daughter's uterus is any of your god-dammed business, so fuck the fuck off, motherfucker.

Today's Sendup

hat tip = Facebook buddy VWE

My Apologies In Advance

I'm gonna stop just short of asking, "Are we sure Seal Team 6 got the right guy?"

C'mon, now.  Seriously.  The guy's just a complete jag-off in some random videos telling us we're all evil and how we need to live our lives according to the fairy-tale bullshit that he thinks is the embodiment of the wisdom of his imaginary friends.  And the other one's dead - it is kinda hard to tell 'em apart sometimes tho'.

No - really - seriously serious.  Don't throw shit at anybody's head or anything.

hat tip = The Rude Pundit

WWJD?

If Jesus worked in advertising or PR:



I'm not convinced Jesus was a real guy.  It makes more sense for me to go along with the idea that "he" was an amalgam - pieced together from a lot of old stories about heroes and newer notions of how maybe we could do things a little differently; that instead of always reacting in a knee-jerk way of meeting force with force, we should at least consider just being kinda relaxed and groovy.  I certainly prefer the Hippie Jesus of peace and love to the Badass Jesus that gets pimped at us constantly by One Million Moms - or Several-Dozen-Screaming-Twatwaffle-Goons - or whatever wacko faction du jour happens to have found something that offends them after deliberately going miles out of their way to find something that offends them.

Yo - Brian

At first blush, it's easy to follow Mr Fischer's reasoning as he says he "discriminated", but he wants us to understand that he's not really "discriminating" (tho' of course he is), but no really, he just wants us all to know that he thinks wimmins is all wonderful and capable and competent...but but but flip flop flip.

The not-so-discreet implication is that them wimmins is only wonderful and capable and competent at doin' all that Wimmin's Work, but hey, let's throw the gals a bone, shall we? (even a bad double entendre seems appropriate here because the kinda shit this guy peddles is convoluted enough to confuse a Byzantine Imperator).

Maybe we should talk about the obvious Mommy Issues that are just barely below the surface, but also too, anybody who spends that kinda time and energy gushing about how welcoming and comforting he feels women are - well, maybe we're into a little self-loathing; trying to admit to being a complete dickweed who has none of the loving qualities he says he finds so endearing in women.  Or maybe he's overcompensating a tiny bit because he has doubts about his own manliness.

Or maybe it's just another mundane example of a guy applying a little lubricating flattery to loosen up somebody's panties.

Fucking classic, dude.