Trump & The Christian Nationalists

Jesus once said: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” ~ Matthew 22:37-40

Is there anything that calls out Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians for their phony piety and maligned morality than their support for Donald Trump? Do they really believe that god – any god, pick one – would have anything to do with the four-time-indicted, 34-time-convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator and the most mendacious individual to ever occupy the Oval Office of the United States? If you’d like to see an example of the piety crowd at their most delusional, then look no further than their slavish devotion to Trump and their obvious excitement at the prospects of him occupying the office again. If they have achieved anything with this misplaced support it is to further reinforce the impression that their religion and their motivations are nothing more than a politically-motivated pretense to move the country further towards their goal of a Christian nation.

The demonic forces they claim lay behind the campaigns of Joe Biden, now out of the race since handing the baton to VP Kamala Harris, can only be defeated by, of all people, Donald Trump! Yes, according to these purveyors of religious delirium only Donald Trump can save our country from the depravity and debauchery into which it has been led by the “godless” Democratic party! Christian political activists are putting millions of dollars on the very man convicted of 34 felony crimes (and counting), multi-million-dollar business tax fraud in New York State, and an adjudicated sexual assault predator! This is the man that the phony piety crowd is putting their money on to save the country and bring us back to the god-fearing nation we once were, even though we have never been a Christian nation in any real respect. The very same man that can no longer participate in a charity in the state of New York due to his fraudulent mishandling of funds AND who sold phony university degrees to armed services veterans not worth the paper upon which they were written has been sent by god to save the United States. Yeah. And I’m the Easter Bunny.

Only the most seriously deluded and cognitively dissonant can rationalize such nonsense and, as it happens, that’s the very target audience many Christian organizations have focused their efforts. Those that believe in the invisible man in the sky, a 6,000-year-old planet Earth, (an Earth where dinosaurs and humans cohabitated) humans that literally “popped” into existence in our current, “unevolved” state, a worldwide flood that wiped-out humanity save a single family, talking serpents and asses, (although as “talking asses” go I believe Trump has proven this conclusively) and dead people rising from their graves and parading around city! The most adroit snake-oil salesmen in the country are focused on convincing their delirious sheeples of the truthfulness of their claims, even while their candidate demonstrates the very opposite of virtually everything and anything that Jesus ever said and taught. (See Matthew quote above; remind you of Donald Trump? I didn’t think so, me either!)

We now know about the vast and various Christian power bases behind this most despicable candidate and the dystopic society they would have us living in given their ability to do so. Consider the so-called Ziklag organization, a Christian organization supported by wealthy Christians such as the owners of Hobby Lobby and described by investigative journalists ProPublica as: “A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.” Christians collaborating to steal the election as I assume they would have us believe Jesus would as well.

Another Christian organization dedicated to the election of Trump is the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian conservative legal nonprofit. According to the Washington Post: “The organization has had nine successful cases before the court in the past seven years, including Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which allowed corporations to opt out of covering contraceptives based on religious beliefs. And it was ADF that created model legislation for “bathroom bills,” which bar students from using restrooms that don’t correlate to their sex at birth.”

There are many, many more. Christian organizations across the country are working diligently to re-craft our society into the white-washed and white-dominated country they contend their imaginary savior endorses and represents a real and present danger to the democratic life that our relatives and ancestors fought and died for, and of which the rest of the world looks upon with envy. These groups are not community volunteers nor are they motivated by altruism. These are people of power for whom money and power are virtually everything and they want control, complete and boundless; of the government and the rules of our society, and they see Donald Trump as the vehicle to their ends.

As it has become painfully obvious, the self-designated “Freedom Party” and “Freedom Caucus” in Congress, AKA the GOP, which includes the likes of such political standouts as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, has been the party that takes your freedoms from you while telling you it is in your best interests and those of society at large. Yes, it is in our collective best interests not to be able to decide what we or our children can read which is why the repugnant red states are purging our libraries of such radical tomes as “Animal Farm” and “Anne Frank’s Diary”. We simply cannot be responsible to choose reading material on our own, it must be done for us and by those that claim to know better and, therefore, will make these decisions for us. Similarly, women cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about their health, particularly their maternal health. We need the government to intercede on behalf of woman, even as some women cling to their very lives for lack of medical care while the government dawdles in the courts. Hopefully, they’ll still be alive when the government finally arrives at its’ decision about their healthcare. The party that has been extolling the virtues of getting government off our proverbial backs would now like for the government to, not just share in the most intimate decisions of our lives but will actually have the last word over these matters.

And these kinds of behaviors go on and on and into all areas of life. Consider the solutions to “voter fraud” legislated by red states that always seem to include making it more difficult to vote and overwhelmingly in areas of black or brown people. Texas has closed over 700 polling places since 2022 exclusively in areas where minorities vote while positioning the changes as solving some colossal threat to democracy from non-whites and/or “illegal aliens”, undocumented workers that already have no lawful right to vote.

There is much more to reveal about this, we haven’t even begun to discuss the introduction of the Bible into our public schools complete with morning prayer and Creationism being taught as a legitimate alternative to evolution, as if there is any legitimacy at all to the Judeo-Christian mythology that warrants such special status over both the Constitution as well as other religions. They don’t seem to have any anticipation of the obvious battle over which of the 12,000 variations of Christianity in the U.S. will be the universally accepted version. We’ll wait with bated breath, I am sure.

When Kamala Harris wins the presidency and, with a lot of effort and hard work, the Democrats take the House and retain the Senate, they will need to pass new legislation aimed at securing the secular nature of the government complete with a new and vigorous reinforcing of the Johnson Amendment. The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. Tax Code that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are the most common type of nonprofit organization in the United States, ranging from charitable foundations to universities and churches. The amendment is named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, (of all places!) who introduced it in a preliminary draft of the law in July 1954. With a new emphasis placed on the Johnson Amendment and a reform of the Supreme Court including term limits and an ethics code with teeth, we can make tremendous progress towards a more compassionate and representative government for all Americans regardless of race, sexual identity, or any other discriminating factor.

We have less than 97 days; let’s stay focused and vigilant. Kamala Karma is Koming!

Pastor Greg Locke and the Insanity of Evangelicalism

Thank You Sam Alito & SCOTUS!

You Did What No One Else Has Done; United the Democrats!

As I have often said, the Supreme Court of the United States isn’t populated with judges on the Conservative side; it’s populated with political operatives. When John Roberts is the moderate you know you’re in deep doo-doo when it comes to rights. Remember Roberts, (along with Ted Cruz), was one of the crooks in Florida in 2000 trying to shut down the vote so George W. Bush could steal the election which, of course, he did. This SCOTUS has taken away any sense of safety we once had because of their abhorrent and false interpretation of the Second Amendment, scraped the Voting Rights Act giving license to the GOP to pass laws almost exclusively aimed at keeping minorities from the polls, and stripped a woman’s right to manage her own body and healthcare. This seems to be the “final straw” for many if not most American voters, repeatedly certified by the voters in states where abortion is now actually baked into the state constitutions by referendum. It appears that the “Freedom Party” is the party that actually strips our rights away, and in a way that the people of United States adamantly oppose. Under their egregious oversight the government will decide what you can and cannot read, what can and cannot be taught in our schools, and whether a woman would be granted rights to decide their own healthcare. For a political party that’s been decrying “small government” and working to minimize the effect of big government on our personal lives, this seems to be the very opposite of their political rhetoric. I cannot think of a more oppressive big government idea than having the state decide what we can read or how a woman manages her own body. Thankfully the repeal of the Roe v Wade by the “best Supreme Court that money can buy” seems to have been the move that awakened the “Sleeping Giant” that is the US voter.

The problem with this court is their fanatical belief in their religious dogma which they now seem hell-bent on imposing upon the rest of us whether we like it or not and a plurality of Americans are saying they do not like it at all. They seem to be genuine theocrats looking to impose the Bible into our laws. For all their screaming about the “impending“ imposition of Sharia law during the Obama administrations, it seems as though it’s quite another story as long as it’s the Judeo-Christian law being imposed.

But let’s give the devil his due, Samuel Alito and the Conservative Theocrats on the court have done what no one else has been able to do, i.e., unite the herd of cats that is the Democratic Party. This, coupled with the myriad clips of Donald Trump gloating over his single-handedly overturning Roe v Wade, should all but put the cherry on Joe Biden’s second presidential run. You should be prepared to see those clips over and over again in 2024.

Thank you, Samuel Alito, et al. We’ll see you all next November.

Christian Persecution?

Wait Until You See The Persecution They Perpetrate Given The Power To do So!

Listen to Christian radio and you will hear an awful lot of lying; from what the Bible says and means to the so-called persecution of Christians around the world. I try and listen to it everyday, at least for a while, to understand how they still are able to sell this mythological nonsense to the sleepy-sheep at large and in the 21st century. It is mind boggling. Often I think the speaker is either lying or doesn’t know his real scripture and, of course, his audience doesn’t know theirs at all, making things much easier. But the real threat coming from the delusional mythology crowd has to do with their intrusion into our government and their (phony) insistence that the United Stated was founded as a Christian nation which, of course we know, it was not. If there is anything about our history – our real history, not the “cooked-up”, white-washed nonsense they’d have you believe – it is absolutely clear that we are no friend of any deity’s.

Look at the absolute chaos and cruelty they have already perpetrated just with their new abortion laws; and this despite the facts that a majority of Americans believe that abortion services should continue to be available. Pregnant ten year olds forced to have the child of a rapist or a parent, women forced to carry an underdeveloped fetus to term knowing it will not survive after birth. Doctors refusing to conduct the procedure, not because they don’t believe an abortion is necessary or warranted, but because they are afraid of the legal ramifications brought on by the phony-baloney fundamentalists and conservatives. Look up the recent case of Milo in the papers and see how both the child and the parents suffered through the process; the child struggling to breathe (the poor babe never even cried) and the parents left to hold him until he expired 99 minutes later. I wonder how the doctors felt about having to put the unfortunate family into the senseless and cruel despair their actions propagated. “First Do No Harm?” Again, it is not enough for them to live by their own mindless sensibilities, we ALL have to be subjected to them as well. (Oh, wait, I forgot; we have their thoughts and prayers to get us through. Well, you know what you can do with their specious “thoughts ands prayers”.)

And this is just the beginning. You can bet there will be MUCH more in store for us as they continue their unconstitutional trek towards a theocracy. Keep in mind that whatever persecution Christians were subjected to in the first couple of centuries of their existence (nothing like they assert, they are many sources to confirm this) pales in comparison to the mind-boggling numbers of those tortured, murdered, executed, and exiled in vast numbers after Christianity became the new game in town. Entire towns, villages or faiths exterminated for having a different belief – sometimes only a slightly so – as soon as the new power holders took over. No one kills like those in the name of a god. Just crack open a religious history book, probably one of those banned from their libraries, and you will see what I mean.

From banning LGBTQ+ and transgender individuals from healthcare and other societal privileges, to banning books they just don’t want anyone to read, to forging a minority rule whereby they can implement a theocracy, you can believe we are just on the precipice. If we don’t fight this vehemently we will lose our democracy, our freedoms, our country.

Listen To The Crickets From The Religious Right

Not A Sound Concerning The Killing Of Our Children At Schools!

I recently called into a Christian radio station show (which shall remain unnamed, at least for now) and listened while hosts couldn’t stop gloating over the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade by the lying religious zealots on the court. They were simply over the top with enthusiastic praise to the “Lord” for his intervention – finally! Of course, no one mentioned the fact that it took some FIFTY YEARS before the “Lord” saw fit to take up the argument and finally settle the matter but I guess that’s par for the course since it took him FOUR HUNDRED YEARS to finally intervene and help the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt! (Gee. Thanks.) Apparently he’s got a major backload of prayers to answer! (Let’s not bother to mention that abortion is mentioned NOWHERE AT ALL in either Hebrew or Christian scripture, but moving on…..) The phone was answered by someone appointed to screen their calls and when asked the nature of my question I said I wanted to know how the Religious Rights’ overwhelming support of the GOP comports with their absolute resistance to gun control, in light of the extraordinary amount of school shootings and student deaths. I was extremely interested in how they were going to substantiate their position on this seemingly stark dichotomy in the value of life? I wonder if you, Dear Reader, can wager a guess as to how they reacted?

Those of you that guessed that they immediately proceeded to engage me in an on-the-air sensible debate about how they see the issues and their future plans of taking on the gun lobby can return to your seats; I’m afraid they did nothing of the kind. In fact, what they did do was hang up after telling me they were putting me on hold, at which point I called two or three more times and they continued to pick up the phone and hang up without speaking a word! Apparently they wanted absolutely nothing to do with this obvious and blatant hypocrisy on this most urgent, lethal issue.

As a kid growing up on Long Island in New York I can’t remember a single time when we had to practice an Active Shooter drill in my entire school career. In fact, before the “Texas Tower Shooting” in 1966 we had never even heard of such a thing and even afterwards we never engaged in such a drill or even thought about it again. Of course now, after corrupting the original meaning behind the Second Amendment and essentially giving the gun and firearms industry complete carte blanche on the manufacture and distribution of even the most lethal weapons available – including assault weapons that are manufactured for no other use than to kill people – the problem has become unsolvable and all we can get from our Republican “representatives” and their phony-baloney supporters in the Religious Right are “thoughts and prayers” and a lot of lip service about how no law enacted would have prevented the mass murder of our students. Keep in mind that after the Sandy Hook mass-massacre of kindergarten and first and second grade students – babies, really – and six heroic teachers, the entire GOP refused to lift a finger to do anything to prohibit this from happening again. Not a single thing. Again, nothing but their vacuous and useless thoughts and prayers, as if their mythological creator had no ideas about how to circumvent such egregious, pointless violence aimed at the most innocent of our population. Even more reprehensible is the fact that they hide behind “god” in order to facilitate their slavish, obsequious, bootlicking of the gun manufacturing industry.

The fact is we can no longer send our children to school and be 100% certain of their returning home alive. That’s where we are today a direct result of the efforts of our corrupt representatives falling over themselves for the blood-soaked dollars stuffed into their pockets from the gun industry! The GOP provide the thoughts and prayers, the rest of us provide the grief, anguish, and despair. Not a fair trade at all.

Who among us would believe that, had it happened in a school where the children of our elected officials attended, that we wouldn’t see some form of action or immediate response from the very same demented hypocrites in the GOP? Is the money they receive worth the lives of our children? And where exactly is the response from the Religious Right about the blatant murder of our children by individuals that should never have been allowed to even consider owning a firearm? Would the same miscreants selling Jesus everyday to their mindless assemblies have us believe the fiction that we are completely and utterly helpless to protect our children in any way?

The Religious Right MUST be called out on this outrageous hypocrisy. As I’ve often said, the GOP and the Religious Right are adamant that a woman must have a child when impregnated regardless of the circumstances however, once the baby is born, that’s where their concern ends. Women, you are on your own from that point on up to and including the murder of the very same children while attending school. Does multi-zillionaire Joel Osteen, John Hagee, Franklin Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, T.D. Jakes, Jim Bakker, and, my personal favorite, Kenneth “Four Jets” Copeland think that Jesus would approve of their sycophantish subservience to the gun industry?

Where are their voices? Where is the outrage at the complete absence of action to protect the children of this country? It amounts to nothing less than their complicity; they are, for all practical purposes, accomplices after the fact.

? , . .

Question For The Faithful

Q: Why Was Jesus’ Tomb Empty”

A: Because Jesus Was Never In A Tomb

I recently watched a YouTube video by Paulogia, a former Christian now fighting the good fight against the enemies of reason, rationale, and science. In it Paulogia was replying to challenges made by three Christian apologists; Mike Winger, Red Pen Logic, and InspiringPhilosphy to the argument as to whether Jesus’ body ever made it into a tomb. Now I am not a Bible scholar, nor am I a historian per se, but I have been reading and researching Christianity and Christian history for some 30 odd years or so and I do not believe you have to be a Bible scholar to weigh in on such religious claims. This topic in particular lends itself to enough reason as to conclude that Jesus was never in a tomb to begin with not only entirely plausible but highly likely.

Remember that when Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover festival the Romans were already on high alert. The Jews of the 1^st century were always hostile to the occupation of the Romans, complete with their standards depicting their Caesars as divinities and, sometimes in an act of pure provocation, even putting them in the Temple. Never were the Romans more ready for riot and disorderliness than during the high festivals such as Passover. And the Galilee, specifically where Jesus came from, was considered nothing less than a hotbed of sedition and rebellion. Pontius Pilate, who under normal circumstances would have resided in Caesarea in the splendor and comfort of his palace, made it a point to be in Jerusalem for the Passover feast in order to quash any potential unruliness or rioting that may have broken out. Keep in mind that when Jesus entered the city it was – supposedly – to an enthralled crowd of thousands of Jews screaming “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mark 21:9) This would have already aroused the suspicion of the Roman troops in the area as the crowds were essentially pleading with Jesus to save them from their plight under Roman rule. “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking “Who is this?” The crowds were saying “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” (Mark 21:10). This could be seen as bad enough however Jesus immediately enters the Temple and proceeds to turn the tables and cause even more commotion, this time violently.

Now Pontius Pilate was already known as a particularly cruel and brutal governor (or procurator, as his Roman title was) and had already been involved with – or the cause of – a number of particularly brutal episodes with Jewish crowds where hundreds or even thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Roman troops. He is referred to as such by Flavius Josephus and Philo of Alexandria as well as other contemporaneous authors however the Gospels gradually turn Pilate from the sole pronouncer of the death sentence on Jesus (Mark) to a milquetoast forced by the Jews to pass sentence on an innocent man or face the wrath of the Emperor, Tiberius. This is where the Gospels writers turn the tables from the Romans to the Jews as the purveyors of deicide and thus begins a two-thousand-year history of antisemitism and violence against Jews. It is much more conceivable – and likely – that having referred to himself as the King of the Jews, a very specific crime of sedition, Pilate sentenced Jesus to death, had him scourged and crucified, without even a morsal of remorse. He wouldn’t have had lost a moment of sleep over sentencing a rebellious Jew, instigator of turbulence and potential rioting, or had given it another thought. It is also highly likely, given his demeanor as described by the contemporaneous authors previously cited, that he would have allowed Jesus’ body to be removed from the cross.

We do know that there were instances where victims of crucifixion were allowed to be taken down and buried according to Jewish law or custom and this was Paulogia’s original comment on his Twitter blog. However, in most instances, this is not the case. One of the principal reasons and desired effects of the sentence of crucifixion was specifically for the public at large to see the effects of defying the Romans or causing mayhem or disorder. The site of a decaying corpse – being eaten by birds, dogs, literally falling off the cross – was the very best illustration that this could be YOU. Jesus, as a seditionist, rebellious instigator of Roman rule, and by declaring himself to be the “King of the Jews”, as inscribed in three languages on the titulus over his head confirms, it is extremely unlikely – and in my opinion, highly improbable – that his body would have ever been taken down. He simply would have decomposed until his bones were on the ground, then tossed into a common grave for such victims.

Now let’s dispel some of the more highly unlikely occurrences at this point in the passion narrative. First let’s dispense with the myth of Pilate releasing a prisoner as a Roman “tradition” (Mark 15:6). Besides the fact that there is absolutely no historical evidence of such a tradition in either Rome or Israel should close this loop once and for all however for the chosen subject for such clemency to be an acknowledged murderer and seditionist carries the story into the realm of fantasy. “Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection.” (Mark 15:7) In my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, we have a colloquial saying for such a story: “no f’n way, not in a million years!” I think it serves us well here as the chances of Pilate, in his infinite brutality, releasing a murderer of Roman soldiers or citizens is just beyond what any reasonable mind can absorb. This simply never happened. It is nothing more than a device used to put the blame of Jesus’ death on the Jews and away from the Romans. “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves. Then the people as a whole answered “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt 27:24-25)

Mission accomplished.

Next the idea that “Joseph of Arimathea”, literally synthesized out of thin air sashayes onto the scene as a “friend” of Pilates and walks off with Jesus’ body only hours after his death is simply inconceivable. As previously stated, this is out of the question; Pilate lets one seditionist go (Barabbas) and another to be taken down from the cross after only hours after his death. This can only be the need to get Jesus off of the cross and into a tomb from which he can later be resurrected. It isn’t even necessary to debate the fact that Arimathea is a total and completely mythological place, never having appeared on any map, ancient or modern. The place simply never existed and doesn’t to this day.

As far as the “witnesses to the resurrection”, no one ever saw Jesus “resurrecting”; they simply went to an empty tomb. Additionally, none of the four gospels tell the story the same way. “Matthew” tell us Mary Magdalen was there with the “other” Mary. (Mt 27:59-61) “Mark” says it was Mary Magdalen and “Mary the Mother of Joseph”. (Mk 15:46-47) “Luke” says “The women from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the entombment. (Lk 23:53-56) and, finally, “John” ever the embellisher, says it was “Nicodemus and Joseph” that wrapped the body and placed it in a tomb, “at a garden near where Jesus was crucified”. (Jn 19:39-42)

No one ever witnessed the actual reanimation of his body. The tomb was empty simply because Jesus never actually occupied a tomb.

Will The Ignorant Red State Governors Pay A Price for Their Lies & Incompetence?

Will the voters of DeSantis, Abbott, Kemp, et al hold them accountable for the deaths of their constituents?

In their rush to follow their “Dear Leader’s” request to reopen their states in order to try and save his election, it is abundantly clear that the science-denying Red State Governors Coalition unleashed the deadly virus in an even more devastating manner, greatly spiking both the rates of cases as well as deaths in their states. And all just to try and get their economies going in order to turn around Pseudo-President Trump’s disastrous campaign. Again; lives lost, deaths of men, women, and children, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, all to prop up the campaign of the most incompetent and narcissistic – and dangerous – Pseudo-President Russia ever elected. Never mind the fact that Trump’s campaign is in the very state in which it finds itself solely as a result of his own, inept and incompetent management of the worst pandemic the U.S. has seen since the Spanish Flu of 1918, culminating in the deaths of upwards of 150,000 Americans.

The question is: will the voters of these mean-spirited and heartless sycophant remember to repay their incompetence at the polls? Anyone?

Use Your Power As A Consumer To Change Gun Laws

It’s all the power we have left to affect change

With “Moscow Mitch” at the helm in the United States Senate there is very little chance of any meaningful gun legislation getting passed of their own accord. Our representatives are going to need some motivation from “we the people” if anything is going to be done about the absurd level of gun violence in this country. For all his constant mumbling about “the American people” and making sure “our” voices are heard, as in the case of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland whom, you’ll remember, Moscow Mitch refused to take up a confirmation vote on until the “American people” had a chance to chime in – right after the election Comrade Trump. This, of course, resulted in the confirmation of ultra-conservative Neil Gorsuch to the court instead. Well I guess the people have spoken. Thanks, “Moscow”…..

However, “Moscow” hasn’t been waiting to hear from the American people regarding the issue of gun control or, if he has, he hasn’t been listening very well since we’ve been screaming it from the rafters for years. America wants gun control; America wants the gun laws tightened up; America wants meaningful, effective, background checks and gun licensing; America wants military-style assault weapons taken off the market, permanently. Seems like, suddenly Moscow Mitch is as deaf as a fence post. Go figure. An overwhelming majority of Americans – and by that I mean 89 – 91 % of Americans – are in agreement on this issue. Ninety-one percent of Americans couldn’t agree on the colors of the flag let alone meaningful gun reform but there it is. And still nothing from Moscow Mitch and the U.S Senate (queue the crickets, please.) So, help me refresh my memory; I’m having some difficulty: what do you call it when a majority of the people are demanding something and the government refuses to act? Oh, well. I’m sure it’ll come to me.

In my complete and utter frustration over the gall of one person (I wouldn’t describe him as a “man”) holding up the possibility of any progress being made on this heart wrenching issue and not a single member of his party raising their voice in any meaningful way, I thought it necessary to take another tack. We’re going to need to hit the GOP where it hurts and, in political circles, that means the pocketbook. And where does the money come from in their pocket books? From their wealthy donors and corporate masters, that’s where. (You’ll have to forgive the dangling adverbs, etc. Writing in the colloquial requires scrapping such grammatical rules.)

Recently Walmart decided to stop selling certain firearms and ammunition in their stores which reach into every nook and cranny of America. In an open letter to their employees, CEO Doug McMillon announced that the nation’s largest retailer would stop selling ammunition used for handguns and military-style weapons, and end the sale of handguns in their stores completely. They would also take the seemingly bizarre step of discouraging their customers from carrying weapons in their stores, even in the “open carry” states. (Yes, dear readers, there really are places where you can carry your Glock down the frozen foods aisle. I guess you just never know when a slightly-grazed antelope is going to spring out of the meat department!)

Now, there can only be one real reason for this abrupt but well-overdue announcement: business. The management – or possibly (most likely?) the shareholders – of Walmart have made a calculated decision: that it is in the best interests of the company to make this bold reversal of policy. After all, McMillon’s raison d’être is improving the financial prospects of the shareholders of the company. That means that this change in policy was seen as such a move and the executive management – including Walmart’s board of directors – agreed. The management of Walmart is betting that this new policy would be offset by any additional goodwill they would realize from their massive customer base. If this is truly the case, then what other companies are out there that might be convinced of this as well? Or more importantly, how many other companies are there that might put the necessary added pressure upon the “Moscow Mitch’s” of the United States Senate to act in kind before they, too, are targeted by their customer base to make a move like Walmart’s? It would seem better (to me at least) to make such changes in policy before the company would be “forced” to against their will.

Let’s Now Add Iowa To The Flat Earth Society Membership

So, now that Iowa is experiencing some of the calamity that climate change brings – whether or not they chose to “believe” in it – and Iowans are getting “trumped” by the downturn in demand for their crops as a result of Comrade Chubsky’s trade wars with China, it seems like they may be realizing they may have made a mistake. My position, as I made clear in one of my prior posts is the same: tough. Now you can suck it up on your own. I am against providing even one dollar to support people that decide to remain ignorant and continue to vote people into office that don’t “believe” in climate change as if it’s some kind of faith-based issue. With the evidence literally falling all around them, they’ll, instead and at the behest of the petrochemical, oil, natural gas, and coal industries, “choose” to ignore mountains of scientific data and follow their “gut” though it’s leading them straight over the cliff. Prices are sinking and are projected to continue to do so on a wide range of Iowan crops including soy beans (China was their largest customer) corn, and other crops while experiencing price increases in many of the their costs. Even worse, many continue to be supporters of the Orange Walrus currently dining nightly in the presidential bedroom. How they fell for the Comrade’s rhetoric about how “easy” and “fast” it would be to “win” a trade war (it’s all right there in his many tweets) and voted for him anyway defies logic. And now my message to them is simply this: You made this bed, now you sleep in it.

You decided to vote for a man you knew nothing about; a man that had – and has – an incredibly well-documented history of fraudulent behavior, driving businesses into the ground (even a casino! Churches can run casinos and make money, somehow the Comrade was unable to generate a profit,) running a phony university, running a phony charity recently shut down by the State of New York, screwing his contractors, his vendors, his wives, and everyone else he’s ever done business with, and you’re just now realizing you may have made a mistake? I guess the proverbial safe didn’t have to fall on your heads!

I realize that you may be suffering, I do. And I am a huge advocate for our farmers, they have been getting the short end of the stick for many, many years but I will not tolerate willful ignorance, especially when it affects the rest of us as. I am so sick and tired of people that seem to feel like they’re doing something patriotic by voting for a party that does nothing for them ever….yes, ever. When was the last time the Repugnant-cans did anything for working class, middle class, or lower-income Americans? Gun laws and trickle-down economics have done nothing for the average American and yet that is all that is offered and still they vote them in. Now you’re paying for it and, guess what? You’ll probably still vote for the Comrade in 2020! And that is just fine with me but don’t expect me to feel bad for you or volunteer to spend my tax dollars bailing you out; that is out of the question. You are clearly not part off the solution but part of the problem, so have at it.

Solve your own problems with your own money.