Jerry Falwell Jr. shot back at critics of a photo of himself with Donald Trump that had a Playboy magazine cover in the background, saying they are the "same hypocrites who accused Jesus ...."

Falwell, president of Liberty University, posted the photo to his Twitter account Tuesday. The photo shows Falwell's wife, Becki, and Trump in front of a wall of magazine covers featuring Trump, including a Playboy magazine cover.

"Honored to introduce @realDonaldTrump at religious leader summit in NYC today! He did incredible job! @beckifalwell," read the tweet.

In response to criticism on social media, Falwell posted another tweet Tuesday evening arguing that his visit with Trump was in line with how Jesus witnessed to society's marginalized.

"Honored for same hypocrites who accused Jesus of being a friend of publicans and sinners to be targeting me over a decades old mag cover! TY," replied Falwell.

Falwell was one of hundreds of evangelical leaders who met with Trump Tuesday in New York City as part of a "conversation" about the real estate mogul's presidential campaign.

Falwell's willingness to be photographed with a Playboy cover nearby stands in apparent contrast to his father's denounciation of the adult publication.

In 1981, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr. was quoted by the Sarasota Herald-Tribute as denouncing then-fellow Southern Baptist and former president Jimmy Carter's decision to be interviewed by Playboy.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/jerry-falwell-jr-hypocrites-trump-photo-playboy-cover-165506/#iLDXQb4b53Sqc0DH.99

Yes, Christ was the best publican one could have had... He could turn any old water into exquisite vino... Meanwhile Trump is apparently bleeding cash... He had to ask Big Coal for donations...

 

Where religion is concerned, Donald Trump’s bigotry is his biggest problem, but his ignorance comes in a close second.

We already know that Trump will say whatever he thinks will appeal to the crowd he is talking to, but calling Hillary Clinton’s faith into question before a group of evangelical Christian leaders Tuesday represented a new low — if such a thing is possible in a campaign that hits those markers on an almost daily basis. Trump’s comprehensive and often factually challenged attack on Clinton on Wednesday is drawing much attention. But his comments on her faith say even more about him.

Trump does not appear to be very religious and seems uncomfortable around the subject. In principle, this is not a problem. The Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for federal office. Over our history, presidents have varied in their attachment to religion, and there is no surefire way to know whether what a politician says about his or her belief in God is true.

Moreover, many deeply religious people don’t talk much about their faith outside intimate circles. One of the year’s best statements on the matter came from John Kasich (who is, by all accounts, very religious) when he explained why he had not invoked religion much on the campaign trail. “I’d rather have an eternal destiny,” he said, “than try to cheapen the brand of God.”

It’s hard to imagine that God worries about branding, but Kasich’s unease with the way politics can devalue faith was admirable.

This is not something that bothers Trump.

Because white, conservative evangelical Christians are an important part of the Republican base and because many evangelicals have expressed qualms or outright opposition to Trump, Trump tried to get them on board by hinting darkly that Clinton is an infidel.

“We don’t know anything about Hillary in terms of religion,” he told the evangelical leaders. “Now, she’s been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no — there’s nothing out there. There’s like nothing out there. It’s going to be an extension of [President] Obama but it’s going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you don’t, and it’s going to be worse.”

No, we — meaning anyone who has taken the remotest interest in the topic — know quite a lot about Clinton’s Methodist faith. She has spoken of it often and is a regular churchgoer. In his 2007 biography of Clinton, Carl Bernstein wrote that other than her family, “Methodism is perhaps the most important foundation of her character.” Just as even George W. Bush’s political adversaries freely acknowledge that faith plays a central part in his life, so have Clinton’s many detractors accepted the role that faith plays in hers.

read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-peddles-religious-ignorance/2016/06/22/ff7e7c80-38af-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

 

I started to read this review in the New York Times by thinking it was about the BAD faith of the white working class... All it is is about the bad disintegration of the faith in the wite working class in a shift towards Trumpism — which the author seems to deplore while he is still a religious believer.

 

As an atheist I would not bother reading on, but this article has some genuine despair and a few historical points of value, including the stats of believers versus non believers in the social cohesion. It is true that humanism has not been able to fully create the "fear" of god nor even its love, by replacing it with a value system which inspires greater respect.

 

This is mostly due to the evangelicals equating humanism with evil and fighting it tooth and nail. Should we be more inclined to accept humanity as it is, we actually could make far better strides in supporting each other without having the rigmarole of "belief".

 

The decline of the white working class is not exclusive to the USA. It has to do with the valuing of greed promoted by ultra-consumerism ahead of sharing. This unchristian new (old) value has been conjured by con artists in the political sphere, leading to having evagelicals supporting idiots like George W Bush.

 

It also has to do with the notion of a quick buck for little work. It has to do with money markets being far more important to nations that doing something productive with your hands. And we all become prisoners of debt...

 

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SundayReview |

 

Opinion The Bad Faith of the White Working Class

By J.D. VANCE

 

JUNE 25, 2016

I THINK I was 11 when, teary-eyed and exhausted, I asked my grandmother whether God loved us. It had been an unusually terrible day for my sister and me. Our mother had called us worthless, threatened us, and then nearly crashed our car during a violent outburst. Things like this happened often in my family and among my friends, but not all on the same day.

At the time, it was a profoundly important question. The evangelical Christian faith I’d grown up with sustained me. It demanded that I refuse the drugs and alcohol on offer in our southwestern Ohio town, that I treat my friends and family kindly and that I work hard in school. Most of all, when times were toughest, it gave me reason to hope.

I’m hardly alone in benefiting from that faith. Research suggests that children who attend church perform better in school, divorce less as adults and commit fewer crimes. Regular church attendees even exhibit less racial prejudice than their nonreligious peers. The M.I.T. economist Jonathan Gruber found that for many of these traits, this relationship is causal: It’s not just that privileged kids who attend church skew the data, but that attending services produces good character.

These benefits apply broadly, across a range of faiths, so the phenomenon appears unrelated to doctrine or place. Undoubtedly, church fish fries and picnics help build social cohesion. It was at my dad’s medium-size evangelical church — my first real exposure to a sustained religious community — that I first saw people of different races and classes worshiping together. The church even collected money to help families in need and established a small school and home for single expectant mothers.

Despite these benefits, church attendance has fallen substantially among the members of the white working class in recent years, just when they need it most. Though working-class whites earn, on average, more than working-class people of other ethnicities, we are in a steep social decline. Incarceration rates for white women are on the rise, white youths are more likely than their peers from other groups to die from drug overdoses and rates of divorce and domestic chaos have skyrocketed. Taken together, these statistics reveal a social crisis of historic proportions. Yet the white church — especially the evangelical church that claims the most members — has seemingly disappeared.

Though many working-class whites have lost any ties to church, they haven’t necessarily abandoned their faith. More than one in three identify as evangelical, and well over 75 percent claim some Christian affiliation. But that faith has become deinstitutionalized. They may watch megachurch broadcasts or join prayer circles on Facebook, but they largely avoid the pews on Sunday. Consequently, many absorb the vernacular and teachings of modern Christianity, but miss out on the advantages of church itself.

This deinstitutionalization of the faith has occurred alongside its politicization. It’s hard to believe that in 1976, evangelicals helped deliver the White House to the liberal Democrat Jimmy Carter. But fueled by social issues like abortion, the religious right soon began to exercise broad influence among American Christians. By 2004, “values voters” became so synonymous with the Republican Party that George W. Bush’s re-election was largely attributed to them.

While it’s hard to fault people for voting their conscience, this fusion of religion and politics necessarily forces people to look externally. The sometimes tough love of the Christian faith of my childhood demanded a certain amount of self-reflection and, occasionally, self-criticism. While faith need not be monolithic — it can motivate both voting behavior and character development — focus matters. A Christianity constantly looking for political answers to moral and spiritual problems gives believers an excuse to blame other people when they should be looking in the mirror.

Evangelicals appear to have taken this message to heart. The most significant evangelical contribution to fiction in the past 20 years was the apocalyptic “Left Behind” series. The books are riveting, but their core message is that corrupt, evil elites have gone to war against Christians. Some version of this idea — whether delivered in church or on TV — finds its way into many topics in a modern evangelical sermon: Evolution is a lie that secular science tells to counter the biblical creation story, the gay rights movement usurps God’s law. Recently, a friend sent me the online musings of a televangelist who advised his thousands of followers that the Federal Reserve achieved satanic ends by manipulating the world’s money supply. Paranoia has replaced piety.

This paranoia harms the most vulnerable Christians the most of all. A few months ago I visited with a few teachers from my old high school and asked them how we might give kids in our community a better shot — at a good job, perhaps, or at least a peaceful family life. The mood grew somber. One told me that after a student, a bright young man from a “rough home,” stopped showing up to class, she drove to his house on a school day to check on him. She found him and his seven siblings home alone, her promising student too preoccupied with tending to his brothers and sisters to care much about school. A younger teacher, listening intently, sighed: “They want us to be shepherds to these kids, but so many of them are raised by wolves.”

 

In the white working class, there are far too many wolves: heroin, broken families, joblessness and, more often than we’d like to believe, abusive and neglectful parents. Confronted with those forces, we need, most of all, a faith that provides the things my faith gave to me: introspection, moral guidance and social support. Yet the most important institution in our lives, if it exists at all, encourages us to point a finger at faceless elites in Washington. It encourages us to further withdraw from our communities and country, even as we need to do the opposite.

It’s hardly surprising that into that vacuum has stepped Donald J. Trump. For many, he is the only thing left that offers camaraderie, community and a sense of purpose. Predictably, Mr. Trump fared best among evangelicals who rarely attended church. In Missouri, for instance, Ted Cruz beat Mr. Trump 56 percent to 30 percent among frequent churchgoers; among those attending church only “a few” times per year, Mr. Trump won handily.

Mr. Trump, like too much of the church, offers little more than an excuse to project complex problems onto simple villains. Yet the white working class needs neither more finger-pointing nor more fiery sermons. What it needs is the same thing I needed many years ago: a reassurance that God does indeed love us, and a church that demonstrates that love to a broken community.

J. D. Vance is the author of the forthcoming “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

 

 

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Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.

But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

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Has Donald Trump Accepted Christ? James Dobson Says 'Yes'

Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and Family Talk, says Donald Trump has recently given his life to Jesus Christ and is now "a baby Christian," urging believers to pray for him.

In an interview with Pastor Michael Anthony of GodFactor.com, Dobson said, "There are a lot of people ministering to him personally — a lot of ministers… He did accept a relationship with Christ. I know the person who led him to Christ, and that's fairly recent. I don't know when it was, but it has not been long."

Dobson added: "I believe he really made a commitment, but he's a baby Christian. We all need to be praying for him, especially if there is a possibility of him being our next chief executive officer."

He said this at Trump's closed-door meeting last week with hundreds of top evangelical and social conservative leaders. The meeting, "A Conversation About America's Future with Donald Trump and Ben Carson," was held in New York City.

It is neither an "inquisition" nor a "coronation," but a "conversation," Johnnie Moore, the spokesperson for My Faith Votes, a non-partisan organization focused on engaging the 25 million Christians who did not vote in 2012 and one of the two groups behind the meeting, told The Christian Post earlier. "The Trump campaign has been unbelievably cooperative to commit such time with these leaders … It is the largest, most representative gathering of national, Christian leaders I've seen in my lifetime," he added.

Trump's campaign has not responded to Dobson's assertion.

Last year, Trump said he had never asked for God's forgiveness, and despite calling the Bible his favorite book, he refused to name a favorite verse. "The Bible means a lot to me, but I don't want to get into specifics," he said.

Trump "doesn't know our language," Dobson said. "We had 40 Christians together with him; he used the word 'Hell' four or five times. He doesn't know our language. He really doesn't. He refers a lot to religion and not much to belief and faith in Christ."

He continued, Christians "got to cut him some slack," as "he didn't grow up like we did. I think there's hope for him."

After Trump's meeting with evangelicals and conservatives, the founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition Ralph Reed said the presidential candidate "talked about personal faith, importance of faith."

"But he made it abundantly clear, 'I don't know the Bible as well as you do, I'm not a theologian, but I'm a Christian," Reed said, according to CNN. "He talked about his children and how he raised his children, moral values, don't smoke, don't drink, don't do drugs. It's not really our job to judge other peoples' spiritual journey. Just because they're not in the same place we are, we accept him for who he is now."

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/has-donald-trump-accepted-jesus-christ-james-dobson-says-yes-165692/#hKhUKDTdPGVomiot.99


Trump will sell his granny for votes... He will stop at nothing, short of selling Trump Tower... Telling christians he his a "born again (baby) christian" costs nothing to Trump. Lying or saying anything to suit is a piece of cake. It's part of clinching the deal when selling vacuum cleaners.
These christians are idiots, waiting to be mugged. Trump obliges and they are in raptures...

 

In May, under pressure from the news media, Donald Trump made good on a pledge he made four months earlier: He gave $1 million to a nonprofit group helping veterans’ families.

Before that, however, when was the last time that Trump had given any of his own money to a charity?

If Trump stands by his promises, such donations should be occurring all the time. In the 15 years prior to the veterans donation, Trump promised to donate earnings from a wide variety of his moneymaking enterprises: “The Apprentice.” Trump Vodka. Trump University. A book. Another book. If he had honored all those pledges, Trump’s gifts to charity would have topped $8.5 million.

But in the 15 years prior to the veterans’ gift, public records show that Trump donated about $2.8 million through a foundation set up to give his money away — less than a third of the pledged amount — and nothing since 2009. Records show Trump has given nothing to his foundation since 2008.4 ti

Hicks did not respond to repeated questions about Trump’s charity from The Washington Post. Trump earlier this month revoked The Post’s press credentials to cover his events.

[Months after fundraiser, Trump says he gave $1 million to veterans group]

In recent weeks, The Post tried to answer the question by digging up records going back to the late 1980s and canvassing a wide swath of nonprofits with some connection to Trump.

That research showed that Trump has a long-standing habit of promising to give to charity. But Trump’s follow-through on those promises was middling — even at the beginning, in his early days as a national celebrity.

In the 1980s, Trump pledged to give away royalties from his first book to fight AIDS and multiple sclerosis. But he gave less to those causes than he did to his older daughter’s ballet school.

read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-promised-millions-to-charity-we-found-less-than-10000-over-7-years/2016/06/28/cbab5d1a-37dd-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumpcharity-718a-top-1%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

 

I guess Trump gave a lot of money to the "Charity Begins at Home" foundation...

 

In an exclusive interview with The Christian Post, Pastor Paula White talks about Donald Trump's faith and why she supports him for president. She also responds directly to the many Christians who either don't support Trump or are still unsure of who to vote for this November.

James Dobson recently reported he had heard that Paula White led Donald Trump to Christ, and Trump is now a "baby Christian." CP asked White about that, as well as other questions about Trump's faith. White also responded to criticisms that she is a proponent of the prosperity gospel.

White, senior pastor at New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, Florida, was one of Trump's early supporters. In September 2015, she was one of about 40 religious leaders who met with Trump for a private prayer service at Trump Tower in New York. Last month, she attended Trump's meeting with over 900 evangelical leaders and was appointed to Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/paula-white-on-donald-trumps-christian-faith-exclusive-interview-166205/#UzBSCpHrEpFK14yP.99

 

The last supper with Donald Trump... Mount Golgotha with Donald trump... The resurrection of Donald Trump... Loaves and steaks with Donald Trump... the miracle of turning wine into profit with Donald Trump... Philistinism with Donald Trump... Gambling for god with Donald Trump... and god created Donald Trump... Greased Palm Sunday with Donald Trump... 40 days and forty nights in the desert of Donald Trump Tower... Render to Donald Trump what belongs to Donald Trump... Mary Magdalene wins Miss World with Donald Trump...

 

From the believers at the Christian Post who question Trump's misunderstanding of salvation....

 

.....

 

Presuming that Trump was being serious about getting elected and being a good president is the means of his going to Heaven, The Christian Post reached out to J.T. Bridges, academic dean of Southern Evangelical Seminary near Charlotte, North Carolina, to clarify what it takes to, as Trump puts it, "get to Heaven" from a biblical standpoint.

"Probably the most applicable verses here would be Romans 3:21-22, 'But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known. ... This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.' And Romans 4:4-5, 'Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness," Bridges said in an interview Monday.

In an Aug. 10 op-ed for The Federalist, Rebecca Cusey pointed to a passage in Trump's 2005 book, Think Like a Billionaire, which also suggested that Trump believes an accumulation of good deeds to outweigh one's sins gets one into Heaven.

"I want every decision I make to reflect well on me when it's time for me to go to that big boardroom in the sky. When I get permanently fired by the ultimate boss, I want the elevator to Heaven to go up, not down," he wrote.

CP asked Bridges what underpins the thinking of those who say they must do a certain something, like getting elected and being a good president, to attain salvation.

"I think it is based in a wrong view of identity. There is a mantra common in churches, motivated by genuine piety though false, that in Christ Jesus I am 'just a sinner saved by grace,'" Bridges said.

"To the degree that one fails to accept the radical newness of one's identity in Christ as a son or daughter of Heaven — no longer 'a sinner,' which typically identifies the unsaved — it is to that degree that one continues to try and appease God as a wrathful judge rather than abide with Him as a loving Father. From this, I think, comes a works-based Christianity."

Since the symbol for Christians is the cross, Christ dying for our sins, victory is not measured by political influence and looks like something very different than Trump's measure of success, he said.

True victory for a Christian is found at the end of the Great Story, in Revelation 22:1-5, Bridges added, which reads:

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever."

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/donald-trumps-views-on-getting-to-heaven-not-biblical-political-promises-dubious-scholars-say-167993/#VXFDHHfeGqxXgDwM.99

 

Glory to the old bullshit which makes no sense at all... Quite funny to see the religious bullshitters trying to catch Trump at his religious bullshit...

 

 

Jerry Falwell Jr.: Trump is the Churchillian leader we need


By Jerry Falwell Jr.

Jerry Falwell Jr. is president of Liberty University.

Thank God we now have the opportunity to elect a strong leader, one who is not afraid to call the enemy by its name and to take the battle to that enemy if necessary.

We need fresh and bold leadership. Continuing the policies of Obama and Clinton internationally and domestically would be the definition of insanity: repeating the same mistakes over and over and expecting a different result.

I chose to personally support Donald Trump for president early on and referred to him as America’s blue-collar billionaire at the Republican National Convention because of his love for ordinary Americans and his kindness, generosity and bold leadership qualities. My family has grown to love all of the Trumps because they are wonderful people willing to sacrifice much for their country. The public perception of Trump that has been created by the media is simply false.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jerry-falwell-jr-trump-is-the-churchillian-leader-we-need/2016/08/19/b1ff79e0-64b1-11e6-be4e-23fc4d4d12b4_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.8f11e396c745

 

Most clever people in the USA are at a loss as to who is going to be the best president out of a very bad lot...

Jerry Falwell is the president of a Christian University aka not Notre Dame, but more oriented towards "Answer in Genesis" of our idiot creationist Ken Ham. He is entitled to his opinions, but comparing Trump and Churchill is interesting, considering that Churchill was a racist misogynist bastard. 

See toon at top

In a campaign first for the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump attends a black church service in Detroit. Trump dances at Great Faith Ministries before speaking to those in attendance. Reading from a script and adopting a milder tone than at previous campaign rallies and debates, the billionaire businessman says “the African American community is suffering from discrimination and there are many wrongs that must still be made right. They will be made right. I want to make them right.

 

read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/sep/04/trump-dances-and-prays-at-black-church-service-in-detroit-video

 

President Trump on Thursday plans to relax enforcement of rules barring tax-exempt churches from participating in politics as part of a much-anticipated executive order on religious liberties, according to senior White House officials.

 

The order will also offer unspecified “regulatory relief” for religious objectors to an Obama administration mandate — already scaled back by the courts — that required contraception services as part of health plans, the officials said.

But it will not include a controversial provision contained in a draft leaked in February that could have allowed federal contractors to discriminate against LGBT employees or single mothers on the basis of faith.

The sweep of the order — to be unveiled on a day when Christian conservatives visit the White House — appeared significantly narrower than in the February draft, which had alarmed civil libertarians, gay rights and other liberal advocacy groups and prompted threats of lawsuits.

read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-sign-executive-order-ma...

 

See toon at top...

 

 

Why would Christian conservatives in good conscience go to the polls on December 12 and vote for Judge Roy Moore, despite the charges of sexual misconduct with teenagers leveled against him?

Answer: That Alabama Senate race could determine whether Roe v. Wade is overturned. The lives of millions of unborn may be at stake.

Republicans now hold 52 Senate seats. If Democrats pick up the Alabama seat, they need only two more to recapture the Senate, and with it the power to kill any conservative court nominee, as they killed Robert Bork.

Today, the GOP, holding Congress and the White House, has a narrow path to capture the third branch, the Supreme Court, and to dominate the federal courts for a decade. For this historic opportunity, the party can thank two senators, one retired, the other still sitting.

The first is former Democratic majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

In 2013, Harry exercised the “nuclear option,” abolishing the filibuster for President Obama’s judicial nominees. The Senate no longer needed 60 votes to confirm judges. Fifty-one Senate votes could cut off debate, and confirm.

Iowa’s Chuck Grassley warned Harry against stripping the minority of its filibuster power. Such a move may come back to bite you, he told Harry. Grassley is now Judiciary Committee chairman.

And this year a GOP Senate voted to use the nuclear option to shut down a filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, who was then confirmed with 55 votes.

Yet the Democratic minority still had one card to play to block President Trump’s nominees—the “blue slip courtesy.”

If a senator from the state where a federal judicial nominee resides asks for a hold on proceedings by not returning a blue slip, the Judiciary Committee has traditionally honored that request and not held hearings.

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota used the blue slip to block the Trump nomination of David Stras to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Franken calls Stras too ideological, too conservative.

But Grassley has now decided to reject the blue slip courtesy for appellate court judges, since their jurisdiction is not just over a single state like Minnesota, but over an entire region.

Thus have the skids been greased for a conservative recapture of the federal judiciary unseen since the early days of FDR.

Eighteen of the 179 seats on the U.S. appellate courts and 119 of the 677 seats on federal district courts are already open. More will be opening up. No president in decades has seen the opportunity Trump has to remake the federal judiciary.

Not only are the federal court vacancies almost unprecedented, a GOP Senate and Trump are working in harness to fill them before January 2019, when a new Congress is sworn in.

If Republicans blow this opportunity, it is unlikely to come again. For the Supreme Court has seemed within Republican grasp before, only to have it slip away because of presidential errors.

read more;

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-christian-conservati...

 

Read from top...

 

As our President spoke about the good things accomplished in our country, and as he spoke with words of conciliation, I couldn't help but think of the sullen spirit of Jonah when he was upset over the repentance of Ninevah. God said to him, "Doest thou well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:9).

Gary Baur, head of the Campaign for Working Families said, "[President Trump] brought up our monuments, our national anthem, our values, that our liberty comes from God, etc., etc. – and shockingly, half of the room in virtually every case refused to applaud or refused to stand .... I think [it] was, as I said, shocking; and I also think it will be deeply damaging to them as the American people ponder that...It was a very sorry display of sort of surliness and anger that I don't think will play well with the average Americans of both parties," he said.

Andree Seu Peterson has beautifully written:

"Sulking ignited with the kindling of frustrated desire, needs constant infusions of self-justification to stay alive. But once it blazes, you find to your horror that you no longer manage it; it manages you. This is because you had totally underestimated the spiritual dimension of sin..."

 

Read more:

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/they-scoffed-they-groaned-they-poute...

 

The Donald has still got it with the Evangelicals... Success is in the eye of the blessed sufferers, those under the weight of the sins of the world. The more you suffer, the more you atone your own sins and get closer to Him (god is a male mushroom). That's the way to go. Yes, god placed The Donald on this earth so we can all suffer... If you grimace, pout or rebel, you are not Christian worth his or her salt statue. Now everything makes sense. Donald is Jesus Christ on his second coming, a bit like Mr Moon... I would have laughed myself, but then I am an atheist... and respect clowns...

 

Read from top...

President Donald Trump is "a symptom of a much bigger disease" and many evangelicals have lifted him up above Jesus, Christian activist and author Shane Claiborne said in an interview on NPR.

NPR's Sarah McCammon asked a panel of evangelical leaders, while they now have "unprecedented access" to the White House, many Americans are wondering "how can a group of people known for emphasizing family values back a twice-divorced, sometimes vulgar and racially divisive figure like Trump?"

Claiborne responded by saying that "it should grieve us that when people hear the word evangelical, they think anti-gay, anti-women, anti-environment, pro-guns, pro-military, pro-death penalty."

"We've become known often for what we're against more than what we're for," he continued. "And Jesus says when you welcome the stranger, you welcome me. When we welcome the immigrant or the refugee, we're welcoming Jesus. And I look at the policies of Donald Trump, and I think that the gospel of Donald Trump looks very different from the gospel of Jesus."

"Many evangelicals," he added, "have lifted up Donald Trump above Jesus. I mean, Donald Trump is a symptom of a much bigger disease. And you know, it's been said that Donald Trump did not change America. He just revealed America. And I don't think that Donald Trump has changed evangelicalism, but I do think he's revealed it. And what we are seeing, to me, is very troubling because our Christianity looks very unlike our Christ. And I think young, millennial Christians are seeing that."

Johnnie Moore, an evangelical advisor to President Trump, was also on the show.

"This current cultural moment doesn't reflect the strength or weakness of the church," he argued. "It does, however, serve as a reminder of the areas in which the church still has work to do, you know, principally, on issues like racial reconciliation, on advocacy for the poor. It's a huge indictment on the church if evangelicals are perceived as not being compassionate. That's something we have to work on. That has nothing to do with politics. You know, if a church is compassionate in their community and compassionate around the world, their reputation transcends all of these things."

 

Read more:

https://www.christianpost.com/news/many-evangelicals-lifted-donald-trump...

 

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Evangelical Christian broadcasting in America is Trump’s grassroots get-out-of-jail-free card.

It's no secret that coastal American media despises current US President Donald Trump. What is less understood is how that loathing only appears to fan the flame of the US leader's tenacious popularity. The answer lies, in part, with Christian broadcasters, whose quiet ascendance over the past few decades — following a spectacular fall from grace in the 1980s — has bolstered the black and white Republican narrative, even at the cost of electing a strikingly polarizing president.

Christian television, once the province of flashy preachers, washed-up country singers and self-appointed faith healers, has long been avoided by Capitol Hill lawmakers when seeking election votes. Toward the end of the 20th century, American broadcast networks devoted to so-called Christian values tended toward absurdities including endless demands for money and protestations bordering on the magical, to say nothing of the steady diet of tabloid-level scandal, including embezzlement and sexual abuse.

Since the unlikely ascension of Trump to the White House, however, the reach of policy-influencing broadcasting networks that rely on interpretations of the Christian bible to underscore their editorial approach to news has transformed American media airwaves.

Once shoved into a corner niche, Christian-themed networks have now taken top spots in reaching regular listeners in the US, bumping up against the big three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) and Fox News, and providing additional weight to the often conflicting and changeable policies emanating from the Trump White House.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/society/201804221063807639-trump-and-the-rise-of...

 

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Speaker Paul Ryan forced out the Jesuit priest who had served as House chaplain since 2011 because he said in a prayer during deliberations on tax cuts that lawmakers should be “fair to all Americans,” a new report said Thursday.

The Rev. Patrick Conroy’s letter of resignation, a copy of which was obtained by The Hill, said he was stepping down because of a request from the Wisconsin Republican, who is also a Catholic.

“As you have requested, I hereby offer my resignation as the 60th Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives,” the April 15 letter to Ryan said.

Four sources — two from each party — told the website that Conroy was told he had to retire or he would be canned.

Some of the sources said Ryan thought Conroy favored Democrats in the House, and cited the prayer and the priest’s invitation to a Muslim to offer a prayer before the chambers as the reasons behind the chaplain’s demise.

Democrats believe that Ryan pushed Conroy out “because Republicans thought he was aligned with Democrats,” according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with the discussion.

One Democratic lawmaker said Ryan objected to the prayer on the House floor that Republicans viewed as critical of the GOP tax cut bill.

A second Democratic aide told The Hill that Conroy’s ouster was “largely driven by a speech on the tax bill that the speaker didn’t like,” and also offered the second explanation.

“Some of the more conservative evangelical Republicans didn’t like that the Father had invited a Muslim person to give the opening prayer,” the source said.

But a senior GOP aide said Conroy’s exit “was not because of any particular prayer.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California brought up the forced resignation during the Democrats’ whip meeting in the Capitol Thursday morning.

Ashlee Strong, a spokesman for Ryan, said it was the speaker’s decision, but offered no explanation for the move, adding that Pelosi and her office “were fully read in and did not object.”

 

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2018/04/26/paul-ryan-reportedly-forces-out-house-prie...

 

OMG? Gus' title of this piece is taken from the advert for loose boobs on the side of this NYP story...

 

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The American evangelicals that participated in this farce should be ashamed:

A group of prominent U.S. evangelical figures, including several of President Trump’s evangelical advisers, met Thursday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose role in the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi remains unclear. In a statement that included smiling photos, the group said “it is our desire to lift up the name of Jesus whenever we are asked and wherever we go.”

In addition to its horrific policy in Yemen and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the government, Saudi Arabia has one of the worst records for religious freedom in the world. It is one of the most dangerous places to be Christian. Meeting with the architect of the Saudi government’s atrocious war in Yemen at a time when half of the people in that country are on the verge of starving to death reflects truly appalling judgment on the part of the Americans that attended. It’s a disgrace:

It is difficult not to see the meeting as a cynical exercise in using “pro-Israel” evangelicals to solidify ties between the kingdom, the U.S., and Israel:

The Jerusalem Post news site framed the group of evangelicals as unofficial ambassadors of an Israeli government that wants to ally with Saudi Arabia in confronting Iran.

“In a new sign of growing ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman hosted a delegation of evangelical Christians on Thursday in Riyadh led by a prominent pro-Israel advocate who also lives in the Jewish state,” the Jerusalem Post said, referencing Rosenberg.

Whatever their reasons were, these evangelicals shouldn’t have met with the crown prince, and it is to their enduring discredit that they did.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/a-disgraceful-evangelica...

 

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It was, everyone agreed, a miracle. The unexpected election of Donald Trump in 2016 was an act of God, who chose the philandering billionaire and reality TV star to restore America’s moral values.

This is the theme of The Trump Prophecy, a movie telling the story of Mark Taylor, a former fireman from Orlando forced to retire after suffering from PTSD, which premiered on Tuesday.

Between graphic nightmares featuring demonic monsters and hellish flames, Taylor received a message from God in April 2011, while he was surfing television channels.

As he clicked to an interview with Trump, Taylor heard God say: “You are hearing the voice of the next president.”

And so it came to pass, although it took another five years and a national prayer campaign. Taylor duly wrote a book, The Trump Prophecies: The Astonishing True Story of the Man Who Saw Tomorrow … and What He Says Is Coming Next, on which the movie is based.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/03/the-trump-prophecy-film-...

 

 

CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK: In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with CBN News, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders says that God wanted Donald Trump to become President of the United States.

"I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times and I think that He wanted Donald Trump to become president," Sanders told CBN News Chief Political Analyst David Brody and Senior Washington Correspondent Jennifer Wishon in her West Wing office Wednesday morning.

"That's why he's there and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about," Sanders said. 

 

Read more:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/01/30/sarah_huckabee_sanders_god_

 

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"We all know" that god is an idiot...

Gus is a rabid atheist, nonetheless...

President Trump announced Thursday that the United States would recognize the Golan Heights as the sovereign territory of Israel. 

“After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!” Trump said about the disputed territory. 

As of Friday morning, the president’s tweet has garnered over 158,500 likes and more than 38,300 retweets, as well as praise from many evangelicals and conservative Christians.

Here are five evangelical Christian leaders' reactions to Trump’s Golan Heights declaration.

 

Read more about "pass the mustard" and how to brown-nose to the glorious trump:

https://www.christianpost.com/news/5-evangelical-leaders-respond-trump-g...

 

 

Washington seems to be eager to once again blatantly violate international law, only to allegedly rig polls in another state in favor of one man – the Israeli prime minister, analysts believe.

US President Donald Trump has once again baffled the world with a tweet – this time by calling on the US to “fully recognize” Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights – a Syrian territory it occupied during the 1967 Six Day War and effectively annexed in 1981.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/454528-trump-recognize-golan-heights-netanyahu/

 

So, we're good with Crimea, then? see:

london and washington knew the crimean question was settled....

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Boom. The evangelicals are divided. The impeachment organised by that controversial Christian woman, Pelosi, is the work of the devil for some believers... See Pelosi, a devout Catholic is in favour of abortion and gay marriage...:

 

Nancy Pelosi claims to be a devout Catholic.

But her beliefs on issues like abortion and gay marriage infuriate many in the church.

And now she might have to leave the Catholic Church after a top Bishop did one thing.

Abortion is a clear sin among the Catholic Church, which cherishes the life of all, including the unborn.

But some Left-wing politicians who claim to be Catholics legislate the exact opposite of what their church teaches.

And a Bishop in Springfield, Illinois is now doing something about it.

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki ruled that state legislators who work to pass new sets of new abortion laws going through the legislature will be barred from receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Read more:

https://culturewatchnews.com/nancy-pelosi-might-have-to-leave-the-cathol...

----------------------

So, for many evangelicals, Pelosi is the devil... Here is an article about impeaching Trump from the CP (Christian Post) perspective:

 

In 2016, I along with others were invited to be a part of Donald Trump’s Religious Advisory Council. He had attended First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Fla., a few times when I was pastor there in the late 1980s, but I did not interact with him. So, when he decided to run for president, like me, many in the evangelical world did not know him, and he was a long shot among conservatives in America. But in the providence of God, he was elected for “such a time as this,” and the rest is history. 

I have gladly served as an Evangelical advisor. For evangelicals, it was at first a small window of opportunity to stem the tide of secularism and liberalism in our beloved nation out of a hope that we could advance principles of faith into the culture and better the lives of Americans – to be salt and light as Jesus has commanded all of his followers.

Some Christians who think us foolish and gullible have met this effort with skepticism and cynicism, decidedly ignoring the many ways President Donald Trump has positively impacted our country and honored the beliefs that Americans and Christians hold dear. Our critics seem to have a theology with so little grace and they fail to recognize that someone with an unrighteous past can still make righteous decisions on behalf of those they lead. 

What we have seen happen over the past three years appears to be the providential hand of God at work as President Trump has kept his promises to people of faith and delivered on policies in spite of unrelenting resistance. For example, the appointment of two conservative Supreme Court Justices and record appointments in the federal judiciary will be a legacy for the Trump Administration for generations to come. Religious freedom protections are now securely in place, which are critical to the proclamation of the Gospel and the security of churches and religious organizations in our country and the world. 

 

Read more:

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/why-it-is-wise-for-christians-to-sup...

------------------

Meanwhile, some of the other extremist evangelicals are not supportive of the Donald:

Christianity Today, the evangelical Christian magazine founded by televangelist Billy Graham, called for Donald Trump’s removal from office following the president’s impeachment, marking a significant split from what has typically been Trump’s staunch base.

The editor-in-chief, Mark Galli, wrote: “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,” he wrote.

“We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath,” Galli continued. “The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people.”

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/19/trump-evangelical-christ...

 

-------------------

 

So what would Christ do? So many questions (actually just one — but a BIG one, so big it's like a ton of questions...).

 

I'm sure that Jesus would tell the whole lot to go away and take a cold shower. 

 

The American Conservative, a Christian conservative paper, might supply the ammos to shoot at pelosi, with spinning intellectualism:

 

 

‘Knives Out’ America

 

CURT MILLS DECEMBER 20, 2019

Impeachment is Already Backfiring on the Democrats

 

PATRICK BUCHANAN DECEMBER 20, 2019

A Hawkish Impeachment

 

Democrats have inadvertently supplied the template for undermining a future antiwar president.

W. JAMES ANTLE III DECEMBER 20, 2019



Christ would despair for having died in vain... Gus is an atheist. Read from top.

Trump mocks the faith of others. His own religious practices remain opaque.
President Trump does not regularly talk about religion with many of his advisers, who said they knew little about how he views God. But evangelical pastors have described him as a “baby Christian” and said he had a moment of conversion.
-------------------
Meanwhile, would Jesus be a rabid politician?

Answers Rod Dreher, in a convoluted rubbish heap... and he knows it:

If this sounds muddled to you, it’s because, well, it is. I’m trying to think through what Morrison is saying. I have an instinctive aversion to a Christianity that is merely cultural, because I take the claims of the Christian faith seriously. On the other hand, I try to resist the weird idea that any cultural expression of Christianity, or Christian cultural framework, is somehow a betrayal of Christianity. As the church historian Robert Louis Wilken has written, the Church was and is a culture, because that is how the theological ideas and transcendent realities to which the religion points are mediated to us mortals.

So: a Christian culture is necessary for the Christian religion to thrive, but it is not the same thing as the Christian religion. Those who confuse the two will end up losing both the Christian religion and the Christian culture.

Read more:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/christianity-culture-poli...


So here we are. Confused. Is Christianity a religion or a political ideal, like fascism? 

But wait! There's more!:

That “even an atheist is a Christian” phrase refers to something an Orban-supporting bishop said about Europe: that even atheists are cultural Christians, in the sense that they live within a culture built on Christian foundations, even if they don’t actually believe in God.


Go fish... Since the French Revolution of 1789, and since the earlier "enlightenment" due to re-study of Greek and Roman "myths" as well as their greater philosophies, many people have abandoned the idea of god, and have not lived on Christian foundations since the inquisition. If you think that our little bourgeois democratic world is based on Christianity, you should cry in your ridiculous philosophical porridge. The industrial revolution had not much to do with "Christian" ethics or dictums. What has driven our little world is the love of money. If money is the basis of Christianity, oh shit, I missed my calling as a collection plate verger. Christianity was more like a brake on intellectual development.
Mr Leonisky is a rabid atheist with the culture of scientific evidence and scientific reasonable doubt on his bed-table...

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...The Christian season of Lent, a time of repentance and reflection, is upon us. The weeks that begin with Ash Wednesday culminate in Holy Week, a commemoration of the Passover feast in roughly the year A.D. 33, during which Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, was condemned and crucified by the Roman authorities, and — in the Christian understanding of the world — rose from the dead.
In the words of an Anglican prayer for the 40 days of Lent, believers implore the Lord to “come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save.”
Given the state of the nation [the USA] two millenniums on, it is difficult to conceive of something more counterintuitive than the Christian ideal. For many Americans, especially non-Christians, the thought that Christian morality is a useful guide to much of anything these days is risible, particularly since so many evangelicals have thrown in their lot with a relentlessly solipsistic American president who bullies, boasts and sneers. The political hero of the Christian right of 2020 has used the National Prayer Breakfast to mock the New Testament injunction to love one’s enemies, and it’s clear that leading conservative Christian voices are putting the Supreme Court ahead of the Sermon on the Mount.
And yet history suggests that religiously inspired activism may hold the best hope for those in resistance to the prevailing Trumpian order.

Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/opinion/christianity-trump.html



So who in the Democratic Party is going to inspire religious rebellion against Trump and his evangelicals? We are talking here especially about Christianity, as it seems that this is the path taken by Jon Meacham — the author of the article above and of “The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross.”

Looking at the four main contenders, on “Love Your Enemy” — apparently an important criteria for Jon Meacham:


Warren is a dead loss. She hates Russia beyond hate with rage and loathing… 

Bernie is always booed should he deviate from the “Cuba is really bad under the Castro regime” mantra and he is a “socialist” atheist jew.

Biden is a liar and a fake Catholic who wilfully does crap and confess for redemption 10 years later when found out. His forays in Iraq warmongering and fiddles in Ukraine only highlight his hypocrisy. He could fudge “beliefs", mind you. He is an expert in fudging — as many people think he is a “nice guy"…


Buttigieg is a Christian gay and does not hate anyone as far as we know. One to him.

The others are too far down the ladder to count.

———————————

Now who can enter Washington triumphantly on behalf of the Democratic Party, in a greasy sea of palm oil?

Warren? I don’t think so… She would not be able to fight the evangelicals and their lunacy, being a weirdo herself…

Bernie? Best chance so far to be selected as the old “new” progressive ready to change America into a socialist country. Not on your nellie… This ain’t going to happen… 

Biden? Let’s hope that the US public sees him as a lying ratbag who has duped them before. He's not a saviour. He is a user… but Biden might get the support of the rich guy, Bloomberg, who does not want Bernie at any cost. Trump would overcome Biden in two seconds flat. 

Buttigieg? He is the only one with a sense of humour and has not been tainted by previous political machinations. With Tulsi Gabbard, he’s one of this lot who can defeat Trump. Tulsi has no chance of making it to the front row, though she would be good. So despite support from the wankers of Silicon Valley, Buttigieg is the democrats best chance...

Religiously? None of them can beat the Trump evangelicals… unless they adopt the tenets of these evangelicals and join Trump…

Wicked, isn’t it?...


Gus is a rabid atheist...
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Shoot first, answer questions later!

The 2020 Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders withstood a barrage of attacks — some withering — Tuesday night from his six rivals, who mounted the last best effort to slow his momentum heading into the South Carolina primary, said Democratic consultant Monica Klein, who rated the candidate performances for The Post.

 

The rest of the race remains in flux thanks to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s late entry into the contest and his big spending, which has finally given Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren the foil she needed to define her campaign to voters, Klein added.

 

“Bernie was the one to beat on the stage and no one landed a real lasting punch as we head into South Carolina,” said Klein about the chaotic forum in Charleston, South Carolina. “Without Bloomberg on the stage, Bernie would have received the brunt of everyone’s attacks.

 

She added: “Instead, they had a second target to shoot at, which helped insulate Bernie.”

 

Here’s how she ranked the performances.

 

Michael Bloomberg: The former mayor proved a half-billion dollars can’t buy you a personality. He performed slightly better than in his disastrous last debate, but it wasn’t enough as he got hammered again on stop and frisk and his comments about women.

 

Arrow: Down

 

 

Pete Buttigieg: He rankled Sanders on Cuba, and delivered another competent performance that provided no details about how he’d actually run the country. He won’t lose supporters, but he didn’t dominate the stage either.

 

Arrow: Sideways

 

 

Elizabeth Warren: She kept attacking Bloomberg — and kept scoring. Plus, she wisely differentiated herself from Sanders without attacking their shared progressive platform.

 

Arrow: Up

 

 

Bernie Sanders: He stayed on the offensive against Bloomberg’s immense wealth and withstood an onslaught of attacks from all sides — refusing to give his opponents the knock-out-punch they needed to slow his momentum.

 

Arrow: Up

 

Joe Biden: His slightly improved performance won’t deliver the momentum his campaign desperately needs. And his meandering delivery did little to comfort Democratic voters about how he’d fare on stage with Trump.

Arrow: Down

 

Amy Klobuchar: A talented debater, Klobuchar delivered again — including a strong moment on coronavirus as she urged voters to check the CDC website rather than visit her own campaign site.

 

Arrow: Up

 

Tom Steyer: The most interesting thing about his performance was his flannel tie. He needs to stop wasting space on the debate stage and invest his cash on down-ballot Democrats who could actually win.

Arrow: Down

 

 

Klein is a progressive political strategist and founding partner at Seneca Strategies, where she has worked with clients including State Sens. Jessica Ramos and Julia Salazar, Queens District Attorney candidate Tiffany Cabán, and the Working Families Party. Prior to founding Seneca Strategies, Klein spent three years as a deputy press secretary to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

 

Read more:

 

https://nypost.com/2020/02/25/democratic-debate-winners-and-losers-how-b...

 

 

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By Thomas L. Friedman

If this election turns out to be just between a self-proclaimed socialist and an undiagnosed sociopath, we will be in a terrible, terrible place as a country. How do we prevent that?

That’s all I am thinking about right now. My short answer is that the Democrats have to do something extraordinary — forge a national unity ticket the likes of which they have never forged before. And that’s true even if Democrats nominate someone other than Bernie Sanders.

What would this super ticket look like? Well, I suggest Sanders — and Michael Bloomberg, who seems to be his most viable long-term challenger — lay it out this way:

“I want people to know that if I am the Democratic nominee these will be my cabinet choices — my team of rivals. I want Amy Klobuchar as my vice president. Her decency, experience and moderation will be greatly appreciated across America and particularly in the Midwest. I want Mike Bloomberg (or Bernie Sanders) as my secretary of the Treasury. Our plans for addressing income inequality are actually not that far apart, and if we can blend them together it will be great for the country and reassure markets. I want Joe Biden as my secretary of state. No one in our party knows the world better or has more credibility with our allies than Joe. 

 

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/opinion/democratic-primary-candidates.html

 

I stop here. Friedman gives Joe Biden far too much credit — and in the process burns his "sharing power idea" up in smoke... Some people might think I am obsessed with Joe being (not) a nice guy... His corrupt dealings with corruption in Ukraine should send shivers down the spine of any honest person. His FORCEFUL promotion of the G W Bush/Cheney/Rummy/Wolfo war against Saddam, when it was easy to see it was a crock, AND CONTRARY THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL of peace, should make any person see that Joe Biden ISN'T A NICE GUY. Joe is the friends of weapon merchants and warmongers. Joe isn't trustworthy. He is Catholic like a whale is an elephant with a smile.

 

So what to do about Friedman's idea? It's rubbish of course, but it might work to save America's Democrats from oblivion, but it won't defeat Trump... Trump, mad as he is, is more clever than four aces. He understands that the "deep state" (of warmongers) has been gunning for him, even before he won the gig. And despite his antics, Trump DOES NOT WANT WAR, but commercial destruction of the "enemies"... Trump has had no choice but to replace "traitors" with yes-men (if there are any left about). As Friedman says, Trump sacked Maguire for advancing the truth (which was?) and replaced him with a loyalist, an incompetent (is he?) political hack, Richard Grenell. This is not new in politics. Obama did it and Bush had all the neocons available working for him... Who was president Carter's influencer on international affairs? Ah yes, Zbigniew Brzezinski... Need I say more?...

 

The only chance for the Democrats to beat Trump NOW is Pete — and Pete knows it. He has youth and patience on his side... He will also be there in 2024, while Sanders, Joe Biden and Bloomberg will have gone into retirement private villages... Then, Ivanka will be vying to being the first woman President of the USA. She is likely to win.

 

 

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