Yesterday, Democracy Now began their coverage of the Senate impeachment trial with a discussion of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s newly devised procedural rules for the trial’s conduct.
In short, these rules limit the trial to less than one week. By comparison, Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial lasted for two months. Bill Clinton’s Senate trial took a full month.
In addition, McConnell’s rules for Donald Trump’s impeachment trial prohibits both the admission of relevant documents and the calling of witnesses to testify.
Journalists are also banned from the Senate during the “trial.”
Furthermore, the entire time permitted for each side to present their cases is restricted to three days (an expansion from the original limit of two days).
Think about this:
How many trials have you heard of where the judge ruled, before the trial began, that no documentary evidence or witness testimony will be allowed, all arguments must be finished in three days, no matter what, and all journalists are banned from the court room?
I’ll tell you — NONE, for the simple reason that what is happening now in the halls of Congress is not a trial. It is a Republican orchestrated farce, as ANY fair-minded person has to admit.
Kristen Clarke
Amy Goodman’s 18 minute interview with Kristen Clarke and Rick Perlstein helps to place the current Senate travesty in historical context.
an American historian and journalist who has written several books about Richard Nixon, including his impeachment investigation, and Ronald Reagan.
In my view, their insights into the farcical events now unfolding in the US Senate are ominous warnings about the twilight years of American democracy.
As Trump’s impeachment trial approaches, Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, continues his draconian measures to prohibit any new evidence from being including in the Senate proceedings.
Unlike past impeachment trials, which have allowed additional witnesses to be called (in fact, during the Clinton impeachment Republicans insistedthey be allowed to call new witnesses), McConnell is refusing to permit additional witnesses to testify before Congress.
He has good reason to fear for his president, but his actions only contribute further to his reputation as the most corrupt Republican majority leader in recent history.
John Bolton (Photo by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
John Bolton (former National Security Adviser who referred to Trump’s Ukrainian quid pro quo scheme a “drug deal” he wanted nothing to do with) and Lev Parnas (Rudy Guliani’s business associate who operated as Rudy’s “fixer” in coercing Ukrainian government officials to yield to Trump’s demands) have both said they are willing to testify if asked.
Rudy Giuliani has coffee with Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, U.S. September 20, 2019. REUTERS/Aram Roston/File Photo – RC18E5EEDD00
Furthermore, a boatload of new documents have also been handed over to House investigators which not only confirm the previous House testimony against Trump, but adds new information as well.
For instance, copies of whatsapp messages reveal that one Robert F. Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate from
At one point, Hyde suggested that he could increase the pressure on Yovanovitch (who was working to end political corruption in the country) but it would require enlisting Ukrainian security forces — an obvious threat against the ambassador’s personal safety.
Here is an excerpt from an article in The Guardian explaining this section of the texts:
“In March 2019, Hyde wrote to Parnas, ‘Wow. Can’t believe Trumo [sic] hasn’t fired this bitch. I’ll get right in [sic] that.’
“The two men then exchanged a string of messages about the ambassador’s whereabouts.
“’She under heavy protection outside Kiev,’ Hyde wrote to Parnas, adding two days later: ‘They are moving her tomorrow.’
“’The guys over there asked me what I would like to do and what is in it for them,’ wrote Hyde, who has posted pictures of himself with Trump and Giuliani on social media. ‘She’s talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off. She’s next to the embassy. Not in the embassy.’
“’They are willing to help if you/we would like a price,’ said Hyde.
“’Guess you can do anything in Ukraine with money … what I was told,’ Hyde wrote in another text, to which, Parnas responded: ‘LOL.’”
The State Department finally removed Yovanovitch from Ukraine because, she was told, they had information indicating her safety was at risk.
Hmmmmmm. I wonder who was threatening her safety?
Remember the reconstruction of Trump’s Oval Office call with the Ukrainian president? Remember when he told President Zelensky that Yovanovitch “was going to go through some things”?
What a coincidence…
Lev Parnas has obviously struck a deal since his recent arrest and is talking freely with reporters. Watch this interview by Anderson Cooper where Parnas not only implicates Trump but states that Trump was in regular communication with him and Giuliani being updated on everything the two were doing in Ukraine.
Parnas confirms what honest observers have always known: Donald Trump is a liar. More than that, he is a pathological liar, and he lied when he said he didn’t know Lev Parnas.
But, never mind, because Mitch McConnell is working overtime to prevent any of these documents and witnesses and from contributing to Trump’s impeachment trial.
Why muddy the waters with more evidence of the truth?
And this explains why I find myself surprisingly “nostalgic” for men like Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater (I can’t believe I just wrote this sentence).
On the eve of Nixon’s impeachment proceedings in 1974, Senator Barry Goldwater (a fire-breathing conservative if there ever was one) led a delegation of his fellow Republicans to meet with Nixon in the Oval Office.
These three Congressmen told Nixon that he had lost all Congressional support. There was no way he could survive an impeachment process. His presidency was over, one way or the other. The meeting came to be called the “Goldwater moment.”
President Nixon announced his resignation the next day.
Senator Goldwater, whose politics I abhorred, represents a very different
President Nixon resigns on national television
period in the evolution of the US Congress. His was an era where party loyalties were not always allowed to eclipse the evidence of White House criminality.
Goldwater reminds us that highly conservative, Republican politicians can maintain their personal integrity in times of political crisis. Politics need not always blind its players to the facts.
Sadly, these are qualities of personal character are sorely lacking in today’s players. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Jim Jordan and their partisan ilk are political barbarians — clever and crafty, no doubt; but bloody barbarians, nonetheless — when compared even to a Manichean madman like Barry Goldwater.
And what about Nixon?
Nixon’s decision to resign his presidency revealed that even “Tricky Dick” had some semblance of shame. He knew when to quit, when it was time to stop lying.
Tragically, today’s White House occupant has no sense of shame whatsoever. He is a malignant narcissist hard-wired to lie. Lying is Donald Trump’s raison d’être.
And the nation’s Congressional barbarians have grown corpulent feasting at the White House trough.
Even Nixon and Goldwater are rolling over in their graves.
Dan Kovalik is another person to whom I always pay attention. He is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, as well as an active labor and human rights attorney.
The independent, investigative journalist, Abby Martin, recently interviewed Kovalik to get his perspective on the recent US assassination of Qassam Soleimani.
I strongly encourage you to watch this YouTube video of their conversation.
It is must see viewing for Americans who are in desperate need of a strong antidote to the barrage of Establishment propaganda shoveled out by every corporate news company in the USA.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Kovalik and Martin expose the long history of unprovoked American aggression against the Iranian people.
Beginning with the CIA coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected president in 1953, Kovalik shows how the US is continuing to lie about (1) Iran’s “quest” for nuclear weapons, (2) Iran’s fictional role as “the world’s largest exporter of state-sponsored terrorism”, and (3) Iran’s “continued attacks” against “innocent” Americans.
In 2013, the CIA publicly confessed its responsibility for the 1953 overthrow of the Iranian government, which we toppled in order to regain control (together with Great Britain) over Iran’s oil resources.
You can read the CIA confession and all the details here in the National Security Archives.
Well, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
America continues its efforts to lie, cheat, and steal its way into controlling Iranian resources again.
And our government, together with all its mindless, media minions, will continue to lie, lie, lie and then lie some more in its efforts to brainwash the public, bedazzling us into stupefied silence — or better yet, heart-felt. patriotic approval — when our bloodthirsty government finally unleashes the savage dogs of war.
DON’T FALL FOR IT!
Christians, you are citizens of the kingdom of God, first! Your membership in the American body politic is nothing compared with this spiritual truth. Your #1 loyalty is to the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth.
He is the Redeemer who calls us to embrace truth not lies, and peace,not war.
If you claim to be a follower of Jesus, then understand that in this moment every Christian’s motto must be:
A key to successful propaganda is having the appearance of knowledge and authority while disseminating falsehoods and misrepresentations.
A key ingredient to the success of US corporate news broadcasts in their spreading of government-backed lies is their use of “expert” commentators. These talking-heads, periodically trotted out for their supposed expertise on a subject, are typically former members of the US military, the intelligence community, and political leaders waiting for their next government gig.
Invariably these professional commentators provide off-the-cuff “analysis” which, in one way or another, endorses the worldview necessary for the expansion of American empire.
Whether that requires more bombing, another invasion, a tighter security apparatus, a larger military budget, you name it, these folks make a living by persuading the public that more American aggression is essential to peace and prosperity around the world.
We recently heard Donald Trump say that he bombed Qassam Soleimani, not to start a war, but to prevent a war.
Right.
Just as George W. Bush was forced to start a war in order to prevent the mythical mushroom cloud.
I am old enough to remember the Army’s justification of free-fire zones in the Vietnam war, where soldiers were free to kill anything on sight and destroy entire villages, by saying that “we had to destroy the village in order to save the village.”
Give me a break.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe the propaganda then. And I’m not stupid enough to swallow it now.
What our TV news networks never disclose to us is that virtually ALL of these so-called expert commentators maintain profession relationships with the military-security-intelligence-industrial complex while working for the corporate news media.
After all, they have invested their entire professional lives into climbing the ladders of power inside the war rooms of the American empire. They are not about to give that up now.
So, it is not surprising that this class of propagandist is invariably are on the payroll of weapons manufacturers, military consulting firms, and surveillance companies, etc. Just as the execution of Gen. Soleimani sent the stock prices of Raytheon and other weapons manufacturers through the roof, so these talking-heads work to further enhance the financial and ideological investments that they have spent their entire lives helping to construct.
Below is a video report by The Intercept explaining only a few of these corrupt financial connections. Of course, none of the networks ever mention these connections to their viewers.
For instance, Fox News hired a retired general who naturally justifies US military strikes, but never mentions that he is a partner at SCP Partners, a venture capital fund that invests in defense contractors.
Similarly CBS hired another retired general who now works for Kohlberg Kravis Robers & Co., an investment firm with major holdings in some of the largest US defense contractors.
These men and women do offer expert analysis. They are trying to sell us more snake oil at the very high cost of human lives around the globe.
My regular readers will remember that I always value the insights of retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. Col. Wilkerson was the Chief of Staff for Colin Powell when Powell was the Secretary of State under President George
Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
W. Bush.
Col. Wilkerson is also the only official from the Bush administration who has come clean about the consistent stream of lies we were fed by the Bush administration about the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The CIA lied to him and General Powell.
Why in the world should anyone believe what US intelligence spokespeople are telling us today about Iranian General Qassem Soleimani or the Iranian
Soleimani’s burning body lies next to his car
government?
Since the catastrophic war in Iraq, which continues to this day, Col. Wilkerson has devoted himself to speaking out, working to ensure that there won’t be any more US wars based on lies.
Here he explains how the government lie-factory is again working overtime as it promotes war with Iran. As he says, “[American leaders] will lie, cheat, and steal to promote American empire.”
Watch the interview by journalist Amy Goodman discussing the current state of US/Iran relations with Col Wilkerson on the program Democracy Now. It is 17 minutes long and well worth your time.
That fact is a given and must be accepted by any adult who wants to understand politics and foreign relations in this world of ours.
For Christians who understand that their primary allegiance is to Jesus Christ, and that they are first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of God NOT their temporal country, embracing this truth need not be difficult.
Not only is the government of the United States not an exception to this rule, we in many ways we have perfected the practice of lying, deception and misinformation to a fine art — perhaps a crude, vulgar and vile norm would be a more accurate way to describe it.
The recent release of the Afghanistan Papers by the Washington Post is only one recent demonstration of this age-old truism about government lies. US military leaders, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our intelligence services, and the vast majority of our elected politicians have all been lying to the American public about the 18 year long war in Afghanistan for….wait for it…the entire 18 years.
When interviewed behind closed doors, over 400 American leaders, both military and civilian, in nearly 700 separate interviews, confessed that the military has never had a coherent strategy for pursuing this wasteful war. Nor did they have the slightest hope that the US could accomplish anything resembling “victory,” whatever that might look like.
In short, everyone admitted that no one in the US government had any idea what we were doing in Afghanistan.
Yet, when speaking in public we heard lie after lie after lie — “we are moving toward victory,” “our new strategy is working,” “we see light at the end of the tunnel.”
All the lies have been revealed in black and white.
Yet, not long after the publication of these Afghanistan Papers, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held a press conference where he deliberately mischaracterized the information contained in these interviews and then glibly dismissed their significance out of hand.
Watch the oh-so noble general continue spinning more public lies in the video below:
The US corporate media perpetuates US government lies by repeating them mindlessly, without challenge or correction. Major developments that indict our government by uncovering the truth are conveniently ignored by the corporate press.
Truth remains unreported because real journalism is dead in this country. The American people may well be the most ideologically narrow, as well as the most thoroughly propagandized population in the “civilized” world.
Of course, the truth is also ignored by the bought-and-paid-for money grubbers in Washington DC whose silence indicts them, too, as co-conspirators in the deception of the American people.
How many major, investigative reports have you seen about the Afghanistan Papers on corporate news programs?
I have not seen any.
Has anyone heard even a hint about a possible Congressional investigation into the negligence, gross malfeasance and moral decay festering at the heart of our military-industrial-security complex laid bare for all to see by the Afghanistan Papers?
I haven’t.
We, the American public, including the Christian church, must share in this corporate guilt.
We are a major portion of the gullible and/or disinterested public that conveniently believes the government lies, ignores contrary evidence, and cheers patriotically for the endless bloodshed unleashed by America’s selfish addiction to imperial power around the world.
As usual it was the less powerful nation who exercised restraint, with Iran skillfully targeting the bases’ military capabilities but taking measures to successfully avoid any casualties. The two nations de-escalated back down to their previous high level of dangerous hostilities with an understanding between them that neither side wants a full-scale war. Both sides played “chicken” and both sides swerved, and they know that about each other now.
So that was a relief. We were all forced to hold our breath and hope against hope that cooler heads would prevail after the senseless assassination of a sovereign nation’s top military official, and they did. A full-scale war that would have dwarfed Iraq and Vietnam in terms of death, destruction and destabilization was averted.
And then Trump immediately went right back to warmongering…
The entire piece is well worth reading. Just click on the title above.
As usual the US corporate media continues to march in lockstep with the atrocious lies currently spewed by the Trump administration in the aftermath of killing the Iranian leader Qassem Suleimani.
In this regard, President Trump is not the deplorable outlier that liberal pundits pretend him to be. Rather, Trump is the latest in a long line of terrorist presidents whose actions have polished America’s reputation as the world’s greatest perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism.
No, that title does not belong to Iran, as the American public is repeatedly told. It actually belongs to the good old US of A, hands down.
Two key players in this latest terrorist outrage, besides Trump himself, are Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo.
Both men claim to be Christians, evangelicals in fact.
Both men continue to flourish in shameful careers that bring disrepute to the church of Jesus Christ.
Both men make a mockery of the gospel and reveal in living color that they abandoned the Lord Jesus long ago.
Pence and Pompeo are living examples the failed “seed sown among thorns” described by Jesus in his parable of the sower in Mark 4:7, 18-19:
Others, like seed sown among thorns hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
The arid, war-mongering, anti-Christian lifestyles of these men are openly revealed as they blatantly lie America into another tragic war of American aggression.
Craig Murray has written an important article detailing the inexcusable lies of Trump, Pence and Pompeo. Mr. Murray is a former British diplomat turned human rights advocate.
Craig Murray, former UK diplomat turned human rights advocat
I have posted an excerpt of his article below, but I encourage you to read the entire piece here:
In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence.
Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me.
What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine – that here “Imminent” – the word used so carefully by Pompeo – does not need to have its normal meanings of either “soon” or “about to happen”. An attack may be deemed “imminent”, according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike – and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of “intelligence” you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.
I am not inventing the Bethlehem Doctrine. It has been the formal legal justification for drone strikes and targeted assassinations by the Israeli, US and UK governments for a decade. Here it is in academic paper form, published by Bethlehem after he left government service (the form in which it is adopted by the US, UK and Israeli Governments is classified information).
So when Pompeo says attacks by Soleimani were “imminent” he is not using the word in the normal sense in the English language. It is no use asking him what, where or when these “imminent” attacks were planned to be. He is referencing the Bethlehem Doctrine under which you can kill people on the basis of a feeling that they may have been about to do something.
The idea that killing an individual who you have received information is going to attack you, but you do not know when, where or how, can be justified as self-defence, has not gained widespread acceptance – or indeed virtually any acceptance – in legal circles outside the ranks of the most extreme devoted neo-conservatives and zionists…
…Let us now move on to the next lie, which is being widely repeated, this time originated by Donald Trump, that Soleimani was responsible for the “deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans”. This lie has been parroted by everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike…
..Those [Americans killed] were US troops killed in combat during an invasion. The Iraqi Shia militias – whether Iran backed or not – had every legal right to fight the US invasion. The idea that the killing of invading American troops was somehow illegal or illegitimate is risible. Plainly the US propaganda that Soleimani was “responsible for hundreds of American deaths” is intended, as part of the justification for his murder, to give the impression he was involved in terrorism, not legitimate combat against invading forces. The idea that the US has the right to execute those who fight it when it invades is an absolutely stinking abnegation of the laws of war…
The final, and perhaps silliest lie, is Vice President Mike Pence’s attempt to link Soleimani to 9/11. There is absolutely no link between Soleimani and 9/11, and the most strenuous efforts by the Bush regime to find evidence that would link either Iran or Iraq to 9/11 (and thus take the heat off their pals the al-Saud who were actually responsible) failed. Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to Afghanistan. But there is zero evidence, as the 9/11 report specifically stated, that the Iranians knew what they were planning, or that Soleimani personally was involved.
Mother Emmanuel African Methodist-Episcopal Church
On June 17, 2015 Dylann Roof walked into the Mother Emmanuel African Methodist-Episcopal church and sat down to join a Bible study group.
Dylann was welcomed by all, and invited to sit with them. As everyone’s eyes were closed for the final prayer, Dylann took out his gun and killed nine people, shooting them at point-blank range.
One of the victims was the leader of the group, 59-year-old Myra Thompson, a retired public-school teacher and guidance counselor, who
Myra Thompson
just hours before had just been licensed to preach in that very church.
I heard about Rev. Thompson’s book while listening to a local Christian radio station. Rev. Thompson was telling his amazing story of what it had taken for him to forgive Dylann Roof for the crime of killing his wife.
More than that, Rev. Thompson mentioned his continuing attempts to befriend Roof and visit with him in prison, where he is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole.
I heard a powerful story about the healing power of Christ’s forgiveness and the personal resolve of a deeply compassionate, unusually obedient disciple of Jesus Christ.
It was a story that might normally bring tears to my eyes, were it not for the one thing that the interviewer and host of the program failed to mention – the very thing that I had suspected would go unremarked.
The interviewer and hosts failed to mention that Dylann Root is an avowed
White supremacist, Dylann Roof
white supremacist and neo-Nazi. His most chilling statement from prison was a declaration that he had no regrets. He was not the least bit sorry, remorseful or apologetic for what he had done.
Neither did the radio hosts mention that Root had chosen the Mother Emmanuel African Methodist-Episcopal church because it is a black congregation.
Root deliberately chose a venue for his act of terrorism where he knew every bullet fired was guaranteed to penetrate the body of a black person.
Slaughtering African-American men, women and children was Root’s one and only goal.
None of the white people hosting the interview with Rev. Thompson bothered to connect the Charleston church shooting with the shocking rise in Right-Wing, conservative terrorism in this country.
No one bothered to point out that Root’s online manifesto, entitled The Last Rhodesian, was a white-supremacist screed calling for a race war against all people of color in America. Root confessed that he hoped his massacre would trigger that war.
No one mentioned that the Rev. Thompson’s Christ-like act of forgiveness is (or, at least, I assume it is) a very old, well-practiced act of Christian discipleship exercised within the African American church. A community that continues to confront the never-ending story of racism, discrimination, white violence, lynching and Jim Crow in this country.
I realize that my reader may object.
“Perhaps the radio producers wanted to keep politics out of it,’ you say. “They didn’t want Rev. Thompson’s story about the power of forgiveness to be overshadowed by a political message.”
My response, however, is baloney!
American Christian radio is one of THE most politically driven media outlets available today.
The problem is: Christian radio is driven by conservative, right-wing, Republican politics. A brand a politics that refuses to admit its heinous contribution to the rise of white supremacy in this country.
So, the producers at the right-wing, Christian radio station offer their obeisance to the toadies of the Religious Right political movement and reframe the heartbreaking story of an explicitly racist, white-on-black mass-murder as a heart-warming, tear-jerker testimony to “the power of forgiveness.”
This sin of omission tells us everything we need to know about the Right, including the so-called Christian Right.
Framing is everything.
By trying to avoid politics, a story becomes disgustingly political in the worst way possible.
The nine church shooting victims
For this particular framing of the Mother Emmanuel African Methodist-Episcopal church shooting is blatantly racist.
It’s silence shouts all too loudly, “We will not face the truth about who and what we are as white, American evangelicals.”
“We will support Donald Trump’s racist border policies. But we will not tell the truth about our implicit racism towards our black brothers and sisters in Christ, about whom we know so little. And for whom we care even less – unless, of course, we can turn your experience of pain and suffering in white America into a warm and fuzzy feel-good story for our largely white, evangelical, pro-Trump listening audience.”
I too am a white, American evangelical, and I continually feel ashamed of my community.
President Trump spoke yesterday in Minneapolis to loud applause supplied by a large crowd of supporters, many wearing bright, red shirts emblazoned, “make American great again.”
If you didn’t see the speech, check out the excerpts and excellent response provided by The Young Turkshere. It’s well worth watching.
In the course of his rambling diatribe (the longest he has yet given), the president mocked and ridiculed individual Democrats and members of the House.
He targeted more lies and slander against Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee from Minnesota. Rep. Omar and her family already receive around the clock security protection because of the regular death threats she receives, week in and week out, as she does her job for the people of Minnesota who elected her.
Omar also receives a surge in the number of threats against her life every time Trump mocks her in public, as he did again last night.
Trump then expanded his racist threats against the entire Somali refugee community in Minnesota, leading the crowd in cheers and applause as he bemoaned the horrible presence of hard-working, brown-skinned families finding refuge from their own war-torn country (partly facilitated by the U.S. military) in the bosom of white America.
The audience cheered again when the president promised that he will protect the good, white people of Minneapolis from the inconvenient threat of more dark-skinned refugees from Africa moving into their city.
How many of these red-shirted fans applauding Trump’s grotesque, racist drivel claim to be Christians? How many say they are evangelicals?
Well, it’s long past time to draw the line, folks.
And here’s the line:
People who follow Jesus will NEVER cheer or applaud for such wretched, verbal trash.
People who follow Jesus will NEVER endorse the inhumane policies – like closing our doors to refugees and asylum seekers, separating families and kidnapping children at the border – that are produced by this man’s dark and evil heart.
As I now listen to Trump speaking at the “Voters Values Summit,” he is
Rep. Ilhan Omar
again falsely accusing Rep. Omar of saying things that she has never said. And he is being applauded by the audience!
We are witnessing the complete apostasy of American evangelicalism. It’s happening before our eyes.
If you or your friends voted for Trump in 2016 and now regret that decision, hallelujah! Confession your foolishness. Ask for forgiveness for facilitating the rise to power of this latest anti-Christ now spewing his putrid filth onto the American stage.
Pray for wisdom to do better next time as a well-educated voter.
But if you or your friends plan to vote for Trump in 2020, if you too applaud at his rally speeches, then you must face the truth.
You have driven the Holy Spirit from your heart, if, indeed, you ever knew Him.
You, too, are a racist.
You have become an idolater.
Your conservative politics are more important to you than Jesus Christ.
You are cheering for a fascist, a blasphemer, a sexual predator, a racist, and a career criminal.
It is impossible to be an obedient follower of Jesus of Nazareth and persistently endorse such wickedness.
You may have known Jesus at one time, but no longer.
You have become one of the choked, blighted, dying seeds woefully described in Jesus’ parable of the Sower in Mark 4:1-20. You have lost whatever connect to the Savior you may once have had.
You have become like the pompous “miracle workers” condemned by Jesus at the close of his Sermon on the Mount. Despite their protests of devotion, he says to these people boasting of their “godly” accomplishments, “Get away from me, you evil doers, for I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23).
It is LONG past time for faithful pastors to speak up and to speak out against the evangelical apostasy occurring before our eyes.
Pastors, your people need Biblical teaching and education in the ethics of God’s kingdom. Hiding behind the pretense of avoiding partisanship in the pulpit is and has always been a cop out.
The church desperately needs your help.
Where are the true, faithful shepherds who will risk giving offense by teaching the FULL counsel of God and emphasizing the radical, upside-down lifestyle demanded by Jesus Christ?
Within evangelical congregations, they seem to be few and far between…
Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater (I can’t believe I just wrote this sentence).
barbarians — clever and crafty, no doubt; but bloody barbarians, nonetheless — when compared even to a Manichean madman like Barry Goldwater.
labor and human rights attorney.
antidote to the barrage of Establishment propaganda shoveled out by every corporate news company in the USA.
in Right-Wing, conservative terrorism in this country.
