Tag: Congress

10 Stats That Will Blow Your Mind

The Daily Poster is the blog of investigative journalist David Sirota. A few

David Sirota

days ago he posted an article reminding his readers of the gross economic inequities that characterize the US. Inequities that have only gotten worse during the pandemic.

For the Old Testament prophets, long-term disparities between the haves and the have-nots — that were ignored or caused by the rich — was a primary identifying trait of a wicked society.

Truly righteous rulers worked to close such economic chasms.

By Old Testament, prophetic standards, the United States (including the majority of its leaders) is an extraordinarily wicked place, heaping more and

Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate elites; enemy of the American people

more guilt upon itself while racing towards divine judgment.

I have excerpted Sirota’s article below:

As the fight to provide one-time $2,000 survival checks crescendos in Washington, it can be difficult to grasp the size of the figures being thrown around. Can our country afford the proposal? Is the cost worth it? 

Let’s look at the economic and social devastation unfolding throughout the country. Even before the pandemic, 40 percent of Americans were struggling to afford at least one basic necessity and a stunning 78 percent of full-time workers were living paycheck-to-paycheck according to figures from 2017. Half a million people were counted as homeless in 2018 alone. 

The pandemic has made things worse: In the spring, 22 million jobs were lost which could take as long as four years to recover without significant relief. As of June, roughly 14 million workers and their dependents had lost employer-based health insurance. The number of Americans impacted by food insecurity is now projected to hit 54 million — up from 35 million pre-pandemic. More than 14 million American households are at risk of eviction and more than 336,000 Americans have died from the virus. . . 

. . .So, with all of this in mind, can the world’s richest nation afford one-time $2,000 survival checks? Should Congress filibuster the defense bill for as long as it takes to force Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on the aid? Is there a double standard at play when it comes to government largesse for rich people and support for everyone else? Are $2,000 checks good policy? Is Congress even listening to the public?

Read these ten stats and then you decide.

1. The total cost of $2,000 checks ($465 billion) is less than half the amount that American billionaires have made during the pandemic ($1 trillion). The total cost of the checks is less than the amount that just 16 American billionaires increased their net worth by during the pandemic ($471 billion).

2. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk gained more wealth during the pandemic ($158 billion) than Congress just authorized for additional unemployment benefits for millions of Americans ($120 billion). 

3. Jeff Bezos’s personal wealth increased more every second of 2020 ($2,800) than Congress is considering giving Americans who are facing eviction, starvation and bankruptcy ($2,000).

4. Congressional lawmakers are being paid $3,300 of government money every week to come up with ways to block $2,000 checks to millions of Americans.

5. It took Congress less than a month to pass legislation giving a $700 billion bailout to bank executives during the financial crisis. It has taken Congress more than 8 months to even seriously consider a far less expensive bill to give $2,000 checks to millions of Americans during this economic crisis.

6. A $2,000 survival check would give the average soldier more money than the proposed 3 percent military pay increase that is included in defense legislation that Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey are filibustering in order to force a vote on the survival checks.

7. The richest 5 percent of Americans received more in Trump tax cuts in 2020 ($145 billion) than Congress is spending on increased unemployment benefits for millions of Americans during the economic crisis ($120 billion).

8. In 2016, “children, elderly, disabled people, and students made up around 70 percent of the poor,” according to the People’s Policy Project. Unlike unemployment benefits, $2,000 checks would help them.

9. About 60 percent of Georgia households make less than $75,000, meaning Georgia Republican senators allowing $2,000 checks to be blocked would deny aid to roughly 2 million of their state’s households as they run for reelection.

10. As Republicans try to block the $2,000 check legislation, a new national survey found that 78 percent of Americans support it, even as some pundits insist that the proposal is “divisive.”

Living in a Relativistic, Fact-Free World

I have not written anything so far about the election broo-ha-ha mainly because I hate to waste my time dealing with such blatant absurdity.

However, as the Christian Right/Republican/Trump mania continues — not just to the bitter end, but undoubtedly well beyond, all the way to the dregs of this seemingly bottomless tankard of paranoid, right-wing swill — I find some aspects of the nation’s tumult rather interesting.

I don’t know the numbers of confessing Christians who believe that Biden “stole” the election from Trump, or are now marching in “stop the steal”

An election worker places a ballot in a counted bin during a hand recount of Presidential votes on Sunday, Nov.15, 2020 in Marietta, Ga. (John Amis/Atlanta Journal & Constitution via AP)

protests.

The entire movement, if you can call it that, looks very much like a new religion, and not simply because so many evangelicals are a part of it.

But I intend to reflect more on that element in a future post…I will only say for now that, even setting aside all the partisanship and divisiveness, it is an extremely unhealthy approach to any sort of belief, whether political or religious.

I do know that, according to a Reuters p0ll, over half of all registered Republicans believe that Trump actually won the election. Almost 70% of Republicans think it likely (or definitely believe) that the vote count was “rigged” or fraudulent.

While I am as willing to believe in potential election fraud as the next person, the main problem with these accusations is the complete lack of evidence.

Yes, many stories are being told, but accusations alone are not evidence, and accusations based on second-hand stories, often without substantiation, are not evidence, either.

Though Trump acolytes repeatedly insist on having such evidence, they never actually produce anything even remotely relevant, much less convincing. So, it is extremely noteworthy that when Rudi Giuliani is in court, he NEVER says he is arguing a fraud case.

In fact, he claims the opposite when standing before a judge. He only uses the word fraud when speaking in public…where no one has the power to disbar him.

Below is a video clip of only one example illustrating just how flimsy are the Republican claims to possessing evidence of fraud.

Ms. Bee Nguyen is a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.  Recall that the state of Georgia had not one but THREE recounts. NONE of them produced any evidence of election tampering or fraud of any sort.

All of these recounts have been a huge waste of time and tax dollars.

Watch Rep. Nguyen debunk the so-called evidence a state colleague claims to provide as proof of Georgia election fraud. She dismantles this Republican fraud quite handily.

It would all be very funny were not so pathetic to see such partisan dimwits as her Republican opponent sitting in political office, misrepresenting the facts of the case, and fomenting the rising tide of political hatred.

As the late Senator Patrick Moynihan once reminded his senate colleagues: We are all entitled to our own opinions. But we are not entitled to our own facts.

Chris Hedges on the Bipartisan, Corporate Corruption of American Politics

The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Chris Hedges, has written another incisive of Washington, DC and its capture by billionaires and corporate

Chris Hedges

power for Scheerpost.

The article is entitled, “The Ruling Elite’s War on Truth.” The fact is, we are all being scammed on a daily basis by our ruling plutocrats.

Below is an excerpt. You can read the entire article here.

Joe Biden’s victory instantly obliterated the Democratic Party’s longstanding charge that Russia was hijacking and compromising US elections. The Biden victory, the Democratic Party leaders and their courtiers in the media now insist, is evidence that the democratic process is strong and untainted, that the system works. The elections ratified the will of the people.

But imagine if Donald Trump had been reelected. Would the Democrats and pundits at The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC pay homage to a fair electoral process? Or, having spent four years trying to impugn the integrity of the 2016 presidential race, would they once again haul out the blunt instrument of Russian interference to paint Trump as Vladimir Putin’s Manchurian candidate?

Trump and Giuliani are vulgar and buffoonish, but they play the same slimy game as their Democratic opponents. The Republicans scapegoat the deep state, communists and now, bizarrely, Venezuela; the Democrats scapegoat Russia. The widening disconnect from reality by the ruling elite is intended to mask their complicity in the seizure of power by predatory global corporations and billionaires.

Correction: Michigan State Republicans DO Take Marching Orders from the President

I recently posted about Trump’s efforts to interfere in the Michigan state presidential election results. I credited state officials for having more integrity than their national counterparts.

Now, it turns out that I spoke too soon.

I am grateful to my friend, Suzanne McDonald, professor at Western Theological Seminary, for sending me more accurate information and the ongoing shenanigans in Michigan.

Sadly, it turns out that the state Republican officials are NOT showing the integrity that I originally thought. Yep, they are playing Trump’s overturn-the-election games as well.

The story in The Detroit News, by Craig Mauger, is entitled, “Michigan House Speaker Floats Possibility of ‘Constitutional Crisis.'” Below is an excerpt, or you can read the entire article here:

Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield referenced the possibility of a “constitutional crisis” during an interview on Fox News Sunday morning, two days after he huddled with President Donald Trump at the White House.

The Board of State Canvassers meets Monday to consider certifying Michigan’s statewide election results, including President-elect Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory. But top Republican Party leaders have asked the board to delay certification in a bid to investigate “anomalies and irregularities” they claim occurred on Nov. 3.

The board features two Republicans and two Democrats. Many legal experts believe the panel has a duty, under Michigan law, to certify the results Monday. . 

“The Board of State Canvassers participates in a very straightforward and perfunctory process,” John Pirich, a longtime elections attorney in Michigan, said in the groups’ press release.” Auditing the election is not within its scope of duties; the board is only responsible for reviewing the vote calculations and signing them.

By the way. Michigan state law requires the vote to be certified before an investigation into possible irregularities can begin. But, of course, since when has breaking the law ever deterred Donald Trump?

Ilhan Omar Continues to Speak Truth to Power

Rep. Ilhan Omar is someone I deeply admire. She is a woman of principle who does not hesitate (as far as I can tell) to speak out on behalf of the

Rep. Ilhan Omar

oppressed, whether in this country or abroad.

Rep. Omar is up for reelection in November. But as someone who defends the rights of the Palestinian people to live freely as equal citizens in the land of Palestine; as someone who condemns Zionist Israel’s continuous oppression of the Palestinians, she is coming under heavy attack from pro-Zionist, pro-Israel lobbying organizations in this country.

This opposition includes a growing number of death threats.

The online journal Mondoweiss has a recent article entitled “The Israel lobby has spent $2 million to defeat Ilhan Omar.”

With all the baseless hysteria in the media nowadays worrying about Russian election interference, the continuing Big-Money election influencing efforts on behalf of Israel make other complaints pale in comparison.

But don’t say that out loud in public. You will be attacked as an antisemite by someone connected to AIPAC.

Here is an excerpt:

But the reaction to Omar has been especially hostile. Many charged that the furious response to her comments quickly devolved into Islamophobic attacks on one of the nation’s first Muslim Congresswomen. Trump capitalized on last year’s uproar, leading chants of “send them back” at his rallies, fanning phony outrage and prompting serious death threats.

The lobby and its allies have zeroed in on Omar for several reasons, said Zaha Hassan, a human rights attorney and visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Omar “unabashedly” has called out the lobby, supports BDS, has taken up Israeli human rights abuses, “and hasn’t backed down regardless of how many times folks have come at her with charges of antisemitism.”

“She has come out strongly in support of Palestinian human rights and she has not been afraid of calling what Israel is doing in terms of its control over Palestinian lives ‘apartheid’ — that’s what sets her apart,” Hassan said.

Still, other lawmakers and progressives are increasingly vocal in their criticism of Israel, and they haven’t faced an onslaught of attacks from the president, his supporters, Israel and centrist Democrats.

Hassan pointed to Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, a white woman who represents a district next to Omar’s, who has similarly denounced Israel as an “apartheid” state but doesn’t face the same criticism.

That’s likely because Omar is an African-American, Muslim woman, Hassan said.

“She presents an easier target for some folks who want to delegitimize that kind of speech about Israel in terms of accountability and conditioning aid and those kinds of issues,” Hassan added.

Beyond that, Omar has become a leader of the pro-Palestine progressive movement, and knocking her out of office in August would represent a major win for Israel. The lobby’s willingness to spend over $2 million on that objective highlights its importance.

You can read the entire article here.

How Big Pharma Helped to Write and Will Profit from the Corona Virus Bill

Investigative journalist Sharon Lerner has an important article at The Intercept explaining how U.S. pharmaceutical companies, enabled by the recent Corona Relief Bill approved by Congress, are planning to make a killing (pun intended) during the covid19 pandemic. It is entitled, “Big Pharma Prepares to Profit From the Coronavirus.”

Warning: prepare to be disturbed, very disturbed.

Here is an excerpt:

“’Pharmaceutical companies view Covid-19 as a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity,’ said Gerald Posner, author of ‘Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America.’ The world needs pharmaceutical products, of course. For the new coronavirus outbreak, in particular, we need treatments and vaccines and, in the U.S., tests. Dozens of companies are now vying to make them.

“’They’re all in that race,’ said Posner, who described the potential payoffs for winning the race as huge. The global crisis ‘will potentially be a blockbuster for the industry in terms of sales and profits,’ he said, adding that ‘the worse the pandemic gets, the higher their eventual profit.’

“The ability to make money off of pharmaceuticals is already uniquely large in the U.S., which lacks the basic price controls other countries have, giving drug companies more freedom over setting prices for their products than anywhere else in the world. During the current crisis, pharmaceutical makers may have even more leeway than usual because of language industry lobbyists inserted into an $8.3 billion coronavirus spending package, passed last week, to maximize their profits from the pandemic.

“Initially, some lawmakers had tried to ensure that the federal government would limit how much pharmaceutical companies could reap from vaccines and treatments for the new coronavirus that they developed with the use of public funding. In February, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and other House members wrote to Trump pleading that he ‘ensure that any vaccine or treatment developed with U.S. taxpayer dollars be accessible, available and affordable,’ a goal they said couldn’t be met ‘if pharmaceutical corporations are given authority to set prices and determine distribution, putting profit-making interests ahead of health priorities.’

“When the coronavirus funding was being negotiated, Schakowsky tried again, writing to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on March 2 that it would be ‘unacceptable if the rights to produce and market that vaccine were subsequently handed over to a pharmaceutical manufacturer through an exclusive license with no conditions on pricing or access, allowing the company to charge whatever it would like and essentially selling the vaccine back to the public who paid for its development.’

“But many Republicans opposed adding language to the bill that would restrict the industry’s ability to profit . . .

“The truth is that profiting off public investment is also business as usual for the pharmaceutical industry. Since the 1930s, the National Institutes of Health has put some $900 billion into research that drug companies then used to patent brand-name medications, according to Posner’s calculations. Every single drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration between 2010 and 2016 involved science funded with tax dollars through the NIH, according to the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs. Taxpayers spent more than $100 billion on that research.”

Read the entire article here.

 

Meet the Israeli Politician Who is Not Afraid to Call Out Israel’s Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing. What Would AIPAC Make of Him?

As a news-junkie who has traveled throughout Israel and the West Bank a number of times, I can assure you that — despite the unchanging nature of their apartheid Zionist policies — the Israeli public is allowed to criticize their government in ways that will get you linched as an anti-Semite in the United States.

As exhibit A, simply recall the recent condemnation of Rep. Ilhan Omar who had the temerity to state the obvious on Twitter:  AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a pro-Israel lobby that both facilitates and destroys political careers in Washington, D.C.

Read my posts about this subject here, here and here.

Below I have excerpted an interview from the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz, entitled “The Knesset Candidate Who Says Zionism Encourages anti-Semitism and Calls Netanyahu ‘Arch-murderer’.”

Israel’s political scene is preparing for national elections to be held in April.  Dr. Ofer Cassif is running for parliamentary office (Israel’s Knesset) as the Jewish representative for the far-leftist Hadash party, a party that includes both Jews and Palestinians.

I have excerpted the interview below (with minor rearrangement of two paragraphs for continuity).

“Cassif, 54, who holds a doctorate in political philosophy from the London School of Economics, teaches political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

Members at the Hadash party primaries

Sapir Academic College in Sderot and at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. He lives in Rehovot, is married and is the father of a 19-year-old son. He’s been active in Hadash for three decades and has held a number of posts in the party.

“As a lecturer, he stands out for his boldness and fierce rhetoric, which draws students of all stripes. He even hangs out with some of his Haredi students [conservative Orthodox Jews], one of whom wrote a post on the eve of the Hadash primary urging the delegates to choose him…

“Cassif is third on the slate of Knesset candidates in Hadash (the Hebrew acronym for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), the successor to Israel’s Communist Party. He holds the party’s “Jewish slot,” replacing MK Dov Khenin. Cassif is likely to draw fire from opponents and be a conspicuous figure in the next Knesset, following the April 9 election…

“…Cassif, who was one of the first Israeli soldiers to refuse to serve in the territories, in 1987, gained fame thanks to a number of provocative statements.

Dr. Ofir Cassif, Hadash candidate for israel’s Knesset in the upcoming elections

The best known is his branding of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked as “neo-Nazi scum.” On another occasion, he characterized Jews who visit the Temple Mount as ‘cancer with metastases that have to be eradicated.’…

“Is Netanyahu an arch-murderer?”

“Yes. I wrote it in the specific context of a particular day in the Gaza Strip. A massacre of innocent people was perpetrated there, and no one’s going to persuade me that those people were endangering anyone. It’s a concentration camp. Not a ‘concentration camp’ in the sense of Bergen-Belsen; I am absolutely not comparing the Holocaust to what’s happening.”

“You term what Israel is doing to the Palestinians ‘genocide.’”

“I call it ‘creeping genocide.’ Genocide is not only a matter of taking people to gas chambers. When Yeshayahu Leibowitz used the term ‘Judeo-Nazis,’ people asked him, ‘How can you say that? Are we about to build gas chambers?’ To that, he had two things to say. First, if the whole difference between us and the Nazis boils down to the fact that we’re not building gas chambers, we’re already in trouble. And second, maybe we won’t use gas chambers, but the mentality that exists today in Israel – and he said this 40 years ago – would allow it. I’m afraid that today, after four years of such an extreme government, it possesses even greater legitimacy.

“But you know what, put aside ‘genocide’ – ethnic cleansing is taking place there. And that ethnic cleansing is also being carried out by means of killing, although mainly by way of humiliation and of making life intolerable. The trampling of human dignity. It reminds me of Primo Levi’s ‘If This Is a Man.’”…

“Israel commits murder on a daily basis. When you murder one Palestinian, you’re called Elor Azaria [the IDF soldier convicted and jailed for killing an incapacitated Palestinian assailant]; when you murder and oppress thousands of Palestinians, you’re called the State of Israel.” (all emphasis is mine)

 

Congress Decides to Continue the War in Yemen, Where We Are Financing Al Quaeda

Yep, recent reports reveal that as the US continues to supply Saudi Arabia with armaments and other military assistance for its genocide in Yemen, we are also funding al Quaeda linked militias there.

How many Americans understand that our government has been cooperating for years with al Quaeda networks in both Yemen and Syria (here and here)?  Not many.

Welcome to the completely immoral, conscience-free world of warfare American style.

Sadly, Senator Chris Murphy’s proposed amendment to the new Pentagon appropriations bill (itself a moral travesty we will discuss another day), which would have ended US support for Saudi atrocities, went down to defeat.  Take a moment to watch the Senator’s defense of the amendment, complete with details about our involvement in Saudi war crimes.

Let’s all continue to pray for an end to this war and for a peaceful settlement determined by the Yemeni people, not by the US, Saudi Arabia or Iran.

In fact, while we are praying for peace, let’s not forget that American troops continue to fight, die and kill others in many other countries world-wide.

US troops killed while “fighting terrorism” in Niger

The latest official war report from the White House, called the “Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States’ Military Force and Related National Security Operations,” admits to active military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger — 7 countries!

And those are only the unclassified wars.  Who knows how many other places there may be around the globe where US troops are fighting, dying and killing innocent civilians.

According to DefenseOne, America’s global war on terrorism now involves 39% of the world’s countries!  Check out the map of global US military activity here.

Is it any wonder that most people around the world see the United States as THE greatest threat to world peace?

Under president Trump, the number of US troops deployed in war zones around the world has only increased.

And do I need to repeat the often noted insanity displayed by declaring war against a tactic, i.e. terrorism?!

By such ridiculousness is the American public manipulated.  For this absurd mantra — the war against terror — has never been anything more, or less,

My Lai, only one of many Vietnam massacres committed by US troops

than a big, fat, blank check for the arrogance and cruelty of American empire.  Let’s not be so naive as to believe the official propaganda insisting that America only fights to bring other people freedom.  Such blind patriotism demonstrates a profound ignorance of history.

Every right-thinking Christian is bound to abhor and to condemn all these features of US foreign policy.

My goodness, there is a LOT for all of us to add to our prayer lists.

 

A Spider’s Web of Corruption

For more on Yemen, here is an excellent summary (from Democracy Now!) on the political machinations and disturbing developments coming out of Washington D.C. over the past few days.

It offers fine interviews from knowledgeable people, a C-SPAN clip of Sen. Sanders on the Senate floor, more about the Saudi crown prince, Trump’s weapons deal, and Yemeni suffering.  It is about 15 minutes long.

I hope you will set aside a few minutes to keep yourself apprised of the many nasty strands that make up the spider’s web of US foreign policy.

Thanks.

Senate Condemns Yemen to Ongoing Slaughter

In a 55-44 vote yesterday, primarily along party lines, the US Senate decided to table the bipartisan S.J.Res.54.  In effect, killing it for the foreseeable future.  The vote was scheduled deliberately to coincide with the state visit of Saudi Arabia’s ruling crown prince Mohammad bin Salman.

Nora O’Donnell’s groveling interview for “60 Minutes” (see good discussions here and here) offered a Marie Antoinette moment for American viewers. Not only did she not ask a single question about the war in Yemen (something that would have never passed muster in the days of Mike Wallace).

But those of us who knew what was happening on the other side of The Hill, watched a repulsive spectacle. The United States Senate and CBS News, a king-pin in corporate broadcasting, were genuflecting before Saudi royalty while telling the Yemeni victims of our illegal war — “let them eat cake.”

Especially noteworthy was the president’s afternoon press conference with the crown prince.  President Trump chose to focus attention on the tens of billions of dollars in arms sales that the Saudis will continue to buy from US manufacturers (what’s the deal with the big visual aids? I kept expecting Trump to poke the prince in the eye).

Obviously, in the calculus of our capital city, Yemeni lives just aren’t worth very much.  At least not when Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Ratheon and other weapons manufacturers stand to make billions in profits.

But, then, this has always been the American way of war and diplomacy.

If you have never read it before, take a look at Marine General Smedley Butler’s important book “War is a Racket” (1935).

Sadly, it has ever been this way.   As the Greek historian Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) wrote, “The rich will do what they can, while the poor will suffer what they must.”

The rich have won another round, for the time being.

The poor in Yemen — and others like them who suffer wherever the American Empire (and our collaborators) places selfish, national, economic interests above the needs of humanity — will continue to die of starvation, disease, bombs and bullets.  Each weapon proudly stamped “made in the USA.”

Yesterday’s political maneuvers were signed in blood, by both the Senate and the White House. America’s cup fills to overflowing, and the inspired warnings of John the Revelator (Revelation 18:23-24) were never more relevant:

“Your merchants were the world’s great men. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray. In her/you was found the blood of prophets and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth.”

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Durer

Their blood, like Abel’s, will cry out from the ground on Judgement Day (Genesis 4:10).  God keeps close accounts. They will be avenged, and America, with all her leaders responsible, will be condemned.

Yet, followers of Jesus are neither shocked nor discouraged when sin shows its ugly public face, as it did yesterday. Justice and mercy will not always triumph in this world, but Christians know that goodness and love  WILL reign supreme on that Last Day.

In the meantime, we have every reason to continue our witness to see Humanity Renewed here and now through Jesus Christ.

Check to see how your senators voted.   If they voted AGAINST tabling the resolution (as did my two!), call or write and express your gratitude and appreciation.  If they voted IN FAVOR of tabling S.J.Res.54, let them know in no uncertain terms that they have not represented your values. If their moral compass does not change, then they may not remain in office much longer.

And Pray.  Pray for the people of Yemen. Pray for the victims who die every day in the multiple American wars raging continuously around the globe.

Pray for the people of God, especially that Christians in the USA will be conformed to the mind of Christ (Romans 12:1-2) even as we are exorcised of the spirit of partisan politics and of Donald Trump.