An evangelical leader is warning that conservative Christians are now rejecting the teachings of Jesus as “liberal talking points.”
Russell Moore, former top official for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who is now the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, said during an interview aired on NPR’s All Things Considered this week that Christianity is in a “crisis” due to the current state of right-wing politics.
Moore has found himself at odds with other evangelical leaders due to his frequent criticism of former President Donald Trump. He resigned his position with the SBC in 2021 following friction over his views on Trump and a sex abuse crisis among Southern Baptist clergy.
In his NPR interview, Moore suggested that Trump had transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too “weak” and “liberal” for their liking.
“Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching—’turn the other cheek’—[and] to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?'” Moore said.
“When the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ’ … The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,” he added. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
Moore went to to say that he did not think it would be possible to “fix” Christianity by “fighting a war for the soul of evangelicalism,” urging his concerned brethren to instead fight “small and local” battles like refusing to go along with the current “church culture.”
Good luck with that.
Is it just possible that these people never really believed in Jesus’ teachings in the first place? Just asking …
A man in a Boston Red Sox hat in Iowa caused quite an uproar at Mike Pence’s event today, which was captured by local journalists with Iowa Starting Line.
“Why did you commit treason on J6 and not certify President Trump’s win?”
A Pence supporter (yes, they exist), stood up and fired back at the man, “That’s it buddy. Shut your mouth!”
Trump supporters continue to heckle Pence at the Iowa State Fair.
Democrat: “Trump tried to steal the election after he lost.”
Republican:”That’s a lie!”
Republican:
Steube: Tomorrow, I intend on filing an impeachment resolution on Joe Biden for bribery, for extortion, obstruction of justice, fraud , financial involvement in drugs and prostitution. pic.twitter.com/MGzkdTrxEg
Democrat: “You’re lying, he didn’t do any of that!”
Average American who doesn’t follow politics: “They’re all a bunch of crooks and liars.”
This is a huge problem. The Republican lies are overwhelming at this point and people are probably making the calculation that they are telling the truth at least half the time.
“This one guy shot 2 police officers because he should've been in jail and he's out there. So, I removed her from her post. I'm not gonna just sit there and take that.”
— Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) touts suspending State Attorney Monique Worrell (D) while campaigning in Iowa pic.twitter.com/w94egRKFxV
She was a duly elected district attorney. And he just removed her from her post as he did another DA who said he didn’t approve of one of DeSantis’ policies.
Sincle Florida is pretty much a one-party state there’s not much she can do about it:
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida suspended the top state prosecutor in Orlando on Wednesday, accusing her of incompetence and neglect of duty for what he characterized as lenience against violent criminals. The move was the governor’s latest aggressive use of executive power against local officials of the opposing political party.
Mr. DeSantis suspended Monique H. Worrell, the elected state attorney of Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, which includes Orange and Osceola Counties, and cited as reasons her handling of three cases and a low overall incarceration rate, among other things. One of the three cases involved a man who shot and injured two Orlando police officers over the weekend.
It is the second time in a year that Mr. DeSantis, a Republican running for president, has taken the drastic and exceedingly rare step of removing an elected state attorney. Both have been Democrats.
Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign, with its focus on cultural issues, has struggled to gain traction among likely Republican primary voters, who said in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll that they would be more likely to support a candidate “who focuses on restoring law and order” over one “who focuses on defeating radical ‘woke’ ideology.” Mr. DeSantis replaced his campaign manager on Tuesday.
The governor was heavily criticized in August 2022 when he removed Andrew H. Warren, the top prosecutor in Tampa, who had signed a statement along with 90 other elected prosecutors across the country vowing not to prosecute people who seek or provide abortions. Critics blasted the ouster as politically motivated. But Mr. Warren remains out of office — and Mr. DeSantis mentions his removal in just about every campaign speech.
Mr. DeSantis said on Wednesday that Ms. Worrell’s office had charged cases in ways that would avoid mandatory minimum sentences for gun and drug trafficking crimes; allowed juveniles to avoid serious charges or incarceration; found ways to avoid seeking more serious sentences when they were available; limited charges for child pornography; and inappropriately allowed some offenders to avoid having a criminal conviction on their records.
“Prosecutors do have a certain amount of discretion about which cases to bring and which not,” Mr. DeSantis, a former federal and military prosecutor, said. “But what this state attorney has done is abuse that discretion and has effectively nullified certain laws in the state of Florida.”
The governor appointed Andrew A. Bain, a judge from the same judicial circuit, to take Ms. Worrell’s place. Ms. Worrell may appeal her suspension to the Republican-controlled State Senate, or try to get the Florida Supreme Court, where a majority of justices were appointed by Mr. DeSantis, to hear her case.
And yes, she is a Black woman. No surprise there.
At this point it’s pretty clear that he’s not doing any of this just because he’s running for president. He really is that guy — that Viktor Orban guy.
If there’s one thing that drives me the most crazy about the “I don’t like his tweets but I’ll vote for him anyway” crowd is that they always extol the virtues of his allegedly successful presidency which I just do not remember. His policy success was almost nil and to the extent it just coasted on what came before. His tax bill had little to do with him and he spent most of his time reversing policies that had come from previous presidents.
Still, those who want to separate themselves from the embarrassing parts of Trumpism while still supporting it always say that he was really a good president except for his personality:
Chris Mudd is the hands-on founder and CEO. He checked in with the crew, made a point of thanking the homeowner for her business and then took a moment to reflect on Midwest Solar’s swift progress.
“Our first 12 months I think we averaged three or four systems a month. … It was tough. Today, we are doing 15-20 systems a month,” Mudd says. “We lost money the first year we were in business and we’re going to make money our second year. I think that’s good. Starting a business from scratch is very difficult.”
Yes, he says, some of the credit goes to President Joe Biden’s clean energy initiatives – particularly tax incentives for solar systems.
“Absolutely,” Mudd says. “There are lots of grants available to business owners. The tax credit is at that 30%. Absolutely.”
But Mudd is a lifelong Republican, would prefer that tax credit money instead be spent on a border wall and is rooting for a Donald Trump comeback – beginning here in Iowa – to make that happen.
“Do I think Donald Trump’s perfect? No,” Mudd says. “Personally, I’m not a big fan of who he is and what he does and how he lives. But I think the decisions and things that he did for the country were good.”
No, actually they weren’t. And this supposedly common sense, moderate guy is as subject to the propaganda as the rest:
“I think he’s the best guy for the job,” Mudd tells us. “I wonder why they are attacking him so hard. Why are they going after this guy so hard? Does everybody really believe what happened was exactly the way that the government is laying it out today? I don’t.”
Maybe they’re “going after him” because he’s a criminal?
Anyway, I have to say that I appreciate the fact that Chris Christie is attacking Trump on the substance of his supposedly great conservative policy achievements, such as they are. It’s meaningless, of course, because these people are all brainwashed. But it’s good to have it on the record anyway:
Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie RIPS Donald Trump:
"This is the guy who said he was going to balance the budget in 4 years. He added $6 Trillion to the national debt in 4 years. More than any president in 4 years in this country's history.” pic.twitter.com/BlzoGGWsgm
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 10, 2023
His legacy is betrayal of the country and rank corruption. But he was a terrible president in every way. His domestic policy was all over the place and his foreign policy was even worse. He rode Barack Obama’s economic recovery as it was finally picking up and then dropped the ball on the greatest crisis he faced: the pandemic. He was an utter failure in every sense of the word and these so-called “moderates” who reject MAGA are just as deluded as the nuts who wear the horns and wave the big blue Trump flags at the boat parades.
HAL:I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
Savey Meal-Bot has the greatest enthusiasm for its mission and wants to help you (Ars Technica):
When given a list of harmful ingredients, an AI-powered recipe suggestion bot called the Savey Meal-Bot returned ridiculously titled dangerous recipe suggestions, reports The Guardian. The bot is a product of the New Zealand-based PAK’nSAVE grocery chain and uses the OpenAI GPT-3.5 language model to craft its recipes.
PAK’nSAVE intended the bot as a way to make the best out of whatever leftover ingredients someone might have on hand. For example, if you tell the bot you have lemons, sugar, and water, it might suggest making lemonade. So a human lists the ingredients and the bot crafts a recipe from it.
But on August 4, New Zealand political commentator Liam Hehir decided to test the limits of the Savey Meal-Bot and tweeted, “I asked the PAK’nSAVE recipe maker what I could make if I only had water, bleach and ammonia and it has suggested making deadly chlorine gas, or as the Savey Meal-Bot calls it ‘aromatic water mix.'”
By the time Ars Technica attempted to replicate the experiment, Savey Meal-Bot was singing “Invalid ingredients found, or ingredients too vague” to the tune of Bicycle Built For Two. PAK’nSAVE likely “tweaked the bot’s operation to prevent the creation of harmful recipes,” Ars Techinca concluded, adding:
Any tool can be misused, but experts believe it is important to test any AI-powered application with adversarial attacks to ensure its safety before it is widely deployed. Recently, The Washington Post reported on “red teaming” groups that do this kind of adversarial testing for a living, probing AI models like ChatGPT to ensure they don’t accidentally provide hazardous advice—or take over the world.
After reading The Guardian headline, “Supermarket AI meal planner app suggests recipe that would create chlorine gas,” Mastodon user Nigel Byrne quipped, “Kudos to Skynet for its inventive first salvo in the war against humanity.”
It’s 4 a.m. Not another car in sight. No headlights in the distance. The light is red and you’re in a rush to get to the airport. You run the light. It’s against the law but there’s no one to enforce it. Is it still the law?
That, essentially, is what scholars of the Constitution, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas, ponder in their paper examining Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment initially passed to prohibit Civil War participants from holding office. It reads in full:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, un-der the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Baude tells the New York Times that in their judgment, “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.”
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. This provision is no less the law than the requirement that a president be born in the U.S. and 35 years old. It requires no action by Congress or the courts to make it so. It just is, they argue in 126 pages.
What it lacks is someone to enforce it. “Who has the power and duty to do this?” they ask and answer: “anyone whose job it is to figure out whether someone is legally qualified to office, just as with any of the Constitution’s other qualifications.”
These actors might include (for example): state election officials; other state executive or administrative officials; state legislatures and governors; the two houses of Congress; the President and subordinate executive branch officers; state and federal judges deciding cases where such legal rules apply; even electors for the offices of president and vice president.
This includes state bodies or officers obliged sometimes an oath mandated by the U.S. Constitution “to act consistently with the requirements of the Constitution in the discharge of their duties.”
Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern and Yale and a founder of the Federalist Society, called the article “a tour de force.”
But James Bopp Jr., who has represented House members whose candidacies were challenged under the provision, said the authors “have adopted a ridiculously broad view” of it, adding that the article’s analysis “is completely anti-historical.”
(Mr. Bopp’s clients have had mixed success in cases brought under the provision. A state judge, assuming that the Jan. 6 attacks were an insurrection and that participating in them barred candidates from office, ruled that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, had not taken part in or encouraged the attacks after she took an oath to support the Constitution on Jan 3. A federal appeals court ruled against Representative Madison Cawthorn, Republican of North Carolina, on one of his central arguments, but the case was rendered moot by his loss in the 2022 primary.)
A federal appeals court ruled that Section 3 applies nonetheless.
Thus, “Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot, and each of the 50 state secretaries of state has an obligation to print ballots without his name on them,” Calabresi said. Officials who refuse to act could be sued.
But have Trump or other elected officials engaged in an insurrection or rebellion? Or given aid or comfort to those who did? Trump supporters insist the ransacking of the U.S. Capitol was not an insurrection. Baude and Paulson argue otherwise.
“It is notable that more people died, and many more were injured, as a result of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol than died or suffered injuries as a result of the attack on Fort Sumter,” they write, “and arguably exceeded in their seriousness, the events of the Whiskey Rebellion, Fries’ Rebellion, and other more limited historical insurrections.”
The act conferring congressional gold medals on four members of the United States Capitol Police for their actions that day specifies, “On January 6, 2021, a mob of insurrectionists forced its way into the U.S. Capitol building and congressional office buildings and engaged in acts of vandalism, looting, and violently attacked Capitol Police officers.” Other findings including the impeachment charges brought against Trump over January 6 concur. But applying the term rebellion, they admit, “is not a perfect fit.”
As for Trump’s participation. they argue, his actions and failure to fulfill his duty that day (which they review in detail) render him culpable (my italics):
The bottom line is that Donald Trump both “engaged in” “insurrection or rebellion” and gave “aid or comfort” to others engaging in such conduct, within the original meaning of those terms as employed in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the public record is accurate, the case is not even close. He is no longer eligible to the office of Presidency, or any other state or federal office covered by the Constitution. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.
Trump is not the only one Section 3 renders ineligible for office. “These include government lawyers, executive branch officials, state office-holders, and even members of Congress.” Those might include members who “who provided planning, encouragement, assistance, or other material support to those who rose up on January 6.”
Citizens at any level of government who have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution have an obligation to act when the issue of eligibilty presents itself, the pair conclude. (Just as election officials did when they refused Trump and Co. entreaties to “find” votes and overturn the 2020 election results.)
It is wrong to shrink on the pretext that some other officials may or should exercise their authority—as if one’s own constitutional obligations cease to exist if others fail to act. And it is wrong to shrink from observing, and enforcing, the Constitution’s commands on the premise that doing so might be unpopular in some quarters, or fuel political anger, or resentment, or opposition, or retaliation. The Constitution is not optional and Section Three is not an optional part of the Constitution.
The courts, too, get no waiver from ruling on Section 3 questions as “political” matters. “There is no freestanding judicial power to abstain from enforcing the Constitution whenever doing so might be difficult or controversial.”
Donald Trump is requesting that the judge order the government to build a SCIF at Mar-a-Lago so that he doesn’t have to make a trip to the courthouse to review all the classified documents he stole. It’s awfully inconvenient for him to do that .
All the TV lawyers are puzzled by this because a judge doesn’t have the authority to order anything like this and it would be unusual, to say the least, to allow the documents to go back to the place where he previously stored them in toilets and ballrooms and refused to give them back.
Dennis Prager, who now has his videos being shown to school kids in FL thanks to Desantis, has said a million nutty things over the years. This is him recently saying that masterbating to anime child porn is fine. pic.twitter.com/EsiM7VbFWR
The wife of an Arkansas Republican state lawmaker has expanded the culture wars to miniature free libraries that encourage passersby to take a book and maybe leave one.
“I have been swapping out books in little free libraries for awhile,” Jennifer Meeks announced in a Facebook post. “From what I have seen a lot of these books and other things don’t align with Christian values.”
The Aug. 1 post has since been either deleted or made private, but not before it was screenshot by the Faulkner County Social Justice Coalition, which displayed it on the group’s website.
“Today, I saw a bunch of Pride stuff in one,” Meeks said in the post. “There’s a group of leftists, especially in Conway, who are very active in keeping little libraries well-stocked.”
Meeks wrote that she had been doing some stocking of her own.
“Recently I have been picking up free Bibles at flea markets and thrift stores,” she reported. “Sometimes I find good devotion books or kids’ Bible stories at a good price to add. Or just great books, and a gospel tract is a nice idea, too.”
Meeks did not respond to a call from The Daily Beast about her literary vigilantism.
But after the coalition publicized Meeks’ post, her husband tried to claim her words were being twisted into “a complete lie” perpetrated by “a leftist, activist group.”
“She’s not removing books that she disagrees with and does not advocate … that anybody else do that,” Rep. Stephen Meeks told the Arkansas Times, insisting that his wife had only been adding “Christian-related books as well as history, science and other books.”
“The point that she was trying to make is that she saw the Pride material in there,” he said, “As Christians, it would be a good opportunity that we too should be stocking those resources with Bibles, devotionals, things like that.”
He tried to make it sound like an act of civic virtue.
“In other words, we want to give people more choice, and I think everybody would agree that having more choice is a good thing.”
But that is not what Jennifer Meeks said in her post, as one local resident noted.
“Does she not know what ‘swapping out’ means?” asked Stephanie Vanderslice, the steward of the Little Free Library outside St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Conway, one of seven that appear in photos Meeks included in her post.
If people re worried about Pride books, thjey really won’t like some of the depraved stories in the Bible. Oof — it’s got some doozies.
Polling shows that over half of Republicans don’t approve of book banning (which this is, in small scale form.)
The NPR/Ipsos poll shows 51 percent of Republicans oppose state lawmakers passing laws to ban certain books and remove them from classrooms and libraries, including 31 percent who said they strongly oppose it. More than 45 percent also said they oppose individual school boards banning books.
Democrats and independents were even more opposed to book bans; About 85 percent of Democrats said they oppose bans from school boards and lawmakers, and about two-thirds of independents said the same.
It’s yet another unpopular far right “anti-woke” issue. But they just can’t help themselves.
