.@Debber66 & I are very happy that the pastor marrying us is a fellow immigrant and @tedcruz dad Rafael Cruz pic.twitter.com/kpANKv9PYO
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) March 2, 2016
This tweet has been bouncing around the ‘tubes, but since it’s Dinesh D’Souza, who knows whether “marrying” is a verb that applies to the present or the indefinite future? Wikipedia links to a wingnut-welfare-sponsored YouTube clip of D’Souza’s marriage proposal to Deborah Fancher, “conservative political activist and mother of two”, so at least she should have a pretty good idea of what she’s signing up for. Note, this is not the young groupie blogger for whose charms D’Souza divorced his first wife and ended his career with King’s College; perhaps Ms. Joseph failed to sever ties with her existing husband, or maybe she didn’t care to marry a convicted felon?
Mother Jones, on Paster Rafael:
… It’s not hard to figure out Rafael Cruz’s basic message. He has given scores, probably hundreds, of sermons and talks at religious and political gatherings, and many are on YouTube. His primary theme is that the United States is a “Christian nation” and that only true believers who adhere to biblical principles—that is, who accept the literal truth of the Bible, as Rafael Cruz and other fundamentalists see it—are worthy of guiding the United States forward. He regularly rails against pastors and church leaders who eschew politics and do not enter the political fray to combat the enemy: secular humanism.
Rafael Cruz is an advocate of Christian dominionism, which essentially holds that fundamentalist Christians should take over, well, just about everything. Speaking at a Texas church in 2012, Rafael Cruz told the crowd that God instructed Adam and Eve to go forth, multiply, and, as he put it, “take dominion over all my creation.” He said this meant that true-believers ought to dominate all areas of life: “That dominion is not just in the church, that dominion is over every area—society, education, government, and economics.” (During that sermon, he also noted that husbands, not wives, should be the “spiritual leader” of their families.) In Cruz’s view, those who accept Christ and his word (as Cruz believes it should be understood) will prosper spiritually and financially. In that same sermon, he noted that God not only anoints priests to lead the faithful, but also anoints “kings…to take dominion.” By that, he means those who rule a nation, and, he adds, these rulers one day (and he makes it sound as if this day will come soon) will transfer the wealth of the “wicked” to the “righteous.”…
Lest you find it distasteful to hold a politician accountable for his relatives, Ted Cruz has publicly defended D’Souza’s past criminal endeavors.
Oddly enough, this news coincides with the release of D’Souza’s latest film, on the imagined horrors of a Hillary Clinton presidency…
A reminder: in all South Asian languages, Dinesh D'Souza translates into "shanda fur die goyim."
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) January 23, 2014
Major Major Major Major
Open thread! Read the newest chapter of my fish story! It’s short.
Nate Dawg
I’m confused– Is Rafael marrying Dinesh and Debber?
Is this one of those polygamous marriages we were warned would be happening?
Just Some Fuckhead
Dominionism really got a bounce in the late 80’s when The Rapture didn’t happen like it was supposed to and Fundamentalist Christians realized they were stuck here. That’s when a whole bunch of people who were “in this world but not of it” decided they were in fact stuck in this world and figured that if they couldn’t get a fiery chariot ride out, by God, they were going to rule it.
PurpleGirl
Jeet Heer: A reminder: in all South Asian languages, Dinesh D’Souza translates into “shanda fur die goyim.”
According to sbjf.org:
SHANDA: A shame, a scandal. The expression “a shanda fur die goy” means to do something embarrassing to Jews where non-Jews can observe it.
Anne Laurie
@PurpleGirl: Yes, that’s the joke.
My lace-curtain Irish granny threw a shonda fur die goyim at us whenever she felt we were embarrassing the family, because it was so common a phrase in the NYC neighborhoods where she’d spent her whole life that she didn’t consider it “Jewish”!
PurpleGirl
@Anne Laurie: My father spoke some Yiddish but I don’t remember hearing that phrase. So I did a Google to find out what it meant. Jeet Haar used it perfectly.
ETA: If I were from South Asia, particularly from Goa, I’d be embarrassed that Dinesh D’Souza shared a common link with me.
M. Bouffant
I know she shouldn’t wear white at her wedding if she isn’t a virgin, but black, really?
F
Trump is going to block grant Medicaid.
We really need to win this election.
BGinCHI
@Nate Dawg: That’s what I thought. Probably dogs getting hitched in the undercard.
M. Bouffant
Say, how’d D.D.’s previous magnum opus, 2016: Obama’s America work out? Any relation to any recognizable reality, now that we’re in 2016?
Warren Terra
He isn’t marrying Ms. Joseph? If you can’t trust the sacred bond between a married man and his married fiance, what has the world come to?
@F:
Vox has a summary of some of the other horrors of the plan (though really not a great summary, as it misses your point about the block grants, and other things like “insurance across state lines” are not properly discussed, apparently because the reporter has heard them a million times before and is tired of talking about them). Private insurers would be allowed to sell plans across state lines, which means worse and more abusive plans; they’d be allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, which means no more private insurance for people who really need insurance, and would be allowed to charge swingeing premiums from people who need care. Basically, it’s back to the bad old days before the ACA, when private medical insurance was effectively meaningless because of personalized premiums, pre-existing conditions, and rescission. Also: insurance would be made “more affordable” through tax deductability instead of (as now) tax credits, meaning higher premiums for all and little recourse (in lower taxes) for the worse-off.
Warren Terra
@M. Bouffant:
It reportedly made a lot of money at the box office, and that’s before you consider DVD sales, which I assume were heavily promoted and bulk-bought through the obvious winger channels. The follow-up two years later made about half as much at the box office, presumably still a profitable venture for this sort of slapdash bottom-feeding muck.
So: he’s probably making a lot of money from these movies. He needs it, now that “The King’s College” (founded 1938, no kings involved) is no longer paying him a $1 million annual salary to lead it in a godly manner (fun fact: the school has 500 students and 26 faculty, so with perks it’s probable D’Souza was being paid half as much as the entire faculty, and not inconceivable he was getting an equal amount).
balconesfault
Reading through the Wikipedia entry for “2016”, it looks as if the film is pretty much the script for Rubio’s criticisms of Obama …, the film argues that Obama wants to reduce significantly the U.S.’s influence within the world while increasing the influence of nations that he believes have suffered or been held back economically or militarily due to U.S. and Western domination
NotMax
Rumor is that President Baud’s first executive order will declare all Republicans to be telephone sanitizers and direct they be blasted into space.
SectionH
NotMax, yes, and that’s how the human race will be wiped out.
Sadly, it seems pretty benign as a current theory.
OzarkHillbilly
@PurpleGirl: Hell, I’m embarrassed.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: My grandfather grew up in the Jewish Ghetto in Chicago and used a great deal of Jewish phraseology. I thought it was Norwegian until I was in my teens!
Another Holocene Human
I always said Bernie Sanders’ wife would be his biggest liability. I didn’t expect this. Look up Jane Sanders on twitter.
PurpleGirl
@M. Bouffant: I don’t think that is a wedding photo, just the three people — D’Souza, Debber66 and Rafael Cruz. D’Souza is very casually dressed in a shirt and pull-over sweater. Being the proper people they are, I would think he’d be in a suit for a wedding.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
Up for the 25th straight hour, and not feeling a bit tired. Fuckin’ chemo, why do you subtly change side effects on me after every treatment?!?!
As for the suggested topic at hand: What do women see in Dweeby Fiendish?
Dave Edmunds Girl Talk
Warren Terra
@Another Holocene Human:
Looks pretty anodyne
bystander
@Nate Dawg:
Looks more like the woman-and-dog variety. These women must love him for his Hayekkian audacity and Randian proclivities.
Shantanu Saha
@PurpleGirl: I thought Dinesh D’Souza meant “smug douchebag.”
Woodrowfan
@PurpleGirl: the proper suit for D’Souza is a yellow or orange jumpsuit with “DEPT OF CORRECTIONS” on the back. Preferably worn while picking up trash along an interstate. “
C.V. Danes
There is no Galactic Overlord.
Ahasuerus
Sorry to be a pedantic putz, but the proper full title for the groom is Convicted Felon Dinesh D’Souza. Please use this phrase in its entirety in the future.
As for the bride and the pastor, I would suggest the prefixes Poor Decision Maker and Delusional Theofascist, respectively.
Uncle Cosmo
@efgoldman:
How ’bout we start referring to the candidate as “Sonny” Cruz?
(And how much you wanna bet that even as I type, Krisp Krispy is readying a toll booth at some Joyzie highway for Sonny’s arrival…)
Ohio Mom
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): late to the party but are you drinking enough water to flush that stuff out?
When my friends’ son graduated from Oberlin about eight or ten years ago, D’Souza was the commenced speaker. Never imagined I’d ever have to listen to him for extended period of time but there I was.
Mike in NC
So fucking creepy…
TallPete
@Another Holocene Human: why do you think Jane Sanders is a liability?
JustRuss
@Ohio Mom: I feel your pain. I voluntarily went to see him “debate” once, and that’s 90 minutes I’ll never get back.
I am intrigued by the “fellow immigrant” in his tweet. Is he trying to push back against right wing xenophobia? Nice effort, but talk about a fart in a hurricane.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
What a fucking loathsome collection of shitbags. These people’s faces scream out for a fist to be planted firmly within them.
Moi
A professional right-wing troll