Trump’s not the only coup plotter who’s crabby about Operation Find Out. Last month, Michigan statehouse Rep. Matt Maddock (R) held a “Free The 16 Electors Poolside Party!” fundraiser at his home. It was to benefit the 16 fake Trump electors who were criminally charged in July by MI AG Dana Nessel. Maddock’s wife, former MI GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock, is one of them.
The pool party turned into a pity party when Matt Maddock spoke to the crowd, according to audio obtained exclusively by The Messenger:
“If the government continues to weaponize these departments against conservatives and the citizens that are then the taxpayers, you know what’s going to happen to this country,” Matt Maddock asks… After attendees at the event shout possibilities, Maddock answers his own question: “Someone’s going to get so pissed off, they’re going to shoot someone. That’s what’s going to happen. Or we’re going have a civil war or some sort of revolution. That’s where this is, where this is going.”
(An aside — why do these shitheads assume they’re the only ones who pay taxes? The only people who actually don’t pay taxes are Repub megadonors!)
Anyhoo, Maddock’s whiny meeping was followed by a brief moment of clarity:
If that happens, it’s conservatives – like the people at the pool party – who are “going to get squashed,” he added.
Well, it’s good he realizes that. What the dingus doesn’t say is that there’s already a Trumpenproletariat body count, i.e., people inspired to act out violently on Trump’s behalf who are now dead.
There was the deluded MAGA rioter who was gunned down by a cop while trying to breach a barricade in the Capitol Building. The armed fool in the Midwest who attacked a local FBI office after the agency searched Trump’s Florida dump last year, who subsequently died in a hail of police bullets.
Just this week, an online loud-mouth in Provo who repeatedly made graphic threats and publicly shared preparations to assassinate the president during a local visit died in a police raid, and his neighbors were all like OMG, how could you send a SWAT team after this elderly ward brother?
There’s a simple solution to this crisis. The Trump cultists can just stop making violent threats, taking violent actions and trying to illegally overthrow the government in a fit of pique when they lose elections.
All free speech rights remain in effect — float around on your pool noodles complaining about Biden, Whitmer, Nessel, the DOJ, etc., until the goddamn pool freezes over — we don’t give a shit! Just don’t try to invalidate legal votes or violently overthrow the government.
I dunno guys, seems pretty simple to me. Open thread.
Baud
Like a bug.
As the saying goes, we won’t start it, but we will finish it.
Old Man Shadow
The laws are supposed to be for Those people. Not for white MAGA shitheads. The cops are supposed to bust and kill Those people, not them.
Asking them to respect the laws and making them face consequences when they don’t is the height of oppression to them.
Just more fucking entitlement from conservatives trying to preserve white supremacy.
Dangerman
Spoke to my Brother and shared the story that Ministers/Pastors/Preachers are getting attacked for literally quoting the Sermon on the Mount. Weak, woke, whatever their complaint is, that seems to about as low as it can go for a professed Christian.
There is either going to have to be some deprogramming on a scale I can’t even begin to imagine or there is going to be one helluva horrible event (or series of events). This is unsustainable.
Josie
They are in such a constricted bubble that they have no idea what a small minority they are. It will be painful for everyone when they finally have to face the reality of it.
Westyny
As the saying goes, “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”
MazeDancer
So, can Trump just tell lies about the Judge? Like he is doing with Fani Willis? And Jack Smith?
Trump doesn’t need to release sensitive info.
He just makes it up.
Jeffro
Garland to speak in a second?
cope
Maybe simple to people such as ourselves but to the MAGA, it’s more like quantum electrodynamics, wrapped in bioinformatics and surrounded by differential calculus.
Jackie
BettyCracker, this is for you!
“It was an inauspicious start for Ron DeSantis in Iowa on Friday,” Politico reports.
“Chanting ‘Ron DeFascist’ and ‘pudding fingers’ on a megaphone while ringing cowbells, two protesters effectively cut short the Florida governor’s first campaign stop of the day at a large roadside rock painted for war veterans.”
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
trollhattan
@cope:
Pottymouth! :-P
trollhattan
@Jackie:
Heh. “A large roadside rock” is an apt description of Puddin’ Boots himself.
Chris Johnson
The best part of this (not great, but it is what it is) situation is this:
Apparently the raid is after a tip that came off Truth Social.
I love that. The feds are coming from inside the house.
Most effective way to stop these people from terrorism is making them extremely paranoid about all their little networks, so they have nowhere safe to conspire. Truth Social will now seem like that much less safe a place to conspire.
Jeffro
Garland’s appointing a special counsel to look into Hunter Biden
ETA: not quite…he’s “promoting” the current prosecutor (Weiss) to special counsel
Mr. Bemused Senior
I realize talk of “civil war” is mostly bluster, but I can’t help wondering what is going on in these people’s heads. Wasn’t one Civil War. enough? The country is awash in guns, it is easy to obtain them. In a real war they would lose.
Anoniminous
@Dangerman:
In 414 CE Hypatia, one of the last great Hellenistic thinkers at the Alexandrian Library, was attacked on the street by a Christian mob who dragged her to a church, skinned her alive using pot shards, cut out her eye, cut her into pieces which then they dragged through the street and set on fire.
So Christian hate and bigotry not only is sustainable but has been sustained for millennia.
Ocotillo
So many MAGAts like this sh*tstain are always howling about grievence and their lack of freedumb. The irony though, the guy obviously has enough income to have a house with a pool, while that doesn’t mean he is Charles Koch rich, he has a lot better life than 90% of the rest of the people in the country do but yet, he is so put upon.
Ken
I saw your story about that. It reminded me of the time I was an adult mentor in a confirmation class, and during the lesson on the Trinity, one of the other mentors asked “Is this Trinity thing something Christians believe?” Um, yes….
different-church-lady
”THEN WHAT’S LEFT TO TALK ABOUT?!?”
Elizabelle
The case of that Utah man who was killed by the FBI, when he raised a gun against them, when they came to arrest him for threats against Biden, and against other Democratic officials.
He was radicalized. His friends are saying in retrospect that they could see how radical his social media posts were, even while he was a nice man to deal with in person. One neighbor said he was the type who slept with a gun under his pillow. The man owned 20 guns. He cared for his blind son, who was in his 50s.
My point is: Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, or any of the wingnut right media got that man killed. They radicalized him.
This is a continuing problem. Radicalizing people to violence, lying to them about their government and their democracy, and inspiring them to take up arms against a democratically elected government, should not be hiding behind the first amendment.
Further, once people are radicalized, good information will not drive out bad. They’re already propagandized.
We need to deal with this. I wonder if anyone is keeping a list of wing nuts, killed by law enforcement, or dead because of their false beliefs.
I realize that lies and ugliness is how Rupert, Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh have always done business. But it is different in the US, versus the UK or Australia, because of the pervasive access to military grade weapons, and just plain firearms in the hand, of just about anyone who wants one.
we can’t even keep guns out of the hands of toddlers and six year olds.
The Thin Black Duke
I wouldn’t mind if someone took a folding chair upside Matt Gaetz’s head in the House.
Almost Retired
Re the comment above about DeSantis at the fair:
I went to the Iowa State Fair once. It was muggy, crowded and smelly. It was nearly impossible to find food that wasn’t battered, deep fried and smeared with bonus lard. All cows basically look alike, except for the butter one. I barfed on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Plus, that evening’s concert headliner was Ted Nugent.
Therefore, I’m thrilled that these Republican goons are forced to spend time there with the common clay of the Midwest while eating batter-fried dicks.
different-church-lady
@The Thin Black Duke: You’d need more of a folding table for that head.
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke:
Make sure the chair is an XL, dude’s melon is huge.
Ken
Beer? Er, no, woke. Same for movies, TV, music, baseball, NASCAR, football, beer, …
I guess the only thing left is the weather. Oops, forgot the global warming conspiracy being pushed by the Chinese.
Roger Moore
@MazeDancer:
He can tell lies about the judge. He may not attempt to intimidate the judge. There can be a fine line between those two, but that’s really the line.
Anoniminous
@Almost Retired:
You forgot the sugar coating covered in confectioner’s sugar.
Geminid
@Chris Johnson: Some of these guys can keep their mouths shut, and they’re the ones who worry me. Authorities have apparently made no progress finding the guy who knocked power out for almost 50,000 people in Moore County, North Carolina last December. Some hypothesize that law enforcement has laid down on the job, but I don’t think the FBI and N.C. Bureau of Investigation have. I think the guy planned carefully and kept his mouth shut afterwards.
Chat Noir
Dana Nessel is a self-professed crazy cat lady!
different-church-lady
@Anoniminous: Is this supposed to make the fair sound bad?
Sure Lurkalot
@Jeffro: Nice, way to level the playing field between Trump’s crimes and Hunter’s. Between a person trying to plead guilty and face the music vs. one still beating the big lie drum and inciting people to violence.
Betty Cracker
@Jackie: Thanks for that link — I relish every moment of discomfort DeFascist experiences on the trail!
Go Bitches!
p.a.
Radicalization by media. You don’t have to go back to Nazi Germany. Rwanda. Don’t know how much media was involved in the former Yugoslavia as those frictions (to politely label them) went back a millennia.
Jackie
@Chris Johnson: “
“Apparently the raid is after a tip that came off Truth Social.
I love that. The feds are coming from inside the house.”
TIFG doesn’t know who he can trust anymore. This has got to rattle his already rattled what ever passes for a brain!
Old Man Shadow
@Anoniminous: I was going to point out that it was ironic that Christians would murder a Hellenistic philosopher when Paul of Tarsus was heavily influenced by Platonic teaching, but it appears the motivation was a petty ass bishop who wanted everyone to “respect his authoritah!” and didn’t like her being friends with the Roman governor who opposed the church man’s overreach.
Yet another reason why churchmen should be kept far, far away from secular power.
waspuppet
@Old Man Shadow: The Texas SCOTUS lawsuit after the 2020 election gave the game away. The only “constitutional right” at issue was Texans’ right not to live under a Democratic president.
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: Well, fuck.
Jeffro
@Sure Lurkalot: yeah it’s odd…Weiss was already the prosecutor for Hunter Biden’s case(s)…why make him a special counsel? So he pull a Ken Starr and
kneecap the presidentinvestigate more widely?Burnspbesq
What’s the over/under on how many hours until Trump violates the protective order?
protip: when Trump is involved, ALWAYS take the under.
MazeDancer
@Roger Moore: Thanks. That may be an invisible line, but we’ll see.
Trump wants to be muzzled, so he can raise money on being “silenced”.
He would love to be jailed, because more money.
Home confinement and taking away his keyboards could make him crazy – er, crazier.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: According to CNN, Weiss asked for special council status. ETA: IIRC, previously Weiss said he hadn’t requested it in response to wingnut accusations that he had been denied it. I know nothing about Weiss except that Trump appointed him. From that, I’ll assume he’s a partisan hack until proven otherwise.
bbleh
I think even the noise about “free speech” is just an empty buzzword for them. What they really mean is what every angry 6-year-old means: I wanna do what I wanna do! Lie, express or act upon open bigotry, threaten, riot, brandish, shoot … whatever. That they are taught words that have meaning in the real world to cover their actions doesn’t mean they understand those words or what the words (putatively) have to do with their actions. They just wanna!
eclare
@Almost Retired:
Hehehe…
Matt McIrvin
@cope: “That’s like asking the square root of a million! No one will ever know!”
trollhattan
The Phoebe Waller-Bridge interview you need.
Josie
@Jeffro:
Wasn’t there an accusation from a fake whistleblower that Weiss was not made special counsel and therefore was being told to settle and cover for the Bidens? Maybe this new designation is to prove that is not true and that he has the power to make a decision without repercussions.
Jackie
@Jeffro: Does the title special counsel really change what he’s already been doing?
Old School
From the article on the Hunter Biden special prosecutor:
WaterGirl
@Jeffro:
I watched the 5-minute announcement from Garland. Why? Because Weiss wrote to Garland and asked to me made Special Counsel on this matter.
Garland gave Weiss that option when he appointment him last year, so the die was cast then.
Elizabelle
I want a special counsel to investigate, Jared Kushner, and any of the Trump family who grifted off of the United States. There should be plenty to look into with Jared.
It breaks my heart to see both barrels aimed at Hunter Biden, when the Trumps stole or tried to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down. Took advantage of everything they could, and all the self-dealing.
Enough. Go after the corruption.
“It is an American issue. Not a political issue.”
I think that’s what we are meant to say about climate change now. Corruption is also destroying our country.
JaySinWA
@Burnspbesq: I think maybe 48hrs after the discovery dump. It’s a lot of pages. It may take a while to find some juicy bits. OTOH passing it off to a third party to leak might be as quick as the data can be transferred.
Jeffro
@Burnspbesq: ok then I will take the under 😁
more seriously? It’s 1pm eastern…I give it about 7 hours
Jackie
@WaterGirl: So nothing’s really changed? Just wearing a new hat?
rikyrah
@Old Man Shadow:
no better example of this than 1/6. they rampage THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL…
and, then are allowed to just go home.
they were really shocked when the Marshall’s arrived on their doorsteps to arrest them.
Baud
@Old School:
The Trial of the Century! /FoxNews
rikyrah
@bbleh:
They have free speech.
What they want is FREEDOM FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF SAID SPEECH.
They wanna party like it’s 1923.
smith
@WaterGirl: I was wondering why he wasn’t a special counsel from the beginning. Isn’t that what would normally be done if a president’s family member were being investigated?
rikyrah
The ‘ WHAT ABOUT STUDENT LOANS’ Brigade needs to get behind this.
This is a permanent solution to the problem, presently and going into the future.
Student loan forgiveness: Bill would refinance interest to 0% for borrowers, cap interest
By
With President Biden’s widescale student loan forgiveness plan dead, federal lawmakers are looking at other ways to help student loan borrowers.
A pair of federal lawmakers have introduced legislation to lower payments for both current and future federal student loan borrowers.
The Student Loan Interest Elimination Act, sponsored by Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, and Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Connecticut, would refinance federal student loans for existing borrowers to 0% while also capping interest rate for future borrowers. If the legislation is passed into law, 43 million Americans with existing federal student loan debt would see their interest rates immediately eliminated, according to a news release.
https://www.al.com/news/2023/08/student-loan-forgiveness-bill-would-refinance-interest-to-0-for-borrowers-cap-interest.html#amp_tf=From%20%1%24s&aoh=16917624651941&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.al.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F08%2Fstudent-loan-forgiveness-bill-would-refinance-interest-to-0-for-borrowers-cap-interest.html
Ken
I seem to recall from when Smith was appointed, that a special counsel is also free from some requirements for Congressional oversight? Is that correct? If so this might also mean the House MAGAs can’t force Weiss to talk about his plans for prosecution or the evidence he holds.
Bill Arnold
@Chris Johnson:
I wonder how many people here have a Truth Social account, including any anonymous accounts, for fucking with DJT and his MAGA minion horde.
Betty
@Betty Cracker: Silly me. I thought these cases were said and done as he tried to plead guilty and move on. Politics is interfering in the operation of the Department of Justice and not because of Democrats.
Bill Arnold
@Ken:
Not believing it was heresy, centuries ago. Punishable by death, IIRC.
FelonyGovt
Remember how they came after Kathy Griffin for her thing about holding up Trump’s head? Made her life a misery. What makes these shitheads think they can threaten assassination of public figures, conspire to overthrow the government, etc. and not suffer any consequences?
So tired of these fuckers thinking that they are the majority, when they’re not. And as you said, Betty, they’re not the only ones who pay taxes.
Old Man Shadow
@Betty Cracker: Wise assumption.
I hope everyone is ready for a “revelation” in the “investigation” sometime around the last week of October.
The media, having learned all of the wrong reasons from 2016, will, of course, bite and hype the nothingburger trying to tank Joe.
Old Man Shadow
@Bill Arnold: Santa punched a man out over it.
Jackie
@Ken: If true, then Garland has pulled a fast one over Comer and Jordan! What are they gonna do? Bitch, moan and groan?
Roberto el oso
@Anoniminous: have you seen the movie, with Rachel Weisz? I thought it was quite good, although I did do a double-take when I discovered it existed …. wait, they’ve made a movie about that Hypatia? I admit I went to IMDB to check the parents’ guide for gore and violence, knowing what a horrible end she came to. The movie changes the manner of her death, for which, I suppose, thank god.
Old Man Shadow
@FelonyGovt: What makes these shitheads think they can threaten assassination of public figures, conspire to overthrow the government, etc. and not suffer any consequences?
They’re white, Christian, and conservative thus they are the only “real” Americans that exist and the only voices that they think should count.
Betty
@Old Man Shadow: Could part of the Republican plan be to harass Hunter to the point that Joe decides not to run in order to call off the dogs. Who knows? It’s just sick that they can’t run on governing and policy positions so we get these attacks instead.
Old School
@Old Man Shadow:
I believe Robertson was Mormon, but rant away.
smith
@Betty: They’re probably trying to give an opening to the MSM to both-sides TFG’s trials. If the timing is right, there will be, on the one hand, a tax evasion trial for the kind of shenanigans pretty much all rich people try to do, and on the other hand, a would-be dictator on trial for attempting a coup. I’m sure the media will agree there’s not much difference.
JaySinWA
@Old School: Then the 5th circuit declared the Hunter Biden felony gun charge unconstitutional. Not yet recognized where Biden is being charged, but was already recognized to be on shaky ground.
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/hunter-biden-gun-drug-charge-ruling-rcna99188
smith
@Old School: From the Mormon’s website:
eclare
@FelonyGovt:
Yeah. Kathy was investigated, put on a no-fly list, lost a lot of work and people she thought were friends.
geg6
@trollhattan:
I may be the only person on this blog who didn’t find Fleabag all that entertaining. But that doesn’t surprise me. I am often out of step with the entertainment tastes among the jackals.
FelonyGovt
@Old School: See, this is interesting to me. As someone who was raised nominally Jewish, then early on decided I didn’t really believe anything, Christianity is something of a mystery to me. I thought Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, etc etc were ALL Christians. Is that not correct?
ETA or what Smith said at 72.
HumboldtBlue
Man, the video from the fire on Maui is absolutely heartbreaking.
@Jackie:
That’s fantastic!
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I suppose that’s true.
Except that the mere request to move to Special Counsel indicates that he thinks there is more there there. Not a good sign for Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is doing it wrong – he clearly should have taken billions from the Saudis like Jared did.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I still feel a combination of sick, sad, and enraged when I hear the cop’s voice from the video where they are arresting Epstein (I can’t ever remember how to spell his name, and I don’t care enough to look it up.)
“Just sit here on the curb. You are being retained. We’ll ask you some questions in a minute, okay?”
Tell that to George Floyd.
OzarkHillbilly
Shorter Betty C.:
Don’t Fuck Around, because you will Find Out.
WaterGirl
@smith: No, I actually think that’s common. Someone is assigned to investigate and see if there is any there, there.
They investigated the documents found in Biden’s possession for a few weeks before they appointed a Special Master.
I know why Merrick Garland chose a Trump-appointed guy to look into Hunter Biden, but I think it was a big mistake. You can’t bend over backwards for appearances when most of the Rs care more about party and power and scoring points than they care about the rule of law.
Geminid
@FelonyGovt: Some evangelical Christians say that LDS church members do not qualify as Christians. The tablets Joseph Smith claimed to recieve from the Angel Moroni are considered un-Biblical and the people following them heretical, or as is said now, a “cult.”
This was evident in 2012, when conservative Evangelical leaders supported Romney only tepidly. I noticed how much more enthusistic they were for Trump in 2016, and I bet LDS members did too.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Great idea!
Old School
@FelonyGovt: Yeah, I knew someone would “Well, actually…” this.
As far as someone representing that there is one big Christian group that believe everyone in it is correct, nothing could be further from the truth.
See Emo Phillips’ bridge joke.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Oh, that’s an interesting thought.
Josie
@FelonyGovt:
It depends on who you ask. Some Christian denominations say that some others are not Christian. There doesn’t seem to be any one authority on who is or is not. Actually, I question whether evangelicals are really Christian, as they don’t seem to follow Christ’s teachings at this point. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. ;-)
Villago Delenda Est
Betty, c’mon now. You know that your sanity is not matched by the insanity of the MAGAts, who consider any Democrat elected to any office to have been placed there by voter fraud. After all, blah people probably voted for a Democrat, and they shouldn’t be voting at all.
Villago Delenda Est
@Old School: I saw him perform that one live back in ’83, in a small comedy club in Augusta, GA. It was of course as fantastic and on-target then as now.
Ruckus
@Old Man Shadow:
THIS.
Absolutely Fucking This.
Ken
Each of those groups considers themselves Christians. Some of them do not consider some of the others Christians.
(I am referring to the official statements of the denomination, where such a thing exists. Individual members of the denomination may have different opinions, often because they don’t know their denomination’s official opinion.)
Anyway, all one big happy family following the teachings of Jesus Christ, except where those are too woke.
smith
Here’s the thing that going to surprise the hell out of the Goobers when they finally attain their Christian theocracy — somebody has to decide which flavor of Christianity is the One True American Religion. Quite a few of them are going to find out that they are actually heretics, and will be going to the camps with the rest of us.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: The ‘ WHAT ABOUT STUDENT LOANS’ Brigade does not get behind things. The ‘ WHAT ABOUT STUDENT LOANS’ Brigade gets in front of things.
tobie
What I don’t get is why Weiss doesn’t charge now that the plea deal has fallen through. He doesn’t need to be Special Counsel to indict. He’s been at this for 4 years and found penny ante shit. Enough already with the political witch hunt launched by Trump and Barr.
...now I try to be amused
@Old Man Shadow:
The day Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire was a dark day for Christianity.
Anyway
@WaterGirl:
agreed. I want to see a Rethug AG appointing a special counsel for anything going on under R administrations. They had to fight to get the 9-11 commission.
Ruckus
@cope:
They are being told by all of the far right that everyone in the world is trying to take away their right to be righteous assholes towards everyone who doesn’t believe that they are the center of the world, the perfect people, because they have the one true ideal – that they are the center and only rightful citizens.
They are delusional because they think we should go back to the early 1700s with wealthy white people with whips and guns in charge. And that word delusional is doing a hell of a lot of work.
Old Man Shadow
@FelonyGovt: Mormons state that they are Christians. Evangelical fundies state they are not. Of course, Evangelical fundies say that Catholics aren’t Christian either.
That should give Catholics and Mormons a lot of pause about helping to empower Christian nationalism, but I suppose a lot of folks don’t mind being eaten so long as they are eaten last.
HumboldtBlue
@Jackie:
From the article, we get this nugget of bullshit:
Getthefuckouttahere, those were Trump supporters yelling at Pence, not a Demcorat, Politico is a fucking joke.
Soprano2
@Josie: That’s absolutely true; around here they are the majority, so they believe they’re the majority everywhere.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dangerman:
I’m all for a Reverse Rapture. We get them out of our hair, and after being dragged down to meet Satan, they suddenly realize they’re not in the Good Place.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl:
Yep. It not only doesn’t work from a PR standpoint, but taking shit like that into consideration is injecting politics into a supposedly apolitical process in its own right.
Villago Delenda Est
@HumboldtBlue: POLITICO is not called “Tiger Beat on the Potomac” for nothing, you know.
Old Man Shadow
@Sister Golden Bear: Their idea of Heaven would be Hell by our point of view.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus:
“Well what the heck else is the first amendment for?”
Matt McIrvin
@FelonyGovt: Mormons consider themselves Christians, but some other Christians don’t.
And there are some evangelical Protestant sects who basically consider themselves the only real Christians.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: Jim Jordan seems unhappy about the Hunter Biden special counsel, which makes me feel better.
scav
@Old Man Shadow: Well, the Catholics don’t recognize Mormon baptism as Christian baptism, so there is room for snooty holier than thouism all round.
Dangerman
Sadly, there will always be violence because of Religion (works both ways, BTW, which is one of the reasons I’m always near an exit in a Church; actually, given what I do, I am almost always aware of what it will take to get away from wherever I might be at the time if I am in crowd).
My thought is we are going to have another Koresh, Jim Jones, or Heavens Gate … which goes back to the Cult (Sonic Temple!) and deprogramming thing.
cain
@Old Man Shadow: the reason we even did this whole separation of religion from govt is that it leads to religion being corrupted.
Villago Delenda Est
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, cry me a fucking river, Qevin, you spineless toad.
Villago Delenda Est
@cain: The Founders/Framers were much closer to the European wars of religion than we are. So they wanted to avoid that nonsense. The fundigelicals want to bring it back.
different-church-lady
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“WHY ARE YOU TREATING TRUMP DIFFERENTLY FROM HUNTER BIDEN?!?”
[Garland appoints special council for Hunter Biden]
“NO! NOT LIKE THAT!!!”
Geminid
@smith: I think a lot of LDS Church members recognize this, and that’s part of why Trump underperformed in Utah compared to similarly Republican states.
Ed. Mormons don’t seem to talk a lot about the harrassment and lynchings that drove them to Utah, but they’re keenly aware of their history of persecution.
cain
@Dangerman:
If it wasn’t for the fact that they think Lucifer Morningstar is bad culturally – they would absolutely enjoy joining satanism because of the selfishness and intolerance of the Devil. I mean tehy are in fact devil worshipers in all in name.
The fact that you could be attacked for quoting Sermon on the Mount because it is woke is some next level bullshit. But like everything in fascism there is always an enemy and like Brexit – the gun has finally swung to themselves.
Do you have a link to the story?
Matt McIrvin
@scav: It works the other way around too. I’m an atheist and I don’t consider myself a Christian, but there are atheist Jews who will say that I am a Christian in the same cultural sense that they are Jews.
Villago Delenda Est
@Geminid: LDS, having been on the business end of religious persecution, tends to be sensitive to ANY religious persecution, even if they are not involved on the receiving end. Because Martin Niemöller’s parable hits them where they live.
JWR
@WaterGirl:
Isn’t this the way Ken Starr got permission from Janet Reno to go hog wild with his dirt digging to begin with? Weiss seems uninterested in taking this as far as the Rs evidently want, but he’s still got that R after his name, and that R don’t count for nothing these days.
Matt McIrvin
@Old Man Shadow: Jack Chick’s early tracts identified the Pope as the Antichrist. I think they got revised later on.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve known a lot of Jews who didn’t consider themselves to be religious at all, but felt being “Jewish” is much more of a cultural thing. The Nazis thought it was a “racial” thing and didn’t care if someone with Jewish ancestry had converted to Christianity…didn’t count, as far as the Nazis were concerned. Might have been even more sinister assimilating into a Christian culture.
Spirula
There’s a simple solution to this crisis. The Trump cultists can just stop making violent threats, taking violent actions and trying to illegally overthrow the government in a fit of pique when they lose elections.
Well, there’s the whole leopard and spots problem with these people.
scav
@Matt McIrvin: I noticed similar as being technically more of a protestant atheist I had long arguments with essentially catholic atheists over the role of the pope. Go figure.
Old School
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
James Comer thinks appointing a special counsel is part of a cover-up.
lahke
@geg6: me too on Fleabag, because it was so clearly painful. Cringe comedy just feels like piling on.
However, I adored Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I guess all the genius musical numbers made up for the cringe factor.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: When the segregationists in the Southern Baptist Convention needed allies in their fight against actual Christians like Jimmy Carter, they accepted the political need to include right-wing Catholics. So they dropped a lot of the papist trope things.
rikyrah
The MSM is pissed about their year+ investment in the fluffing of Ronnie D..
has been FOR NOTHING..
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA A
Hope Restored In DFW (@Kennymack1971) tweeted at 10:41 AM on Fri, Aug 11, 2023:
Trump’s going down in flames, DeSantis is a non starter, the House GOP is batshit nuts…the media is desperate to latch on to a normie GOP and boost them. But Will Hurd won’t be it either….but keep on keeping on MSM.
(https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/1690025760491261953?s=02)
Matt McIrvin
@scav: I realized a while back that in a bunch of my attitudes about belief or the lack thereof, I could arguably identify as an American Baptist atheist specifically (my parents’ old denomination before they got sick of the whole thing, and I think I absorbed some of it osmotically).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JWR: I don’t know the ins-and-outs of either the law or this particular case, where it ws that Garland agree or was compelled to give Weiss SC status on demand.
I believe Starr was an ‘Independent Counsel’ according to a law that was allowed to lapse because Starr fucked up so badly. I believe a Special Counsel has a lot less independence and latitude.
Politically, which is what I care about at this point, it looks like this freezes any congressional inquiries and kicks the can down the road? Maybe till after 11/24?
Villago Delenda Est
@JWR: Starr was the second Whitewater Special Prosecutor. Robert Fisk worked on that beat for years and couldn’t find shit, so the GQp solution was to get rid of him and replace him with Starr, with less integrity and more ideology.
cain
@Betty Cracker: I just wish his first name was Edel.
Dangerman
NPR story, about halfway down.
Geminid
@rikyrah: Republicans are in a real bind, and they could not deserve it more.
Baud
@Old School:
Catch us if you can, asshole.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
They are losing. Control, concept of government and humanity and power. The conservative side of US politics has had a long run. But their world is changing as well. And people they never have and still don’t even consider human are part of that change. Their rigidity of concept of humanity is THEIR failure, no one else’s. And to them they either have to get on board or fight back. And they believe that they are called upon by a higher power to fight back about all their shitty values.
cain
@Betty: Listen it doesn’t matter, if it isn’t Hunter it will be something else. They’ll make shit up if they have to.
I mean the ridiculousness of Butter Email is proof that you can take any stupid shit and turn it into propaganda material.
The hunter biden thing is already in court and there will be sentencing involved – so I’m not sure what else is there to do. There has been no evidence despite all the stupid shit the House is pulling that Joe has been involved in anything other than being there as a loving father who cares about his son.
If there is some political price for that – some shit is going to go down.
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker:
This times a thousand. The Special Counsel on the Biden documents case…also a Republican. Garland bending himself into a pretzel to be nonpartisan and apolitical shows me his interest in how things appear (to Republicans) has an outsized space in his brain.
Uncle Cosmo
When USAns go vacationing in Yerp and clamber around the ruins of Greek and Roman temples, no one seems interested in telling them that most of the wrecking was done by post-Constantine Christian fanatics eager to destroy those pagan abominations once the secular authorities were willing to turn a blind eye. (Taliban and the Buddhist statues had nothing on them.)
The few relatively well-preserved examples owe largely to Christian clergy who consecrated them as churches before the mobs got there and then read them the riot act once they did. One noteworthy example is the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento (southwest Sicily).
Jeffro
@rikyrah: if they’re pissed now, wait until they realize that they really ARE going to be stuck with a 70+ felony-indictments-pending mother of all drags on the GOP ticket next year…
“We could have anointed Kemp! Or Youngkin! But we bought this DeSantis bullshit and NOW look at what we have to report on!”
FelonyGovt
@cain: I don’t know, I thought Lucifer Morningstar was kind of hot.
cain
@Dorothy A. Winsor: probably because it casts doubt to the fact that there is any impropriety since the prosecutor has even more special powers – so why have a House investigation at this point?
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That brought a big smile to my face!
Sure Lurkalot
@…now I try to be amused: Actually Constantine was the first emperor to covert to Christianity, not the one who made it the state religion and started persecuting nonbelievers. That was Theodosius. Constantine was tolerant of other beliefs.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Whenever there’s some Baptist controversy I check out a site called Wartburg Watch.* The articles are written by two evangelical ladies totally fed up with the patriarchy, grift and other abuse uncovered in Baptist and other evangelical churches. They pull no punches.
* The ladies named their site after Wartburg Castle in Thuringia, where Martin Luther holed up when the Catholic Church was trying to lay hands on him.
cain
@different-church-lady: House republicans want a circus! With green balloons!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dorothy A. Winsor: weren’t they screaming a month ago that Garland had blocked Weiss from investigating? Honestly, I can’t keep up with all the half-assed whistle blowers and other bullshit.
cain
@rikyrah: meanwhile the population is getting more and more progressive! The HORRORS!
Mr. Bemused Senior
@cain: I would pay to see them in a clown car.
Roger Moore
@FelonyGovt:
Who really counts as a Christian is a morass non-Christians should try to avoid stepping into. I can certainly understand accepting as Christian anyone who claims to be, but plenty of Christians (by that test) don’t. They want to exclude anyone who disagrees on sufficiently important points of theology. The Mormons are excluded on those grounds probably more than any other group, since they have a whole additional work of scripture, the Book of Mormon, in addition to the standard Christian Bible. Even if they count as Christian by the calling themselves Christian test, they are clearly far from mainstream Christianity.
skerry
I was looking at a senior housing facility in Indianapolis with my dad when we stopped in front of the chapel. I asked the sales manager/tour guide what denominations have services and was told “Christian and Catholic”.
Old Man Shadow
@Matt McIrvin: There’s still a lot of that in fundie churches if you scratch just below the surface.
Had more than one pastor tell me that praying to saints was idolatry.
They might mind their P’s and Q’s in public, but in private, they let their Klan flag fly.
KrackenJack
@scav: Alright, that made me laugh.
Old Man Shadow
@Roger Moore: Christians have been arguing about who is the real true Christians since the very beginning.
If you read the epistles in the New Testament, a lot of space is devoted to, “Hey, those ‘Christians’ over there with that group fucking suck and are evil Satanic devils going to burn for all eternity! Don’t listen to them or be like them. Only the people who follow MY teachings are really Christians!”
Geminid
@Old Man Shadow: I am looking forward to when this tide of politicized Christianity finally subsides and they go back to disputing doctrine among themselves.
cain
@Dangerman:
Thanks! From the article:
As someone else said Jesus was a subversive to the powers that be then. How funny that he’s back to being a subversive against a crowd that grew up from his teachings. This is why history is fascinating!
Ken
The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia identifies Protestantism as a form of heresy. This did not get revised for the 1967 New Catholic Encyclopedia, though it got moved to the article on “Heresy, History of”.
JWR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Okay. I kinda like that. ;)
@Villago Delenda Est:
Chant of the modern GOP: Less integrity, more ideology!
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
A lot of Americans are in the same boat, but with different denominations. I went through that as a presbyterian. Maybe presented slightly different, maybe with less powerful images than yours but the basic ideals were the same. I am in that same boat. And it is a very huge boat. And the reason we are in the same boat is education. Education improved after WWII. A lot. A huge world changing event had happened in the 1940s, after a huge world changing event 20+ yrs before that. WWI and WWII. And the communications that also came about. Radio, telephones. All the stories about how different humans were became less real. Sure we look different, we talk different, but underneath that how actually different are we? Not near as much as it was thought. We are humans, we have faults, we sometimes try to fix those, we sometimes fail. But inside we are human, we run the gamut of humanity just like every other animal, but as a group, we are more alike than different. That idea was not really seen before about 75-80 yrs ago. And yes there are still people fighting that concept. The conservative party for one. It can be hard for some to conceive of being part of 7 billion rather than being special. We do have egos of all types and sizes.
cain
I thought the laying of hands was a good thing! What was Martin Luther scared of?! ::snark::
...now I try to be amused
@Sure Lurkalot: I didn’t know that. Thanks!
Jackie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Heehee! Comer’s not happy either!
”Fox News’ Chad Pergram reports that Comer lashed out at Garland for appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s son, despite the fact that such an appointment makes it more likely that Biden will face prison time for his alleged misdeeds.”
“This move by Attorney General Garland is part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of the House Oversight Committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand,’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals,” Comer said, according to Pergram. “Let’s be clear what today’s move is really about. The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight as we have presented evidence to the American people about the Biden family’s corruption.”
No one can make the MAGAts happy…
JPL
Brandi Buchman put up a thread about this mornings proceedings. You don’t need twitter to read it.
thread
Ishiyama
It was a banner day for Christianity; it was the beginning of the end for the Roman Empire.
cain
@Geminid: We’ll need to wait a few generations. Right now it’s nothing but toxicity. The GOP made a huge mistake trying to keep power using evangelicals. They’ve taken over and now it’s nothing but sex, drugs, and satan.
Jeffro
@Geminid:
Oh sure you would say that…splitter!
;)
cain
@Old Man Shadow: Hopefully they don’t get into a discussion with a muslim – they have thoughts.
cain
@Jackie:
They are angry that justice is getting served they wanted a clown car and performative art. Not actual justice.
Geminid
@Old Man Shadow: I read that the Apostles Peter and James had problems with the doctrine Paul was preaching, and summoned Paul to Jerusalem in order to straighten him out.
Later, the Jerusalem Church was wiped out when Rome suppressed the Jewish Revolt, while the Churches in Asia Minor where Paul preached survived, and that’s how Paul’s view became so predominant.
cain
@…now I try to be amused: yep, gave all the grifters power and corrupt the religion for their own purposes.
Old Man Shadow
@Ishiyama: The eastern half of the Roman Empire held on for 1,000 years afterwards.
Old Man Shadow
@Geminid: That and the moment they had access to the State’s monopoly on violence, they purged every other branch of Christianity they deemed as heretical.
Jeffro
I have to admit, it’s kind of funny…picture your 2023 self going back in time (go back to 2022, 2018, 1996, 1974 for all I care) and explaining to your younger self: “A Democratic AG is going to appoint a Special Counsel to continue investigating a Democratic president’s son a year out from that president’s re-election campaign, and the Republican reaction will be to – get this – lose their minds and lash out!”
LOLOL
Baud
@Jackie:
It was Joe’s sperm. Checkmate, liberals!
geg6
@scav:
If this is how you both identify, you aren’t atheists. You are none of those things if you are an atheist. I was raised to be Catholic. But I don’t identify as a Catholic atheist. Even when I was being raised Catholic, I never called myself a Catholic because I was an atheist from the time I was aware of religion. It all sounded then and sounds now like bullshit and wishful thinking.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
A useful way of thinking of this is that there was less time between the Peace of Westphalia (and the execution of Charles I) and the framing of the US Constitution than between Appomattox and today. Considering how much the American Civil War continues to dominate our politics today, it’s unsurprising how much the 30 Years War and the English Civil War dominated the thoughts of the Framers of the Constitution.
Ishiyama
@Old Man Shadow: What survived losing the Western Empire lost most of its territory to Islam in less time than that.
Urza
I’m late to the party but, Betty, the conservatives can’t stop making threats and doing actual violence, their nature precludes that possibility. And truly throughout all of history when they’re not getting their way from the youngest child disobeying to entire countries not being conservative enough they find ways to bring the violence there, whether helping homegrown orgs or straight up invading.
Inclusivity truly is their kryptonite because it shows that their ideas and values don’t work for everyone, and they cannot abide that.
Brachiator
@MazeDancer:
Trump has behaved this way all his life. And unlike some people, he has no shame, no sense of propriety, no limits, when he is angry or when he is backed into a corner.
He is vicious. And he hates women who defy him, and he hates black women who defy him most of all.
He also feels that he can get away with this stuff because his base loves him. This is important to him. To know that no matter how bad he acts, some people will love him.
ETA. For the lawyers. Is Trump increasingly doing or saying things that defy legal norms? I know I may not be saying this correctly. He doesn’t seem to be taking his various Indictments seriously. I don’t know if he is disregarding a judge’s rulings. He has been in court before and understand how things work. But he doesn’t seem to care.
Ruckus
@Jackie:
No one can make the MAGAts happy…
MAGA stands for MadAssGiantAnts.
They are pissed at the world because the world really is losing the ability to have groups of people that hate the right people because we get to travel and see all the people. We can talk to them and see them and they can talk and see us. In real time. Given the entirety of humanity it has only been like seconds since that started. Mostly it has been in the lifetimes of some alive today. This is a far different world than only 75 yrs ago. Change used to happen over many centuries because of a relative lack of communications. Now communications is at the speed of, if not light, a big hell of a lot faster and a hell of a lot wider actual communication.
Citizen Alan
@Dangerman: I stand by my belief that Jesus will welcome more atheists into the Kingdom of Heaven than Southern Baptists because the former are more likely to have lived a Christ-like life than the latter.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Old Man Shadow: there is a great sci-fi series by David Drake and Eric Flint based on this topic.
HumboldtBlue
@Ishiyama:
Tough finish for your Nadeshiko
Gravenstone
Given the revelation that Twitter handed over account information (and paid a fine for initial non-compliance) he has to at least be wondering about Truth turning on him as well.
Gravenstone
@JaySinWA: I give him less than an hour after learning the names of who has testified before the grand jury. Almost guaranteed he calls out “rats” for disloyalty, at a minimum.
Roger Moore
@skerry:
I’ve had discussions about this kind of thing with some of my non-Christian immigrant coworkers who say it from ignorance. I mostly try to convince them to say Protestant and Catholic, since I don’t want to get too far into the weeds.
bbleh
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @Old School: @Jackie: EVERYTHING is a cover-up! Something something Deep State something Weaponized Government something something Free Speech something worst-scandal-ever-til-we-invent-another-one.
I’m surprised they haven’t pulled Black Helicopters into it.
It’s all kayfabe. And their supporters love it
@cain: saw something somewhere suggesting that one reason they’re upset may be that Special Counsel status limits Congress’s ability to poke around in the matter.
FelonyGovt
@Baud: Joe Biden selling “the brand”. What nerve they have. Their Sun God has literally been selling his “brand” for decades (and would be continuing to do so if he hadn’t rendered it toxic).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gravenstone:
Ha, especially since Truth tipped off the Feds with that RWNJ in Utah. The call is coming from INSIDE the house!
Geminid
@Jeffro: I happened to tune into the Earlysville Baptist radio station one time when some preacher was finishing his sermon. He ended by appealing to listeners to buy his book, “Calvinism: None Dare Call it Heresy.”
I was like, “Now you’re talking!”
Ruckus
@Jackie:
He’s always rattled because he’s always full of shit – and knows it.
He has been a worthless human being for his entire life. OK maybe the first 3-5 yrs don’t count. The ONLY thing he’s got is money. And how did he get that – look it up if you don’t know, but he didn’t earn it.
Baud
@Geminid:
I used to watch the Catholic cable channel (EWTN, I think) and they would regularly go off on Mormons.
Uncle Cosmo
@Sister Golden Bear: I’m holding out for the Crapture, when all the fundies are bodily lifted up by their Maker, who then drops them where they belong, in an open septic tank or other waste treatment facility.
Geminid
@Baud: I think EWTN is based in southern Alabama. At least, when I was driving through I caught their radio show. A couple priest were answering questions submitted by listeners. It was different from the Baptists I’m used to. They’re all “Paul this” and “Paul that.” The priests were more like, “Jerome dealt with this problem by writing…” and “We find in Ambrose that….” That was kind of refreshing.
scav
@geg6: Nope. I’m an atheist whatever you think. But I also recognize that the exact religious environment I grew up and was exposed to growing up tinged my atheism just as my being a gendered middle-class American tinged my atheism. Thus I am inherently more likely to give far less credence to the proposition that the pope speaks for all or most Christians than someone equally atheistic but grounded in a catholic hierarchical culture.
cain
@Ishiyama: who at that time probably seemed like a better option.
cain
@Citizen Alan: Most assuredly since at that time there was no rule to say you had to believe Christ as a savior or anything. IT seems absurd that you can follow the 10 commandments and still go to hell because you didn’t believe In Jesus Christ. Only humans care about that kind of shit – but does a soul?
cain
@bbleh:
If your goal is to have a circus with performative art – you need material and not having access to the material means you can’t strut around and make a name for yourselves.
Plus the timeline is now controlled by someone else not them.
Ken
Civil, yes, hundreds of times. But has he been in criminal court as a defendant? I understand that the rules are quite different. At the very least he’s out on bail, and that can be revoked if he doesn’t comply with the terms.
Ken
Jesus said exactly the same thing in Matthew 25.
Er, not that atheists are in and Southern Baptists are out, but that the welcome will depend on whether you lived a Christ-like life. That includes feeding the hungry, sheltering the stranger, comforting the sick, and visiting those in prison.
Brachiator
@Baud:
I love how the MAGA crowd say that it was okay for Trump to profit from foreign nationals because Trump and his kids were just running the family business. But if Hunter Biden’s laptop was doing anything remotely similar, then that was obviously the illegal and corrupt actions of the dreaded criminal Biden regime.
This crap is so tiresome.
ETA. When will they appoint a special counsel to investigate Baud?
different-church-lady
@Ruckus: I really believe that’s overthinking it. They’re pissed all the time because being pissed give them pleasure in a perverse way. All the other stuff is just an excuse for getting the fix of being pissed at something
Jeffro
@Geminid: LOL
I should do that more often, skip around the radio dial and enjoy some good soul-savin’ & sectarian disputin’ =)
different-church-lady
@cain: Heirs of creators are the worst.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Brachiator: they should appoint Baud to investigate himself.
different-church-lady
@Ken: Hoo, I’m oh for four. Gotta get those on my punch list.
UncleEbeneezer
It seems like people are forgetting a pretty significant fact: Hunter Biden’s attorneys are turning down plea deals because they are apparently confident they would win at trial. I’m not sure why everyone is panicking and reverting to the tired Garland-is-a-secret-Republican bullshit.
Also this:
Baud
@Brachiator:
I think I deserve a very special counsel.
different-church-lady
@Mr. Bemused Senior: [squints] What makes you think Baud’s never done that?
Scout211
The plan to blame the attorneys has commenced. It looks like Sidney Powell is the one who is being under-bused by the rest of the Trump legal team that had attempted to overthrow the election. [The original story is in Rolling Stone but there is a paywall so here is an excerpt from The Messenger].
Trump Allies Say Special Counsel Could Be Closing in on Charges for Sidney Powell: Report
bbleh
@Brachiator: When will they appoint a special counsel to investigate Baud?
Jeez does he need the money that badly? Wouldn’t a GoFundMe be easier?
Sebastian
@Dangerman:
Megachurches (anyone remember that those exist) became massive indoctrination centers for white supremacy and GQP cruelty. The are not Christian nor are they religious, unless one wants to claim GQP/Trumpism is a religion.
I don’t see how any kind of deprogramming (akin to de-Nazification) could possibly happen without the utter and complete defeat and destruction of this humongous, and scarily powerful, movement.
The Nazi Germany was utterly defeated and occupied, which made such a deprogramming possible. The Confederate South, although defeated, was never programmed and we are still fighting this war. I don’t want it to be true, but I honestly fear and expect that it will come to some sort of serious and severe conflict. The other side is becoming more radical, more unhinged, and has dropped all pretenses.
Since the 90ies we keep hoping and telling ourselves that demographics will save us from this fate but it’s not happening. Instead, we have an entire generation of young males who were radicalized online in game chat channels and 4chan. The only glimmer of hope is the reaction to Dobbs, but even here I fear that the GQP is going to double down with their power grabs for the minority through shady legislative trickery.
One of the main problems is that we are not able to shutdown the rightwing media spigot of shit, FOX first and foremost. Instead we hope that one-time messaging during elections is somehow going to deprogram the people who marinate in RW propaganda 24/7. It’s like trying to clean a house before the broken sewage pipes are repaired, a Sisyphusian effort doomed to fail.
Considering the enormous disadvantages in propaganda and control over the public discourse/Overton window (hello, MSM/FYNT/etc) and lack of billionaire funded think tanks, we have exceedingly well in passing historical legislation.
But we are constantly fighting uphill and always in peril of losing those achievements.
LAO
Judge Kaplan revoked Sam Bankman Fried’s bail today for alleged witness tampering.
hope TfG is paying attention
https://twitter.com/zoetillman/status/1690086359170502656?s=46&t=X9PV5VKSwOZNT_u34CCUFQ
ETA fixed name
different-church-lady
@LAO:
“Sam, how are you doing the witness tampering? I need some tips.”
Chief Oshkosh
@Ken: Don’t get me started on transubstantiation.
LAO
@different-church-lady: hehehe
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid: And the person(s) who was going to set bombs at the J6 shindig has never been identified.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I didn’t say they couldn’t say it.
That still does not make it true, just because someone said it out loud.
cain
@Sebastian: True – but we got climate change coming – let me tell you – things get real when your food sources are jeopardy.
The pandemic didn’t help in this regard.
But christian identity has been trending downwards for years now. That’s they these churches are all running around in other countries. Specifically Africa.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@cain:
@cain:They’ve taken over and now it’s nothing but sex, drugs, and Satan.
Damn, I thought if we got all that, it’d be more fun!
Jackie
@Baud: Baahahahaaaa!
Jackie
@Gravenstone: The rat that ratted to the FBI about the Utah guy WAS FROM TRUTH SOCIAL!
Ruckus
@Old Man Shadow:
Only the people who follow MY teachings are really Christians!”
Which is, I believe, why we have so many differing religious groups.
Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and on and on and…..
Religion may be true, I have no ACTUAL knowledge. And neither does any human being ever alive. The stories, the differences, the sects, the writings, all of it has taken the idea that humans were created to worship an entity that they can never see during life, without massive indoctrination that can take years and stories that have to be believed but no one alive will ever ACTUALLY know if true means that we are supposed to believe what? That it’s all true? How can there be such substantial differences in the stories. Will the concept that there are so many differing religions in the world mean that the vast majority will be completely wrong about religion on at least one rather important point? (And no, I don’t know that there is or isn’t one important point, or 10, or 10000) I know absolutely no more than anyone else. I do know/believe that religion has been presented in so many variations and concepts that it is unlikely that any of them are truly valid.
Citizen Alan
@FelonyGovt: All of them consider themselves Christian, but generally they all consider the others “Not Christian Enough.” Well, I’m not entirely sure where the Mormons fit in there, tbh. At a minimum, the LDS stretches what one can be believe about Jesus and still be plausibly considered Christian to near the breaking point.
Gravenstone
@Jackie: What I’d like clarification on is whether the tip was from a user of the service, or the service itself because the posts being reported met some internal criteria for threats. Doubt we’ll ever be told.
Ishiyama
@HumboldtBlue: Very sad, and unexpected.
kindness
Another bonus? When Matt Maddock’s wife is convicted, as a felon they will have to get rid of any and all guns they have in their house. I’m really appreciating that part of felony convictions lately.
Let him have his civil war with a wrist rocket. See how far that takes ya.
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: you will never convince me that Merrick Garland is not among the worst AGs the Dems have ever had.
Ksmiami
@Sebastian: tax all churches
persistentillusion
@geg6: Nope, me too. Also thought Russian Doll was only passing funny, when everyone else was howling with laughter.
Ruckus
@cain:
Actual justice ends their ability to make shit up. Any crime is being paid for, restitution is at hand.
They can’t use this any more as a shovel for their bullshit.
Uncle Cosmo
@Chief Oshkosh: Aw, c’mon, “drink the wine and chew the wafer…”
Uncle Cosmo
@Ksmiami: I rather doubt that anyone on this blog is the slightest bit interested in convincing our resident bloodthirsty neo-Stalinist brain-damage poster-child of anything.