The LA Times Editorial on April 2, 2017, described Trump and his tactics during the presidential primaries and election as “…a narcissist and a demagogue who used fear and dishonesty to appeal to the worst in American voters.” This is not merely the judgement of a disappointed liberal media unable to come to terms with a devastating election loss, and is now inveighing against the President with unwarranted charges and innuendos. If the Church, and especially evangelical churches, take that view and ignore the many conservative voices, including many within the evangelical community and other Christians not self-identified as evangelicals, then our problems run much deeper that we think.

No, the LA Times’ conclusion is a commentary on the degradation of evangelical morality. Notice, the worst in American voters. Now, pause and let that sink in.

Do you get it? Do you see the gravity of the situation for a community that professes to stand on the infallible truth of the Gospel and on immutable biblical principles? No? Then consider that it is the evangelical vote that carried Trump through the primaries and over the top in the election. Do you see it now?

Not yet? Then consider, further, what we know about Trump, about his lack of a moral compass and his unabashed embrace of it; his disrespect of others, be they male or female or disabled; his willful mendacity; his contempt for God, despite what Paula White, Dobson, et al claim about his so-called conversion (where is the evidence, as evangelicals like to ask?); his catalyzing effect on the worst racist elements of society; his promotion of hatred and violence; his utter lack of empathy for the poor and less fortunate. Nothing has changed since his election as President. Except, he now has the power to propagate his warped morality. This power was given to him by the evangelicals. Does that make it any clearer?

http://blogs.christianpost.com/berean-fundamentals/evangelicals-are-aiding-and-abetting-the-deconstruction-of-morality-28813/

Oh boy here we go

Hong Kong (CNN)Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said Thursday he has ordered military personnel to occupy all Philippines-claimed islands in the disputed South China Sea.

"We tried to be friends with everybody but we have to maintain our jurisdiction now, at least the areas under our control. And I have ordered the armed forces to occupy all these," he said during a visit to a military camp on the Philippines island of Palawan.

Duterte said he may raise the Philippines flag on Pagasa Island, also known as Thitu Island, on the country's independence day on June 12.

Thitu is in the Spratly island chain, parts of which are claimed by the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/06/asia/philippines-duterte-south-china-sea/index.html

President Trump resented ousted Steve Bannon for ‘hogging the spotlight’: Fox News’ John Roberts

With conflicting stories coming out of the White House over President Donald Trump senior adviser Steve Bannon being booted from the National Security Council, a Fox News White House correspondent claim’s Trump had problems with Bannon overshadowing him.

According to John Roberts of Fox News, Trump has not been entirely happy with his political guru Bannon.

“We are also told that maybe the President was not particularly happy at the way Bannon had been grabbing the limelight,” Roberts reported before adding, “That may have played into all of this.”

Earlier in the day the son of former national security adviser Michael Flynn called the Bannon ouster a power play by the man who replaced his dad, tweeting, “Fact 1: Flynn/Bannon most loyal to DJT (both out at NSC),” he wrote on Twitter. “Fact 2: McMaster wont say ‘Radical Islam.’”


http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/president-trump-resented-ousted-steve-bannon-for-hogging-the-spotlight-fox-news-thomas-roberts/

A federal magistrate has ordered one of President Donald Trump's key campaign advisers on immigration to turn over a document he used to brief the president-elect during the transition.

Magistrate Judge James O'Hara issued an order Wednesday requiring Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to give the court a copy of the memo he took into a meeting with Trump at the president’s Bedminster, N.J., golf club last November.

The meeting was private, but a portion of the front page of the document—titled "Department of Homeland Security: Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days"—was captured by press photographers as Trump and Kobach posed for pictures.

Images of the document showed that it included proposals for registration of citizens of high-risk countries, extreme vetting of foreign visitors, a ban on Syrian refugees, deporting aliens charged with crimes (apparently without regard to whether they've been convicted) and building a border wall with Mexico.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/04/kris-kobach-trump-immigration-adviser-236910

A news story and flurry of tweets launched a movement aiming to take down a top TV show. Is it justice, or the birth of a media-killing monster?

This time, he just might not survive. Fox News ratings king Bill O’Reilly has always weathered controversy, from offensive comments to previous accusations of sexual harassment (both settled out of court). None of it hurt his O’Reilly Factor viewership, the biggest for a cable news show in 2016. His latest claims antagonized a less-forgiving constituency: his advertisers, at least 20 of whom have now pulled their commercials from the show. Such boycotts haven’t usually been effective at dislodging such a powerful TV personality, but the speed of the anti-O’Reilly campaign and the nature of the accusations, may actually get results.

The boycott exploded within days. A cadre of Twitter activists, battle-hardened from ongoing campaigns against the Trumps and Breitbart News, swarmed the initial New York Times story about the sexual harassment allegations and put pressure on advertisers to take a stand. They did—quickly and vocally. Within about 24 hours, over 20 companies— including major players like Allstate, BMW, and T. Rowe Price—pulled their advertising from the O’Reilly Factor and denounced his alleged behaviour.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40403369/heres-why-the-bill-oreilly-ad-boycott-just-might-work-this-time

The White House is downplaying the importance of an internal policy shop that was once believed to be the brainchild and power center of chief strategist Stephen Bannon, saying the Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG) never even existed.

That appears to contradict media reports and the claims of at least one White House staffer who previously said that he was a member of the SIG.

The group — described in scores of media reports as an internal think tank launched by Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior adviser Jared Kushner — would be irrelevant now even if it had formed, a White House aide said.

Any need there may have been for the internal policy shop, which critics have described as an attempt by Bannon to promote his own agenda, is moot now that President Trump has tapped Kushner to run the Office of American Innovation (OAI), which is charged with government modernization, according to multiple White House officials.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/327296-wh-internal-bannon-think-tank-never-actually-existed




WHUT?!

Source: Statesman

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been added to a core group within the National Security Council in a shakeup of members announced on Wednesday.

Perry, the secretary of energy, was one of several officials added to the principals committee, the primary group of policy-makers for national security.

Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, was also removed from the committee.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/local/breaking-rick-perry-added-national-security-council-core-decision-makers/zWCr3g9ZZhCTCn3380KOhI/

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Twitter blasts can’t reverse the pull of global competition
‘It still makes sense to go forward with their business plans’

After Donald Trump’s election, the flow of manufacturers setting up shop south of the border dwindled to a trickle. Ford Motor Co. and Carrier Corp., caught in Trump’s Twitter crosshairs, scrapped plans to move jobs to Mexico in two very public examples of the slowdown.

But now the pace is picking back up. Illinois Tool Works Inc. will close an auto-parts plant in Mazon, Illinois, this month and head to Ciudad Juarez. Triumph Group Inc. is reducing the Spokane, Washington, workforce that makes fiber-composite parts for Boeing Co. aircraft and moving production to Zacatecas and Baja California. TE Connectivity Ltd. is shuttering a pressure-sensor plant in Pennsauken, New Jersey, in favor of a facility in Hermosillo.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-31/jobs-departing-u-s-for-mexico-again-as-trump-s-threats-ignored

Jesse Panuccio, the third-highest ranking official at the Department of Justice, has argued to allow firearms sales to people under age 21 and in defense of a Florida law that prohibited doctors from asking patients if they owned guns.

Noel Francisco, Donald Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, has described the Second Amendment as “a structural protection that’s intended to protect all other rights.”

And Tom Wheeler, now a senior lawyer in the DOJ’s civil rights division, once gave a speech with the title: “Arming Teachers to Prevent Tragedies, Responding to Sandy Hook.”

These three attorneys are among two dozen appointees that the Trump administration is known to have tapped for top Justice Department posts as part of “beachhead teams.” Taking a cue from ProPublica, which disclosed many of the names, we examined the gun-rights records of some the newly installed officials at the department.

https://www.thetrace.org/2017/04/trump-department-of-justice-appointees-gun-policy/

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