lees1975

lees1975's Journal

November 15, 2024

Mark Wingfield of Baptist News Global writes an excellent piece about Trump's unchallenged lies.

https://baptistnews.com/article/the-slippery-slope-of-unchallenged-lies/

As I have written before, Trump is the most dangerous, pathological, bullying and evil narcissistic wreck of a human being I’ve ever known. He is emotionally broken and spiritually bankrupt. He is enough to make me believe in the power of Satan and the reality of an anti-Christ.

Yet American evangelicals — including Southern Baptists — have continued to support him and praise him and glorify him by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to his crimes, his cruelty and his crusades.

The very people who say they believe in ultimate truth have abandoned concern for daily truth. Because if they admitted the lies their guy tells are lies, they would have to walk away. And they are not willing to walk away.

It is an indisputable fact that Donald Trump is the most voracious liar ever to occupy the Oval Office. And papering over such a torrent of lies has consequences.

We are seeing those consequences writ large with every announcement of a Trump cabinet nominee. In virtually every case, he proposes to put a fox in charge of the hen house. Because he wants the hens to all get destroyed since they’ve become “woke.” Better to have “broke” eggs than “woke” eggs.

November 14, 2024

Some unexplained discrepancies, such as why Democrats won Senate and Governor elections in all the swing states except

Georgia.

This is a very unusual split ticket circumstance. The gaps are much wider than historically, especially in places like Arizona and Pennsylvania, where split tickets usually average less than 2%. It might be worth auditing some counting machines at random.

On the other hand, with the way things are going, Trump will have lost the mid-term before he takes office.

November 14, 2024

A Constitutional amendment that failed. The 14th.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-14th-amendment-to-constitution-is.html

The first time I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia, I experienced an emotional reaction to being in that place that brought me to tears. Standing there, with the small group of people that had been in the tour group to which we were assigned, I was listening to the park ranger describe the atmosphere in that room during the writing of the Declaration of Independence, each one of those Patriots sitting there just across that small hallway from the courtroom, which represented the justice system of the King, one of the motivating factors behind the Revolution.

I'm glad they preserved that room as well, because the description of the trials that took place there is chilling. Justice, at the discretion of a monarch, is not justice. It is cruelty designed to remove any motivation in the will for liberty. It was a constant threat when the Declaration was being drafted. It was the example of how not to administer justice when the Constitution was drafted, in the same room across the hall from that chilling courtroom.

I doubt that the founders envisioned a justice system paralyzed by motions for delays, frivolous appeals, diversions, lengthy time periods before trials begin, and more motions. The whole idea of "speedy trials" was to expedite getting down to the facts of a case so that a defendant did not have to be held for any longer than necessary. And I'll cut to the chase here. The influence of people with money have helped politicians build so many complications into the justice system that it is no longer effective in actually administering justice. Like almost everything else, it's become a partisan political tool.

The Constitution, however, is still the constitution. Is there a way to enforce the 14th Amendment without going through a cumbersome and ineffective justice department and court system? We've been told Trump is an existential threat to democracy. Shouldn't those who have sworn an oath to the Constitution be defending it by expediting a trial aimed at determining that Trump is not eligible to be President. Nor is J. D. Vance, since he doesn't see the insurrection for what it is.

So what recourse do we have at this point to bring about justice for the American people? This is an amendment to the constitution, and we have an obvious insurrection, and an obvious instigator. The courts have simply failed, due to their own lack of efficiency and effectiveness, to enforce the law. These are questions that I hear are being asked.

November 13, 2024

Is the 14th Amendment going to be the first part of the Constitution to fall as useless?

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-14th-amendment-to-constitution-is.html

Seems so.

November 13, 2024

Reaching a Consequential Decision: Leave the Church

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/11/reaching-consequential-decision-leave.html

Part of the problem, when it comes to these issues, is that conservative Evangelicals are angry, hostile people when it comes to these specific issues. From their perspective, the visibility of LGBTQ persons in the culture is a reminder to them of the failure of their evangelistic efforts to "bring revival to America." Their numbers are dropping like a stone in a well, their churches are graying rapidly and emptying out and what that means is that the revenue stream that is exploited by what we used to call televangelists, the "corporate Christianity" of the media and book publishing businesses and big names with million dollar ministries like the Falwells, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, James Dobson, is drying up.

But the point is that the Constitution gives all Americans freedom of conscience. LGBTQ persons are a small percentage of the population, and they're not "taking over." Nor is their presence in society something that has the potential to bring God's judgment on this country. That would be something that a conservative Evangelical, reading and studying their Bible in its cultural, historical and theological context, should be able to discern. America was never offered a "covenant" by God to exist as a theocracy in the same way as ancient Israel. In fact, the Christian gospel is the only "covenant" that exists in biblical theology in the present age, and that's an individual covenant, not one offered to nations or countries. So any judgment, for those who accept those terms, is individual, not corporate.

Several years ago, right in the middle of a sermon, when the GOP elephant was starting to stampede its way in, I nudged my wife and said, "I'm done, let's go." When we got to the car she thanked me for making that move, and said she couldn't have taken another second of it. We'd been members of that church for five years, were good contributors, regular volunteers and active members. They practiced "loving your neighbor" so well, that weeks went by without a phone call, or even a postcard inquiring about our whereabouts. The offering envelopes came, as usual, a reflection, perhaps, of their true values.

While 81% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump once again this year, that percentage represents an actual drop in total number, as near as I can figure, about 8 million fewer votes. Looking at membership figures reported by Evangelical denominations, and non-denominational churches in the US over the same decade, most of those people can be accounted for. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Evangelical denomination in the United States, has dropped 20% of its membership since its peak in 2006, with more than 2.5 million of those occurring in the years since 2016, according to their annual reports. In just one year, prior to COVID 19, that number was close to 450,000.

So here's a suggestion for anyone reading this who still belongs to an Evangelical church who may be part of that 19% of white Evangelicals that didn't vote for Trump.

Leave. And let them know why you're leaving. Don't leave any doubt.

It will liberate you in ways you didn't know were possible.

November 13, 2024

Do I sound too much like a conspiracy theorist? Or am I resonating with some people?

I'm still wondering about events which led up to the President's decision to get out of the race. We went through several weeks of chaos, manipulation and finger-pointing which increased the pressure on the President. Trump was genuinely afraid of Biden, and the moves he was making inside his campaign showed it. Ultimately, the decisions that were made were forced, not by the rank and file of the party, but by the big donors. That may very well have been the point where we lost this.

And with all of the whining and caterwauling made by Trump over 2020, which has never let up, some of the statements coming out of various locations about "safeguards" they put in place to make sure Democrats couldn't "steal" it this time, make me suspicious of whether the Republicans didn't "steal" it, and not just by voter suppression. No one in the Democratic party will have the guts to challenge this, though. We have people in place to make sure this transition is done in traditional lame-duck style, quietly, and with little fuss, just to prove that we do it better than they do, when it doesn't matter any more.

Democratic leadership spent the last four years helping to convince me that this election was do or die for Democracy, and I got fired up, worked my ass off, sacrificed to make political contributions way beyond my means, taking it out of my gas money, riding the train to work, and eating a simpler, less expensive diet. Now, it appears, it will be business as usual. We are going to lie down and let them steamroll. And hope for the best and that there will be a country left in four years.

That's the ledge I'm on right now.

November 9, 2024

The Hidden Presidency

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-hidden-presidency.html

"The mainstream media gave Trump a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week free commercial from January 20,2021 to November 5, 2024."

But his achievements and accomplishments have largely been muted. After Jen Psaki left as his press secretary, unfortunately so did the ability of his administration to express its achievements and accomplishments to the media. Biden called few press conferences, and his administration didn't seem to make much of an effort to get itself and its accomplishments in front of a media they knew wasn't necessarily friendly to them. But that's what Presidents do. After seeing Pete Buttigieg serving as a surrogate to the Harris campaign, almost exclusively with Fox News, I have to wonder if he was misplaced in the Department of Transportation. He should have been in the role of spokesperson for the Biden administration and headed up their publicity efforts.

But I have to wonder, after these past four years, if there was anything they could have done to get more attention focused on his achievements.

I am certain that if an audit was made to determine how many days Trump got more media coverage than President Biden, since January 20, 2021, that number would be 1,389 days. Because that's how many days there are on the calendar since then, up until today, November 9, 2024. Even MSNBC covers him, even if it is in a negative light. Lawrence O'Donnell has one of the best grasps of just how evil and corrupt Trump is, but I'd be happy if someone paid me a dollar for every time his program started out with the words, "Donald Trump."

The corporately owned media in the United States is no longer part of the free press that is a necessary element for the protection of America's constitutional democracy. When one of the extremists on the FCC board whined about Kamala Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live being a violation of its free and equal time policy, I laughted out loud. Every network, every television station and radio station in America that is owned by one of the big corporations or media conglomerates, has blatantly violated "free and equal time" in giving Trump a 24 hour a day, four year long free commercial.

So when you look at the election results, it's really pretty remarkable that Harris did as well as she did. The media helped elect Trump in a big way, by giving him center stage, and by keeping Americans in the dark about the most accomplished President since the 1960's.

November 8, 2024

It's going to be really hard to explain the grocery price inflation that will hit around March or April

as produce becomes scarce because workers who harvest it are gone and none of those smart-assed college students that stupidly voted for Trump will be out there picking lettuce or tomatoes.

When you have a family member die because of a 48 hour wait in an emergency room because 43 million people were thrown off insurance and the ER is the only way for most to get treatment.

When the price of gas hits $7 a gallon because of tariffs.

November 7, 2024

What just happened? Venting frustration over an orchestrated election.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/11/what-just-happened.html

Almost everything I ever believed, or thought I believed, about my country, the United States of America, has been disabused by the results of the 2024 Presidential election. We just elected a convicted felon, with multiple pending felony indictments for starting a riot leading to an attack on the United States Capitol and a joint session of Congress, a man who is in obvious physical and mental decline at 78 years of age, after berating and criticizing the sitting President because he is too old. A man who is surrounded by sycophants who are themselves felons for the government corruption they committed the first time he was in office, who, in his first term left the country reeling defenselessly from a viral pandemic he called "a hoax," and wrecked the economy, leaving behind a massive amount added to the national debt and job loss higher than any Presidential administration since Hoover.

We haven't begun to sort out the multiple reasons why an evenly split electorate which leaned into the electoral college giving Trump an advantage of less than 200,000 votes across three states to win, didn't want to put a woman in the White House. But I tend to agree with The Rude Pundit who characterizes it well by saying that America is a floating island of garbage. They didn't want to put a black, intelligent, accomplished, liberal thinking woman in the White House.

It has just proven it with the results of an election that its own mainstream media started setting up from the moment Trump left the White House in 2021. Trump has had four years of free publicity provided by the corporate interests who own the media. He got television, radio and internet news coverage every day for the past four years, far more than the sitting President got. Whether they were fascinated by him, or they were pushing his ideology into place for his next run at the White House, they are the ones who re-created his image, carefully leaving out the flaws, gross incompetence, unbelievable and filthy immorality and vulgarity, and most of all, making sure he stayed credible even though every word out of his mouth was a flagrant, intentional lie.

So it is that a convicted felon, and rapist, who led a treasonous attempt to overthrow a legitimate election, twice impeached for heinous crimes against the American people, an immoral denier of what is right and wrong, who, by anyone who understands decency and upholds basic human values, is himself "garbage," will now get another chance at being the most powerful man in the world. I'm not sure this represents an ideological shift, or whether it is simply a transition back to what has always been there.

And really, we are speaking of this in too kind of a way. This administration is going to be very ruthless toward those it hates. We're not just talking about hating with an angry face. This conglomeration of billionaires with roots in South African apartheid, American white supremacy and Christian nationalism are angry, brutal and lacking in any kind of human reason or empathy. We are headed into dark days. Ukraine will likely be the first victim, and those whom we've come to admire are reaching the end of their lives. In this country, let me tell you people, Dearborn and Hamtramk will be empty, and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank will be in refugee camps in the Saudi desert. The Latino asylum seekers will be brutally abused, and sent back to face the torture and murder they escaped by coming here.

And the mortality rate of pregnant women is about to head to places that only third world countries have seen.

November 6, 2024

I'm having trouble understanding how the Harris campaign raised a billion dollars, had tens of thousands of

volunteers out canvassing and knocking on doors, including me, reminding people they needed to vote, and then we see ten million fewer Democrats come out to vote in 2024?

I get it that Democrats in places like New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, might not be motivated by a campaign that kept making appearances and hitting up voters in seven states. That explains why Virginia kind of went flat. And that's the quirk of an electoral college that should have been abolished after the Civil War. And maybe they should have tried to counter all of the false crap on social media, though that would take someone full time staying on top of it.

But this really looks funny. We had people by the tens of thousands standing in lines and waiting for hours to be part of a rally, double his numbers this time around. And it looked like we had the turnout where we needed it, except where the bomb threats kept interrupting it.

What am I missing?

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Hometown: Tucson, Arizona
Current location: Chicago, Illinois
Member since: Wed Dec 25, 2019, 01:02 AM
Number of posts: 6,432

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