Why is everyone so mean?? US Politics: September 2022

lol, the repeated references to alito's love of the guy lombardo band are just perfect. it is a long read for sure, so i'm doing a long listen (87 minutes) instead

You know who else loved Guy Lombardo?

Nixon..

To be fair, the standard he set on "Reign in Blood" is pretty hard to beat.

that was good, the Alito piece. I feel like i understand what a gigantic prick he is now just a little bit more

i recommend this article by michael gerson (which is a "gift" link so it should work regardless of anyone's washington post non-subscription status):

https://wapo.st/3TB9UYT

What brought me to consider these historical matters is a disturbing realization: In both public perception and evident reality, many White, conservative Christians find themselves on the wrong side of the most cutting indictments delivered by Jesus of Nazareth.

Christ’s revolt against the elites could hardly be more different from the one we see today. Conservative evangelicalism has, in many ways, become the kind of religious tradition against which followers of Jesus were initially called to rebel. And because of the pivotal role of conservative Christians in our politics, this irony is a matter of urgency.

Having known evangelicals who live lives of moral integrity and serve others across lines of race and class, I have no intention of pronouncing an indiscriminate indictment. But all conservative Christians must take seriously a sobering development in America’s common life. Many who identify with Jesus most loudly and publicly are doing the most to discredit his cause. The main danger to conservative churches does not come from bad laws — it comes from Christians who don’t understand the distinctives, the demands and the ultimate appeal of their own faith.

This development deserves some woes of its own:

Woe to evangelical hypocrisy. Given the evidence of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, the corruption and sexual scandal at Liberty University, the sex scandal in the Hillsong ministry, the sexual exploitation revealed in Ravi Zacharias’s ministry, and the years of sexual predation at the (Christian) Kanakuk summer camps, Americans increasingly identify the word “evangelical” with pretense, scandal and duplicity. In the case of the SBC, victims (mostly women) were ignored, intimidated, dismissed and demeaned. Many of the most powerful Southern Baptist leaders betrayed the powerless, added cruelty on top of suffering and justified their coverup as essential to Christian evangelism. How can hearts ostensibly transformed by Christ be so impervious to mercy?

Woe to evangelical exclusion. In their overwhelming, uncritical support of Trump and other nationalist Republicans — leaders who could never win elections without evangelical votes — White religious conservatives have joined a political movement defined by an attitude of “us” vs. “them,” and dedicated to the rejection and humiliation of social outsiders and outcasts. From the start, the Trump-led GOP dehumanized migrants as diseased and violent. It attacked Muslims as suspect and dangerous. Even when evangelical Christians refuse to mouth the words of racism, they have allied themselves with the promoters of prejudice and white grievance. How can it be that believers called to radical inclusion are the most hostile to refugees of any group in the United States? How can anyone who serves God’s boundless kingdom of love and generosity ever rally to the political banner “America First”?

And woe, therefore, to Christian nationalism. Evangelicals broadly confuse the Kingdom of God with a Christian America, preserved by thuggish politicians who promise to prefer their version of Christian rights and enforce Christian values. The political calculation of conservative Christians is simple, and simply wrong.

heard Mary Peltola on the PBS News Hour, she seems cool.. I hope she's able to hold the seat in November

Apparently she's heavily pro-salmon, and that's a big deal in Alaska:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/09/mary-peltola-alaska-sarah-palin-pro-fish-begich.html

Karl, in view of their actions, as opposed to their words, it is impossible not to conclude that large numbers of white evangelicals consider imposing their prejudices and and protecting their privileges to be of far greater importance than any injunctions Christ directly laid upon them in the gospels, either through his words or his example and you cannot shame them into recognizing this.

The poll: Biden approval up, Dems +4 on generic House ballot, 53-43 people approve of Biden student debt plan, 50-41 Trump should be criminally prosecuted over documents. https://t.co/9GiVQaCpSu https://t.co/VQ2fdSq0lT

— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) August 31, 2022

Further evidence that all people really ask is that you do... something. Anything.

Dems have to be like +20 kn the generic ballot to actually gain a seat though

and you cannot shame them into recognizing this.

i believe this, now, and didn't always, before. i used to think that shame was potentially a language they could understand and be persuaded by, because it's so pervasive throughout the bible

this may have been a mistake

please don't fuck this up biden

most evangelicals would be utterly repelled by Christ were He to return, Him being a jewish socialist, pacifist hippie hanging out with a crew of other wandering hippies

i honestly think you could just pick a rando person to make this argument, and there would be >50% chance of it being more effective than Biden. the u.s. is fully in the postmodern post-reality zone now -- it is more effective to have a normal person say something real, fuckups and all, than it is to have a designated voice of authority deliver a mediocre message. advertisers know this

I love how they try to explain away the collectivism of the early church depicted in the book of Acts.

xp the article is quite good because it makes that very obvious point in a very eloquent way -- the hypocrisy and ignorance of evangelicals, but it also takes the time to suggest that it is also possible that they could read the fucking book they persecute others with, and that it would change the country in a positive way

This is fine re speech. It's not intended for me -- it's for candidates and donors.

It's not after Labor Day, yet, so it's a low risk opportunity to nudge public awareness about bills that passed during the summer when not many voters are paying attention. It'll be OK unless he face plants so badly it gets memified and lasts for weeks.

The Bible's fine, often boring and fun in equal measures, until the letter to the Romans. Cut the rest out between it and Revelations imo.

xp by "for candidates", you mean that it opens up the topic (the whole 35% of the country is openly trying to end democracy thing) for them to campaign on as well? i didn't think of that, and yes, it would be nice to hear other people make this argument

https://songbook1.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/eden-ahbez_feeding-pigeons_life_1948.jpg

'what's up, my fellow christians? shall we breaketh bread with these poor doves?'

Yeah, the Epistles really take the whole narrative down the wrong road.

i like fightin joe. he needed to do this.

the article makes the unsurprising but still very disappointing observation that white evangelicals, more than any other group/category/split in the U.S., are opposed to accepting refugees, and how strange and hypocritical that is.

if even a small amount of them could figure their shit out, or at least stop trying to hurt people all of the time, it would make an enormous difference

This backdrop looks sinister lol pic.twitter.com/RRf5lJfECs

— rt if you think that sounds true! (@lib_crusher) September 2, 2022

Command & Conquer cutscene

KM, you don't remember that part from the Sermon on the Mount?

"And do not open your door to the undocumented, for they need too many handouts; rather, let them be cast into the outer darkness, where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth."

yeah, there are also lots of sirens and protesters in the background too. as usual, with these kinds of things, everyone will see this in the same way that they already did. i don't see this changing much. i don't know anything about donors and what they think or why they do what they do. they have a ton of money -- they probably fucking suck. i do think it's good to open up this topic to other people who can make this argument more persuasively and also not use a command and conquer background

xpost Christianity only works when you pull all the jesus/forgiveness/tolerance bullshit out.. it's all about leviticus and smiting the sinners

Biden’s doing pretty well up there!

I only caught the last few seconds, but that was lit like a scene from The Purge.

Biden: “i know it’s been hard…”
pres camacho interrupts: “and erverybody’s shit is _eeMOtional_.”

I was like hoping he’d do fireside-y vershes of this in march-april, but better late than “whatever?” i guess. Feel like we had a lot of whatever.

Yeah, it was fine. He had COVID cough. But we're not the target audience -- it's made for replay in independent markets. Obama or FDR himself couldn't convince Republicans in 2022 they're sick motherfuckers who should die.

🐦[This backdrop looks sinister lol pic.twitter.com/RRf5lJfECs🕸
— rt if you think that sounds true! (@lib_crusher) September 2, 2022🕸]🐦

Command & Conquer cutscene

democracy

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 2, 2022

Can't believe the Biden people hired the Gravel Teens

awww that's cute

Onion Biden woulda tweeted "Chinese Democracy"...

https://i.imgur.com/lHNOybP.jpg

Too long, too complicated, why is Biden taking my money, you have no response because he is a communist thief.

But we could have built a bomb with that interest

Dropkick Murphys guy making some solid points at a festival in Pennsylvania:

Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys goes on an epic rant against MAGA grifters with no lies detected and the Boston accent is the chefs kiss pic.twitter.com/jrFUFu3K67

— Wu-Tang Is For The Children (@WUTangKids) September 3, 2022

Didn't he go into the crowd a few years back to kick some MAGA dude's ass? Or am thinking of Mike Ness?

That was Ness. DMs wrote the letter to Scott Walker about how they ‘literally hate you’ when he tried to use one of their songs in 2012 or 2016.

I think it was DMs, too! 2013:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGubnoMqPxM

Near the end of its March 13 show at Terminal 5 in Midtown Manhattan, the veteran Celtic punk band invited fans onstage — as per tradition — to participate in an encore rendition of “Kiss Me I’m Shitfaced.” Fans continued to pour onto the stage as the group transitioned to another classic, the anti-white supremecist ditty “Skinhead on the MBTA,” then a cover of AC/DC’s “TNT.”

That’s when things got a little ugly.

According to several blogs — and caught on video from the scene — a large man with a shaved head began to flash the Nazi salute, with a bent arm shooting straight out from the chest. Founding bassist-singer Ken Casey moved toward the guy, shoved him aside and began a pile-on that ended half a minute later with a torn shirt and one less skinhead onstage.

He took back the microphone and screamed, “Nazis are not f—ing welcome at a Dropkick Murphys show!” and the crowd went wild.

OK, yeah, I was close. Back this past March some neo-Nazi group started using some DM song, and after the cease and desist the DM guy outright gave them a time and place to meet so he could kick their ass:

I’ll be down M Street park on Saturday at 12:30 walking my dogs if you’ll are looking to discuss

— Dropkick Murphys (@DropkickMurphys) March 24, 2022

What causes a man to start fires?

All I know is, don't blame this guy

https://www.antiwarsongs.org/img/upl/billy_joel.0.jpg

I can't take it anymore!

an old friend took me to see DMs and Rancid last summer— we had some fun, but the DMs fans looked about the same as Blue Lives Matter scumbags, judging from their shirts and the cars they drove. Shit, a Suburban full of already drunk assholes parked next to me during the tailgating time, and it was covered in Trump and cop-humping shit

Ken otmfm

"The water in Capital City isn't safe to drink, and there's been a mysterious menacing plane circling overhead for hours" is either a pretty good opening scene for a dystopian novel or just life in Mississippi right now

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) September 3, 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene's husband, Perry, has filed for a divorce from the congresswoman. "The marriage between the Petitioner and the Respondent is irretrievably broken." pic.twitter.com/WmLg0Kbgf6

— Charles Bethea (@charlesbethea) September 29, 2022

guess he doesn't have the George Conway kink

Burn down Twitter if she has a teenage child who temporarily becomes a liberal celebrity.

Ah well nevertheless

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/09/29/biden-administration-scales-back-student-debt-relief-for-millions-amid-legal-concerns-00059522

Important. And clever way of finding a plaintiff with an injury concrete enough to confer standing.

This lawsuit has a serious chance of success. https://t.co/w9rFY8MsWi

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 27, 2022

minutes pass

Judge Richard L. Young formally dismisses @PacificLegal’s lawsuit challenging Biden’s student debt relief program. Finds the plaintiff lacks standing. https://t.co/iAPdiA1P5R pic.twitter.com/6vrRU2mYVk

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) September 29, 2022

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-29/gavin-newsom-vetoes-bill-to-limit-indefinite-solitary-confinement-in-california

Hope he eats shit at a JEB-like level in 2028.

Newsom is one of the most loathsome motherfuckers in the Democratic party, and that’s saying something

The entire corporate executive and political class of the United States (or really Planet Earth) are all some loathsome motherfuckers.

SD-22 is a safely Democratic seat in Phoenix but the Democratic nominee suddenly, without telling anyone on the ground, quit the race so he could become a lobbyist for a utility company

— Aaron (the Give Smart guy) (@BobbyBigWheel) September 30, 2022

I bet they offered him a really really nice salary, too.

US Politics: October 2022 "...they've already started the killings!"