2017: Rise of the Religious Reich.

President Trump hosts conservative leaders at the White House on September 25, 2017 (Photo: WhiteHouse.gov)

Right Wing Watch has a comprehensive timeline of the ascension of the religious reich into the current regime, and it’s a very ugly look at the coming Theocalypse, if these people get their way, which so far, they are. We do not need to be all concerned over the rise of AI. We do need to be concerned with the rise of the religious reich, and we need to be concerned with the rise of stupid.

Donald Trump wasn’t exactly the dream candidate of the Religious Right. Throughout the Republican primary contest, many in the social conservative movement urged voters to pick what one group of anti-choice activists called “anyone but Donald Trump.”

But once it became clear that Trump was going to win the GOP nomination, he started aggressively courting the evangelical Right, including holding a massive meeting for Religious Right leaders in New York that many cite as a turning point for their support. On the day of that meeting, Trump announced the formation of an evangelical advisory board that included Religious Right leaders including James Dobson and Michele Bachmann. Trump’s selection of Mike Pence as his running mate sealed the deal for many on the Religious Right. Trump’s “amen corner” of prosperity gospel preachers and domininionists eventually expanded to include the large share of Religious Right leaders, who offered various theological explanations for their embrace of a morally flawed candidate.

Once he was elected—with 80 percent of the white evangelical vote—Trump kept his evangelical advisory board intact and promised to give it unprecedented access to the White House. He stacked his Cabinet with friends of the Religious Right, including Tom Price at Health and Human Services, Betsy DeVos at Education and Ben Carson at Housing and Urban Development. Far-right pastor Ralph Drollingerworked with Trump’s transition team to set up weekly Bible studies for Trump’s Cabinet members. The conservative Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society vetted potential judicial nominees.

The White House continues to hold weekly calls with evangelical advisory board members. Conservative leaders also receive a weekly email from the White House compiling “highlights for—and requests for action from—the conservative world.” And Religious Right leaders report enjoying an open door with the Trump administration. Former Southern Baptist Convention official Richard Land told The New York Times that conservative evangelical leaders have a “regular, ongoing and continuing dialogue” with the administration.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkinssaid in August, “I’ve been to the White House I don’t know how many more times in the first six months this year than I was during the entire Bush administration.” The Susan B. Anthony List’s Marjorie Dannenfelser said she visited the White House seven times in Trump’s first 100 days in office. Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America said in September, “I’m told from people before me that even under George W. Bush, we didn’t have this kind of access. It certainly is unprecedented and we’re very grateful.” Land gushed about evangelicals having “unprecedented access” to the White House, adding that there “are more evangelicals in this administration as personnel than any administration in my lifetime.”

The timeline is extensive and heavily link rich, there’s enough reading for a day or two. It’s all recommended, because we are at one terrifying confluence here. The Year The Religious Right Moved Into The White House.

Shoving The Overton Window Alt-Right.

Paul Nehlen, screengrab.

RWW has an extensive story about Paul Nehlen, an unapologetic nazi who is running again in an attempt to unseat Paul Ryan. Nehlen is intent on shoving the Overton Window as far right as possible, to ‘sanitize’ and normalise white supremacy and nationalism. Just a bit here, because the article is fair long, and rich with links.

Paul Nehlen, who is running again to unseat Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in Wisconsin, told Breitbart radio host Curt Schilling today that he is using his campaign and fiery social media presence to force discourse in the Republican Party further to the right—in his case, toward the white nationalist worldview of the alt-right.

This morning, Nehlen joined Schilling to talk about campaigning for failed Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore in Alabama and his upcoming 2018 campaign in Wisconsin.

“There’s a lot of followers out there, there’s a lot of people out there, that look up to me and I take that seriously,” Nehlen said. “But you know, people like you who are out there every day—you wake up every morning and you work hard, you get your message out, it’s imperative that you realize, ‘Hey, there’s a bunch of people out there like me, who aren’t going to give up.’ And if we’re all moving forward in the same direction, moving that Overton Window to the right, and saying, ‘Hey, this fake news media, that doesn’t work us, that doesn’t scare us’—you know, I’m standing up for people’s free speech, lawful speech.”

Mmm. Odd how that standing up for people’s free, lawful speech only has to do with things you approve of, while you’re oddly silent in other cases, along with the rest of the freeze peach brigade. Unfortunately, the Overton Window has already been shoved considerably to the right, as we all get more accustomed to seeing and hearing white! white! white! everywhere. We really can’t afford to let this happen, but it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

Earlier this year, Nehlen retweeted photos that celebrated the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Nehlen was also a major proponent of “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory and told the Associated Press in August that he still believed it to be true. Earlier this month, Nehlen told columnist John Podhoretz on Twitter to “do us all a favor” and “eat a bullet.”

Last week, as first documented by the blog Angry White Men, Nehlen appeared on and praised the hosts of “Fash the Nation,” an anti-Semitic podcast popular in alt-right circles, and celebrated that “the red pills are being shot at people like with bump fire stocks.”(Taking a “red pill,” a reference to a scene in the sci-fi film “The Matrix,” is alt-right shorthand for embracing the movement’s views and bump stocks are the type of weapon modification that enabled the mass shooter in Las Vegas to achieve near-automatic fire). Nehlen also appeared on “Fash the Nation” last year, calling for an end to birthright citizenship.

Recently, Nehlen has pushed even harder to the right and dropped any attempt to conceal his affiliations with the furthest fringes of the Right.

It would be really nice is someone like Nehlen could simply be dismissed as ‘lunatic fringe’ without a hope of gaining support. Unfortunately, that’s not the case any longer. While people like this might not be winning yet, the call is too close for comfort. There’s no comfort at all to be had in the fact that it’s someone like Paul Ryan who does win, because while Ryan might not embrace nazism, he’s an awful sociopath, bent on eliminating poverty by eliminating all those icky poor people.

RWW has the full story.

Uneffingbelievable.

Sheldon Whitehouse: MUST WATCH: Republican @SenJohnKennedy asks one of @realDonaldTrump’s US District Judge nominees basic questions of law & he can’t answer a single one. Hoo-boy.

“Hoo-boy” does not begin to cover this. At all. I wanted to reach right through the screen, and space-time, to insist on answering the questions with a yes or no. Absolutely no other words allowed. I’m a 60 year old artist in rural nDakota, and I know what a motion in limine is, because Law & Order. So, do I get to be a judge?

Then there’s just the waste. The waste of time. The waste of money. The waste of brain cells in indulging this farce.

Via Twitter.

The Voice of God at the Gates of Hell.

Oh, it’s Lance Wallnau again. Lance has decided to be the voice of god with presidential access, because um, someone has to do it?

Lance Wallnau posted a video on Periscope today in which he declared that if Americans rebel against the will of God and give Democrats control of Congress in the 2018 elections and allow them to impeach President Trump, it’ll mean that “the spirit of Antichrist” has triumphed over the church.

Streaming from inside the Center for National Renewal in Washington, D.C., with whom he apparently has an official connection, Wallnau declared that charismatic Pentecostal Christians such as himself have been called to “have access to presidents as the voice of God” so that they can “release this warrior angel for America.”

The Center for National Renewal expends quite a bit of time and energy to come across as mild and humanitarian, and I suppose for christians, they might slant a bit to that side, but their main drive is the ‘centrality of christ’, which they feel should be front and center in every facet of life, including government. They seem to think they’ll be successful in bringing together all the 30,000something factions of christianity. They are firm believers in National Christianity, which should worry the hell out of everyone.

Of course Lance decides that his particular flavour of christianity will be the voice of god with access to presidents. The plural is interesting. I guess Lance wants a lock on more than just the Tiny Tyrant. Oooh, a warrior angel. That would be something to see. Too bad we never will.

“If America goes down,” he warned, “if we screw up these midterms coming up, if we let the devil put a false impeachment on this president, if the will of man rebels against the will of the majority of the people that put him in through the Electoral College, then the spirit of Antichrist beat the spirit that was in the church of Christ.”

Boring. So boring. The talk about the antichrist has been going on for fucking decades, people have been so sure that this or that president is the antichrist, yadda, yadda, yadda. So now it’s just the spirit of the antichrist, is it? I guess you can’t blame an antichrist of getting tired of waiting and wandering off. Seems to me that people have been rebelling and fighting against the crime called the electoral college ever since the election, which the Tiny Tyrant lost. The electoral college is an unnecessary appendage, which was first dreamed up as yet another protection for slave owners. It has no business in a modern constitution which disavows slavery altogether. Unsurprising you find christians in favour of the spirit of slavery. As for impeachment? I live in hope, and it would not be false. The idiot king has no right to be in office.

“So that is why I am at the gates of influence,” Wallnau added. “Because Washington is where the gates of hell want to take over and it’s not gonna happen.”

Mm hmm. Which is it, gates of influence or gates of hell? I think you’re going to have to pick, Lance. Some would say there’s little difference between the two, given lobbyists and the wealth of corruption bubbling away. Personally, I think you just want to get in on some of that oh so sweet corruption, stuffing those pockets with more cash.

Via RWW, there’s video.

The Heartland Institute.

The Heartland Institute is still busy, somewhat behind the scenes, in their quest to mold the constitution to their desires, none of which are good.

The Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank that promotes free-market ideology and denounces climate-change “alarmism,” published an interview this week with Neal Schuerer, an advocate for a “convention of states” to propose a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The BBA effort is one of several active right-wing campaigns to convene a convention under Article V of the Constitution in order to limit the powers of the federal government. Under Article V, if 34 states submit calls for a convention to propose constitutional amendments on a given topic, Congress must call a convention of states.

[…]

Proponents of a convention to promote a balanced budget amendment have been sparring in recent years with an even more aggressive effort that aims to dramatically limit the jurisdiction and power of the federal government, replacing our current constitutional order with one focused on states’ rights. That effort is backed by Religious Right leaders, including Alliance Defending Freedom’s Mike Farris, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, Christian-nation “historian” David Barton and anti-marriage-equality activist Robert George.

Just like our evangelical government, this too is serious business, and needs to be known about and taken seriously. Now that all the christians slavering over end times have gotten their Idiot King to make the Jerusalem move, they are feeling powerful and unstoppable. And they just might be, given that the Tiny Tyrant cannot say no to them, and most people being blissfully unaware of what they are doing.

Schuerer himself calls the BBA a “first step”:

A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is the first step in reining in an all-powerful, all-consuming central bureaucratic government that our founding document attempted to guard against.

We as citizens of the United States have the right and duty to bring about responsible reform to our founding document, reflecting the values of the people and the nature of free and independent states. We know what needs to be done. All we need is the courage to just do it.

It’s important to realize that this is not about constitution reform and dragging that moldy document into the current century; this is about making it even more regressive. These are people who want the power and right to oppress and prosecute all those people they have problems with, which amounts to most people.

Schuerer says his group Campaign Constitution is working with the Heartland Institute’s Center for Constitutional Reform to “bring all the competing interests together.” And he talks about how close his group’s effort is to reaching the threshold of 34 states:

The Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force entered the 2017 state legislative year with great expectations, following the Trump election and the number of Republican governors and legislature majorities growing.

Twenty-eight states had active applications, with the goal of adding four to the number—Arizona, Idaho, Wisconsin, and Wyoming—bringing the number of active applications to 32.

Arizona and Wyoming approved the BBA application resolution. Maryland, New Mexico, and Nevada rescinded applications, making a net loss of one and bringing the number of active applications to 27. Recently, Wisconsin approved the BBA application, returning the total to 28.

Moving into 2018, there is very little margin. Idaho, Kentucky, and South Carolina are a must, bringing us to 31 active applications.

Montana will likely join in when it gets that close, to 32.  Minnesota and Virginia are tough calls because of internal political disagreements on the issue of an Article V amendment convention. Washington state and Maine are anyone’s guess.

That brings the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force and the national Article V movement to 32 states by the end of 2018.

Now would be the time to get very worried, and to try and find ways to counter these evil assholes who are intent on making things much, much worse. Every day, we get closer to the Theocalypse.

Via RWW.

Paranoia, Thy Names Are…

Persecution complexes infused with paranoia are making the rounds. We’ll start with Liz “Red Shoes” Crokin:

“I did not post the weird video!!! The Deep State is trying to kill me!!!” (In all caps).

I have no idea. Source. Moving on…

Last night Steve Bannon hosted a special edition of “Breitbart News Tonight.” Sean Hannity joined Bannon and Fox News political analyst Pat Goodell to discuss, among other things, the federal investigation into suspected Russian ties to Trump campaign officials during the 2016 election. It wasn’t long before the panel began to speculate about a secret plan orchestrated by “deep state” officials to remove Trump from the White House.

“I think they’re coming after Trump because they understand they have to destroy Trump, because to destroy Trump is not to destroy Trump, it’s to destroy this movement. They want to take that voice away from the forgotten man,” Bannon said.

Sigh. The “voice of the forgotten man.” That voice is awfully damn loud if you ask me. All of you fucking nazis and fascists, you never shut up. Every single day, there are stories of all you hateful bigots spewing your hateful rhetoric all over innocent people who are just going about their business. Kind of hard to ‘forget’ you flaming doucheweasels. And y’know, if you assholes got all the things you wanted, your first order of business would be finding something to ceaselessly complain about.

…“The ultimate goal—Andy McCarthy had a great piece. This is about the impeachment of the president. This is not about Trump-Russia collusion,” Hannity said.

It can be about both. Amazing that didn’t occur to you geniuses.

Goodell brought up the idea that the government is carrying out a “slow-motion, steady effort to basically have a coup d’etat.” He said that he believes America is experiencing a “post-constitutional society” and that secret government forces are “willing to destroy this country to keep control.”

There are people willing to destroy this country to keep control. Look in the mirror, Mr. Goodell. As for being ‘post-constitutional’, no, we are not there yet. First, you have to get people to acknowledge that the constitution is seriously outdated and needs a rewrite, desperately so. The fact that it makes provision for slave owners should be a smack in the face, but no, you have to keep insisting on constitution worship.

…“By the way, people like us may end up in jail. Let me tell you. They will stop at nothing. This is what I’m trying to get across to people. This is serious. This is the rule of law in this country now,” Hannity said.

“Amen, Amen,” Bannon said.

Christ, the persecution complex conservachristians have is out of control. The projection is in your face, too. They are so desperate for the power to oppress that they think any opposition is looking to imprison them, and that the rule of law has changed, so that they are fair game. I wish they actually believed that crap, just so they’d run off and go into hiding. Obviously, they aren’t terribly concerned.

Via RWW.

The End Times Shopping Network. Yep.

You all knew this was Jim Bakker, didn’t you? Who else would it be? It’s actually ‘PTL Shopping’.  Jim’s desperation for money, money, money is ridiculous, and it should be ridiculed at every opportunity. For someone who preaches end times nonsense, Jim doesn’t seem to believe in it much. His ‘shopping network’ is hawking all manner of crap, most of which has nothing to do with religion at all, like garden sprayers and camp showers. It all seems to be stuff which couldn’t be sold in the first place, and Bakker is trying to sell it all a cut rate. Mostly. Ol’ Jim is also selling crap like this:

With this special offer you will receive one (1) 16 oz. Activz™ Silver Solution Liquid, one (1) 4 oz. Activz™ Silver Solution Gel, one (1) 3.4 oz. Activz™ Silver Facial Cream, one (1) 3.4 oz. Activz™ Silver Hand Lotion, one (1) set of applicator bottles, one (1) Activz™ Silver Lozenges, one (1) 4 oz. Activz™ Silver Toothpaste Gel and one (1) Silver: Nature’s Natural Healer book along with Unlocking the Keys to an Ageless Body Seminar with Dr. Sherrill Sellman DVD, Patented Nano Silver: Nature’s Healer Seminar with Dr. Sherrill Sellman DVD and The Healing Miracle of Silver DVD.

for $90.00 – anyone who buys this crap will turn a not so lovely, permanent shade of blue gray. To say selling this crap is irresponsible is an understatement. I’d definitely place this in the highly unethical category, but Jim doesn’t care about ethics. Or morals. There’s money at stake, dammit! I doubt he’s stupid enough to take it himself, but at least he’d be more entertaining if he turned blue gray. He’s also selling crap ‘detox’ packages for 60 dollars. Perhaps that’s for people who buy his yuck inna bucket. Someone needs to flood him with this song. Damn near tailor made.

ETA: I went back to grab the descriptor of all the silver, and the video started playing (have I mentioned how much I hate autoplay?), and there was Jim, claiming all the silver shit was a daily staple in their house.

PTL Shop / Faith Based Shopping Network.

A Russian Art Connection.

Leonardo da Vinci, “Salvator Mundi” (c.1500), oil on panel, 25 7/8 x 18 in.(65.7 x 45.7 cm) (image courtesy Christie’s).

There was an astonishing sale at Christie’s, the last privately held da Vinci, supposedly, for an unprecedented amount of money: over $450 million dollars. The Russian connection is of interest, as is the doubtful provenance of the painting. There’s also the problem of such a painting, if it’s a true da Vinci, going into private hands. No museum could possibly have coughed up over 400 million for it.

Last night, Christie’s auction house sold “Salvator Mundi,” which it claims is the last painting by Leonardo da Vinci in private hands, for an astounding, record-setting $400M (the final price was over $450M with fees). The sale was controversial for a couple of reasons: that mind-numbing number itself, but also the fact that there are a lot of questions — and serious doubts — about the painting’s authenticity, restoration, and provenance.

One can therefore be forgiven for initially overlooking another elephant in the room — the identity of the seller. When there’s this much money involved, though, it usually pays to follow it, and here the money leads directly back to the Russian billionaire Dmitry E. Rybolovlev. Rybolovlev’s family trust sold the painting, through Christie’s, to an undisclosed buyer, but if his name sounds familiar for other reasons, that might be because in 2008 he paid (through a company he controlled) $95M to buy a Palm Beach mansion from Donald Trump.

You can read more about this at Hyperallergic, and there’s an earlier article too. The earlier article is disheartening, to say the least, as half of all the world’s wealth is in a very small circle of people, while little money ever goes to all those things which make for a healthy society. Once again, I’m reminded of A Perfect Circle’s new beatitude…

AppSame: Fakery.

Sarah Wasko / Media Matters.

Something else I had never heard of at all, and I don’t spend much time on Twitter, certainly not enough to be aware of AppSame, which has an influential twitter account (1.1 million followers). Of course, this leads to the same old question: why is Twitter ignoring this? They certainly have a way of turning their heads to obviously fake bullshit and abuse when it’s convenient for them.

Despite what its wildly misleading name might suggest, AppSame is not an application. Based on the biographical details its social media accounts provide, AppSame is “a conservative political marketing firm helping America back to its greatness.” While publicly available information does not clarify what exactly, if anything, this firm does to help MAGA, its impressive Twitter presence (1.1 million followers as of this writing) invites some questions — about its tactics, its actual impact, its role in the spread of fake news purveyor-generated misinformation into influential right-wing Twitter networks, and whether its influence could become a case study in the way Twitter enables unknown entities to have a disproportionate impact in politics.

Both its massive following and its clout among right-wing Twitter hubs like #TCOT (an acronym that stands for “top conservatives on Twitter”) earned AppSame the top spot in Brandwatch’s 10 most influential Republicans on Twitter rankings in 2016. AppSame’s Twitter behavior is practically indistinguishable from that of hard-core supporters of President Donald Trump: The account frequently retweets the president and his family (once earning a magnanimous mention from Trump) as well as memes featuring right-wing narratives, churning out more than a hundred tweets or retweets per day. But despite its impressive following, AppSame’s original tweets barely register any viral attention, which might be evidence of a heavy fake account presence among its followers. A Twitter audit report confirmed as much in 2015, finding that 45 percent of @AppSame’s followers are suspected fake accounts.

@AppSame’s social media habits also include disseminating fake news and conspiracy theories into right-wing Twitter networks. On Twitter, @AppSame has shared links to fake news purveyors like TruthFeed and True Pundit, and its tweets have on occasion been featured in items written by fake news purveyors. Inmultipletweets, AppSame either suggested or explicitly claimed that Hillary Clinton was responsible for the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.

Cristina López & Natalie Martinez at Media Matters have the full investigative story.

The Politician’s Pharmacy.

Politicians, like the rich, are different. In some respects, dangerously so. Those on Capitol Hill have their own on staff physicians, and whatever drugs they want, at any time, all for the very low cost of around $600.00 a year. There’s a nice deal for you.

Nearly every day for at least two decades pharmaceutical drugs have been brought by the carload to the Capitol – an arrangement so under the radar that even pharmacy lobbyists who regularly pitch Congress on their industry aren’t aware of it.

The deliveries arrive at the secretive Office of the Attending Physician, an elaborate medical clinic where Navy doctors triage medical emergencies and provide basic health care for lawmakers who pay an annual fee of just over $600. Every one comes from Washington’s oldest community pharmacy, Grubb’s.

Mike Kim, the reserved pharmacist-turned-owner of the pharmacy, said he has gotten used to knowing the most sensitive details about some of the most famous people in Washington.

“At first it’s cool, and then you realize, I’m filling some drugs that are for some pretty serious health problems as well. And these are the people that are running the country,” Kim said, listing treatments for conditions like diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

“It makes you kind of sit back and say, ‘Wow, they’re making the highest laws of the land and they might not even remember what happened yesterday.'”

Having already dealt with the fallout from having a sitting president who had Alzheimer’s disease in office (Reagan), it would probably be right good idea if a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s barred one from the political workforce. Most diseases are manageable, but leaving those who have Alzheimer’s disease in place while making extremely serious decisions about policy…uh, no.

The handy dandy pharmaceutical stock was news to me, however, I can’t say I’m surprised or shocked. There are a whole lot of reasons that people won’t give up such a cushy job, and this would be one of them. There’s much more to the story, you can read about it here.

White Supremacy: Just Background Noise.

Tucker Viemeister.

It’s a forlorn hope, that republicans might stumble over a conscience, discover their humanity and embrace that of others. It really does not seem to matter what the Tiny Tyrant does, there are those who will squink all over, in an attempt to cover over the massive piles of shit left in the wake of the Tiny Tyrant. As we have all been witness to, Trump gets worse, week by week, day by day.

As CNN noted on Friday, in the last four weeks alone, President Trump has fired chief strategist Steve Bannon, fired Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, hired and fired communications director Anthony Scaramucci, publicly shamed his own attorney general and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, banned transgender troops via twitter, made up two phone calls, thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling American diplomats from the country, threatened nuclear war with North Korea, and defended attendees of a white supremacy rally.

And that’s not even half of it.

But Steve Cortes, a member of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council, said on Fox News Sunday morning that if Republicans just cut taxes, all of that will be background noise.

“Clearly, he had a tough week. There’s no way around that,” Cortes said.

“All presidents have tough weeks,” Cortes said Sunday. “I believe that will become background noise once we get taxes done, and once this economy starts growing the way it’s capable of.”

Yes, a tough week, brought on by the defense of fucking nazis being “fine people”. You opened your mouth, and Trump obligingly shit in it, and you decided to swallow it. Nice.

[…]

“The economy’s already accelerating. There’s a lot of optimism out there in the country,” Cortes said. “If we can throw tax cuts into the mix, I think this economy can absolutely take off, and then I think we’d see those poll numbers rebound very, very quickly for the president.”

There’s a lot of optimism out and about? Where? Oh, yes, in the crowds of nazis, sure. Everywhere else, not so much. Perhaps you should get outside once in a while. People are not optimistic about an idiotic, ignorant, maniacal bigot being in control of things, for a given value of control. People are not optimistic about not being nuked. People are not optimistic about not getting into yet another fucking war. People are not optimistic about bigotry being elevated to “great america” status. People are not optimistic about the blatant slaughter of all things which could help us avoid the worst disasters of climate change. People are not optimistic about the economy. The list goes on and on.

Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) made similar comments last week, telling Bloomberg that Trump’s comments about white supremacists were “frustrating” because he wanted to start focusing on tax reform.

“[It’s] very frustrating for those of us who want to start focusing on the issues ahead—tax reform, infrastructure, the debt ceiling,” Ross said. “I wished we would start focusing on those issues, and we need to start healing and bringing people together—instead of peeling back the scabs.”

Right. Your idea of tax reform is handing tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, and you’ve made sure there are zero safety nets for everyone else. That will cheer everyone up for sure. You don’t start healing and bringing people together by announcing that nazis are “fine people” and everything was really the fault of those filthy liberals. The reason those scabs peel back so easily is that there is a massive wound underneath, still oozing blood, covered over, but certainly not healed. Healing does not take place by ignoring a wound. Now the Tiny Tyrant and his henchidiots, like you, Rep. Ross, have dumped toxic wasted in the wound, and you want to talk healing. Isolation, genocide, and subjugation are not things which heal. They do not unite. And those things are what you stand for, handwaving reality, because those people, they don’t actually matter to you.

Think Progress has the full story.

The Tiny Tyrant: Sucking Marrow from Bones.

The Secret Service has a problem – they can’t pay their employees. The Tiny Tyrant’s profligate habits, and those of his family have sucked the bones dry. While there is an obligation on the part of the service to protect key people, the sheer amount of money wasted by the Tiny Tyrant is overwhelming. Three million dollars for every weekend jaunt. Millions more for every vacation the Kushners take, and they seem to take a lot of vacations every year. Millions more for overseas coverage. Millions more for Ms. Trump and the kid to stay in NYC for months on end. Then there are the little things, like $60,000 in golf cart rentals. This from the idiot who could not stop talking about President Obama golfing now and then. Sixty Fucking Thousand Dollars. And since the Chief Idiot won’t golf anywhere except his properties, guess where the money is going? Quite the fucking racket.

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump’s family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.

Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, in an interview with USA TODAY, said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.

The agency has faced a crushing workload since the height of the contentious election season, and it has not relented in the first seven months of the administration. Agents must protect Trump – who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia – and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas.

“The president has a large family, and our responsibility is required in law,” Alles said. “I can’t change that. I have no flexibility.”

Alles said the service is grappling with an unprecedented number of White House protectees. Under Trump, 42 people have protection, a number that includes 18 members of his family. That’s up from 31 during the Obama administration.

Overwork and constant travel have also been driving a recent exodus from the Secret Service ranks, yet without congressional intervention to provide additional funding, Alles will not even be able to pay agents for the work they have already done.

The compensation crunch is so serious that the director has begun discussions with key lawmakers to raise the combined salary and overtime cap for agents, from $160,000 per year to $187,000 for at least the duration of Trump’s first term.

But even if such a proposal was approved, about 130 veteran agents would not be fully compensated for hundreds of hours already amassed, according to the agency.

“I don’t see this changing in the near term,” Alles said.

USA Today has the full story.

The Hounds of Heaven.

Lance Wallnau is getting worse, in every respect. He’s now into becoming a parody of himself territory. Or perhaps he now considers himself a comedian for Jehovah or something, I don’t know.

Citing a prophecy from the book of 2 Kings that Jezebel would be devoured by dogs, Wallnau railed against “the Jezebel spirit” that is “working through the media to bring depravity and perversion” to America and prayed that “the hounds of heaven” would be let loose to destroy the “coup” being led against Trump by Robert Mueller.

With “Who Let The Dogs Out?” playing, Wallnau prophesied against the late night television hosts Bill Maher, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert, though he did not seem to actually know their names.

“We’re going to see a season of dismantling of Jezebel in media,” he proclaimed. “Bill Maher, coming down! Steve Oliver, coming down! Carvell, coming down! God is going to release his comedic armies against you and you are going to be absolutely confused because you are thin-skinned and incapable of taking it the way you dish it out.”

So, Jehovah has comedic armies now? If you’re the lead, Lance, you all leave a great deal to be desired. I wonder, does this answer for Jehovah’s notoriously bad aim when it comes to those big punishments?  There seems to have been a big backfire here, because it seems it is you, Lance, who is absolutely confused, and you lot are among the most thin-skinned of all. You can’t take it, and you can’t dish it out.

“The dogs are being loosed, heaven’s canines are coming out,” Wallnau declared, as he began to pray in tongues for Trump and his family. “We loose the dogs on Jezebel’s lies, on all the media lies; chase ’em down. May the favor of this president go up.”

Perhaps you should have gone with Shakespeare: “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war”. (Julius Caesar). Would have added a slight touch of class to your clown show.

Via RWW, where there’s video, if you can cope with seeing Lance with his tongue hanging out.

In the “oh fuck” terrifying department, we have Robert Jeffress, who has the Tiny Tyrant’s ear, approving of nuclear war:

Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor and a top evangelical ally to President Trump, responded to Trump’s threat to rain down “fire and fury” on North Korea yesterday by issuing a statement declaring that “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.”

These fucking idiots talk as though a nuclear missile would launch, land conveniently on their target, all nice and clean, no fallout. It’s been more than obvious, from the campaign days (those seem so long ago) that Donny has been itching to use nuclear weapons, and now he has “reason”. I grew up under the threat of nuclear war, and I hated it. That is a horrible sword to be hanging over heads, especially those of children. Tends to fuck up your viewpoint a lot. Now, in old age, I get to live with that clear and present threat once again. I really don’t want to die just yet. I really don’t want millions upon millions of other people to die just yet. Fuck, I hate this. If “god” wants to “take out” Kim Jong Un, fine, let him do it without the nukes.

RWW watch has the full story, and the rundown on Jeffress and his hold on the Tiny Tyrant.