Republicans will protect people with pre-existing conditions far better than the Dems!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018
No. The Republicans want to eliminate the ACA outright and, failing that, preexisting conditions is on the laundry list of things to be eliminated. Trump is lying — L-Y-I-N-G.
This is a time for every American patriot to do the only thing that can make a difference now:
In the midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone to a voting station to vote for a Democrat. I repeat: In the midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone to a voting station to vote for a Democrat. I repeat: In the midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone to a voting station to vote for a Democrat.
Beyond that, nothing else matters.
Thomas Friedman, New York Times
Agreed. The country faces no graver threat than Donald Trump, and has no more urgent business before it than the ruin of his enablers.
What do you know? Donald and Melania are soloing in Pittsburgh.
Local and national officials are declining to appear with President Donald Trump on Tuesday when he visits a grieving Pittsburgh, where funerals for slain congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue are set to begin.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were all invited to join the President but were not planning to take part in the visit, according to two congressional sources. Through their offices, McConnell and Ryan both cited scheduling conflicts.
Pennsylvania’s two US senators were also not planning to join Trump in Pittsburgh. Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, was invited to join the President but declined, according to a spokesman, citing previous commitments in another part of the state. Democratic Sen. Bob Casey was not invited by the White House, according to his communications director. Casey will attend a vigil for the victims in southeastern Pennsylvania.
A spate of local and state officials also said they would not appear with Trump …
Better late than never, I suppose, but I wish this bunch had shown the character and courage to disavow an association with Trump before he stoked another mass murder.
Almost 7 of 10 white evangelicals (think, Southern Baptists) hold a favorable opinion of Donald Trump.
With the unique exception of white evangelical Protestants, majorities of all other major religious groups have an unfavorable opinion of Trump. Majorities of black Protestants (80%), religiously unaffiliated Americans (75%), Hispanic Catholics (74%), non-Christian religious Americans (73%), white mainline Protestants (52%), and white Catholics (52%) have a negative opinion of Trump. By contrast, almost seven in ten (68%) white evangelical Protestants have a favorable view of Trump, including 28% who have a very favorable view.
Though most Southern Baptists ‘know’ that the Bible is inerrant, most have no idea at all that The Donald is not a fine Christian man. After all, Pastor Bubba fools around, too, and tells lies and says mean things about non-club members all the time.
The unhappy truth is that Trump’s followers, like the typical Southern Baptist congregation, comprise a cult. I don’t know what the psychological name for the behavior is, but many of Trump’s followers have simply transferred their devotion to one charismatic leader to a different or additional charismatic leader.
Donald Trump exploits the identical grievances as skillfully as the two greatest leaders in Christian history, so it should be no surprise that his following includes a lot of self-identified Godly types.
The Jesus Movement of the 1st-century was no less a political movement than a religious movement; once upon a time, recall, there was no distinction. Jesus excoriated the rich (It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven.), and celebrated and promised riches to the underclass (The meek shall inherit the earth.).
Skip forward 1500-years, and consider Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Excepting perhaps his objection to indulgences, it’s a slam-bang certainty that his oppressed and illiterate peasant followers had no idea what his 99 Theses were about or could weigh a theological argument. What they knew is that Luther hated the Jews, hated the Catholic Church, and held a disdainful attitude toward women — a regular guy, just like themselves! YAAAY!
I wouldn’t call the Fabulist-in-Chief a spiritual leader but, given his devoted and unreasoning followers, it is entirely proper to call him a cult leader and, in a narrow sense, no less a religious leader than Haile Selassie or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Once more, alas, I find myself unable to follow the best Liberal thought. What the World’s contention amounts to, at bottom, is simply the doctrine that a man engaged in combat with superstition should be very polite to superstition. This, I fear, is nonsense. The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.
True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. . . . They are free to shoot back. But they can’t disarm their enemy.
H.L. Mencken
This famous passage from Mencken’s commentary during the Scopes trial explains why I can’t wholeheartedly endorse the present mewling about the importance of civility and dialing-back the volume. Surely, we would all be in a better place today if decent, educated adults had put the neo-Nazis, the nationalists, the anti-science evangelicals, the whole pestiferous mass of backward-looking anti-reason nuisances firmly to the side. You cannot reason with these people, because they don’t acknowledge the sovereignty of reason; they must be defeated and made to unconditionally surrender.
