#dumb ass evangelical Republicans

[rejectingrepublicans]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

2022? Schadenfreude for Cool Cats!

Stephen Jay Morris

8/20/2022

©Scientific Morality

Yeah, I know! I ain’t going to acculturate the USA anytime soon. The world is changing at a snail’s pace. However—it is changing for the better! Religion is self-destructing, slowly. Capitalists are trying so hard to relate to the commoners. Woke, you say? Not even close. If it sells, you utilize it. I’m getting the impression from the old guard of the conservative (sic) movement that the pundits can’t grasp the concept of capitalism. It’s all about profit! What? You want the capitalists to show patriotism? Think about that: they want to appeal to all demographics. If you just sell to White, male conservatives, your company will go broke. There are more Americans who are left of center—no matter what Fox News says. So, you go after their wallets! It’s about the customers, not about saving America from the evil Left.

It doesn't matter who is ahead or who is behind, in the end we all lose. If we don’t do something about the climate crisis, we will all pay greatly! But, fear not! Not all Homo Sapiens are Right wing, dumb asses! There are humans who are smart and want to cooperate to stop this on-coming catastrophe. They come from many nations and speak multiple languages. This gives me a glimmer of hope.

Now, a word about the Right wing idiots in the greatest country in the world. I realize that it’s all about making money and becoming famous. It has nothing to do with love of country and sacrificing for it. Name me one lefty that got rich from advocating Marxism. College professors make a decent salary, but not nearly enough to become billionaires, or even millionaires. So, we can scratch them off the list. When you look closely, it becomes clear that you don’t make squat advocating for the Left. But, there is a future in propagandizing for the fossil fuel industry, even though that is an industry that is on the way out—like phone booth manufacturers.

I look at the Conservative moment and see the aftermath of tornadoes in the mid-west. There is no solidarity within the Right wing. Can you imagine the Koch Brothers’ organization, Turning Point, standing side by side with the Montana Militia? Or, white Catholic Conservatives standing next to the Evangelical protestants and the Republican Log Cabin Club? How about this: the Groypers fighting side by side with the Proud Boys, in the trenches of the next American civil war? They are in worse shape than the so called Left! It’s just a schism, you say? No! It’s more like a plate smashed into millions of tiny pieces! It’s just not going to work out for them.

Then, the grand finale. They will have their Kent State moment, some event that gets out of hand. The National Guard is called in. They point their rifles and shoot at random. Two dead, three dead; maybe a hundred or more. That will end the political Right for about 30 years.

Recently, the FBI paid a visit and served a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-A-Largo resort. No doors were smashed and no bullets flew. Nobody got hurt! But, oh! The effrontery of the government! “It was a government raid!” The Right was insulted! All the pundits and reactionary advocates have called for civil war! The next day...well, let me re-frame this: In the 60’s, we had an axiom, “Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?” Well, nobody has shown up for their civil war. I can see some MAGA cretin saying, “Just you wait! Oh, it’s coming, man! It’s on! Just you wait!” Okay. I’ll wait. Just like I’m waiting for Jesus and his second coming.

And, now, I hear some Rightists calling the FBI Leftists! Yeah, you never took a history class, did you? Some claim that corporations and the government are now Leftists. If you only you knew how fucking stupid you sound! In my old age, watching the Conservatives self-destruct can be so entertaining! The United States government is neither Left or Right; it stopped being either, decades ago. Nevertheless, your civil war won’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell! Fact! America is a nuclear empire.

It’s time for you to leave the Right. Applications to join the Left are at your local post office. Good luck!

[solani-and-ashe]

Dragon Harpy mermaid siren shadow slime succubus vampire :3

Dragon- How did you first find out that you were into monsters?A: Technically when my queer ass was watching Interview with the Vampire and Antonio Banderas came on scene as Armand, (never mind I thought he was just cool before that because I loved the Movie Zorro as a kid- and when I say that: I had a fucking Zorro birthday party when I was 5 okay I had weird tastes). I loved the concept of vampires back then, but that movie really set me off onto ‘my first dumb pre-teen obsession outside of fucking boy bands because I thought I had to like those’For more intense monsters? I’m pretty sure it came as time progressed and I understood more about my own asexuality. Understand- I don’t have sexual desire or attractive, but I enjoy the flexibility and simply put, the variety monsters present in narratives. Sexual or otherwise. As the marge simpsons meme goes>‘I just think they’re neat’Mermaid- If you could be a monster, what would you be?A: Hands down, a Vampire. This isn’t that surprising. While I understand that as a human, my mind isn’t designed to live that long, it would allow me to do so much without fear of many things that plague me regularly. Plus man- can you imagine having the ability to mind roll politicians or just straight up tormenting them from the shadows. Vampire Revolution Mother Fuckers Siren- What are some of your favorite ‘fluffy’ monster scenarios or headcanons?A: Cuddling with monster in their natural homespace, IE dragon’s hoard, siren’s nest, vampire coffin. Gimme that soft cuddling. I crave that physical affection and attention. I also HC that all monsters need kisses and love tiny smooches to the more monster bits of them. Like horns, wings, ears, paws, etc.Shadow- Are there any monsters you’re afraid of?A: The Republican Party, ‘Conservatives’, White Evangelicals in the USA, and my mom when she gets hangry.Slime-What kinds of monsters are off-the-table for you, or what monsters squick you out?A: Anything that as said before, can’t give consent. That and *child* based monsters. Just... no. I refuse.

Succubus-What are some of your favorite sexual monster scenarios or headcanons?A: HNGGGGGGGG Oviposition and fucking resulting in turning into a monster. I like to HC a lot of monsters have that ability- that repeated sexual encounters with them result in becoming like them. Magic cum babey!! I have a weird breeding kink (despite rl being terrified of childbirth/parenthood), and hoooo corss species attempts to ‘mate’. AND SIZE. GIMME THAT BIG MONSTER ON TOP DOMINATE FUCK YEAH.

[ramrodd]

Everybody Says Mark Was the First Gospel, But Was It? (With Dr. David Alan Black

COMMENTARY:

Well, for reasons that you will have to come to grok in fullness, Dr. Black has all the pieces, but he's jammed them into his premise because he is old enough to have been elgible for the draft his first year of college in 1971, the year I got back from Vietnam, The consequene is he has a blind spot about all things military because he was scared shitless of going to Vietnam.

And he's pretty typcial of Pro-Life Evangelical Spiritual Warriors. It's like Donald John Trump* calling himself a "War President"; or smarter about pandemics than the White House pandemic reponse team he disbanded in 2018 for the same reason the Republicans in Florida sabotaged the mechanisms for receiving unemployment: dumb ass Joe McCarthy Conservative politics.

I went to Vietnam because I was a Christian Soldier and my commission was the Liberation Gospel of the Gospel According to Mark. I went. locked and loaded, to Vietnam and I earned my spurs. I have a Combat Infantryman's Badge and a couple or three scaples. I went to Vietnam to kill a Kong for Christas and I stand here and declare "Mission Accomplished".

Then I came back to the World and have spent the last 49 years dealing with white, male Spiritual Warriors like you and Dr. Clark and Donald John Trump*. Which is why the suicide rate among combat veterans is 22 vets a day. You know how you like to poo-poo numerology and numerics in the Bible? Well, could make the case that the Holy Spirit has somehow suppressed the suicide rate in veterns like me to JUST 22 a day just so I can point it out to you at this very instant for the very first time anywhere on the internet of Christendom.

Those who have eyes, see.

The axis between Q and the Letter to the Hebrews is a case study in a generic intellince assessment process being employed in Langley, today. It's the way the etimoloigists that Donald John Trump* fired from the White House in 2018 would have gone about making a risk assesssment for the Coronavirius long before China would have permitted the word of the pandemic from getting out. You can see why the godless commie cocksuckers in Beijing would have wanted to keep the pandemic secret from the world given that America just pulled an aircraft carrier off the line to protect the crew: during the battle of Stalingrad, a little pandemic would have just added a subject to sing about to the festivities.

The Gospel According to Mark is not the first intelligence report to be sent to Rome about the resurrection of Jesus. Here's where Dr. Black and I are joined at the hip: my intent is to establish the historicity of the Gospel of Mark in such a way that any rational, intellectually honest and morally anchore human being can drop kick asshole anti-theists like Richard Carrier and Richard Dawkins in their ideologically puffed up balls and through the goal posts of their own asshole pretzel logic.

Dr. Black has all the same peices I do, but, because he was scared shitless of going to Vietnam and then the military gunned down the 4 students at Kent State scared all the white anti-war draft dodgers shitless after the celebration of the end of was at Woodstock which turned into rage, hie has a blind spot about the Romans because,. One, they've always been the bad guys lurking behind the scene and, two, the Romans in the first century until the Milvian Bridge in the 4rh century went to a great deal of trouble keep their existence in the Praetorian Guard and the Legions a secret, or hiding it in plain sight with the Cult of Murtha and the associated Caesar Worship, with it's baptism in blood.

The Roman military had absolutely no expectation of anything like the Resurrection. None. I mean, there were all sorts of stories floating around in their mythos about “the gods” in pretty much the same way the stories about Batman and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, but a story about a god who is born of woman, creates the structures of an army composed of Gideons poise to crush the Romans in Galilee, like they did the 12th Legion of Cestius Gallus in 68, but has the more important mission of being truly crucified, USDA Caesar Tiberius Guaranteed, stuck a fork into Him to make sure he was dead, and buried behind a stone requiring 17 men, a centurion and a corporal's guard of 2 squads of 16 men to roll into place.

And up from the grave He arose! This just wasn't in the Roman field manuals, anywhere, so they began to study it.

It so happens, they had already collected a great deal of data about Jesus as a routine surveillance detail when He popped up over the Roman military horizon as a potential insurgent aligned with John the Baptist. Sometime around 27, before John is arrested and they continued this surveillance with decreasing interest until He is remanded to Pilate by a Jewish lynch mob composed of all the A-List citizens of Jerusalem demanding his execution. All that spy product is the initial material contained in Q and Cornelius, the centurion in Acts 10, is Pilate's administrative chief of staff and the curator for Q from it's implementation as a subject of force protection by the Roman intelligence services in Palestine.

Go back the 19 minute time stamp when Dr. Black is describing the stenographic nature of the prose style of the Gospel: the presence of the historic present is the transcribed report of a spy from the field, the raw intelligence of intelligence spy craft arranged along a meticulous and rigorous timeline exactly like the log of a ship or the book of a police desk sergeant. This is scientifically based observation for evaluation somewhere up the chain of command to squeeze out the military/political implications of all things under their purview. As Luke observes in Acts 24:22, Felix knew all about The Way long before Paul washed up from Jerusalem at his feet.

And it began with Cornelius and Q. Theophilus is the spy master in the Praetorian Guard both Pilate and Cornelius report to regarding military intelligence. Theophilus has the same organizational role in the Praetorian Guard that George Smiley has in MI6: he's not M, but he M is his first report, and M speaks to the Emperor. In particular, Tiberius. Until 31, Sejanus is M in the Praetorian Guard, so it's not clear if Sejanus would have choked off the initial intelligence report that compelled Tiberius to propose to the Senate that Jesus be elevated to the status of a legal deity or not, but the timing is such that, if Jesus had died on the Passover in 31, the news of His Resurrection could have moved, unfettered, to Tiberius as early as that year.

For numerological reasons, I like 33 better but only by a hair over 31 CE as the year it all got started.

But the important thing is, Tiberius made his Jesus proposal after, or during, the purge of Sejanus and, as a consequence, the Senate was forever after hostile to all things Tiberius, especially Christians, which is why they went underground. If you notice, the only connection Cornelius makes with Jesus is by naming Jairus, who was president of the Capernaum synagogue. Cornelius knew Jesus, personally, and was justified by faith in Matthew 8:10. And Cornelius was in the room with Pilate during the interrogation of Jesus.

Why didn't Cornelius intercede, then, you may ask. It has to do with Romans 13:1 – 7 and the spirit that fulfills the letter of the law. It has to do with the dramatic tension of “A Man for All Seasons”. It has to do with why Mitt Romney voted to convict and Socrates took the cup and Jesus died on the cross. It's why I went to Vietnam and why I left the army. The rule of law, duty and the sworn oath. That's the basis of the absolution of Luke 23:34.

The letter to the Hebrews is an intelligence finding, to return to the theme of a case study in generic intelligence risk assessment. Q stayed in Caesarea and was possibly destroyed during the Jewish Wars, but Theophilus assembled a mirror, and complimentary, portfolio in Rome to study just what it all meant. Paul's role was to defend the ethic of Jesus in Rome to Theophilus and his committee/church, which he, Paul, does successfully. Unlike Athens, where he was preaching to philosophers. Paul is preaching to students of philosophy in the Roman equestrian class: their whole success was as early adopters and they already believed in Romans 13: 1 – 7, but the missing link was Melchizedek and the offering of bread and wine and that closes the loop of Moses with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

Everything in the Gospels begins moving to Rome when Jesus is remanded to Pilate. Dr. Black is almost right about the relationship between Mark and the Gospel of John. John Mark is the publisher, editor, character and probable translator of the original Latin of the autograph to the coine Greek of the final version and John Mark is also the author of the Gospel of John. John Mark is the “beloved disciple” of the Gospel of John is probably 14 years old when he is witness to the Roman coup-de-grace on the cross. He is something of a mascot, a Junior Disciple, who first meets Jesus at the wedding in Cana something after Jesus is baptized, and travels around with Jesus and his crew from about that time until after the feeding of the 5000, which occurs just before the Passover the year before Easter and sometime just after John the Baptist is beheaded in 29. John Mark's chronology is not entirely reliable, but the narratives of Mark and John converge in both Gospels in Chapter 6 and diverge until they converge in Chapter 11. The Triumphal Entry  into Jerusalem happens in the morning of Palm Sunday and Lazarus is raised from the dead in the late afternoon in Bethany. John Mark was in Bethany for both the Triumphal Entry and the Scourging of the Temple.

The Gospel of John is a complimentary reader to Mark and originates from the perspective of someone for whom Passover was like Christmas while the Synoptic Gospels treat Passover as an annual issue of crowd control. The anointing of Jesus is a coronation in Mark but a particularly erotic celebration in John of the Bridegroom that is an allusion to Ruth at the feet of Boaz, her redeemer. This is the best case to be made that Jesus had a wife, but He died a virgin.

Matthew is undoubtedly written by Matthew Levi and is the outlier to the other Gospels in that, as Dr. Black observes, is a polemic for the Judaizers who opposed Paul's missionary to the Gentiles. Luke is making an obvious reference to Matthew's Gospel in the preamble to Luke where the transliteration is that he. Luke, is correcting what Matthew fucked up.

Luke probably started Acts as an amicus brief for Paul's defense of Romans, but Theophilus commissioned him to expand his study after he, Luke, is introduced to Cornelius and given access to Q. It is obvious that both Mark and Matthew are available to Luke when he follows Paul to Caesarea and, based on an observation in David Sloan's “What if the Gospel according to Hebrews is Q”, Luke had Mark to begin with (he notices that Luke 3:1 introduces John the Baptist like the beginning of Mark  after introducing him as the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth in Luke 1).

That's not all, but here's a little more numerology for you to consider: the 13 Epistles of Paul being with the longest and narrows to the shortest like an arrow pointing at Hebrews, which has 13 chapters, which were added in the 16th century, as you have pointed out in another video.

Dr. Black has all the pieces and, if you add Richard Bauchman's eyewitness in the Gospels to the mix, and rearrange the pieces around his fear of going to Vietnam, it all leads to the nature of the canon and removes most of the mystery to fully reveal the historicity of the Mystery of the Resurrection in the eyes of the Romans back in the day.

[theleftsidelife]

Does No One Care That Trump is Mentally Ill?  

That withstanding, it should NOT BE THIS HARD, TO VOTE IN A DEMOCRACY!!! ----- Therefore, CHALLENGE THE ESTABLISHMENT!!! ----MARCH, PROTEST, FIGHT BACK!!!! Since Trump LIKELY, DOES NOT, NOT, NOT PAY TAXES; The MAJORITY of American people SHOULD STOP, STOP, STOP PAYING TAXES, UNTIL WE ALL CAN VOTE--- VOTE--- VOTE--- WITHOUT ---WITHOUT--- WITHOUT--- VOTER SUPPRESSION, GERRYMANDERING, HAVING TO STAND IN LONG, LONG, LONG LINES, and so on.---- The IRS, who REFUSE TO RELEASE Trump's TAX RETURNS CANNOT PUT ALL, ALL, ALL AMERICAN TAX PAYERS IN JAIL!!!! ---- This way, Trump and his GREEDY ASS, SWAMP SNAKE, THIEVERY FAMILY and RICH FRIENDS will have to STOP, STOP, STOP PISSING ON WE THE PEOPLE; WHILE TRAITOR TRUMP PLAYS GOLF MOST OF THE TIME; and TRYING TO BECOME OUR KING, DICTATOR!!! ------ Further, SEE: Trump Says The 'Phony' Constitution 'Doesn't Matter' Because He's 'Rich' | MSNBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-qKnvioXHc ---- Also see: Trump's FATHER FRED TRUMP WAS A MEMBER OF THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. --- AS WERE THE KOCH BROTHERS FATHER, FRED KOCH. ---- TODAY'S CULT BEHAVIOR BEGINS WITH CULT CON-MAN JOSEPH SMITH, and CULT POSTER BOY MITT ROMNEY, (who said he LOVES Trump’s POLICIES) BRIGHAM YOUNG, and---- MISSIONARY---- MISSIONARY ---MISSIONARY---EVANGELICAL--- ... JOHN BIRCH as in the ----HATEFUL--- Neo NAZI, KKK JOHN BIRCH ----BRAINWASHING ---- SOCIETY. ------ BONE SPUR, TREASON, UNHINGED, DEMENTED, CRAZY, DUMB, IDIOT, MORON Trump IS the ANTI-CHRIST!!! ------- MOSCOW Mitch and TREASON Trump are CULT LEADERS!!! ----- DO NOT LET THESE CULT LEADERS and CULT, REPUBLICAN SENATORS ---- DESTROY---- DEMOCRACY--- IN ----AMERICA!!! ------- DEMAND ---WITNESSES--- WITNESSES --- WITNESSES at --- CULT --- Trump's ---- IMPEACHMENT, SENATE ---TRIAL!!!!! --- TREASON Trump's Republican SENATORS and SUPPORTERS have drunk the COOL AID... aka Jim Jones---- CULT -----BEHAVIOR!!! ---aka ---cyanide-laced---PUNCH---- that KILLED 900 people. --- SEE: Jim Jones was best known as the CULT leader of the Peoples Temple who led more than 900 followers in a mass suicide via cyanide-laced -----PUNCH----- known as the Jonestown Massacre. --- Reference: www.biography.com/crime-figure/jim-jones

[theliterateape]

The Women of the Democratic Party Have One Year Left to Keep Screwing Things Up

By David Himmel

Before we dive in, let’s be real clear up front: The Patriarchy and all its ills must burn and die. But if the future is female, then the women of the Democratic Party need a Come to Jesus Moment like no other.

In two weeks, the Democratic Party might win enough seats to turn the House blue. That’s a good thing for the balance of power and it’s a great thing to help slow any further dangerous actions President Donald Trump hopes to take during the rest of his first term. This victory, I’m concerned, will be short-lived. Unless the Democratic Party can unglue its head from deep within its bowels, it will not win the Senate or the White House in 2020. And it will probably lose the House.

For a party claiming to be pro-gun control, the Democratic Party has shot itself in the foot with everything from .30-caliber muzzle loaders to AR-15s to .22-caliber wheel guns. The fault should be shared by all elected Dems currently serving in the United States Congress and those associated with the Democratic National Committee (DNC). But lately, a small section of the party’s most influential women leaders have been screwing things up for the rest of us. Rep. Maxine Waters, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz have said and done things that have fractured the Democratic Party, alienated moderates and true believers alike, and fed the beast that is President Trump and his supporters. All of this has led to heating up our Cold Civil War and put the Dems in a position to receive another ass lashing in 2020.

That said — and this is important — the screw ups we’re about to get into do not justify any violence or attempted violence against anyone. The packages sent to members of the Democratic Party last week is abhorrent. Good people who do dumb things do not deserve to be hurt or threatened by some dongbucket who thinks he’s doing America a favor.

“But what about the men of the Democratic Party, David?” Like I said two paragraphs above, they’re culpable, too. However, the men of the Democratic Party have been feckless in recent years. Tim Kaine is their spirit animal. The real leaders of the Party right now are the women, which is why their screw ups are so alarming.

The mid-terms are important. The election in 2020 is more important. It’s two years away, which means that the women of the Democratic Party have one year left to keep screwing things up before it’s too late to save the sinking ship.

To fix the problem, we must address the problem. Let’s look at the culprits and their crimes.

Rep. Maxine Waters Back in June, Maxine Waters became the Left’s champion of divisive politics, unseating Hillary Clinton, when she said “If you see anybody from [Trump’s] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere.” We saw it happen in restaurants with White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Mitch McConnell. And that’s just the big three we know about. I don’t like the politics or demeanor of any of them, not one bit, but why aren’t they welcome?

If I owned a restaurant, a department store or a gasoline station, and Huckabee Sanders, Cruz and McConnell walked in, I wouldn’t kick them out. I might spit in their soup or keep bringing them the wrong item of clothing or shut off the gas to their pump but I wouldn’t protest against them. And if I did, that would be my choice as the owner of the private establishment. In the actual instances, the owners didn’t tell them they weren’t welcome; it was patrons, strangers off the street — people who had no right to tell anyone whether they were or were not welcome in a private establishment.

It’s bad sportsmanship. It makes the Left look like assholes. If the Right is the place where the hateful assholes live — and it might be, because when you consider the broad opinions of the base on issues like race, LGBTQ equality, police brutality and bro-country music, they do — the Left needs to stop appropriating their behavior.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein Fully acknowledging the immeasurable love I have for my grandmothers (ages 94 and 82) and that this sounds a little ageist, there are just some things the elderly shouldn’t do. This includes, but is not limited to running with the bulls, learning to rollerblade on a rocky hill covered in ice and legislating for a first world country. Feinstein, who is 85, was elected to the Senate during the first Year of the Woman in 1992 following the Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court that turned Anita Hill into a harlot. Feinstein has been around long enough to know better, which is why I hold her 100 percent responsible for allowing history to grossly repeat itself with the debacle that was the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford submitted her concern over Kavanaugh’s temperament to Feinstein in July when Kavanaugh was still on the short list. Ford wanted to remain anonymous. Feinstein could have and should have brought those concerns quietly to the Senate Judiciary Committee and any other area of government to prevent the alleged sexual assailant from becoming the nominee. There were other conservative stooges on that short list who would have caused less of a fight and fuss. Instead, Feinstein held onto it until Ford’s identity leaked and Feinstein used the accusation as a Hail Mary play to discredit Kavanaugh and embarrass the Republican Party.

We all know that’s not what happened. What happened was that things got worse. Sexual assault victims of all stripes are now perceived by many to be liars first, sluts second and Clinton operatives third. Feinstein never cared about Ford or about women or sexual assault victims. She was playing party politics and it backfired. Hard.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren thought she was President Barack Obama. She thought she could shut down insults from Donald Trump by proving that she was, in fact, of Native American descent. But where Obama brandishing his birth certificate removed all ability to doubt and insult (save for the morons) Warren’s genetic test revealed nothing. She’s as Cherokee as the rest of us, which is to say, not at all. Not enough to claim that heritage, anyway. My wife, Katie, who was raised evangelical Christian, did not convert to Judaism when we married, has never been to a bar or bat mitzvah and does not believe in God, is more a Jew than Warren is Cherokee.

This move, as Hall wrote last week, was the truest display of submitting to Trump’s bullying and, thus, playing right into his hands. Warren revealed herself as someone too concerned with the shiny penny glistening on the sandbar when she should be focusing on the squall overhead and the bull shark headed straight for her. There’s a lot of talk about Warren running for president in 2020. I used to think she wasn’t a bad option, but now, no. Warren can’t be president. She’s too entrenched with the Liberal American pettiness that continues to fraction the Left and the Democratic Party and embolden the Right and the Republicans. And it’s now clear that she’d make a losing opponent to Trump because she’d crumple at every jab he threw. What’s most concerning is that this kind of behavior is what alienates the undecided moderates — the very people the Dems need if they’re ever going to win again.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Where do I start? OK, first, HRC would have been a perfectly fine president. Yes, she would have been dogged by accusations from the Right every single waking moment of her presidency but she is a knowledgeable, experienced public servant. She knows the world and the world knows her. And while a sizable clot of America hates her, the rest of the world doesn’t mind her. She can get along with people. Sort of.

HRC is the only person in the known universe who could have lost to Donald Trump. She’s too polarizing; been in the Washington game too long; has been beaten down by the media over the last 30 years so bad that she’s barely human. It is unfortunate and unfair. And because of that, she was a horrible candidate. Would have been a fine president, but fine presidents can’t be horrible candidates. Her campaign should be used in political science, marketing and advertising classes as an example of what not to do. Ever.

“I’m with Her” is not about the country. It’s a decree of a cult of personality. That campaign slogan makes her election to the Highest Office in the Land about HRC and not about the future and benefit of the United States and its people. It is egotism at best and Trumpian narcissism at worst. (And just a quick comment on Trump’s campaign: You know what helped him win? “Make America Great Again.” That slogan was brilliant. It was about the country, and maybe for the first time in his life, not directly about Trump. It was specific enough that people could envision a great America but vague enough that it required no hard supportive evidence. Trump’s campaign followed the exact same marketing logic as Barack Obama’s in 2008; “Hope” is just as specifically vague and made the American people feel good and, yeah, hopeful about the future of their country.)

“Love Trumps Hate” is bad copywriting. One rogue apostrophe and she’s rooting for the other guy. And for Christ’s sake, why would anyone in her campaign sign off on using the other guy’s name in their campaign materials? Why would you ever allude to your competitor when trying to get people to think about you? It’s just stupid.

When HRC came down with the flu, she hid the truth for no good reason. Now, this is less about her poor thinking as it is the result of decades of having to protect herself from possible attacks over the smallest of infractions. The system broke her and this flu denial thing was the sad result. But she had an opportunity to rise above it. If she had said outright, “I had the flu and pushed myself too hard,” most people would understand. We’ve all had the flu. Hell, admitting it from the start would have humanized her — something she desperately needed. But instead, HRC and her campaign ducked and dodged the assumption out of concern that Trump and his people would accuse her of being too ill to be president. That is, of course, ridiculous. And anyone who worked “But her flu symptoms” into their “But her emails” arguments would most likely be perceived, rightfully, as a fucking moron. However, by hiding the flu fact, HRC managed to do what HRC does best, give credence to the fear that she’s hiding something can’t be trusted.

Only a member of the 1919 White Sox and Butch Coolidge — people who want to lose — would think insulting the electorate was a good idea. No doubt that every presidential candidate from George Washington on up said some pretty wretched things about their opponent’s base, but never in public. Calling Trump’s base deplorables only empowered them. And, I’m afraid, it encouraged the Them vs. Us Cold War we’re in right now.

And then there’s the alleged collusion with the DNC to cheat her way to the nomination…

HRC is unquestionably a leader. She should set the tone here. She can start by backing off the campaign trail. She is much like Trump in that all her presence does is rile up the loyalists and upset the opposition. She’ll never win over the desperately needed moderates and undecided voters.

Former Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Allegedly, and quite obviously, in this writer’s opinion, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was part of a coordinated attempt to manipulate the outcome of the 2016 democratic primary race for president favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Even Elizabeth Warren believed there was collusion. This is problematic because it’s cheating. And the only reason anyone has to cheat is if they know they can’t win. Part of the allegation is that the Clinton people bought the support of Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. Sanders would have likely won the primary, and because HRC was the only person on the planet who could lose to Trump, the Dems blew the whole lot. If Wasserman Schultz had let the electorate of her party speak instead of (allegedly) manipulating the odds to favor a deeply flawed candidate, we might not be living in Trump’s America. Although, that would mean Stormy Daniels would likely have never received a book deal, which would have been unfortunate for her and a travesty for historians who will look back and laugh their assess off at 2016–2018 America.

✶

As I said at the start of this piece: the Patriarchy and all its ills must burn and die. But if the future is female, then the future needs a Come to Jesus Moment like no other. If they don’t, the future will be lost to the mongrels currently in the lead. Scoundrels in the image of Sen. Orin Hatch, Sen. Lindsey Graham, McConnell and Cruz will be the future. If this occurs, the Dems will have no one to blame but themselves.

Even if the Dems pull off a win in 2020, if the Party’s most prominent don’t stop acting without thinking of the consequences, the future may indeed be female, but it will be a future led by women who are just as self-serving and stupid as any man ever has been.

I hope they can get their act together. I’m rooting for them.

[rfschatten]

"Human Greatness does not lie in Wealth or Power, but in Character and Goodness"  ~~~ Anne Frank

Where is the Goodness in such an Immoral character like Donald Trump? Damn!! I really would

like to know, cause the Republican Party has always bragged about being the Party of Morals and "Family Values", as the Conservative Middle-Class' protectors of America's Working Family.

All the GOP Sins committed since the Great Communicator, and created by all their phony Values...rewarded them with a Man called Trump!...but remember, Karma is in the batter's box, just waiting to cause havoc upon an already tumultuous American Administration!!

Trump style Immorality has been part of the GOP, ever since I can remember...they just left it home most of the week, and a little civil discretion helped, too.

Today, Christian Evangelicals and Right-Wing organizations are heavily promoting Immorality, Hatred, and Bigotry as the new Morality...normalizing it to an even lower standard...and a dreadfully Spineless GOP has embraced the bait...hook, line, sinker!

Now, with the Immorality of a President who lives for just that one sound-byte moment of Indecency, the same man who sets the tone for who "We, the People" are around the World...the Republicans have decided, in the zeitgeist of Trumpism, that Indecency and Immorality work just fine! Ahhyup! Example? Their preparation to royally screw the status of America's Health and commence the Death March for the first 200,000 Americans!

Oddly enough, a major portion of those Americans now condemned to death by the GOP's Trumpcare, are Trump's fanatic  Minions...you know?...the not too bright, not too educated ones Trump loves so dearly? Will their tush be surprised with the kick they are about to receive!! The GOP and their beloved Trumpo, the Orange Orangutan, are throwing them...the whole lot!... way, way under the Bus!

Yes! Mr. Stupid! It's not about his great plans for all those you don't agree with, or despise...they're coming for you too, asshole!! You're gonna love their "Repeal and Replace"!...at least, as you lay dying ...you won't need to call it "Obamacare" anymore! Hurry!! You can now, be proud of your new "Trumpcare" Plan...as you take your final breaths!    

It's amazing, this era of Donald J Trump!...easily, the most incompetent and poorly administrated

Administration in US History!! The United States has become the embarrassment of this entire Planet. Trump has committed an act of public embarrassment every single day of his 166 days in office, since becoming President!...he's become an embarrassment not just to America...but, throughout the World!

This Fool, who dresses as a President, has been exposed by Foreign Leaders around the World, as the perfect "mark"...it's going to be hard for the United States to command its influence or any influence for that matter, particularly in today's climate on the Political World Stage, when everyone knows that our "Leader" is a 70 yr. old psychotic cry-baby, who puts on a temper tantrum when ordinary people or the Press criticize him, also, if he's not the center of attention...or if he can't get his way!

Baby Donny comes out whenever the 70 yrs old fool, has a meltdown! He has no imagination or understanding of High School US Government 101 or World History, and thinks of himself as if he's the "Greatest Negotiator on the Planet"!

Real Leaders know how to skirt around Foolish Idiots. In this game of World Political Poker currently being played, overseas; Don the Con is the "Mark"...and Vlad Putin holds the Trump Card! "sad"

One short meeting and you know this man's character, his flaws and his vindictive strengths...yes! Macron, Merkel, and Trudeau are now, the new true Leaders of the Free World!

Meanwhile, Donald Trump gallivants around, praising his wonderfully indecent relationships with known murderers Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Rodrigo Duterte (who 'personally' commits all his own murders)...and his open admiration for Neil Farage and Marine Le Pen? His disgraceful attitude towards NATO? his crazy far out antics at the Paris Climate Accords and the G7 Summit Meetings? along with his visits to the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, and finally "arriving" in Israel from the "Middle East"!?!?

All the President's antics have made a lot of World Leaders, think twice and totally mistrust The United States. While Russia and Putin's computers continue to disrupt country after country, his Puppet continues on his mission.

The shameless acts and words that have cost our historical allies in France, Germany, and especially Great Britain, for the first time ever, mistrust the intentions of the United States of America!

Yes! We have reached that pinnacle of rotten, totally Incompetent Foreign Affairs Policies, and miserable Amateurish Diplomatic efforts, run by a very understaffed Amateur State Department with orders from an Amateur US Administration. What it means for our Country, and what it means for the rest of the world, is alarming! But, where's our National Dialogue? That's even more alarming!

Doesn't Donald Trump in his 70 yrs. on this earth, ever had any shame or any shred of moral decency?? We all know, he's got no backbone!!

NEVER! All the multiple shameful sins of his very overt private life! his ever-present public life, and now as President of an entire Nation!... a Nation in which he 'supposed' to be representing!...you know? those taxpayers that are paying his salary?!?!

My question still remains; Where are the Goodness and moral Character of this man called Trump?? Where is his Heart? 

ETHICS: How Ethical is his standards of practice? How Ethical is the failed Human Experiment named Donald Trump??

MORALS: The one thing that stands out most about Le Grande Orange, is his total spiritual lack of Empathy or Remorse, His embracement of Ayn Rand's philosophy on the Rejection of Altruism, and his sordid natural gift for his enormous Immoral Behavior, which he holds towards everyone in every sector of our Society, and around the World.

DIGNITY: Dignity? Besides constantly degrading the Dignity of his Office?...The Man is a Pig! His Dignity starts when he falls asleep after Tweeting the World to death, and it stops functioning a few hours later when he wakes up! It only takes one time to see 30 seconds of his facial expressions, to know why Donald Trump is the most undignified US President in this Nation's History.

CREDIBILITY: As a world renowned mega-compulsive Liar, who lies openly in public, and is Guinness Book's "Lies" Record Holder ...where is 'his' Credibility?

SELF CONTROL: The Man has absolutely no Self-Control in Life! Twitter exposed 'that'!...and it's his most dangerous Achilles Heel!

KNOWLEDGE: Remember, Donald Trump, graduated from High School cause Dad bought his Diploma! And Donald Trump graduated from College cause Dad bought his Degree! This Little Man has been exposed in America...and now, throughout the World...as a dumb Rich Kid with street smarts, who could only succeed in life by using confidence schemes, deceiving all his clients, ripping them off, and never paying his Bills!

Knowledge? He's been outed as a Fake by his own big fat mouth! By his constant use of extraordinarily horrible stupid remarks, he easily convinced the World of his one and only Truth...a permanent Dunce Cap throughout his school days could be the cause of his baldness that morphed into his terribly spectacular comb-over.

How knowledgeable is our Commander-in-Chief? Just remember he's a genius within his own imagination!...he really did say the remarkably dumb and embarrassing lame statement, that he arrived in Israel 'from' the Middle East!! And America is supposed to be impressed with this Clown??

CLASS: Donald Trump also proves that being from Upper Class doesn't necessarily mean you have any "Class". In his case, no class at all! All his rudeness and unapologetic actions and that of his family just prove to America...and the rest of the Planet...what so many already knew; the Family Trump, any way you cut it...has absolutely no Class!

So! Inquisitive people would still like to know; Where's is the Goodness of Master Donald?!?!

Start with a Man who privately has a serious personal hang-up with the opposite sex. An avowed Philanderer, A misogynist who enjoys groping women, and a man who loves to publicly degrade women. His love to hurt people is to elevate his sense of self-worth.

A Rapist who got away with the Law and believes that there's no such thing as "Marital Rape"! But Ivanna knows better! Where is the Goodness and Moral Character of Donald Trump?

A crazy Maniacal Egocentric with a such a bad case of Narcissism, that he needs tanning spray 24/7! It's his need from Baby Donny, the cry for attention and compliments!

Showing his toughness against CNN in an edited version of an old WWE tape, he got paid to perform years ago.

All his self-accolades about the "Brilliant Businessman", then goes out and uses a Fake Time Cover, that hangs in all his properties around the World!...

And his call for a Cabinet meeting, taking these people out of whatever work or meetings they had...just for them, to each stand up and make a short speech in front of all the cameras and the Press, on his tremendous personal Intelligence, his Superb Character, and Greatness of his Leadership and Job performance as President.

Pretty much a Meeting arranged by the President as a forced congratulatory ass-kissing, ego-lifting event! There's no honor in complimenting yourself, Mein Führer! Donald Trump's Human Greatness? Not in this lifetime!!

An incompetent uneducated President, a man with no Ethics, no Morals or Scruples, no Respect, no Dignity, absolutely no Credibility or Self-Control, and especially a man with no human understanding of the basics of education!

What's so good about Donald Trump?...he'll never know what true Greatness really is, or how it really feels. Pity!

A Man like this??...does it take a Donald Trump to wake up a Nation from this Batshit Kool-Aid addiction that produced a Donald Trump in the first place??

No one, not even Ivana, Marla, or Melania could ever tell you about his Goodness, cause in all honesty...there's just nothing Good about this Man!

And to anyone, if you still forever believe in the Greatness of The Donald, my question still forever remains; Where's all that Goodness of his?!?! And where in the hell is his Good Moral Character and that Good Heart?!?!

[siouxempirepodcast]

House of Cards: Trump’s First 100 Days

This past Saturday President Donald J. Trump completed his first 100 days in office. While 100 days is not enough to judge an administration it does create a barometer or litmus test for how the rest of their term will continue. So, let’s talk about the successes, beginning with Trump’s campaign pledges. Trump successfully managed to complete the following campaign promises: He pledged to hire American workers first. He said he would “establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first.” On April 19th Trump signed the “Buy American and Hire American” executive order. This occurred on his 89th day in office, and thus far, there is no statistic showing where more American workers have been hired. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Management will not release its next jobs report for about another week, so it’s unlikely that this executive order will show measurable results for American workers in the short term. But hey, it was a campaign promise fulfilled. Sort of. Trump also pledged to “take no salary” as President. In fact, he did donate his first quarter’s salary to the National Parks Service. A check for $78,333.32 was hand-delivered to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke who remarked: “I’m thrilled.” However, the seventy-eight thousand dollars is offset by Trump’s proposal to cut $1.5 billion from the Interior Department which oversees the Park Service. It also flies in the face of his rancorous dispute with the Park Service’s statistics, following the Inauguration, about the number of attendees to his HUGEST-EVER swearing-in ceremony. He also promised a hiring freeze on federal employees, which does seem to be in effect. There is a host of other campaign promises which seem to be in the works, mostly dealing with financial matters. But there hasn’t been a single item that we can point to and say “See, he promised he would do that. He did that, and as a result, it’s done”. Nor, frankly, would we expect to after just 100 days. The most significant success is likely that of the nomination and successful appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neal Gorsuch. Of course, that depends on what your definition of success is. The last two blogs in this series (“Orange is the New Black: Trump’s First Week” and “Stranger Things: Trump’s First Month”) talked about what we have lost as a nation and a population. I itemized a list of some of the more dangerous propositions during his first weeks in office (the argument with the Parks Service, the attempts to ban immigrants from seven nations, etc.) and also about what we’ve lost regarding our feelings of safety, security, and unity. I could attempt to blog, now, about what we’ve gained. The cringe-inducing cabinet appointments. The endless attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The infighting between the Kushners and Bannon and Priebus. The debacle that was the Michael Flynn appointment and the (not just) allegations of Russian tampering in the November election. The missile attack on Syria and the ratcheting up of war talk with North Korea. The sleepless nights. The increase in depression and anxiety. The list, quite literally, would go on and on. But I’m not going to write about that. Instead, I made an interesting observation in the past week, and I’m going to write about that.

Trump

Have you noticed that with remarkably few exceptions, Trump’s supporters are silent? All those tea-party uncles and neo-con neighbors and change-craving libertarians are strangely silent, especially on social media. Trump does still have his supporters (you can catch them on the 24-hour news cycles although even the paid pundits seem subdued) but with the exception of the Neo-Nazi contingent (like Richard Spencer and Nathan Damigo), nobody is cheering Trump’s successes. Even former Congressman Joe Walsh (Republican, Illinois, 2011-2013) isn’t trying to stand up for Trump. Walsh told journalist Katy Tur on MSNBC this week, “As a Trump supporter I do my best not to pay attention to what he says.” That’s right folks; they’re not paying attention. They’re not watching. They’ve checked out. All they wanted was change, and they got it. They broke the system. It’s all falling. We are as fractured a nation as we ever have been or could be and Trump’s supporters are absent, silent, mute. They don’t care that we’re scared, that we’re gobbling up antidepressants and mood stabilizers and medical marijuana like they’re candy. They don’t even know that we’re suffering from night terrors and afraid that our neighbors are going to be rounded up. They’re not picturing a mushroom cloud over the West Coast. They’re sleeping just fine. That’s because a significant number of 2016 voters only really cared about two things: fixing the economy and stopping abortions. They truly believed that only an outlier could affect those kinds of changes. That an outsider, a successful wheeler-dealer like Trump could force the Republican Party to enact the changes they want. They think they’ve won and that’s all that truly matters to them. They’re done. They did their job. They broke the system and prevented a terrible, horrible, pantsuit-wearing grandma from ascending to the highest office in the land – a woman that would have continued the status quo, politically, financially, culturally. Women would still be terminating pregnancies, and coal workers would still be starving if Hillary were President. And they still are, but those voters – the “one issue” voters don’t see that. They don’t know what they unleashed. They turned off their talk radio, and they’ve gone about their business. There’s a tiny little part of me that knows that these people are due for a comeuppance. That when the curtain is pulled back, and the Great and Powerful Oz is proven to be a sham, a grifter and completely ineffective, those folks will cry out “Oh, forgive us! We knew not what we did! We thought bringing someone completely new in was going to fix what was wrong… we get it now! We’ve been voting against our interests. Evangelism has been promoting a policy of greed, and we’re going to devote our lives in service to the poor, in attrition.” Okay, stop laughing. I know this isn’t going to happen (even if I not-so-secretly wish it would). Those people, when the big reveal happens, are going to be PISSED OFF and not with Donald J. Trump. They’re going to be angrier than ever at Congress, at Democrats, at liberals, at me. Nobody likes to be proven wrong and Americans, in particular, are spectacularly bad at accepting defeat. And so, it’s on us – those who are losing sleep, terrified of this administration and what they’re going to botch up next. We are going to have to be the ones to reach out across the aisle and say to those assho- I mean, those American citizens, “It’s okay. We all make some dumb mistakes, sometimes. Nobody’s blaming you personally. But now you know that nothing ‘trickles down.’ It’s all grass roots. Nobody in Washington gives a rat’s ass about you, and you know it. Now we can do something about it. Now we can work together to create a fair and just America, just like our forefathers wanted for us.” See, here’s the problem though – we aren’t just splintered. It’s not like September 2001 when a divided nation came together to get through a tragedy. I fear there isn’t a calamity big enough to get us to actually like one another again. We probably aren’t going to reach across the aisles. We’re completely fractured. The left hates the right as much as the right is going to hate the left. Most of us on the left would be perfectly happy if California did finally fall off into the ocean and we were all sitting in Los Angeles drinking margaritas when it happened. We’re the House of Cards. We are what’s going down. Trump may very likely remain the President (not resigning as most of us predicted, but then again which of our predictions about this election came true?) but we’re not going to be American much longer. We are no longer the United States of America, and I’m not sure we ever can be. I’m not sure many of us, right now, even want to be.

The post House of Cards: Trump’s First 100 Days appeared first on TheSiouxEmpire.com.

from House of Cards: Trump’s First 100 Days

[rejectingrepublicans]

🤡

[ramrodd]

What flaws in the ROTC program need to be addressed?

COMMENTARY:

I have deleted a series of responses to Mike Page’s response to his own question.

I never disagree with his ahrgument, per se, especially as far as the advantages his proposal of 2 summer camps are concerned instead of the 4 year program I went through as a liberal arts student majoring in letters and process theology.

The process theology I was getting from RTOC, you dumb fuck. Nothing personal, of course.

The 2 summer camp program he proposes is more fun. I loved summer camp. My only problem was that I had to finish my senior year and my summer camp happened just before the 1968 Democrat Convention which resulted in the police riot the SDS had been designed to create with the 1962 Porort Huron Statement.

Cause and effect. The cause was the Trotsky Insurgence process embedded in the political strategy of the anti-war people. The Trosky Insurgency process is designed to employ sedition and subversion to create the social alienation and polarization that leads to sabotage and violent revolution. The sabotage didn’t really kick in until after Kent State, but the subversion really got traction after Tet ’68 and the SDS began to develop cells recruited to infiltrate the military and professions as active agents in the overthrow of the US government.

I was a Junior at Indiana when Tet hit the campuses. I re a uniform three times a week, looking as strac as I knew how to. I had been on a drill team as a Persishing Rifle and had my dad’s example of what a lifer’s uniform is suppose to look like on the job. I was as squared=away as I could be without having mom come behind me and complete the picture.

I knew Tet was coming. I grew up around headquarters and I was as plugged into the Post Rumor Control as the CG of CONARC. I wasn’t spying: it was osmosis. I got back to campus and everything was hunky-dory, the New Hampshire primaries came off as usual and the gates had open on the run for the white House and, at that moment, not-LBJ was not even a Dark Horse.

1967 was the Summer of Love in a “if you’re going to San Francisco…” flowers in the hair kind of way and Sergeant Pepper had just come out and John McCain had just been shot down. Tet was just about to jump off the Tallihatchie Bridge with Billy Joe McAllister, but Christmas was like the German side in Stalingrad 1942: there was a certain magical thinking that maybe it all had a happy ending if we all just clapped for Tink,

Tet was not the cause of the Chicago Police Riots in 1968, the Port Huron Statement was the cause, if you have any useful acquaintance with process theology, that should be evident to you without too much deliberation, Tet was the seed crystal that set off what amounted a socially supersaturated solution, or critical mass, that had been carefully groomed by the anti-war movement to blow up somewhere, sometime. It only took 6 years to achieve that moment and if the Diem brothers hadn’t been assassinated, the Port Huron Statement would have never gotten any traction.

I watched this stuff happen during a 4 year liberal arts education I was required to attend in order to receive an ROTC commission. ROTC is a direct result of the ideal and the intent of the 2nd Amendment, that is, to ensure for the manpower and mobilization requirements of the federal mandate for the common defense in the original intent of the Founding Fathers that the American Republic would be sustained by citizen-soldiers in the Swiss-Israeli tradition. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t have shit to do with guns: it is entirely a mechanism to supply the worker-patriots to carry the guns. The Civil wWar, on both sides, and First and Second Phases of the World at War was fought by the America citizen soldier, thanks to the 2nd Amendment. My dad got his commision at Indiana. I got mine the same way. We spent 4 years in classroom engagement in the process theology of the military arts and sciences, but the most fun was the practical application of FM 22–5, twice a week.

Just for the record, FM 22–5 comes almost directly from Frederick the Great by way of von Steubin and prior to Jomini. US Army doctrine originates in Prussian staff experience, but is embellished by the French example at Yorktown and the focus on Jomini at the exclusion of Clauswitz until Marshall’s reforms beginning in 1942 and proceeding way beyond any need to reexamine the efficacy of the 4 years ROTC program. It’s not West Point. It’s not intended to be West Point. Or OCS. Or the two-summer camp ROTC program. It is, however, the same intellectual trajectory and learning curve as West Point and that trajectory, combined with the experiential data that has accumulated with the liberal arts program, ensures that the collective unconscious of the US Army is being constantly enriched by the broadest possible universe of high shooling for the dressage of the republican citizen soldier.

Here’s the thing, Mike Page, my impression of you is similar to my impression of Richard Carrier, the evangelical anti-theist and John Bolton and Dumb Ass Don: you’ve never heard a shot fired in anger.

I know you were in the combat arms, but your original profile said you went to Germany instead of Vietnam. You now cite Asia, which means you could have earned a CIB on the DMZ, but you were pretty emphatic that you never got to Vietnam.

Poor you. I wouldn’t have missed Vietnam for the world, and being in GermanY during Vietnam was like a certain kind of Purgatory for someone who had signyd up for a life of derring-do and danger, but we all served the needs of the service, so that’s like Eisenhower, who never go overseas in Phase I.

Vietnam wasn’t a great war, but it was the only war we had.

The other thing I sense in you, Mike Page, is the resentment of an OCS officer without a college degree, going through, for the country-club commission I earned over 4 years and a summer camp. If you are serious about producing the best possible officer to lead soldiers against fire, you should know that everything that happened before you got that rank don’t mean nothing once you get it: how you got there ain’t important. It’s that you showed up and stuck around is all the military requires to begin the process of becoming all you can be.

See, here’s the thing, Mike Page: growing up in the Army, all the chaplains I knew had been combat veterans until I left the Army in 1971. Generally, I’ve done what I can to avoid the military since I left: the prospect of spending time with some lifer like you just makes my skin crawl, even if they have been shot at. But you and Bolton and Richard Carrier share an attitude I never encountered among the chaplains I have known. I saw the same thing being directed at John Kerry by the Swift Boaters and it was an attitude I ran into in the corporate culture from Vietnam-era National Guard pukes, who resented the fact that they had to keep their hair short during a time when getting laid and short hair were not the norm and they blamed Viet vets for their decision to pursue their business careers and not be labeled a long-haired, dope-smoking, anti-war hippy freak in a culture of pro-war business executives. It’s like the military officers who conceived and implemented the All Volunteer Military: they blamed the draftee-citizen solder for the way Vietnam turned out and that it was actually their idea in the first place.

So, if this idea of reforming ROTC represents a big career move for you, my advice to the rest of the world is to ignore it.

There were two coalitions in the Army senior officers during the McNamara tenure in the Pentagon: those who were committed to Marshall’s reforms and what my dad called “Nut Heads”, that is, political opportunists who abandoned the needs of the service in favor of their own ambitions and aligned with the McNamara Whiz Kids and his reforms based on the Harvard management model. These guys were in charge when Tet blew up in LBJ’s face and he dropped out of the race. From 1968 until I got back from Vietnam, these guys were like a Marx brothers meet the 3 Stooges, running around, trying to avoid becoming collateral damage. One of these guys scared me out of a military career in Vietnam, someone with the same crypto-Nazi cognitive organization as Mike Pompeo, Mike Espry and Tom Cotton.

And you. In response to your last reponse in our dialogue, to wit,

>>>Mike Page: “If you had an idea, Tom, it would overwhelm that single brain cell you were born with,….”<<<

You are a retrograde pre-Tet ’68 Nut Head. And the All Volunteer Military seems to be just totally stuffed you guys.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:

How should the U.S. have handled Communist aggression in Vietnam?

You really don’t know shit about much of anything, do you, Mike Page.

Both Korea and Vietnam sit on the trade routes from the oil in the Persian Gulf to Japan and Taiwan, for one thing, and that oil was the reason for our presence on the Pacific Rim and, in no small measure, a factor in Japan’s vision of their Great Co-Prosperity Sphere that compelled the decision to attack Pearl Harbor.

You’ve presented the SDS version of the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam. The actual version is presented, below.

From 1954 until 1962, the MAG-V mission in the Republic of Vietnam was essentially the same as the K-MAG mission in the Republic of Korea: peace keeping and nation building, Both nations were the result of a negotiated partition and, in the case of the Korean Penisula, a cease fire that persists. This was part of George Kennan’s theory of containment and reflected Marshall’s manifesto delivered at Harvard in 1947. The efficacy of this mission can be measured by the present success of the Republic of Korea, and the continuing K-MAG mission.

In 1962, the commie cocksuckers in Hanoi determined to invade RVN and signaled their intent to that end by tossing frags into Saigon movie theaters. I had friends, other Army brats, living in Saigon at the time, and MAG-V evacuated all the dependents in 24 hours in order to clear the deck for general combat and to avoid a reprise of the Phillipines.

After the assassination of the Diem brothers in 1963, America lost the moral legitimacy of its nation building mission and made it impossible to “win” the battle MAG-V was transformed into MAC-V with the mission to conduct a battle of attrition against the Soviet economy by proxy, the subsequent enterprse being a battle in the larger Cold War.

To this end, General Westmoreland was essentially assigned the task of creating the blood sacrifice of the commie cocksuckers on the field of battle that would compel the Kremlin to continue to commit the material support to their ideological clients that would ultimately bankrupt the Soviet economy, which had not begun to fully recover from WWII.

In the final analysis, Vietnam became a contest between Marxism and the Harvard Business model and Marxism won, but, in the larger context, Vietnam was for the Kremlim what Borodino was for Napoleon: a battle they couldn’t afford to fight and a battle they couldn’t afford to lose.

As a direct result of the American War in Vietnam, the Soviet Union is no more. The fact of the matter is, the Domino Theory did, in fact, manifest, regionally, but was contained by what amounted to entropy.

Now, in reference to my commentary on your ROTC essay (Tom Wilson’s answer to What flaws in the ROTC program need to be addressed?) the mistake that the “Nut Heads” in the Pentagon that aligned with McNamara’s agenda made was to NOT proceed at the same time as the “Search and Destroy” element of the post-Diem brothers strategy with the other two legs of a Clauswitzian solution, that is, to equip the RVN military prodigously and to begin the process of “Vietnamization” on pretty much the same model as the ROK Army that served with such distinction in RVN.

As far as providing aid to all of Vietnam, it’s useful to remember that 1954 was the year of the McCarthy Hearings and people were losing their careers for any hint of political intercourse with commie cocksuckers anywhere in the world and Ho Chi Minh was a commie cocksucker who had just supervised the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu. The long haired anti-war hippy freaks of the SDS, and Noam Chomsky, might have found the prospect of providing economic aid to ALL OF VIETNAM appealing, but, well, in 1954, General Ridgeway wasn’t as sanguine of the prospect of success nor inclined to propose the project in the first place.

Just for the record, my self-esteem is perfectly secure. I’ve been dealing with lifers like you since I got off the Freedom Bird in 1971. Just the idea of being around lifers like you makes my skin crawl, but it’s not an impediment to my happiness and personal fulfillment.

[ramrodd]

Everybody Says Mark Was the First Gospel, But Was It? (With Dr. David Al...

COMMENTARY:

I was going to post a point by point commentary on this interview and the essential flaw in Dr. Black's hypothesis that Matthew was the first Gospel when I realized I had already written one when this video was first posted and it pretty well hits all the points I would make if I started from scratch, so I've reposted it, below. The one thing I want to emphasize is that Dr. Black is absolutely correct about Matthew being a manifesto, of sorts, although I prefer to think of it as a polemic in support of the Judaizers who oppose Paul's mission to the gentiles, and was probably written after Galatians, to support Peter (for example, Matthew is the only Gospel that includes Peter walking, briefly, on the water, which can be seen as a device to elevate Peter's position above Paul's vision on the road to Damascus. If there is anything that is false in Matthew, that pericope gets my vote: Peter doesn't mention it in Mark, for example, and Peter was always insecure about his position as top dog in the original Apostles, which is a source of the tension between him and Paul). To sum up my premise, The Gospel According to Mark was written as a Roman military intelligence abstract of the material contained in the Quelle archives that the Romans began to assemble when Jesus appeared above the Roman military horizon as a potential insurgent when He was baptized. John Mark became the publisher of this Roman military abstract in Alexandria (Dan Wallace points out that 90% of the manuscripts we have that were produced before the 4th century came out of Alexandria) and he wrote the Gospel of John, as Dr. Black asserts, as a supplement specifically to the Gospel According to Mark. For example, the festival in John 5:1 is  Tabernacle and John Marks birthday is around that time when he turns 14.  He is 15 when Jesus is crucified, strong and fast enough to escape naked but not seen as a threat to the Roman guard mount in charge of Jesus's execution. COMMENTARY: 4 April 2020 And, finally, the codex is a Roman innovation because Quelle was recorded on loose-leaf papyrus as individual spy reports came in and the autograph for the Gospel According to Mark was conveyed to the Praetorian Guards, the headquarters of the Roman spy masters Pilate and Cornelius reported to, as loose-leaf papyrus bound at the spine in the manner of the codex. Again according to Dan Wallace, there are no scrolls of the Gospels: everything has come down as codex. Well, for reasons that you will have to come to grok in fullness, Dr. Black has all the pieces, but he's jammed them into his premise because he is old enough to have been elgible for the draft his first year of college in 1971, the year I got back from Vietnam, The consequene is he has a blind spot about all things military because he was scared shitless of going to Vietnam. And he's pretty typcial of Pro-Life Evangelical Spiritual Warriors. It's like Donald John Trump* calling himself a "War President"; or smarter about pandemics than the White House pandemic reponse team he disbanded in 2018 for the same reason the Republicans in Florida sabotaged the mechanisms for receiving unemployment: dumb ass Joe McCarthy Conservative politics. I went to Vietnam because I was a Christian Soldier and my commission was the Liberation Gospel of the Gospel According to Mark. I went. locked and loaded, to Vietnam and I earned my spurs. I have a Combat Infantryman's Badge and a couple or three scaples. I went to Vietnam to kill a Kong for Christas and I stand here and declare "Mission Accomplished". Then I came back to the World and have spent the last 49 years dealing with white, male Spiritual Warriors like you and Dr. Clark and Donald John Trump*. Which is why the suicide rate among combat veterans is 22 vets a day. You know how you like to poo-poo numerology and numerics in the Bible? Well, could make the case that the Holy Spirit has somehow suppressed the suicide rate in veterns like me to JUST 22 a day just so I can point it out to you at this very instant for the very first time anywhere on the internet of Christendom. Those who have eyes, see. The axis between Q and the Letter to the Hebrews is a case study in a generic intellince assessment process being employed in Langley, today. It's the way the etimoloigists that Donald John Trump* fired from the White House in 2018 would have gone about making a risk assesssment for the Coronavirius long before China would have permitted the word of the pandemic from getting out. You can see why the godless commie cocksuckers in Beijing would have wanted to keep the pandemic secret from the world given that America just pulled an aircraft carrier off the line to protect the crew: during the battle of Stalingrad, a little pandemic would have just added a subject to sing about to the festivities. The Gospel According to Mark is not the first intelligence report to be sent to Rome about the resurrection of Jesus. Here's where Dr. Black and I are joined at the hip: my intent is to establish the historicity of the Gospel of Mark in such a way that any rational, intellectually honest and morally anchore human being can drop kick asshole anti-theists like Richard Carrier and Richard Dawkins in their ideologically puffed up balls and through the goal posts of their own asshole pretzel logic. Dr. Black has all the same peices I do, but, because he was scared shitless of going to Vietnam and then the military gunned down the 4 students at Kent State scared all the white anti-war draft dodgers shitless after the celebration of the end of was at Woodstock which turned into rage, hie has a blind spot about the Romans because,. One, they've always been the bad guys lurking behind the scene and, two, the Romans in the first century until the Milvian Bridge in the 4rh century went to a great deal of trouble keep their existence in the Praetorian Guard and the Legions a secret, or hiding it in plain sight with the Cult of Murtha and the associated Caesar Worship, with it's baptism in blood. The Roman military had absolutely no expectation of anything like the Resurrection. None. I mean, there were all sorts of stories floating around in their mythos about “the gods” in pretty much the same way the stories about Batman and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, but a story about a god who is born of woman, creates the structures of an army composed of Gideons poise to crush the Romans in Galilee, like they did the 12th Legion of Cestius Gallus in 68, but has the more important mission of being truly crucified, USDA Caesar Tiberius Guaranteed, stuck a fork into Him to make sure he was dead, and buried behind a stone requiring 17 men, a centurion and a corporal's guard of 2 squads of 16 men to roll into place. And up from the grave He arose! This just wasn't in the Roman field manuals, anywhere, so they began to study it. It so happens, they had already collected a great deal of data about Jesus as a routine surveillance detail when He popped up over the Roman military horizon as a potential insurgent aligned with John the Baptist. Sometime around 27, before John is arrested and they continued this surveillance with decreasing interest until He is remanded to Pilate by a Jewish lynch mob composed of all the A-List citizens of Jerusalem demanding his execution. All that spy product is the initial material contained in Q and Cornelius, the centurion in Acts 10, is Pilate's administrative chief of staff and the curator for Q from it's implementation as a subject of force protection by the Roman intelligence services in Palestine. Go back the 19 minute time stamp when Dr. Black is describing the stenographic nature of the prose style of the Gospel: the presence of the historic present is the transcribed report of a spy from the field, the raw intelligence of intelligence spy craft arranged along a meticulous and rigorous timeline exactly like the log of a ship or the book of a police desk sergeant. This is scientifically based observation for evaluation somewhere up the chain of command to squeeze out the military/political implications of all things under their purview. As Luke observes in Acts 24:22, Felix knew all about The Way long before Paul washed up from Jerusalem at his feet. And it began with Cornelius and Q. Theophilus is the spy master in the Praetorian Guard both Pilate and Cornelius report to regarding military intelligence. Theophilus has the same organizational role in the Praetorian Guard that George Smiley has in MI6: he's not M, but he M is his first report, and M speaks to the Emperor. In particular, Tiberius. Until 31, Sejanus is M in the Praetorian Guard, so it's not clear if Sejanus would have choked off the initial intelligence report that compelled Tiberius to propose to the Senate that Jesus be elevated to the status of a legal deity or not, but the timing is such that, if Jesus had died on the Passover in 31, the news of His Resurrection could have moved, unfettered, to Tiberius as early as that year. For numerological reasons, I like 33 better but only by a hair over 31 CE as the year it all got started. But the important thing is, Tiberius made his Jesus proposal after, or during, the purge of Sejanus and, as a consequence, the Senate was forever after hostile to all things Tiberius, especially Christians, which is why they went underground. If you notice, the only connection Cornelius makes with Jesus is by naming Jairus, who was president of the Capernaum synagogue. Cornelius knew Jesus, personally, and was justified by faith in Matthew 8:10. And Cornelius was in the room with Pilate during the interrogation of Jesus. Why didn't Cornelius intercede, then, you may ask. It has to do with Romans 13:1 – 7 and the spirit that fulfills the letter of the law. It has to do with the dramatic tension of “A Man for All Seasons”. It has to do with why Mitt Romney voted to convict and Socrates took the cup and Jesus died on the cross. It's why I went to Vietnam and why I left the army. The rule of law, duty and the sworn oath. That's the basis of the absolution of Luke 23:34. The letter to the Hebrews is an intelligence finding, to return to the theme of a case study in generic intelligence risk assessment. Q stayed in Caesarea and was possibly destroyed during the Jewish Wars, but Theophilus assembled a mirror, and complimentary, portfolio in Rome to study just what it all meant. Paul's role was to defend the ethic of Jesus in Rome to Theophilus and his committee/church, which he, Paul, does successfully. Unlike Athens, where he was preaching to philosophers. Paul is preaching to students of philosophy in the Roman equestrian class: their whole success was as early adopters and they already believed in Romans 13: 1 – 7, but the missing link was Melchizedek and the offering of bread and wine and that closes the loop of Moses with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Everything in the Gospels begins moving to Rome when Jesus is remanded to Pilate. Dr. Black is almost right about the relationship between Mark and the Gospel of John. John Mark is the publisher, editor, character and probable translator of the original Latin of the autograph to the coine Greek of the final version and John Mark is also the author of the Gospel of John. John Mark is the “beloved disciple” of the Gospel of John is probably 14 years old when he is witness to the Roman coup-de-grace on the cross. He is something of a mascot, a Junior Disciple, who first meets Jesus at the wedding in Cana something after Jesus is baptized, and travels around with Jesus and his crew from about that time until after the feeding of the 5000, which occurs just before the Passover the year before Easter and sometime just after John the Baptist is beheaded in 29. John Mark's chronology is not entirely reliable, but the narratives of Mark and John converge in both Gospels in Chapter 6 and diverge until they converge in Chapter 11. The Triumphal Entry  into Jerusalem happens in the morning of Palm Sunday and Lazarus is raised from the dead in the late afternoon in Bethany. John Mark was in Bethany for both the Triumphal Entry and the Scourging of the Temple. The Gospel of John is a complimentary reader to Mark and originates from the perspective of someone for whom Passover was like Christmas while the Synoptic Gospels treat Passover as an annual issue of crowd control. The anointing of Jesus is a coronation in Mark but a particularly erotic celebration in John of the Bridegroom that is an allusion to Ruth at the feet of Boaz, her redeemer. This is the best case to be made that Jesus had a wife, but He died a virgin. Matthew is undoubtedly written by Matthew Levi and is the outlier to the other Gospels in that, as Dr. Black observes, is a polemic for the Judaizers who opposed Paul's missionary to the Gentiles. Luke is making an obvious reference to Matthew's Gospel in the preamble to Luke where the transliteration is that he. Luke, is correcting what Matthew fucked up. Luke probably started Acts as an amicus brief for Paul's defense of Romans, but Theophilus commissioned him to expand his study after he, Luke, is introduced to Cornelius and given access to Q. It is obvious that both Mark and Matthew are available to Luke when he follows Paul to Caesarea and, based on an observation in David Sloan's “What if the Gospel according to Hebrews is Q”, Luke had Mark to begin with (he notices that Luke 3:1 introduces John the Baptist like the beginning of Mark  after introducing him as the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth in Luke 1). That's not all, but here's a little more numerology for you to consider: the 13 Epistles of Paul being with the longest and narrows to the shortest like an arrow pointing at Hebrews, which has 13 chapters, which were added in the 16th century, as you have pointed out in another video. Dr. Black has all the pieces and, if you add Richard Bauchman's eyewitness in the Gospels to the mix, and rearrange the pieces around his fear of going to Vietnam, it all leads to the nature of the canon and removes most of the mystery to fully reveal the historicity of the Mystery of the Resurrection in the eyes of the Romans back in the day.