Social Items

TPQ
Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts
Right Wing Watch 👀 When Joe Biden won the presidential election in 2020, he managed to secure one electoral vote from the state of Nebraska thanks to a 1991 law that allocates electoral votes by congressional district rather than the “winner take all” method used by most other states.

Kyle Mantyla
With the 2024 presidential election expected to be close, right-wing activists, led by right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, have launched a campaign to pressure the Nebraska legislature to change the system explicitly for the benefit of Donald Trump.

On Tuesday night, Kirk’s TPUSA held a rally at far-right pastor and self-proclaimed “prophet” Hank Kunneman’s Lord of Hosts Church in Omaha, where speaker after speaker made clear that the purpose of this campaign is solely to help reelect Trump.

TPUSA Action’s Brett Galaszewski opened the event by declaring that if the Nebraska system is changed, Trump will have “a much easier path to the presidency.”

William Feely, legislative director of the Nebraska Republican Party, then said that Nebraskans want to see the law changed “to support Donald J. Trump as their next president.”

“Do you want four more years of Joe Biden?” asked Eric Underwood, chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party. 

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Change Nebraska Electoral Law Explicitly To Benefit Trump

Right Wing Watch ðŸ‘€ In 2023, self-proclaimed Christian nationalist and unabashed Trump cultist Lance Wallnau announced his intention to travel the country ahead of the 2024 elections in order to break the “demonic strongholds” in swing states that are supposedly preventing Republicans from winning elections.

 Kyle Mantyla 

That idea eventually merged with the revival Fire and Glory Tour that Wallnau was doing with fellow MAGA cultist Mario Murillo, resulting in plans to merge political rallies with Christian revival meetings in order to help former President Donald Trump return to the White House.

Wallnau’s dream is now coming to fruition with the announcement of “The Courage Tour” in which Wallnau and Murillo will be joined by the likes of Floyd Brown, Lou Engle, and others for a series of events “dedicated to impacting the spiritual climate in 7 key states and 19 key counties!” The first three announced events will take place in the swing states of Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin.

The partisan purpose of the tour was made quite clear during a recent interview Wallnau did with fellow Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA. 

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Christian Nationalist MAGA Cultists Launch ‘The Courage Tour’ To Put Trump Back In Office

Right Wing Watch ðŸ‘€ Trump Promises Christian Nationalists ‘[Political] Power At A Level That You’ve Never Used It Before.’

Kyle Mantyla

Former president Donald Trump delivered a campaign speech at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Tennessee on Thursday, promising the right-wing Christian audience that they will wield political power “at a level that you’ve never used it before” if he is returned to the White House in 2024.

Trump’s audience and the larger convention were populated by the same religious-right activists who are regularly featured here on Right Wing Watch and who are planning to use a second Trump term to impose their Christian nationalist worldview on the nation. And based on Trump’s remarks at the conference, he fully intends to give them more political power than they have ever had before.

“Today I come before you as a friend and an ally and a fellow believer to ask for your help and your support and your prayers for this country,” Trump said. 

I make you a simple promise: In my first term I fought for Christians harder than any president has ever done before, and I will fight even harder for Christians with four more years in the White House.

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Trump Promises Christian Nationalists Power

Only Sky ✏ Christians have been predicting Jesus’ return for two thousand years, and they haven’t given up yet. 

Adam Lee

In fact, evangelicals today still insist that the glorious apocalypse is closer than ever.

Why haven’t they lost hope? Why haven’t they gotten discouraged by the number of accumulated prophetic failures? Why don’t they take a dose of humility from all these previous generations who lived, aged, grayed up and died out while continuously predicting that the Rapture would happen to them?

When optimism becomes toxic

The enduring appeal of religion is that it provides comfort in a chaotic world. It promises believers that they’ll triumph, no matter the circumstances. When a faith is downtrodden and oppressed, it promises its members that God will enact justice on the oppressors. When a faith is powerful and dominant, it reassures its members that they’ll be on top forever because God loves them best.

We all have an optimism bias. we all want to believe that things will work out for us. It’s a built-in part of human psychology. By itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’d argue that optimism is essential. It’s what gives us the strength to persevere when times are hard.

Continue reading @ Only Sky.

God, Trump, And The Psychology Of Inevitability

Frankie McKillen ✍ Who do you think 'The Donald' will choose as his VP if elected....? 

I've seen reports saying it is going to be Tucker Carlson, Vivek Ramaswamy (I've heard Vivek saying he won't take it----I wouldn't rule it out for Vivek to become President by 2032), Niki Haley has no chance, Tulsi Gabbard has been mentioned (she'd be an excellent VP), Ron Desantis - doubt it, although I wouldn't rule him out of the race just yet. 

The only thing that will stop 'The Donald' from being the Republican nominee is death--natural or otherwise. If he becomes President and ends up in jail, who's to say he won't run the USA from behind bars like a real 'Mafia Don '? (If 'The Donald' gets elected, I hope he gives a 'nod' to Jacob Chansley--even if he doesn't get elected in Arizona later in the year. Who is Jacob Chansley? Jacob is the The QAnon Shamam. And everything you thought you knew about him is wrong.) It seems the DOJ is treating 'The Donald' as if he was the 'capo de tutti capo' of an Italian crime family at times. Although It appears 'The Donald' seems to have had more Teflon than John Gotti, no matter what they try to throw at him, 'The Donald' seems to keep turning up 'Trump'---at least in the polls. 

As recently as December 2023 in Nevada 'The Donald' compared himself to Al Capone because of tax evasion charges against him. Trump asked the crowd if they knew him:

Did anybody ever hear of the great Alphonse Capone, Al Capone, great, great head of the mafia, right? Mean, Scarface. He had a scar that went from here to here, and he didn't mind at all. But he was a rough guy, 

They have even used the RICO Law against 'The Donald' and as fate would have it, it was Rudy Giuliani who first used RICO to bring down the American Mafia, who is now having RICO used against him. Rudy Giuliani figured out how to properly use the RICO law to bring down the American Mafia in The Mafia Commission Case, after reading A man of honor. 

And What Is Rico? (Reuters) "------U.S. lawmakers passed the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in 1970 to battle organized crime, notably the mafia. Most states enacted similar laws with various twists. Criminal charges filed against, former U.S. President Donald Trump in Georgia state court include allegations that he violated an anti-organized crime law known as RICO that is more expansive than its federal counterpart. RICO cases are inherently more complex because prosecutors must first prove the existence of a criminal enterprise. The Trump indictment names an additional 18 co-defendants, including Trump's onetime lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer John Eastman." Another Mafia coincidence although on a 'darker side. Similar to 'The Donald', Paul 'big Paulie' Vario, and Christopher 'Christie Tick' Furnari became 'Capos' of their industries. Vario was at one time acting Consigliere to the Lucchese Crime Family during the late '60s--early '70s, Furnari was Consigliere to the Lucchese Crime Family until he was charged under RICO in 'The Commission Trial'----both Vario and Furnari severed time for rape as this excellent short American Mafia documentary by OC SHORTZ explains... Paul Vario the inspiration for the character Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas, and former mentor to Henry Hill, was once convicted for a horrendous sordid violent crime. He wasn't the only member of Cosa Nostra to be found guilty of one the worst criminal acts around. A crime that is often thought of as against the rules of the American Mafia. Christopher Furnari reached the higher echelons of the mob despite previously being convicted of his heinous crime. 

Now 'The Donald' who became the captain of his industry recently faced E. Jean Carrol the second time about allegations of sexual assault. And in April 2023, a News Week article shared some of the Graphic details of alleged Trump Rape. I am not saying she wasn't sexually assaulted by Donald Trump, we've heard the 'locker room' story when 'The Donald' said "he loves to grab pussy". But some things about E. Jean Carroll make me question her story of claims to have been sexually assaulted by 'The Donald'. Most rape victims generally know when they were raped, what day, week, month....year. And yet Carroll who alleges she was raped by Trump, can't remember when it happened. She gives a vague 16/18 week time period when it 'happened'. Surely she must at least know if her rape was before or after Christmas '95. 'From Wiki......."On June 21, 2019, E. Jean Carroll published an article in New York magazine which stated that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her in late 1995 or early 1996 in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City." She also has a strange view of rape. I have never heard any rape victim say they think rape is sexy or most people have a sexual fantasy about being raped, E. Jean Carroll thinks both (CNN clip---am I the only person who thinks Carroll looks 'weird' at the end of the clip?). 

In May 2023 Trump said in his deposition and public statements after Carroll accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store that he wouldn't have done so because she was "not my type." Carrol later went on to CNN’s Anderson Cooper Show and said she was glad Trump didn’t consider her his type. “I love that,” she said. “I’m so glad I am not his type.” Although Roberta Kaplan, Jean Carrol's attorney has a very different point of view. In court she said Carroll was "exactly" Donald Trump's type, and the former president didn't show up at her civil trial accusing him of rape because "he knows what he did" to her, her attorney alleged in closing arguments Monday in Manhattan federal court. 

In an October 2023 deposition Carroll testified no one else was paying her legal fees. However, it was later found that Carroll's case was funded by Reid Hoffman who founded the networking site LinkedIn, is a former US Representative to the United Nations, and donates millions to the Democratic party while at the same time is funding Nikki Haley's campaign to become the next Republican President. He was also a 'Friend' of Jeffery Epstein, and is alleged to a have visited 'Pedo' Island. I think E Jean Carroll is being very economical with the truth and is 'in it' more for fame and money than to help 'real' victims of rape. 

During the 2016 Presidential Debate with Hilary Clinton, 'The Donald' when asked about his grabbing pussy remark apologized and then exposed the sex crimes of the Clinton Crime Family, that even today the Democratic Party don't like to talk about? Another Crime Family within the Democratic Party is The Biden Crime Family, headed by Don Joseph 'Creepy Joe' Biden. And that Biden crime family has its very own allegations of serious sexual abuse, rape, and money laundering. The Guardian reported that Tara Reade saying in an interview to Megan Kelly:

she was excited when she was hired as a staff assistant in Biden’s Senate office in 1992. Almost immediately, she said, Biden made her uncomfortable with behavior she said included putting his hand on her neck in a meeting. 

Not long after this conversation, Reade told Kelly, she was asked to deliver a bag to Biden in the Russell Senate office building. It was then, she said, that Biden pinned her against a wall in a hallway and penetrated her with his fingers, against her will. “He had his hands underneath my clothes and it happened all at once,” Reade continued. She said Biden asked if she wanted to “go somewhere else” and told her “I want to fuck you”, a detail she has not previously shared. The report goes to say:

On Thursday, the San Luis Obispo Tribune unearthed a court document which stated that Reade told her ex-husband she had been subject to sexual harassment while working in Biden’s office. It is the first contemporaneous record to emerge. According to the document filed in the California superior court on 25 March 1996, Theodore Dronen said Reade told him about “a problem she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in US senator Joe Biden’s office.

When Don Joseph 'Creepy Joe' Biden told MSNBC in his first public comment after the allegation emerged he said: "It is not true, I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.” He again denied the allegation on a news channel in Tampa on Thursday, after Kelly published excerpts of her interview. That almost sounds like what Don William 'Billy Boy' Clinton said when he denied having sexual relations with his intern in the Oval Office. 

Why should E Jean Carroll who thinks rape is 'sexy', can't remember what year never mind what month or day she was raped by Trump be believed, and Tara Reade who can remember where, when Creepy Joe raped her not be believed.....? Both women claim to have been sexually assaulted in the same way, Carrol by a former President and Reade by the current President. 

Within The Biden Crime Family, there is someone who has to be a bigger embarrassment to Don Joseph 'Creepy Joe' Biden than Fredo Corleone ever was to Don Vito. The name of the bungling Caporegime is Hunter 'The Laptop' Biden---sometimes known as 'Happy Hunter' due to the amount of crack cocaine he takes. When NBC carried out an investigation into the bungling Caporegime of The Biden Crime Family they found:

From 2013 through 2018 Hunter Biden and his company brought in about $11 million via his roles as an attorney and a board member with a Ukrainian firm accused of bribery and his work with a Chinese businessman now accused of fraud, according to an NBC News analysis of a copy of Biden’s hard drive.

USA News reported on Jan 16th, 2024, that apart from Happy Hunter 'The Laptop' Biden throwing an illegal gun into a rubbish bin.... "In addition to “incriminating statements” Hunter Biden made about his drug use in his 2021 memoir, investigators found a white powdery substance on the brown leather pouch he used to store the gun after pulling it from the state police vault last year, prosecutors wrote. An FBI chemist determined it was cocaine, they said.........“To be clear, investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant had kept his gun,” prosecutors said.

And I'll leave people with this thought Michael Franzese, a former Caporegime in The Colombo Crime Family in an interview explained why the Mafia always chose to buy off Democrats instead of Republicans . . . 

🕮 Frankie McKillen is a Belfast Rockabilly

American Crime Familes

Right Wing Watch ðŸ‘€The night before the Iowa caucus, self-proclaimed “prophet” Amanda Grace hosted a “Night of Prayer for the Trump Family and the Nation” livestream event that featured several members of former President Donald Trump’s family and inner circle, among them Trump’s son Eric and his wife Lara, and his attorney Alina Habba. 

Kyle Mantyla

The Trumps and Habba were joined by the likes of Trump confidante Roger Stone, conspiracy theorist Clay Clark, MAGA pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, and “prophet” Robin Bullock, who collectively made the case for Trump heading into the caucus.

The program began with Grace interviewing Eric and Lara Trump, and Eric declaring that his father is being guided by God.

“I think he’s created the greatest political movement in history,” Eric Trump said.

And I really do believe that someone, something is looking down and guiding him every single day because there’s no way in the world he could have been where he is today without the intervention of God.”

“I feel it. I know it,” Trump added. “I really do believe that there’s divine intervention there. I think somebody was guiding him. He’s a remarkable father. 

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

‘Divine Intervention’ ◆ Eric Trump Says His Father Is Being Guided By God

MSNBC🎺 The former president is still feeding the Christian right’s persecution complex. Written by Sarah Posner. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

In recent campaign stops and on social media, Donald Trump has reprised lies aimed at inciting his Christian-right base against Joe Biden. 

These tirades, centered on the false charge that the Biden administration is persecuting Christians, aren’t just Trump’s typically dubious claims. Much like Trump’s lies about a stolen election, they are designed to immerse his loyalists in a grievance-laden alternative reality in which Trump alone can rescue them from an evil government threatening their freedom.

In a Dec. 19 speech in Iowa, for example, Trump pledged:

As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don’t know if you feel it. You have a war. There’s a war.

Speaking just after the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified him from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot, Trump tied this “war” to his own legal woes:

Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before. And also presidents like never before  . . . I always say Al Capone was treated better than I was treated.

Continue reading @ MSNBC.

Trump Just Promised An Authoritarian ‘Task Force’ To Impose Christian Ideology

Only Sky 🕶 Sometimes I wonder whether people really believe what they say, or whether things are simply said for cynical reasons of gain. 

Jonathan MS Pearce

I want to believe the latter is at play when the content of what is said is so bereft of rational justification that it’s just too incredible to think someone would actually believe those things.

The problem is, such people are invariably not rational actors.

Donald Trump, the former President, is a man so mired in legal woes that I am amazed he is showing his face in public. But he is also a man known for self-delusion and for doubling down. Indeed, in a span of some 30 minutes last Thursday morning, Trump made 31 posts about E. Jean Carroll on Truth Social—a woman for whom a jury unanimously found Trump liable for sexual abuse and battery. That’s not the action of a well-adjusted man, and looks like doubling down of the most morally dubious kind.

When it comes to God, Trump has no space in his head for that belief. He is his own God. I’m sure we can all remember that time he was asked to name his favorite biblical verse and book. 

Continue reading @ Only Sky.

Bad Politics, Bad Religion Collide In ‘God Made Trump’


Right Wing Watch 👀‘Prophet’ Julie Green Assures Eric Trump That His Father Is God’s ‘Anointed And Appointed One’.

 Kyle Mantyla 
Clay Clark, the right-wing conspiracy theorist behind the far-right ReAwaken America tour, has openly bragged that the participation by members of the Trump family in his events is “legitimizing what we are doing in the minds of many people” and allowing him to get various dominionist “prophets” directly into “Trump’s inner circle.”

One of the “prophets” whom Clark has connected to the Trumps is Julie Green, a Trump cultist who first came to prominence in 2022 because of her association with failed GOP Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.

Since then, Green has become a regular speaker at Clark’s ReAwaken America events, joining dozens of other COVID-19, election, and QAnon conspiracy theorists and, increasingly, members of Trump’s family and inner circle, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Earlier this year, Lara Trump appeared on Greene’s program, and on Thursday morning, her husband Eric joined Clark on Green’s broadcast, where he repeated the racist right-wing trope that his father’s legal troubles are winning him support among Black voters.

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Trump Is God’s ‘Anointed And Appointed One’

Raw Story ✒ MSNBC host begs for opposition to Trump's veiled calls for civil war: 'It's no longer hyperbole'. Recommended by Christy Walsh. 

Sarah K. Burris

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan implored his viewers not to normalize Donald Trump's veiled calls for violence.

There has been an ongoing debate about giving Trump attention when he issues calls for protests, uprisings, or his allies' calls for outright civil war. Hasan doesn't care if Trump ends up getting more attention. He explained, political violence must be denounced, even if the Republican Party won't do it. 

He asked at the top of his Sunday show. 

I mean, can you imagine if any other presidential candidate in recent decades, [George W.] Bush, (Barack) Obama, (Bill) Clinton, (Mitt) Romney, (Joe) Biden had multiple supporters using their candidates language, being violent and threatening, getting killed by law enforcement while attempting violent crimes?

Those candidates' campaigns would have been over before they began. But with Trump, we shrug. We accept it as just the way things are now. We should not. We cannot. We have to call it out. We have to condemn the violence and the incitement of violence. 

Continue reading @ Raw Story.

Trump's Veiled Calls For Civil War

Donell Harvin ✒ Recommended by Christy Walsh.


Federal intelligence and national security agencies — from the FBI to DHS — are in universal agreement that domestic extremism and terrorism is the leading threat to the U.S. homeland. But homeland security officials are also trained to be apolitical, so here’s what they can’t tell you: Donald J. Trump poses a significant threat to homeland security.

While generally highly decentralized and fractured, violent extremist groups have begun to mesh over a unifying figure: Trump. The former president has become a focal point of domestic extremism, and by not denouncing them — and sometimes courting them — he has been adopted by these groups as a de facto spiritual leader. In some ways, Trump has also co-opted these groups to boost his own support. This, in my assessment, makes the former president a leading driver of domestic extremism, and an unprecedented danger to our security. The indictment of Trump for his push to overturn the 2020 election puts that in stark relief.

I do not issue this assessment lightly. Such statements are considered blasphemy in domestic intelligence circles and will undoubtedly draw the ire of many both inside and outside of the profession.

Continue reading @ Politico.

Here’s The Intelligence Assessment Of Donald Trump That The Government Can’t Write

Thom Hartmann ✏ with a piece recommended by Christy Walsh

28-July-2023

It looks like the billionaires who control the MAGA movement have learned from January 6th and won’t make the mistake of having an independent military, FBI, press, or Department of Justice again . . . 

The morbidly rich often believe they’re immune from the politicians they fund turning on them. And they’re often wrong.

Now, here in America, rightwing billionaires are repeating the same mistake Germany’s ultra-rich made in the 1930s. And the MAGA Republicans and the billionaires who fund them are now gung-ho to put you and me under the thumb of the US military, just like Hitler did.

There’s even some concern that Tommy Tuberville’s Senate hold on military promotions may be a way of keeping top military positions open so Trump or another MAGA Republican president can fill them if the GOP takes the White House in 2024.

After all, it was one part of the military (the Secretary of Defense) that first helped Trump nearly assassinate Mike Pence and thus end American democracy, but then another part of the military (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) that apparently stopped him from finally succeeding.

Continue reading @ Hartmann Report.

Is Tuberville’s Senate Hold on Military Promotions So Trump Can Fill Them In 2025?

Right Wing Watch 👀 Calls For ‘Spiritual Civil War’ At ‘Road To Majority’ Conference.

Peter Montgomery 

Former President Donald Trump received a rapturous hero’s welcome Saturday night as he delivered the closing keynote address to a room packed with religious-right activists in Washington, D.C. for the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to Majority conference.

Trump knew his audience. “We are warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, atheists, globalists, and the Marxists, and we will restore our republic as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all,” Trump said. As part of his typically long and rambling speech, he denounced his recent indictments, bragged about his administration’s accomplishments–including his Supreme Court justices cementing the right-wing majority to overturn Roe v. Wade—and declared that Democrats have become “monsters.”

Trump thrilled the crowd with promises about what he would do as the 47th president, saying, “When I get back in the Oval Office, I will totally obliterate the Deep State.” And he vowed to push “school choice” plans—which divert public education dollars into private and religious schools and homeschooling—and, oddly, called for public school principals to be chosen by direct election by parents.

Cintinue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Religious Right Activists Cheer Trump

Daily Kos ✑  Recommended by Christy Walsh.

Thom
Hartmann
If Trump shared American secrets with Putin, our intelligence agencies are not going to call a press conference to let us all know.

Similarly, short of a trial for treason, it’s extremely unlikely such an allegation — even if true — will show up in a court of law.

Lawyers, judges, and juries just don’t have the security clearances necessary, so the documents brought to court are almost certainly not among the very most sensitive: they’re just enough to get a conviction.

As former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissman told MSNBC yesterday:

(There)] is a subset of the secret or top secret documents that I think that's something we will not see more of because that is probably the intelligence community saying there are things so sensitive we do not want you to use that in court. The material in the indictment is shocking. You can imagine what was left out.

And Attorney General Merrick Garland himself said:

We do not do our investigations in public. This is the most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into.”

Continue reading @ Daily Kos.

How Much Damage Has The Trump-Putin Collusion Inflicted On America?

Right Wing Watch ✒ Public hearings by the House ​select committee investigating the Jan​. 6, 2021, insurrection have given Americans a much clearer understanding of all the ways ​then-President Donald Trump and his allies tried to keep him in power by overturning the results of the presidential election.

 Peter Montgomery

Another public hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 28, with the committee’s final report expected to be released later this year.

One force driving much of the effort to keep Trump in power, one which has not been explored publicly by the Jan. 6 committee but has drawn the attention of many journalists, scholars, and activists, was the political ideology of Christian nationalism. 

Christian nationalism is grounded in beliefs that the United States was founded by and for Christians, that being a “Christian nation” is central to national identity, and that it’s the job of activists and government officials to keep it that way. 

Under Trump, this ideology has woven its way into the broader religious-right movement and Republican Party, while far-right and white nationalist activists have made it a cornerstone of their movements.

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

How ​Christian Nationalism Fueled The Insurrection And Threatens Democracy

Right Wing Watch  ✒ Kayleigh McEnany, a White House press secretary under former President Donald Trump, is scheduled to speak Saturday at an event hosted by Ché Ahn, a California-based pastor and leader of the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. 

Peter Montgomery 

“Reforming California: Taking a Stand for Life, Liberty & Family” will also feature dominionist Dutch Sheets.

McEnany’s appearance with Ahn and Sheets reflects the degree to which Pentecostal dominionists achieved unprecedented access to power during the Trump administration.

“A battle is raging for the soul of America,” declares a promotional video for the event, which repeats right-wing complaints about LGBTQ issues being taught in public schools.

NAR leaders seek to “transform” entire nations through spiritual revival and political activism to bring government policies into alignment with their biblical worldview. “Reforming California” is being sponsored by Revive California, one of the political organizations affiliated with Ahn’s Harvest International Ministry. 

In 2020, he launched 1RACE4LIFE, a group that asks people to pledge to vote for only anti-abortion and anti-marriage-equality candidates. Revive California’s website includes a five-step vision that defines reformation this way: “Activate every believer to vote biblically, and learn how to run for local, state or national office.”

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany To Speak At Dominionist Event

Dr John Coulter ✒  Former US President Donald Trump needs to convene a Singapore-style peace summit in Dublin to bring the Ukraine crisis to an end, maintains the TPQ Monday contentious political commentator.

The prophets of doom already have predicted a nuclear Armageddon of Biblical proportions as the world descends into global war over Ukraine, but I am not one of those so-called ‘prophets’ who maintain that the crisis in the Ukraine can only be resolved through military action.

What is needed is not the endless round of shuttle diplomacy as the various world leaders or their representatives fly in and fly out of Moscow in a ‘Munich agreement-style’ approach to persuade Russian president Vladimir Putin not to bomb the living daylights out of the former Soviet Union republic of Ukraine.

In this respect, the only man for the job is former US President Donald Trump, who during his Presidency kept the United States out of any war. Whilst his domestic policy was surrounded in controversy, his massive achievement in foreign policy was the hugely successful Singapore Summit in 2018 which cools the crisis in the Korean peninsula involving North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

North Korea, since it became a nuclear power, always gave the impression it was looking for a fight with the Western democratic powers. What was building towards a global crisis, was cooled by Trump’s negotiating skills, culminating in the photograph of the famous handshake between The Donald and Kim - just as famous as the handshake in the development of the Irish peace process between the late Derry IRA commander and former Stormont deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and the Queen.

The West seems to be totally underestimating the desire of Putin to rebuild the Russian Empire. Putin is no Boris Yeltsin, a former Russian leader whom the West could push around. Similarly, Putin - in spite of his Soviet past - is no Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the former USSR before the collapse of communism.

Putin is more like the character of the Soviet Union’s tough talking ruler from the Seventies - Leonid Brezhnev. In policy, Putin reminds me of the last Tsar of Russia - Nicholas II - and his imperialist policy towards Germany in 1914 which took Russia into the disastrous Great War, which ultimately cost him his crown in the 1917 Russian revolution.

Looking at Putin’s desire to rebuild the Russian Empire, this President of Russia is the new Tsar. The Donald can bring a calming influence to the crisis as he doesn’t have the pressures of the Oval Office, or have to worry about what Congress or the House of Representatives will think.

Had Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu still been alive, I would have been recommending him to chair any round-table peace summit.

Why Dublin? The Republic of Ireland has always maintained its neutrality and one of the main problems facing the organisers and chair of any peace summit to resolve the Ukraine crisis is a suitable venue.

So what better place for all the participants to meet than the grand setting of Leinster House, the home of the Dail.

Chaired by The Donald, the Dublin Summit would involve US President Joe Biden, European Union leaders, the Ukrainian government, and Putin. Then again, the difficulty could be in persuading Biden to attend as he would interpret Trump’s chairing the Dublin Summit as another link in the political chain leading to The Donald returning to the Oval Office in 2024.

The problem for the UK is that whilst it is no longer a member of the EU, four existing EU member states - Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia border the Ukraine. And it must not be forgotten these four EU members states were once integral territorial parts of the old USSR.

If Russia invades - depending in what counts as an invasion - it will inevitably mean a refugee crisis as civilians flee the fighting as Putin seeks to rebuild his Russian Empire. Initially, this could mean refugees wanting to flee to the safety of the UK.

Threats of economic sanctions against Russia by the EU, UK or the USA will not frighten Putin if we take Russian policy towards the former Soviet territory of the Chechen republic. Just as the leadership of the rebels in Chechnya what happened when they tried to militarily claim independence from Moscow!

It will also put a strain on NATO - of which the UK is a member, especially if any fighting was to spill over into EU states. There is some talk the Ukraine might not want a relationship with NATO in return for a ‘no strike’ agreement with Putin.

A number of key issues need to be addressed:

1, How severe will Putin’s military action be - taunting flyovers by Russian aircraft, huge military exercises along the Ukrainian border, but no actual Russian boots on Ukrainian soil, a hit and run incursion attack, or a full-scale invasion along the lines of the Coalition’s attack on Iraq?

2, If Putin takes over the Ukraine by military force, which state is next? Could he actually sabre rattle so much that existing EU states feel the need to leave the EU and rejoin a Russian Empire, or be neutral in terms of NATO?

3, What does it mean for energy costs in the UK if a lot of gas comes via Russia?

4, What would be the future of the Northern Ireland Protocol if the EU - which does not multi-task politically - could we actually see a situation that the Protocol slips down the league of priorities because the EU becomes obsessed with dealing with the military action in Ukraine?

5, Could a situation deteriorate so deeply that we actually see conflict between NATO forces and Russian forces? This would involve UK troops as a part of NATO - put bluntly, British boots on Ukrainian soil.

Perhaps the real worry in this crisis is not what Putin plans, but what the reaction of Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson might be. Could Putin be goading both premiers into military action as both Biden and Johnson could use any Ukrainian conflict as an excuse to deflect attention from domestic woes.

In Biden’s case, it would be a chance for him to shake off the perception that he is merely ‘Sleepy Joe’. Sending American forces into Ukraine would prove he is a President who can not just talk tough, but act tough - especially as he was the President in the Oval Office when American forces left Afghanistan, leaving the country to be ruled by the fanatics of the Taliban.

What did all those American personnel die or be wounded for simply for America to have the humiliation of a second Vietnam war-style evacuation in less than a century?

As for Boris Johnson, given the ‘Partygate’ scandals, issues of Tory sleaze, and the damning Sue Gray report, put crudely, there’s nothing like a war to take the public and media’s attention over a crisis at home!

Unlike Saddam Hussein in the Iraq War, Putin does possess weapons of mass destruction. However, with cool heads, diplomacy can still be the big winner in the Ukrainian crisis.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Bring Back The Donald To Cool Ukraine Crisis!

New York Times ✒ Katherine Stewart has reported on the religious right for more than a decade. She is the author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.

Katherine Stewart

The most serious attempt to overthrow the American constitutional system since the Civil War would not have been feasible without the influence of America’s Christian nationalist movement. One year later, the movement seems to have learned a lesson: If it tries harder next time, it may well succeed in making the promise of American democracy a relic of the past.

Christian nationalist symbolism was all over the events of Jan. 6, as observers have pointed out. But the movement’s contribution to the effort to overturn the 2020 election and install an unelected president goes much deeper than the activities of a few of its representatives on the day that marks the unsuccessful end (or at least a temporary setback) of an attempted coup.

A critical precondition for Donald Trump’s attempt to retain the presidency against the will of the people was the cultivation of a substantial population of voters prepared to believe his fraudulent claim that the election was stolen ...

Continue reading @ New York Times.

Christian Nationalism Is One Of Trump’s Most Powerful Weapons

Right Wing Watch ✒ The Jan. 6 Insurrection Should Have Been No Surprise, and Neither Should the Next Right-Wing Coup Attempt.

Peter Montgomery

While the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was shocking, it was not surprising to Right Wing Watch or other extremism researchers and watchdogs, who repeatedly sounded the alarm about calls from far-right figures for violence and revolution both before and after the 2020 presidential election ... 

For example, televangelist Jim Baker warned in August 2020 that ​if Trump were not reelected, “we’re gonna have a revolution.” In September, ​Rick Joyner repeated his warnings that the U.S. is headed for civil war, adding that God has “seeded” the country with Christian veterans who “know how to fight in urban warfare” and would help lead “good militias.”

It was into that volatile situation that former President Donald Trump dropped the Big Lie that he won the election only to have it stolen from him and his supporters. The Big Lie—and the implication that President Joe Biden is illegitimate and his supporters are traitors to the Constitution—was repeated relentlessly by Trump, his legal team, Republican allies, right-wing media and movement leaders, and Christian nationalist religious figures.

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Dangerous Christians

Right Wing Watch ✒ Self proclaimed Prophet, Johnny Enlow, Says Support for Donald Trump Is a Measure of One’s Loyalty to God.

Kyle Mantyla 

QAnon conspiracy theorist and supposed “prophet” Johnny Enlow appeared on the Elijah Streams YouTube channel Friday, where he claimed that continuing to believe that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election and is still the legitimate president of the United States is a test of one’s true commitment to God.

Enlow, who is among the various self-proclaimed “prophets” who guaranteed that Trump would win the 2020 election and still refuse to accept that their prophecies were wrong, actually declared that it is not enough for Christians to simply worship God, but rather they must also recognize that Trump has been anointed by God and therefore continue to support him.

“I call it the ‘Trump Test,'” Enlow said ...  “If you go against God’s person that he’s using, his instrument,” Enlow explained, “even if you think you have 100 percent devotion to God, it’s going to cost you. … This is a line in the sand, this ‘Trump Test.'”

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Trump Test

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)