In a subscribers-only piece in The Bulwark, Jonathan Last pretends we could go back in time to January 2017 and tell people that in six years:
“My point is that six years ago I don’t think many people on either side would have believed that today’s reality was likely. Or even possible. Yet here we are, actually living in something close to the worst-case scenario.
“And yet we are so habituated to this dark reality that we’ve come to see it as normal.”
Hey, christianists! It’s like they say: “You can’t misspell ‘hypochristy’ without ‘Christ.'”
Apparently, turning the other cheek don’t sit so well with our American evangelical brethren anymore. No, the literal Jesus of the literal Bible is simply too woke for 21st century Southern Baptists. Check this from an NPR interview with Russell Moore, a former leader in the Southern Baptists cult:
It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.
“[A]lmost every part of American life is tribalized and factionalized,” said the Baptist, who is not Catholic or Jewish or Muslim or Methodist or Christian Scientist or Mormon or — you get it.
“I think if we’re going to get past the blood and soil sorts of nationalism or all of the other kinds of totalizing cultural identities, it’s going to require rethinking what the church is,” Moore told NPR.
At Pensito, we are 100% in favor of “rethinking what the church is.”
New York Times: “Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.
“The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review….
“[Baude] summarized the article’s conclusion: ‘Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6…’
“Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern and Yale and a founder of the Federalist Society, called the article ‘a tour de force.’”
To diffuse claims of racism for groundlessly removing Monique Worrell, a Black state attorney who was elected by a two-to-one margin, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced her with a Black judge who is a member of the Federalist Society. But, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Andrew Bain is also not a very good judge:
In his time overseeing criminal cases in county court, Bain received low marks in a judicial qualifications poll by the Central Florida Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, ranking last among Orange County criminal judges, with respondents describing him as “state-leaning” or prosecution-biased.
At a press conference announcing his appointment, Bain offered a word-salad nonexplanation of why he’s a member of the Federalist Society, a powerful group that is uncannily influential in getting presidents and governors to name conservatives to top judicial posts, including the Supreme Court:
“I am a member simply for this reason: My grandmother was a sharecropper, so when she came time to harvest her harvest in her family and the landowner shorted her, she had no legal recourse because the judges made the laws,” he said. “And that’s purely unfair. And that stuff’s been going on forever.”
[…]
Slate.com: “On Tuesday, the Daily Beast published a piece about a Twitter account called @DeSantisCams that is pro–Ron DeSantis and also, even by the standards of the contemporary American right, quite pro-Hitler.
“Last weekend, for instance, the account published a video that culminates in an image of soldiers marching in lockstep toward the Florida governor, whose head turns into a rotating Sonnenrad, or sun wheel. The symbol was installed by Heinrich Himmler in the SS’s Wewelsburg castle and has been adopted in recent decades by white supremacists, including the individuals who carried out mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Buffalo, New York. Conservatives often argue that Democrats are being hysterical for saying that right-wing meme phenomena like the ‘OK’ hand gesture have fascist overtones; there would seem to be some difficulty involved in making that claim about a lightning bolt circle that was created by the leader of the SS for his occult Nazi castle.
[…]
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1681424737384435713?s=20&lctg=75845185
The Wrap: “In what might be the subjectively raciest political ad ever, Democratic lobby group Progress Action Fund debuted a steamy sex scene takedown of the GOP this week…
“Per its website, the Progress Action Fund’s slogan is, “Democrats are afraid to fight back. We aren’t.” We’d say this ad at the very least is living up to that promise.”
Transcript via the Wrap:
An internal memo from the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign acquired by NBC News provides a rare insight into the inner workings of the Florida governor’s seven-week-old primary effort.
The document, dated July 6, lays out the campaign’s strategy of doubling down on New Hampshire, postponing spending on Super Tuesday and singling out Tim Scott as the only other candidate besides Donald Trump who DeSantis sees as a threat.
The memo sums up the candidate field as the DeSantis camp sees it this way:
As it has been for the last year, Trump and DeSantis remain the only viable options for two-thirds of the likely Republican primary electorate. While Tim Scott has earned a serious look at this stage, his bio is lacking the fight that our electorate is looking for in the next President. We expect Tim Scott to receive appropriate scrutiny in the weeks ahead. We’ve found low to no interest in Vivek, Burgum, and Nikki while far too many voters will not consider Pence and Christie for them to feel remotely viable.
Overall, the memo, which is called a “friends and family update” reads like a self–pep talk, an eho-chamber attempt to slap some lipstick on a pig of a campaign and make it seem like everything is going according to plan, rather than down the toilet, as the media have largely characterized it.
If only the Republican Party would codify these vile ideas into their platform …
https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1679239268529569792?s=20
Politico: “A top spokesperson for Ron DeSantis’ super PAC is sounding a decidedly dour note on the Florida governor’s presidential prospects, saying his campaign is facing an “uphill battle” and is trailing badly in the key nominating states. Steve Cortes, who previously supported Donald Trump, also heaped praise on the former president, calling him a ‘runaway frontrunner’ and ‘maestro’ of the debate.
“‘Right now in national polling we are way behind, I’ll be the first to admit that,’ Cortes said in a Twitter spaces event that was recorded on Sunday night. ‘I believe in being blunt and honest. It’s an uphill battle but clearly Donald Trump is the runaway frontrunner.’
“Calling the DeSantis campaign the ‘clear underdog,’ he added: ‘In the first four states which matter tremendously, polls are a lot tighter, we are still clearly down. We’re down double digits, we have work to do.’”
He’s upended the traditional food pyramid, he wants you to know,
And he’s protected us from vaccinations, though not measles and polio.
He’s tackling the goal of food affordability,
He’s extolling roadkill, which is cheap — there’s plenty!
And now Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to have his own TV cooking show.
