The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult

[tx 3 putt 77,217]

Banning is not enough, those words must be burned !!!!

[Pescado_Rojo 19,426]

2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Throw rubric and paradigm on that list, and I'll go buy a MAGA hat.

Hell, if they outlaw "think outside the box" and "throw under the bus", I'll go get a Trump neck tattoo.

That's a lot to unpack...Can we circle back on it later? I don't want to try to boil the ocean here. 

[Beau Vine 54,300]

3 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Hell, if they outlaw "think outside the box" and "throw under the bus", I'll go get a Trump neck tattoo.

We had an outside candidate in for our open department chair position a few years back.  He was doing his presentation, which was about as bad as anything I've ever seen, and just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, he started talking about his management style and he had a powerpoint slide that listed his qualities...and I SHIT YOU NOT... one of the bulleted items was "thinks outside the box."

I very nearly got up and screamed at him, "YOU DO NOT THINK OUT THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!!  I AM 100% SURE OF THAT, BECAUSE IF YOU DID THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, YOU WOULD HAVE FOUND SOME WAY TO CONVEY THAT OTHER THAN WRITING IT ON A FUCKING POWERPOINT SLIDE, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!!"

[Francisco 2.0 32,395]

Presenting the former head football coach of the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane and current Oklahoma state Senator Dave Rader (R), Tulsa.  Take it away, Senator:

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/david-rader-asian-american-slur-yellow-1247003/

 

Quote

Oklahoma State Senator David Rader, a Republican, is under fire for referring to Asian American families as “yellow families” when speaking to a criminal justice policy analyst testifying before the legislature about the racial wealth gap, KFORreported late Friday.

 

Quote

In a presentation to the state senate, Damion Shade, who works as a policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, shared information about the history of racism in America and how it has caused a widening gap between white families’ wealth and wealth accumulated by families of color. “I believe [the racial wealth gap is widening] largely because of the multiplying effect that happens with the diminishment of capital over time. So when you are a person with less access to capital, that simultaneously leads you to have less access to education, you have less access to entrepreneurship … and to homeownership,” Shade said.

At the end of Shade’s presentation, the Republican senator asked him a question in which he referred to Asian American families using a racial slur.

 

 

Quote

“Well into your presentation did you go to yellow families?” Rader asked Shade. “You left yellow families out for quite a while.”

“You mean Asian Americans?” Shade asked.

“You use black term, white term, brown term so I was just gonna jump in there with you,” Rader said, justifying his use of the slur, somehow trying to blame Shade for it.

“I was just making sure,” said Shader. “Making sure I understood.”

“Asian distraction,” Rader replied.

“Asian Americans,” Shader calmly corrected.

 

Spoiler

“Because their experience has been totally different than many … others that have come over,” Rader said. In addition to using a slur, Rader’s remarks push the false “model minority” myth that Asian Americans don’t experience negative consequences of racism in the same way as other races. The senator then moved on with his questioning to say additional offensive things about black families and alleged that black families were better off and “much more intact” before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Great Society programs.

“The data I’ve seen, the black family was much more intact and much more able to be together in 1960 than it was even 30 years later, 40 years later from that point on,” he claimed, perpetuating the myth pushed by some Republicans that black culture and not racist government policy is responsible for the racial wealth gap.

Rader’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stone, but the senator did release a statement to KFOR that did not specifically address his remarks during the hearing.

“I’ve spent my entire life as a football coach and educator, fostering opportunities for individuals of every race and background,” the statement said. “As a legislator, I have continued this important work because I believe each and every person in our state and our country should have an opportunity to pursue the American Dream. As I’ve done throughout my career, I am committed to eliminating barriers that might make the pursuit of that dream more difficult.”

The use of the term “yellow” has an ugly and racist history. The term “Yellow Peril” was used in the 19th and 20th centuries to describe people of Asian descent as a threat to Western values and to justify xenophobic immigration policies that severely limited Asian immigration to the U.S. And with the pandemic — and former President Trump’s labeling Covid-19 the “China flu” or “Chinese virus” and pushing the narrative that China created the virus — the incidence of Asian American hate crimes is rising in the United States. Compared to 2019, hate crimes against people of Asian descent increased 70 percent in 2020, according to the FBI.

Rep. Cyndi Munson, the first Asian American woman to be elected to Oklahoma’s state legislature, said in a tweet that she found his comments “offensive” and “unacceptable.”

“I’m Asian American, not yellow,” she tweeted. “The language used by the Senator is highly offensive and unacceptable. For my fellow colleagues to be so unaware of the words they use & how they might harm people is exactly why we need open & honest dialogue on racism.”

 

 

 

[Pancho 44,877]

I'm gonna say Virgil belongs in this thread:

 

[RDCanecutter 26,456]

8 minutes ago, Pancho said:

I'm gonna say Virgil belongs in this thread:

 

Pink bow-tie guys hate them some Rainbow flags.

[Radical Larry 28,655]

are those Radical Larry's descendants? 

[Neonmoon 38,129]

Tell Virgil, the Catholics don’t think his church is real either 

[Fudge Nuggets 19,209]

On 10/23/2021 at 7:24 PM, Beau Vine said:

We had an outside candidate in for our open department chair position a few years back.  He was doing his presentation, which was about as bad as anything I've ever seen, and just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, he started talking about his management style and he had a powerpoint slide that listed his qualities...and I SHIT YOU NOT... one of the bulleted items was "thinks outside the box."

I very nearly got up and screamed at him, "YOU DO NOT THINK OUT THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!!  I AM 100% SURE OF THAT, BECAUSE IF YOU DID THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, YOU WOULD HAVE FOUND SOME WAY TO CONVEY THAT OTHER THAN WRITING IT ON A FUCKING POWERPOINT SLIDE, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!!"

Did he get the job?

[HenryJames 66,134]

That outside candidate was Albert Einstein.

[Francisco 2.0 32,395]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/25/secretive-group-influence-trumps-tax-cuts

 

Quote

Documents and recordings obtained by the Guardian shed new light on a powerful and secretive rightwing network and the influence it was able to exert on Trump administration policies favoring the super-rich.

The recordings include speeches given to the Council for National Policy (CNP) by conservative media stars including Dennis Prager, emerging Republican power players such as Charlie Kirk, and close economic advisers to Donald Trump.

Some of the previously published recordings appear to no longer be publicly available.

 

Quote

The Guardian’s independently sourced recordings offer an insight into how much influence conservative economic thinkers – from bodies representing the interests of some of the richest individuals in the country – were able to exert on the supposed populist Trump.

In particular, a panel discussion at CNP’s February 2019 meeting suggests that Trump decided one of his most far-reaching economic policies on very limited evidence – on the basis of a personal conversation.

The panel involved Bill Walton, president of CNP; the Washington Times columnist and former member of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority Richard Rahn; Jonathan Williams, chief economist at the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec); and Stephen Moore, a one-time Trump nominee for the Federal Reserve board, whose nomination was withdrawn following revelations in the Guardian that he had failed to pay his ex-wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in alimony.

 

Quote

The panelists offered a favorable assessment of the Trump administration’s economic performance, but also used the platform to claim credit for pushing the administration in the direction of radical free-market policies.

Moore claimed that he, together with Larry Kudlow, Trump’s director of the National Economic Council from 2018, had persuaded the thenpresident to offer unprecedented corporate tax cuts.

He described a meeting with Trump where they argued that the US’s corporate tax rate, relative to those among certain Asian and European competitors, was effectively a penalty on US companies, stating: “Look, you know, we’re at 40% – they are 20%. This is a big problem.”

 

Spoiler

Moore said that they explained these tax differences using charts, “because Donald Trump likes to look at pictures, he doesn’t like to read”.

According to Moore: “Trump looked at this and he said: ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’” instead proposing “not 20%. I want 15%,” with the number coming back to an effective 20% rate only after Senate negotiations.

Trump’s tax cuts slashed effective corporate tax rates in half, while providing other measures benefiting wealthy corporations.

The cuts have been blamed for widening inequality, and worsening deficits, with a large amount of the savings going to stock buybacks according to business reporters and economists. The Congressional Research Service pointed out that any positive effects, like wage or GDP growth, were transient, and had petered out by the end of the quarter in which the cuts were put into effect.

This reveals the power of the CNP, a little known body whose members are deeply secretive about their meetings. CNP attendees’ access to this picture of the inner workings of the Trump administration, and the players who helped set its course, is the result of adherence to a strict code of silence.

In introducing the panel, the CNP conference director,Mary Margaret Hathaway, enjoined participants to secrecy, reminding them to “not record any speaker remarks”.

Hathaway continued: “CNP meetings are off-limits to the press. So please be aware of who you’re talking to.”

She added, “Don’t grant any interviews and if you run into a reporter asking questions about the event, please let a member of the CNP staff or leadership team know.”

Despite her warnings, the organization itself made the recordings obtained by the Guardian, and uploaded them on their website in a manner that made them accessible to any internet user.

Other recordings obtained by the Guardian include talks at 2018 and 2019 meetings by senior Republicans including Senator Tom Cotton and the US congressman Steve Scalise; and former governors including Scott Walker and Sam Brownback.

The CNP was founded in 1981 by influential, Christian-right activists, including Tim LaHaye, Howard Phillips and Paul Weyrich, who were also involved in founding and leading the Moral Majority.

Initially, they were seeking to maximize their influence on the new Reagan administration. In subsequent years, CNP meetings played host to presidential aspirants like George W Bush in 1999 and Mitt Romney in 2007, and sitting presidents including Donald Trump in 2020.

The Guardian previously reported on a leak of the group’s 2020 membership list.

 

[Macanudo 12,999]

On 10/23/2021 at 5:54 PM, Pescado_Rojo said:

That's a lot to unpack...Can we circle back on it later? I don't want to try to boil the ocean here. 

Look, we're all in this together.  Let's all stay on the same page and not reinvent the wheel.  We need to keep being customer-centric, focus on the projects in the pipeline and knock out some of the low hanging fruit for some quick wins.  

[Pancho 44,877]

[atomheartbevo 89,751]

 

[JimmyJames 12,271]

15 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

Pretty much the least surprising story ever written. Fundamentalist white Christian Right wing wackos blame the women for getting raped and ignore it/cover it up. More news at 11. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,793]

1 hour ago, JimmyJames said:

Pretty much the least surprising story ever written. Fundamentalist white Christian Right wing wackos blame the women for getting raped and ignore it/cover it up. More news at 11. 

Boys will be boys. Those sluts were asking for it. Dressing provocatively and going out drinking with guys. What did they think was going to happen?

[JimmyJames 12,271]

3 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Boys will be boys. Those sluts were asking for it. Dressing provocatively and going out drinking with guys. What did they think was going to happen?

As sick as it is that is exactly how those universities think. They will never admit it of course, at least until the right wing fascists take over then they believe their view will be vindicated. 
 

It’s basically horny insecure assholes trying to control women so they can at least try to get laid. It’s rather pathetic but also dangerous to society. 

[Js1 85,448]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

My first thought reading the headline was that they banned suit jackets. 

[Hornius Emeritus 12,478]

On 10/23/2021 at 2:57 PM, Lobo said:

Look, I don't know what the net-net impact of that word list is going to be, going forward.  But what I can tell you is there is a tremendous paradigm shift in many -isms, namely dynamicism 

You sound like you know a lot about core competencies. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,793]

11 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

As sick as it is that is exactly how those universities think. They will never admit it of course, at least until the right wing fascists take over then they believe their view will be vindicated.

It’s basically horny insecure assholes trying to control women so they can at least try to get laid. It’s rather pathetic but also dangerous to society. 

The “victims” shouldn’t press charges and ruin a young man’s life. They should pray to God and ask forgiveness for their own sins.

[Macanudo 12,999]

1 minute ago, WhatTheBuck said:

The “victims” shouldn’t press charges and ruin a young man’s life. They should pray to God and ask forgiveness for their own sins.

Yep.  How dare she allow herself to be held down and defiled by those 3 honest and good Christian boys.  How could she have allowed them to desecrate her like that.   I mean, I do declare, she even allowed one of them to put his "you know what" into her anus as she cried out.   She should have known that simply being at that party was a temptation that they could not endure.  She brought this on herself.    She is the sinner.  

 

[WhatTheBuck 28,793]

5 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

Yep.  How dare she allow herself to be held down and defiled by those 3 honest and good Christian boys.  How could she have allowed them to desecrate her like that.   I mean, I do declare, she even allowed one of them to put his "you know what" into her anus as she cried out.   She should have known that simply being at that party was a temptation that they could not endure.  She brought this on herself.    She is the sinner. 

Go Bears!

[SaucyJack 3,498]

7 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

Letters to the Editor,  HUSTLER-1979

Pepper Your Anus

Yep.  How dare she allow herself to be held down and defiled by those 3 honest and good Christian boys.  How could she have allowed them to desecrate her like that.   I mean, I do declare, she even allowed one of them to put his "you know what" into her anus as she cried out.   She should have known that simply being at that party was a temptation that they could not endure.  She brought this on herself.    She is the sinner.  

 

FIFY

[mchookem 16,338]

5 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

"Instead of considering her evidence, Axley said, Bucci started throwing questions at her: Why had Axley gone to the party? What had she had to drink? How much? “I immediately felt judged,” remembered Axley. (Bucci, who is now a Title IX investigator at Baylor University, declined to comment.)"

i mean...come on 🙄

 

[Brisketexan 105,169]

4 minutes ago, mchookem said:

"Instead of considering her evidence, Axley said, Bucci started throwing questions at her: Why had Axley gone to the party? What had she had to drink? How much? “I immediately felt judged,” remembered Axley. (Bucci, who is now a Title IX investigator at Baylor University, declined to comment.)"

i mean...come on 🙄

 

I know.  The writers of this simulation aren't even fucking trying anymore.

[RDCanecutter 26,456]

Bucci. When Italians go Redneck. That's bad.

I need to find out if she pronounces it Byu-sey so I can hate her more.

[Gatorubet 30,267]

I need to find out if she pronounces it Byu-sey so I can hate her more.

Yes, but there’s just something about her. Something around the eyes, I don’t know, reminds me of… me. No. I’m sure of it, I hate her.

[WhatTheBuck 28,793]

54 minutes ago, mchookem said:

"Instead of considering her evidence, Axley said, Bucci started throwing questions at her: Why had Axley gone to the party? What had she had to drink? How much? “I immediately felt judged,” remembered Axley. (Bucci, who is now a Title IX investigator at Baylor University, declined to comment.)"

i mean...come on 🙄

 

What a coincidence. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

2 hours ago, mchookem said:

 “I immediately felt judged,” remembered Axley.

Of course you felt judged. How dare you go to a party to have fun as a college student. Women who have fun are sluts. Men who have fun are just being men doing men things. Wait until they start throwing stones at you. Real ones. That's when you know you've reached peak Gilead.

 

[DigglerontheHoof 21,205]

Really wish I believed in a hell for these fucks to burn in but, alas, they'll suffer no consequences for their loathsomeness. 

[JimmyJames 12,271]

4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I know.  The writers of this simulation aren't even fucking trying anymore.

Yeah that’s just straight up lazy ass writing right there.

[GopherRock 1,765]

I've said this in this thread multiple times.

 

 

[bolverk 29,694]

22 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

It is indeed worth its own thread.

I have connections with some significant leadership in some protestant mainline denominations.  Even those denominations are in crisis by this -- political cultism has both replaced religious belief for many, yet simultaneously they cloak it in the same religious label ("I'm a Christian conservative!"), and it's so fucking warped.  And at its bottom line.....fucking mean.

The dominant ethos is just fucking meanness.  Cruelty.  Exclusion.  Attack.  The piece you cited boils it down perfectly -- if you aren't being cruel, then you aren't sufficiently "defending the faith."

Pastor burnout is very real.  Because when you realize that your flock is cruel and hateful, and openly hates you for even mentioning "you know, that's not theologically sound," that's an unsustainable place for a decent human being to be.  American Christianity is committing violent suicide -- it is completely opposed to the Christ of the Gospels, and fervently and fanatically embraces Cruel Republican Jesus, who is entirely a modern invention.

I think @atomheartbevohas mentioned a few times how his wife's Baptist church is also suffering some sort of schism along political lines.

 

One thing that the article starts out with is the spread of disinformation among evangelical congregants. Among the Far Right, one thing that's notable is their increasing reliance on deception to draw lines, circle the wagons, and create these little tribes of untruth that then go on the warpath.

Here's another example showing the same type of behavior up in Montana.

Where Facts Were No Match for Fear
Civic boosters in central Montana hoped for some federal money to promote tourism. A disinformation campaign got in the way.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — In the summer of 2020, as pandemic shutdowns closed businesses and racial justice protests erupted on American streets, Rae Grulkowski, a 56-year-old businesswoman who had never been involved in politics but was alarmed about what was happening to the country, found a way to make a difference.

The connection to the turbulence of national politics might not have been immediately clear.

Ms. Grulkowski had just heard about a years-in-the-making effort to designate her corner of central Montana a national heritage area, celebrating its role in the story of the American West. A small pot of federal matching money was there for the taking, to help draw more visitors and preserve underfunded local tourist attractions.

Ms. Grulkowski set about blowing up that effort with everything she had.

She collected addresses from a list of voters and spent $1,300 sending a packet denouncing the proposed heritage area to 1,498 farmers and ranchers. She told them the designation would forbid landowners to build sheds, drill wells or use fertilizers and pesticides. It would alter water rights, give tourists access to private property, create a new taxation district and prohibit new septic systems and burials on private land, she said.

None of this was true.

Yet it soon became accepted as truth by enough people to persuade Montana’s leading Republican figures and conservative organizations, including the Farm Bureau, Gov. Greg Gianforte and Senator Steve Daines, to oppose the proposal and enact a state law forbidding the federal government to create any heritage area in Montana. It is a ban that the state has no authority to enforce.

Which is how a humble bid for a small serving of Washington pork by a group of local civic boosters became yet another nasty skirmish in the bitter nationwide struggle between the forces of fact and fantasy.

From her point of view, the tale of Ms. Grulkowski’s one-woman crusade is a stirring reminder of the power of political activism. “I thought, ‘Here’s the world going crazy,’” she said, explaining her motivation.

From the vantage point of informed democratic decision making, it’s a haunting tale about how a sustained political campaign can succeed despite — or perhaps as a result of — being divorced from reality.

“Misinformation is the new playbook,” Bob Kelly, the mayor of Great Falls, said. “You don’t like something? Create alternative facts and figures as a way to undermine reality.”

The dispute has split communities, become a wedge issue in this fall’s political campaigns and left proponents of the heritage area flummoxed at their collective inability to refute falsehoods once they have become accepted wisdom.

“We’ve run into the uneducable,” Ellen Sievert, a retired historic preservation officer for Great Falls and surrounding Cascade County, said. “I don’t know how we get through that.”

Spoiler

Most of the heritage area’s key supporters are Democrats, and virtually all of its opponents are Republicans. But partisanship doesn’t explain everyone’s positions.

Steve Taylor, a former mayor of Neihart (pop. 43) whose family owns a car dealership in Great Falls, is a conservative who voted for Donald J. Trump twice, though he said he has regretted those votes since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Fellow Republicans, he said, have painted the heritage area as a liberal plot.

“They make it a political thing because if you have a Democrat involved, then they are all against it,” he said. “It’s so hard to build something and so easy to tear it down. It’s maddening. It’s so easy to destroy something with untruths.”

Congress and President Ronald Reagan created National Heritage Areas in the 1980s as a partnership between the National Park Service and local boosters, who are required to match federal investment with funds raised locally. The 55 existing heritage areas, in 34 states, recognize, among other histories, metropolitan Detroit’s automotive background, Utah’s Mormon pioneers and Tennessee’s part in the Civil War. They collectively receive about $21 million annually — a pittance in the park service’s $3.5 billion budget — and have no impact on private property rights, a finding confirmed in a 2004 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office.

The proposal for the Big Sky Country National Heritage Area, encompassing most of two central Montana counties that are together roughly the size of Connecticut, was the brainchild of Jane Weber, a U.S. Forest Service retiree who spent a decade on the Cascade County Commission.

Beginning in 2013, Ms. Weber teamed up with local preservationists, formed a nonprofit, enlisted local businesses and raised $50,000 for a required feasibility study. In 2014, the Great Falls City Commission included the heritage area as part of its official growth policy.

The proposal would take in four National Historic Landmarks: Lewis and Clark’s portage route around Great Falls; Fort Benton, a pioneer town along the Missouri River that was the last stop for steamships heading west from St. Louis in the 1800s; the First Peoples Buffalo Jump, a steep cliff over which Blackfoot hunters herded buffalo to their deaths; and the home and studio of C.M. Russell, the turn-of-the-century “cowboy artist” whose paintings of the American West shaped the popular image of frontier life.

The park service requires demonstrations of public support, which Ms. Weber and her allies solicited. For six years, the process went on largely undisturbed. Ms. Weber hosted dozens of public meetings and was a regular on local radio stations. Opponents made scarcely a peep.

Then the 2020 political season arrived.

With the coronavirus ravaging the economy and protests lighting up her computer screen, Ms. Grulkowski said, she walked into a local Republican Party office one day and asked what she could do to help. Someone told her to attend a meeting. So she did.

There, she heard a presentation by Jeni Dodd, a former reporter for The Great Falls Tribune, who was running in a Republican primary for the Montana State Senate. Ms. Dodd had latched on to the heritage area as a waste of public money and a thicket of conflicts of interest for board members and elected officials. She wrote essays in local weeklies and started a Facebook group calling the proposal a “Big Sky Boondoggle.” It didn’t get much traction.

But Ms. Grulkowski’s interest was piqued.

At the time, she was becoming engrossed in the online world of far-right media. From her home on 34 acres in Stockett, a farming community of 157 people south of Great Falls, she watched videos from outlets like His Glory TV, where hosts refer to President Biden as “the so-called president.” She subscribed to the Telegram messaging channel of Seth Keshel, a prolific disinformation spreader.

And she came across a vein of conspiratorial accusations that national heritage areas were a kind of Trojan horse that could open the door to future federal land grabs.

When Ms. Grulkowski, who owns a septic cleaning company, tried using Ms. Dodd’s group to push the idea that Montanans’ property rights were at risk, Ms. Dodd kicked her out for promoting lies.

“I’m not happy with people saying it will seize your property, because that is disingenuous,” Ms. Dodd said. “I said to her, ‘I think you need to be careful about the message. It isn’t actually the way that it works, what you’re saying.’”

But Ms. Grulkowski plowed ahead.

One of her letters reached Ed Bandel, the local board member for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, a powerful lobbying force. Mr. Bandel, who grows wheat and peas for energy bars on 3,000 acres, persuaded the farm bureau to oppose the heritage area and enlisted other agriculture groups to follow suit.

The bureau printed thousands of 4-by-6-inch cards saying “Just Say No!” and listing Ms. Grulkowski’s Facebook group and other opponents, including realtors, home builders, grain growers, stock growers and wool growers. Mr. Bandel, his son and Ms. Grulkowski left the cards on tables at supportive restaurants.

By May, their campaign had reached the state capital, where Mr. Gianforte signed the bill barring any national heritage area in Montana after it passed on a near-party-line vote.  A heritage area, the bill’s text asserted, would “interfere with state and private property rights.”

In two hours of talking at his farm, Mr. Bandel could offer no evidence to back up that claim. He said he distrusted assurances that there were no such designs. “They say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to do it right. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. I think Adolf Hitler said that, too, didn’t he?” Mr. Bandel said. “The fear of the unknown is a huge fear.”

Mr. Bandel said he trusted Ms. Grulkowski with the details.

But when pressed, Ms. Grulkowski, too, was unable to identify a single instance of a property owner’s being adversely affected by a heritage area. “It’s not that there are a lot of specific instances,” she said. “There’s a lot of very wide open things that could happen.”

That somewhat amorphous fear was more the point.

Outside of a poultry coop, as her chickens and ducks squawked, Ms. Grulkowski ticked through the falsehoods she had read online and accepted as truths in the past year: The Covid vaccine is more dangerous than the coronavirus. Global child-trafficking rings control the political system. Black Lives Matter was responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The United Nations is plotting to control world population and seize private land. Mr. Trump was the rightful winner of last year’s election. Even in Cascade County, where Mr. Trump won 59 percent of the vote, Ms. Grulkowski argued that 3,000 illegal votes were cast.

“We didn’t believe in any of that stuff until last July,” Ms. Grulkowski said. “Then we stumbled on something on the internet, and we watched it, and it took us two days to get over that. And it had to do with the child trafficking that leads to everything. It just didn’t seem right, and that was just over the top. And then we started seeing things that are lining up with that everywhere.”

One thing Ms. Grulkowski does not do — because she refuses to pay — is read The Great Falls Tribune, the local daily. It’s not what it once was, with just eight journalists, down from 45 in 2000, said Richard Ecke, who spent 38 years at the paper before the owner, Gannett, laid him off as opinion editor in 2016. He is vice chairman of the proposed heritage area’s board.

In the paper’s place, information and misinformation about the heritage area spread on Facebook and in local outlets that parroted Ms. Grulkowski. Last winter, a glossy magazine distributed to Montana farmers put the subject on its cover, headlined “Intrusive Raid on Private Property Rights.”

Ms. Grulkowski badgered supporters of the heritage area to withdraw financial backing. She raised the money to plaster the “Just Say No!” message on billboards along Interstate 15 and on Highway 87 into Fort Benton, and on bus-stop benches in Great Falls.

Three of the heritage area’s board members quit in frustration. Ms. Weber herself resigned from the Cascade County Commission last December after her fellow commissioners voted to oppose the heritage area.

“It’s very easy to take fear and mistrust and make it work for you. It’s very hard to fight back against all of that,” Ms. Weber said. “It’s kind of like trying to convince someone to get vaccinated.”

The issue is now roiling November’s municipal elections in Great Falls.

“It’s a legitimate concern anytime you have anybody telling you a possibility of someone telling you: You can do this or you can do that with your own property,” Fred Burow, an auctioneer challenging Mr. Kelly for the mayoralty, said.

Ms. Grulkowski now has ambitions beyond Montana. She wants to push Congress not to renew heritage areas that already exist.

Buoyed by the trust her neighbors have placed in her, she has begun campaigning for Ms. Weber’s old seat on the county commission, in part to avenge the way she feels: mistreated by those in power.

She doesn’t feel she’s been told the whole truth.

 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,126]

 

 

[Beau Vine 54,300]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Pastor burnout is very real.  Because when you realize that your flock is cruel and hateful, and openly hates you for even mentioning "you know, that's not theologically sound," that's an unsustainable place for a decent human being to be.  American Christianity is committing violent suicide -- it is completely opposed to the Christ of the Gospels, and fervently and fanatically embraces Cruel Republican Jesus, who is entirely a modern invention.

That's exactly what I see happening to our pastor.

[mchookem 16,338]

50 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

 

 

he's a fascinating case. playing Jesus broke his brain, he hasn't been the same since.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20,460]

" The Christian Post, an online evangelical newspaper, published an op-ed by one of its contributors criticizing religious conservatives like Platt, Russell Moore, Beth Moore, and Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, as “progressive Christian figures” who “commonly champion leftist ideology.”

 

Yeah! "Leftist Christian Ideology"  like that "love they neighbor" crap and that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me"  bullshit!  Who came up with that Marxist shit is no Christian!

[Brisketexan 105,169]

11 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

That's exactly what I see happening to our pastor.

America's pastors -- at least the genuinely seminary-educated ones -- are in crisis for sure.  It's brutal.  I mean, the message of the Gospels is deep, nuanced, and can fuel centuries of discussion, but at its core, it's the great commandment.  Love God.  Love everyone else.

The message of culturally dominant American "Christianity" is....not that.  It is 1) worship false idols (political concepts and politicians -- there is no question that in the event of a conflict between what Trump says and what Christ says, American Christians will side with Trump), and 2) hate the outsiders (defined as anyone who is not fully committed to Trumpism etc., but ESPECIALLY minorities and foreigners).  American Christianity is at direct odds with the Christ of the Gospels.  And the actual Jesus from the Gospels is getting his ass kicked.  Imagine seeing something that is based on revolutionary love and kindness being used for the exact opposite purpose....it's heartbreaking.

If you are trained in following and preaching the Gospels, what does that do to you?  Many continue to fight the good fight, but many are battered, bruised, and demoralized to the point of quitting.  

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20,460]

Regarding the heritage area in Montana, this one quote is just so emblematic:

In two hours of talking at his farm, Mr. Bandel could offer no evidence to back up that claim. He said he distrusted assurances that there were no such designs. “They say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to do it right. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. I think Adolf Hitler said that, too, didn’t he?”


Anytime you're dealing with somebody whose mind has made the leap from heritage area to Adolf Hitler, it's pointless to go on. They are lost forever.

[Guest Lobo]

nmnm

Edited October 26, 2021 by Lobo

[Brisketexan 105,169]

4 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

" The Christian Post, an online evangelical newspaper, published an op-ed by one of its contributors criticizing religious conservatives like Platt, Russell Moore, Beth Moore, and Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, as “progressive Christian figures” who “commonly champion leftist ideology.”

 

Yeah! "Leftist Christian Ideology"  like that "love they neighbor" crap and that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me"  bullshit!  Who came up with that Marxist shit is no Christian!

I mean....you are literally correct in your characterization of this movement.

[Brisketexan 105,169]

Just now, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Regarding the heritage area in Montana, this one quote is just so emblematic:

In two hours of talking at his farm, Mr. Bandel could offer no evidence to back up that claim. He said he distrusted assurances that there were no such designs. “They say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to do it right. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. I think Adolf Hitler said that, too, didn’t he?”


Anytime you're dealing with somebody whose mind has made the leap from heritage area to Adolf Hitler, it's pointless to go on. They are lost forever.

"The Nazis had heritage areas they made the Jews live in!"

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,126]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/magazine/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-wisconsin.html

This is a great article.

[Willfully Horn 8,039]

Re. Stoning.

I saw a film that depicted a stoning by a religious community. Everyone was expected to participate, including children. A door was placed on top of a prone sinner. One after another, the community placed stones on top of the door, until the sinner was unable to breath from the accumulated weight.

Creepy af.

[Js1 85,448]

 

[Aqua Buddha 14,599]

Good points from that Atlantic piece about evangelicals.  
 

1.  They’re easily politicized because they have no real core theology or it’s relatively hollow.  As a result, they just careen over the years from one cultural outrage to another.  Also allows them to conspiratorial nonsense.

2.  Brisket and others touched on it but like a third of pastors are considering quitting.  The reasons don’t surprise me but the percentage did.

3.  Pointed out that people leave churches all the time because of politics but almost no one changes their politics because of their church.

4.  The issue/problem makes a lot more sense if you look at it through a sociological  lens rather than a religious one.

[DigglerontheHoof 21,205]

Evangelicals aren't Christians, they're White Power cunts.  

[ConferenceRoom 6,144]

1 hour ago, Willfully Horn said:

Re. Stoning.

I saw a film that depicted a stoning by a religious community. Everyone was expected to participate, including children. A door was placed on top of a prone sinner. One after another, the community placed stones on top of the door, until the sinner was unable to breath from the accumulated weight.

Creepy af.

"More weight."

[Brisketexan 105,169]

"More weight."

You just rang the Vic Mackey dinner bell…

[washparkhorn 9,939]

6 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

“More than most other Christians, however, conservative evangelicals insist that they are rejecting cultural influences,” she said, “when in fact their faith is profoundly shaped by cultural and political values, by their racial identity and their Christian nationalism.”

Great read. Thank you.