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"Why Evangelicals Should Be Terrified Of Trump"

September 14, 2015, 9:23 pm
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Alan: We must question the political and religious judgment of anyone who considers Trump a "savior" - even a secular savior.
Not only does their judgment come into question but their epistemology as well.
We Are Known By The Company We Keep: Evangelicals LOVE Donald Trump

"True Believer? Why Donald Trump Is The Choice Of The Religious Right" NPR


Donald Trum And The Fervent Self-Deception Of Christian Conservatives
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/09/donald-trump-and-fervent-self-deception.html

Trump Family Fortune Began With Booze And Prostitution.
Donald Added Gambling
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/09/trump-family-fortune-began-with-booze.html

In the last presidential cycle, evangelicals supported Mitt Romney
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/

"Mormonism Is Not A Christian Religion. Founding Prophet Joseph Smith Was A Sex Pervert"

"The Death Of Epistemology"

Why Evangelicals Should Be Terrified Of Trump

BY JACK JENKINS SEP 1, 2015
While speaking to reporters at a South Carolina campaign event last Thursday, businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was asked a simple question: Could he explain his robust support among Protestant evangelicals — a religious group he has never claimed as his own, and which he has done relatively little to court?


“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “Why do they love me? You’ll have to ask them. But they do. They do love me.”
Trump is hardly the only one perplexed by his popularity among a subset of the Christian Right, which is currently more supportive of him than any other GOP candidate — including Republican veterans who identify as evangelicals such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The demographic has traditionally endorse candidates who espouse deeply held religious beliefs and focus campaigns on opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. But while Trump leans conservative on both of those issues (albeit onlyrecently), he has struggled to speak consistently — or even coherently — about his faith, often fumbling to muster answers to the most rudimentary questions about Christianity.
When Frank Luntz inquired in July whether Trump has ever asked God for forgiveness, the famously confident real estate mogul answered no, saying, “I don’t bring God into that picture” before offering a questionable explanation of Christian communion. He later explained to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that this is largely because he usually doesn’t believe he’s sinning in the first place.
“Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes?” Trump said, seemingly dismissing two millennia of Christian teaching on human sinfulness.
Trump was similarly flummoxed when he was asked last week to name his favorite Bible verse, a classic shibboleth among conservative candidates. Trump flubbed that test as well, telling Bloomberg, “The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.”
Yet despite his propensity for spiritual gaffes, Trump still boasts the backing of a number of religious faithful. So what exactly is Trump’s faith tradition, and why do some evangelicals love him anyway?

Trump actually claims liberal Protestantism, but ignores many of its teachings — except one

Trump isn’t evangelical, but it would be wrong to call him irreligious. He claims Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan as his spiritual home, a congregation affiliated with the Reformed Church of America (RCA). But while he says he worships “as often as he can,” evidence suggests that is a rare occurrence: Officials at Marble Church issued a statement last Friday announcing that Trump is not an “active member” of the congregation, although sources tell ThinkProgress that his parents and ex-wife were very involved and his children were baptized in the sanctuary.


The statement also implied that Trump’s lack of membership is due partly to his repeated insistence that he is Presbyterian, having grown up attending First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens. Church administrators told ThinkProgress that Trump was indeed confirmed and attended Sunday School at the now majority-black church, and the former reality television star speaks fondly of his overall experience with Presbyterianism.
“I’ve had a good relationship with the church over the years,” he told the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2012. “I think my religion is a wonderful religion.”
That line is somewhat puzzling, however, given that First Presbyterian is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), a liberal mainline Protestant denomination that espouses views that directly contradict much of Trump’s policy agenda. Trump, for example, called immigrants “rapists” and “drug dealers” when he announced his campaign in June, and recently unveiled a wildly impractical immigration plan that calls for the mass deportation of America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. The PC(USA), by contrast, is a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and openly opposes policies that rely on “self-deportation” efforts, much less the widespread ejection of undocumented people from the country.
And while Trump has opposed marriage equality “from the standpoint of the Bible,” the PC(USA) both ordains LGBT pastors and embraces same-sex marriages.
Interestingly, although Trump has appealed to religion when condemning same-sex weddings, marriage is the one topic where he has shown rare sparks of humility. When CNN asked him in June how he would respond if a same-sex couple pointed out that his support for “traditional” marriage seems hypocritical given his own three marriages, the normally unflappable Trump offered no defense, admitting, “Well, they have a very good point.”
To this end, there is at least one point of agreement between Trump and the PC(USA) — one that may help explain his otherwise confusing dedication to the tradition: PC(USA) churches generally grant wide latitude on issues of divorce and remarriage, whereas Marble Church and the RCAdeem all divorce sinful except for in cases of adultery or desertion. In fact, a number of theologically conservative denominations oppose divorce in most cases, including the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which has passed stringent statements decrying the practice. The group also recently outlined a plan that asks pastors to take drastic steps to discourage divorce among parishioners.

Trump either doesn’t understand or isn’t sympathetic to conservative ‘religious liberty’ debates

This year, several conservative candidates — evangelical and otherwise — have embraced the issue of “religious liberty,” arguing that marriage equality and contraception advocates are threatening to impinge on the religious freedom of conservative Christians. SBC leaders havequizzed White House hopefuls about the concept, while Huckabee and Cruz have framed theirentire campaigns around the issue: Cruz even told Sarah Palin that if he is elected president, “the persecution of religious liberty ends that day.”


Yet when Trump was directly asked about religious liberty by a reporter from the Christian Broadcasting Network — specifically the impact of legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide — he declined to acknowledge the domestic debate. Instead, he pivoted to a discussion of Christians persecuted abroad, repeating the progressive axiom that true Christian persecution is happening in other parts of the world, not among evangelicals in the United States.
“If you’re from Syria and you’re a Christian, you cannot come into this country — and they’re the ones that are being persecuted,” he said. “If you’re Islamic and you come in, hard to believe, you can come in so easily. In fact, it’s one of our main groups of people that are coming in. Not that we should discriminate against one or the other. But if you’re Christian, you cannot get into the country … I thought that was unbelievable. We have to do something about it.”
Trump went on to add that he “will be the greatest representative of the Christians that they’ve had in a long time.”
Trump’s assessment of the situation isn’t accurate, of course, as persecuted Christians have been allowed to enter the United States as refugees. Nevertheless, his answer should unnerve rank and file members of the Christian Right, who — while sharing his concern for persecuted Christians abroad — have dedicated substantial resources to combatting the LGBT rights movement by appealing to religious liberty.

Trump is pulling the Pat Robertson vote

Tump’s convoluted faith statements notwithstanding, his appeal among a certain branch of the Christian Right persists. For many, this defies conventional wisdom, as evangelicalism is often mischaracterized as a monolithic voting bloc that only supports the most “devout” candidate.
In reality, evangelicalism is a bit more complicated than that. While less divided than, say, the “Catholic vote,” the Christian Right has multiple flavors, encompassing a range of theological dispositions and races. Hispanic evangelicals, for instance, are a rapidly growing group.


As such, any evangelical support for Trump should be qualified, as the crowded Republican field has stretched all GOP voting blocs across over a dozen candidates. But the larger question with Trump, as Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig wondered aloud in The New Republic, is why any evangelical supports him.
The answer, according to several lengthy analyses of Trump’s campaign, lies in two oft-ignored truths. The first is that some evangelicals don’t simply vote for someone just because they share the same faith, a trend likely to accelerate as Republicans scramble to nominate someone they think will win the general election — or at least break the status quo. As longtime religion reporter Amy Sullivan notes over at Yahoo, “While evangelical Republicans sometimes have different priorities and values than their non-evangelical peers, this could be an election cycle in which they vote as Republicans first and evangelicals second.”
The second reality is that while Trump struggles with scripture, his ideas aren’t alien to evangelical pulpits. Thousands of Christian churchgoers have spent years listening to a religious leader who echoes much of Trump’s vitriol, if not his bombastic style — namely, famous televangelist Pat Robertson. Robertson is known for calmly articulating radical positions justified by thin theology: He claimed that the Hurricane Katrina resulted because God was angered by LGBT acceptance, made blanket statements condemning Islam and while expressing fear for Arab Christians, and warned that if the immigration reform passes, America’s politics will be dictated by Mexico.
All of these ideas harmonize with Trump’s symphony of reactionary positions, which — when combined with evangelical voters swayed more by Trump’s anti-establishment charisma than his policies — is enough to cobble together a sizable evangelical primary voting bloc.
“…These appeals might draw the stray evangelical vote here or there,” Bruenig writes. “But if I had to surmise which subset of the evangelical category Trump has struck a chord with, I would guess it would be that intransigent Robertson crowd, the evangelicals who are perpetually dismayed with the Republican establishment Trump is now confounding.”
Whether this support will be enough to ordain Trump as the Republican nominee is still anybody’s guess. But for now, “The Donald” appears to be shepherding his own unique flock — even if he doesn’t necessarily share their views, or even their faith.
This article is part of our ongoing series on the faith of presidential candidates. You can find our first entry, which chronicles Gov. Scott Walker’s questionable claims to evangelicalism, here.
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Deceased French Philosopher Explains Trump's Political Success: The Role Of Wrestling

September 14, 2015, 9:32 pm
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This French Philosopher Is The Only One Who Can Explain The Donald Trump Phenomenon

BY JUDD LEGUM SEP 14, 2015

Donald Trump has political pundits stumped.
They’ve been predicting his imminent downfall for months. Every “gaffe” that was supposed to destroy his support has only made him stronger. “DON VOYAGE: Trump Toast After Insult,” a headline in the New York Post blared nearly two months ago. The insult at issue, questioning John McCain’s military service, is so many insults ago that it isn’t even mentioned any more.
Meanwhile, Trump still dominates the polls, leading the GOP field by about 14 points nationally. With the exception of one poll in John Kasich’s home state of Ohio, Trump has led every state and national poll since the beginning of August.
You won’t find Roland Barthes on the Sunday morning roundtables dissecting the presidential race. Barthes is a French philosopher who died in 1980. But his work may hold the key to understanding Trump’s popularity and his staying power.
Barthes is best known for his work in semiotics, the study of signs and symbols. But he wasn’t limited to lengthy, esoteric treatises. Rather, Barthes published much of his work in short, accessible pieces breaking down elements of popular culture. The New York Times described Barthes as the godfather of the TV recap.
His most famous essay, published in his 1957 book Mythologies, focuses on professional wrestling. Could an essay about professional wrestling hold the key to understanding Trump’s appeal? It’s worth noting that, before he was a presidential candidate, Trump was an active participant in the WWE. In 2013, Trump was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
TrumpWWE2
In his essay, Barthes contrasts pro wrestling to boxing.
This public knows very well the distinction between wrestling and boxing; it knows that boxing is a Jansenist sport, based on a demonstration of excellence. One can bet on the outcome of a boxing-match: with wrestling, it would make no sense. A boxing- match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator; in wrestling, on the contrary, it is each moment which is intelligible, not the passage of time… The logical conclusion of the contest does not interest the wrestling-fan, while on the contrary a boxing-match always implies a science of the future. In other words,wrestling is a sum of spectacles, of which no single one is a function: each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without ever extending to the crowning moment of a result.
In the current campaign, Trump is behaving like a professional wrestler while Trump’s opponents are conducting the race like a boxing match. As the rest of the field measures up their next jab, Trump decks them over the head with a metal chair.
Others in the Republican field are concerned with the rules and constructing a strategy that, under those rules, will lead to the nomination. But Trump isn’t concerned with those things. Instead, Trump is focused on each moment and eliciting the maximum amount of passion in that moment. His supporters love it.
The key to generating passion, Barthes notes, is to position yourself to deliver justice against evil forces by whatever means necessary. “Wrestlers know very well how to play up to the capacity for indignation of the public by presenting the very limit of the concept of Justice,” Barthes writes.
Trump knows how to define his opponent — China, “illegals,” hedge fund managers — and pledges to go after them with unbridled aggression. If, in making his case, he crosses over a line or two, all the better.
TrumpWWE4
For a pro wrestler, energy is everything. A wrestling fan is less interested in what is happening — or the coherence of how one event leads to the next — than the fact that something is happening. On that score, Trump delivers. He is omnipresent on TV. When he can’t make it in front of the camera, he’ll simply call in. When he’s not on TV, he’s tweeting boasts, insults, and non-sequiturs. When he runs out of things to tweet, he retweets random comments from his supporters.
Along those lines, Trump’s favorite insult — which he has employed repeatedly against Jeb Bush and, more recently, Ben Carson — is that his opponents are “low energy.”
Frenetic action is suicidal for a boxer, or a traditional politician. But Trump is not bound by those limitations. The crazier things get — Trump suggesting a popular Fox News host asked him a tough question because she was menstruating, for example — the more Trump’s supporters love it.
Some fights, among the most successful kind, are crowned by a final charivari, a sort of unrestrained fantasia where the rules, the laws of the genre, the referee’s censuring and the limits of the ring are abolished, swept away by a triumphant disorder which overflows into the hall and carries off pell-mell wrestlers, seconds, referee and spectators.
But why can’t voters see that what Trump offers is just an act? As Barthes illustrates, that’s asking the wrong question.
It is obvious that at such a pitch, it no longer matters whether the passion is genuine or not. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself. There is no more a problem of truth in wrestling than in the theater.
This analogy reveals why the attacks on Trump as so ineffective. Recently, Rand Paul and others have taken to calling out Trump as an “entertainer,” rather than a legitimate candidate. This is as effective to running into the middle of the ring during Wrestlemania and yelling: “This is all fake!” You are correct, but you will not be received well.
TrumpWWE1
One of Barthes’ central points is that boxing — or traditional rules and decorum — is not morally superior to pro wrestling. In fact, for all its artifice, one could argue that pro wrestling today is a more noble pursuit than boxing, which is hopelessly corrupt and currently dominated by a convicted domestic abuser and unrepentant misogynist.
Similarly, Trump is able to take advantage of the obvious dysfunction of the traditional political system. In 2016, the candidates are shadowed by massively funded Super PACs that often rely on just a few donors. Many Republican candidates hold positions supported by this elite donor class but not the electorate at large. Others refuse to answer questions at all.
Compared to this system, the things that Trump is offering — passion, energy, a sense of justice — may not seem so bad.
Does this mean that Trump will be the Republican nominee? No one really knows. But we do know that traditional punditry is incapable of understanding his appeal.
Roland Barthes has been dead for 35 years, but he may be onto something.


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The Bottom Line On Vaccination "There's No Way Out Of It!" By Jerome Goopman, M.D.

September 16, 2015, 10:25 am
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Alan: American parents are terrified of choosing any optional behavior that might result in damage to their children even though statistics prove the statistical benefit of such behavior.

This self-terrorization is the "end state" of individualism run amuck (most pointedly at the expense of communitarianism).

When Pope Francis visits the United States next week, he will attempt to re-calibrate human sensibilities so that communitarianism is restored to its proper place as the coordinating agent of subsidiary individualism.

If society is to thrive, community must have primacy of place.



Jenny McCarthy: Poster Girl For Self-Terrorization

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/jenny-mccarthy-americas-poster-girl-for.html


"The Death Of Epistemology: Anti-Vaccine Epert (And Playboy Model) Jenny McCarthy"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-death-of-epistemology-anti-vaccine.html
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/07/jenny-mccarthy-vaccinations-and-autism.html
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/07/jenny-mccarthy-and-fear-based-parenting.html


The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic Is Fueled By "Education," Wealth And Privilege
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-anti-vaccination-epidemic-is-fueled.html


There’s No Way Out of It!

Jerome Groopman


Even many years later, when my mother told the story, fear still showed on her face. One morning in 1954, at the age of two, I awoke and told her that my head hurt. I had a fever, and she put me to bed. Over the next days, my temperature rose, and my headache worsened. My parents called our pediatrician, who came to our small apartment in Astoria, Queens. He found that my neck was stiff and my legs were weak. Polio, he said, was a possible diagnosis. There were tens of thousands of cases of the paralytic illness each year in the United States. The doctor insisted that I be hospitalized in an isolation unit in upper Manhattan. My parents readily complied.

After a week in the hospital, my temperature fell and my legs became stronger. Tests showed that it was not polio; the infection was never identified.1


My mother and father feared debility and death due to pathogens. They were raised in immigrant New York neighborhoods at a time when diphtheria, typhoid, and tuberculosis were rife. My parents also knew that microbes were not restricted to the newly arrived and poor. Polio had struck the patrician FDR in his prime.


The world of my parents, and that of their children, dramatically improved in the latter half of the twentieth century as modern medicine introduced an array of effective vaccines and antibiotics. When the Salk vaccine against the polio virus became available a few years after my mysterious illness, I was inoculated, along with my siblings. The idea of preventing or curing dreaded infectious diseases “naturally,” relying on the body alone, hardly entered our minds.


But two generations later, such ideas have considerable traction in our society. Eula Biss, a writer who teaches at Northwestern University, seeks to understand their appeal, and whether they should be given credence. On Immunity is an effort to reconcile her divided feelings, fearing both infection and the imagined risks of vaccination. Her book weaves metaphor and myth, science and sociology, philosophy and politics into a tapestry rich with insight and intelligence.


In 2009, Eula Biss gave birth to her first child and became fixated on the many ways he might be harmed—poisoned by chemicals in his plastic bottles or suffocated in his crib by lying incorrectly. Her intense concern about such dangers coincided with the appearance of a new strain of H1N1 influenza in the United States. Much of the country was in a panic: some churches were serving wafers at Mass on toothpicks, and airlines removed pillows and blankets from their flights. “What surprises me now is how unremarkable this seemed to me at the time,” Biss writes.
It all became part of the landscape of new motherhood, where ordinary objects like pillows and blankets have the power to kill a newborn…. It was as if the nation had joined me in the paranoia of infant care.
The strain of the virus was potent for children and teenagers, not only those who typically suffer severe cases of influenza, like the elderly and diabetics. Public health officials recommended widespread vaccination. But among her group of new mothers, “every exchange about the new flu vaccine was an extension of the already existing discussion about immunization, in which all that is known of disease is weighed against all that is unknown about vaccines.”


Biss reflects on the myth of Achilles, and the profound maternal desire to make a child impervious to harm. Achilles’ mother dipped him into the river Styx, but holding him by his heel, which left him vulnerable:
Immunity is a myth, these stories suggest, and no mortal can ever be made invulnerable. The truth of this was much easier for me to grasp before I became a mother. My son’s birth brought with it an exaggerated sense of both my own power and my own powerlessness. I found myself bargaining with fate so frequently that my husband and I made a game of it, asking each other what disease we would give our child for prevention against another—a parody of the impossible decisions of parenthood.
For Biss, decisions about which, if any, vaccines should be given to her son were made “impossible” by allegations on the Internet and anecdotes from other mothers about their long-term risks:
We fear that vaccination will invite autism or any one of the diseases of immune dysfunction that now plague industrialized countries—diabetes, asthma, and allergies. We fear that the hepatitis B vaccine will cause multiple sclerosis, or that the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine will cause sudden infant death. We fear that the combination of several vaccines at once will tax the immune system, and that the total number of vaccines will overwhelm it. We fear that the formaldehyde in some vaccines will cause cancer, or that the aluminum in others will poison our brains.
Her anxiety is amplified by a larger culture of suspicion. In contrast to my parents, who put complete trust in the integrity and authority of their doctor, Biss and her fellow mothers distrust government, pharmaceutical companies, and journalists who seek to inform and reassure the public:
The fact that the press is an unreliable source of information was one of the refrains of my conversations with other mothers, along with the fact that the government is inept, and that big pharmaceutical companies are corrupting medicine. I agreed with all these concerns, but I was disturbed by the worldview they suggested: nobody can be trusted.
One of her efforts at calm is to understand how emotions color perception of risk. Scientists typically present the risks of a vaccine by citing the numbers of people suffering side effects against the total numbers given the treatment. Reviewing the work of the scholars Paul Slovic at the University of Oregon and Cass Sunstein at Harvard Law School, Biss notes:
Risk perception may not be about quantifiable risk so much as it is about immeasurable fear. Our fears are informed by history and economics, by social power and stigma, by myth and nightmares. And as with other strongly held beliefs, our fears are dear to us. When we encounter information that contradicts our beliefs,…we tend to doubt the information, not ourselves.
How should she keep herself informed? Should she give weight to the anecdotes told by fellow mothers? Listen to mainstream doctors, among them her father, a blunt-speaking man dismissive of her crowd? Or should she trust the antiestablishment clinicians on the Internet? And might there be ethical tenets to help her make a sound choice to vaccinate, or not?
As a writer and teacher, Biss is primarily concerned with language, specifically how metaphor sculpts thought and feelings:
“Our bodies prime our metaphors,” writes James Geary in I Is an Other, his treatise on metaphor, “and our metaphors prime how we think and act.” If we source our understanding of the world from our own bodies, it seems inevitable that vaccination would become emblematic: a needle breaks the skin, a sight so profound that it causes some people to faint, and a foreign substance is injected directly into the flesh. The metaphors we find in this gesture are overwhelmingly fearful, and almost always suggest violation, corruption, and pollution.
Biss moves from the power of language to the demographics of sociology. She cites a 2004 analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and writes: “Unvaccinated children…are more likely to be white, to have an older married mother with a college education, and to live in a household with an income of $75,000 or more—like my child.” Such unvaccinated children generally live near one another, which means that if they contract a disease, it can be readily passed on to others. Then there are so-called undervaccinated children, those who have received some but not all of their recommended immunizations. They “are more likely to be black, to have a younger unmarried mother, to have moved across state lines, and to live in poverty.”


These demographic distinctions inform Biss’s understanding of the scientific concept of “herd immunity”:
If we imagine the action of a vaccine not just in terms of how it affects a single body, but also in terms of how it affects the collective body of a community, it is fair to think of vaccination as a kind of banking of immunity. Contributions to this bank are donations to those who cannot or will not be protected by their own immunity. This is the principle of herd immunity, and it is through herd immunity that mass vaccination becomes far more effective than individual vaccination.
Her physician father articulates the value of herd immunity in public health, and Biss extends his analysis to a political principle she holds dear:
“Vaccination works,” my father explains, “by enlisting a majority in the protection of a minority.” He means the minority of the population that is particularly vulnerable to a given disease. The elderly, in the case of influenza. Newborns, in the case of pertussis. Pregnant women, in the case of rubella. But when relatively wealthy white women vaccinate our children, we may also be participating in the protection of some poor black children whose single mothers have recently moved and have not, as a product of circumstance rather than choice, fully vaccinated them….
Immunity…is a common trust as much as it is a private account. Those of us who draw on collective immunity owe our health to our neighbors.
But do we owe so much to the collective that we should sacrifice our autonomy? I learned in On Immunity that the term “conscientious objector” came out of resistance to a British law passed in 1853 requiring the vaccination of all infants. Forty-five years later, the government added a “conscience clause,” allowing parents to apply for an exemption. The exemption clause was rather vague, requiring only that the objector satisfy a magistrate that it was “a matter of conscience.”
Biss turns to her sister, a philosophy professor at a Jesuit college who studies Kant. She explains Kant’s contention that we have a duty to ourselves to examine our conscience, the “inner judge” that unites thoughts and feelings. An individual might resist flaws in the dominant moral code and thus create the possibility for reform, or conscience can be what keeps your actions in line with publicly defendable moral standards.


Biss, while aware that a conscientious objector to vaccination may contribute to an epidemic, affirms that “our laws allow for some people to exempt themselves from vaccination, for reasons medical or religious or philosophical. But deciding for ourselves whether we ought to be among that number is indeed a matter of conscience.” Yet this seems too facile a conclusion, since the freedom to exempt oneself negates a responsibility not only to society, but to one’s own children who do not have the agency to decide for themselves.
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John Bresland
Eula Biss, 2014

Paul Offit, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and the head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is one of the most courageous and sober voices arguing to protect children from exemptions made by their parents.2 Biss draws from one of Offit’s books, Autism’s False Prophets, in her examination of the ideas of the British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield.

In 1998, Wakefield published a study in The Lancet of twelve children indicating that vaccines caused autism. The publication was accompanied by a promotional video of a press conference in which Wakefield supported the suspicions of parents who already believed what the study suggested. Although there were caveats in the Lancet paper, it resulted in a sharp drop in vaccination against measles. Later, when the study was discredited and shown to be sloppy, Wakefield portrayed himself as the victim of establishment persecution.


Another vaccine opponent is Dr. Joseph Mercola, who heads the Mercola Natural Health Center in the Chicago suburbs. Mercola offers information on a website about the dangers of water fluoridation and metal amalgam in dental fillings, as well as speculation that AIDS is not caused by HIV. Biss notes that the site is visited by nearly two million individuals a month, and “products available for purchase range from tanning beds to air purifiers to vitamins and supplements. The website and Mercola LLC generated an estimated $7 million in 2010, and in 2011 Mercola donated $1 million to a number of organizations” that oppose vaccination.


Offit’s book debunks the claims of such antiestablishment clinicians. But his criticism extends to the morality of parental “conscience” when imposed on the health of children. Offit recounts painful tales of children dying from diseases that could be easily prevented or cured if parents had accepted the advice of doctors. In his most recent book, Bad Faith, he argues that we fail minors by giving permission to parents who seek exemptions from vaccination on religious grounds. Sacrificing the lives of vulnerable minors, he contends, negates God, since all human beings are created in His image. But, to date, legislatures and the courts have been loath to override religious beliefs that reject life-saving treatments for children.


On Immunity follows the ebb and flow of Biss’s mind, sometimes taking up a point, like herd immunity, first from a scientific perspective, then a political one, then a philosophical. Interspersed are her stories as a new mother. When she searches for a pediatrician, she is referred by her midwife to one who appears to share her “left of center” mindset:
When I asked the pediatrician what the purpose of the hep B vaccine was, he answered, “That’s a very good question,” in a tone that I understood to mean this was a question he relished answering. Hep B was a vaccine for the inner city, he told me, designed to protect the babies of drug addicts and prostitutes. It was not something, he assured me, that people like me needed to worry about.
Biss’s pediatrician may be left of center, but she discovers that he is not reliable in his reply. Biss won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Notes From No Man’s Land, a collection of essays on race, and she is alert to suggestions of stigma. She cites epidemiological data indicating that there is a decline in the incidence of hepatitis B only when all children are vaccinated against the infection:
One of the mysteries of hep B immunization is that vaccinating only “high risk” groups, which was the original public health strategy, did not bring down rates of infection. When the vaccine was introduced in 1981, it was recommended for prisoners, health care workers, gay men, and IV drug users. But rates of hep B infection remained unchanged until the vaccine was recommended for all newborns a decade later. Only mass vaccination brought down the rates of infection, and it has now virtually eliminated the disease in children….
This is a radical inversion of the historical application of vaccination, which was once just another form of bodily servitude extracted from the poor for the benefit of the privileged. There is some truth, now, to the idea that public health is not strictly for people like me, but it is through us, literally through our bodies, that certain public health measures are enacted.
Still, Biss wonders if there may be reasonable alternatives to vaccination that effectively protect children:
Some parents feel that the immunity produced by the chicken pox vaccine is inferior to immunity by natural infection because it does not last as long. To carry immunity through adulthood, when chicken pox can be quite serious, one must get a booster in adolescence. “So what?” my father says. I am trying to explain the phenomenon of chicken pox parties to him. I say, “Some people want their children to get chicken pox because,” and pause to think of the best reason to give a doctor. “They’re idiots,” my father supplies.
But Biss understands what appeals to these mothers: “I do not think they are idiots. But I do think they may be indulging in a variety of preindustrial nostalgia that I too find seductive.”


Then there is “Dr. Bob” Sears, who hews to a supposed middle ground. In The Vaccine Book, he claims to offer a compromise between vaccinating and not vaccinating. Sears endorses changes in the schedule of childhood vaccination for parents worried about overtaxing the immune system. He proposes a selective vaccine schedule, so a parent can provide only the vaccines that Dr. Bob believes most important. But Biss notes his omission of vaccines against hepatitis B, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella. Another strategy of Dr. Bob is to spread out over eight years all the vaccines a child typically receives in two years.


Biss rightly takes him to task, disputing his claims that tetanus is not a disease that affects infants and that measles is not that bad: “He does not mention that tetanus kills hundreds of thousands of babies in the developing world every year,…and that measles has killed more children than any other disease in history.”


After much indecision, the altruistic principle of herd immunity and its benefits for children of all socioeconomic and racial groups ultimately moves Biss to embrace vaccination.


We no longer see children stricken with polio in wheelchairs or hear of those suffocating from diphtheria, of babies born to mothers with rubella whose eyes are clouded by cataracts and hearts deformed. The success of protecting against such pathogens has removed a sense of their immediacy and caused many to forget their horror. But that may change, as we receive reports of outbreaks of infections due to unvaccinated children and mothers. In January, California health officials reported an infant death from pertussis and a measles outbreak among children who visited Disneyland. Currently, some 8 percent of children in California kindergartens are not adequately vaccinated.
The infection has now spread beyond California to Utah, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Mexico. Last year, California made the “personal belief” exemption law more stringent, requiring parents to submit a form signed by a health professional. But Governor Jerry Brown, at the last minute, added a religious exemption, so that parents who object to vaccination as a matter of faith do not need a physician’s signature.3


Countering such actions by state officials, the father of a six-year-old boy who had leukemia and still suffers from reduced immunity has asked the superintendent of his Marin County school district to keep unvaccinated children out of the classroom, since they pose a significant threat to his own son. The county health officer expressed sympathy for the father’s concern, but would not enforce such a ban on unvaccinated pupils.4


Measles in particular is one of the most contagious viruses, causing illness in more than 90 percent of those who are exposed to it. There is legitimate concern that the outbreak, which originated in California, will spread throughout the nation, particularly in locales where parents have sought exemption from vaccinating their children. Those at greatest risk for debility and death from measles have impaired immunity, like the child in remission from leukemia, or newborns whose immune systems are not yet strong enough to resist the virus. The outbreak, which is said to affect more than a hundred people in some fourteen states as of the beginning of February and is getting increasing public attention, will force the issue around parental choice and social responsibility. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey waffled when asked whether vaccination should be mandated, asserting that there should be room for parents to choose. President Obama strongly supports the science behind vaccination, but it will take more than statements from a bully pulpit to safeguard the nation from epidemics that would be prevented through vaccination. Ultimately, either lawsuits or legislation will be needed to protect the health and welfare of children in schools and other public institutions.


My wife and I are physicians. We are acutely aware that every clinical intervention carries a potential downside. We also question clinical data from research studies and challenge the idea of a single authority that always wisely weighs risk and benefit. But we also know firsthand what infectious diseases can do. When our children were born, we vaccinated them. The natural world of unopposed pathogens is full of danger; it should not be presented as idyllic.


  1. 1Last autumn, there were more than a hundred reports of unexplained paralysis following viral infections in the US. See Catherine Saint Louis, “After Enterovirus 68 Outbreak, a Paralysis Mystery,” The New York Times, January 12, 2015. ↩
  2. 2See my “Libertarian Medicine: And Why It Doesn’t Work,” a review of Paul Offit’s Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine, The New Republic, October 21, 2013. ↩
  3. 3Adam Nagourney and Abby Goodnough, “Measles Cases Linked to Disneyland Rise, and Debate Over Vaccinations Intensifies,” The New York Times, January 22, 2015. ↩
  4. 4Tamar Lewin, “Sick Child’s Father Seeks Vaccination Requirement in California,” The New York Times, January 29, 2015. ↩

    CDC: Depending On Virulence, Annual U.S. Deaths From Flu Range From 3000-49,000

    Ebola Presents A Trivial Threat To Americans' Health
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/10/cdc-depending-on-virulence-annual-us.html

     "Self-Terrorization Is The National Pastime"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/10/tom-toles-cartoon-self-terrorization-is.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/self-terrorization-cornerstone-of.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/uncle-sams-advice-for-superpatriots.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2011/10/self-terrorization-national-pastime.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/05/national-pastime-self-terrorization.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/02/faulty-risk-assessment-and-epidemic.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/04/americas-national-pastime-is-self.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/jenny-mccarthy-americas-poster-girl-for.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/self-terrorization-cornerstone-of.html
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-gop-campaign-message-be-afraid.html

    "Shark Attacks Rise Worldwide: Risk Assessment and Aquinas' Criteria For Sin"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/shark-attacks-rise-worldwide-risk.html

    "Faulty Risk Assessment And The Epidemic Spread Of Self-Terrorization

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/02/faulty-risk-assessment-and-epidemic.html

    "The Death Of Epistemology"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-polls-skewed-death-of-epistemology.html




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      "Never Enough: Donald Trump And The Pursuit Of Success." A New Biography By M. D'Antonio

      September 16, 2015, 11:01 am
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      Donald Trump addresses a rally against the Iran nuclear deal on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol on September 9.

      NEVER ENOUGH: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success
      By Michael D’Antonio
      Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press


      Let’s start with the hat. “Make America Great Again,” it reads. Four words that connote past glory, present squalor, future strength — all stamped on that most American chunk of real estate, the baseball cap. It’s the perfect Donald Trump campaign slogan, its banality somehow making it memorable.


      But there is a contradiction in Trump’s rallying cry: Throughout his public and private life, Trump has personified, in extreme form, many of the qualities and experiences that have defined America over the past half-century.


      How can he suggest that America needs rescuing if, in fact, he is America?


      The Trumpification of America, or the Americanness of Donald Trump, is rarely far from the surface in “Never Enough,” a new biography of the billionaire by journalist Michael D’Antonio. Born in 1946, the first burst of the baby boom, Trump came of age with the narcissism of the 1970s and made his name and fortune during the “greed is good” 1980s. He endured a tabloid sex scandal in the 1990s and morphed into a reality-TV star in the 2000s. Today, The Donald is a social-media fiend running a superficial, divisive and improbably successful presidential campaign, one in which insults supplant insights and high poll numbers become, tautologically, the candidate’s best argument in his favor.
      “For all of his excesses, Donald Trump is a man perfectly adapted to his time,” D’Antonio writes. “Trump is not a man apart. He is, instead, merely one of us writ large.”



      Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press

      It doesn’t matter whether you support Trump. You can still take credit for him.


      Originally scheduled for early 2016, D’Antonio’s biography was rushed to publication to indulge the national infatuation with its subject. You can tell, too — stray words and occasional typos pop up just often enough to be distracting — but it is still a brisk and entertaining read, drawing on interviews and documents and distilling decades’ worth of news coverage to tell the story of Trump’s childhood, family, business deals and political forays.


      D'Antonio gets some remarkable quotes from Trump, though these days that happens whenever the candidate opens his mouth. “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same,” Trump tells him. “The temperament is not that different.” Also, Trump compares his time at the New York Military Academy, a privileged prep school, to actual military experience, even if one of his most daring missions took place when young Donald was able to cut in front of Catholic schoolgirls so the NYMA could march first in a Columbus Day parade. “Maje, leave this to me,” he told his supervisor confidently.


      [I just binge-read eight books by Donald Trump. Here’s what I learned.]


      Trump learned the real estate business from his father, Fred Trump, a wealthy and prolific builder in New York’s outer boroughs. D’Antonio recounts how the two visited construction sites together; the elder Trump was so focused on his work that tagging along was sometimes the best way for his kids to spend time with him. Donald also studied real estate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, but his father’s tactics seemed to influence him most. Fred sought free publicity however he could, deploying news releases and pitching nonevents (such as a company picnic) as newsworthy. And while remaining on the right side of the law, he manipulated the system, as when he created independent companies to buy used construction equipment, which he then leased to a Trump construction project at many times the true cost. “Be a killer,” Trump’s father told Donald repeatedly, an expression that still recurs in the son’s public statements.


      Trump launched his solo developer career — with frequent assists from his father — in the 1970s, an era that Tom Wolfe branded the Me Decade and that Christopher Lasch dissected in his 1979 book, “The Culture of Narcissism.” Making it couldn’t simply mean earning a lot of money. “Success in our society,” Lasch wrote, “has to be ratified by publicity.”


      Trump would become a master of this, from joining Manhattan’s Le Club — where the point was “to be noticed as powerful or beautiful and to be photographed alongside a celebrity and thereby become one yourself” — to courting beautiful women and magazine covers with equal zeal. In 1983, he was featured on the first episode of Robin Leach’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” along with Cher and Princess Diana. Playgirl magazine dubbed him one of the 10 sexiest men in America, helping him achieve what the author calls the trifecta of celebrity: wealth, fame and sex appeal.


      "No one in the world of business — not Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Warren Buffett — has been as famous as Trump for as long,” D’Antonio writes.


      Trump’s 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” became part of his persona, portraying him as a masterful negotiator and market sage. In his description of Trump’s business deals, however, D’Antonio dwells on the less-savory aspects of the developer’s work: sucking up to politicians, manipulating public opinion, bullying opponents. “If this was art,” D’Antonio writes, “then it was a kind of performance art that depended on his ability to manipulate, schmooze, and cajole.” For a while, Trump even created a fake corporate spokesman, “John Baron,” who would deliver some of the more outlandish statements to reporters. (Now there’s a fantasy for every White House press secretary.)


      Trump’s marriage to his first wife, Ivana, became tabloid fodder at a time when the private lives of public figures were under greater scrutiny, especially after the sex scandal that destroyed Gary Hart’s presidential bid in 1988. When Trump’s relationship with Marla Maples became public knowledge, Playboy offered her $2 million to pose nude, and she had the chance to launch a lingerie line called “The Other Woman.”  (She turned down those offers, though she did endorse a brand of jeans called “No Excuses.”) D’Antonio details some of Trump’s marital spats, including battles over prenuptial agreements. In one instance, a discussion with Ivana got so intense that she bolted the room, “and only returned after Donald chased her to the sidewalk and persuaded her to keep talking.”


      [Donald Trump on women, sex, marriage and feminism]


      It is hard to separate the reality of Trump from the lore. The name has come to signify “more than just the wealth, opu­lence, and excitement he hoped it would evoke,” D’Antonio writes, but also “an unseemly level of self-regard and exaggeration.” Trump never seems satisfied with his status. In a particularly tacky move, he frequently called the editors of Forbes, who publish the annual list of the richest Americans, “to say that he should be included when he was not, or that his fortune was bigger than they reported,” D’Antonio reports.


      Trump's dalliance with Obama birtherism during the 2012 campaign tapped into baser American instincts, but it was in keeping with his history of crude attention-seeking. In the 1970s, he complained about having to rent properties to welfare recipients; in the 1980s, he inserted himself into the controversy surrounding the murder of a Central Park jogger and called for the death penalty for supposed “roving bands of wild criminals”; today he depicts Mexican immigrants as rapists and lawbreakers. Trump’s approach is “consistent with a long tradition of divisive and extreme rhetoric in American politics,” D’Antonio writes, but he gives Trump the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that he is guilty of insensitivity rather than outright bigotry.


      During Trump’s prior flirtations with presidential politics, his overall rhetoric was not all that different from today’s. In a 1987 ad he put in the Boston Globe, the New York Times and The Washington Post laying out his foreign policy views, Trump concluded: “Let’s not let our great country be laughed at anymore.” Sound familiar? And in a New Hampshire speech that year, he delivered the same apocalyptic warnings that pepper his current addresses: “If the right man doesn’t get into office, you’re going to see a catastrophe in this country in the next four years like you’re never going to believe.” The enemies back then were Japan and the Soviet Union; now, sub in China, Russia and the Islamic State.


      When he made noise about a possible 2000 presidential bid, reporters “tended to dwell more on the idea of his candidacy rather than on the ideas he would advocate,” D’Antonio writes. We could say much the same of today’s coverage. The idea of Trump is what tantalizes, because it is, in many ways, the American idea.


      “In his wealth and fame he is truly a man for our time, the ultimate expression of certain aspects of the American spirit,” D’Antonio concludes. “Donald Trump may blow his horn a little louder than other Americans, but he is playing the right tune.”


      Read more from Book Party:
      How Donald Trump manipulates the press, in his own words
      Did Ann Coulter’s new book help inspire Trump’s Mexican ‘rapists” comment?
      Donald Trump’s ‘Time to Get Tough’ is out in paperback. You’ll never guess the new subtitle.









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      "Why The GOP Is Dreading Pope Francis' Visit," Fortune Magazine

      September 16, 2015, 11:07 am
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      Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead his Wednesday general audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican, September 9, 2015.

      Republicans think his views of free-market capitalism are too conservative.

      During Pope Francis’ visit to the United States next week, he will insist that the church transcends partisan politics, and I’m sure he means this sincerely. But that won’t prevent his visit from having political ramifications.

      For several decades, the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. has drawn closer and closer to the Republican Party, mostly because of their shared opposition to abortion. Catholics have always bristled at the charge that their religion was subsumed by this one issue, and Pope Francis is committed to reminding the world that the church cares about more than just sex and reproduction.

      He isn’t about to revise the church’s basic teachings on these matters, but he fervently wants to change the topic of conversation. This presents a major problem for the GOP, because on nearly every other public issue it is starkly at odds with Catholic teachings. And not because Pope Francis is too liberal. Rather, it’s because he’s too conservative on an issue that serves as a cornerstone of the Republican Party: free-market capitalism.

      This is one of the issues, along with climate change, that the pope has focused on in recent months. In July, for example, he called unbridled capitalism the “dung of the devil.” While to American ears this may sound liberal, it’s actually a very conservative viewpoint.

      And unfortunately for Republicans, this is likely going to be a topic he’ll bring up during his speech before Congress.

      Pope Francis is hardly a liberal
      Some in the American press have characterized Pope Francis as more liberal than his predecessors. This is a serious misunderstanding. Of all the possible adjectives we might use to describe the pontiff, “liberal” is definitely not among them.
      We Americans tend to forget that the liberal tradition is based on a twofold commitment to both individual liberty (on questions of personal lifestyle, for example) and free-market capitalism. Liberal U.S. Democrats may want to soften the edges of capitalism with regulation, but they don’t want to overthrow capitalism altogether.

      The leadership of the Catholic Church, in contrast, has never reconciled itself with liberalism. Back in 1864, Pope Pius IX denounced anyone who would even suggest that “the Roman pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” Since then, the church has softened its stance on “progress” and “modern civilization,” but liberalism remains a problem. As Popes John Paul II and Benedict XIV made clear, this rejection of liberalism entails constraints on individual liberty in the areas of sexuality, reproduction and marriage. Now Pope Francis is reminding us of the other side of this anti-liberalism: a rejection of capitalism. Just as people are not free to conduct their sexual lives as they see fit, neither are they free to do whatever they want in the economic sphere.

      Rather, he’s a consistent conservative
      In this sense, Francis is a consistent conservative — even more conservative than the Republicans who are nervous about his upcoming visit.

      Many Americans, who tend to associate capitalism with the right and anti-capitalism with the left, are unaware that many of the earliest attacks on laissez faire economics came from conservatives, and that the Catholic Church has been a key player in developing a conservative rebuttal to liberal capitalism.

      Catholic conservatives, like Francis, want to conserve harmonious social relations and a Christian understanding of economic justice, just as they want to conserve what the church takes to be traditional family values. Free-market capitalism, in contrast, is all about change: the change that comes when massive retail chains undermine family shops, when agribusinesses destroy small farms, and when financial consultants “downsize” a corporation and wipe out a community’s economic foundation.

      The Catholic Church’s type of conservatism opposes financiers who place the pursuit of profit over the needs of maintaining a peaceful, stable community.

      And above all, this type of conservatism will condemn anyone whose private greed harms the public good. This isn’t socialism. Catholic teaching can be easily reconciled with hierarchies and inequality, as long as justice is served and social harmony is maintained.

      Problems exist for the left and the right
      Catholicism is a problem for American politicians (Democrats and Republicans alike), but not because the church offers some sort of mixture of left and right, liberalism and conservatism. The church is consistently conservative, and this challenges Democrats (who promote individualism, innovation and disruption in the cultural realm) and Republicans (who favor individualism, innovation and disruption in the economic realm).

      During the pope’s visit, therefore, he is likely to make every American politician squirm. The Democrats have grown accustomed to this in recent decades (some priests have refused prominent liberal Catholics communion over the abortion issue). Now it’s the Republicans’ turn. But in this case, it’s about the roots of our economic system.

      Brian Porter-Szücs is a history professor at the University of Michigan. His article originally appeared in The Conversation.



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      Trump Has Firm Grip On Wheel Of Republican Clown Car

      September 16, 2015, 11:12 am
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      After delivering a 13-minute "foreign policy" speech in which he touched only briefly on anything approaching foreign policy, Donald Trump began to throw his signature — and highly sought after — "Make America Great Again" hats into the California crowd. Welcome to the 2016 Republican presidential primary race!


      See Trump's Circus Toss athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/16/the-state-of-the-republican-race-in-1-picture/


      Trump has turned the whole process into a giant circus/game show/reality TV program. His speeches are heavy on bombast and lighter-than-air on policy specifics. He uses his Twitter feed and Instagram account to taunt his Republican rivals for being "low-energy" (Jeb Bush) or an "okay doctor" (Ben Carson). He says things — about John McCain, about Megyn Kelly, about menstruation, about Carly Fiorina's looks — that would doom other candidates but seem to have no negative effect on his candidacy.


      In short, Trump does Trump. And, man, is it an entertaining show. Hell, he gives away free hats!
      Meanwhile, the other 14 men and one woman running for the Republican presidential nomination function, effectively, as audience members at The Donald Trump Show. They can't (or won't) say or do the things Trump will and, therefore, always wind up on the short end of feuds with The Donald. Bush can spend all day attacking Trump's Republican bona fides, but it doesn't work nearly as effectively as when Trump calls the former Florida governor (essentially) boring.


      That reality may change at some point — maybe soon. But, at the moment, every other candidate in this race is just a pawn in the Donald Trump game. Maybe they'll get lucky and get a hat!



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      Trump Finally Identifies His Favorite Bible Verse... Which Doesn't Seem To Exist

      September 16, 2015, 11:22 am
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      Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Dallas on Monday.
      Donald Trump likes that Proverbs verse that might not exist
      Jenna Johnson

      Nearly three weeks after Donald Trump was first asked to name his favorite Bible verse, he finally has an answer: He likes what the Book of Proverbs says about not bending to envy.


      "Proverbs, the chapter 'never bend to envy,'" Trump said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's The Brody File on Tuesday evening in California. "I’ve had that thing all of my life where people are bending to envy." It was not clear whether Trump appreciated the passage because he had struggled with envy personally, or whether he was referring to envy he had experienced from others.


      It also wasn't clear which verse the Republican front-runner was talking about: A search of several of the most-used standard versions of the Bible did not turn up any verse or chapter that urges people not to "bend to envy."


      In the King James Version of the Bible, there are several mentions of envy in Proverbs: "Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways," reads Proverbs 3:31. Envy is "rottenness to the bones," says Proverbs 14:30. And there's Proverbs 23:17: "Let not thine heart envy sinners." But there does not appear to be any verse in that book, or in other parts of the Bible, that urges readers to "never bend to envy."


      CBN reporter David Brody, who conducted the interview, told The Washington Post that Trump aides said the candidate was referring to Proverbs 24:1-2: "Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them. For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief."
      This raises the question of whether Trump's reference to the "people... bending to envy" he'd experienced in his life was a self-reference, or what other interpretation of the verse there might be.


      Hope Hicks, Trump's spokeswoman, did not immediately respond to a request for clarification Wednesday.


      [Alongside Trump's campaign, activist clashes are growing uglier]


      Trump, who leads the field vying for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, was first asked to name his favorite Bible verse during an interview in late August. He declined to do so, saying the question was too personal and not something he wanted to get into. That prompted a round of criticism from some of his Republican rivals, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who accused Trump of never having read the Bible.


      Trump has become unexpectedly popular with evangelical voters even though he has been married three times, does not regularly attend church, once posed on the cover of Playboy and recently described Holy Communion as "the little cracker." (The Boston Globe's Matt Viser just wrote about this phenomenon: "Donald Trump strikes a chord — with evangelicals.") Not having a favorite Bible verse could pose a problem for Trump among evangelicals.


      In the CBN interview Tuesday evening, Trump lavished praise on the Bible, calling it "an incredible book" filled with "so many brilliant things" that provides not only lessons in religion but also in leadership and life. Trump compared the Bible to the Mona Lisa, which becomes more and more beautiful the more you look at it, unlike "art that is not great"and only has initial appeal.


      "The Bible is special," Trump said. "The Bible -- the more you see it, the more you read it, the more incredible it is... I don’t like to use this analogy, but like a great movie, a great, incredible movie.  You’ll see it once, it will be good.  You’ll see it again.  You can see it 20 times and every time you’ll appreciate it more. The Bible is the most special thing.”


      [A day before the GOP debate, Donald Trump talks national security on board a battleship]
      During the interview, Brody told Trump that "the word on the evangelical street is there are evangelicals that really are interested in voting for you, but they want you to tone down the insults a little bit." Brody asked the insult-flinging candidate if that's possible.


      "I can understand it a hundred percent," Trump responded, "but, you know, I am a certain type of person."


      Trump said his personality has enabled him to building an "amazing" life and business -- and would help him get the United States "back into shape."


      “I’ve dealt with very tough hombres and very tough people, and I’ve come out on top," Trump said. "And I can understand the evangelicals to a certain extent saying: 'Well, maybe he’s not as nice as we want him to be.' But they also want to see the country be great.”
      Brody also asked Trump if he has a weakness. The candidate responded that while he has a "great temperament," maybe he should "tone it down a bit when pressed."
      "I think maybe I can sometimes tone it down," Trump said. "When somebody hits, you can hit a little bit less hard. At the same time, that may be the kind thing that the country needs because we have to hit back hard. We have to fight hard because we’re not going to have a country.”
      Trump continued: “You need a person of tremendous strength -- but I think I could tone it down a little bit, and I’ll try.”





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      Why Ahmed Mohamed Should Be A Topic At Tonight's GOP Debate

      September 16, 2015, 11:32 am
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      Search

      Has Arctic Ice Loss Reached A Tipping Point? ( ... Here Come The Mosquitoes!)

      September 16, 2015, 11:38 am
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      The Borowitz Report: Fact Checking Reveals G.O.P. Debate Was Four Per Cent Fact

      September 17, 2015, 9:43 am
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      Fact Checking Reveals G.O.P. Debate Was Four Per Cent Fact
       
      SIMI VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (The Borowitz Report) – A thorough fact checking reveals that Wednesday night’s Republican Presidential debate was four per cent fact, fact checkers reported Thursday morning.

      According to HonestyWatch, a Minnesota-based fact-checking organization, over the course of three hours the Republican candidates served up between eight and twelve facts, not including their names and job descriptions.
       
      While few of the facts that were dispensed during the debate related to policy matters, viewers did learn that Jeb Bush smoked pot in high school, and that Donald Trump had not yet ridiculed Rand Paul’s looks, the fact checkers found.

      At CNN, the debate moderator, Jake Tapper, said he was proud of the role he played in keeping the evening’s fact content to a minimum.

      “Whenever I felt the candidates were straying into the issues, I tried to goad them into insulting each other,” he said. “I didn’t succeed every time, but all in all I feel good about the night.”

      While Tapper might be happy with Wednesday’s contest, it failed to match the benchmark set by August’s Fox News debate, which came in at three per cent fact.
       
       
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      Hillary More Fun Than The Aggregate Of Republican Candidates: Jimmy Fallon Interview/Skit

      September 17, 2015, 9:49 am
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      The former secretary of state appeared at ease in the comedic setting, reaching for a glass of white wine mid-skit.

      Hillary Clinton Gets the 'Trump' Treatment From Jimmy Fallon

      by
       
      Hillary Clinton tells Fallon: 'I'm having a good time watching' Trump 1:29
      http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/jeb-bush-walks-back-pitch-thatcher-10-bill-n429036
      Hillary Clinton stopped by NBC's "Tonight Show" on Wednesday where she was interviewed by Jimmy Fallon twice — once as Donald Trump, and once as himself.

      In what has become a trademark, Fallon donned the Donald's signature hairdo and "called" Clinton at home to discuss women, immigration and Bernie Sanders.

      Fake Trump opened with, "I haven't seen you since my last wedding." Clinton fired back, "Well, I'm sure I'll see you at the next one."

      When Clinton asked "Trump" what his stance is on women's issues, Fallon quipped, "I know a lot of women and they all have issues."

      Clinton joked about someone she doesn't often mention on the campaign trail. "Do you have any idea what it's like to work so hard for something, to be so close to getting it, then someone pops out of nowhere and tries to take it all away?" she asks.

      "Are you talking about Bernie Sanders? I hate to say this but I think he's losing his hair," fake Trump said.

      Fallon's Trump also offered some friendly advice to the Democratic frontrunner. "You sound like a robot," he said. "If you want to win, here's what you go to do first: yell! I yell all the time."

      The sketch ended with, what else, Clinton saying "huuuge," a la Donald.

      During the interview, Fallon asked Clinton how long she thinks Trump will last in the race. "I think that he's gonna go as long as he wants to go and more power to him. I mean, that is one of the great things about this country," she said, and then went on to do her best Trump impression.

      It was Clinton's first late-night talk show appearance of the 2016 election cycle.

      Trump appeared on "The Tonight Show"last week.



       
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      Jeb Bush's Stupendously Stupid Suggestion To Put Margaret Thatcher On $10 Bill

      September 17, 2015, 10:01 am
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      Jeb Bush might be changing his mind about his statement that he'd like to see former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the $10 bill.

      In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Bush instead said that he'd like to see the American people decide which woman deserves to be on U.S. currency, suggesting that a question about the bill during the second GOP presidential debate Wednesday night was not "the most relevant thing in the world."

      "I want to put more 20 dollar bills in people's pockets," he added.

      Bush said that he'd use the internet to solicit suggestions.

      "I would give it up to -- on the internet and let people decide this. That would generate a lot of interest," he said. "It could create all sorts of opportunities for math teachers to teach math, for social studies teachers to do the same. You could have an avalanche of interest in picking the woman that should be on the $10 bill."

      While Republicans harbor plenty of admiration for the former leader of the Conservative Party in the U.K., Bush was ridiculed on social media for saying that he would nominate Thatcher for the honor rather than an American citizen.

      "Probably illegal, but what the heck?" he joked Wednesday night. "Since it's not going to happen: A strong leader is what we need in the White House, and she certainly was a strong leader that restored the United Kingdom into greatness."

      Other candidates suggested Rosa Parks, while Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump named members of their family.

      Carly Fiorina, the only woman on the debate stage, said that she would not change the bill at all.
      "I think, honestly, it's a gesture. I don't think it helps to change our history," she said. "What I would think is that we ought to recognize that women are not a special interest group. Women are the majority of this nation. We are half the potential of this nation, and this nation will be better off when every woman has the opportunity to live the life she chooses."


       
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      Fact-Checking The GOP Debate

      September 17, 2015, 10:05 am
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      Fact-Checking the GOP Debate

      byand
       

       
      Analyst: Trump 'was a train wreck.. and his supporters won't care'2:29
      With 11 candidates on stage on Wednesday night, there were bound to be some misstatements, stumbles, and exaggerations.
      Here are our evaluations of some of the candidates' misleading statements.

      Donald Trump: "Just the other day, two years old, two and a half years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic. I'm in favor of vaccines, do them over a longer period of time, same amount."
      Trump got part of a fact-check to this statement during the debate from Dr. Ben Carson, who rightly said "we have extremely well-documented proof that there's no autism associated with vaccinations." But Carson also said "we are probably giving way too many [vaccines] in too short a period of time."

      Study after study has shown no possible way that vaccines could cause autism, even in supposedly vulnerable children. You can read more about that body of medical research here.

      And the idea of spacing vaccines is not recommended by experts either. CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics do not recommend spacing vaccines and say this can be harmful, leaving children and those around them unprotected against dangerous and sometimes deadly diseases. In a statement, the AAP wrote on Thursday morning that "There is no 'alternative' immunization schedule. Delaying vaccines only leaves a child at risk of disease for a longer period of time; it does not make vaccinating safer."

      Ted Cruz: "On these videos, Planned Parenthood also essentially confesses to multiple felonies. It is a felony with ten years' jail term to sell the body parts of unborn children for profit. That's what these videos show Planned Parenthood doing"
      Cruz is referring to a series of sting videos by anti-abortion group The Center for Medical Progress. He claims that the videos show Planned Parenthood reps confessing to selling parts of fetuses for profit.

      He's correct that selling the fetal tissue "for profit" is a felony, but Planned Parenthood has steadfastly maintained that they did not sell any tissue. In the videos themselves, the reps discuss minimal reimbursement for their preparation and shipping costs, which is allowed. One full two-hour-long video shows the activists, who are posing as staffers from a biotechnology company seeking fetal tissue, wining and dining Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. They discuss how to obtain tissue from aborted fetuses. Nucatola can be heard repeatedly denying the tissue is being sold. "This is not a new revenue stream the affiliates are looking at. This is a way to offer the patient the service that they want, do good for the medical community," she says.

      Carly Fiorina: "Yes, we had to make tough choices, and in doing so, we saved 80,000 jobs, went on to grow to 160,000 jobs."
      A lot has been written about Fiorina's record at Hewlett Packard. She took the helm of the company in 1999, before its merger with Compaq. At the time she started the job, the number of employees at HP was about 86,200, while Compaq had 63,700. After the two companies merged, the total job count was 141,000 in 2002. That grew slightly to 142,000 in 2003, and to 150,000 in 2005. If you add the amount of employees Compaq and HP had before the merger, you'll arrive at 149,900. Therefore, it's quite an exaggeration to say she grew jobs after the merger, given that according to these numbers, the number of jobs at the two companies increased by only 100.

      Technically, you could say that HP "grew" since it was combined with Compaq, but that's a factor of the merger itself - not a specific policy by Fiorina or anyone else.

      You can read more from the Washington Post Fact Checker here.

      Donald Trump: "I say not in a braggadocious way, I've made billions and billions of dollars dealing with people all over the world."
      Trump's actual wealth has been a murky subject for a while. In the past, he's claimed to have a net worth of $9 billion or even $10 billion to his name. A Bloomberg Billionaires Index analysis estimated that his net worth is closer to $2.9 billion. It's hard to know how close Trump's own estimates could be to the truth, but asset value is not the same thing as net worth. Net worth is calculated with the difference between assets and liabilities. And Trump could be inflating the value of his assets. Under oath in depositions, Trump has admitted to inflating the value of his properties in statements, but "not beyond reason."

      Chris Christie: "I was named U.S. attorney by President Bush on September 10th, 2001."
      Chris Christie was appointed U.S. attorney by George W. Bush on December 8, 2001, according to a New York Times article at the time. The nomination had "been expected for months," but it was in no way official until months after the 9/11 attacks. Christie's spokespeople have alleged that he had a conversation from members of the Bush administration before the attacks which, according to Politifact,"set in motion a months-long hiring process." He might have accepted the job - but he wasn't formally offered it because background checks had not been completed.

      Jeb Bush: "Six million more people are living in poverty than the day that Barack Obama got elected president."
      The Census Bureau says that the number is closer to 5.5 million, so Bush rounded up a little. But the real question is whether it's President Obama's fault, which is what Bush is implying. As NPR notes, poverty was trending up during the final years of George W. Bush's administration (it increased 3% during his presidency). In contrast, the poverty rate since Obama took office has increased 0.2%.

      Donald Trump says Bush's allegation that he donated money to Florida politicians in the hopes of securing support for casino gambling in Florida is "totally false."
      According to press reports from the mid and late-1990s, Trump gave significant donations both to the Republican Party of Florida and to Jeb Bush's gubernatorial campaign. Bush, who served on the board of a group called "No Casinos," steadfastly opposed gambling in the state. While it's not clear that Trump directly asked Republicans in the state to back a proposal allowing Seminoles to operate casinos on tribal property, there's plenty of evidence that he was keen on a deal that would help him expand his gambling operations there. This September 1 article from CNN has lots more on Trump's hopes and Bush's refusal to budge on the issue after his election.


       
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      A Woman Scorned: "The Donald" Meets His Match In Carly Fiorina

      September 17, 2015, 10:10 am
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      Who would vote for "that face?"
      (...other than Christian evangelicals)

      "We Are Known By The Company We Keep: Evangelicals LOVE Trump"
      http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/evangelicals-love-donald-trump-how.html
       
      Alan: Last night's comeuppance was the beginning of Trump's end.
      The Hot Air Balloon has been punctured.
      His only way forward through election day is to declare an independent candidacy.

      Not immediately but early next year.
      Run, Donald, Run!


       
      
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      "The Intense Afterlife Of Saints," Eamon Duffy, New York Review Of Books

      September 17, 2015, 10:35 am
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      Alan: I have lonstanding interest in hagiography and have self-published two books on the Catholic Calendar of Saints. The following article is the most informative article on the subject I have come across.


      Excerpt: "Most ot the earliest saints were martyrs like Polycarp (burned "at the stake" c. 150 A.D.), for their witness to Christ by the shedding of their blood made them powerful intercessors on behalf of weaker or more timid Christians. Those who had succumbed during persecution and offered sacrifice to the pagan gods flocked to the prisons to seek absolution and intercession from martyrs awaiting execution. The martyrs' prayers were considered even more powerful after their death. With the easing of persecution, and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire (4th century A.D.), churches were built over the graves of the martyrs, and became magnets for pilgrims. These shrine churches outside the city walls posed a problem for bishops seeking to unite the local churches around their own authority. The burial sites where the martyr-saints were sought out as heav enly patrons or physicians threatened to become rival cneters of religious power and influence... As Peter Brown has argued, the problem was defused by "translating" the relics of the saints into the city, and enshrining htme under or near the bishop's own altar, where they would underpin rather than threaten hierarchical authority. The "translation" of a saint's bones from grave to altar would remain the act constituting canonization for almost a thousand years. And this public veneration of the saint's dead body marks a momoentous divergence from Roman paganism and from Christianity's parent faith, Judaism, for both shunned the bodies of the dead as sources of pollution."


      The Intense Afterlife of the Saints

       
      Eamon Duffy

       
      In November 1231 Elizabeth of Thuringia, daughter of the king of Hungary and widow of Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, died in the city of Marburg, aged twenty-four. Married before she was fifteen, Elizabeth bore three children to Louis before his death while on crusade in 1227, when she was just twenty years old.
      Even during her affectionate marriage her piety had been characterized by midnight prayer vigils, lavish works of charity, and acts of penance, of a scale and intensity unheard of in a high-status, sexually active wife and mother. She now took a vow of celibacy, adopted the coarse gray habit of the newly formed Franciscan Third Order, and placed herself under the spiritual direction of Conrad of Marburg, a sadistic former inquisitor, who separated her from her children, replaced her personal maids with brutal warders, and subjected her to a penitential regime that included severe beatings and public humiliations.

      Elizabeth survived Conrad’s abuse for only four years. But the humility and charity of the smiling princess, who dressed like a pauper and personally ministered to the destitute and diseased in a hospital built with her own money, spectacularly embodied the ideals of her admirer Francis of Assisi. Her contemporaries took note. Within hours of her death her coffin was besieged by crowds of eager suppliants in search of healing or blessing. Pilgrims tore strips from her clothes, or cut the hair, nails, and even the nipples from her body as relics, and miracles began. A papal commission, ironically headed by her guide and tormentor Conrad, investigated Elizabeth’s miracles and virtues in 1232. Pope Gregory IX formally canonized her three years later.

      Elizabeth’s radiant personality and the pathos of her short life make her one of the most endearing saints of the Middle Ages, while the course of her canonization highlights major shifts within the medieval cult of the saints. Her fame signaled the emergence of a new kind of female sanctity, active in the world rather than shut away in a cloister.

      Hercanonization by the pope was equally novel, because for almost a millennium any bishop might proclaim someone a saint, and this right had been claimed as an exclusive papal prerogative only since the early 1200s: there were no known papal canonizations at all before 993 AD. Once established, it was a monopoly that the medieval popes exercised very sparingly. The years between 1200 and 1250 witnessed an unprecedented blossoming of religious energy in Europe and the emergence of hugely successful new revival movements like the friars. Francis, the Poverello of Assisi, was merely the most famous of scores of notable Christian heroes and heroines. The century as a whole saw the local or popular veneration of more than five hundred such people as “saints.”
      Yet between 1200 and 1500 only forty new saints in all achieved canonization. The quasi-inquisitorial legal process …

      Cont. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jun/19/intense-afterlife-saints/


       
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      Ben Carson's Self-Summary At 2nd GOP Presidential Candidate Debate

      September 17, 2015, 11:09 am
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      Alan: Ben Carson's 3rd-grade-educated mother instilled a work ethic that instilled Carson's evangelical belief that anyone can pull himself up by his own bootstraps.

      American conservatives are powerfully drawn to "The Good News" of personal responsibility, coupled with will power.

      These twin virtues assure the GOP rank-and-file that "the world can be set straight" - simply and with not need for charitableness or government intervention.

      Despite the widespread appeal of this view, I doubt there is an extended family in America that does not harbor someone who is incapable of raising herself up.

      "We hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest."

      Full Transcript of Debate:http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/16/annotated-transcript-september-16-gop-debate/#


      Ben Carson's Self-Summary:

      "Well, you know, I was a radical Democrat before I started listening to Ronald Reagan. And he didn't sound like what they said Republicans were.

      He sounded logical. And I hope that I sound logical also. Because when I look at what is going on with the United States of America, I see a lot of things that are not logical.

      I see us allowing people to divide us, when in fact our strength is in our unity. I see people exercising the most irresponsible fiscal habits that anyone could possibly do. And hiding it from the American people, so that the majority of people have no idea what our financial situation is.

      So, when someone comes along and says, free college, free phones, free this and that, and the other, they say, "wow, that's nice," having no idea that they're destabilizing our position. And I think also that Ronald Reagan was a master at understanding that a pinnacle nation has to be a nation that leads.

      If we learn to lead in the Middle East right now, a coalition will form behind us, but never they do it if we just sit there and talk about it.

      Real leadership is what I would hopefully bring to America."


       
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      The Republican Presidential Debate According To David McReynolds

      September 18, 2015, 12:15 pm
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      NLN David McReynolds.jpg
      David McReynolds

      Alan: David McReynolds, co-founder of The Socialist Party, USA, is close to Catholic Worker friend Patrick O'Neill who forwards his emails to me.


      Here is David's take on the 2nd GOP presidential candidate debate conducted September 16th at the Reagan Library.


      I will add that Carly Fiorina is revealing herself as a remarkably gifted liar.


      Her adamant description of a purported abortion video -- and her laudatory representation of "achievements" at HP -- are both delusional.


      In the following interview with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld reviews Fiorina's catastrophic tenure at HP:
      http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/jeffrey-sonnenfeld-talks-trump-and-fiorina-527762499937


      The Republican Presidential Debate According To David McReynolds


      By David McReynolds


      One of the most discouraging things about last night's debate was how swiftly the real history in the Middle East has been forgotten.

      On Syria, there is now lots of talk of Obama failing to launch a military attack after drawing a red line about chemical weapons. The facts, for those suffering from premature Alzheimer's (which means most of the candidates) is that, first, the US was never going to launch a major strike - it was to have been a "pin prick" strike (Kerry's word), but Obama backed away when the British parliament stunned Washington by an overwhelming vote against support of any US action. Then Obama decided to toss the issue to Congress, which did NOT vote to authorize a strike. But in the meantime (as everyone seems to have forgotten) Putin intervened, and arranged for the total withdrawal of all chemical weapons from Syria. Let's forget about Putin's motives - the hard fact is that Russia got rid of the chemical weapons without a military strike.

      More important, almost everyone now says that our troubles in Iraq came from the "premature withdrawal" by Obama of all US forces. Not true. It was George Bush who had announced that withdrawal and the date. Obama had suggested to the Iraq government that some troops would remain if they would not be subject to Iraq law. It was Iraq which said, firmly, that the US had to go, with no conditions. So the reality is that the US could only have left a "residual force" if it was going to impose this on Iraq, against its will.

      On the debate itself, I was appalled at the repeated nods to Netanyahu.
      Chris Matthews called attention to the role of Sheldon Adelson - the Jewish billionaire whose 25 billion dollar wealth dwarfs that of Trump.
      It is worth checking out Adelson on the internet, where lots of material can be found. Four years ago Adelson funded Newt Gingrich with 100 million dollars so he could stay in the GOP primary. One wonders how much money Adelson channeled to Marco Rubio or to Carly Fiorino (who pledged that her first phone call after her election would be to her good friend "Benjamin Netanyahu"). In Israel itself, Adelson has funded a free daily paper whose main reason for existence is its unwavering support for Netanyahu.

      Trump was as offensive as ever, with his pointless attack on Rand Paul (who actually was one of the few candidates who was not war mongering), but ironically, it was Trump who refused to pledge to tear up the Iran treaty, who said he would talk to Putin, and who, of course, really did oppose the Iraq War (as did Rand Paul).

      Otherwise it was a gathering of hawks, from that snake oil salesman, Mike Huckabee, to Marco Rubio who seems desperate to get US troops back on the ground. Ted Cruz has been offensive - even disgusting - from the moment he entered politics and seems to be hoping that, if Trump tanks, he can pick up his votes. Fortunately, Scott Walker, who had been the chosen candidate of the Koch brothers, is sinking swiftly into the sunset. 

      It was good to see Ben Carson defend the use of vaccines but otherwise Carson (whose actual political views veer off on the far right of the scale) seemed so placid one wondered if he shouldn't have a double espresso before the next debate.

      Carly Fiorino certainly scored points against Trump, but she strikes me as a potential American Maggie Thatcher. 

      Overall the saddest thing was the general failure of almost everyone on stage to realize that the US simply is not the single most powerful player in the world, that the days of US empire are over, that the time when the US could send a half million men half way around the world in an effort to crush the Vietnamese is long over.

      I have alway tended to be politically incorrect, and while it is easy to loathe Ted Cruz, I actually enjoyed the Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham, whose politics are nuts but who brought a sense of humor to the "kids table" (the earlier debate of the four who didn't make the main stage).

      For better or worse, Chris Christie kept himself in the race, as did Jeb Bush. But unless Huckabee has a credit line to Adelson, he will soon be out, as will Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal.

      My brother pointed out that the Democrats have made a mistake to hold off on their debates, ceding the political ground to the GOP for two very widely watched debates.

      So for an old political hand such as myself, the debates were fascinating - but depressing as hell, showing how low the GOP politics have sunk.



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      Carly Fiorina Is A Gifted Liar

      September 18, 2015, 12:30 pm
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      Trump Is Toast

      September 18, 2015, 12:43 pm
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      Donald Trump

      There's no there there.


      Finally, the nothingness shows through the emperor's non-existent clothes.

      For a fleet, garish moment, Donald was the perfect Republican candidate.

      Full of bluster, falsehood, xenophobic race-baiting and paralytic resentment.

      Now that he's toast, I pray The Donald starts his own party.

      It would be the greatest service he could perform.

      "Moderate Republican For Trump: Only Trump Can Restore GOP Sanity...
      By A LandslideLoss"
      Bruce Bartlett


      
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      Evangelical Pastoral Counselor Reflects On Bernie Sanders' Visit To Liberty University

      September 18, 2015, 12:58 pm
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      Bernie Sanders: 'Not Acceptable' To Jail Young Pot Smokers And Let Big Bank CEOs Walk

      He thinks it's time to start locking up the real criminals.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-pot-ceos_55f1e765e4b03784e2789288

      My 18 year old son attended the Greensboro rally where Bernie discussed the importance of locking up America's most devastating criminals.



      Evangelical Pastoral Counselor Posts Sermon On Bernie Sanders Visit To Liberty University


      An Evangelical pastoral counselor and Liberty University graduate posted a short sermon about Bernie Sanders' speech at Liberty University to reddit yesterday:


      Bernie is the voice of Justice crying out in the desert. Evangelicals like me are convicted by his message. (audio, a little under 17 minutes)
      reddit thread


      Partial transcript below the squiggle.
      He was convicting the Christian leaders and the religious leaders in that university, and calling us out for being complicit in the abandonment of those who suffer, the least of these, and siding with the powerful and rich, the masters of this world.  And he was convicting us and calling us out, and we scorned him, and we stared him down; and, with sour faces, we thought, "Who is this wacko, and why do all these people seem to follow him, seem to like him – this wild-haired Jew, crying out from the wilderness of the political left, in his hoarse voice?"
      When I heard Bernie speaking in that way, when I saw that guy on stage at Liberty University, I saw John the Baptist...crying out to the religious leaders, the Pharisees of his day, calling them corrupt and complicit with those who have all the power and all the money and all the wealth, and abandoning the people that God loves, that God cares about...
      As I heard Bernie Sanders crying out to the religious leaders at Liberty University, in his hoarse voice, with his wild hair – this Jew – and he proclaimed justice over us, he called us to account, for being complicit with those who are wealthy and those who are powerful, and for abandoning the poor, the least of these, who Jesus said he had come to bring good news to. And in that moment something occurred to me. As I saw Bernie Sanders up there, as I watched him, I realized Bernie Sanders for president is good news for the poor. Bernie Sanders for president is Good News for the poor. Bernie Sanders is gospel for the poor. And Jesus said "I have come to bring gospel"– good news – "to the poor."  And lightning hit my heart at that moment. And I realized that we are evangelical Christians. We believe the Bible. We believe in Jesus. We absolutely shun those who would attempt to find nuance and twisted and tortured interpretations of scripture that they would use to master all other broader interpretations, to find some kind of big message that they want to flout. We absolutely scorn such things, and yet somehow we commit to the mental gymnastics necessary that allows us to abandon the least of these, to abandon the poor, to abandon the immigrants, to abandon those who are in prison.
      I listened to Bernie Sanders as he said he wanted to welcome the immigrants and give them dignity, as he said he wanted to care for the sick children and mothers and fathers who do not have health care, as he said he wanted to decrease the amount of human beings who are corralled like cattle in the prisons, as he said he wanted to do justice for those who have nothing and live homeless. And I remembered the words of Jesus who warned his disciples that there will be judgment, and on that day he will look to his friends, and he will say "Blessed are you for you cared for me, for I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was in prison and you came to visit me, I was homeless and you gave me shelter." And his disciples said, "When did we do any of those things for you?" And he said, "If you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for me."
      Those words echoed in my heart as I listened to that crazy, hoarse-voiced, wild-haired Jew standing in front of the religious leaders of the Evangelical Movement, calling us to account, as a Jew once did before, telling us that he intends to care for the least of these, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to care for the sick, to set the prisoners free.
      I wouldn't be much of a Christian if I didn't stand on the side of gospel for the poor, because, the last time I checked, that's where my master Jesus stood, and I'll stand with Him. And,  for now, that means I stand with Bernie Sanders.
      I'm leaving out a lot here. I recommend the whole thing. -----
      Update: reddit user How_Suspicious has posted a complete transcript on the SanderForPresident subreddit. (I could have saved myself a lot of work.)



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