The [Falkirk C]enter, which launched last fall, equips convicted Christians with educational resources to preserve traditional American freedoms like religious liberty, limited government, free market principles, personal and national defense, and protection of life in all developmental stages.
Author and radio host Eric Metaxas to join Liberty University’s Falkirk Center for Faith & Liberty | Liberty University
I lament our strident political polarization. I really do. But I can’t help but think that it will be a very long time before I admire Eric Metaxas again — both for his support of Trump and his alliance with Jerry Falwell, Jr.
UPDATE:
Becoming Senior Fellow at a right-wing fundamentalist think tank looks statesmanlike compareed to this shameful display.
Metaxas will take some heat this weekend on social media, try to defend himself on Monday, and then continue with his Salem Radio program as if nothing has happened. There will be no consequences for this racist tweet because it will garner ratings. The Trump base will love it. Actually, it will probably do much to strengthen Metaxas’s brand. This is the current state of Christian radio.
If There is Such a Thing as Twitter Blackface, Court Evangelical Eric Metaxas Just Engaged in It
Add another few centuries to my disgust.
Best use yet for whatever this genre is
Remix to our Song Quarantine on the Album NO ENEMIES.
lyrics
this is live from the center of the self-imposed quarantine
mountain ranges gorgeous
contrasting with the horror scenes in hospitals
turn to the authorities?
impossible
ventilators finite supply so now the stocks are low
stocks are low
alleged leaders irresponsible
narcissistic tantrums run amok until my thoughts explode
soccer stadiums and hockey rinks turn into ICUs
the anchorman announces his infection on the nightly news
and now the camera man’s been eulogized
scuba-diver gear for all occasions
alcoholics saving everclear for the sanitizer
evangelizers blind to revelations
but it was never clearer who the antichrist is
in a crisis
praying for a righteous few right hand advisors
but no time to fantasize
so planet-wide we panic buy
but if you dream of genocide
prepare to see your war machines destroyed
and soldiers redeployed to bedsides for the quarantine
and from bed -sty to the Florida keys
lord please provide some respite
or Jesus christ some test kits
because we’re losing patience fast
we’re losing patients fast
nurses child hand stitching diapers into facial masks
now entire nations stand
ovations from the balcony
the outcome we design
sword to plowshare is the alchemy
don’t ever doubt that even less then 10 can form a crowd
and speak
and salvage life from death’s grip
and change the world palpably
so stay the hell home
clean your cell phone
bury seeds
cultivate sustainability from solidarity
and mutual assistance
calling out the price gouge
stalling all evictions
unless it’s from the white house
now focus on the frontline response and disadvantaged
to go beyond the bunker flags turn into bandanas
let’s purify the planet
let’s revoke the dirty standards
one cough can make Ivanka Trump vote for Bernie Sanders
credits released May 20, 2020 Mixed and Mastered by Brandon Whalen
I don’t even know what genre this song is. It’s tagged “alternative, alternative hip-hop, rap & hip-hop, Denver”.
Deepest distress
[The] dam’s owners are deeply distressed by recent events, and they have remained in ongoing contact with their dedicated personnel and apprised of the situation. Their primary concern all along has been the safety and welfare of the many residents of the Gladwin and Midland County, Michigan communities.
An attorney representing Lee Mueller, a manager of LikeWeReallyGiveAShit Hydro Power, LLC.
But remember that “LLC” means “Limited Liability Company,” he added off-handedly.
What if Trump isn’t lying?
“I used to worry that Trump’s serial mendacity might harm the nation,” Conor Friedersdorf writes. “Now I worry even more that he isn’t lying, but rather lacks the capacity to see errors in the most obvious falsehoods.”
Coronavirus: Is Trump Lying or Clueless? (The Atlantic).
I don’t often get to say “I told you so” to the world, but I told you that Trump’s malignant narcissism prevents him from accurately perceiving reality.
Nah, no thanks!
Stories I decided I really didn’t need to read: Britney Spears Issues Powerful Statement on Bangs
And today’s winner is …
Dana Milbank wins the internet today for If Trump likes hydroxychloroquine, he’ll love camel urine (The Washington Post).
“Obamagate” finally defined
One of the saddest things about Trumpworld is the apocalyptic exposure as hacks of people I’d thought sane, even exemplary. For instance, ‘Obamagate’ is here to stay
Hugh Hewitt so defines “Obamagate” (“The intentional interference with the peaceful transition of power”) that I fully expect Donald Trump to commit it after we vote him out of office.
Missing the point
Unlike Greg Laurie on Palm Sunday and Robert Jeffress on Easter Sunday, [Jack] Graham never acknowledged the fact that Trump was watching.
Three Sundays in April (Part 4) | the way of improvement leads home.
Fly on the White House wall report:
“I’m never watching loser Jack Graham again! All he talked about was stuff like Christ and evangelizing the world! He didn’t even mention me! FAKE GOSPEL!!!!”
Curdled milk or arsenic?
This column is really good. I’ve clipped more for myself than I can quote in “fair use.”
Please tell me why I should care whether Joe Biden is declining mentally when Donald Trump bottomed out morally long ago.
I’m serious. I’d rather drink milk past its expiration date than arsenic.
… Trump’s “perfect” phone call [is] not history. It’s harbinger. There are surely dirtier tricks to come.
To hold on to power, this president will do whatever it takes. And in the middle of all of this dying and impoverishment, it’s going to take a lot.
… At the end of the day, Biden can be trusted to do what Trump didn’t and won’t: stock his administration with qualified professionals. He could compensate for any supposed cognitive deficit with a surplus of talent.
Trump can’t fill his moral vacuum. By its nature, it prevents him from recognizing or caring about it. Confused is fixable. Rotten isn’t.
So let Trump tweet and bleat to his heart’s content about Biden as some blithering idiot. It’s not just over the top; it’s irrelevant.
Frank Bruni, I’ll Take Biden’s Confusion Over Trump’s Corruption (emphasis added).
Liberal bias, conservative abdication (and even sabotage)
Some fascinating insights by one of Rod Dreher’s readers:
[B]ecause conservatives aren’t interested in environmental policy, public health, etc., they cede those fields to progressives, which means those institutions develop progressive biases, which both repels potential conservative workers and makes it harder for them to advance, which increases progressive bias, and so on. And when conservatives DO get the chance to helm these organizations–and this is where Trump infuriates me more than almost anything else–instead of putting serious thinkers with a body of work and experience into those positions, they put in grifters or people who intentionally dislike the institution and want to weaken it. In some areas, this is an understandable if sad dynamic. But public health has been viewed as part of the magistrate’s job for as long as war and courts. Governments have been quarantining infectious disease since well before the United States existed. It is a CRUCIAL field, and it has to function, and conservatives cannot just bitch about how “well it’s full of liberals and has a liberal bias.” Yeah, public health will institutionally be biased a bit towards statist, central action. It will be skeptical of religious institutions as partners. But your county health department is as vital to your community as your local school district or police, and by ceding fields like public health to the progressives, conservatives have basically lost all institutional knowledge about things like public health. There is no viable conservative alternative to public health in this crisis–the entirety of it is “bunch of libs doing lib stuff! No to that!”
Masks As Condensed Symbols | The American Conservative (emphasis added).
I’ve been repeatedly encountering lately reminders of how we abstract fairly concreete things so we can analyze them, and a portion of what Rod’s reader said was one of those reminders.
This was one of the best things I read today insofar as it acknowledges institutional liberalism but indicts conservatives as co-conspirators.
Pandemic posturing & performance
Not one of the (conflicting) coronavirus conspiracy theories finds any basis for faulting the guy where the buck is supposed to stop. That’s the big tell that, taken literally, every one of the conspiracy-mongers is bullshitting. But:
We have a “don’t wear masks” movement that overlaps almost entirely with the “reopen immediately” movement.
There are only two possible explanations for why this might be. The first is that people are dumber than a bag of hammers.
The second is that when people tell you what they think about “reopening” and “masks,” they aren’t actually talking about the coronavirus. They’re telling a story about how they see themselves and their place in the world.
… [T]here is a non-trivial number of Americans—maybe it’s 1-in–10, maybe it’s 1-in–4—who … view the pandemic as … opportunity to posture and perform.
In part, this is an artifact of how successful the mitigation measures have been: Because the death toll has been held to the scores of thousands, many people have the luxury of talking and acting however they like without facing real-world consequences …
As America’s decadence has increased over the last 30 or so years and we have become—just objectively speaking—a less serious country, one of the stories we have told ourselves was that we could become a serious people again if we faced a big enough shock or a stern enough test. That the steely, strong, serious America of the last century—the America that survived the Depression and crushed the Nazis and put men on the moon—was still somewhere within us, just waiting to be awakened. That our true, best selves just needed a call to action, a grave, existential summons.
The reaction of this vocal and sizable minority to the pandemic suggests that this story might not be true, either.
Jonathan V. Last, The Curious Case of the People Who Want to “Reopen” America—But Not Wear Masks.
Well, that kinda got dark at the end, didn’t it?
Eric Metaxas can’t debate David French effectively so he’s bringing in seconds.
I couldn’t risk watching lest I exacerbate our tribalism. Maybe you shouldn’t either.
Is this “American Exceptionalism”?
I’ve never quite understood what American Exceptionalism is. It seems to shape-shift so that you contest it at your own risk.
Is this it?
Things that matter
- Sanity matters.
- Ability to see the world other than through one’s own narcissistic eyes matters.
- Kindness matters.
- Humility matters (and toxic shame isn’t humility).
- Resistance to batshit crazy conspiracy theories matters.
- Transparency matters.
- Truthfulness matters. It’s sad when someone lies so chronically that one can never, ever believe anything they say.
- Sobriety matters. Stirring up angry feelings in followers isn’t sober.
- Character matters.
Obamagate - no more excuse for feigned confusion
I guess I’m not the only one who was pretending to be confused about what Obamagate is, but the jig is up now because Donald Trump (who will become POTUS when nefarious Obama finally is toppled) has explained it masterfully.
The Real Victims
Biden’s proliferating internet ads hit two themes over and over: the pandemic and jobs, jobs and the pandemic. Those themes are easy to understand. They carry the power of truth. Above all, they are about the viewer: You are sick or scared, you have lost your job or your business—all because Trump failed to do his job.
Trump’s messages, by contrast, are all about him. You are sick or scared, you have lost your job or your business—but let’s remember who the real victim is. Me. Me and Michael Flynn. But mostly me.
David Frum, Trump Has Lost the Plot
Education on the assembly-line
Liberty University is pleased that it is very efficient and effective in the delivery of education in a God-honoring way and in a way that adds value to our students ….
Liberty University’s Statement on the Elimination of Its Philosophy Department (emphasis added)
I would not recommend a university that thinks it’s “delivering education” and “adding value to … students” like some damn factory.
Gibberish, or darned close
Democrats Accuse Conservatives of a ‘Dark Money’ Bid to Influence Judges is embarrassingly bad reporting:
- “The Federalist Society, which advocates strictly interpreting the Constitution according to what conservatives say was its original meaning ….” Well, someone needs to, but I don’t think the Federalist Society advocates for anything.
- “‘At the end of the day, the Federalist Society is at the center of a network of dark-money-funded conservative organizations whose purpose is to influence court composition and outcomes,’ said the letter ….” What letter? There has been no prior mention of a letter. To whom?
- “The ethics panel had proposed the ban in January ….” What ethics panel? You hadn’t said anything about any ethics panel. So was this a letter to somebody’s “ethics panel”?
The New York Times is so eager to feed the McCarthyite crusade, led by Sheldon Whitehouse, to cow the Courts, that it can’t be troubled to write coherently.
Devin Nunes, Secretary of Something
Devin Nunes is so odious that I cann’t understand why he hasn’t been named Secretary of Something in the Trump Kakistocracy.
Newsmakers vs. Reporters
[T]he C.I.A. has reportedly found no evidence of a link between the virus and the Wuhan lab. But at a White House briefing a few days later, a reporter from the right-wing website Newsmax told President Trump that under Barack Obama, the N.I.H. gave the Wuhan lab a $3.7 million grant. “Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China?” she asked.
Opinion | We’re All Casualties of Trump’s War on Coronavirus Science - The New York Times.
You don’t ask Donald Trump a question like that to get an answer. You ask Donald Trump a question like that to hear him turn it into another sound lump.
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