Trump

Republicans against Trump  - Trump reposted a meme with a fake quote by his former Wharton professor calling Trump "the smartest student I ever had." Here’s what Professor Kelly actually said about Trump: “‘Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!’”  Kelly also said that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything, that he was arrogant and he wasn’t there to learn.

Hartmann Report  - House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Congress, on behalf of wannabee “day one” dictator Donald Trump, is going to use every power available to him and his colleagues to nullify America’s court system:

“President Trump has done nothing wrong here and he continues to be the target of endless lawfare. It has to stop. And you’re gonna see the United States Congress address this in every possible way that we can, because we need accountability. … All these cases need to be dropped, because they are a threat to our system.”

“All these cases” and potential future cases include Trump:

— Sharing secrets with Russia that burned US and US ally spies.
— Inciting rebellion against the United States on January 6th.
— Running his businesses from the White House while multiple foreign governments poured cash into his properties in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
— Stealing national defense secrets from the White House, transporting them to Florida and New Jersey, and then lying to the FBI about them.
— Raping and then threatening and defaming E. Jean Carroll.
— Criminally obstructing investigations into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
— Conspiring with Republicans in multiple states to defraud the American people with forged Electoral College certificates.
— Threatening Georgia’s Secretary of State with criminal prosecution if he wouldn’t “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”
— Violating campaign finance laws on multiple occasions.
— Committing tax and insurance fraud.
— Extorting a foreign leader to manufacture dirt on his political opponent.

And those are just Trump’s commonly known crimes; we haven’t yet begun to dig into other consequential crimes Trump committed to become president in 2016 and during his four years in office. From his teenage years violating fair housing laws by marking rental applications for his father’s properties with a “C” for “colored” when Black people applied, to decades of business crimes including a fraudulent “university” and fake charity, to stealing money from thousands of employees and contractors, Trump has been a one-man crime wave his entire life.

Daily Beast - Despite it all, a recent Pew Research Center survey showed that two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants have a favorable view of Trump.  For years now, many Christians have sought to justify supporting Trump using various rationalizations, including comparing him to King David, a flawed man who committed serious transgressions yet was used mightily by God. Never mind that Trump never repented for his sins or even sought to change his ways; the gist was that God can use flawed vessels to accomplish His plans.

Interestingly, though, this argument seems to have morphed (in some quarters, at least) into a more sinister theory: that sexual sin isn’t just a stumbling block that can be overcome, it is proof of a man’s masculinity and even worthiness to be used by God. At least, that was my takeaway from a recent Politico interview with Samuel L. Perry, a sociologist of religion and author of the book Addicted to Lust: Pornography in the Lives of Conservative Protestants. He contends that many evangelicals see Trump as a “representative of a kind of masculinity that is so masculine that his sexual appetites cannot be contained. That’s almost a good sign,” Parry says. “In other words,” Perry continues, “[Trump is] not Mike Pence—a kind of asexual, Ned Flanders kind of Christian that is effete and ineffective. No, Trump is power personified. He is a warrior. And with that comes all of the temptations of being a warrior.”

Where Has the Trump Clan Been While Their Patriarch Sits in Court