Category: election 2016

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DISARMING CHRISTIANS

WARNING from the Editorial Board

Readers who dislike reading opinions they don’t share might want to consider reading something else. The essay below may not be suitable for rigid thinkers. Readers who enjoy rallies where angry crowds chant lock her up! lock her up! and USA! USA! are doubly cautioned.

Billy Lee believes that all religions and all governments — including our own — are crafted by elites to enhance their power. Religion and government sometimes work together like good cops and bad cops to maintain the order of society by both reassuring and intimidating those few citizens who may sometimes feel reluctant to cooperate.

Billy Lee thinks that all economic systems, whatever label they may carry, are nothing more than variations on slavery. One possible exception is democratic communalism — a system that has been thoroughly discredited.

Systems where wealth is shared more or less equally are no longer taken seriously, at least in the United States, because our elites want nothing to do with them. It’s a reason why our leaders have strangled Cuba with an embargo for 55 years with no end in sight.

Income equality is not one of their core values. Everyone knows that alpha-males don’t share well; they fully intend to take everything they can until the end of time. Billionaires rule. They always have. Some historians say that Alexander the Great was worth 304 billion in today’s dollars. Alexander reigned in 330 BC when a billion dollars was considered real money.

Fortunately, this essay isn’t about economics. Who wants to get all depressed about stuff they don’t understand and can’t do anything about?  No, this post was written to address a much deeper problem — the takeover of our country by lunatics.

Billy Lee is suggesting that the conservative evangelical church in America is infested with men who are pushing a political agenda that might very well be opposed to the vision of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who they say they serve; indeed their aim seems to be to acquire political power; some prominent males have recently bragged that they made a deal with our newly elected president to help them better impose their will on America and the world.

According to Billy Lee, these leaders hope to guide the citizens of the United States into accepting a Christian form of what has all the appearances of a kind of Sharia Law. The president-elect promised Jerry Falwell Jr. and Franklin Graham that he will help them; he is on-board.

Falwell, who attended the recent GOP convention, described during his speech a deal he made with Trump to repeal the 1954 law that forbids tax-exemptions to church groups who finance the campaigns of political candidates aligned with their pet projects, favored laws, and constitutional preferences. In return, Falwell promised to help deliver the presidency.

The Editorial Board

(The Board wants our readers to know that the churches pictured in this essay were designed and built by members of Billy Lee’s family.)

DISARMING CHRISTIANS

Let me begin by saying my hope is that the Bible verses below will provide readers with some context for the observations and insights that will follow.

Politically conservative evangelical leaders believe that every word in the Bible is literally true; the Bible is inerrant and doctrinally pure; anyone who doesn’t bow before the concept of biblical inerrancy is a heretic and opposed to God.

Evangelical pastors cannot be ordained in almost every denomination in the United States unless they sign legal documents that swear allegiance to inerrancy as one of their core beliefs.

Yes, many who sign these documents have their own definitions of what inerrancy actually means. Pastors argue with one another all the time about it. Some sign what they call “conscience clauses” to keep them out of trouble with meddling denominational titans and even their own parishioners.

But enough inside baseball.

The fact is, I too believe the Bible is inerrant. Just to make sure readers understand, I’m not a theologian; I’m not a pastor or an elder or a deacon either; I’m a pontificator — a lowly pontificator. I don’t even belong to a church. I go to church. My wife makes me.

But I haven’t signed any dotted lines. I once wrote — a couple years ago when I actually was a communicant member of a church — about the subject of inerrancy, which I hope readers will revisit. In it I asked this question:

Where does this idea about ”inerrancy” of Scripture come from since the Bible was written by men and gently hides mankind’s many prejudices and ignorant ideas about history and science? If Scripture is inerrant—and I believe it is—its truth must come from God alone. God makes Scripture true, even when human logic, common sense, and evidence seem to speak otherwise.

I would argue that my support of inerrancy gives me the right to challenge other Christians; to argue that the separation of church and state is necessary and essential if we are to protect our freedoms from conservative politicians posing as clerics, who are busy seizing control of churches and denominations in backwoods America.

It’s not just the backwoods. These political fights are going on in cities and college towns, urban centers and sophisticated suburbs. I side with reasonable people who don’t believe they have all the answers. I side with tolerant, open-minded thinkers who are kind to people who have been ostracized and hated because they don’t fit certain stereotypical molds that conservatives seem to favor.

I certainly don’t think of myself as a heretic or a trouble-maker. In fact, I would like to believe that I am in submission to the will of Christ Jesus; I know I have experienced the forgiveness of my sins and the healing power of God’s love. God has given me gifts, which I treasure.

Anyway, it’s time to get on with this essay. Is there a better way to start than by quoting Bible verses? As is the convention in many Bibles, words in red represent the spoken words of Jesus. Sometimes I use the color purple to call attention to Scripture I hope readers won’t overlook. Hold on tight, everyone. I am about to take readers on a wild ride. Here goes:

Leviticus 17:10  I will set my face against [anyone] who eats blood, and I will cut them off from my people.

Leviticus 7:27  Anyone who eats blood must be cut off from their people.

Leviticus 19:27  … Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.

Deuteronomy 25:11  If two men are fighting and the wife of one […] seizes [the other] by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

Psalm 118:11  They surrounded me on every side, but in the name of the Lord I cut them down.

Isaiah 9:17  …everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks folly.

Isaiah 29:20  The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down — those who with a word make someone out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

Isaiah 53:12  … he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Daniel 2:34-45  While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands.  … It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands…

Hosea 6:5  …I killed you with the words of my mouth…

Luke 22:33-38  But [Peter] replied, Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and death. Jesus answered, I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.

Then Jesus asked them, When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing, they answered.

He said to them, But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. For it is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’, and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.

The disciples said, See Lord, here are two swords.

That’s enough!  Jesus replied.

John 6:53-59   Jesus said to them, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. … He said this while teaching in the synagogue….

John 6:66  From this time forward many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

John 12:47  … I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.

John 16:2  …the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.

John 16:8  When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world [Satan] now stands condemned.

I have much more to say to you, more than you can bear. But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

jesus-tomb
The Rock-Cut Tomb of Jesus is located in the East Talpiot neighborhood — three miles south of the Old City — in East Jerusalem. The body of Jesus has never been found.

John 20:1  …while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone [rock] had been removed…

1 Peter 2:16  Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.

OK. We’ve collected enough Bible verses to start a Hallelujah cacophony. Readers must by now have a lot of questions. Don’t worry. Hundreds of thousands of people have made careers answering questions about the Bible. Answers abound.

One obvious question is this: the Bible seems to forbid the eating of blood; if drinking blood gets one cut-off from God’s people; if it results in a kind of excommunication, why does Jesus insist that anyone who wants to live must drink his blood or die?

How does anyone drink the blood of Jesus, anyway? What does it mean — it must be true — what Jesus said; does this death cure work? Is his promise — that eternity lives inside his blood and that we must drink it to live — inerrant?

Here’s another question: Is everyone wicked? Really? Every single person? Is everyone a fool? Does everyone speak “folly”? Is there no one that anyone can trust? Even oneself?

How about this: Will folks who label people they hate with a single word — words like crooked (Hillary) or lying (Ted) or corrupt (____) or fraudulent (____) or dishonest (____) or hypocritical (____) or dumb (____) or killer (____) or guilty as hell (fill in the blank, those who dare) — will they really be cut down?

Will the ruthless vanish and mockers disappear? Really? Does anyone believe these promises of the Bible? Do haters and mockers ever truly fall?

Here’s a good one: the title of this essay is called, Disarming Christians. Disarming is a nice word, right?  It means charming or beguiling or winsome. Imagine meeting charming, beguiling, winsome Christians. It would be kind of nice wouldn’t it?

Disarming can also mean taking away someone’s weapons of war. Christians are armed to the teeth with weapons of war, some of them. They carry guns in open-carry states; some carry concealed weapons with special licenses that permit them to bring guns into schools, libraries, and government buildings — even churches.

But let’s not talk about right-now. Let’s not talk about today. Let’s talk about those yesterdays long ago when the deadliest weapon a civilian could carry was a sword.

Jesus must have thought his disciples were unarmed. At the end, just before He was arrested and crucified, he told them to sell their coats and buy swords. Lo and behold, the whole lot of them were carrying weapons, it turned out. 

See Lord, they said. Here are two swords right here!  They might have added, How lucky we won’t have to sell our coats, stop what we’re doing and make the hard walk to buy swords from a bronze-smithy.

The followers of Jesus were already transgressors. He lived among them just as Isaiah 53:12 (in the list above) said He would. No one needed to be told by Jesus to be bad.

It didn’t matter whether anyone knew or not. In fact, Peter used his sword to hack the ear off a youngster named Malchus — the servant of the High Priest. It’s about as low as a follower of Jesus could go, unless denying Christ three times when He needed him most counts for anything.

The Bible says we are free but warns us to not use our freedom as a license to hurt people in ways we would never hurt ourselves, even when we are able to hide bad behavior to avoid corrupting those who are always watching.

Really? Does the Bible mean to say that people can’t, as the old joke goes, pray to God for bicycles but when they realize God doesn’t work that way, steal them instead and pray for forgiveness? — in Jesus’s Holy Name of course.

Evangelical political operators, as they always do, lobbied the public during the election to vote against the Christian presidential candidates and go with the one person who has no history with any church — the one who refused to divulge his health records, his taxes, or his foreign entanglements.

These operatives urged followers of Christ Jesus to vote for a man who married three women — two, by the way, grew up in prominent, communist families from countries once hostile to the USA.

Trump made a deal with evangelicals; he made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. My essay Satan Surrender sorts through some aspects of the arrangement.

Jesus said: I was born for one purpose; to bear witness to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth hears my voice. Pilate asked him the famous question: What is truth? He didn't answer. Hours later, the Romans executed him. British actor Robert Powell portrayed Jesus in the 1976 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, which won many awards.
Jesus said: I was born for one purpose; to bear witness to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth hears my voice.  Pilate asked Him the famous question: What is truth?  He didn’t answer. (Click link to view video.) Hours later, the Romans executed the Christ. British actor Robert Powell portrayed Jesus in the 1976 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, which won many awards.

Peter believed he was Christ’s most loyal supporter; his most devoted disciple. Jesus once called him Satan and told him that he was unreliable. Peter may have been crude, possibly foul-mouthed; some Bible writers portrayed him as impulsive and on occasion violent.

It seems to me that the conservative evangelical church in America is a lot like Peter. Jesus will build his kingdom; he will someday make a spectacular entrance onto the world stage, which he promised to do 2,000 years ago.

I think the date is still on. I don’t think we’ve been stood up. Christ Jesus is on his way. But Peter came to a bad end according to some accounts, and the conservative evangelical church and its blind-guides will as well if folks don’t wake up and make changes.

One change we can make is to turn off television whenever possible. People must know that most shows are unwatchable for those who struggle to live a holy and righteous life. People watch OAN and FOX; they visit internet web-sites like Breitbart, etc. Is it any wonder that many in the land of the free and the home of the brave are suffering from a psychosis of evil?

Perhaps the answer to my earlier question about the blood of Christ Jesus is to ask another question: Is His blood so holy and precious — powerful to save — that any other blood is poison by comparison, even defiling to the sensibilities of an Almighty God?

The sacred life of Jesus and the fearful agony of its end — suffered on the cross of a Roman executioner — brought a flood of life into the dark world of sinners, who Jesus said God loves more than Him; God gave His Son over to a crucifixion, of all things — to settle scores for all time for the terrible things we’ve done against Him and against each other.

Let’s face hard facts: people sometimes do bad things for which they deserve to die. Everyone it seems has someone who wants them dead; everyone is hated by someone; and everyone at one time or another hates enough to kill. That’s reality as I see it anyway.

In my mind, after years of reading the Bible and listening to sermons, I have developed some fantasies. Sometimes I imagine things that could never happen, but imagining their possibility gives me a kind of emotional release.

God forgive me. Sometimes I think I hear Jesus crying out on the cross in a loud voice; he’s yelling at me: Kill me, he screams. Eat my flesh; eat my clotted blood; hurl your hate; do it now! I’m bleeding out and time is short….

Jesus’ head falls forward. He is quiet, and I am witness to the horror of hatred satiated and injustice served. His face in death is unrecognizable. I recoil at the thought of God; that He could unleash such terror against a righteous man.

God forgive me. More hallucinations. Jesus slurs his words and looks past me into the storm. Strike me until your hate is spent; strike until you exhaust yourself and can no longer lift your arms or even stand; fall into the mud and blood at my feet and eat your fill. Make yourself sick on your hate. It is finished.

My mind is a whirlwind, a tornado of confusion. Nothing seems real. Do you not see? Jesus is whispering, rasping. The wind howls. Thunder whipsaws the cross like a pendulum. His voice is a death rattle, I can barely hear. Everything is accomplished.

A soldier shoots out of nowhere and plunges a spear into Jesus’s stomach. The soldier twists the blade and yanks hard. He doesn’t look. He walks past and pulls at his vest for cover against the hail.

Your sins are forgotten! 

Did Jesus shout to a man who wouldn’t look at him? Sins forgotten. Or was he shouting at me? Was it the soldier snapping like a feral dog maybe at us both?  I couldn’t tell. The blood from Jesus’s wound pounds on me like a waterfall as I writhe in the mud and the rain.

Yell louder, I can’t hear, I scream back, because the storm is raging and I can’t hear myself above the thunder and the rain. I forgive you, I think I hear Him calling.

My mind is in fever. I don’t know what is real or if I’m in delirium. Is Jesus dead or not? Yes, he’s dead; of course he is. But I hear him hacking into the howl.

Get up! Yes, he is yelling loud, like a young man; a warrior. Now I hear him clearly. Find the brother and sister you hate; find the mother and father you despise — who like strangers lusted and misused you — who stripped you naked and beat you; find them; find them all; find the wicked people who ruined your life and forgive them.

I stagger to my feet. The rain is violent. It cleans my body completely. I look up at Jesus. His body is clean as well. His eyes are glazed by death. He doesn’t breathe. Water runs down his face and off the soles of his feet.

I turn and look into the storm. I’m cold. The temperature has dropped, and I’m really, really cold.  Find a way to love, I hear him murmur. Find a way to love the world we gave you; find a way to love everything in it including yourself, because we made you from the mud you puked in.

I want you to live, I say. He doesn’t hear. How could he? He’s dead. I love you, I say, under my breath.

The way, the truth, and the life — it’s what he said he was — sweet words everyone pretended to believe. No one knew what He was talking about.

I look up at Jesus for the last time. Death has a look that is best described by the word, horror. But Jesus looks like an angel in flight with his arms outstretched and his body washed clean by the storm. He is more beautiful in death than he ever was in life. 

You’re free, Jesus, I say at last.

You’re free. Spread your wings and soar. Fly away to wherever your heart lives, to whoever your heart loves.

You’re free.

Billy Lee

Post Script by the Editorial Board:

Knowing our writer the way we do, the Editorial Board has strongly admonished and chastised Billy Lee. We explained that his fantasy encounter with Jesus wasn’t an appropriate ending for an essay about disarming Christians.

It’s not good enough, we told him. It doesn’t meet the high standards of the Pontificator. We insisted that he give Jesus the last word — not the fantasy Jesus that swims in his head, but the real Jesus; the Jesus of history and the Bible.

Here is what he picked — something Jesus said — from Christian scripture, John 16:33.  

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Jesus is the Christ — the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Billy Lee insists. It sounds like words he stole from somewhere. 

It’s true.

With any luck at all, maybe this time Billy Lee got it right, for once.

Who knows?

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BAD THINGS

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19: 33-34

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.
1 Corinthians 14: 1

Dad could tell the future. He was a Navy pilot who took off and landed on aircraft carriers, sometimes at night. His time to defend America was long ago. Aircraft carriers were then new to war, and pilots crashed their planes and helicopters a lot. Until the kinks got worked out over a period of many years, the Navy lost about one out of four pilots to mishaps at sea.

Dad predicted a number of crashes. Soon the pilots in his squadron wouldn’t fly if he got a “bad feeling.” His commanders respected him. Over time, good fitness reports and promotions led him to command an anti-submarine, jet-helicopter squadron during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Afterward, the Navy rated his squadron (HS-1) the safest combat aviation group on America’s east coast. Not one man was lost during his command.

Dad went with his feelings; when he got that “bad feeling”, he always flew the mission himself, or led it, rather than risk the lives of his men. Dad rose rapidly in the ranks, holding many important positions, not only in the Navy but also at the NSA (National Security Agency). Near the end of his career, a president appointed him to lead another intelligence agency not known to the public.

Navy fliers I talked with who knew dad said he was the best pilot in the United States Navy. He could fly anything under any conditions. Navy officers don’t lie. It’s against their Code of Conduct. Of course, I believed every word.

My dad was fearless to the very end of his ninety-one years of life. He once ate a half pound of spoiled cheese, because it was a gift, and he refused to embarrass the giver. The cheese smelled the way cheese smells when it has been ripened at the bottom of an army latrine; I almost threw up from the stench, but dad gulped it down like porterhouse steak. He grabbed the cheese with both hands, tore it in half, and inhaled a deep breath to savor the aroma. I was amazed that the rancid mess didn’t instantly kill him.

Today, many people seem to be having apocalyptic fears. People I don’t know well, who seem normal, have told me about vivid dreams they have had about good and bad things. Sometimes their visions trouble them. The thought has crossed my mind that a lot of folks are teetering on the edge of insanity. It’s sad and troubling.

The election added a lot of stress to people’s lives, did it not?  Election tampering by foreign intelligence agencies ran rampant and was obvious to anyone who was paying attention. The United States has an unfortunate reputation for election tampering in other countries, which goes back many decades; our recent election seemed to give other countries a golden opportunity for pay-back, which some inflicted brazenly — perhaps as a warning for us to back-off; to stand-down. Who knows?

Anyway, the election is done; Trump won; Hillary won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. In the countryside of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan (among other states) Trump won by huge margins never before seen in the free world, ever. His biggest leads came in districts with electronic voting machines. These margins overwhelmed the leads racked up by Democrats in urban areas.

It was a strange election that lasted a very long time. Many “unprecedented” things happened during the contest that no one in America has ever experienced before. Is it any wonder that some people feel unhinged by an outcome that makes no statistical sense; by an outcome no one saw coming?

Republicans now control the entire federal government; they control enough state governments to enable easy passage of amendments to the Constitution, should the GOP decide to change America in that way.

Some people want to know: what’s coming next; what sudden shocks might rock their world?

How would I know?

Yes, I took the time to compile a list of bad things that could happen. Yes, it may have been a waste of time; maybe my effort might have been better spent helping the poor.

(FILES): These recent file photos show the ten Republican presidential candidates who will appear August 6, 2016 on Fox News for the first US presidential debate of the 2016 Republican primary cycle. Top row from left: Billionaire real-estate tycoon Donald Trump; former Florida governor Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker; Florida Senator Marco Rubio; former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Bottom row from left: Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Kentucky Senator Rand Paul; Texas Senator Ted Cruz; New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; and Ohio Governor John Kasich. AFP PHOTO / Files
With GOP leaders like these, what things could possibly go bad?

It’s possible that none of the bad things in the list below will happen. Maybe some will. My contribution to understanding the future is simply to point out things that have a chance of happening, which people may not have considered, or yet read about, or even shared (if they have thought about them).

My blog is read by not very many people; stilI, I felt compelled to write these “heads-up” warnings to help any curious humans (or bots) who might accidentally stumble onto my essay; to open the eyes of the few and the lucky, so that they might better understand what’s coming next; to inoculate some of them — especially the people I love — against the despair that can overwhelm any one of us when we find ourselves ambushed by the bad things in our future.

So here is my list of BAD THINGS. I might add to it from time to time if my imagination runs amok, or freaked-out people tell me scary stuff.

Here it is:

— The First Family refuses to live in the White House.

— Blacks and women start disappearing from news shows, replaced by white men.

— Athletes and entertainers step forward to confess: yes, they voted for Trump.

— Evidence emerges: The birth certificate was faked. Congress starts an investigation.

— The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is overturned.

— The military draft of young people is resurrected.

— The USA drops a neutron bomb on a city for the very first time.

— The United Nations disbands.

— Russia reestablishes its control over Eastern Europe.

— The Philippines makes a military alliance with China.

— Donald Trump resigns.

— Mike Pence becomes president.

— A hot year kills hundreds of millions.

— Many popular foods become unavailable.

— The president’s wife reveals that he is gay.

— The Mueller investigators reveal that the new president is an agent of the Russian government — hand-picked by Paul Manafort.

— A major volcanic eruption inside the USA kills hundreds of thousands.

— The Post Office is privatized.

— The Veterans Administration is privatized.

— Social Security is privatized.

— Medicare is privatized.

— Prisons are privatized.

— Public education is privatized.

— Tax deductions are eliminated, raising taxes on the poor and middle-class.

— Inheritance taxes are eliminated, locking-in a permanent aristocracy.

— Unlawful assembly is redefined: three or more unrelated people who gather in a public space for any purpose other than private discourse shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, unless they have in their possession a permit signed by the president of the United States.

— A 1954 law denying tax exemptions to churches who endorse politicians is repealed.

— Church attendance plummets.

— Charitable giving plummets.

— Inflation rises to 22% per year.

— The banking system collapses.

— Stock markets close.

— Congress declares misdemeanor unlawful assembly a felony.

— The WALL is retooled to restrain fleeing Americans.

— The Constitution is amended to eliminate all forms of naturalization to block any pathway to citizenship for children bred by foreigners. 

— An insect species is destroyed by a gene-driver released from an unregulated lab.

— Chipmunks are rendered extinct by a second gene-driver accident.

— Internet access is placed under federal regulation.

— SCOTUS hands over abortion policy to the states.

— SCOTUS rules that businesses have a constitutional right to choose who can buy their products and services, and who cannot.

— State governments add lithium to city water supplies to raise the spirits of unhappy citizens.

— Congress mandates that electronic nano-chips be injected into the buttocks of every person to help ICE track, identify, and differentiate people’s movements and immigration status.

— Congress declares that felony unlawful assembly is ”from this time forward” a capital offense.

— The 2020 election is postponed until ”we can figure out just what the hell is going on.”

— GOP controlled state legislators amend the constitution to fight terrorism; they rescind the Bill of Rights.

— Cruel and unusual punishment replaces baseball as our country’s most popular spectator sport.

— Selfies by folks jumping off bridges and skyscrapers go viral on social media.

 Billy Lee

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TRUMP

Statement: The Billy Lee Pontificator Editorial Board

This essay is a collection of Facebook rants that Billy Lee wrote and later deleted, because he is a coward and feared readers might turn on him; even stone him to death. Billy Lee deleted his tantrums from Facebook, yes, but he copied and pasted them into what he thought was a secret file on his blog site.

Billy Lee has no secret files; not any he can hide from us, anyway — his Editorial Board.  Nuh uh…No way…. We got to reading his ”secret” files the other day, and guess what? His Trump file was pretty good.  

We decided to tell Billy Lee to stand up; to act like a lion, not the mouse he so often seems to be. Publish this stuff, we told him. Even Billy Lee Junior and Fannie Jeane agreed. They talked him into it. They really did. It was them two, not us.

So here goes: Billy Lee said we could publish his warnings about the orange-man — who he fears will destroy the country we love if he doesn’t make some changes to his deplorable personality. Billy Lee insisted that we encrypt the name of ”orange-man” to protect our site from harassment by Trump trolls and bots. No problem.

The Editorial Board

Note: On September 18, 2016 Billy Lee removed the encryption we used to hide his essay from web search-engine spiders. He told us that he wants to stand (or maybe crash and burn) on the words he wrote. NO FEAR!  he choked between bouts of episodic projectile vomiting. NO FEAR!

Note: On November 9 (11-9) news outlets declared Trump the winner of the 2016 presidential election. We wish our new president the very best. We pray that he will reassure all Americans that he loves them and will serve with the humility and respect for human rights and freedoms that his high calling demands. One way to start is to apologize to the civilians (non-politicians) he insulted and falsely accused of crimes and human failings during his campaign.
The Editorial Board

Trump

Ted Cruz of Texas took many evangelicals away from Trump. For this, we must thank him for his courage. His sacrificial act at the Republican National Convention brought wrath from the Trump goons, but he was trying to save America from making the worst mistake in our history. God is good.

Editors Note: (November 19, 2016) Exit polls now show that Trump received the largest percentage of evangelical votes, ever. 81% voted for him; Hillary Clinton received 16%.

ted-cruz
Senator Ted Cruz says he is a follower of Jesus. A Trump surrogate called Cruz a ”Zika virus.” Cruz refused to endorse the GOP presidential candidate because the orange-man slimed his wife, among other insults.

A top Trump super Pac leader called Senator Ted Cruz a Zika virus. The GOP doesn’t want him. Good riddance to the Zika virus. The rhetoric reminds me of Hitler: the way he painted his detractors.

Editors Note:  On Friday September 23, Cruz tweeted that he would vote for Trump to honor a promise he made before the GOP convention to support the nominee; Hillary Clinton was too liberal. His ”non-endorsement” lasted two months; it ended two days before the first presidential debate. The Pontificator endorsed Hillary Clinton on February 10, 2016. 

I’m feeling good vibes about America tonight. Our neighborhood sounds like the happiest war zone anyone could ever imagine. [from a July 4th Facebook entry. The Editors]

God is healing our country, apparently, even when we can’t see it, some of us.

All we have to do is love and forgive. The rest is easy. Be confident and do what’s right. That’s the goal for summer and fall and into the elections. All else is up to God, whose angels protect us twenty-four seven.

Ted Cruz, you are a beautiful man. Thank you for what you said and did at the GOP cross-burning. They called it a convention, but you knew better. 2,500 delegates showed up; 18 were black — less than one percent.  

Nobody in leadership attended; not the Bush family; not the McCain’s; nor the Romney’s — not anyone of integrity, good will, and national stature. It took bravery, Mr. Cruz, and you showed it. May God bless and protect you.

My take away is this: these are very sad days for Trump and his family. He loves America, he says, but he’s lived inside a bubble of privilege his entire life. He doesn’t understand which way the wind blows, and he seems dangerously close to a heart attack every time he speaks. (He’s 70 years old.)

Despite his words, which some take to be patriotic, he and his friends plan to wreck America (much like Bush W. almost did) by making the country a hostile, unfriendly place for people who want to use the freedom granted by its Constitution to warn us of our follies.

The people who support Trump, many of them, behave on the internet like vicious animals (apologies to my furry friends in the animal kingdom). Team Trump seems to carry a lot of race-hate in their hearts as well as hatred for my gal, Hillary, who I love. Log onto the Internet and go to their Twitter feeds, anyone who doesn’t believe it. Hillary Clinton is Mother Teresa compared to many of them.

Editor’s note:  On January 6, 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report (click this link), which concluded that agents of Russian intelligence created bots on social media to intimidate and suppress Hillary Clinton supporters. Billy Lee received threats on Twitter from a few of them.

Despite all this hate, many Christian pastors and opinion leaders have jumped on board the Trump train — if you ask them privately, which I have. It disturbs me to hear pastors defend Trump; they say he ”accepted Christ” a few months (or years) ago; yes, he behaves badly; we must give him the benefit of every doubt — he’s a ”baby Christian” after all; he needs time to grow.

gott-mit-uns-german-belt-buckle

It reminds me of the excuses religious leaders gave Hitler, who not only claimed to be a Christian tasked to carry out God’s Holy Will but encouraged his minions to stamp the words, “Gott mit uns” on their military-issued belt-buckles.

God is with us, Team Hitler chanted as pastors and congregants alike took the world to war and caused the deaths of nearly 100 million people in a futile and absurd quest to exterminate the progeny of ”those people” they blamed for the Crucifixion of Christ. To add context, the crucifixion was a state-execution by the Roman Empire of a rogue rabbi carried out over two-thousand years ago.

Today the Jesus-haters are Muslims, they tell us. We are supposed to elect a candidate who says he will exterminate them — the really bad ones anyway plus their families — at least for right now.  Later … well … we’ll see about that — after we figure out just what the hell is going on.

What is going on — what’s wrong with America — Is this: our elites aren’t carrying their weight; they aren’t supporting the people in the countries that protect them. They are — many of them — decadent, immoral, insensitive, and entitled.

Trump is a billionaire. No matter how well-intentioned, he is the last person we should pick to lead our country.

On the RNC twitter feed, a trumper challenged me for posting the following:

“A few minutes ago on Fox News Congressman Darrell Issa said Hillary was 72 years old. She is 68; Trump is 70. Turn FOX NEWS off.”

The emotions of the haters are high right now. It’s probably a good time to get off the Internet and let these lunatics implode on their own. I’m a coward anyway. Until today, I didn’t have the guts to challenge them. I was too scared.

I must have blocked at least 100 tweeters so I could follow the Democratic convention on Twitter without seeing grotesque images and reading threats in the feeds.

[As of the day of this posting, Billy Lee has blocked over 3,000 Trump lunatics.  The Editorial Board]

The amazing part for me was to learn that Twitter was also blocking crazies. What I blocked were trumper-nazis who were somehow getting by the censors.

What I learned is that it doesn’t matter if Trump is good or bad. Who knows? — he might be a Christ follower — some Christian leaders say he is. What matters is that he and his movement are unleashing the dogs of war on the American people. These dogs stalk the Internet; they worship guns; some have tens-of-thousands of followers.

They say vicious things; they make veiled threats and not so veiled threats. They post disgusting images. They rally around Trump with confederate and American flags; they carry guns; they ride hogs and choppers. They’ve got it all figured out.

The cure for what’s wrong is violence, they believe. They embrace the cure. They worship cruelty. They behave like bullies. They take no prisoners. They show no mercy — at least on Twitter.

In the real world outside Twitter they might be little-old-ladies in combat boots texting away on iPads inside nursing homes for all I know, but I block them anyway and pray that their hero never makes it to the White House.

lock-her-up-at-2016-gop-republican-convention
Trump supporters worked themselves into a frenzy at the GOP convention. They chanted, ”Lock her up! Lock her up!”  They never explained why.

After the GOP convention, I felt more confident he won’t win.  

Lock her up! Lock her up! his delegates chanted. It sounded to me like, Crucify her! Crucify her!

Only haters scream words like these. Sometimes they get their way. Haters locked up Christ Jesus and killed him, right? Some people said, he did nothing wrong. Some said, he loved others. He healed people. He lived a perfect life.

To paraphrase Hillary Clinton: What difference did it make?  Right now, I’m not sure about the results of the approaching election. Some polls show that Trump will be president.

The Russian mafia is working with the GOP to take down Hillary, some people in the intelligence community report. It’s a nightmare scenario.

During a debate last year, Trump explicitly said that he’d met Putin while the two of them sat backstage waiting to appear on 60 Minutes.

”I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes; we were stablemates,” Trump said at the time.

Trump insisted this summer that he doesn’t know Putin. He’s never met him.

Trump married two women from communist countries — his first wife, Ivana and his current wife, Melania. The one non-communist he married, Marla Maples, bore him a child out of wed-lock. He later married her.

Marla and Donald divorced before a sunset-clause in their prenuptial agreement expired. Marla got nothing — a reported 2 million dollars out of the many thousands-of-millions Trump had accumulated.

Has anyone visited Trump Twitter feeds to see who his acolytes are?  I did.  I saw thousands of bots with 5 followers and 25 tweets flooding feeds with pro-Trump, anti-Hillary nonsense. It was annoying and scary.

I also found Trump worshippers, some with tens-of-thousands of followers. I blocked the worst of them — the ones with pornographic images of Hillary, or assault weapons, or threatening messages in their bios.

People are afraid of Trump and his rabid cult of followers; he promises to enable cops to become even more aggressive than some already are.

Is it any wonder that the Donald has zero-percent support among black citizens who must endure a militarized police-state that the USA has engineered to suppress righteous rage?

People are afraid to advocate for what they know in their hearts is right, because GOP thugs scare them. Most white Americans are not accustomed to being scared; to experiencing fear; they aren’t in the habit of self-censorship to protect the people they love (except at work, where disagreements with owners can cost folks their jobs).

We can’t let fear stop us from speaking out. We can’t let Trump thugs terrorize us into silence — not while we still have a chance, no matter how slim, to stop them. 

Here’ something to remember:

After the Russians captured Hitler (to be historically accurate, no one ever claimed responsibility for finding him), German citizens said they knew nothing about concentration camps; they were shocked when the allies forced them to walk through the slave-labor camps where six million people toiled and died, many by poison gas and immolation.

After Trump is elected, we won’t hear about the bad things that are happening in our country. It isn’t going to be on television. People are going to disappear, and we won’t know why or how.

Trump will muzzle the press (some are saying that his surrogates already have), but we won’t know. A nation that can’t figure out FOX NEWS is not going to understand sophisticated attacks against democracy by people who are truly evil.

It’s why we have to speak up and vote. We have a chance to stop the rise of fascism in America. We have to take the chance we still have.

Tony Schwartz wrote Trump’s Art of the Deal.  He spent 18 months at Trump’s side following him around to listen to conversations, phone calls, and observe relationships. He wrote the book; Trump signed it. Trump and Schwartz split the money 50/50.

Like Trump, Schwartz is a ”tweeter” who I started following recently.

tony-schwartz-art-of-the-deal-2
Tony Schwartz made millions from the sale of the book he wrote for Trump: The Art of the Deal. He is warning voters that Donald is a sociopath.

Schwartz now says: I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.

Schwartz says he wishes he titled his book, The Sociopath.

What bothers me is that people who have read Art of the Deal believe they know Trump. The writer says no — they read a book designed to sell a lot of copies and make money, which a ghost writer penned. (The writer was Schwartz himself.) 

Tony Schwartz didn’t seem to believe that Trump would run for president someday. He now regrets the bad thing he did for money.

It’s too late. But it’s good that he is sorry.

Can I spend a few moments discussing the race riots that occurred in Milwaukee this summer? Milwaukee is relevent to this essay. 

I spent four weeks in 1974 living within the limits of this Wisconsin city. Being a Navy kid, I had spent time in many places both inside the USA and outside — in Europe and Asia. I remember thinking at the time that Milwaukee was the most racist place I’d ever seen. I couldn’t understand why people didn’t object.

Here are some reasons:

In 1974 socialist Germans who hated minorities ran the city. They would have loved their fellow German, Donald Trump, if they knew him, which is possible  because he was the son of Fred Trump, the German billionaire developer who built 27,000 segregated rental units in Queens NYC and was rumored to be the richest American. His son — in his late twenties at the time — was already wealthy and making a name for himself in Manhattan.

The people I worked for in Milwaukee told me that the police were able to prevent blacks from coming into the white areas by using traffic stops. I never saw a black person while I was there. But I heard a lot of racist talk from whites.

Blacks made nearly half the city’s population.  I heard white people talk about how bad they (the blacks) were, but I never saw any in the month I lived and worked in Milwaukee. Remember: 1974 was six years after an assassin murdered Martin Luther King and  ten years after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. Segregation was illegal.

Today — 43 years after — only one city in America has more poor or more homeless than Milwaukee. It doesn’t shock me that the city experienced race-war this summer. It doesn’t surprise me that the city crushed the insurrection and that we no longer remember it, most of us.

America’s beer supply remains safe and sound. 

I am afraid for the black people in Milwaukee, because as bad as the national-socialists mistreated minorities when I visited, the current leadership demonstrated this summer that they are capable of worse. 

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency will reduce risk to racist supporters who hope to suppress minorities. 

Like I said earlier, I’ve been on Twitter. I’ve read the feeds. Under the right leadership, a genocide is possible. Some would say we have a slow-burning genocide unfolding right now.

Trump is unleashing the dogs of war; dogs who destroy civilizations. With almost three months to go, how will anyone patch the breach in the dam that holds back barbarians armed to the teeth with weapons of war? Go to any gun range and watch Americans practice. 

Wake up. Everyone. Take a stand now. It will be impossible to make a difference once we are standing behind razor wire waiting for our turn in microwave ovens. These monsters are not going to stop with blacks.

They will move on to the journalists and people they think are radicals. Eventually, they’ll burn the unfit, the retarded, the disadvantaged and of course, the Muslims.

Then they’ll show their true colors: they’ll go after the Jews; people with birth defects; autism; bad breath; body odor; torn jeans; the list of defects and moral failings that bother them will get longer, not shorter.

Somewhere along the line, the attacks on Christians will begin. Some say the attacks have already started. The take-downs of Ted Cruz and John Kasich were the first of many to come; operatives will sprinkle the suppression of Christians into the mix like salt; no one will notice — not until it’s too late to do anything about it.

We’ve seen this movie before. It is the natural course of empires like Germany, Japan, Russia, ancient Egypt, Persia; and of course, ancient Rome — the list is long. We in America will be living in it soon if we don’t vote to stop it.

A billionaire candidate staffed by paranoids to advise him doesn’t need GOP money; he doesn’t need anyone’s approval; he doesn’t need to buy television time.

He has access to communication networks involving AM radio stations, private mailers, internet ads, and e-mailers to spread whatever conspiratorial excrement he chooses to dispel; he can easily discredit and defame reasonable people who might dare to defend our country and the shared values enshrined by our constitution.

evan-mcmullin-ex-cia-candidate-for-president-2016
Evan McMullin, ex-CIA official and presidential candidate.

Fox News, OAN, and Rush Limbaugh among others in this network have driven their stupid listeners into a psychosis of evil. It’s disturbing; I would say it’s terrifying. Even our CIA worries.

Evan McMullin, former CIA officer who is running for president, told Thomas Roberts of MSNBC that providing security briefings to Trump …is a threat to [national security], because he has been co-opted by Vladimir Putin, he is aligned with Vladimir Putin; he would not be able to secure a security clearance at even the lowest levels…he doesn’t know the first thing about fighting terrorism…

David Preiss, former longtime CIA briefer to the presidential candidates, told Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC that after the 2000 election the CIA continued briefings to Al Gore who they believed won, and suspended briefings to George W. Bush until a few weeks later when the Supreme Court stopped the election-law mandated recount of votes in Florida to give the presidency to Bush who CIA analysts believed was the loser.

If the CIA was correct about the election, it must have irritated its directors when Bush falsely claimed that the CIA told his staffers that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction — a lie that some believe began the unraveling of our country. The Great Recession that followed the stolen election and illegal war wiped out one-third of the accumulated wealth of the middle-class; you know, folks like me and my life-partner Bevy Mae.

I hope our readers will have the common sense to vote against Republicans at every level of government so we can set things right.

This summer in Dimondale, Michigan Trump told white confederate militia members from nearby Charlotte about black people. Speaking directly to blacks, none in the audience, he said: You live in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. What the hell do you have to lose?

The answer is: everything. The New York Times reported a few weeks later that Trump might be 650 million dollars in debt. No one really knows. Could they be right?  If true, it means that every black person in the USA has a higher net worth than the Donald.

Aren’t folks tired of predators running everything, ruining everything, wrecking everything, taking everything, and playing everyone?

As our Editorial staff has advocated for two years now, the United States must establish an internationally enforced limit to personal incomes and estate sizes — for the simple reason that unlimited wealth destroys self-governance, democracy, and the benefits of civilization which ordinary citizens want and deserve.

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Billy Lee believes incomes and estates should be limited to some reasonable ratio of the minimum wage. The reason: to prevent legalized looting of our institutions. People could easily buy expensive homes and remain well within the limits proposed by the Pontificator. The Editorial Board

The limits can be very high and do no harm. My suggestion has been to link the minimum wage to a maximum income and estate size; my recommendation is 1,000 to one for income and 20,000 to one for estate size; we’re talking about an estimated $20 million per year income limit; $400 million maximum estate sizes; inheritances might be limited to $5 million per inheritor.

Limits like these will encourage entrepreneurs but discourage looting like the kind we see going on in our financial sector. During the Bush administration a director of one of the stock exchanges drew an annual salary of $150 million. That’s crazy wicked.

Limits prevent isolated individuals who lack supporters from unduly influencing elections. Wealthy men like Trump won’t be able to get off the ground their drive-for-ultimate-power unless many other (hopefully reasonable) people get behind them at the start. Healthy democracies don’t need a Lone Ranger to rescue them.

The process we are witnessing now — where fawners and sycophants leap on board the choo-choo train after it has already left the station — shouldn’t happen in a democracy like ours. The stakes are too high.

The apparent nepotism of the Trump campaign demeans and insults the brave and free people of the most exciting country on Earth — the one country where ordinary people govern themselves; where the wealthy and the powerful don’t rule over us until we are able to thoroughly vet them; until they earn our consent by becoming transparent under scrutiny.  

Otherwise, it’s not right. We all know it.

Possession of wealth beyond certain agreed-upon, international norms should be a felony enforced by national and international courts. People who exceed limits could be given one (or possibly two) grace-years to turn over the excessive portion of their wealth to charities or the government — otherwise they spend a year in prison while the courts trim their assets to the lawful limits.

No one runs for public office after a lifetime of plundering and taking until they divest themselves to the lawful limits. 

How can anyone trust someone to hold high office who says they have accumulated 14,000 piles of a million dollars each? The person is either a liar or they aren’t. If they are telling the truth, someone should be asking, how does a person accumulate that much money without cheating people; without hoarding; without recognizing the needs of the poor and miserable who are all around; who refuses to help by sharing what they plundered?

The truth is — for anyone who has the courage to face it — behind every great fortune is a dark secret; sometimes many dark secrets. It’s true. Folks can believe it, or not.

How can anyone who understands the difference between right and wrong even consider casting a vote for the current GOP candidate? How heartless are some Americans?  Very, according to some polls. Yes, more than a few people are uninformed. So what? Ignorance is not an excuse. For those who don’t have time to investigate the candidates, I do. Take my word for it.

We are on the precipice of bad things. Unimaginable things. Men like Trump get worse after victory, not better. People are going to die. Seriously. Many of the people who support this sicko are gun nuts who are still fighting the Civil War. Consider the movement behind the Donald when making the decision to participate, to vote, and who to vote for.

Who leads America is a serious issue. Election is no joke. People who don’t vote share the blame if we get a bad result. We can’t elect men who cheat on their wives; who hate minorities; trash the environment; hunt endangered animals; lie compulsively; build casinos; fleece contractors; steal, cheat, and take revenge on anyone who dares to refuse to worship them and the ground they walk on.

We can’t elect men who are unable to tell truth from fiction; who won’t apologize to people they’ve hurt; who spread preposterous conspiracy theories; who destroy people they think are disloyal to their self-centered vision. We just can’t.

The candidate’s children stand to inherit windfalls — if they stay on message; if they hang on to their seats on his train. We are not going to hear dire warnings from them — though they know better than anyone what a hairball he is.

Billy Lee

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SATAN SURRENDER

 

From the New York Times:

For those puzzled about why so many evangelical leaders were willing to endorse Donald J. Trump, the most openly irreligious major-party presidential candidate in our history, Jerry Falwell Jr. provided the answer in his singularly graceless speech at the Republican National Convention:

”Mr. Trump has added a plank to this party’s platform to repeal I.R.S. rules sponsored by Lyndon Johnson in 1954 barring churches and nonprofits from expressing political free speech.”

Mr. Falwell assured his audience, ”Trust me, the repeal of the Johnson Amendment will create a huge revolution for conservative Christians and for free speech.”

Kevin Baker, New York Times Editorial, Living in L.B.J.’s America, August 28, 2016.

Kevin Baker is a writer for the New York Times and a recipient  of the James Fenimore Cooper Prize

Before anyone starts to read this essay, which was inspired by Kevin Baker’s editorial, let me offer a controversial truth, which could dissuade some people from reading further. Why waste time with truths that are disagreeable? some might be thinking.

Here it is: The United States is the one country on Earth where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is forbidden by law to conduct operations against civilians inside its borders. It’s the reason controversial people come here. The USA is a safe place for dissidents. The concept of freedom (whatever that is) has nothing to do with it.

In other countries, men and women who have run afoul of USA strategic objectives have sometimes disappeared. Enough said.

It’s a violation of US law to discuss the CIA and its associations with American institutions. I can’t be more specific other than to say that the CIA, like other super-sized organizations, must train and equip, house and deploy hundreds-of-thousands of people (the actual number is classified) to work for, with, or under its guidance. It’s a huge undertaking.

The CIA is TEAM USA. It’s big, and it’s complicated. It’s on our side. Some good people work there. Some of them would like to have more say about what happens here in America where we live. Enough said.

If you are still reading, let me get on with it.

Of the 195 countries on Earth, only 75 do not have intelligence agencies. Of the 120 or so countries that do, 15 to 20 conduct operations extensive enough to influence the policies of their adversaries and, yes, their allies. Influencing public opinion is a big part of what these two dozen intelligence services do — especially when conducting operations in competing democracies.

With most foreign intelligence agencies the United States keeps certain agreements that delineate the boundaries of acceptable conduct. Russian intelligence agents don’t assassinate our civilians, nor we theirs — things like that. The details of the agreements differ depending on the country.

The “Temple” or “Church” or “Mosque” — call it whatever — was always the primary institution used by intelligence services in the past to influence public opinion and monitor people’s behavior. Hundreds of books and histories have been written about it. Those who don’t believe, read a book; learn something.

I don’t want my essay to go off the rails, but let me remind readers about the Divine Right of Kings doctrine, the institution of confessionals, the Inquisition, and secret monastic orders imbedded in populations, and on and so on. These intelligence structures and systems existed in the past and persist in most major religions and denominations to this day.

Martin Luther King mug shot in Birmingham Jail in 1963 2
This is what the real Divine Right of Kings looks like. Martin Luther King Jr., Baptist Pastor, won the Nobel Peace Prize almost one year after Birmingham police took this mugshot in 1963 and jailed him. The kings who receive divine missions from God don’t always look like some Christians think they should. King called on the USA to repent of its sins involving segregation and racism. Like all prophets of God, haters killed him; his call remains unanswered to this day.

In the past, each country had its own state-sponsored religion. In many parts of the world state religions are still encouraged and supported.

In the United States, people fought a revolution to get religion out of government; it was an institution that the founders thought would rot our new republic from within by gutting the values of freedom-of-thought and speech for non-enlightened extremists whose purpose was earthly power, not the salvation of souls.

In the 1950s, a form of right-wing extremism got a grip on the American public that was truly frightening. (Remember McCarthyism?) It cloaked itself in the Constitution and the Bible. Its stated purpose was to defeat Communism, which it portrayed as godless and authoritarian.

What the leaders of the John Birch Society and other like-minded extremists wanted most was the political power to turn back trends that they believed would unravel the social order — trends like pop music (rock and roll), integration of the races, the rise of unions, voting rights for minorities, and things like that.

It’s why Lyndon Johnson, a powerful liberal Senator from Texas, tacked an amendment on a bill in 1954, when Republican Eisenhower was president and the GOP controlled Congress. Representative government would be ill-advised to permit charitable groups like churches to lobby for political candidates by spending their flock’s flood of tax-deductible money on elections.  

If folks want to hear a reason why this separation of church and state is important, look to media to see what has happened there. Many of our news-outlets are owned and operated by foreign nationals, for example.

In those few media outlets where foreign nationals (some dual-citizens) are not owners, the rest are billionaires; you know, the kind of people who own football teams.

Diversity of political thought among billionaires is notoriously limited; they have the reputation of Neanderthals; it’s why Congress set up public broadcasting stations like NPR — diversity of opinion might be a good thing, they thought.

In the year 2000, Fox News helped throw the election of Al Gore to the defeated George W. Bush. An Australian businessman and his Chinese wife owned Fox News. They each had an ideological stake in the outcome of the election. Their assault against the election of Al Gore became an exercise in bullying on a grand scale.

I watched Fox News in real time spew their venom and lies with an intensity that shocked me. After thirty-six days of lies and propaganda, on December 12, the Supreme Court stepped in where they had no legal jurisdiction and put an end to it — they stopped an ongoing vote recount in the state of Florida to avoid the long court fights and violence the folks at Fox News promised and delivered, in some cases, through their surrogates in the GOP.

The election result doomed America to suffer terrorism, endless war, and a financial collapse that sucked dry one-third of the money in people’s retirement accounts. The financial meltdown  led to world-wide destabilization, especially in Europe and the Middle-East.

Imagine Pastor Jerry Falwell Jr.’s church buying Fox News and pushing candidates and right-wing causes consistent with his twisted vision for America. It’s a lot of tax-free political power for a preacher.

With the repeal of the 1954 LBJ rules, these predator-preachers will multiply to become tens of thousands. The repeal will provide temptations to actors who might not necessarily be Christian or even religious to use the power of the church to corrupt our politics, establish a caliphatic vision, and seize power.

If these religious politicians get their way, they will create an American caliphate; a nation under a Christian version of Sharia law. They will make war between the world’s great religions more likely.

If nothing else, history teaches that wars over religion are bloody; always cruel. Read about the Crusades or Spain’s conquest of South America.

What bothers me is that leaders of religions or cartels (or foreign governments, for that matter) influence our discourse and choose our leaders. It doesn’t seem democratic, at least to me. It doesn’t seem to be a dynamic of governance that our founding-fathers would approve.

The hacking of secure computers and other information technology during the current election by hostile states is demoralizing; especially when Russian intelligence is directing it, as the Department of Homeland Security has said.

burning cross

Let’s face facts. Some in our country have gone over the edge. We have a billionaire, self-funded, running for president. He took control of the Republican Party by pandering for the votes of white supremacists (some call them the alt-right) who fly the Confederate flag in their front yards and on the back of their trucks.

Go to Charlotte, Michigan and drive through white, working-class neighborhoods, anyone who doesn’t believe it.

After WWII, Michigan was the northern state with the largest population of Ku Klux Klan members. White supremacists are obsessed by fire; especially burning crosses. People haven’t changed much in some places. Many supremacists plan to vote for the GOP nominee.

Worse, these haters adore the orange-man with floppy hair who married two women born and raised in communist countries allied with Russia. His current wife grew up in a province of communist Yugoslavia — renamed Slovenia in 1991. 

Give me a break.

The biggest intelligence coup a foreign government can achieve is to place a sympathizer in the bed of a powerful man — one who has publicly aspired to be president for twenty-five years. She only has to spill one secret at the right time to be worth her weight in gold; to change the course of history — and not in a good way; not for our side, anyway.

Melania Knauss Trump
Melania Knauss; born April 1970. Melania is 46. Her husband is 70.

Is Melanija Knavs (she Germanized her name to Melania Knauss) a Russian sleeper agent? Of course not. The idea is preposterous. Her father was a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which had ties to the Soviet Union. He administered a state-run business enterprise. No problems there.

But wouldn’t everyone sleep better at night if Donald turned over his tax filings, balance sheets, and income statements? Wouldn’t the country be reassured if he disclosed the details of Melania’s immigration to the United States and her personal history; especially the history of her life before he dumped his second wife (with whom he bore a child out-of-wedlock) and brought Melanija Knavs to America to become his third wife? The two married in 2005. Melania became a US citizen in 2006.

Clout craving Christians, like the Reverend Jerry Falwell Jr., seem to believe that they can make a Faustian bargain and come away with the power and influence they covet. They can make a deal with a man who seems to lack a track record in any church to turn their right-wing political agenda into an army for God.

NOTE BY EDITORIAL BOARD: On August 25, 2020 Jerry Falwell accepted a $10.5 million severance package from Liberty University to step down. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, he blamed his wife for the sex scandals that followed him pretty much everywhere during his tenure. 

It’s the offer Satan made to Christ during the forty days and nights Jesus lived in the desert without food or water. He got physically weak. His defenses crumbled. He lay in the dust weak and vulnerable. All he had to defend him were the words of Almighty God. 

Who knows the story?

… Satan took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give to you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. Jesus said to him, Get away from me Satan. For it is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. Then Satan left Jesus, and angels came to care for him. 

[from the book of Matthew]

Whatever this election is about, it should not be about power. Why not make it about doing what is right?

Why not make it about helping people and preserving peace? Make it about about forgiving and being forgiven. Make it about loving others — even enemies; especially our enemies.

Love wins.

Is anyone left who believes it?

Billy Lee

4 July 2018: The 2016 election is nearly two years past. Billy Lee asked us, The Editorial Board, to add an addendum to his essay. It’s a kind of warning lifted from the ancient scrolls of the Bible, of all places.

The more priests there were, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful. They feed on the sins of my people and relish their wickedness. And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both… A whirlwind will sweep them away… 

Hosea 4: 7, 8, 19

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Posted on

FREE TRADE

Click to go directly to essay.

CRITICAL UPDATE: JULY 18, 2016:

Billy Lee returned from vacation today to find his offices in shambles. It might take a few days to get our high-tech equipment working and to clean-up broken beer bottles in the offices and parking lot.

Apparently, Junior and Fannie Jean seized control of our web-site, fired our staff in absentia, and started publishing rogue articles, while we vacationed unawares at the abandoned Trump Casino in Atlantic City.

Billy Lee FaceTimed Junior on his cell-phone — just to see how he was doing (he was missing him, he said) — only to discover that Junior and his slut-girlfriend were drunk and partying with friends in our offices; celebrating what they thought was their successful takeover of everything Billy Lee has worked so hard to build during the past two years.

Junior seemed unsteady and agitated during the call, according to Billy Lee; he waved his iPhone round and round; he slurred his words; Billy Lee thought he might be seeing in the background an orgy going on; he demanded that Junior cease and desist; that he take his friends and leave the premises.

Junior and his Fannie threw a hissy-fit. Their feral friends trashed pretty much everything, including furniture; they even plugged the toilets.

Billy Lee does not know where Junior and his pals are right now, but he ordered us, his Editorial Board, to find Junior, somehow, and make him understand that he forgives him; that he wants him back — parking cars and emptying trash cans, just like old times. (Billy Lee actually broke-down crying, he misses his Junior that much.)

So, Junior, if you’re reading this, pay attention. The important thing — the most important thing — is that we, theBillyLeePontificator Editorial Board, are back. And we are staying. We’re not going anywhere. 

Junior, you can rot right now, wherever you are, for all we care. We don’t share the Pontificator’s misplaced confidence in your non-existent future. Our offices are an esteemed citadel of erudition and edification, not a sanctuary for your neurotic drive for drama and discord. You are a bozo-head. We hate you.

Yes, it’s true. Billy Lee told us not to delete your essay; and to leave Fannie Jean’s intro in place. We didn’t believe it at first; we didn’t want to — you shamed us, Junior; can’t you see that?  You and your putain malodorante humiliated us; you discredited the family; our organization; our equipe de freres-–yet Billy Lee summoned the grace to say he liked your styles.

That’s what he said. He liked your styles. Everyone knows you type with one finger and can’t spell your own name. If it wasn’t for your Fannie, you’d be useless. At least she can spell and type.

So how about this idea, Junior?

We’re leaving you and your girlfriend’s know-it-all, trash-talking essays in place. Billy Lee said so and unlike you, we do what he says because we’re loyal; we’re professionals; we’re team-players with skills and standards and values and born-in-the-USA work-ethic.

We type with all fingers. We understand spell-check. The mysteries of punctuation don’t intimidate us.

No, Junior, we aren’t going to kill you.

Your punishment is knowing that your essays will never be deleted; your essays are going to stand as permanent, unread, embarrassing reminders to every wanna-be; to every bonehead who lusts like you and your Fannie to control a famous blog-site.

Plots really do go awry; especially those directed against hyper-alert pontificators like Billy Lee.

The Editorial Board

My Very First Official Notification: (June 28, 2016)

Actually, Billy Lee — his writers and editors — are all on vacation right now until July 15. They left Junior in charge. He’s never been in charge of anything. He parks cars most mornings and empties waste baskets afternoons.

I’m Fannie Jean. My girlfriend and me hang with Junior, because we’re both hoping to get jobs at the Pontificator. Junior knows Billy Lee pretty good.

Yesterday, Junior asked me to kiss him for good luck and spell-check his stuff; he wants me to be his editor, sort of, because he trusts me, he says. Billy Lee never lets him write anything. He can’t spell, for one thing, but I respect him because he always tells the truth most of the time — at least to me and sometimes to my girlfriend.

With Billy Lee and the staff gone on vacation, Junior decided to publish something. Why not?  What’s the worst that can happen?  Get fired?  He already makes exactly $0 per hour so it isn’t like he’ll starve or anything. He lives free in Billy Lee’s basement and eats his food all the time so no worries. No worries at all.

We both have high school diplomas by the way but I used to crush Junior in spelling bees when we were in grade school together. Also, I twirled baton in high school marching band. So I’m completely qualified. So is Junior. He told me to spell-check his post so I did. It was pretty simple. I think he liked it. I’m an Editor now, he told me. It’s a dream come true.

Junior is a swell guy. He’s bona-fide. It don’t matter that he’s ugly and everybody hates him. My girlfriend is hoping to have the honor of working under him too some day if he’ll have her. Maybe, someday, he will.

We didn’t put any pictures in. No one trained us on how to do that. Junior’s dumb when it comes to hi-tech stuff. Anyhow, we published Junior’s very first essay with no one’s help below this note. Amazing, agreed? Junior said to warn readers that any spelling mistakes are totally my fault.

Fannie Jean

FREE TRADE

People wonder why Republicans control so much of the government when the majority of folks seem to dislike them. The most recent New Yorker Magazine contains an article, Drawing the Line, which explains how the process works.

The essay reminds us: in 2012 Republicans carried 3/4 of the congressional districts in Pennsylvania — though Obama carried the state by 300,000 votes and the Democratic congressional candidates garnered 100,000 more votes than the GOP.

During that same election cycle the Democratic candidate for senator in Michigan won his statewide race by more than 20 percentage points — Obama won by 10 points — but brazen redistricting by GOP Governor Snyder (famous for poisoning Flint City water) enabled GOP congressmen to win 2/3 of the state’s congressional seats.

Governor Dick Snyder put his newly acquired political clout to work by seizing control of nine cities — all having by some crazy coincidence black-majority populations; he in fact disenfranchised a million black voters. He then switched the source of drinking water for Flint city without voter consent and lead-poisoned thousands of residents, many of them children. But that’s another story for another time.

Violating basic constitutional rights of citizens never ends well. Throwing elections, like the Republicans did in Florida to deny Al Gore the presidency in 2000, or what they did in Michigan to redistrict voters and seize city governments that favored Democrats — pranks like these aren’t good for democracy. The melt-down of the Middle-East and the poisoning of infants are two concrete examples out of many where paranoia and disrespect for democracy and freedom ended in disaster for ordinary folks.

This un-democratic pattern is firmly imprinted into the majority of our state election protocols — almost always, it seems to me, by the GOP.

In the 2012 general election for seats in the House of Representatives, Democrats received nearly two-million more votes than Republicans, but the House Republicans secured a 33 vote majority anyway.

Imagine how big their majority would have been had the GOP received a two-million vote lead instead of the Dems. The Democratic Party might not have survived. Our two party system could have become one of the world’s biggest political jokes.

What does our un-democratic election process — some argue it is a corrupt process — have to do with free trade?  Here’s a question to ponder: Is anyone out there who thinks it is kind of strange that the party that advocates most vociferously for free trade and strict adherence to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights is now promoting a presumptive-nominee who advocates none-of-the-above?

The Republican nominee is an advocate of trade policies that are the exact opposite of free trade. Just a few hours ago (as I construct this essay) he read the seven parts of his trade policy from a teleprompter on CNN. He called it “smart trade.”

Anyone who has taken even a single college level course in macroeconomics knows that “smart trade” is a euphemism for “dumb trade.”  Smart trade works really, really well for business owners and oligarchs in the countries who practice it, while it degrades the wages and purchasing power of the vast majority of citizens who don’t own businesses.

It’s important for ordinary people to understand that during this election a fox is running for president of the hen house. We are the hens; the fox is the Donald. He is, he says, a billionaire who promised today in his carefully prepared policy-paper to renege on a number of trade agreements, which have enabled Americans over the last several years to buy inexpensive products built in third-world countries where wages are low.

What Trump plans to do (according to the transcript of his speech) is make it possible for his American billionaire pals to make more money by closing our borders to less-expensive products now being sold to us by overseas competitors. He seems to have forgotten one thing: we don’t have the labor force to make all the replacement products he intends to produce here.

It’s why he is building the wall. Yes it’s counter-intuitive. Readers who don’t understand should now squint their eyes and think really, really hard, until they get it. Trump hasn’t forgotten anything. He intends to use the wall to control the flow of South American labor — lots of it — into and out of the United States. The wall will enable him to keep the flow from getting out of hand; out of his control.

The wall will enable Trump to turn the flow of cheap labor on or off like a water-faucet to keep wages down while preventing our streets from being clogged with undocumented beggars who might otherwise end up stranded with no way home that doesn’t carry the risk of arrest.

Every worker who enters through the wall will have their picture taken and their fingerprints recorded with smart-phone-like ID apps. A swab under the tongue with a sterile Q-tip, and a DNA profile will complete the entry process. The word “undocumented” will disappear from our lexicon.

Trump is counting on what he believes in his heart is a truth about America. Most Americans are uninformed and easily manipulated, he believes. He actually said that Republican voters were stupid a few years back, when he wasn’t running for president.

If Trump tells voters that free trade is taking their jobs — if he tells this lie over and over — he knows that a lot of people might believe it; he might actually win the election. His family immigrated from Germany, where Adolf Hitler perfected the Big Lie technique to seize power. Hitler’s delusional thinking led to Germany’s destruction. Tens-of-millions of people in dozens of countries lost their lives.

It’s never good to be led by delusional liars, no matter how well-intentioned they insist they might be. It’s even worse to believe lies, especially lies that are used to manipulate people by playing on their fear of people who aren’t “us.”

The current trade agreements work very well for the United States, even when other countries cheat to make their products and currencies cheaper, because we can buy things for less. Under Trump’s policies, which he explained today, the cost of products is going to go up; American billionaires are going to become much more powerful than they currently are, because they are going to be better able to direct purchasers to their own (more expensive) products.

Average workers are going to get nothing except a lot of propaganda designed to make them feel better about a bad situation. (That’s where people like Rush Limbaugh come in — they agitate the hens to desperation when the fox is away; once he’s back, when he’s stalking the hen house for a meal, they help create a climate of optimism.)

The chorus of optimism could get loud, because all media outlets are led by people who have a lot in common with the Donald. Money and power make them happy; happiness can be contagious; especially for clucking hens, who have no clue how dangerous a fox can be. Most hens never see the fox that eats them.

Free trade works, both in theory and practice. It’s the first thing college economics courses teach. A typical course goes to great lengths to prove it to any student who is skeptical.

Free trade works even better when the other side cheats to “game” the system. That’s the beauty of it. We actually do better as a country, when competitors in other countries do the stupid and dishonest things they sometimes do to secure advantages for their elites, while they throw their working-poor under the bus. Our side gets to buy a huge array of inexpensive goods we couldn’t possibly produce on our own with our relatively small working population. Math, experience, and common sense prove it’s true.

Trump is advocating “smart trade” which is just another name for a system of tariffs and taxes, which work for individuals who own businesses in the countries where these tactics are used. They don’t work for average people, who must buy the more expensive products that these business-owners will offer under the protections of tariffs and rigged tax policies.

I hope people are smart enough to figure it out. The British are not going to do well in the coming years, and neither will we if we shoot ourselves in both feet like the British just did. Our billionaires will do well, but they always do well (don’t they?) and besides, they don’t live in the world where we live. If they did, we could visit a few of them, which we never will.

The walls that our billionaires live beyond are the very best high-tech-wonders money can buy. While we remain free (sort of), we should make a few tax-policy adjustments. Otherwise we will continue our drift into a world that is beginning to resemble ancient Rome.

It didn’t end well for Rome; it didn’t end well for anyone. Rome was a slave state, like the United States. It provided its common people just enough “bread and circuses” to prevent riots. The common people came to hate their country so much, they refused to defend it. Unwashed barbarians walked into Rome one day, and the world changed.

It took a thousand years to recover from that classical melt-down. The United States (and other industrial countries) have already exhausted Earth’s resources to the point that a quick recovery from a tsunami of military defeats that always follow economic collapse might not be possible; it might take thousands of years to get back to where we once were, if ever.

There is no such thing as a bad trade deal when those deals lead to trust, cooperation, and goodwill among the nations; when they improve the lives of hundreds of millions of suffering people; when they lead toward peace and away from war; when they bring love between peoples and turn aside the destructive burdens of hate.

Billy Lee Juniur

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