Why I And Many Others Are Disgusted With White Evangelicals, One Of Worst Groups In U.S.

This cartoon pretty much sums up the hypocrisy of white
evangelicals nowadays. 

Liberals and Democrats have in the past several years tried to figure out how to deal with Evangelicals.

Especially white ones.

Is there something Evangelicals have in common with liberals? Is there a moral compass that liberals and evangelicals have in common?  Can these groups work together?

Um, no.

Now that Donald Trump has been president for a year, a lot of white evangelicals have shown their true colors. Gone is the assumption they're a "moral" group, even if a lot of us disagree with their positions on gays, feminists, abortion, marriage and such.

White evangelicals, at least the ones who speak for them, are hypocritical creeps. We are better off totally ignoring them. Or better, relentlessly mocking them.

For one thing, it's clear that probably a majority of white evangelicals are also white supremacists.

I can't state this case any better than John Pavlovitz, who recently penned a real stemwinder of a case against white evangelicals in a scathing open letter to them. It's so worth the read.

This is how he opens his devastating missive:

"I need to tell you something. People have had it with you.

They're done. 

They want nothing to do with you any longer, and here's why; 

They see your hypocrisy, your inconsistency, your incredibly selective mercy, and your thinly veiled supremacy. 

For eight years they watched you relentlessly demonize a black President, a man faithfully married for 26 yers, a doting father and husband without a hint of moral scandal or the slightest whiff of infidelity."

Pavolvitz, along with so many of the rest of us, noticed the black president Obama never got prayers, was never welcomed to their Christian organizations, was never given the benefit of the doubt, never received any kind of affirmation of his humanity, by white evangelicals.

And then there's Trump.

"You openly give a 'mulligan' to a white Republican man so riddled with depravity, so littered with extramarital affairs, so unapologetically vile, with such a vast resume of moral filth - that the mind boggles. And the change in you is unmistakable,. It has been an astonishing conversion to behold: a being born again."

Trump's sin, lack of repentance, and lack of compassion doesn't matter. Which is why they rest of us have had it with white evangelicals. As Pavolvitz says, we recognize the toxic source of your duality.

"They see that pigmentation and party are your sole dieties. They see that you aren't interested in perpetuating the love ofGod or emulating the heart of Jesus.

They see that you aren't burdened to love the least, or to be agents of compassion, or to care for your Muslim, gay, African, femail or poor neighbors as yourself."

No, white evangelicals live smugly, often in their gated communities.

White evangelicals always have felt a sense of persecution. That everybody is out to "get" them. Everybody wants to supposedly squelch their religious freedom.  What they really want is for everybody to be just like them, to do just as they say and do. There is no room for dissent, in their warped minds. Nobody can be who they are, what they are, in white evangelicals' mind. It's their way or the highway.

Screw you on that one.

One of the most despised leaders of all these white evangelicals is Tony Perkins. (To be fair, the white evangelicals love him.)

A former evangelist, Frank Schaeffer, was recently on A.M Joy - Joy Reid hosting -  and described Perkins as follows, and he could also be describing the bulk of these morons:

"Tony Perkins forgot his own theology and replaced it with a theology of revenge on people he disagrees with politically. That's what's going on here. This is the revenge of white evangelical right-wingers. Who they want to punch in the mouth is not just black Americans but, to put it in the words of the President of the United States, those who live in shithole countries. So they're willing to put up with anything when it comes to moral degradation to see those ends achieved."

White evangelicals seem willing to suspend any kind of disbelief to push their racist, pro-Trump narrative.  So they double down on their odd, awful beliefs. Which isn't good for this movement's future, let me tell ya.

Some white evangelicals, to their immense credit, see the rot and hypocrisy and are leaving this group. Five Thirty Eight noted:

"After dominating much of American politics for the past 40 years, white evangelical Protestants are now facing a sharp decline. Nearly one-third of white Americans raised in evangelical Christian households leave their childhood faith. About 60 percent of those who leave end up joining another faith tradition, while 40 percent give up on religion altogether. The rates of disaffiliation are even higher among young adults."

Five Thirty Eight goes on:

"......white evangelical population in the U.S. has fallen over the past decade, dropping from 23 percent in 2006 to 17 percent in 2016." Five Thirty Eight also notes the remaining white evangelicals are aging, with their average age definitely going up.

One more bit of info from Five Thirty Eight:

"Other research also suggests that one of the prime motivators for leaving a religion is belief incompatibility. A 2016 PRRI stuy found that the most common reason people give up on their childhood faith is that they no long believe in its teachings. Twenty-nine percent of Americans who have left their formative religion explictly mention negative teachings about gay and lesbian people as a proximate cause for their disaffiliation."

Things will only get worse for the remaining white evangelicals. People who can think logically are leaving, and the hypocrisy they've shown under Trump will only make the stampede out the door faster.

White evangelicals will alway think the larger society is "out to get them." Unlike the past, it's actually true now. Few, if any people want to force them to give up their beliefs. It's just that not many people want to join their bandwagon. Not many people will be upset if the evangelical movement withers and dies.

Politicians of all stripes quaked in their boots if evangelicals objected to them.  Going forward, political leaders will dismiss them as an unimportant fringe group. As long as Trump remains in office, white evangelicals will have a voice and influence, just like other white supremacists.

After Trump's gone, white evangelicals will be out in the political wilderness. Where they belong.

Ultimate Instant Karma For Package Thief. Ouch!

The package thief in this photo is about to get a very ]
painful dose of karma, and the video has gone viral. 

The video at the bottom of this post is really a sight to behold.

The video shows a UPS driver leaving a package at a Bothell, Washington doorstep. Moments later, a car pulls up and a woman is seen in the security video running up to the house to grab the packages.

She starts to run off across the lawn to the waiting car. We all know, though, that it's wet this time of year in Washington State and the grass is sopping wet.

Inevitably, our thief slips and falls on the grass, the packages scattering.

What gives us all a sense of mean satisfaction is the woman is definitely hurt. Badly. She can't get up.  If you look closely, it appears her ankle might be broken.

Her accomplice has to come out of the car, and carry her as she howls in pain. After the guy dumps the woman in the car of course he comes back to grab the packages. Gotta complete the theft, ya know.

The boxes that were stolen contained medication. If it's pain medication, this woman will need it.

Police say they've identified the woman in the video, so I imagine an arrest is pending. Sucks to have a hurt leg in a jail cell, I bet. Normally I don't laugh at injured people, but this poor excuse for a woman fully deserves to be mocked.

Here's the video:

Understatement Files: Missouri Senate Candidate Probably Not Getting Womens' Vote

Courtland Sykes is either a wacko U.S. Senate candidate
from Missouri, a parody, or the star of a really bad
1980s soap opera. (He looks like the later)

There's quite a dodgy guy running for the U.S. Senate from Missouri who has some interesting campaign positions that are of interest to women, to say the least. 

Before I go on with this candidate, named Courtland Sykes, quite a few people, me among them, suspect this Courtland Sykes character might be some sort of parody.

It doesn't help that his supposed girlfriend is named Chanel. Courtland and Chanel. It sounds like characters from some really bad 1980s soap opera.

More on my suspicions about a hoax in a minute.

But first, our supposed candidate, Courtland Sykes, had quite a statement up on Facebook the other night regarding "women's rights."

"I want to come home to a home cooked dinner every night....One that she fixes and one that I expect one day to have daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives."

Oh, but he was just getting started. He soon escalated into a fever pitch.

He goes on to tell us that feminists have an agenda they "made up to suit their own nasty snake-filled heads."

Sykes also hopes his would-be daughters don't grow up to be "career obsesses banshees who forgo home life and children, and the happiness of family to become nail-biting monophonic hell-bent feminist she deveils who shriek from the top of a thousand tall buildings they are (sic) think they coud have leaped in a single bound - had men not been 'suppressing them'. It's just nuts."

Wow! I wonder how long it took Sykes to think up that wild sentence!

I'm sure this all will endear Sykes to women in Missouri who just love being on the receiving end of 19th century-style sexism.

One question Missourians are asking is, "Is Sykes for real?" That's not all sarcasm. He might not actually be real.

The Riverfront Times, relying in part on reporting from the Kansas City Star, had this murky bit on Sykes:

"His LinkedIn page says he....attended Harvard University's Extension School... earning a degree in 2014. That page also had listed him as a graduate student at the University of London, but when the Star questioned him about that, he said he had to put those studies on hold to focus on his campaign.

The LinkedIn page was edited to remove the college shortly after. he is listed as the managing director for a military consulting firm named Talosorion, but he tells the Star that the firm currently has no clients."

Supposedly, Sykes recently moved from Arkansas to Missouri. But even that is questionable.

The Riverfront Times goes on:

"Even Arkansas seems flummoxed. The Arkansas Times notes the 'fudge factors' on his resume, and even goes so far as to ask its readers if anyone knows who the guy is."

Also, conservative consultants in Missouri who would jump at the chance to help a Trumpish  candidate like Sykes say they've never heard of this moron.

Of course, Sykes, if he really exists, hasn't got a prayer in this election. First, he has to get through the Republican primary. Missouri Republican State Attorney General Josh Hawley, who has the benefit of being considered sane, is the frontrunner, and Hawley will be the likely Republican to run against incumbent Missouri U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskell.

McCaskell, for her part, says she's not particularly worried about Sykes.  I can see why.

Burger King, Of All Outfits, Has The Best Net Neutrality Explanation

In a viral video that demonstrates the need for internet Net
Neutrality, a Burger King franchise angers customers by
modeling their service in a way that mimics an internet
without Net Neutrality. 

Net Neutrality, something important that the FCC just overturned, is a hard nut to explain. It's especially difficult to explain why it's important, and why the FCC's decision will affect you and me.

Essentially, Net Neutrality is a principle that prohibits internet service providers from speeding up or slowing down access to content, or blocking it altogether, from any application or website you want to use.  

The fear is big corporate internet providers - think AT&T and Verizon, that ilk - will slow down or block content that either they don't make money from, or contain messages they don't want you to hear or see.  Or they'll make you pay exorbitant prices for content you want to see, but is not normally a moneymaker for them.

Net Neutrality was how the internet worked under the Republican-led FCC, under its chairman, a former Verizon lawyer, decided to do away with it. 

Quite a few people in Congress, including a number of Republicans, are interested in enshrining Net Neutrality back into law. 

Of course, the internet service provider lobbyists don't want this. These internet providers are even trying to block or close down municipal internet service providers. There's now something like 750 local municipal providers around the United States.

 The municipal ones are usually run by local governments, or panels, and have faster download speeds and are less expensive to consumers than internet access offered by the big companies.

So anyway, it's up to the rest of the public to apply pressure. How do you get the public to sign on to such an esoteric idea?

Burger King, of all companies, has found a way to do that with its flagship Whopper sandwich. Burger King put out a wonderful video that demonstrates how a lack of Net Neutrality works.

People who want a Whopper right away would have to pay a whopping $26. Or, if you don't want to pay that much, you'd have to wait a ridiculously long time for your Whopper, even if there's no logical reason to make you wait - the Whoppers are already ready to serve. Or, in the video, if you don't want to wait for the Whopper, you can settle for a chicken sandwich, though you probably don't want chicken.

The video is brilliant. It is so worth the watch:

Scandal Botox Cheating In Camel Beauty Contest. Really!

Yes, there's such a thing as camel beauty contests, and yes,
these big money events have cheating scandals

I've never though of camels as particularly beautiful animals, but we all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So it is that in Saudi Arabia, they have camel beauty contests. They do! And these are high stakes contests, right up there money-wise, it seems, with Miss Universe or something like that.

According to The National UAE, about $57 million is awarded to winners of the camel beauty contests and camel races. Nearly $32 million just goes into the beauty pageants.

Who knew?

With any high stakes competition, you have to worry about cheating scandals and one just erupted.

The National UAE reported a veterinarian was caught performing plastic surgery on the camels to enhance their beauty, such as it is. Camels were given Botox, and underwent surgery to reduce the size of their ears. apparently, small, delicate ears are a sure winner.

Reports the National UAE:

"'They use Botox on the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,' said Ali Al Mazrouei, 31, a regular attendee at the Gulf festivals and son of a top Emirati breeder 'It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it's like 'Oh look at how big that head is. It has big lips, a big nose.'"

These camel botox injections and collagen filters only last for a few months. Breeders buy these camel beauty contest winners only to realize weeks or months later they'd been conned by a cheater.

In all, twelve camels were disqualified from the recent Saudi camel beauty show because of cheating. I guess it's all a Middle Eastern version of the Russian Olympic doping scandal, huh?

Texas Judge Is Latest Evangelical To Go Off The Rails

This weird Texas judge tried to overrule a jury by attempting
to get them to declare a defendent innocent because God
supposedly told this judge she was innocent. Riiiiight. 

I'm confused by some very conservative, so called Christian evangelicals who seem to think Donald Trump is some sort of hero.

It's a little hypocritical for them to embrace a guy who among so many other things, seems to have cheated on his wife with a porn star.

But, the more corrupt evangelicals (not most of them, but the ones in power, it seems) love Trump because it looks like he'll let them do anything they want. Or so they think.

The latest person who thinks he can get away with a lot is a Texas judge who recently try to get a jury to find woman accused of trafficking a teen girl for sex innocent. The reason? God told him to intervene, said the judge.

Judge Jack Robison told the jury, "When god tells me I gotta do something, I gotta do it,"

Or not. The jury ignored the judge, thank goodness and went with the evidence instead. The panel convicted Gloria Romero-Perez and she was later sentenced to 25 years in prison. The judge was also forced to recuse himself from the trial's penalty phase.

The jury foreman, Mark House said he and others on the jury either filed or intend to file a complaint with the Texas Judicial Conduct Commission.

Mark A. House, jury foreman in the weeklong trial of Gloria Romero Perez that concluded Jan. 12 has already filed a complaint. His filing states:   "Judge Robison came into the jury room during deliberations two times and informed the jurors that he did not believe the defedent was guilty or should spend 25 years in prison."

Talk about trying to tamper with a jury!

Let me put it as bluntly as possible. When somebody informs you that God told you to do something, that person knows deep inside they shouldn't do it. They try to throw you with the "authority" of God.

The only people who buy that argument are the people saying God made them do it. Right, Roy Moore?

Let's hope sane minds prevail in Texas and they get rid of Judge Robeson once and for all.

"Crisco Cops" Coating Philly Telephone Poles Because Football

"Crisco Cops" coasting telephone
poles in Philadelphia with
vegetable shortening because NFL

If you're in Philadelphia today, don't touch the telephone poles.

I know that's strange advice, but really, listen to me. Because of the NFL utility poles in Philadelphia are now coated, in of all things,  Crisco.   

No, they're not going to bake pies on the telephone poles, and it's not some weird sex thing. No, the issue is that late this evening, the Philadelphia Eagles will face off against the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship.

Especially if the Eagles win, there will be big celebrations in Philadelphia. In the past, such parties involved lots of people climbing utility poles.

Which of course can be dangerous. A drunk guy climbing a pole and getting entangled in the wires above? With a crowd below. Yeah, you can see the problem.

So, if the telephone poles are coated in Crisco, people won't be able to climb them so easily. They'll be too slippery. So the "Crisco Cops" were out today, coating the poles with the vegetable shortening. 

Of course, I think Crisco can burn, so I'm not sure what will happen if people light the poles on fire. You never know what people will do.

So, if your favorite team wins, enjoy the celebration. Just try not to climb telephone poles, whether or not they have Crisco on them.