Wow, just holy shit wow! People need to read and understand the movement going on and how deeply they have worked themselves both into the Republican party and into the power levels of government. Shit we are so close to this minority of religious zealots taking over the country while the majority sleeps unaware. I just posted about Egypt which was a secular country until an authoritarian leader took over and used religion to stomp out any culture advances and to advance their conservative agenda of returning to a tradition where only they had power. It happened in Russia where democracy got started and the culture was advancing and opening up, only to have an authoritarian take over and use religion to push everything back to a time when he / they had power over the population. We are in danger of not just regressing but becoming an active theocracy where all people will be forced to live under the doctrine and dictates of a religion regardless of if you believe it. You will pay taxes / tithes regardless. Your private life will be scrutinized to make sure you are following the dictates of the church doctrines. Welcome to the Handmaidens tale. Hugs

Lauren Boebert prayed for Biden’s death — and that’s not even close to the craziest item on the GOP wish list

By THOMAS LECAQUE

PUBLISHED JUNE 14, 2022 6:30AM (EDT)

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. (Getty Images)

At the tail end of last week, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado took the stage at the Charis Christian Center’s Family Camp Meeting. The event claims that, “you will hear God’s Word shared through speakers who have proven God’s Word,” and follows the speakers’ list with Acts 2:17-18:

And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

The apocalyptic context notwithstanding, Boebert’s talk made quite a splash because of her invocation of Psalm 109:8 in the context of praying for President Biden — “May his days be few and another take his office” — before laughing at the cheers of the crowd. This is certainly not a new use of that text by the GOP — Sen. David Perdue of Georgia invoked it against Obama in 2016, and it became an anti-Obama slogan featured on bumper stickers. With the passage divorced from its full context, people can laugh — but Psalm 109 is a war psalm, calling for the death of the man in question, with 109:9 reading “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” And that’s the point: As with so many aspects of contemporary Christian nationalism, give the line people can nod along to, and hold back the violent context. This is a prayer for the death of the president, and it is one we can honestly say has become normal for Republicans to use about Democratic presidents.

Maybe that’s a big enough problem that we should acknowledge it not just as a fringe phenomenon, but as part of the core problem of the contemporary, MAGA-infused GOP.

RELATED: From the Pilgrims to QAnon: Christian nationalism is the “asteroid coming for democracy”

Of course, Boebert has gone much further than prayers against the president. She met with organizers of the Jan. 6 coup attempt beforehand. She tweeted the locations of lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as insurrectionists were breaking into the Capitol. Like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Boebert and her family have posed for Christmas cards with AR-15-style weapons, with all of the problematic associations of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth with weapons designed for combat. These things — Jesus, guns and, with family photos, babies — are in fact pillars of the Christian nationalist branch of the GOP.

Georgia candidate Kandiss Taylor called fellow Republican Brian Kemp “Luciferian” and defined the First Amendment as “our right to worship Jesus freely — that’s why we have a country.”

Kandiss Taylor’s failed Republican gubernatorial primary campaign in Georgia was incredibly instructive on where the GOP now stands. Her campaign bus, which literally had “Jesus, Guns, Babies” emblazoned on the side, was just the most overt aspect of her Christian nationalist campaign. She told followers to pray for good sheriffs and said that corrupt ones would be executed for treason, strongly implying her belief in the extremist “constitutional sheriff” doctrine, which holds sheriffs are arbiters of what the law is in their counties, not enforcers of it. She said at one campaign rally, “We’re gonna do a political rally and we’re gonna honor Jesus. They’re not gonna tell us ‘separation of church and state.’ We are the church! We run this state!” — an aggressively Christian nationalist idea. Taylor called Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration a “Luciferian regime,” said that as governor she would release an executive order against the “Satanic elites,” and vowed to tear down the “Satanic” Georgia Guidestones.

Taylor even championed Native genocide, saying, “The First Amendment right, which is our right to worship Jesus freely — that’s why we have a country. That’s why we have Georgia. That’s why we had our Founding Fathers come over here and destroy American Indians’ homes and their land. They took it.” And, of course, she champions the Big Lie, saying on Twitter, “We are in a spiritual war … it’s God versus Satan. If GA goes down, if we let them steal the election from us .. we’re gonna steal it back if we have to.” That carried over to her own loss — despite losing the primary by 70 points, she refused to concede.

We might well ask: So what? Taylor was defeated by a staggering margin, as were numerous other Christian nationalist candidates. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, for example, lost his primary race in North Carolina after the Republican establishment turned on him. Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin embraced extremism, appearing with militia members in photo ops, administering oaths to them reserved for the state military, and appeared on video at the America First PAC meeting, saying, “God calls us to pick up the sword and fight, and Christ will reign in the state of Idaho.” She lost by 20 points. The Republican candidate for secretary of state in California, Rachel Hamm, said she decided to run for office because she was a prophetic dreamer, and because her youngest son, “a seer,” had found Jesus in the closet where she prays, holding a scroll telling her to run. She also lost and then claimed fraud, tweeting, “When you’ve fought the good fight, had an honest contest & lost, that’s when you concede. So, in my case, there will be no concession. Stolen elections=stolen Republic.”

And then there those who are still running. Greg Lopez, a GOP gubernatorial candidate in Colorado, believes in a blanket ban on abortion, rejects climate change, has said that the “educational system has now been converted into state indoctrination centers” and is a proponent of the Big Lie. He appeared, alongside a range of conspiracy theorists and far right figures, at the Western Conservative Summit at the beginning of the month. And he is not shy about his negative views of the LGBTQ community, a common theme among GOP candidates.

Mark Burns in South Carolina, for example, was an early Trump supporter in 2016. He’s an evangelical minister, a conspiracy theorist and pastor at the Harvest Praise & Worship Center. He’s running for Congress in the state’s 4th congressional district, and his platform reads like a grab bag of right-wing ideas:

Our right to bear arms is INHERENT, given to us by God almighty — NOT by any man;

If we don’t fix these elections NOW, America will be lost. Without open, honest, transparent elections, no other issue matters;

Life begins at conception;

Marriage is defined as between one man and one woman;

Critical Race Theory is Communist, anti-white Racism;

Vaccine and mask mandates are medical tyranny, and have no place in America;

The Pelosi budget opens the door wide open to full-blown communism.

And while these may sound like wild ideas, they’re nothing compared to what Burns says. He has called for reviving the House Un-American Activities Committee — yes, the infamous Red-hunters of the 1940s — to investigate LGBTQ “indoctrination,” which he calls a national security threat, saying that anyone engaged in it (or in gun control) should be tried for treason, and executed. Burns is literally calling for reviving the “lavender scare,” which has a certain evil logic because that, in essence, is where Christian nationalists have settled in the culture wars: anti-trans legislation, anti-LGBTQ rallies and attacks, and pushing to re-criminalize sexual minorities.

One South Carolina candidate literally wants to bring back the anti-LGBTQ persecution of the “lavender scare,” which has a certain logic: That’s where Christian nationalists have landed in the culture wars.

The Jesus part is obvious. The guns have been covered, be it Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano’s links to the apocalyptic Rod of Iron Ministries or the marketing of AR-15-style guns as sacred weapons. But babies may be the most important part of it. Attacks on the LGBTQ community must be understood in the context of right-wing ideas about sexual purity and a full-blown mania for forced birth legislation. Anti-abortion laws, attacks on contraception and attacks on sexual minorities are all part of a Christian nationalist assault on the nation. Movements like Quiverfull, taken from Psalm 127, have a number of political aspects alongside a belief system that shuns birth control and believes God will give them the right number of children. They literally believe that whoever has the most babies wins, and see that as the fundamental political and spiritual battle. One Quiverfull-affiliated author has said:

It is the womb that conceives and nourishes the “godly seed” who will come forth to be the light in the darkness and who will destroy the works of Satan in this world. God is looking for an army. … The womb is a powerful weapon against Satan. Some women fear to bring babies into this evil world, but this is one of the greatest reasons for having children — to be the light in this dark world!

Quiverfull is a Christian patriarchy movement, not only pushing female submission to husbands and fathers, and eschewing education and contraception to win the culture war — as Salon reporter Kathryn Joyce has detailed in her book “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement” — but also contributing to the protection of sexual predators in church communities and vigorously promoting the anti-abortion and forced birth laws being passed around the country.

I would also suggest, rather forcefully, that Christian patriarchy and Christian nationalism are linked to the “great replacement” theory, the deeply racist and xenophobic notion that nonwhite people are being brought into Western countries to “replace” white voters, in order to further a specific political agenda, leading to the supposed extinction of white people. As is well understood, this delusional ideology has fueled multiple massacres, including the mass shooting in Buffalo in May and earlier mass shootings in El Paso, Pittsburgh and Christchurch, New Zealand. Forced-birth laws and abortion bans are also part of this perceived demographic war, part and parcel with the spiritual battles Christian nationalists believe they are fighting and the very real stockpiling of arms, association with militia groups and opposition to government. PRRI’s August 2021 survey shows that “great replacement” ideas are growing in evangelical circles, and have only become more mainstream since then.

Religious violence is the bedrock of Christian nationalism, and Christian Nationalism is becoming the bedrock of the contemporary Republican Party. Forced birth laws, anti-LGBTQ legislation and the “great replacement” theory are all forms of violence, and all but certain to fuel the spread of more lethal violence. is violence. “Jesus, Guns and Babies” may seem like a laughable slogan, stripped of context. But it isn’t funny at all.

Read more on Christian nationalism and the far right:

White nationalists get religion: On the far-right fringe, Catholics and racists forge a movement

How Democrats dumped secularism, found God — and doomed Roe v. Wade

So who are “evangelicals”? And how did they become such massive hypocrites?

THOMAS LECAQUE

Thomas Lecaque is an associate professor of History at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. He specializes in the nexus of apocalyptic religion and political violence. He has written for the Washington Post, Religion Dispatches, Foreign Policy and The Bulwark, among others. Follow him on Twitter: @tlecaque.

Texas Republicans adopt far-right platform rejecting Biden’s election, reserving right to secede

The Texas Republican Party passed a resolution over the weekend rejecting the 2020 election, calling President Biden the “acting” president, and outlining policy goals that include overturning same-sex marriage and possibly seceding from the United States. CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns joins anchors Tanya Rivero and Tony Dokoupil with details.

Randy left an incredible video in the comments on a trans post recently. I thought it should have its own post. Hugs

Thank you Randy. Sad that it is needed but grand she felt strong enough to do the video in front of some people she knew hated her. Hugs

Hi Scottie;
I thought to add this link. Hope it’s useful.
Big hugs.
randy

What a bright light you are, Kai. 💕 Your poise and courage are far beyond your years. pic.twitter.com/gZRX5eq3pf
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 19, 2022

Scotties Playtime says:

June 20, 2022 at 5:42 pm EDIT

Hello Randy. An incredibly beautiful video. It is just sad that a child that young had to make it. It breaks my heart that a child her age understand people hate her for just existing. Hugs

A trans cartoon Ali Send me from the Nib. Thanks Ali. Hugs

Trans Kids Need Room To Grow

by Mady G.

POSTED ON JUNE 13, 2022

We can’t and won’t be legislated away.

I want to add something that this cartoon series leaves out. Up until puberty kicked in and his body started becoming more clearly female he was able to pass as an androgynous boy. The medically approved treatment is to use puberty blockers so the body doesn’t go through the wrong puberty locking in features that will forever make the outside body appearance does not match the inside gender identity. It also reduces the need for some body changing surgeries. Hugs

Days of intense heat have killed thousands of cattle in Kansas

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105482394/cattle-kansas-heat-wave

Kansas officials say weather conditions made it hard for cows to cool down in an intense heat wave. Here, cattle graze near wind turbines in Hays, Kansas, in 2017.

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Intense heat that baked Kansas over the weekend is being blamed for killing thousands of cattle — a toll documented in striking images on social media.

“The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is aware of at least 2,000 cattle deaths that occurred in the southwest part of Kansas,” Matt Lara, the agency’s communications director, told NPR on Thursday.

Lara also confirmed conditions had made it “difficult for the cows to stay cool.”

In widely seen video footage, rows of carcasses are shown lined up along the edge of a farm field. State officials are blaming a heat wave that sent temperatures higher than 100 degrees.

The new losses come as farmers across the Great Plains region are already struggling to cope with drought and high winds, along with the increased threat of wildfires.

It’s hard to get a sense of the scale of the deaths

The figure from the state health and environment agency reflects only the losses at farms that asked for help in disposing of carcasses, suggesting the actual tally could be higher.

A spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Agriculture confirmed to NPR on Thursday that “several weather factors combined which led to heat stress for cattle that impacted cattle producers.”

But the representative also noted that cattle ranches aren’t required to report those losses, “so we don’t have any data about the extent of the impact.”

Dangerous weather conditions aren’t confined to any one county in Kansas, where beef cattle dominates the agriculture sector, making it one of the main cattle-producing U.S. states.

Nearly the entire western half of Kansas is currently classified as abnormally dry or in a drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor website.

Heat blasted from under 80 degrees to more than 104

To get a sense of what the animals were dealing with, it helps to look at the weather’s recent whipsaw effect.

Temperatures rapidly spiked in Kansas in the past week, blasting past 100 degrees. Some of the worst heat struck Haskell County in the southwest. In recent years, it’s been the top cattle-producing county in Kansas, with 385,000 head of cattle reported in 2021.

In Haskell County, the heat rocketed from a moderate high of 79.9 degrees on June 9 to a scalding 101.1 degrees just two days later. Then came three more days of triple-digit highs that topped out at more than 104 degrees, according to weather data from Kansas State University.

Conditions also became very dry in Haskell, with relative humidity falling from nearly 80% to less than 24%, with zero precipitation over a seven-day stretch. The baking heat was inescapable: even four inches beneath the soil’s surface, the temperature reached nearly 92 degrees.

The animals would have been valued around $2,000 each

“It’s a significant impact,” Scarlett Hagins of the Kansas Livestock Association tells local TV station KAKE, adding that the market-ready value for each animal would have been around $2,000.

“Any kind of animal loss is significant to a producer, to cattle feeder, to a rancher. No one wants to see any kind of loss like this,” she said.

The industry website AG Daily lists ways cattle producers can lessen the risk to their animals, from ensuring they have enough water, space and shade to watching for signs of heat stress, such as protruding tongues and heavy breathing.

“Fat cattle, those who still are carrying some of their summer hair, and cattle who have suffered respiratory illness are the most susceptible to heat stress,” the site states.