Tag: Religion
This is good-enjoy!
The Best And Blackest Moments From The Democratic National Convention
From Kamala Harris’ surprise appearance to honoring Jesse Jackson, the DNC had a celebratory start..
By Candace McDuffie Published Tuesday 11:48 AM
The Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago on Monday (August 19) at United Center and was quite the celebration. President Joe Biden gave the final address of the night, which was full of resilience and reassurance that Vice President Kamala Harris is going to be our next President Of The United States.
Biden was also proud of his own legacy, which he expressed by sharing a quote from the song “American Anthem” by Gene Scheer: “What shall our legacy be, what will our children say, let me know in my heart when my days are through, America, America, I gave my best to you.”
In addition, the night contained a myriad of moments that uplifted the Black community. Here are the best and Blackest moments from Day 1 at the DNC.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson gave VP Harris a galvanizing endorsement.
As one of the night’s earliest speakers, former teacher and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declared his city as the greatest in the world before recognizing the contributions of journalist Ida B. Wells, Rev. Jesse Jackson and this country’s first Black president Barack Obama.
He also expressed excitement about his daughter being able to see a “reflection of herself in the White House” before giving a galvanizing endorsement of Harris.
“What will it take to defeat MAGA Republicans and move our country forward and not backward? It will take everyone, and let me tell you all: Kamala, she’s got us,” Johnson said. “Together, we will build a better, brighter future.”
The great Rev. Jesse Jackson was honored for paving the way for Kamala Harris.
Iconic civil rights leader Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. received a standing ovation when he made an appearance on the first night of the Democratic National Convention.
Jackson, who stepped down as president of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition last year, made history as the second Black American to seek a major-party nomination for President when he ran as a Democrat in 1984.
His historic contributions made it possible for Harris to run today. Jackson, who is currently living with Parkinson’s disease, did not give a speech Monday evening. Instead, he waved and gave a thumbs-up from his wheelchair as he enjoyed the celebration.
Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance
The Democratic presidential nominee is scheduled to give a speech at the DNC Thursday night, but Harris made a surprise appearance on Monday to honor President Biden and thank him for everything he’s done for his country.
Entering the stage to Beyoncé’s “Freedom” wearing a tan pantsuit (which some thought was a nod to former President Barack Obama’s biggest fashion moment in 2014), Harris remarked: “Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you.”
She then added: “With optimism, hope and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear. And let us always remember when we fight, we win.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett reads Donald Trump for absolute filth
In a speech delivered Monday night, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett boldly contrasted Vice President Kamala Harris’ record to that of her presidential opponent Donald Trump. “She became a career prosecutor while he became a career criminal — with 34 felonies, two impeachments and one porn star to prove it!” Crockett said.
She didn’t stop there. “She’s lived the American dream while he’s been America’s nightmare. America, looking at the two choices before you, who would you hire? Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? Kamala Harris has a résumé — Donald Trump has a rap sheet.”
She concluded her speech with a nod to her viral Marjorie Taylor Greene “bleach blonde, bad-built butch body” insult from earlier this year.
“The question before us is: Will a vindictive vile villain violate voters’ vision for a better America or not?” Crockett said to raucous cheers from the Chicago audience. “I hear alliterations are back in style.”
Raphael Warnock transforms the stage into his pulpit during moving address
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is also the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, preached to DNC attendees about unifying for the greater good of the country.
“I’m convinced tonight that we can lift the broken even as we climb. We can heal the wounds that divide us. We can heal a planet in peril. We can heal the land,” he stated. Warnock’s emotional address was exactly what Democrats needed. He also addressed the culture of MAGA and its followers’ attack at the U.S. Capitol building in 2021.
“The line of logic of Jan. 6 is a sickness, is a kind of cancer metastasized into dozens of voter suppression laws all across our country,” Warnock said. “And we must be vigilant tonight, because these anti-democratic forces are at work right now in Georgia and across the country.”
https://www.theroot.com/the-best-and-blackest-moments-from-day-1-at-the-democra-1851626788
A quote for the day-
lifted from my SoJo email.
Voice of the day
The will to abolish is what comes forth when pessimism about the possibility for effecting justice hits rock bottom and careens back up in the form of righteous fury.
– Joshua Dubler and Vincent W. Lloyd, “Restructuring a World Without Prisons”
Teacher says contract wasn’t renewed because he wouldn’t use trans students’ preferred names
The Wisconsin English teacher, Jordan Cernek, argues in the suit that the district violated his freedom of religion and free speech in mandating the use of the students’ preferred names and pronouns.
This’ll be something to watch. Here’s a snippet:
A high school English teacher is suing a Wisconsin school district, alleging it did not renew his contract last year because he refused to use the preferred names of two transgender students.
Jordan Cernek’s federal lawsuit alleges the Argyle School District violated his constitutional and civil rights to be free of religious discrimination and to be able to express himself according to his religious beliefs when it did not renew his contract because he refused to abide by a requirement that teachers use the names or pronouns requested by students.
“The district policy would force me to go against my conviction and commitment to God,” Cernek said in a statement from his lawyers. “I did everything within my power to accommodate the needs of my students without compromising my faith.”
The suit, which argues that the non-renewal was tantamount to firing the teacher, repeatedly cites the 1964 Civil Rights Act and its Title VII section prohibiting workplace discrimination.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin last month, it seeks undisclosed damages, attorney fees and a declaration that the district violated Cernek’s First Amendment rights and his rights to nondiscrimination based on race, religion, sex or national origin.
School Superintendent Randy Refsland said in an email Tuesday night that he could not comment because the matter was being litigated in court. (snip-More)
What If This God Thing Is All A Lie?
Airstrike at Gaza mosque kills at least 80, Palestinian officials say
I don’t care if there was an entire army hold up there, there are rules to war that Israel has violated each one. They are willing and wantonly killing civilians. Plus they are trying to sabotage the peace plans. I am very glad Biden is not running because he is allowing Israel to get away with this. Hugs. Scottie
In the interest of inclusiveness,
and because it’s very beautiful:
Religious Misogyny
Kamala Harris has MAGA World Freaking Out …
Aug. 4, 2024, 5:00 AM CDT By Anthony L. Fisher, Senior Editor, MSNBC Daily
It’s always the end of the world for the Make America Great Again movement. Ever since Donald Trump’s escalator ride in 2015, there’s been zero nuance to the MAGA message. “Only I can fix it,” the leader roared to thunderous applause upon accepting the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
But especially since Vice President Kamala Harris became the likely Democratic nominee, MAGA messaging has gone from overwrought and hyperbolic to absolutely hysterical and apocalyptic.
Trumpists wave off any and all criticism as unworthy of discussion, bad-faith accusations from minds afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. And yet, deranged is the only appropriate descriptor of the rhetoric emanating from MAGA land’s loudest megaphones. It’s Trump and some of his closest allies and most prominent boosters who have been speaking of an imminent totalitarian government, end times and literal biblical demons.
These people include podcasters with massive, fiercely dedicated audiences. Titans of industry. Religious extremists with political ambitions and close ties to Trump world. And the richest man in the world.
In just the past week, popular MAGA pundits warned that Harris is “Hitler and Stalin combined but times 200,” and also a “commie” who will choose a running mate who supports “allowing men to beat up women in the Olympics.” They also expressed outrage over the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics as the end of “Western civilization,” and singled out one woman on a Zoom fundraiser call for Harris’ campaign as another harbinger of end times.
Then there was the billionaire Trump supporter who finally freed himself from the burden of pretending he’s not MAGA, Elon Musk, bringing back one of his favorite apocalyptic buzzwords, “extinctionist,” to describe Harris. (And because he’s a serious adult, he called her “Shamala.”)
Musk once generally reserved that term for environmentalists — or really anyone concerned about climate change. But he’s since expanded the definition to anything that involves the mysterious and horror-movie-sounding “woke mind virus.” In 2023, Musk told Joe Rogan, “It’s essentially the extinctionists. It is that they’re propagating the extinction of humanity and civilization.”
It’s hard to argue what’s “most disturbing” among these deranged comments from very angry people, but a worthy contender came from Lance Wallnau, the influential Christian nationalist who has the ears of both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. He likened the first Black and Indian woman to be nominated for president by a major party to Jezebel — a spirit with demonic powers. In case he wasn’t driving the point home with just the name, Wallnau clarified that Harris represents “the spirit of Jezebel … in a way that’ll be even much more ominous than Hillary because she’ll bring a racial component and she’s younger.”
The MAGA right hasn’t cornered the market on ridiculous and irresponsible hyperbole in politics. Left, right and center are all capable of taking liberties with facts, hyping the fear factor and exaggerating the stakes.
But of all American political tribes, there’s only one with politically influential figures using this election season to prophesize about Jezebels and explicitly making it about race and gender. Or literally warning of the imminent end of the world because of a Marxist conspiracy to smuggle totalitarianism on an unsuspecting public through environmentalism.
This was once the content you’d find on the furthest, most ridiculous fringes of the AM radio dial. And they are what remains of the brain trust of the MAGA movement. (snip-More)
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kamala-harris-maga-jezebel-apocalypse-rcna164922
We Don’t Gotta Get Ahead.. Hold The Door For Someone Instead
Why We Investigated Matthew Trewhella, the Far-Right Wisconsin Pastor Influencing Republican Politics
Some people said militant anti-abortion activist Matthew Trewhella was a ’90s figure who’s no longer relevant, but our reporting shows he’s influencing policies, bills and movements today.
by Phoebe Petrovic, Wisconsin Watch Aug. 2, 5 a.m. EDT
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
In the fall of 2022, Phoebe Petrovic, an investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, noticed a pastor and his church appearing in local news coverage for their anti-LGBTQ+ protests. Looking closer revealed Pastor Matthew Trewhella’s startling history. And digging even deeper, she noticed an untold story: his broader influence on modern Republican politics. His rise helps illustrate the growing power of the Christian right in the Republican party. Here, Petrovic describes how she reported the story and what she learned.
What were the key takeaways from your reporting?
- A few decades ago, Trewhella was known as a militant anti-abortion activist. Today, he’s got a different reputation: thought leader on the far right, increasingly welcomed by Republicans.
- Trewhella helped to rehabilitate his reputation through his 2013 self-published book, “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which uses a 16th-century Protestant doctrine to argue that government officials have a God-given right and duty to defy laws, policies or court opinions deemed “unjust or immoral” under “the law of God.”
- He’s preached this doctrine to county Republican parties and local groups across the country, even to the National Sheriffs’ Association, a preeminent law enforcement organization.
- His book has influenced Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions. At least 10 measures across the country refer to lesser magistrates. One of the earliest, issued in 2019, was authored by a county commissioner who has described reading Trewhella’s book as a “turning point” for him.
- A prominent booster of debunked election conspiracy claims is using Trewhella’s book to disrupt future elections.
How does Trewhella fit into the election? What does he say about his work?
- In the cast of characters who might influence the upcoming election, Trewhella is not rallying crowds the same way as Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, or Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA. Trewhella is more behind the scenes, providing a religious justification for some far-right policies and causes.
- Trewhella says that he promotes nonviolence. But after an activist killed an abortion provider in 1993, he signed a document describing the murder of these doctors as “justifiable.”
- In a brief interview, I asked Trewhella about his reputational shift over the decades. He responded: “Most people will always only care about three things in life: me, myself and I. … It’s only because of their mundane, self-absorbed lives that they would think someone like me is an extremist. That’s my answer.”
- Trewhella did not respond to over a dozen attempts to set up a second interview. He did not answer written questions by email and refused a certified letter containing them.
What did experts tell you about Trewhella?
- Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, which studies threats to democracy and human rights, has tracked Trewhella for decades. Clarkson said, “All of those county commissioners and mayors and whatnot who are entertaining this stuff, they’re putting people’s lives and the entirety of civil order at risk by playing footsie with Matt Trewhella.”
- Another extremism researcher, Devin Burghart, said, “I think that the public needs to know that he’s a dangerous theocrat, who would fundamentally alter the United States in irreparable ways that would harm many, including women, people of color and the LGBTQ community.” Burghart is president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which tracks the far right. (snip-More)
https://www.propublica.org/article/investigating-matthew-trewhella-wisconsin-pastor
Scottie's Playtime 