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619, see main for older billy

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showed up?

RECYCLED VID OF HIM trump BADLY READING THEN MISINTERP BIBLE ~ THE BISH BARBER?

RWW 5 26

[Christian Nationalism ## Much-Hyped ‘Rededication’ of U.S. to God Can’t Draw Trump Off the Golf Course

President Trump called for an event "rededicating" America to God, but he couldn't be bothered to show up for it.

https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/much-hyped-rededication-us-god-cant-draw-trump-golf-course

05/18/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

*Commentary

Trump administration officials and Christian nationalist leaders hyped Sunday’s event to “rededicate America as one nation under God” as a historic moment and turning point for the nation, but President Donald Trump skipped it to go golfing.

The same was true for the Saturday evening worship gathering organized by musician and MAGA activist Sean Feucht on the grounds of the Washington Monument; while his followers gathered, Trump went golfing.

The snub was particularly noteworthy because Trump owes his election victories to the overwhelming support he got from conservative Christian voters, thanks in part to religious-right figures telling their audiences over and over again that Trump was anointed by God to lead and save America.

Religious-right figures who helped promote the event made a big deal out of the spiritual importance of Trump as president calling for the nation’s rededication to God. Dominionist anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist Lou Engle has organized many prayer events over the years that drew much bigger crowds, but he said that this one was special: “This solemn assembly is different than any other solemn assembly, for the president of the United States has called this day.”

But the president couldn’t even be bothered to make a video greeting for this “historic” moment like Vice President J.D. Vance did. Instead, organizers played a video of Trump reading a scripture passage from a religious-right organized Bible-reading marathon event a few weeks ago. Engle added that when Trump read that passage, “he opened a door for the greatest awakening America has ever seen.” He called it “a hinge of history moment.”

If Trump cared enough to think that a gathering of “prophetic” leaders might call him out the way Old Testament prophets called out unjust political leaders, he needn’t have worried. None of the speakers calling for personal and national repentance suggested that Trump should repent for his cruelty or corruption. As the Religion News Service noted, neither Sen. Tim Scott nor religious-right activist Alevda King, who spoke about the Black church’s central role in the Civil Rights Movement, mentioned the current MAGA assault on the Voting Rights Act.

Even White House Faith Office Director Paula White didn’t attend in person, sending a short video.

:{:{Ben Carson, who was secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump administration and is now National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing at the Department of Agriculture, did show up in person. He was one of a few speakers who talked about the need for national unity. There are “forces” that want Americans to think they are one another’s enemies, Carson said. “We are not enemies.” He did not acknowledge Trump’s central role in creating bitter divisions or his ongoing demonization of his political opponents as traitors—or for that matter his religious-right backers’ portrayal of Trump opponents as demonic.}:

And if the organizers of the event were really interested in promoting national unity, or transcending politics as House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed, they would have created an interfaith event that celebrated America’s exceptional religious liberty and religious pluralism. Instead they created an event overwhelmingly dominated by MAGA Christians.}:

MAGA pastor Franklin Graham delivered a video diatribe about the moral state of the country, quoting scriptural warnings about people being lovers of money, arrogant, abusive, heartless, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, and more. While Graham said this list could apply to America today, he ignored the obvious fact that all those traits apply to the president he unwaveringly promotes.

Samuel Rodriguez, a MAGA pastor, New Apostolic Reformation figure, and head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, gave an opening prayer. He spoke for about four minutes, calling for love and justice but failing to utter a single word about the immigrants and other people in their communities who have been terrorized by the Trump administration’s brutal mass deportation efforts. So much for prophets speaking truth to power.

MAGA pundit Eric Metaxas used his time on the platform at the Sunday rally and the Saturday worship service to promote his new book about the American revolution.

At Feucht’s worship on Saturday, Metaxas claimed that every single one of the founding fathers understood that the national narrative of the revolution was, “We are re-establishing the Sinai covenant.” That kind of claim doesn’t bode well for the credibility of his book, but then, there wasn’tmuch hope for that anyway.

On Sunday, Metaxas said God’s hand had guided American leaders beginning with George Washington. After talking about the British burning the White House during the War of 1812, he added jokingly, “It’s hard to believe it that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It’s extraordinary. We only had to wait 200 years.”

The actual “prayer of rededication” was delivered by Speaker Johnson, who invoked God’s support for the MAGA war on wokeness and truth-telling history:

In recent years we’ve seen sinister ideologies sow confusion and discord among our people. We’ve witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes, and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this nation. These forces insist to the young and impressionable that our story, the American story, is one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure, and that this story can only be understood through the lens of our sins. Father, we reject that. We rebuke it in your name. … We turn to you once again to save us from these afflictions, to deliver us from the forces of evil, oppression, injustice, and tyranny both within our borders and beyond our shores.

In asking for deliverance from oppression and injustice, Johnson was apparently not thinking of the authoritarian abuses of power that mark the Trump administration, because his only mention of Trump was to pray that God would “continue to bless our president with the wisdom, prudence, and strength to govern our nation in accordance with your will.”

Neither the smaller-than-expected attendance nor Trump’s apparent disinterest in the “rededication” ceremony mean that the rest of us should ignore that the increasingly aggressive Christian nationalism of the administration and the MAGA movement threatens Americans’ religious freedom and the rights of people seen as undeserving by right-wing Christian nationalists.

// RWW

05/18/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

And the public may never know who their money was spent on.

Nine connected Polymarket accounts have raked in more than $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military actions in what digital detectives from the data analytics firm Bubblemaps have identified as a potentially egregious case of insider trading.

Speakers cast America as ‘morally rotten’ and sinful while embracing the ‘Christian nationalist’ label.

President Donald Trump's free eight-hour Rededicate 250 prayer event held at the National Mall in D.C. Sunday drew a notably sparse crowd, with Reuters photos capturing numerous empty seats.

The ancestors of today’s Christian nationalists weren’t the leaders of Christian America — they were the heretics.

The Christian worship performance scheduled for the National Mall is a religious show.

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Mike Johnson Says ‘Rededicate 250’ Event ‘Transcends Politics’; So Why Are All the Speakers MAGA Christians?

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson addressing the 2026 National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance (Image from CBN News coverage)

News & Analysis

05/15/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

A letter from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson promoting this weekend’s Christian nationalist ceremony to “rededicate” America to God was sent out by Freedom 250 Thursday evening.

In the email from Freedom 250, which President Donald Trump set up to wrest control of the national celebrations from the bipartisan and congressionally authorized America 250to promote himself and MAGA ideology, Johnson called Sunday’s day-long event “a unique moment for believers" and “a call for unity, repentance, and hope, and one that truly transcends politics.”

That is classic Trumpian gaslighting.

First of all, an event seeking to unify the actually country might in some way recognize the religious pluralism that is an essential part of what makes America exceptional, along with our Constitution’s protections of religious freedom and prohibitions on government-established religion or religious tests for public office.

Instead, every speaker listed in the schedule sent out by Freedom 250 is a Christian; most are evangelical and Pentecostal Trump boosters, along with a couple of right-wing Catholics and other denominations represented. Earlier speaker lists included a rabbi, perhaps as “Judeo-Christian” window-dressing, but he was not included in Thursday’s Freedom 250 email.

It’s a bad joke for Johnson to claim that Sunday’s event “transcends politics,” given that every speaker listed in the Freedom 250 email is a vocal supporter of President Trump, many of them on record declaring him to be anointed by God and some, like White House Faith Office Director Paula White, claiming that Trump’s opponents are enemies of God or demonic agents of Satan.

In reality, this is another opportunity for Trump to posture as a defender of the faith and bask in the adoration of his most loyal supporters at a time when his public support has hit record lows. And it is an opportunity for Christian nationalists to continue to send the false and exclusionary message that the only “real” Americans are the right kind of Christians, at a time when Christian-right and MAGA officials are trying to claim that Muslims and other non-Christians do not deserve the protection of the First Amendment.

The “moment of rededication” will be led by Johnson, along with former Archbishop of New York City Timothy Dolan, MAGA Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, and dominionist New Apostolic Reformation figure Lou Engle. Engle is a longtime anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist who led prayers that God would knock off Supreme Court justices to create vacancies for Trump to fill. In an Engle teaching guide called “The Keys to Dominion,” he preached:

“The church’s vocation is to rule history with God…The same authority that has been given to Christ Jesus for overwhelming conquering and dominion has been given to the saints of the most high….We’re God’s rulers upon the earth…We will govern over kings and judges will have to submit…We’re called to rule! To change history! To be co-regents with God!”

Christians, secularists, and other Americans who reject the MAGA movement’s increasingly aggressiveChristian nationalism are speaking up in opposition to the “rededication.” This week, the Interfaith Alliance projected messages supporting religious freedom for all on the walls of the National Gallery of Art.

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Franklin Graham Says Trump 'Put The Woke World On Notice' By Saying 'Merry Christmas' | People For

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01/15/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

Charisma, a conservative Pentecostal-oriented media outlet, has long been in the tank for President Donald Trump, relentlessly portraying him as anointed by God to lead the U.S. This week, after Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military even more aggressively against American citizens, Charisma’s Abby Trivett declared, “We may be on the brink of a new America.”

Trivett falsely characterized Gov. Tim Walz’s recent comments encouraging Minnesotans to continue documenting ICE’s “organized brutality.” Walz explicitly and repeatedly urged people to protest peacefully, but Trivett claimed that he had “encouraged Minnesotans to continue to clash with ICE agents violently.”

Trivett’s post provided a good example of Christian nationalists’ obsession with authoritarian order and their embrace of the Trump regime’s violence against immigrants as a righteous form of spiritual warfare:

America is approaching a hinge point in history, and Minnesota may be the place where the door finally swings. As lawlessness is celebrated and those tasked with upholding order are mocked, restrained or resisted, the clash between civil authority and spiritual authority is becoming impossible to ignore.

Scripture warns that in the last days “lawlessness will increase” and people would call evil good and good evil — and for many watching what is unfolding in Minnesota right now, that warning feels less theoretical and more like a headline.

Whether critics like it or not, the nation is being forced to choose between chaos and order, rebellion and restraint, anarchy and accountability. And in moments like these, history reveals a pattern: God often exposes the cracks in a nation before He heals it.

Trivett’s comments align with other religious-right leaders who consistently act as public relations agents of the Trump White House and who have adopted the administration’s dishonest rhetoric about the killing of Minneapolis mom Renee Good by an ICE agent.

Pastor and MAGA activist Franklin Graham, who has claimed that anti-ICE protests are organized by radical leftists who want to destroy America, organized a nationwide prayer event this week urging people to pray for Trump administration leaders. Dominionist Dutch Sheets promoted Graham’s call, delivering a prayer that called anti-ICE protesters evil.

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You’d be forgiven if among all the scary national and international headlines of the past few weeks you missed the first meeting of the newly formed Religious Liberty Commission.

You may not have even heard of this Trump-appointed commission of almost entirely Christian Nationalists tasked with “safeguard(ing) and promot(ing) America’s founding principle of religious freedom.” If religious freedom is something you value, you need to add this to your list of things to follow, because the first meeting made it clear that we are headed towards the end of religious freedom for all in our country. As an atheist, that really scares me.

President Donald Trump announced the commission during the National Day of Prayer event May 1. It is responsible for creating a report with recommendations for the president, due on July 4, 2026 (the 250th anniversary of our independence, just in case their intent to push the falsehood that the USA was founded as a Christian nation isn’t clear enough). The commission is just one of Trump’s many actions to appease his evangelical base, including his establishment of a “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias” in February.

Religious extremists have been messaging around “Christian discrimination” for decades. They have fabricated a narrative where they are victimized by anyone who believes, lives, loves, or looks different than they do. This effectively scares the public into putting its trust into officials who say they will protect them against “the other.” Evidence of these anti-Christian offenses that the commission is meant to investigate is twisted to privilege extremist religious beliefs over the safety and wellbeing of others.

As an example of so-called anti-Christian offenses, Attorney General Pam Bondi cited the arrest of 23 anti-abortion activists who were charged in 2020 with conspiring to storm an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. Kansans are intimately familiar with the violence directed toward abortion clinics and providers after the assassination of physician George Tiller in 2009, and we don’t need to look beyond last month’s assassination of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband to see how religious extremists target Planned Parenthood and their supporters. Instead of understanding this, Trump pardonedall 23 activists this January.

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The commission is made upof almost entirely of known right-wing Christians — including Texas Lt. Gov. and Chair Dan Patrick; former HUD secretary and vice chair Ben Carson; son of Billy Graham, disgraced evangelist Franklin Graham; former Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller; lawyers from Project 2025-affiliated organizations such as First Liberty Institute and Ethics & Public Policy Center; and right-wing TV and radio hosts such as Dr. Phil. A bishop, cardinal, and rabbi round out the members in what they tout as a “diverse” representation of faiths in America.

The commission will hold several more hearings over the next year to investigate the tired list of Christian Nationalist priorities, including so-called parent rights and “school choice,” prayer in schools, vaccine mandates, government displays of religious iconography, and “anti-Christian offenses.” As expected, the other key priority voiced throughout the day was to attack the LGBTQ+ community — especially trans kids.

During this first hearing, the real objectives of the commission became abundantly clear:

In a world where we are facing very real threats to our physical, mental, and financial health, why did I spend five excruciating hours listening to a commission whose only job is to make recommendations? The obvious answer is because these individuals were hand-selected for holding a world view that advances the Christian Nationalist agenda and threatens any religious beliefs that fall outside of this ideology. The uncomfortable truth is that this rhetoric justifies hate crimes and the dissolution of rights for women and minorities has a new platform with the divine weight of presidential approval. As a lifelong atheist, I’m scared that we’re looking at the end of church-state separation and the rise of a theocracy weaponizing religion against people who don’t fall in line.

American Atheists just announced that it will no longer be hosting the 2026 World Humanist Congress in Washington, D.C., because the “Trump Administration’s actions … have created an environment that is not only incompatible with our values but also inhospitable to members of our global secular community.” They feared for the safety of their attendees because we are no longer a country welcoming of visitors, and especially not visitors who fall outside of a specific Christian identity.

But it’s not just the secular community who should be worried right now. Every person who has found within their faith the mission to love their neighbor, feed the hungry, protect the vulnerable, and embrace the stranger should be fighting for the sanctity of their beliefs. The members of the Religious Liberty Commission will not be including these priorities in their final report, and you will not find a place for your faith in their new America.

*Laurel Burchfield is the advocacy director of Mainstream Coalition, where she advocates under the dome and in local communities to protect church-state separation. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

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TRUMP RAMBLE WEST PT SP? AN 5 25

Franklin Graham scores Pentagon Christian prayer services invitation

David Badash

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AN 2 25

For Christians here and across the world, the ongoing confrontation over the fate of USAID dramatically illustrates the moral degeneration of the politicians who most fervently profess their piety. While Donald Trump wraps himself in the mantle of the Almighty, his assault on the world’s largest relief agency is a modern passion play, with scheming malefactors of great wealth sadistically persecuting sincere people of faith who seek to serve the poor.

Not everyone who works for USAID, a government agency that employs hundreds of private contractors, is motivated by charity or religious conviction. While many are nonprofits, others are profitable companies. But the agency’s single largest contractor is Catholic Relief Services, which has provided billions of dollars in assistance to impoverished communities on every continent.

Nearly every denomination is represented among the recipients of USAID funding, including major evangelical and conservative organizations such asSamaritan’s Purse, the global charity operated by Franklin Graham** -- who happens to be among Donald Trump’s most sycophantic admirers. Graham's reputation as a "humanitarian" has surely benefited from his organization's association with US relief efforts, not to mention $90 million in taxpayer support. And he knows that Musk and Trump are lying about USAID.As *Christianity Today*reported on February 4:

Most of USAID’s budget goes to grants for specific development projects, including at Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision, World Relief, Catholic Relief Services, and many other faith-based groups. It supports local Christian health clinics in Malawi and groups providing orphan care.*

In Kenya, PCEA Chogoria Hospital, a historic mission hospital now run by Kenyan churches, provides comprehensive health care to HIV patients through support from USAID. On January 24 the hospital received a stop-work order for that care and has had no indication of a return of funding despite [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio’s promises that life-saving HIV care could continue. The hospital has 3,162 HIV patients in that USAID-funded program, and 42 staff members caring for those patients…“It is exceptionally painful to watch all this,” said Kent Hill, a former top official at USAID who also worked at World Vision and in Christian higher education as the president of Eastern Nazarene College. If USAID has specific problems, shutting the whole agency down instead of addressing the problems is a “tremendous overreaction” and “inhumane,” he said.*

“Few American investments, if any, bring such a remarkable return,” Hill said. “To talk about shutting USAID down is callous and represents a tremendous a lapse in judgment which ought to call forth bipartisan condemnation.”*

What do Rev. Graham and other evangelical leaders on the right think when they hear Elon Musk accuse USAID of corruption, with zero evidence, and denounce it as a “criminal” organization that must “die"?” The foreign-born billionaire boasted about putting the agency “in the wood chipper,” as if the deprivation and suffering that would ensue among the ill and hungry is a funny fratboy joke.

What seems truly amusing, by contrast, is the notion of Donald Trump as a follower of Christ, specially anointed by the Lord. From the beginning of his political career, the former casino owner has cultivated the tawdriest characters in Christianity, from the pants-dropping Jerry Falwell Jr. to TV evangelists Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, and other exponents the “prosperity gospel.” Like Trump, these are individuals whose unbridled avarice leaves little space for good works of any kind. It isn't hard to imagine them mocking the actual Christians who minister to the poor instead of swindling them.

Perhaps to promote sales of Trump-branded Bibles, he played the devout Christian at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 6. “Well, we wanna bring religion back stronger, bigger, better than ever before. It’s very important,” the president declared. “We have to have religion and it suffered greatly over the last few years, but it’s coming back.”

As for Musk, oncelionized by libertarians for his atheism, the world’s richest man has taken to proclaiming his belief in “the teachings of Jesus Christ,” notably to “love thy neighbor.” In alate 2022 tweet, he wrote: "Jesus taught love, kindness and forgiveness. I used to think that turning the other cheek was weak and foolish, but I was the fool for not appreciating its profound wisdom." This alleged attraction to Christian principles accompanied Musk’s turn toward the far right, with its hostility toward racial minorities, immigrants, and all of the destitute and oppressed.

In short, Musk now qualifies as that most MAGA brand of Christian -- a hypocrite who exploits religion to amplify his own power and wealth, with a heavenly license to bully the weak. Somehow ruining the lives of people who depend on USAID for their very sustenance seems much more like the devil’s work.

Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund.His latest book isThe Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism.

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mma 8 24

on Facebook, right-leaning content overwhelmingly dominates the immigration conversation

Right-leaning pages earned over 65% of interactions — nearly 19.5 million — on posts about immigration from U.S. politics and news pages during the first half of 2024

Written by Kayla Gogarty & Courtney Hagle

Research contributions from Carly Evans

Published 08/12/24

A new Media Matters analysis found that right-leaning pages dominated conversations about immigration on Facebook during the first half of this year. While right-leaning pages have posted about immigration a similar amount as ideologically nonaligned pages, right-leaning posts have received the greatest number of total interactions by far on related posts compared to other news and politics pages.

Our key findings include:

Media Matters has documented numerous instances in which right-leaning pages have dominated the conversation on Facebook amid prominent news cycles. In recent months, right-wing media and politicians have sought to make immigration a key issue in the 2024 election, relentlessly fearmongering about migrant crime as Trump leads the charge on demonizing migrants and smearing Democrats on the issue of immigration.

Related posts from right-leaning and ideologically nonaligned pages far outpaced those from left-leaning pages, with ideologically nonaligned pages accounting for 48% (or more than 38,100 posts), right-leaning pages accounting for 47% (or more than 37,300 posts), and left-leaning pages accounting for only 6% (or 4,400 posts).

Notably, right-leaning pages earned the most interactions on immigration-related posts, with nearly 19.5 million interactions, or 65%. Left-leaning pages earned over 5.8 million interactions (or 19%) and ideologically nonaligned pages earned over 4.7 million interactions (or 16%).

Fox News, Newsmax, and Breitbart were also among the 5 pages that received the most engagement on posts about immigration. Posts from left-leaning accounts, including historian Heather Cox Richardson and Occupy Democrats, rounded out the top 5.

Half of the 10 immigration-related posts that received the greatest number of interactions were from right-leaning pages, including Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Newsmax, former President Donald Trump, and Franklin Graham. Most of these posts attacked Biden and fearmongered over his immigration policies, with Trump accusing Biden of “aiding and abetting a massive Invasion of millions of Illegal Migrants” and calling immigrants “Crooked Joe Biden's Illegal Immigrant Criminals.” These posts include:

Networks of Facebook pages affiliated with right-wing media outlets amplified their immigration-related content across the platform, including The Daily Wire, the Western Journal, Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty, Fox News, and The Blaze. These networks accounted for nearly 34% of immigration-related posts from right-leaning pages and nearly 16% of related posts from all news and politics pages. Interactions earned on the immigration-related posts from these networks accounted for 28% of all interactions earned by right-leaning pages and 18% of all interactions earned by all news and politics pages.

The Daily Wire’s network of 10 Facebook pages shared over 3,500 posts about immigration during the studied time period, earning over 1.7 million total interactions. One of the immigration-related posts from the network that earned the greatest number of interactions came from Ben Shapiro and claimed that “the left clearly wants illegal immigrants in the United States.” Pages in The Daily Wire’s network repeatedly shared the outlet’s articles.

Eight Facebook pages run by Fox News shared over 1,200 posts, earning over 2.8 million interactions on right-wing posts about immigration. Some of the immigration-related posts from the network that earned the greatest number of interactions amplified criticism of Biden’s immigration policies.

The Blaze’s network of 9 pages shared more than 2,600 posts, earning over 480,000 interactions. Some of the immigration-related posts from the network that earned the greatest number of interactions promoted Texas’ actions at the border.

These networks of pages also promoted the false claim that noncitizens are voting en masse in elections.

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off bs

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Franklin Graham. 2 days ago. Such a heartbreaking tragedy. 14 students and a teacher were killed in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, today. Many were also injured by the 18-year-old shooter who is also now deceased and allegedly also killed his own grandmother before entering the school.

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lISA BOOTHE (GUEST CO-HOST): You know Reverend, you referenced a lot of the things going on in the country. It feels like there's a battle between good vs. evil, a spiritual battle that is brewing in America, especially when you look at some of the things children are being subjected to these days. Talk a little bit about that.

FRANKLIN GRAHAM (PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE BILLY GRAHAM EVANGELIST ASSOCIATION): Well, we have no question, our country is deteriorating morally and spiritually, and we see just how far our country has slid when you see what's happening, especially to our children and these whole issues of confusion that our teachers and our politicians are allowing to be taught concerning gender and so -- parents need to be parents. Parents need to stand up. Parents need to be involved in the school boards, and parents need to get involved and run for school boards. We need Christian men and women running especially for school boards all across this country. Let's take our school boards back and let's get control of our education in this country and it can be done if Christian men and women would get out there and run and win these elections. 

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an 8 23 no lnx

Why far-right White evangelicals are among Vladimir Putin’s strongest American supporters

Alex Henderson March 03, 2022

During the 1980s, far-right white evangelicals like the Moral Majority’s late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr., televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson railed against the Soviet Union relentlessly — often applauding President Ronald Reagan for standing up to the Kremlin. But times have changed.

These days, Donald Trump, not the late Ronald Reagan, is the most influential figure in the Republican Party — and white evangelicals, journalist Anthea Butler explains in an op-ed published by MSNBC’s website on March 1, are among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most ardent admirers in the United States.

“While the world looks on in horror as Russia's invasion of Ukraine unfolds,” Butler observes in her op-ed, “one group has been praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. It turns out Putin has a fan base in America’s right-leaning evangelical politicians and pundits.”

Butler continues, “At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which wrapped up over the weekend, Lauren Witzke, a GOP candidate for the Senate in Delaware, said: ‘Here’s the deal. Russia is a Christian nationalist nation. They’re actually Russian Orthodox.... I identify more with Putin’s Christian values than I do with Joe Biden.”

Witzke’s praise of Putin, according to Butler, “isn’t an uncommon stance among some Republicans and white American evangelicals today” — as they have “admired Putin because of the alignment of their beliefs with his abouthomosexuality, authoritarianism and fealty to former President Donald Trump.” Far-right white evangelicals, Butler notes, believe that Putin’s Russia, Butler notes, “is the way America should be.”

“Evangelicals are a long way from how they historically thought about Russia and communism,” Butler observes. “Back in the 1950s, white evangelical leaders like Billy Graham preached against the evils of communism and called then-Soviet states ‘godless’ and a threat to Christianity and America. Fast-forward to the 21st Century, and today’s evangelical leaders, as well as Republicans, have embraced Russia — and, more specifically, Putin.”

Butler adds, “In 2014, Putin made the cover of the evangelical magazine Decision in a piece in which Graham's son Franklinlauded his handling of the Winter Olympics and his protection of Christians. Franklin visited Russia in 2015, and ever since, has promoted Putin as a godly leader. A few days before the invasion of Ukraine, he asked people to ‘pray for Putin’ but not for Ukrainians, creating a decent amount of backlash.”

Of course, it cannot be stressed enough that far-right white evangelicals don’t represent all of Christianity. They are the radical lunatic fringe of Christianity, and many other Christians — from Mainline Protestants to Catholics — want nothing to do with their movement. And they don’t go around praising Putin’s authoritarianism or saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a good thing.

Butler, in fact, wraps up her article by noting all the non-evangelical Catholics and Protestants who have been speaking out against Putin and the Kremlin.

“Other faith leaders in America held a vigil for peace in Ukraine, and Pope Francis visited the Russian Embassy in Rome — a sign of the seriousness of the situation,” Butler writes. “As the conflict in Ukraine continues, admiration of Putin by some White evangelicals and Republicans may lead to more than they bargained for.”

Neuroscientist sounds the alarm on the GOP’s 'contagious sociopaths'

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Levin appeared on Fox & Friends March 31, 2023 to denounce the indictment of Donald Trump (and plug his book).

When news broke Thursday that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict former President Donald Trump, Trump and his supporters were quick to portray him as an innocent victim and to suggest that his prosecution spelled the end of democracy in America.

The charges follow an investigation into a hush money payment made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. With the indictment under seal, the exact charges have not yet been made public, though some news reports suggest Trump faces about 30 charges and that he is expected to be charged with falsifying business records to cover up the payment.

Trump himself displayed his trademark narcissism Thursday, writing in one of many urgent emails, “We are living through the darkest chapter of American history.”

The always-blustery right-wing pundit Mark Levin ranted on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, “We have crossed the Rubicon. This is atyrannynow.”

Right-wing youth leader Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, claimed that the indictment of Trump is a “designed campaign” by the left to provoke right-wing violence “to justify the next phase of their takeover of the country.”

Ali Alexander, a leader of the “Stop the Steal” effort to keep Trump in power after his 2020 loss, wrote on his Telegram account, “TRUMP INDICTMENT refocuses some things. We’re approaching Luciferian-triggered civil war. We must fight Them.May God bless and forgive us where we fall short.”

Far-right broadcaster Pete Santilli—who last week said that if Trump were arrested, the military and law enforcement should round up and execute former President Barack Obama and other members of the “criminal cabal”—reacted to the news by telling his viewers that “these leftist, gun-grabbing Maoists, you will never have a peaceful resolution with. They’re going to come and kill you.:

amid reports that New York law enforcement officials are preparing for possible violence, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “I’m going to New York on Tuesday. We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!”

Although details of the indictment haven’t been made public,Sen. Ted Cruzused his “Verdict” podcast to denounce the indictment as “utter and complete garbage,” describing himself as angry and “heartbroken” over what he called a “devastating” blow to the rule of law. Cruz claimed that the Manhattan investigation was an effort by “radical Democrats” to “steal” the 2024 presidential election.

Cruz said the indictment would boost Trump’s election campaign, a sentiment echoed by other far-right followers of the twice-impeached former president. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody said the indictment had made Trump a “political martyr.”

On “FlashPoint,” a show that appears on evangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel that was a steady source of misinformation about the 2020 election and Jan. 6 insurrection, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake denounced what she called “false, phony charges.” Trump’s supporters, she said, are “tried and true” and will stay with him “all the way.”

Trump’s religious-right backers also rallied around him, with Franklin Graham calling it a “shameful day for America.”

As noted by religion scholar Diana Butler Bass in her latest newsletter, Trump has been using increasingly messianic and apocalyptic languagein reference to his legal troubles in an effort to maintain religious-right support.Trump followers who believe he is anointed by God and is being persecuted like Jesus by the legions of Satan is “a theo-political wild card we’ve got to pay attention to,”Bass writes. She points to the biblical story of Jesus’ arrest in which one of his disciples attacked one of the soldiers. While Jesus insisted, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword,” Bass warns, “Do not expect the same from Trump.”

Tags: Charlie Kirk David Brody Donald Trump Franklin Graham Kari Lake Marjorie Taylor Greene Mark Levin Pete Santilli Donald Trump Election 2024 Rule of LawTrump Indictment

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/franklin-graham-2658792985/

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Graham

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william Franklin Graham III (born July 14, 1952) is an American evangelist and missionary. He frequently engages in Christian revival tours and political commentary. He is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization. Graham became a "committed Christian" in 1974 and was ordained in 1982, and has since become a public speaker and author. He is a son of the American evangelist Billy Graham.[3]

Early years[

William Franklin Graham III was born in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 14, 1952, to evangelist Billy Graham and Ruth Graham. He is the fourth of their five children.[4] As a teenager, Graham attended The Stony Brook School, a Christian private school on Long Island, New York, but dropped out. He finished high school in North Carolina.[5]

In 1970, Graham attended LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, and was expelled from the school for keeping a female classmate out past curfew.[6] In 1973, Graham joined Bob Pierce, founder of Samaritan's Purse, on a six-week mission to Asia. During this trip, Graham decided to focus on world relief.[7] In 1974, he graduated from Montreat-Anderson College, now Montreat College, with an A.S. That same year on a trip to Jerusalem and he repented and experienced a new birth.[8] In 1978 he graduated from Appalachian State University with a B.A.[8][9][10]

He was ordained in 1982 by the Grace Community Church in Tempe, Arizona, a non-denominational church.[8]

On the left, with his fatherBilly Graham, June 1994

Ministry[

In 1979, after the death of Pierce, he became the president of Samaritan's Purse.[11]

In 1995, he became vice-president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association[6] and became the CEO in 2000.[12]

Graham preaching inKnoxville, Tennessee

Personal life:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

He married Jane Austin Cunningham of Smithfield, North Carolina, in 1974.[8] They have four children: William Franklin Graham IV (Will), born in 1975, Roy Austin Graham (1977), Edward Bell Graham (1979) and Jane Austin Graham Lynch (Cissie) (1986). Graham and his wife have eleven grandchildren.

Graham underwent heart surgery in November 2021.[13]

Controversies[

Warsaw (June 14, 2014)

Islam:{:{[:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}::(style="user-select:none;font-weight:normal;margin-left:1em;vertical-align:baseline;unicode-bidi:isolate;margin-right:0px"):}:

:{Graham came under criticism for comments he made about :(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:Islam in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks when he referred to Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion".[14] Further criticism came on April 18, 2003, when he preached at a Good Friday service at the Pentagon.[15] Graham has made controversial remarks against Islam saying "True Islam cannot be practiced in this country", to CNN's Campbell Brown in December 2009. "You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries."[16][17][18][19] On April 22, 2010, after objections from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Muslim group Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Pentagon rescinded his invitation from the Christian conservative National Day of Prayer Task Force to speak at a Pentagon National Day of Prayer event.[16]

In September 2010, Graham stated on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour that building churches and synagogues is forbidden in most countries in the Islamic world.[20]

Two salaries[

Franklin Graham drew scrutiny in 2009 for drawing a full-time salary from Samaritan's Purse, while simultaneously receiving a full-time salary from Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). This was called into question after his 2008 compensation from both organizations totaled $1.2 million. (Most of this was the result of a new IRS rule that required him to re-report deferred retirement contributions that had already been reported over the previous three years.[21]) Some experts on non-profit organisations have questioned whether one person can perform two full-time jobs leading organizations that employ hundreds and spend hundreds of millions around the world.[22] In response to the questions about his compensation, Graham decided to give up his salary from BGEA, stating his calling to the ministry "was never based on compensation". He also had contributions to his retirement plans suspended until the economy bounced back.[23] However, Graham was again criticized in 2015 when it was revealed he had again taken up his salary from BGEA, and that his annual compensation was significantly higher than that of the CEO's of similar but much larger non-profit organisations [24]

According to 2014 data, Graham is the highest paid Samaritan's Purse employee at $622,252 annually and leads other charities in compensation.[25] The preacher gave up a salary at the evangelistic association during the late economic downturn,[26] but the leaders urged him to accept compensation again and he now receives increased retirement contributions as well as a regular salary.[27] The evangelistic association reported 2013 revenues as $106.5 million and 2014 as $112,893,788.[28][29]

Support of the Iraq War[

Graham supported the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

In the August 30, 2010, issue of Time magazine, "Does America Hate Islam?", Graham reportedly said that Islam "is a religion of hatred. It's a religion of war." Building the cultural center near Ground Zero, he says, means Muslims "will claim now that the World Trade Center property ... is Islamic land."[30]

On Iraq, Graham says he is, "poised and ready" to send representatives of the charity he runs to Iraq as soon as possible. While the purpose is humanitarian aid, Graham also admits, "I believe as we work, God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his Son. ... We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a Christian, I do this in the name of Jesus Christ."[]

Barack Obama (2009–2017)[

On August 19, 2010, when asked by CNN correspondent John King if he had doubts that President Barack Obama is a Christian, Graham stated, "I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim; his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name." Graham continued, "Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said."[31][32] In a March 2011 interview with the conservative Internet publication Newsmax, Graham claimed officials in the Obama administration had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood:

The Muslim Brotherhood is very strong and active in our country. It's infiltrated every level of our government. Right now we have many of these people that are advising the US military and State Department on how to respond in the Middle East, and it's like asking a fox, like a farmer asking a fox, "How do I protect my henhouse from foxes?" We've brought in Muslims to tell us how to make policy toward Muslim countries. And many of these people we've brought in, I'm afraid, are under the Muslim Brotherhood.[33]

In an open letter response, Graham apologized to President Obama, saying, "I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama. The president has said he is a Christian and I accept that." In the open letter closing Graham stated, "In this election season and challenging economic time I am praying for our country and for those who lead it—for we are commanded in Scripture to do so."[34]

Graham has commented on Hinduism as well, saying, "no elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me. None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation".[35]

Opposition to indicting Sudan's Al-Bashir[

When Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court in March 2009, Graham argued in an op-ed in The New York Times that Bashir should not be indicted for alleged genocidal acts because the indictment would lead to the collapse of the 2005 peace agreement.[36]

Donald Trump (2017–2021)[

In April 2011, Graham told ABC's This Week program that Donald Trump, who had recently declared an interest in the Republican nomination for the 2012 U.S. presidential race, was his preferred candidate.[37] During an MSNBC Morning Joe interview on February 21, 2012,[38]Graham said that Rick Santorum was most closely aligned to Christian values in his words and deeds and that Senator Santorum was certainly a Christian at heart. On President Obama, Graham said that he is "a fine man" but could not know whether the president was a Christian in his heart. Asked about Mitt Romney, Graham said that most Protestants do not view Mormonism as a Christian faith. Graham further continued the trend of Christian politics and Protestant exclusivity, many of his views since Trump assumed office reflected a populist ideology, which is fairly common[vague] among the evangelical right.

On February 28, 2012, Graham responded to a one-page letter sent by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as an: "Open Letter from Leaders of Faith Regarding Statements by Franklin Graham". In the introduction to the one-page letter, the fourteen signatories stated: "we are greatly troubled by recent attempts by some religious leaders to use faith as a political weapon. We were disturbed and disappointed by statements made by Rev. Franklin Graham during an interview on MSNBC that questioned whether President Obama is a Christian." In closing, the open-letter stated: "We call on Rev. Graham and all Christian leaders to exemplify this essential teaching of Jesus and refrain from using Christianity as a weapon of political division."[39] In June 2016, Graham told a crowd, "I have zero hope for the Democratic Party; I have no hope for the Republican Party. I am running a campaign to put God back in the political process."[40] Nevertheless, in November 2016, Graham told The Washington Post that God had played a role in Donald Trump's election as U.S. president, saying: "I could sense going across the country that God was going to do something this year. And I believe that at this election, God showed up."[41] 

The same newspaper noted that the day after Trump's victory, Graham had posted a comment on Facebook in which he wrote, "Did God show up? […] In watching the news after the election, the secular media kept asking 'How did this happen?' 'What went wrong?' 'How did we miss this?' Some are in shock. Political pundits are stunned. Many thought the Trump/Pence ticket didn't have a chance. None of them understand the God-factor."[41] At the Inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, 2017, Graham chose to read a passage from Paul's First Epistle to Timothy, chapter 2, which calls for prayers for all people, including "kings and for all those in authority, that we may live peacefully quiet lives in all godliness and holiness."[42]

Since the 2016 election, Graham has "become known, above all, as the most vociferous evangelical ally" of Trump.[43] He has strongly opposed the impeachment process, calling it an "unjust inquisition".[44] In a November 21, 2019, interview with Eric Metaxas, Graham suggested opposition to Trump was the work of a "demonic power".[45][46] In December, when Christianity Today magazine, founded by Graham's father Billy, published an editorial calling Trump "profoundly immoral" and supporting his removal from office, Graham responded by saying his father had voted for Trump and saw him as the "man for this hour in history for our nation" and that the magazine was "representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism".[47][48]

In mid-December 2020, Graham wrote about the Trump presidency on Facebook, saying that "President Trump will go down in history as one of the great presidents of our nation, bringing peace and prosperity to millions here in the U.S. and around the world."[49]

In January 2021, Graham compared the ten Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Trump to Judas Iscariot, suggesting that the Democrats had promised them "thirty pieces of silver".[50]

Support for conversion therapy[

In 2017 Graham spoke against a bill proposing to ban conversion therapy. Referencing the biblical text of Leviticus 18:22, he said, "Homosexuality is defined by God as sin, an abomination to Him". He also compared conversion therapy to Conversion to Christianity.[51]

North Carolina Amendment 1[

Graham supported North Carolina Amendment 1, which was passed by a voter referendum on May 8, 2012, prohibiting same-sex marriage and all domestic partnerships.[52] Graham responded to Obama's May 9, 2012, statement of support for same-sex marriage, saying, "President Obama has, in my view, shaken his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage. It grieves me that our president would now affirm same-sex marriage, though I believe it grieves God even more."[53]

In December 2017, several British MPs urged the Home Secretary to consider refusing UK entry to Graham from speaking at an event due to take place in Blackpool in September 2018. As Graham represents the evangelical community, critics argued that those who want to ban Graham which means that individuals who have different opinions of LGBT rights would be banned in the UK. Gordon Marsden, an openly gay Labour MP suggested that Graham's comments may have contravened British laws on hate speech. As of February 2018, a petition against Graham being granted a visa had gathered more than 7,500 signatures. The pastor of Liberty Church in Blackpool, who organized the petition, said: "As a Christian and as a leader of a church that particularly welcomes LGBT people, I'm horrified that other local churches are inviting someone with this record of hate speech." The pastor said that Graham's visit had triggered an "enormous amount of protest from Christians in the north-west" of England, and his presence would be "extremely destructive in the area".[54]

Buttigieg tweets[

After South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg became the first openly gay man to announce a run for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President against President Donald Trump, Graham attacked Buttigieg for his homosexuality and marriage to another gay man in April 2019, tweeting "Mayor Buttigieg says he's a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman—not two men, not two women." The tweet was one of three in a thread.[55][56][57][58][59]

The tweet was met with a strong negative response against Graham, much of which condemned Graham as a hypocrite for selective criticism of a Democratic candidate's perceived wrongdoings while remaining silent on those perceived of the incumbent Republican. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough denounced Graham on his Morning Joe program, saying, "Just shut up Franklin Graham! You are a disgrace! You are a disgrace for normalizing Donald Trump's behavior."[60] The Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin rebuked Graham as a "hypocritical bigot" who "has rationalized Trump's infidelity and racism, ignored his lies, cheered his inhumane immigration policy and behaved as a political hack rather than a religious leader," also writing "Buttigieg gets the benefit of being attacked by a right-winger whom progressives revile, gets to underscore a message of generational change and acceptance and gets to demonstrate what a class act he is. The other candidates must be wondering why some GOP hatemonger doesn't attack them."[61] Opinion pieces in the National Review,[62] The Charlotte Observer,[63] and The Arizona Republic[64] were also critical of Graham's comments.[65]

Praise of Vladimir Putin[

Graham defended Russian President Vladimir Putin's "gay propaganda" law and has praised his leadership for "protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda."[66]

Duke University prayer call[

On January 14, 2015, Duke University canceled plans to have an amplified Muslim call to prayer played each Friday from the top of its chapel bell tower. Media outlets, including Fox News and CBS, credit Graham for organizing a campaign that garnered more than 70,000 "Likes" on Facebook, calling on the university to cancel the call to prayer and lobbying alumni to boycott the school if they did not.[67]

UK tour 2020 and 2022[

All venues booked for Franklin Graham's planned eight-city 2020 UK tour cancelled his booking after protests by LGBTQ+ activists, petitions and requests from local councils. Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, stated Liverpool is proud of its LGBT+ community and would challenge hatred and intolerance.[68] Graham's organisation said it would seek other venues. Many opponents said statements Graham had made were incompatible with their values, and that his appearance would be divisive, could be disruptive or lead to a breach of the peace.[69][70] After threatening legal action for breach of contract and giving assurances to venues that his preaching would not be discriminatory, Graham's tour was rescheduled for mid-2022.[71]

COVID vaccination:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Graham has said in interviews and social media posts that he believes Jesus would approve of the COVID-19 vaccine, saying "that's what Jesus Christ would want us to do, to help save life. It's just a tool to help save life."[72][73][74] He has compared the vaccine to the oil and wine the Good Samaritan used to treat the wounds of the injured traveler, saying "Now the oil and wine were the medicines of that day."[74] He told ABC News, "I think for a pastor to tell someone not to take the vaccine is problematic because what would happen if that person got coronavirus and died?"[72][73]

Graham has also cited the work of Samaritan's Purse in describing his support for the vaccine. "We have seen what COVID can do," said Graham, citing Samaritan's Purse work to help during the outbreaks in Cremona, Italy; Los Angeles; North Carolina and the Bahamas.[74]

Graham has also spoken of seeing the effects of the virus in his own organization. "I've had some of my own staff, one of them was on a ventilator for three months, Graham said in an interview with CBS News, "...from what I have seen and experienced myself, I don't want COVID and I don't want anybody else to get it."[74] Graham stated that he and his wife are both vaccinated. He also stated, "I want people to know that COVID-19 can kill you. But we have a vaccine out there that could possibly save your life. And if you wait, it could be too late."[75]

Published works[

References

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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-fails-apply-fact-check-labels-energy-independence-misinformation

as  the global economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, insufficient oil supply and the war in Ukraine have increased the price of crude oil, and gas prices have followed suit.On Facebook, right-wing pages are pushing a false narrative of American “energy independence” to shift the blame for high gas prices to the Biden administration and promote an ineffective, anti-science, pro-fossil fuel agenda.Misinformation on this topic is spreading on the platform, and the majority of posts go unflagged by Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners.

Facebook claims to reduce the distribution of posts with climate change misinformation through its fact-checking partnerships, though it does not remove climate change misinformation posts unless they violate its Community Standards. These organizations -- certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter -- can label misinformation, and posts with such labels are apparently pushed lower in the news feed. Facebook also says that pages, groups, or accounts that repeatedly share misinformation can face penalties, such as losing the ability to advertise or monetize posts or being tagged with pop-up warnings indicating that the account often shares misinformation. However, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and numerous media accountability reports have revealed that not only is Facebook’s policy incoherent and ineffective — as many posts go unlabeled — but the platform’s algorithm also appears to push users toward climate change denial content, pages, and groups.

In our latest study, Media Matters looked at Facebook pages that consistently spread climate or energy-related misinformation from September 1, 2021, through April 1, 2022, and found these pages were overwhelmingly ideologically right-leaning. We identified the 100 top Facebook posts with the most interactions (likes, comments, shares) that contained climate change and energy-related misinformation and found many posts used the energy independence narrative to push misinformation about gas prices.

Key findings

In reality, the U.S. was a net exporter of energy in 2021 and produced more energy than it consumed while Biden was president, fitting a widely accepted definition of energy independence. But whether or not a country is a net exporter of energy, gas prices are shaped by global supply and demand, not the actions of a single government.

The misinformation we found on Facebook prevents users from obtaining a full understanding of this concept, especially when there is no readily available fact check that users can access. Out of the top 100 misinformation posts Media Matters examined, just 2 had fact-checking labels. These posts earned 176,000 interactions combined.

One of the posts was from the page of climate denier Franklin Graham, who has argued that humans have a God-given right to increase resource extraction.

Graham’s labeled post claims that “the United States had the strongest economy in over 70 years — and we were energy independent. Now we are dangerously dependent on other countries again — buying 7 percent of our oil from Russia.”The post earned 132,000 interactions and was the fifth-most popular post out of the 100 Media Matters looked at between September 1, 2021 and April 1, 2022.

Facebook’s label indicates that the post has missing context, specifically that it “misled on energy independence.” The fact check links to an article by Agence France-Presse, one of Facebook’s fact-checking partners.

The other post which also has a missing-context label is a video from the Facebook page Media Research Center TV. The title of the video, “Killing Keystone: How Biden and The Far Left Destroyed American Energy Independence,” is a false claim in and of itself. Media Research Center, which describes itself as a right-wing media watchdog, has long denied the scientific consensus on climate change and receives funding from the fossil fuel industry. The Facebook label on the post cites misleading information on energy independence, linking to the same AFP article. The post has 44,000 interactions....

ref 1

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/lead-election-evangelical-leader-franklin-graham-dominates-facebook-posts-promoting-trump

strong support from white evangelicals is essential for President Donald Trump’s reelection efforts. In a new study, Media Matters found that influential evangelical leader Franklin Graham has used Facebook to promote pro-Trump talking points and right-wing narratives to his millions of followers -- spreading this messaging with posts that earn higher engagement than even Trump’s own posts. These findings further underscore the reality that social media companies are not censoring conservatives, despite right-wing media’s repeated claims.

Key findings include:

Franklin Graham, who is the son of the late evangelical leader Billy Graham, is avocal supporter of Trump, in part because Trump, in his explanation, is “defending Christians from secularists.” Just like his father, Franklin Graham is an influential evangelical leader, attracting big crowds at rallies and using social media to promote evangelical, pro-Trump, and other right-wing narratives to his millions of followers. He often reaches a bigger audience online than Trump himself.

In a new study, Media Matters used CrowdTangle data to compile and analyze hundreds of Facebook posts shared on Franklin Graham’s page between January 1 and October 18, 2020. Media Matters found that Graham has a strong and active following on Facebook, with his posts consistently earning hundreds of thousands of interactions -- and they often promote Trump, his agenda, and Fox News content.

Between January 1 and October 18, 2020, Graham's Facebook page posted only 481 times, but these posts earned at least 105.5 million total interactions, receiving an average of 219,000 interactions per post. His average is roughly double the average of interactions per post earned on Trump’s posts during the same time frame. Trump shared over 5,000 posts and earned roughly 563.8 million total interactions, resulting in an average of roughly 111,000 interactions per post.

Interaction rate is a performance metric that measures engagement of a Facebook page in relation to the number of page likes and how frequently it shares posts. With roughly 9.1 million page likes, Graham earned an average interaction rate of 2.4%. This rate is nearly four times the average interaction rate of 400 of the largest right-leaning Facebook pages (0.64%). By comparison, Trump’s page had an average interaction rate of 0.37%.

Media Matters reviewed the top 30,000 Facebook posts between January 1 and October 19, 2020, that linked to Fox News. Only the Fox News and Fox & Friends pages, both of which are official Fox News pages, earned more total interactions on all their posts than Graham. And these posts earned an average of roughly 25,000 interactions per post, while Graham’s posts far exceeded this average, earning nearly 10 times as many average interactions per post, or over 250,000.

Additionally, Graham posted seven of the top 10 posts that link to Fox News during the time period studied. These posts were all political, promoting Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court, praising Trump, and attacking Black Lives Matter, which is an organization that protests against police brutality.

In September alone, Graham posted 14 times about the election. These posts earned over 3.4 million total interactions. After reviewing 10,000 election-related posts with links that were posted in September, Media Matters found that Graham’s eight election-related posts with links earned over 327,000 average interactions per post, which is more than any other page. Only two other pages, conservative political action committee CFG Action and Barack Obama, even earned over 100,000 average interactions per post.

Graham posted five of the top 10 election-related posts in September that included links. These posts, which attacked Democrats, praised Trump, or promoted conservative policies, were all among the top 10 posts with links on the day that they were posted.

It isGod who has given us these great resources, and we can become energy independent. We should thank Him, and we should use them to help all Americans.

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/twisted-the-far-rights-disgraceful-reaction-to-the-sandy-hook-massacre/

no lnx twt vid

DECEMBER 14, 2015

Twisted: The Far-Right’s Disgraceful Reaction To The Sandy Hook Massacre

…his race for Congress, Georgia Republican Jody Hice said the shooting was a consequence of “kicking God out of the public square.” Mike Huckabee blamed the Sandy Hook massacre on…

twisted: The Far-Right’s Disgraceful Reaction To The Sandy Hook Massacre

By Brian Tashman | December 14, 2015

Last month, Donald Trump appeared on “The Alex Jones Show,” where he told the right-wing pundit that he has an “amazing” reputation, unlike other journalists, whom Trump commonly refers to as “scum.” Among Jones’ many wild conspiracy theories is his belief that the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which took place three years ago today, was “staged” by the Obama administration.

Trump has not faced any criticism from his fellow Republicans for going on Jones’ program or for touting his work, despite the fact that Jones has been instrumental in pushing the harmful Sandy Hook conspiracy theory.

A 2013 Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that “a quarter (25%) of Americans think that facts about the shootings at Sandy Hook elementary last year are being hidden and an additional eleven percent are unsure” and that “Republicans are more likely to think that the truth about Sandy Hook is being suppressed, with 32 percent agreeing.”

Sandy Hook truthers, who largely believe that the attack was faked as part of a government plot to push strict gun laws, are not alone in delivering twisted responses to the mass shooting. Others have used the massacre to attack gay marriage, the separation of church and state and, of course, gun laws.

The Truthers

WorldNetDaily columnist Erik Rush said that Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza “positively reeked of what intelligence operatives I know would call the tell-tale signs of recruitment and conditioning,” and wondered if Lanza was the target of a government scheme to recruit “vulnerable individuals for psyops” to advance “their diabolical agenda.”

Renew America’s Austin Miles similarly suggested that the massacre was “purposely orchestrated” to “disarm all Americans to retard resistance,” writing that Lanza and others were “brainwashed into carrying out such deeds that would prove a point about private gun ownership and the threat to all families as a result.” Then, he said, there would be no opposition to Obama using an “Executive Order to declare himself president (dictator) for life.” Fellow Renew America pundit, Laurie Roth, claimed Obama “staged” the attack because he’s on a “mission to take assault weapons from the people.”

Radio host Rick Wiles stated that “Sandy Hook was timed to coincide with the political agenda of the socialist Democrats such as Barry Soetoro [Obama], Chuckie Schumer, and Dianne Feinstein to pass stringent federal gun control laws,” alleging that “the shooting event was timed to coincide with the gun control initiative.” Another conservative radio host, Bradlee Dean, likened the Sandy Hook killings to Adolf Hitler “attacking his own Reichstag to start a world war” and said that it was orchestrated to pass an arms control treaty.

The Tea Party-aligned National Liberty Foundation insisted that the “staged” massacre showed just “how far your president went to get your guns”: “He wants to be a dictator, he doesn’t want to get out of the White House and he loves spending your money.”

Many of their assertions relied heavily on discredited claims that “crisis actors” posed as grieving family members at the school and that one of the young victims later met with President Obama (she didn’t, it was her little sister).

One Republican congressman, Louie Gohmert, however, told a fan of his that he would watch a Sandy Hook conspiracy theory video because he’s “always learning new things.”

religious Right’s Reaction

Several Religious Right activists responded to the Sandy Hook shooting by warning that the massacre was a sign that God is no longer protecting America, removing his hand of protection due to supposed societal ills such as gay marriage, abortion rights and the separation of church and state.

“Millions of people have decided that God doesn’t exist, or he’s irrelevant to me and we have killed 54 million babies and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition,”Focus on the Family founder James Dobsonlamented. “Believe me, that is going to have consequences too. And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now, but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us.”

“We’ve taken God our of our school, we’ve taken him out of our government and now we seem shocked at all of these things,” Franklin Graham stated following the attack. “Why are we shocked? We shouldn’t be shocked. This is what happens when a society turns its back on God.” Author Joel Rosenberg said the shooting was one of the tragedies America is “reaping as a result of a society that increasingly ignores God,” specifically blaming comedian Jon Stewart for waging a “war on Christmas” and mocking conservatives.

Before winning his race for Congress, Georgia Republican Jody Hice said the shooting was a consequence of “kicking God out of the public square.”

Mike Huckabee blamed the Sandy Hook massacre on those who have tried to “systematically removed God from our schools,” turning schools into “a place of carnage.” He claimed that school shootings would be a thing of the past if only schools started organizing chapel services for students and the government stopped ordering employers to “provide tax-funded abortion pills.”

One pastor said that a “gracious,” “merciful” and “loving” God decided not to intervene to prevent the shooting because it would “bring us back to our senses” and make people realize that God’s judgment “has really come by our turning away from the Lord.” Bryan Fischer of American Family Radio specifically blamed legal abortion and the lack of state-sponsored prayer for the attack, stating that God is a “gentleman” who “is not going to go where he is not wanted.”...?

[vid]

Ted Cruz has proudly boasted of his role in successfully blocking a bipartisan Senate measure to expand background checks on gun purchases following the school shooting, bragging that unlike Republican “squishes,” he stood firm in opposing universal background checks. The Sandy Hook-affected families who supported the efforts, he said, were being used as “political props.”

One of the main organizations that worked with Cruz in fighting the effort, Gun Owners of America, pushed fears that the background checks could lead to gun confiscation, tyranny and genocide. The group’s executive director, Larry Pratt, said liberals “rejoice” following events like Sandy Hook, as they “immediately start shedding their crocodile tears, pushing for more gun control,” and, possibly, martial law.

National Rifle Association board member and musician Ted Nugent blamed the shooting on America’s “politically correct culture” and “‘anything goes’ value system” which “vilifies, condemns and mocks traditional societal values and customs at every opportunity,” while NRA executive director Wayne LaPierre delivered an unhinged speech against gun control measures, lashing out at the group’s critics, the entertainment industry, video games, the media and a lack of guns in schools.

[vid]

Instead, Republicans claimed that the government should focus on mental health and then tried to block access to mental health services.

Few if any of the GOP presidential candidates are offering any meaningful gun reform proposals, outside of their unwavering dogma: More guns.

Tags: Alex Jones Bradlee Dean Bryan Fischer Erik Rush Franklin Graham James Dobson Larry Pratt Mike Huckabee Rick Wiles Ted Cruz Ted Nugent Wayne LaPierre gun violence gun violence prevention Second Amendment Gun Owners Association NRA

locking background checks

but while nearly nine out of 10 Americans, including nine out of 10 gun owners, support more background checks, Republican lawmakers care more about the support they receive from groups like the NRA, and have done next to nothing to tackle the issue of gun violence in the wake of tragedies like Sandy Hook.

an 621

franklin Graham urges school boards to fight the '**godless socialist agenda' of CRT**

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

Evangelical and anti-LGBTQ activist **Franklin Graham** is urging Americans to "pray for the Christians" who are fighting what he calls a "godless socialist agenda," an agenda he says now...

relATED

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/loudoun-protest/

Loudoun County is an affluent suburb outside of Washington. Its public school board held a meeting last night. It was cut short. According to the Loudoun Times-Mirror, the board unanimously voted to end a period of public comment "after a capacity crowd descended into shouting and after numerous requests that attendees remain silent were not heeded." Loudoun County Sheriff's deputies cleared the meeting room. Some protesters were frog-marched out. Videos of the evening went viral on social media.

That's why I'm bothering telling you about what would otherwise be a local event of no consequence to national politics. I think what happened last night is something we're probably going to see more of in the weeks ahead. It has the feeling of a "Tea Party"-style "movement" in which "righteous" Americans "revolt" against the "infringement" of their liberties. It's premised on a garbage pile of lies, but lots of white people in this country are willing to believe them, because lies tell them what they want to believe. They see themselves as victims. They will prove it, though the proof is delusional.

By the time the press corps picks up the story, the truth will be lost and the reported "controversy" will be about what liberalism's enemies say liberals say, boxing out of "debate" almost entirely what liberals themselves say they say.

It all began when Virginia State Senator Dick Black blasted the board for a decision regarding a teacher at Leesburg Elementary School. That teacher is Byron "Tanner" Cross. Cross was put on administrative leave after remarks he made last month during a public comment period. During that period, Cross promised to disobey a proposed rule that would require teachers to recognize "students' preferred gender pronouns or names if they choose to not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth."

"If his comments were not protected speech, then free speech does not exist at all," Senator Black said before adding, that, "It's absurd and immoral for teachers to call boys girls, and girls boys." According to the Times-Mirror, he also accused to Loudoun County Public Schools of "teaching children to hate others because of their skin color." The crowd reportedly roared. It did not stop. That's when the board ended the meeting. That's when the handcuffs came out. That's when the videos went viral.

If the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, had its druthers, that's where things would stand—with images of righteous (read: white) Americans standing up for what they believe in for the sake of their children and their liberty. And to be honest, that's where things will stay for a lot of people, because most people are casual consumers of news, which is to say they have better things to do than pay attention to politics. But it doesn't take much to see all this is staged to look worse than it is.

First, telling the school board you promise to break a proposed rule is kinda sorta begging for a reprimand, and no, the US Constitution does not protect you against being reprimanded for promising to break a proposed rule.1 Second, and important to a revamped "Tea Party," is that the board has repeatedly denied Loudoun schools are "teaching children to hate others because of their skin color." But that fact can't compete with a belief, manufactured by a right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, that a critical race theory is hiding behind every bush and tree in America.

As I mentioned recently, critical race theory is a useful mode of intellectual inquiry whose precepts you don't really need to understand because the people making all the noise about critical race theory don't care about understanding them.2 They "know" everything they need to "know" about it, and what they "know" is that it's anti-white. It's not anti-white, but that fact falls on deaf ears same as the Loudoun County school's denial of teaching critical race theory falls on deaf ears. These people believe the garbage pile of lies being fed to them by a right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, because the lies tell them what they want to believe. Democracy is producing results without their OK. Democracy leaving them behind is tyranny.

None of this will do too much damage to public opinion as long as stays on Fox et al., but that's probably not going to happen. With a Democrat is in the White House, the Washington press corps has the incentive to start paying attention, and once it does, the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, will be, in effect, the sitting judge of who gets to say what when, where, why and how. By the time the press corps picks up the story, the truth will be almost entirely lost and the "controversy" will be about what liberalism's enemies say liberals say, boxing out of the "debate" almost entirely what liberals themselves say they say.Even as these people demand their freedom of speech, what they're also doing is shutting down speech. Two hundred and forty-nine people were scheduled to speak during last night's period of public comment. Thanks to just one raging idiot, only a sixth of them got to have their say.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

"woke" military aha last fed/gubmint institution to fall, once sacrosanct b/c manly, trad conservative and defend us from evil commies; god bless our troops almost secular so common?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/fox-news-2653517083/

gen milley vs gaetz "take their budget" [grn beret?]; i'm a wht guy want to understand rage; biggest 2 wars bloody ~ racist = nazi and csa/kkk? read mao and marx, not commie; attack on west pt curric?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/ron-desantis-2653505905/

Florida goes full fascist': Ron DeSantis sparks furious backlash with ‘authoritarian’ campus political surveys

Raw Story June 23, 2021

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation requiring Florida students, faculty, and staff to register their political views in surveys in an effort to promote "intellectual diversity" at colleges and universities, and the measure set off backlash across social media.

Critics decried the law, which DeSantis claims will promote freedom of speech, as a "thoroughly Orwellian" attempt to gain control over academic debate at institutions of higher learning.....

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/franklin-graham/

BS

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/franklin-graham

stoked insurrection

no lnx

Franklin Graham slammed for 'inciting violence' after comparing Republicans who voted to impeach to 'Judas'

Christians slam Franklin Graham for saying God was absent at DNC

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement January 15, 2021

Evangelical leader and top Trump religion advisor Franklin Graham is under fire Thursday after attacking Republican Members of Congress who voted to impeach President Donald Trump, to "Judas," the biblical times apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ.

"Shame, shame on the ten Republicans who joined with @SpeakerPelosi & the House Democrats in impeaching President Trump yesterday," Graham said on Twitter. "After all that he has done for our country, you would turn your back & betray him so quickly? What was done yesterday only further divides our nation."

Graham also suggested they were paid off to vote against Trump, a dangerous allegation especially just one week after MAGA domestic terrorists and insurgents committed murder and sedition.

"House Democrats impeached him because they hate him and want to do as much damage as they can," Graham also charged on Facebook. "And these ten, from his own party, joined in the feeding frenzy. It makes you wonder what the thirty pieces of silver were that Speaker Pelosi promised for this betrayal."[sign 1/6 pelosi is satan"]

Pushback was strong, and some of it coming from those who clearly identify as Christian.

Some also noted that these Republican lawmakers are now getting death threats, and Graham targeting them on social media is akin to Trump's incitement of violence itself. Graham is one of the most followed and well-known religious leaders in the country. He has 2.3 million followers on Twitter, and 9.5 million on Facebook, where he also shared his dangerous condemnation.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Franklin Graham fumes over SCOTUS ruling: My rights to fire ... ›

Franklin Graham's Astonishing Ungodly Hypocrisy - Alternet.org ›

Evangelist Franklin Graham Trashes Trump Immigration Policy ... ›

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Franklin Graham - Wikipedia ›

Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) | Twitter ›

Franklin Graham - Home | Facebook ›

1220

in the past 24 hours, eight of the top ten most popular posts on Facebook were created by far-right extremists—including Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, and Franklin Graham.1

Every single day, these far-right figures are spreading radical right-wing conspiracy theories to tens of millions of Americans and are poisoning our news feeds with dangerous misinformation that is eroding our democracy.

Which is why Inequality Media—the progressive nonprofit I founded that counters the right wing's lies with clear, factual, and engaging viral videos and other content—has never been more important.

Inequality Media is one of the only progressive groups with a large enough following to match the biggest right-wing propagandists. Just look at our numbers: Our videos and posts are shared seven times more than Sean Hannity's, our Facebook page receives 15 times more engagement per post than Ben Shapiro, and our videos have been viewed more than 440 million times....

Bill Graham’s granddaughter explains why hypocritical evangelical pastors are ‘damaging the gospel’

Sarah K. Burris / Raw StoryAugust 31, 2020

Speaking to MSNBC on Sunday afternoon, the late Rev. Billy Graham’s granddaughter, Jerushah Duford, explained why the hypocrisy by evangelical pastors is damaging the Christian gospel. The conversation comes about a…

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echoes djt charge a few days ago

Christians slam Franklin Graham for saying God was absent at DNCdems took under God:" out of poa?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/what-trump-will-do-if-he-loses-is-the-wrong-question-what-matters-is-what-his-supporters-will-do/

hnn

It looks like Biden will beat Trump badly and the Republicans will suffer disastrous losses across the country in November.Although the polls have just been inching toward the Democrats, suddenly articles about what Trump might do if he loses are multiplying, here, here, and here.

Trump might declare the elections fake, go on FOX News to say he had really won, call out the National Guard, barricade himself in the Oval Office, order the Secret Service to shoot Biden on sight.

But what he will do is the wrong question. What matters is what his supporters will do when they lose.

Three groups of supporters are crucial to observe. The media will focus at first on Republican politicians.Will Senate losers in Montana, Arizona, Colorado, and other states jump on the fake news bandwagon? Would Mitch McConnell go quietly if Amy McGrath beats him in a very close race? Maybe Susan Collins will accept defeat in Maine, but what about QAnon promoter Jo Rae Perkins in Oregon? How about Lauren Boebert, QAnon enthusiast and House candidate in Colorado, and the other 7 Republican congressional candidates on the ballot who have expressed support for QAnon?

The whole Republican Senate delegation has already cast doubt on the results by allowing their leader to proclaim unchallenged that the election will be fraudulent. On June 22, Trump said the 2020 election “will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history”. In 2018, the National Republican Senatorial Committee followed up a Trump tweet about “electoral corruption” in the Arizona Senate race by charging that the election they lost there was rigged. Stripped of power, perhaps for years, it’s not hard to imagine Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham, among others, casting doubt on the results.

Thus far the bravest Republicans in Washington, aside from Mitt Romney, are Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who called Trump’s pardon of Roger Stone a “mistake”, and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who said she won’t campaign against Joe Biden. The majority of Senate Republicans cowers in silence.

Will Trump’s toadies now running our intelligence services and justice system speak up and what will they say? Across the country, Republican state legislators who lose their gerrymandered majorities could join the chorus.

A second set of Trump supporters use their control of media to send waves of influence into every corner of America. Will FOX News report the official results or attack them? How about the other people to whom Republicans listen, even more partisan and less connected to reality, like Limbaugh, Breitbart, InfoWars, Drudge? Will powerful evangelical pastors Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress proclaim that their God-given leader was cheated?

The third group is the most important and hardest to gauge – the MAGA-hat-wearing, Confederate-flag-waving white supremacists and conspiracy partisans who make up his legendary “base”. Will they see the end times coming as their messiah is defeated? Will the dozens of armed militia groups adopt 2nd Amendment remedies to the impending takeover of America by radical socialist pedophiles? What will Ammon Bundy, the boogaloo boys, the Oath Keepers, and the more than 500 other anti-government groups loosely allied in the so-called “patriot movement” identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center do? Will the NRA call out its members to fight the commies?

Trump could scream himself hoarse with no effect unless his supporters sing along. As full election results trickle in the days after November 3 and as the implications sink in with the approach of Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021, a coalition of supporters in Washington, state governments, media, and on the ground might throw our country into an existential, not merely Constitutional crisis.

It’s certain that Trump will do nothing brave himself, will commit himself to no action that he can’t back out of. But the radicals who drive their cars into Black Lives Matter protesters, who bring their assault rifles to the pizza palace, and who believe anything “Q” says are much more volatile, unhinged, and violent.

Whatever answers such questions might elicit now will change over the next few months, as Trump stokes more fear among his supporters, pushes them further away from the American center, and forces his Republican allies to come along.

Watch Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Matt Gaetz (Florida) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California), Gov. Ron DeSantis (Florida), and Mark Meadows, White House Chief of Staff. Watch wily Mitch McConnell, who shares with Trump a powerful belief in the importance of his own survival.

And watch out for America.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/did-roger-stone-really-find-jesus

nancy leT

Regardless of what you think about the allegation that Roger Stone was the Trump campaign emissary to Wikileaks, no one would ever claim that he is anything but a despicable person. As the editors of the National Review wrote, “No one would think of letting Roger Stone anywhere near any serious responsibility, and even the Trump campaign in 2016 had the sense to keep him at arm’s length.”

In case you aren’t familiar with his past, I suggest watching the documentary Get Me Roger Stone, which is available on Netflix.

But now all of the sudden, Stone has found Jesus. Apparently while awaiting sentencing on his conviction for lying to investigators and witness tampering, he attended a Franklin Graham rally and became a Christian. After Trump commuted his sentence, Stone made an appearance on the Christian Broadcast Network and was interviewed by David Brody.

That was good enough for court evangelical Ralph Reed, who tweeted, “I am grateful Roger Stone found faith in Christ and is free. His prosecution was an abuse of power. He should never have been charged.”

I am reminded of what theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about cheap grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!

Roger Stone (and Donald Trump) are perfect examples of how a belief in cheap grace sets white evangelical Christians up to be easy prey for con men (and women). All someone has to do is claim to have accepted Jesus as their savior and nothing else is required. Someone like Roger Stone is welcomed into the fold without ever having to name any of the despicable things they’ve done, much less be held accountable. They don’t have to commit to changing their ways or even say that they’ll try to be a better person.

At one point during his interview with Brody, Stone suggests that he’s already changed because he isn’t interested in seeking vengeance against those who prosecuted and convicted him. That was right before he called them “satanic.”

I am personally someone who believes in redemption. But a spiritual encounter with God would, by nature, lead to a period of soul-searching, self-reflection, prayer, and humility—not an interview on national television that provides the opportunity to attack one’s opponents. Even Richard Nixon’s hatchet man, Charles Colson, had the good sense to devote himself to prison ministry after claiming to have found Jesus.

It is not my job to judge the state of Roger Stone’s soul. But I don’t ever want to be part of a religion that welcomes him with open arms—no questions asked.

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420 an

franklin Graham’s Central Park COVID-19 field hospital delays opening as controversy rages

David Badash / The New Civil Rights MovementApril 1, 2020

Franklin Graham’s 68-bed COVID-19 field hospital is now mired in controversy as concerns grow about exactly how his Samaritan’s Purse Christian fundamentalist ministry came to set up shop in Manhattan’s historic Central…

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/far-right-white-evangelicals-despite-impeachment-and-the-ukraine-scandal-still-see-trump-as-the-chosen-one/

no lnx

Far-right white evangelicals — despite impeachment and the Ukraine scandal — still see Trump as ‘the Chosen One’

Written by Alex Henderson November 27, 2019

In the 1980s, the late Sen. Barry Goldwater — who was considered an arch-conservative in his day — famously asserted that the Republican Party was making a huge mistake by embracing the Christian Right, which he described as a “terrible damn problem” for the conservative movement. But President Donald Trump, on the other hand, enthusiastically welcomes the support of far-right white evangelicals — some of whom are declaring that the impeachment inquiry he is facing is against God’s will and that demonic forces are trying to remove the president from office.

On November 21, evangelist Franklin Graham (son of the late Rev. Billy Graham and a strident Trump supporter) discussed impeachment when he appeared on fellow wingnut Eric Metaxas’ radio show. Graham told Metaxas that it’s “almost a demonic power that is trying” to remove Trump from office — to which Metaxas responded, “I would disagree. It’s not almost demonic. You know and I know, at the heart, it’s a spiritual battle.”

When far-right evangelicals speak of a “spiritual battle,” they typically mean one between God and Satan — and clearly, Graham and Metaxas believe that Trump is working for God, while his political opponents are working for Satan.

Republican Rick Perry, secretary of energy in the Trump Administration and former governor of Texas, has also claimed that Trump is on a mission from God. Perry, during a recent appearance on Fox News, described Trump as “the chosen one” and claimed he has been “sent by God to do great things.”

Many of Trump’s critics have had a hard time understanding why he is so popular with the Christian Right, which wanted to see President Bill Clinton impeached in the late 1990s for having an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Trump, according to his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, had extramarital affairs with a porn star (Stormy Daniels) and a Playboy model (Karen McDougal) and paid them hush money to keep quiet. But the Christian Right is extremist tribalist in its thinking; so, even though Trump has never been especially religious (he’s a non-practicing Presbyterian) and former President Barack Obama has a long history of going to church, far-right white evangelicals view Trump as an ally and Obama as an enemy.

Similarly, white Christian fundamentalists detest South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a churchgoing Episcopalian and Democratic presidential candidate who often talks about his faith. Buttigieg is obviously more religious than Trump, but he is a non-fundamentalist Mainline Protestant — and the Christian Right doesn’t see him as part of their tribe. In fact, the Christian Right view Obama and Buttigieg as infidels, not unlike Islamic fundamentalists who view non-jihadist Muslims as infidels.

Journalist Chris Hedges, a non-fundamentalist Christian who has written a lot about the role that faith can play in left-wing politics, uses the term “Christian fascists” to describe the Christian Right. Hedges considers the Christian Right a dangerous authoritarian movement, often stressing that Trump appeals to the Christian Right’s authoritarian tendencies.

Such tendencies were evident in October after the death of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, who chaired the House Oversight Committee. Cummings was quite religious: his association with the New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore spanned at least 40 years, and the Maryland Democrat would sing the Christian hymn “This Little Light of Mine” at civil rights marches. Yet some far-right evangelicals celebrated his death, insisting that God struck him down for opposing Trump.

Christian fundamentalist Stacey Shiflett, for example, said of Cummings, “Everything that he’s done has been nothing but trying to take this president out. I believe that God had had enough, and God moved.”

Hanna Selinger, in a November 26 article for The Independent, delves into the Christian Right’s unwavering adoration of Trump and explains why white Christian fundamentalists hold him in such high regard despite his not-so-Christian behavior.

“For evangelicals,” Selinger explains, “Donald Trump offers deliverables. The conservatives who follow the letter of the law when it comes to the Bible count among their most important issues ‘family values’: abortion, gay marriage, and so on. On these issues, Trump has offered a far-right tack. Despite who he actually is as a person, he checks the boxes — enabling evangelicals to look the other way and toward a perceived ‘greater good.’”

Christian Right voters, Selinger observes, “are willing to separate morals in a president from morals in a country. These voters will pull the lever for a man who prevaricates daily, who has had multiple wives and even more affairs. That’s because they believe that those characteristics outweigh the things they want done in Washington.”

Selinger adds, “Rick Perry is no different. He too is willing to overlook gross misconduct, of which he was part, simply because he likes the president’s policies.”

If a Democratic president had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate a political revival and made that investigation a condition of military aid, far-right theocrats like Graham, Perry, Metaxas and Liberty University’s Jerry Falwell, Jr. would be demanding his impeachment. But because Trump become an honorary member of the Christian Right, he gets a pass.

The Christian Right, Selinger asserts, is unlikely to turn against Trump.

“This is the problem with Trump and his allies, and it begins with religion: what it means to follow God has been lost in a political game that places legislative wins over moral losses,” Selinger writes. “Will evangelicals ever see the light? As Rick Perry demonstrates in his ruthless sycophancy, the odds are slim.”

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frank Graham unleashes angry rant about Trump impeachment — then quotes the Bible: ‘The Lord detests lying lips’

David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement

Homophobic bully Franklin Graham goes after Pete Buttigieg

David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement

Franklin Graham is singling out and attacking Democratic presidential candidate and mayor Pete Buttigieg once again. Not former Vice President Joe Biden, not Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker,…

https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/how-the-white-evangelical-worldview-is-pulling-us-toward-authoritarianism/

no lnx

How the white evangelical worldview is pulling us toward authoritarianism

written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly June 18, 2019

A recognition of the fact that the American right has soured on the whole notion of democracy in favor of authoritarianism comes with the implicit recognition that conservative white evangelicals have willingly joined that movement. As poll after poll has demonstrated, the one group that has remained loyal to the GOP during its descent into Trumpism is white evangelicals.

To understand how that happened, we should note that court evangelical Franklin Graham is fond of equating progressives with godlessness. That is first and foremost his attempt to exclude anyone who doesn’t agree with him politically from calling themselves “Christian”—which is why he constantly challenged the faith of Barack Obama.

But Graham’s pronouncement is about a lot more than that. It also encapsulates his worldview, which is shared by many white evangelicals.

Almighty God is a sovereignGod, ruler over nations, states, empires and governments. He is to be worshipped and obeyed through the precepts and principles revealed in His infallible Word. He not only exists, but He is sovereign over all of history according to His wisdom and purposes, and He is intimately involved in every aspect of life.

The Biblical worldview also asserts the existence and reality of sin and evil. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). War, disease, violence, injustice and the myriad of problems that beset the world are the result of man’s rebellion against God. No amount of higher education, no enlightened political agenda or social program can cancel or remove the devastating consequences of sin.

The root of everything wrong in the world is sin, which relegates any attempt to improve things outside of the parameters set by the “Biblical worldview” to the dustbin of abject failure. According to Graham, human beings who don’t submit to the authority of the Bible are incapable of behaving morally.

The secular worldview dismisses God as irrelevant in the affairs of men and government, and views critical moral issues as independent of God’s moral character and principles. Clear definitions of right and wrong are impossible to determine, having been replaced by cultural whims and situational ethics…

Any attempt to create a utopian society, to permanently solve global problems, is doomed to fail.

That is where the authoritarianism comes in. Graham began the article I’ve been quoting by referencing the fact that Congress failed to pass legislation banning abortion after 20 weeks, the movement towards equal rights for LGBTQ Americans, and the so-called “foothold” that Islam has gained in Europe. Those are all meant to indicate that white evangelical Christians are losing the culture war.

Graham posits that the ultimate solution will only come at the rapture when Jesus returns to eliminate sin and mete out judgment to those who have rebelled against him. But in the meantime, the intent is clear. Since any effort to mitigate the consequences of sin—war, disease, violence, injustice, etc.—outside of adherence to the authority of the Bible is doomed to failure by the godless secularists, Graham’s view of Biblical authority must be imposed by the state in order to contain chaos.

When Sohrab Ahmari counsels conservatives to eschew civility and decency in political discourse in order to “fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good,” he is joined in that advice by Franklin Graham. During a speech in North Carolina, Graham warned that those “godless progressives” will call you names and get in your face, so Christians need to have thick skin and say, “there’s more of us than there are of you, so shut up and sit down.”

As with any group, there are those in the white evangelical community who disagree with some elements of Graham’s worldview, just as, contrary to his claims, there are a whole host of Christian progressives. But overall, what Graham has articulated is embraced by Trump’s enablers among the court evangelicals and their followers. It abandons the idea of a democracy where neutral ground is found among a pluralistic society in favor of an authoritarian system that imposes its Biblical worldview on everyone.

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