Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full story/ article.

There are disturbing reports this morning of dozens of Palestinians killed protesting the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. With that predictable backdrop to the decision by world- class moron Donald "Rump" Trump to move the embassy there after 70 years, let's take note who the Rump regime wants to lead a prayer at the embassy's opening dedication today:

Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Fox News contributor, megachurch Baptist preacher from Dallas, and close Trump ally and surrogate, has been chosen by the Trump administration to lead a prayer at Monday’s opening dedication celebration of the new – and highly controversial – U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. The choice of Jeffress makes this highly controversial move all the more problematic, given his views on literally every other religion, including other Christian religions, Judaism, and Islam. [snip]

Pastor Jeffress, in a now infamous 2011 interview, also said that “every other religion in the world is wrong: Islam is wrong, it is a heresy from the pit of Hell; Mormonism is wrong, it is a heresy from the pit of Hell, and, “Judaism, you can’t be saved being a Jew.” 

Unsurprisingly, Jeffress also preaches that “homosexuality is an abomination,” “is degrading, is a degenerative practice,” “detestable,” “unclean,” and “a perversion.” Same-sex marriages, according to Jeffress, are “counterfeit” and “cheapen the value” of different-sex marriages. 

Jeffress has also called Mormonism a “cult,” and says Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam are also.

This dyed- in- the- wool bigot should be forever shunned by both believers and non- believers for his loathsome views, not given a place of honor at our nation's embassy in a city that's holy to three religions, two of which Jeffress disparages. But this choice (and the strong support given by Jeffress and other evangelicals to Rump) has a deeper meaning (via Hullabaloo):

...[M]any evangelical Christians believe that Trump was chosen by God to usher in a new era, a part of history called the “end times.” Beliefs about this time period differ, but it is broadly considered the end of the world, the time when Jesus returns to Earth and judges all people. [snip] 

Evangelicals believe that a unified Israel with control over Jerusalem will facilitate the construction of a new Jewish temple, and set the groundwork for the end of times.

Are we the only ones who find the notion absolutely chilling that some influential American mullahs are actively trying to maneuver the Orange Dolt toward an apocalypse in order to further their crackpot "religious" fever dream?  (Even some conservative Jews are upset with the choice of Jeffress).

E.J. Dionne, Jr., on how (contrary to Beltway conventional wisdom) Democrats will be going into the 2018 mid- terms with plenty of new ideas:

Trump’s failure to deliver to the voters who hoped he’d be a working-class hero creates a large opening for Democrats and progressives in key swing areas that drifted Trump’s way, especially in the Midwest and Pennsylvania. 

But here again, conventional wisdom is hard at work, this time with cliches that contradict each other. The first is that Democrats have no new ideas about the economy. The second is that they are moving to the left. 

But if the second is correct, that must mean that they are offering ideas that are more progressive than the ones they put forward before — which, in turn, means that the first assertion can’t be true. 

Here’s the reality: The economic crash of 2008 and Trump’s success among blue-collar voters in parts of the country that have fallen behind moved moderates as well as liberals alike toward a tougher critique of how the American economy is working. There is nothing ultra-left about this. It is just a reckoning with what is happening to the lives and livelihoods of millions of our fellow Americans.

Dionne notes that the progressive Center for American Progress announced proposals last week that reflect those new ideas.

Yet another Sad! tale of buyer's remorse from a Trumper who didn't believe that what he was saying over and over in the campaign would ever come back to bite her in the ass:

Even though President Donald Trump made slapping tariffs on foreign goods one of his signature campaign promises, one Trump-backing CEO now finds herself horrified that he’s actually going to go through with it. 

Writing in Crain’s Detroit, Lucerne International CEO Mary Buchzeiger writes that Trump’s proposed tariffs on Chinese goods could wind up ruining her business. 

Even though Buchzeiger backed Trump in 2016 and “supports” his “campaign to level U.S. trade imbalances,” she didn’t expect him to enact anything like what he has proposed.

As Masha Gessen warned shortly after Rump's election, "Believe the autocrat. He means what he says."  Perhaps a hard lesson that will now be visited on Ms. Buchzeiger and her employees.

Infidel 753 reports again in his link round- up on "interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week."  It's always interesting and worth a trip over to his blog.

BONUS:  Jeffress isn't the only American mullah speaking at the embassy today.

John Hagee, speaking now at the embassy opening in Jerusalem, blamed Hurricane Katrina on gay people and "argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine" pic.twitter.com/Qq0Sb1tmE1

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) May 14, 2018

How low can we go?