Tag Archives: Muslims

national news

‘Disloyal,’ Mr. President? To whom?

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Donald John Trump’s mouth has taken him off the road and into the ditch yet again.

This time the president has declared that Jewish voters who support Democrats are lacking in “knowledge” or — and this is the best part by far — are “disloyal.”

Yes, he says Democratic-leaning Jewish voters are “disloyal.”

Now, it is totally fair to ask the president what he means precisely when he accuses American citizens who cast their votes for Democratic Party candidates of being disloyal. To whom are they “disloyal,” Mr. President? To you? To the nation? To your party? To themselves? All of the above?

This is just another disgraceful example of the president popping off to reporters without knowing what the hell he’s saying, what he’s talking about or having a clue as to the offensiveness of his remarks.

Trump went off in remarks to reporters on another riff about two Muslim members of Congress, Democrats Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. He’s been on their case lately, stemming from his pleading with Israel to deny them entry into that country. The Israelis actually acceded to the president’s request, then backed and granted Tlaib entry; Tlaib then canceled her visit to the West Bank.

So what in blazes is Donald Trump trying to say about Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats?

That “disloyalty” canard is just more dangerous rhetoric from a totally dangerous politician.

national news

Waiting for the right candidate to challenge Trump

I do not yet have a favorite candidate I want to challenge Donald John Trump in the next presidential election. I am waiting for that candidate to present himself or herself.

I do know this: The president’s unfitness for the office he occupies is becoming more obvious damn near each day he sits behind that big desk in the Oval Office.

This latest gambit of considering whether to set illegal immigrants loose on the streets of “sanctuary cities” to punish congressional Democrats who oppose him on his desire to build The Wall along our southern border is just the latest example.

Donald Trump lies when he doesn’t need to lie. I watch clip after clip of his lying throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and I simply am aghast. I am appalled that he eked out an Electoral College win to become president. I am astonished that his lying didn’t disqualify him at one of countless points along the campaign trail. He lied about seeing and hearing “thousands of Muslims” cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11; he lied about “helping” clear the rubble from Ground Zero after that tragic event; he lied about how he built his company from scratch.

This is the most untrustworthy man ever to hold the office of president.

His personal insults demean the office. He mocks individuals with physical disabilities. He insults individuals’ physical appearance.

Donald Trump foments hate against Muslims, against Latinos, against those seek to enter this country from “sh**hole countries.”

He denigrates others’ contributions to our national life. He infamously disparaged the heroic service during the Vietnam War of the late Sen. John McCain.

This won’t surprise anyone who reads this blog regularly, but my mind was made up about one aspect of the 2020 election the moment it became clear to all of us that Donald Trump would win the 2016 election. There could be no way in this entire galaxy I could support this individual’s re-election.

My task now is to await to see who arises from the thundering horde/herd of candidates seeking to get the nation’s attention.

My statement that my preference would be for someone to arise from the middle — or perhaps the back — of the crowd to establish himself or herself as a frontrunner. I just do not yet know who will step forward.

I want my 2020 presidential vote to be for someone who presents a positive vision for the future of this country. I want it to be in favor of someone who can correct the hideous course on which the Liar in Chief has taken us.

I truly would hate casting my vote only as a statement against the presidency of Donald Trump. I do not want to hold my schnoz while casting my ballot.

However, I am able to do so . . . if that’s what it takes.

International news

World tries to digest the New Zealand massacre

As the worldwide shock starts to sink in regarding the slaughter of 49 worshipers at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques, many of us are wondering: How does this kind of thing happen in a country known to be one of the more peaceful places on Earth?

Who’s to blame? I guess the early nod goes to the Internet, the purveyor of all kinds of emotional messaging. And that includes hate of the most evil variety, hate that manifests itself in unspeakable violance.

One of the suspects charge with the massacre of Muslims is a known white nationalist from Australia. He had channeled some of the rhetoric — allegedly — that he heard from Americans. He reportedly is fervently anti-immigrant.

So what does he do? He travels to New Zealand and along with two accomplices takes his rage out on people who were praying to God.

Terrorists collect ammo to fuel their hatred from all manner of sources. It appears the Internet has been available to the individuals responsible for this hideous spasm of violence.

I am not going to say we should eliminate the Internet. Nor am I going to suggest that everyone on Earth boycott it.

I merely am expressing one individual’s sense of agony at the plethora of hatred that travels like lightning around the world and ends up infecting what passes for the hearts of individuals like those who perpetrated this monstrous act.

Donald Trump said today he doesn’t believe the world is witnessing an increase in white nationalism/supremacy. The president is mistaken. Or he is deliberately misconstruing what the evidence is producing.

I believe reports that suggest a 17 percent spike in hate crimes over the past couple of years. As we have witnessed in the past 24 hours, the Internet — that worldwide communication platform — is potentially able to poison all communities.

Even those known to be peaceful places.

national news

Muslims embrace Jews in wake of tragedy

At one level I am not surprised to hear this, but it still deserves a brief mention here.

Immediately after the gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., killing 11 worshipers, Americans of all stripes rose up. They expressed their horror, their shock, their grief and even their anger over the anti-Semitic actions of the gunman.

Among those who rushed to the side of these stricken Jewish Americans were Muslim Americans who began raising money to assist the family members of the victims.

This back story fills me with a sense of gratitude, again not that it surprises me. Many of us have known all along that Americans who worship the Islamic faith are every bit as kind-hearted and empathetic as any group of Americans.

Indeed, Muslims have felt their own recrimination from those who react to the hideous horror brought by those who purport to act on behalf of Muslims. These are religious perverts. Yet their perversion is lost on many others.

So, when Muslims react with generosity and grief over the deaths of fellow Americans who happen to worship as Jews, it speaks to the notion that we really are the United States of America.

national news

Hey, Mr. POTUS, what about the rest of the country?

It has become an established fact that Donald John Trump Sr. loves talking exclusively to those who support him no matter what.

He speaks their language; they adhere to his message.

The latest so-called “dog whistle” was blasted out today when the president fired off a Twitter message in which — and this is really rich — he actually denied that nearly 3,000 Americans died from the wrath brought to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria.

He blames the death toll on Democrats who are intent on making him look bad. That’s it! The Puerto Rico territorial government’s death toll, revised way upward from a formerly official count of 64 fatalities, is a plot, a conspiracy.

He made this astonishing, idiotic and utterly baseless claim as Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolina coast, threatening to bring even more havoc to the Eastern Seaboard.

Let’s talk, briefly, about his Puerto Rico remarks.

It’s easy to say that the president doesn’t know what he’s talking about. However, he knows precisely what he’s saying. He is speaking to his “base,” the 35 or so percent of voting-age Americans who are behind him to the very end. The base doesn’t care about the truth. It doesn’t care about reality. It cares only that Trump stands up to the so-called “mainstream media,” those who oppose him.

Trump himself declared during the 2016 campaign that he could “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes.” Americans were aghast in the moment when Trump said it. That boast doesn’t seem quite so ridiculous now.

So he continues to talk to the base. He continues to make assertions without a scintilla of evidence to back them up. Democrats are to blame for the deaths of all those U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico? Millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016? He watched “thousands of Muslims” cheering the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11? Barack Hussein Obama was born in Kenya and was ineligible to run for president?

That’s what I call “fake news.”

national news

This is just a little lie, but it’s a lie nonetheless

In the growing list of Donald J. Trump lies and prevarications, this one ranks as a minor-leaguer, not really worth a damn.

However, it illustrates quite graphically how the president’s fast-and-loose treatment of facts keeps rising up to bite him — and the rest of us — in the backside.

Former President Barack Obama delivered a speech today in Illinois that went straight after Donald Trump. The Obama speech marked the 44th president’s return to the political arena.

What, then, was the 45th president’s response to it? He told a crowd in North Dakota that he watched a little bit of the speech, but then “fell asleep.”

There you have it. Trump would have us believe that Barack Obama’s speech bored Trump so much that he couldn’t stay awake.

Do you believe Trump actually nodded off? Nope. Neither do I.

Which brings me to my point. Why in the name of bald-faced lying would Trump feel the need to say such a thing? Why couldn’t he just say that the speech did nothing for him? That he found it boring?

You see, this seems to get right to the point of what so many of us find so damn troubling about Donald Trump. He cannot tell the truth on anything, at any level.

I know that this lie won’t matter in the grand scheme of the chaos that rules the White House. It doesn’t involve public policy decisions. It certainly doesn’t measure up to some of the whoppers he has told: millions of illegal immigrants voting for Hillary Clinton; watching “thousands” of Muslims cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11; having “proof” that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and, thus, was ineligible to run for the presidency.

Big lies. Little lies. I know there’s a difference. No matter the size of the lie, that Donald Trump would tell them is reason enough to be frightened by the president of the United States.

national news

Is there a Liars Anonymous organization?

Donald Trump needs an intervention.

The president of the United States cannot tell the truth. He cannot state simply the reality of any situation he confronts, or that stands in his way.

Trump decided to lie like a rug yet again when he announced his decision to cancel a planned state visit to Great Britain. His excuse? He said former President Barack Obama brokered a bad deal to purchase the site for a new U.S. Embassy in London.

Trump blasted his immediate predecessor for paying too much public money to relocate the embassy.

So, that was his pretext for deciding against visiting the UK?

Two points are worth making here.

One is that his stated reason is as transparently phony as it can possibly get. The president doesn’t need to fabricate a reason to avoid going somewhere. The real reason clearly has to be that Brits cannot stand him. He was going to run straight into the teeth of intense public protests were he to visit Great Britain.

He has insulted British Prime Minister Teresa May; he has hurled ill-founded criticism of London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who happens to be a Muslim (and we certainly know how Trump feels about those who practice the Islamic faith).

The second point is this: The deal to purchase the embassy site was brokered under the administration of President George W. Bush. It was finalized in 2008, the year before Barack H. Obama took office.

Donald Trump has a serious grudge against Barack Obama. What fuels it? Is it that the former president exhibited the class and grace that the current president lacks? Is it the former president’s continued high standing among Americans? Is it because of the former president’s racial … oh, you know.

Donald Trump cannot tell the truth. He is a pathological liar.

He needs to enroll in a Liars Anonymous session — if there’s one available … and declare: My name is Donald and I am a liar.

 

International news

Trump chides our most reliable ally … nice!

Donald J. “Tweeter in Chief” Trump campaigned for the presidency on the promise that he would shake things up, that he would do things differently.

Oh, brother. Has he ever!

Take the tiff he initiated with the United States’ most trusted, reliable and steadfast ally: Great Britain.

He retweeted an inflammatory anti-Muslim message that originated from Britain First, a fringe right-wing group that hates Muslims.

Pressure is now mounting in the UK for British Prime Minister Teresa May to disinvite the president, who is set to make a state visit before the end of the year. Trump’s conduct via Twitter has demonstrated quite graphically that he doesn’t seem to give a royal flip about offending our nation’s political forebears.

Matthew D’Ancona, a commentator for The Guardian, wrote this: As it happens, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Trump’s visit should be canceled in August, after the murderous white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. When the most powerful person in the world fails the simplest test of democratic leadership — answering the question “Were the Nazis uniquely bad?” — the whole world is involved. The president failed that test conspicuously and gave comfort to the loathsome “identitarianism” that understands society as a competition between races, tribes and religion.

Read D’Ancona’s column here.

Trump and May engaged angry tweets over the video. May chastised Trump for inflaming prejudices in the UK; Trump responded that she shouldn’t worry about the president, but should worry more instead about the threat of terrorism.

This is a ridiculous way to treat a trusted ally.

I’ll stand with those who are urging Prime Minister May to cancel the state visit. Now!

national news, religious news

Roy Moore would bring a scary element to U.S. Senate

I don’t have a vote in Alabama. Whatever I say about that state’s U.S. Senate race is worth, well, damn near nothing to the voters there.

But if Roy Moore gets elected to that state’s Senate seat, then he’s going to be involved in legislation that affects citizens far beyond the Alabama state line.

Moore is the Republican nominee. He beat a sitting senator, Luther Strange, in the Republican primary this week. Strange was appointed to the seat after Jeff Sessions left the Senate to become U.S. attorney general. Moore now is going to run against Democratic nominee Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor.

Why does Moore give me the heebie-jeebies? He’s a religious zealot, that’s why.

He says homosexuality is an abomination and goes against God’s will. He once said that “homosexual activity” should be made illegal. He operates under the premise that “God’s law” takes precedence over the law of the land. He has said that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in the U.S. Congress; he made that assertion specifically about Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of two Muslims now serving in the U.S. House.

He was removed twice as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. The first time was because he removed a Ten Commandments monument from the court’s grounds; the second time was when he refused to obey a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made gay marriage legal in the United States.

His reasons for both actions? Fealty to the Old Testament.

Moore went to law school, so he knows what the U.S. Constitution says about religion. It declares, among other things, that there shall be “no religious test” required of anyone seeking public office.

If he’s elected to the Senate this fall, he will be required to take an oath that commits him to obeying and defending the Constitution. I feel the need, therefore, to remind Judge Moore that the Constitution is a secular document. 

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Here’s what I wrote about Moore earlier this year:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/04/ayatollah-of-alabama-seeks-u-s-senate-seat/

 

religious news

Why the silence on mosque bombing?

The president of the United States is elected to represent all Americans.

He takes an oath to defend us, to fight for us against our enemies. The presidential oath makes no mention of certain Americans deserving more protection than others.

Some of our countrymen have been attacked. Their place of worship was bombed. It is a mosque near Minneapolis, where Muslims pray and worship.

And yet … the president hasn’t condemned the attack. His silence on this incident is, shall we say, deafening in the extreme.

We all know of Donald J. Trump’s feelings about Muslims. He once called for a complete ban of all Muslims entering our country; he softened it somewhat; the federal courts have challenged what’s now called a “travel ban.”

Meanwhile, some Americans who happen to be devout Muslims are dealing with damage being done to the place where they worship. They need a word of support and encouragement from their president.

It’s time for him to deliver it.