8 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. The site is running slow this morning but I think it may be due to the 240 users online? That's a lot. Wonder what they're reading.

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2. Republican Party Jenga Collapse. H/T Josh Marshall at TPM.

   But it’s sort of like playing Jenga. After you pull a few pieces out of the tower it starts to get unstable. That’s just a fact. And they’ve already pulled out a few pieces. To use a slightly different metaphor, that mix of division, committee breakdown and underfunding can catalyze each other. But back to Jenga. You can only pull out so many pieces.

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3. Dana Milbank on Trump's aimless mutterings.

   “I’m not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME,” the Republican nominee wrote this week on his Truth Social platform. Rather, he said, he wants to make Obamacare better for “OUR GREST AMERICAN CITIZENS.”

   Joe Buden disinformates and misinformates? For a guy trying to make an issue of his opponent’s mental acuity, this was not, shall we say, a grest look.

   “We’ll bring crime back to law and order,” he announced.

   Also: “We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after a Tuesday already.”

   And, most peculiar of all: “You can’t have an election in the middle of a political season.”

   Currently, I'd rate his Babbling Idiot Score at about a 4 out of 10.  By November, after a few more losses in court and  hits to his bank account, he'll be at least up to an 8 😉

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   1. "Refudiated," "misunderestimated," and "wee-wee'd up."

      Three "words" introduced by Sarah Palin. When it was pointed out that none of the three were actually words, she said that the English language was a living thing – apparently unlike our constitution – and we should celebrate people inventing new words.

      For the MAGA people, this is just evidence that Trump, like Palin before him, talks like a regular guy and is not the polished telepromptered Obama or the speech-impaired Biden.

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4. A little #GoodFriday sage:

   

   (words borrowed from Jim Palmer):

   It’s unfortunate for all those years as a pastor that I cheapened Jesus by making him into supernatural being who would save the world, and not as a courageous and revolutionary human person who came to love it. I can’t relate to the religious Jesus as a sinless saint, but I feel like I understand the Jesus who found deep peace within himself, but could also became unhinged by the abuses of religion. 

   With that in mind, here are 10 things about Christianity that Jesus would not endorse if he had a say: 

   1. That his vision for a transformed society, got twisted into an afterlife fantasy about heaven.

   2. That a religion was formed to worship his name, instead of a movement to advance his message.

   3. That the gospel says his death solved the problem of humankind's separation from God, instead of accepting that his life revealed the truth that there is no separation from God.

   4. That the religion bearing his name was conceived by the theories and doctrines of Paul, instead of the truth Jesus lived and demonstrated.

   5. That he was said to exclusively be God in the flesh, putting his example out of reach, rather than teaching that we all share in the same spirit that empowered his character and life.

   6. That the religion that claims his name, teaches that his wisdom and teachings are the only legitimate way to know truth and God.

   7. The idea that humankind stands condemned before God and deserving of Divine wrath and eternal conscious judgement, requiring the death of Jesus to fix it.

   8. That people are waiting on Jesus to return to save the world and end suffering, rather than taking responsibility for saving the world and solving suffering ourselves.

   9. That people think there is magical potency in uttering the name of Jesus, rather than accessing our own natural powers and capabilities to effect change.

   10. That people have come to associate Jesus with church, theology, politics and power, rather than courage, justice, humanity, beauty and love.

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   1. Will Stormy Daniels push aside the big stone on Sunday morning and discover Orange Jesus has risen?

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      1. …and then he can spank her with his God Bless America  bible!! 

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5. It's a KKKult 

   GOP Lawmaker Thinks He Exposed Busload of ‘Illegals’ … It Was the Gonzaga Basketball Team

   Matt Maddock, an election denier who has predicted another U.S. civil war, shared pictures of NCAA athletes to push a conspiracy theory about immigration

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