Donald Trump does not know how to read a Bible

Donald Trump, Blasphemous Bible Thumper
On this holy weekend, one man is taking the Resurrection personally.

Echo opinion published in the New York Times by Maureen Dowd  an opinion columnist for The Times.

Donald Trump is (hypocritally!) presenting himself as the Man on the Cross, tortured for our sins. “I consider it a great badge of courage,” he tells crowds. “I am being indicted for you.” Instead of Christ-like redemption, he promises Lucifer-like retribution if resurrected.

In January, he put up a video on Truth Social about how he is a messenger from God, “a shepherd to mankind.”

Trump is, as the nuns who taught me used to say, “a bold, brazen piece.” He is a miserable human who cheated on his wives, cheatsat golf, cheats at politics, incites violence, targets judges and their families and looked on, pleased, as thugs threatened to hang his actually pious vice president.

Yet, more and more, Trump is wallowing in his Messiah complex.
Two-Corinthians 📖 

Trump wouldn’t know the difference between Old and New Testaments. 

So, obviously, he does not realize that, rather than a sacrificial lamb, he is the Golden Calf, the false god worshiped by Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments.Just as the Israelites melted their ornaments and jewelry to make the calf, Trump is trading tacky products for gilt to pay gazillions in obligations. After his $399 golden “Never Surrender High-Top Sneaker,” Trump is selling a $99 “Victory” cologne for “movers, shakers and history makers” with “a crisp opening of citrus blends into a cedar heart, underpinned by a rich base of leather and amber, crafting a commanding presence.” 

A gold bust of Trump tops the bottle. (“Victory” perfume for women comes in a Miss Universe-shape bottle.)Weaponizing his martyrdom, Trump is selling $59.99 “God Bless the USA” Bibles adorned with a flag and the chorus of Lee Greenwood’s song handwritten by the singer, plus the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Pledge of Allegiance.

“Happy Holy Week!” he wrote on Truth Social. (Trump is spiritually ignorant. There is no such thing as a happy Holy Week. Trump obviously has zero understanding about what this solomn Christian observance is about.)

“Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible.

David Axelrod says that, even as a secular Jew, he’s offended: “This is a guy who has violated 11 of the Ten Commandments.”

Trump posted a promotional video claiming “Christians are undersiege” and vowing to “protect content that is pro-God.” He held up the Bible — recalling the appalling moment in 2020 when Ivanka handed him a Bible from her designer bag and he clutched it in front of St. John’s Church, opposite the White House, moments after the police tear-gassed protesters and journalists in adjacent Lafayette Square at a demonstration about George Floyd’s murder.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many,” Trump barked. “It’s my favorite book.” Maybe the Bible has replaced that Hitler book Trump’s ex-wife said he kept by his bed. But it’s all a scam. Running for president is about enriching himself, just as when he peddled NFTs, steaks, ties, suits, bath towels, vodka, water, office chairs, Trump University and mug-shot mugs. He even sold pieces of the suit he was wearing when he took the mug shot.

“I want to have a lot of people have it,” Trump said of his Bible. “You have to have it for your heart, for your soul.”

Just what the world needs: a soul cleanse with a grifter Bible, where the profits could well be going to pay legal costs in trialsabout breaking commandments — bearing false witness to try to steal democracy, coveting a porn star, then paying the star hush money to keep quiet about the sex.

What could be more Elmer Gantry than that? As Sinclair Lewis wrote about his corrupt, power-hungry, narcissistic, womanizing preacher, “He had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday school, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason.”

Religious snake-oil salesmen have a storied history in American literature and films, from Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood” to Peter Bogdanovich’s beloved movie “Paper Moon,” about a conniving Bible salesman and his small helper. But it’s shockingwhen the charlatan might be in the Oval.

In her 2016, book, “The Confidence Game,” Maria Konnikova explained that we’re easy prey for faux Nigerian princes because of all the chaos in our world. “The whirlwind advance of technology heralds a new golden age of the grift,” she wrote. “Cons thrive in times of transition and fast change.”As Donie O’Sullivan reported for CNN, no sooner had the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore than a bunch of crazy conspiracy tales blossomed about terrorism, D.E.I., Obama, Israel and Ukraine.

Declining faith in religion and rising faith in conspiracies create fertile ground for a faker like Trump. If the profane pol is re-elected, we’ll all reap the whirlwind.
More on Donald Trump
If there is one thing Trump knows how to do, it’s exploit chaos he creates.

There has to be a yearning in the populace that the con man can channel; and, at a time when religion and patriotism are waning, people are searching for more. Unfortunately, these days that search often takes the form of conspiracy theories.

Senator Ted Cruz claims Elmer Gantry credentials

Ted Cruz wants a new job. He wants to transfer his Elmer Gantry charisma to become President of the United States. His campaign is based on incendiary rhetoric about preventing a nuclear Iran and protecting the Constitutional Second Amendment. Cruz believes the Second Amendment is somewhow exempt from the Ten Commandments law of "Thou  Shalt Not Kill".  Rather, the Second Amendment envisioned by Cruz will provide for everybody to carry guns, regardless of how many people die preventable deaths as a result of gun violence.

Obviously, everybody who wants a new job knows how important it is to have a current resume. So, let's take a look at the resume for Senator Ted Cruz, because he will proclaim his intention to be President of the United States when he campaigns for the Republican 2016, nomination.

Here's what we know:

Senator Cruz was born on December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Canada.

He is, in fact, the son of American Hispanic immigrants.  He's the first Hispanic Senator to be elected in Texas.  He received his education from Princeton and Harvard - hardly right wing religious institutions. It's possible Senator Cruz wants to run for the lofty job as President because the likelihood of being re-elected Senator is at risk, when voters figure out how his conservatism is inconsistent with his immigrant ancestry and liberal education, in his resume.

Meanwhile, to increase his name recognition, so it isn't a barrier to his ambitious goals, Cruz has led uncompromising and intransigent moves to obstruct any progressive political agendas. Apparently, the Senator's Harvard education didn't enlighten Cruz about how to be a high minded statesman.  

Unfortunately, it's difficult to understand how Cruz learned to be such a right wing obstructionist, when his resume indicates that he should know better.

Senator Cruz acts like a modern day Elmer Gantry. Nevertheless, his Canadian roots and academic education should have taught him to be much more liberal than he presents to the public.

When Sinclair Lewis created his protagonist Elmer Gantry, he described a man who preferred easy money while converting a traveling tent revival crusade. "Easy money" for Cruz will be tunneled to him via the conservative Koch brothers funnel. They will keep the Cruz crusade for President going, regardless of how inconsistent his resume is with conservative credentials.

It's very difficult to understand how Senator Cruz can become President of the United States when we know he was born in Canada. We love Canadians. Nevertheless, given the brouhaha over where President Obama was born, when he was challenged by "birthers", who said he was born in Kenya, it's impossible to understand the duplicitous presentation of the Canadian birthplace of Cruz, who admits he wasn't born in the US.  

In my opinion, Senator Cruz wants money. He's running for President because the cash he earns will be like picking low hanging fruit. Cruz will eventually earn big bucks in speakers fees while he sells his Elmer Gantry political crusade, supporting right wing "windmills". Between speaking engagements, he'll spends his hot Texas summers in a private ocean resort. There are no statesman like credentials in the Cruz resume to be President of the United States. Moreover, Democrats must continue to remind voters about the inconsistencies in the Cruz resume.

Drug and Alcohol Testing the Congress

Americans deserve an explanation about how a minority within a minority political party could create such avoidable economic chaos. 

Republicans caused this chaos and, therefore, need to explain how it is they believed their minority could create such seditious tension.

Now Republicans are desperately trying to fix the damage they've done.

But they're in a defensive mode about how Republicans drove the crises they created. We hear the mantra repeated, "Both sides lost"....ahhh, I don't think so. 

It's a common diagnostic truism that a cure for disease begins with an understanding of the illness. In the case of Republican seditious obstructionism, there's certainly lots of explaining to do before people can understand how to fix the problem.  As Lucy Arnez knows, Republicans have lots of "splainin" to do.

In other words, political leaders who don't respond to normally accepted social cues like "majority rule", should have a competency cognitive exam. This includes blood and urine testing for drug and alcohol abuse.

There's precedent for this. Indeed, Medicaid beneficiaries are often threatened with drug and alcohol tests prior to being authorize to receive benefits. 

In fact, Medicaid beneficiaries are paid with US tax dollars.
They share this source of revenue in common with the US Congress  Both Medicaid beneficiaries and the US Congress are paid by US taxpayers. Therefore, Congress should be subject to the same requirements prior to receiving tax payer paid benefits.

Cognitive impairment is a commonly reported symptom of drug and alcohol addiction.  Is there any...any...other explanation for the extremist and fanciful thinking of minority egotistical politicians like Senator Ted Cruz (the Elmer Gantry of the Senate), House Speaker John Boehner and their lock step followers other than a physiological induced narcissism? 

Since Cruz and Boehner are paid with taxpayer money, they should be subject to drug and alcohol testing to assure their bosses, ie "Americans" that they're free of drug and alcohol induced cognitive impairment. 

Meanwhile, if these men, who are experiencing diminished public approval, have any self respect or reverence for democracy, they must move forward with preventing any further obstructionism while they're a minority party.