Donald Trump and maga Evangelicals never quote Scripture when making excuses for Trumpzism: Try Matthew 19:24

Pope Leo celebrated a God of peace, not war. 

Trump should listen to him.
Pope Leo XIV’s Palm Sunday sermon warned against invoking God to justify violence.  Opinion echo published in the Boston Globe by Joan Vennochi. 

If Donald Trump really hopes to be “knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door,” in Bob Dylan’s famous words, he should pay more attention to Pope Leo XIV — and less to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25

In his first Palm Sunday sermon, Pope Leo XIV had a message for those who wage war in God’s name. Don’t do it❗

To the tens of thousands who gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the pope said: “This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” Quoting scripture, Pope Leo added, “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.”

While Pope Leo didn’t name names, his words seemed aimed at Pete Hegseth, who recently prayed for US troops to inflict “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. … We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.”

Perhaps coincidentally, on Palm Sunday, Trump posted a letter on Truth Social from Franklin Graham, the son of the late legendary televangelist Billy Graham, which assured him that his “soul is secure” and he is “bound for heaven.” (Maine Writer- Franklin Graham did not bother to quote Scripture.....he was clearly being politically solicitous. Surely Mr. Graham knows this Scripture passage: Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25, states: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." This uses extreme hyperbole to highlight that human salvation is impossible through wealth alone.)

Trump spends a considerable amount of time musing about his soul’s final destination, and it’s not for me to say where that might be. While Pope Leo certainly didn’t address it, reading between the lines of his sermon, it does seem that the leader of the Catholic Church has concerns about an administration that casts the cruelty and violence of war as some higher calling for this country and its military.

Good for Pope Leo. As contributing Globe Opinion columnist Alex Beam recently wrote about the role of the Catholic Church in debating the Iran war, “I admire anyone willing to speak for moral authority in a time of rampant dissembling and ‘relative’ truths.” So do I.

Some see Pope Leo, the first American-born pope, as too cautious and diplomatic. He is certainly choosing his words carefully and avoiding direct attacks that call out Trump by name. 

Still, Pope Leo's Palm Sunday message comes across. He has spoken out against Trump’s immigration policies, and suggested that Trump’s treatment of migrants should not be considered pro-life. He now seems to be speaking out more strongly against the war with Iran, moving from a “heartfelt” wish that “diplomacy” would prevail to Palm Sunday’s more overt rhetoric.

Certainly, there’s dissension within the church regarding Trump’s policies, just as there is in the country. The sharpest example is Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, and who backs Trump policies on immigration and war.

But, to revel in the suffering of others and to call for more of it in the name of religion, as Hegseth has done, is chilling, especially as it applies to war.  As an Army civilian who spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Washington Post, if troops are trained to believe that “God is on our side, what precludes us from doing anything we want to win?” To that I would add, what stops the other side from doing the same❓

Hegseth has injected religion into the Pentagon by holding monthly evangelical worship services, the Post reported. Under his leadership, is the United States now fighting a holy war with a Muslim country or one based on goals that have nothing to do with Hegseth’s personal religious beliefs and everything to do with America’s tactical interests❓

Those are questions that Trump should be asking himself, both as commander-in-chief and hopeful candidate for heaven.

Pick your muse, Donald❗ (Assuming Trump knows how to "muse", a big emotional leap, where he cannot create the outcome.)

Is it the blood-thirsty Hegseth, who at a recent prayer service read a passage from the Book of Psalms that said, “I pursued my enemies and overtook them. I did not turn back [till] they were consumed. I thrust them through so that they were not able to rise. They fell under my feet.”

Or is it the pope, who in his sermon on Sunday reminded Christians that when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, “He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.”

In making his choice, Trump should reread the letter from Graham that he posted on social media. Dated Oct. 15, 2025, Graham praised Trump not for waging war but for overseeing a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and for the return of hostages. “This is an answer to much prayer,” Graham wrote. “Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ (Matthew 5:9) — and Mr. President, that is what you are.”

Agree with that assessment of Trump or not — when you’re knockin’ on heaven’s door, the key of peacemaker is the one I would choose to try to open it.

Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist.

Pete Hegseth is responsible for the murder of Venezualan survivors of the US ordered boat attack. He must be fired

Before he was secretary of defense — Pete Hegseth got it right.
Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe by Joan Vennochi

This isn’t the fog of war. It’s the fog of panic.

“There have to be consequences for abject war crimes,” Hegseth said in a video clip, during a talk he gave in 2016, that has resurfaced and is making the rounds on news stations.

“If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief. There’s a standard, there’s an ethos. There’s a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do.”

Now that Hegseth is facing questions about a possible war crime that occurred on his watch and under his command, he has jettisoned the ethos “that we are above what … others would do.” He pounced on six Democrats who posted a video saying that service members did not have to carry out illegal orders handed down by their commander-in-chief and referred to what was essentially a version of his own remarks from 2016 as “despicable, reckless, and false.” Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of “seditious behavior” and the Pentagon said it was launching an investigation into one of those Democrats, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain.

In his job as defense secretary, Hegseth has also spent a lot of time talking about the “warrior ethos.” But as this controversy shows, he is far from a stand-up warrior, despite doing physical training with troops.

Rather than take ownership for the consequences of his order to strike a boat in the Caribbean on September 2, that he said was carrying drugs, and to kill everyone on it, as The Washington Post first reported, he is shifting accountability to an underling. Admiral Frank M. Bradley, commander of US Special Operations Command, has been identified as the official who made the decision for a follow-up strike that killed two survivors of the initial blast, and Bradley will be answering questions about it during a closed-door session with lawmakers.

The day after that September 2, operation, Hegseth told “(Fake❗)Fox & Friends,” “I watched it live.”  But now, he is saying he watched only the first strike live. At Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, he said he watched the beginning of the strike before he “moved on” to his next meeting.

When he was asked if he saw any survivors after the first strike, Hegseth said, “I did not personally see survivors.”

Bradley, he said, authorized both strikes. “He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat, and it was the right call.” Pressed for more information, Hegseth said, “This is called the fog of war.”

No, this is called the fog of panic and the ethos of self-preservation, no matter what the cost to others.

To put this debacle in context, it’s hard to beat this headline over George F. Will’s column in The Washington Post: “A sickening moral slum of an administration.” Or, Will’s opening paragraph: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.”

Trump and Hegseth have invented a war, one they say gives them license to blow up boats suspected of drug smuggling, without the need to show proof or evidence or to even identify the suspects. 

This invented war has so far killed more than 80 people, a tally that the Trump administration has generally defended. Then came the report about the second September 2, strike to kill those two survivors, what military and legal experts say is a violation of international law.

Hegseth’s reaction shows that he knows that, too, and so does Donald Trump.

Since the story broke, about the second strike to take out the survivors, Trump has been hedging about Hegseth. As reported by The New York Times, on Sunday, aboard Air Force One, he said, “Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.” He added, “I believe him, 100 percent.” But he also said, “I wouldn’t have wanted that. Not a second strike.”

At the Cabinet meeting, Trump again distanced himself from the second strike, saying he didn’t know about it when it happened. 

Trump also said the United States is “going to start doing those strikes on land,” noting that “the land is much easier.”🙄❓

Meanwhile, as he pursues that questionable strategy against drug trafficking, Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the United States.

Hypocrisy, not to mention immorality, is the hallmark of the Trump administration. Even so, moving past the controversy over the strike that killed those two survivors on September 2, won’t be easy.

As Hegseth said back in 2016, “There have to be consequences for abject war crimes.”

But Hegseth, a champion of the warrior ethos, does not want to be the warrior who faces those consequences.

"Don't let anyone tell you who you are....show them who you are...." Vice-President Kamala Harris in Chicago

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe by 
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist.

Kamala Harris lives up to the hype at the DNC- the highly successful convetion in Chicago.

The Democratic presidential nominee knows exactly how to prosecute Donald Trump — with mockery and moral outrage — and is tough enough to do it.

CHICAGO- Donald Trump picked the wrong woman to call dumb.

As shown by the speech she gave to accept the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, Vice President Kamala Harris is smart enough to know exactly how to prosecute Trump — with mockery and moral outrage — and tough enough to do it.

“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she told an enraptured audience at the United Center in Chicago. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”

This week at the Democratic National Convention, friends, relatives, and fellow politicians described Harris in such glowing terms that the big question was whether she could live up to the hype. The answer: Yes, she could, and yes, she did. 

In fact, in Chicago, Vice President Harris came across as strong, confident, down-to-earth, and, yes, joyful 😇 about the opportunity to run for president, which emerged unexpectedly a month ago, when President Biden dropped out as his party’s nominee.

Of course, that doesn’t mean victory in November 🤞 is guaranteed. Trump will fight back hard and do everything he can to demean and defeat his opponent. 

Harris will and should be pressed more on the issues and will have to answer for the less positive aspects of the Biden-Harris record, such as fallout from the border crisis and the (wrong-minded 😏😖) perception about a weak economy. She has only a short time to convince voters they know enough about her story, her values, and the direction in which she wants to bring the country to elect her to the presidency. But with Thursday night’s speech, Harris gave herself a fighting chance.

She told the story of being raised by a mother who came to the United States from India and taught her to “never do anything half-assed.” Her mother, who raised two daughters as a single parent in Oakland, Calif., after her divorce, also inspired Kamala Harris to pursue her dreams of a law career. That took her into politics as a district attorney, attorney general, senator, vice president, and, now, as her party’s presidential nominee.

In her acceptance speech, Harris did not address issues in great depth. She called for more affordable housing, a middle-class tax cut, policies to address climate change, and cited her commitment to reproductive rights. Concerning the contentious Israel-Hamas war, Harris said, “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself … because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7.” She also referenced the “devastating” damage and “innocent lives lost” in Gaza but did not say anything about changing current policy.

Harris said she wants to be a president “for all Americans,” no matter their party affiliation. In this election, she said, the country has “a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past, a chance to chart a new way forward.”

But even as she talked about unity, Harris was prosecuting the case against Trump in a very personal way. Trump, she said, always acts in the interests of “the only client he has ever had — himself.” Citing his affinity for dictators, she said that made him “easy to manipulate with flattery and favors.”

She blamed the country’s border problems on Trump’s successful bid to get Republican lawmakers to scuttle a bipartisan plan, saying, “I refuse to play politics with our security.” Alluding to some of the insults Trump has directed at veterans, she said, “I will always honor and never disparage their service and their sacrifice.”

She also said Trump “fanned the flames” of the mob attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which sought to overturn the 2020, presidential election. Noting that a recent Supreme Court ruling gives Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution, she noted, “Imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he would use the immense power of the presidency.” Harris also said that after he “handpicked members of the Supreme Court” to strip away reproductive freedoms, now “he brags about it.”

A Wall Street Journal editorial described Harris as the least known presidential nominee in modern times. Her convention speech was the formal beginning of her introduction to many voters. By November, will they like what they have heard enough to vote for her?

Sensing opportunity, Trump has tried to define Harris before she can define herself, but his early efforts have been awkward or otherwise missed the mark. He has mused about when she “turned Black,” accused her of promoting communism, and, as previously noted, called her dumb.

If only Trump knew about another lesson that Harris said her mother taught her: “Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are.”

In Chicago, she showed Trump exactly who she is. Now he has to figure out what to do about it.

Donald Trump ignores American flag desecration he demostrates patriotic hypocrisy

 Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe by Joan Vennochi

Let’s talk about Donald Trump and American flags

The democracy that those Trump supporters demean - i.e., they want to destroy 😡 gives them the right to that free expression.

In the days leading up to Memorial Day, there was a lot of talk about the flags flown at homes owned by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr.

Judge Samuel Alito is unqualified to serve on the Supreme Court

As The New York Times first reported, an inverted American flag — a symbol embraced by rioters at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — was flown outside Alito’s Virginia home soon after that event. He blamed it on his wife and said he had nothing to do with it. Two years later, a Pine Tree flag, also known as an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, was displayed at Alito’s New Jersey vacation home, the Times subsequently reported. As of this writing, Alito had not responded to questions about the beach house flag, which has also been adopted by “Stop the Steal” MAGA supporters. 

Democrats, however, along with an array of legal scholars and ethicists, have been arguing that Alito should recuse himself from cases involving January 6th because those flags show bias.

They do. But beyond the implications for Alito and the Supreme Court, the flag controversy reveals yet another contradiction about Donald Trump, who is consumed by them. Trump’s kissing, hugging, and caressing of the American flag has turned it into a symbol of allegiance to him and the MAGA movement — so much so that in a blue state like Massachusetts, simply flying an American flag in its proper, upright position can be taken as a statement of support for TrumptiDumpti!

The pickup trucks with streaming American flags invariably boast a Trump sign, too. Trump merchandise is awash with American flags and Trump rallies feature enormous American flags. As a result, non-Trump supporters are not big on flag displays.

As a candidate and as president, Trump also said he would support laws criminalizing flag burning. 

Yet, weirdly, an inverted American flag is a symbol of his favorite movement — the one that supports his false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election. Yet people who believe in the integrity of the electoral process shy away from flying the flag, at least in this part of the country. Isn’t it sad that a former president with such low regard for the democratic process has been able to take ownership of what is supposed to be a symbol of democracy? Like so much about Trump, it doesn’t add up.

From the start, Trump and his supporters have used the flag as a way to divide, not unite. Right after his 2016 election, Trump tweeted, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag — if they do, there must be consequences — perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” While he was president and protests were breaking out over the murder of George Floyd, Trump also said he would support laws criminalizing flag burning and that it was time for the Supreme Court to take up the issue again. Of course, thanks to a landmark Supreme Court decision, the burning of flags is considered protected speech, and so is the inverted flag that Alito said his wife put up.

My father was a World War II veteran who proudly flew a flag outside our home. I have some wonderful photos of him saluting it alongside his then-young grandson. If he were still alive, I’m sure my dad would still fly a flag — as a patriotic American, not as a Trump supporter. That sense of common cause beyond political differences is what’s missing from America right now and no one seems to know how to get it back. But there are moments when we still try. The more than 37,000 American flags that were set up on Boston Common over the Memorial Day weekend to honor the men and women of Massachusetts who have died since the Revolutionary War while serving their country were also a tribute to a shared bond, not necessarily to shared opinions. Flags will wave again during Fourth of July parades and concerts.

At the same time, a former president and current presidential candidate who wraps himself in flags has supporters who are flying upside-down flags as a symbol of resistance to election results. Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia went on social media to tell people to turn their American flags upside down while criticizing efforts to hold Trump and others accountable for January 6th. The democracy that those Trump supporters demean gives them the right to that free expression.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court justice allowed an upside-down flag to be flown outside his home. When it was reported, he expressed no contrition about it or gave any sign that he will recuse himself from cases related to January 6th and Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020, election.

No one should talk about Trump and American flags without thinking about that.

Republicans are on the far wrong side of women's reproductive health

 https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/30/opinion/gop-abortion-common-ground/

A troubling reality for the GOP: No middle ground on abortion
There can be no consensus when you are taking rights away, and Republicans know it. Echo opinion by Joan Vennochi Boston Globe Columnist.

On the same day the Republican presidential candidates gathered for their first debate last week — minus Donald Trump — the members of the all-male South Carolina Supreme Court upheld a state law that imposes a near-total ban on abortion by a 4-1 vote.

Even those justices who supported the new law that bans abortion after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected — around six weeks — acknowledged what that meant: “To be sure, the 2023, Act infringes on a woman’s right of privacy and bodily autonomy,” Justice John Kittredge wrote for the majority. The lone dissenter, Chief Justice Donald W. Beatty, drove that point home even harder: “The result will essentially force an untold number of affected women to give birth without their consent. I am hard-pressed to think of a greater governmental intrusion by a political body.”

During the Republican candidates debate in Milwaukee, Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and former ambassador to the United Nations, who calls herself “unapologetically pro-life,” tried to carve out “consensus” around some comforting middle ground that would be somewhat safe from such extreme governmental intrusion. 

But, up against the autonomy that is being taken from women — and freely acknowledged by those who are taking it — there isn’t any consensus or middle ground. Not right now.

Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley in Milwaukee

In the runup to the 2024, presidential election, Republicans will try their best to make this election about President Biden’s age and the business dealings of his son. But in the end, it won’t be about that, or even about the pileup of criminal indictments against Trump. It will be about personal freedom and the eagerness of Republicans to strip it away, especially when it comes to a woman’s body.

And Republicans know it. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the abortion issue has been an electoral disaster for its opponents. In Kansas, voters defeated a constitutional amendment that would have denied a right to abortion. In Ohio, voters defeated a measure earlier this month that didn’t specifically mention abortion but would have made it harder to amend the state constitution; because of that it was supported by abortion opponents. As Mona Charen, a conservative columnist and policy editor for The Bulwark writes, “It’s time for the pro-life movement to face reality: The attempt to limit abortions through the law is a failure.” She urges antiabortion activists to switch their focus from placing legal restrictions on abortion to supporting women with crisis pregnancies.

They won’t — and that means the politicians who desperately want their vote won’t, either. This was also evident in Milwaukee, when Haley’s call for consensus was immediately shot down by former vice president Mike Pence. 

In Trump's ceaseless quest for votes from antiabortion evangelicals, Pence called Haley’s consensus talk “the opposite of leadership.” 

Yet, all Haley was proposing was that since it would take 60 Senate votes — a difficult hurdle — to impose a nationwide abortion ban, Republicans should coalesce around some basic points of agreement. Such as: “Can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions? Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions? Can’t we all agree that doctors and nurses who don’t believe in abortion shouldn’t have to perform them? 

Can’t we all agree that contraception should be available? And can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”

Pence and the other Republicans on the stage couldn’t agree with that, even as they babbled about a 15-week national abortion ban. And, to be honest, neither will abortion-rights activists. When I asked Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Reproductive Equity Now, whether anything Haley said about abortion had merit, she was quick to say, via email, “I don’t.” She added, “We should not be playing ‘consensus’ with basic human rights. A 15-week abortion ban is an abortion ban, plain and simple. People need access to life-saving health care and must be able to make personal decisions about their bodies, lives and futures. 

If we’re to talk about ‘consensus,’ the consensus is clear; people overwhelmingly support abortion access.”

In his newsletter, “Arguable,” my colleague Jeff Jacoby argues that with language like that, the left sounds as intractable as the right. The problem for the right is that polling shows that a majority of Americans believe in the concept of “access,” which antiabortion extremists want to completely eliminate. In this heated political climate, with states already putting extreme abortion bans in place, even some of those who might someday share Haley’s quest for middle ground are going to be on the side of abortion access and the personal freedom and autonomy it represents. There can be no consensus when you are taking rights away.

And that is bad news for Republicans.