Trump enters the stage

Memes, what you would call values and culture, is transmittable, but when it mixed with a foreign component, it mutates.
See what happened to Marxism and Christianity when it was applied in different cultures by different races - see what happened to Democracy. It is not like the original, and from country to country it differs in some nuances produced by the demeanour of the population.

Laughing and smiling are not race specific, but species specific. The range of what one laughs at and smiles at, is more race specific.

Catholic?

I think you want to tell me.
All people want to be seen…by someone, not anyone.
Seen as what they are…but most want to be seen as what they think they are, to validate their own judgment of themselves.

Like minded people cross tribes and races…but the percentages differ.
memes are gene specific, because a culture is born out of a specific population within a specific environment during a specific time period.
This triad of specificity cannot be completely transmitted to another form another bloodline. It can, but it is warped…or, as you said, something is always lost in translation.

Like you cannot relate to the Greek joy in defeat, represented by the equivalent of Blues called Rembetiko, and the dance(Zeimbekiko) that accompanies it.
You can enjoy, participate, glean, but not completely relate.
Some visit a place like Greece and think they become so through some kind of osmosis. But this is impossible.
Like I can’t completely relate with Negro Blues, born out of slavery and the American experience, or Bluegrass music…
I can enjoy it, and get a feeling, but not completely relate with it.

Nurture is what I’d call it.

Nature = sum of all nurturing.

Nurture refers to the immediate circumstances, imposing behaviours and adjusting potentials.
an example of nurturing ni nature:
A cub is born to an alpha male lion and a female of the pride, inheriting their median potentials in all traits: strength, speed, intelligence etc.
That’s nature.
But it is born after a drought so there aren’t many herbivores to supply the pride with their nutritional requirements. The cub suffers a reduction of its inherited potentials, and so does not grow to the full potential of tis genes.
That’s nurture.

Nurture among humans can be a product of indoctrination, education, moral enforment of behavioural rules on activity on choices - thinking being an activity.
A meme can enhance or retard genetic inheritance.

In Trumps’s case is the process (psychological-memetic) related to the question of the greater legal process of procedure? Does it enhance or detract ?
Does the meme reflect some continuity between the nexus between political and psychological characteristics/modalities that even a controlled genius can recognise ?

In the case of Trump I believe he can.

The impeachment done, are wider ramifications feaseable? Will the metaphors hold up analogously between the political process as generic forms of the generically built up architecture of structurally adhesive forms?

Question come up about the proper procedural approach to the Senate follow up, occuring in that regard, as to the proper way to conduct it:

Is the polarity unforseen by the founding fathers barely legitamite concerns as even a metaphor in its inception ; in it’s natural unfolding? No, or probably not. Here is an indication of this line of follow up argument-------

The New York Times - the morning after the impeachment:

Opinion

Trump Has Been Impeached. Republicans Are Following Him Down.

Ignoring facts and trashing the impeachment process is no way to protect democracy.

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives impeached the president of the United States. A magnificent and terrible machine engineered by the founders, still and silent through almost all of American history, has for only the third time in 231 years shifted into motion, to consider whether Congress must call a president to account for abuse of power.

So why does it all seem so banal? The outcome so foreordained?

Most people say they know what’s going to happen, and who are we to say they’re wrong? The House voted to impeach Donald Trump by a party-line vote, with the exception of three Democrats representing Trump-friendly districts who voted against at least one article of impeachment. In the next month or two, the Senate will almost surely acquit him, also on a party-line vote.

It isn’t supposed to be this way. There’s plenty of blame to go around for the intense — really, infantilizing — degree of polarization that has overwhelmed American politics across the past 40 years. But the nihilism of this moment — the trashing of constitutional safeguards, the scorn for facts, the embrace of corruption, the indifference to historical precedent and to foreign interference in American politics — is due principally to cowardice and opportunism on the part of Republican leaders who have chosen to reject their party’s past standards and positions and instead follow Donald Trump, all the way down.

It’s a lot to ask of Republicans to insist on holding their own leader accountable, just as that was a lot to expect of Democrats during the Clinton impeachment inquiry. But while many Democrats then criticized President Bill Clinton and some voted to impeach him, Republican lawmakers would not breathe a word against Mr. Trump on Wednesday.

Instead, they competed with one another to invoke the most outlandish metaphor of evil — from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ — and suggest that Mr. Trump is enduring even worse.

Senate Republicans are preparing to follow the example of their House colleagues, though many know better. Not so very long ago, several of them — including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, even the majority leader, Mitch McConnell — warned that Donald Trump was wrong for the country. Lindsey Graham memorably called Mr. Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who was “unfit for office.” Now these senators seem eager to endorse the very sort of behavior they feared.

It is not too much to wonder how much of this cynicism and betrayal of principle any democracy can handle.

Every president from George Washington onward has been accused of misconduct of one kind or another, and many have faced calls for their impeachment. But Congress has resorted to the ultimate remedy so rarely because of the unspoken agreement that it should be reserved for only the most egregious and inexcusable offenses against the national interest.

Mr. Trump himself drew this distinction in 2008, arguing that President George W. Bush should have been impeached for lying about the reasons for the Iraq war, while at the same time rejecting the Republicans’ impeachment of Mr. Clinton for lying about sex as “nonsense,” done for something “totally unimportant.”

By any reasonable measure, Mr. Trump’s own conduct in office clears the bar for impeachment set by the founders. The case against him is that he solicited foreign interference to help in his 2020 re-election campaign, that he used hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to do it, that his administration tried to hide the evidence and that he then blocked Congress from performing its constitutionally mandated role of checking the executive branch. Multiple government officials, some appointed by the president himself, have confirmed all of these facts.

There may be no better illustration of what the Constitution’s framers considered to be impeachable conduct. And that’s leaving to the side strong evidence that Mr. Trump has committed other impeachable offenses, including taking foreign money at his personal businesses, obstructing justice and violating campaign-finance laws — the latter two of which are also federal crimes.

Through it all, Mr. Trump has had the opportunity to rebut the charges. By his account, he could have extinguished both articles of impeachment by allowing top administration officials to testify under oath. If he really did nothing wrong, the testimony of these officials would exonerate him of the charge of abusing his power, and simply their appearance under oath would dissolve the charge of obstructing Congress.

And yet when given the opportunity to defend himself, the president has refused to participate, defying all of the House’s subpoenas for witnesses and documents, effectively declaring himself unaccountable.

His defense has consisted of sending all-caps tweets accusing the Democrats of perpetrating a “hoax” and trying to overturn an election. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump delivered an unhinged, error-ridden six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which he called the impeachment inquiry “an illegal, partisan attempted coup” and claimed that the Salem witch trials provided more due process. Tell that to the women and men who were hanged in Massachusetts.

The president’s letter demonstrated again his complete failure to offer a substantive defense. His refusal to admit he did the slightest thing wrong, or to offer witnesses who could affirm his innocence, left the House with no choice but to impeach him. By the sworn testimony about his actions, and by his own public statements calling on China and Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, he has shown not only that he tried to cheat to win the 2020 election, but that he is continuing to do so.

The case now moves to the Senate for a trial, which will be presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts. The chief justice will have the power to rule on any disputes that arise, but his rulings can be overturned by a majority of senators. Though he may be reluctant to be dragged into what might seem political disputes, Chief Justice Roberts has the authority and the duty to make this process more than a partisan farce.

Ideally, many of those disputes would be hammered out by Senate leaders before the trial begins, and would include rules that allow for compelling the production of documents that the White House has withheld, as well as requiring the testimony of witnesses whom Mr. Trump blocked from appearing before the House, including John Bolton, the former national security adviser; Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff; and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Unfortunately, the Senate is led by Mr. McConnell.

Mr. McConnell, who like all senators will swear an oath to “do impartial justice” at the start of the trial, has already vowed to violate that oath. “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process,” Mr. McConnell said on Tuesday. “The House made a partisan political decision to impeach. I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate.” He has also vowed to coordinate directly with the White House on all aspects of the trial.

No one is suggesting that House Democrats are above playing politics, but at least they held hearings, considered evidence and did their best to get at the truth. Mr. McConnell won’t even promise that much.

The bottom line is that impeachment in the House is unlikely to protect the country from Mr. Trump’s abuse of power, because his fellow party leaders prize their power more than the principles they say they stand for. The only way to protect American democracy is for those who value it to put it to work, and vote these people out.

Follow The New York Times

{*But is that it,?. No by a long shot. Arminius and St.James indicated before they left , and an editorial I came across - indicating the danger of the amount of nuclear weapons power Russia possesses, makes one wonder the possible effects of dissolving the Russian-U.S. collusion may have.

Is a post KGB operative vs. the U.S.'s dishonored CIA engender the hidden security trails?

Going back to MAFIA utilization against the Wermacht intelligences is a pretty reasonable assessment of prioritizing of powers , to be, among shifting alliances, - of moral sentiments overcoming ethical largess consoderations.

I would think factoring this on may moderate the diminution of constitutional process considerations.}*

• indicates personal opinion

Putin on Trump Impeachment: ‘Your Members of Congress Should Know Better’

Paul D. Shinkman • Dec. 19, 2019, at 9:38 a.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday criticized Congress for its pressure on President Donald Trump hours after the House of Representatives impeached the American leader, describing the partisan vote as “the continuation of the domestic political strife.”

“Your members of Congress should know better,” Putin said Thursday morning during his annual, wide-ranging press conference. His remarks came less than a day after the House impeached Trump on two articles almost exclusively along party lines: abuse of power, with a vote of 230-197, and of obstruction of Congress, with a vote of 229-198.

Trump’s pressuring the newly elected government in Ukraine to investigate his political rivals earlier this year served as the central tenet of Democrats’ criticism and subsequent investigations in recent months. Moscow continues to support separatist rebels in Ukraine, which remains an active and deadly war zone in its eastern reaches. His campaign was also the subject of an investigation into allegations, ultimately disproven, that it coordinated with Russia during the leadup to the 2016 election.

The Russian leader on Thursday defended Trump – with whom he has maintained an amiable relationship since the embattled American leader became president – against what Putin considered Democrats’ attempts in the aftermath of the election to “achieve results through others means, accusing Trump of colluding with Russia.”

“Later on, it turned out there had been no collusion, so this cannot be the basis for impeachment,” Putin said. “Now they are referring to alleged pressure on Ukraine. I don’t know what it is all about.”

Putin’s statements mirrored arguments from Trump’s Republican defenders, insisting the impeachment proceedings that have dominated domestic politics in recent weeks represent little more than an attempt to undo the results of the contentious 2016 election.

Trump and his allies have, since impeachment proceedings began, repeated debunked claims that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election – a conspiracy theory that mirrors propaganda from Moscow.

Democrats’ criticism of Republicans’ apparently repeating Russian talking points turned into one of the most fiery exchanges during the impeachment floor debate on Wednesday. Texas Republican Louie Gohmert referenced the debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, prompting House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York to express criticism that the Texas Republican would “spew Russian propaganda.” The comment infuriated Gohmert, whose subsequent outburst was shut down by the presiding chairwoman of the House. Gohmert later walked over to the Democratic side and privately yelled at Nadler.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia attempted to intervene in the 2016 election through sophisticated and concerted cyber attacks and information warfare. Its aim was to boost support for Trump and undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton as part of a larger effort to sow division in the United States. Analysts also believe Putin sought revenge against Clinton since she supported pro-democracy protesters in Russia in 2011 while serving as secretary of state

Copyright 2019 © U.S. News & World Report L.P.

Some foundementalists are changing tracks:

Evangelical magazine founded by Billy Graham calls for Trump’s removal

An editorial published Thursday by Christianity Today, a magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham, called for President Trump’s removal from office in the wake of his impeachment, deeming him “grossly immoral.”

“We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. … To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence.”

Why it matters: Christianity Today is an influential mainstream magazine for evangelicals, with 4.3 million monthly visitors on its site and hundreds of thousands of print subscribers. President Trump won 81% of the evangelical vote in 2016, a group that makes up about 25% of the electorate, according to the Pew Research Center.

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, is an ardent supporter of President Trump. He told “Axios on HBO” in November that he supports the president because he “defends the faith.”

Highlights: The editorial calls Christianity Today’s stance a moral choice — similar to how the magazine reacted when former President Bill Clinton was impeached.

“[T]he facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”

“Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. … None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.”

“That [Trump] should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”

Go deeper… Josh Harris: Evangelical support for Trump “incredibly damaging to the Gospel”

{The Democrats demand for a trial which does not try to circumvent the Constitution, by not admitting Wire House witnesses, is seen as a tool to shorten a process that will delimit public encryption come the November election.

Can the Dems, project an ulterior expectation to the converse of this process?

Can they plead lack of procedure, thus use a magnified image con cave such attempt by the Republicans in the pre-trial of the impeachment?

Or, will demands for clarity be the only focus that can be obfuscated upon?

Through a glass darkly, the moral intent be understood for what it is, now, and 11 months from now?

Will it sustain the feel of divided loyalty, or, independent partisanship corresponding frequent measure of watershed national polling, to utilize the long and short end of it for less then national causes? These are the keystones signs digging into the motherload of reverting to test basic intelligence comprising of public awareness.}

BBC News

Trump impeachment: President demands immediate Senate trial
20 December 2019 US & Canada

US President Donald Trump has demanded an immediate impeachment trial in the Senate, amid an impasse among Democrats and Republicans over when it may start.

On Wednesday, the House impeached Mr Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

But Democrats have yet to embark on the next stage, arguing the Republican-controlled Senate is refusing witnesses and will not hold a fair trial.

The Senate’s numbers mean Mr Trump is almost certain to be acquitted.

The impeachment process - only the fourth time it has happened in US history - has been a bitter partisan fight dividing Washington. The House impeachment vote earlier this week split almost totally along party lines.

A US state divided by impeachment
How will Senate trial work?
The two charges passed on Wednesday follow accusations that Mr Trump pressured Ukraine to dig up damaging information on Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and then refused to co-operate with a congressional inquiry into the matter.

What has Mr Trump said?
In a series of tweets, the president accused the Democrats of not wanting to go to trial because their “case is so bad”.

He tweeted: “So after the Democrats gave me no Due Process in the House, no lawyers, no witnesses, no nothing, they now want to tell the Senate how to run their trial. Actually, they have zero proof of anything, they will never even show up. They want out. I want an immediate trial!”

The president said the Democrats did not want Congressman Adam Schiff, who led the impeachment process, the Bidens and a CIA whistleblower who sparked the inquiry to testify.

The Democrats have argued that it is Mr Trump’s Republicans who are balking at the appearance of witnesses. The House did also invite the president to testify before its investigators but he declined to do so.

Why is there deadlock over the start of the trial?
To start the next stage, the Democrat-controlled House must send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is refusing to do so until the rules of the Senate trial are acceptable to the Democrats.

The Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, will determine the terms of the trial and the Democrats want him to provide details on which witnesses and what testimony will be allowed.

He has so far refused to do so. “We remain at an impasse,” he said, after a brief meeting with the Democrats’ Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer.

Mr McConnell leads the majority in the Senate, with 53 Republicans in the 100-seat chamber. Convicting Mr Trump would require two-thirds of the Senate to vote in favour.

The Democrats hope the delay will both move public opinion in favour of a fuller trial and deny Mr Trump - only the third US president to be impeached - a swift acquittal.

The Democrats want at least four current and former White House aides with knowledge of the Ukraine affair to testify.

They say the trial has to be fair, with senators acting as impartial jurors, and that Mr McConnell’s comments show he has no plans to do this. He earlier said Republican senators would act in “total co-ordination” with the president’s team.

What is the president accused of?
He is accused of having withheld $400m (£307m) of military aid to Ukraine already allocated by Congress, and a White House meeting for Ukraine’s new president, until Ukraine looked into potentially damaging material on Joe and Hunter Biden.

Hunter worked for a Ukrainian company when Joe Biden was US vice-president.

The Democrats say this amounts to an abuse of presidential power, using the office for personal political gain and to the detriment of national security.

Mr Trump is also accused of obstructing Congress by refusing to
GO DEEPER

Trump impeachment and a US state divided
19 December 2019

Copyright © 2019 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

At a subversive undertaking, somewhere East (East London, that is) yesterday, together with a group of other disparate individuals… all there for a common purpose, we ended up all huddled together in a big black tent to take shelter (kinda) from the wind and the rain and started cracking jokes and telling funny tales of other subversive undertakings we had attended. About an hour or so later, we all started laughing at differing tales, ending in only one or two laughing at the same tale or just our own, so what we laugh and smile at is most definitely group/ethnic-specific, I agree.

On observation, we were definitely selected for our look… some for their sky-blue eyes, others for their green to hazel glowing eyes, and others for their big-baby-brown almond-shaped cat-like eyes… all having a focused (but not intense) gaze, of that of perceiving but not judging, and so being but not becoming… any one thing. Everyone agreed on my observation, once pointed out.

Non-practicing Roman Catholic, but one cannot escape or deny the moulding effect that such an environment has on the psyche, combined with (Bengali) meditation, that forms the mind into an East meets West mentality… but we all have our own individual combination of formative-moulding, when those windows of formative-opportunity open up throughout our lives.

Are we not a combination of the two… of how we appear to others and how we perceive ourselves? the external/appearance, and the internal/physiological, confirming the I/of who intrinsically are.

The mind can accommodate/make concessions, but too many beyond one or two and it becomes a big ask, and who’s got time for that in one lifetime? no-one, that’s who.

Rembetiko sounds very Middle-Eastern/Arabic, no? We can all relate I’m sure, but not feel what the other feels, and we have our own inherited feels to deal with, so anything else becomes a system overload on the (over)burdened.

I, myself, am brown, but I cannot identify with all whom are brown, so I identify with that of my last past ancestry, or a combination thereof… that of being Caribbean. This does not stop me from having compassion for and/or interacting with others, but I prefer mine Organic, not Forced, like days of yore. There is such a thing as too much, and so self-optimisation/adjustments becomes not do-able within one lifetime… it’s a big and unthinkable ask.

I had compiled my reply earlier this afternoon, but it got lost… never to be re-trieved.

Exactly. Distinguishing and calculable differences are synthesized in fact, rather then approximated by indifferentiable polls of primary identifiable set of criteria.
As such a means. are opinion based reality reification are based, and objectively and premordially jumped to.

It suits some, to deem all as black, or white, or brown, or whatever, for their own means to an ends that suits them.

Care to clarify on what you’ve said above, further, Meno_ I don’t quite understand.

Don’t worry. Neither does he.

Well, I’ll await Meno_’s clarified reply, regardless of what you’ve said.

Are you channeling Scrooge tonight, or simply reverting to your default demeanour?

Before I clarify the narrative in question, like to affirm both: of not being understood and not really understanding myself.

That much is obvious. And really, guys the admission of not understanding myself is also duplicitous and mired
In the kinds of swampiness that we find yourself asking, over and over again nowedays.

Why? Because as an occultist, with psychical attributes, leaning toward ego dissipation, ) where as you, agean, find the ego in the middle, I find it in a flow that varies between positions. The ego may vary from the right and the left , politically, psychologically depending .
I have explained in detail, about that kind of indeterminacy to those who rather view the ego as a divisor between realities . The primary affect and the secondary effect. And so on.

But the ego can identify primarily with cultish and primitively reduced animal behavior, which is more akin to the reified animal feelings of sub conscious beings. for whom , reaction drives animals more as reflected feelings , ideated by facial recognition of feelings. Animals react but the automatic conditioned behavior absorbs most emotion.

Nietzche and Heidegger make this difference, and will relate this preferentially. But since it is late , will defer that to tomorrow .

The Joker, in the first film had to have his smile surgically sown unto his face, and that Joker is the equivocal political figurehead of Trump.

His facade become compressed between political expediency and a narcissistic internal dynamic.

The ego thus, is purposefully disassociated from the control of simulated affects,in order to stay the political criteria, and vice versa.

I don’t see a problem with this, and the questionable narrative that You have trouble with is underlined by the above stated dicothomy -between Nietzche and Heidegger . But I will try to make the argument more sensible and reductive on an other occasion.

The very uncertain description by language does increase uncertainty in
situ, and a reified form of verbatim interpretation, will end the argument in closer and closer spiraling topological pathologies.

This is why interprwtation has always a need to be reduced into contradiction, and here I agree with the idea that zero sum functions further complicate things.

The fact that I have to leave this now as partially derived, has.to do with limitations of time.

To sum up:

The distinction appears between Nietzche and Heidegger, and in between them , Husserl, very generally, filled up with particulars later, in that intentionality within an unsignified specific reified type,which can not with exactness transcend an objective tying animal and human motivation.
There are gaps, which matter, for animal behavior can not be regressed without transcending an exact point, a missing link between primates and man. Such transcendence is expressed in Heidegger, but nor it in Nietzche.

This point needs clarification, but it needs rereading …
But it can be safely said that Heidegger, especially in ‘Being in Time’ does interpret an intentionality within the continuum

This is significant for many reasons, and there is a need to establish ground for these kinds of interpretations. It also is possible to draw lines, within which the extrinsic political factors can collude the psychological considerations.

It may be objected to, that a such collusions of a politics of the experience can not be contraveryed with the experience of a psychological politics, but there is room in the mix for a social-psychological matrix to be put within .

Again I can questions as what this means, for I approach the a priori fillers within a larger representative bounded matrix, the content will fill into it, as a hypothetical can let duration be a guide as to when that happens.

I will not quote ‘Being and Time’ from beginning to end, only relevant parts to support the ideas behind it.

That there is an unassailable difference in Heidegger’s understanding of Nietzsche, is a worth enough subject to investigate.

These types of philosophical investigations will not negate Wittgenstein’s effort at containing the literal extensions of meaning, but include them within a wider ranging venue.

I think the difference is cogent enough to cut the element of a regressed civilizations a matter more consistent in one than the other.

A Nietzchean overextension of meaning in Heidegger, can effectively change underlying reactive processes,
and challenge race specific .claimes more tenuous .

I wish to be not as mystifying, of how a caricature like Trumpism may arise , and become a functional power to attain a will, with which power snowballs into an unfathomable intensional, objective construct.

Finally such reasoning , having precedence may not be as ubiqtuous, as alleged, since historicity, does by definition can not cover it’s own tracks, to get rid of mistaken assertions, only a well displaced revisions with strong connections with the prior, can be left unchallenged.

In fact, it is far easier to understand Heidegger then Nietzche, and may be this is the reason for the differing narratives,that are easier to take liberties with. (As in N’ obscurity.)

You may consider an analysis as involved as this , and compare it to a certain professor , bordering on comic relief, in Foucalt’s Pendulum, or the earnest attempt of a serious search into the very roots of the problem, it makes little difference, since there is a measure of truth in either, or both approaches.

I hope this did some justice to unwarranted and slanted claims .

Even if, treated periphally, some call to simplification does not uncover an effort at a cover up. You be the judge, after all.

Nietzsche diagnosed the dis-ease but did not trace it to its organic origins, but only to its conscious expressions - evaluations, judgments.

Wittgenstein correctly saw how modern disorders expresse themselves linguistically but offered no solutions because his kind benefited from obscurity and confusion, inspiring later generations to justify the ‘end of philosophy’ and the meaninglessness of language.

To imply that existence is intentional is to return to ancient superstitions.
Only life has intent - the word can only be used in reference to it and only it - an awakening to existence.
Existence has no intent, no telos, no motive. To believe that it is even absolutely, completely, ordered is to project organic prejudices into its inorganic essence.
Complex unities can be explained without it, using the simple interactivity of energies - attracting/repelling and harmonizing, or disharmonizing.
No intent required. So, to insist exposes the mind’s intent - projection.

Politics, and marketing is entirely psychology based, and this is where the defensiveness of nihilism can be traced. It is what is being exploited and manipulated by those who intuitively understand it.

And this is where the argument slams into a differentially unresolved brick wall: the difference between the general and the specific acquisition of cultural types.
This is where when the general sources require a multiform approach, as in all realms of science, the onto logical priority, the reflective one, which this is the exact point of the succeeding series of modeled
economy of the calculus of species differentiation, entailing all substantial forms of capital, having no descriptive exits from the Protestant ethic of the sense of production , to the epostomolagocallly different general forms of special relativity . This proceeds regardless of who thought it up. The identity of the ‘who’ simply does can not matter, theories have been politically deconstructed as.to whether Darwin or Kammerer’s approach of evolution fits best a programmable series of.functional analysis,l.
Humanity comes before it’s differential types can develop, that also is really a fact.
Can a partially differentiated typicality presume such partiality before such succession can be realized? Probably not.
These generic considerations , while approaching a continuum of general anthropological sequences , proceed uninterrupted without tracing differentiability at a certain point ?At this time , the idea of a missing element between a late animal and the very first Adam, again sets a useless game in improbable exact points of digress.
In the same in borderline psychopathology, what subtlety of difference is there that approaches general treatment of neurosis from the larger series of triggers that psychopathology presents, in treating of a differential patterns?
There is no sign which can account for it. This is why Jumg broke off of Freud’s circle.

It does really not matter whether the most basic sense of it lies in a level of certainty where it chases it’s own tail, am argument resting in an indifferentiable series of signs, that Wittgenstein points to, ideas capture the signs them selves generally, before functional applications can ‘clarify’ them.
No, Ideas are not dead in thenl water then essential supposition preceeds even it’s own hypothetical , being IT’s own progenitor.

Nature preceded nurture in an absolute sense and it has a primordial and reflexive ontogenesis, primary differentiation between it’s unrecognized elements a lasting trace of cosmological certainty.

And lastly , this is why the phenomenological world is preposesses by the eidectic, because interpretation is judged as substantial, as if it was conductance of matter, but it matters not, even if the dialectical is primarily of first order signification or second. The de construction of that notion does conclude justly that the deconstruction of repeated calculus of many variables proceed irrespective of whether awareness of it is a sine quo quid, or a quid pro quo . Existential dialectic does proceed in a wholly determinate pattern, in fact it is not even realized as such, because it is not primarily consistent with matter, it simply does not matter.
De construction points to both, a necessary and cognitively parrelel universes inference subsisting in and with relative contingencies, family of resemblances set in an absolute and immutable set of what may be best described as apeothetic divination.

House Judiciary Committee says it could draft ‘new articles of impeachment’ against Trump

PUBLISHED MON, DEC 23 2019 3:10 PM EST

Kevin Breuninger

Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee say that the panel could draft and recommend “new articles of impeachment” against President Donald Trump if additional evidence is revealed by former White House counsel Don McGahn.

McGahn’s testimony is “relevant to the Committee’s ongoing investigations into Presidential misconduct and consideration of whether to recommend additional articles of impeachment,” the panel’s lawyers write.

Democrats have been fighting for months to enforce a subpoena for McGahn to testify as part of the impeachment proceedings in Congress.



Don McGahn, White House counsel, listens during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.

Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee said Monday that the panel could draft and recommend “new articles of impeachment” against President Donald Trump if additional evidence is revealed by former White House counsel Don McGahn.

Democrats have been fighting in court for months to enforce a subpoena for McGahn to testify as part of the impeachment proceedings in Congress. They argue that McGahn’s testimony is “central” to parts of the House committee’s investigation into Trump, which is not yet complete even though the Democrat-led chamber passed two articles of impeachment against him last week.

And McGahn’s testimony is “also relevant to the Committee’s ongoing investigations into Presidential misconduct and consideration of whether to recommend additional articles of impeachment,” lawyers for the Judiciary Committee wrote in a submission to the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals.

“If McGahn’s testimony produces new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the Articles approved by the House, the Committee will proceed accordingly—including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment,” the lawyers wrote.

Trump was impeached on two articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — related to his efforts to have Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announce investigations involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, and a debunked conspiracy that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump allegedly withheld hundreds of millions of dollar in congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine while he was pushing for the probes into his political rivals. His administration refused to comply with congressional Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, and it has pressured numerous government witnesses not to cooperate.



The Judiciary Committee’s court filing Monday followed an entry from attorneys for the Justice Department, who argued that the House’s vote to impeach Trump undermines the push from Democrats to have McGahn’s subpoena enforced quickly.

The DOJ lawyers wrote that there is no longer “any justification for otherwise expediting the Court’s decision in this case,” outside of an already-scheduled Jan. 3 hearing, where both sides will argue their cases.

But the Judiciary Committee’s attorneys countered that Trump’s impeachment in the House has “reinforced,” rather than undercut, the need for an “expeditious resolution of this appeal.”

McGahn, the lawyers argue, was a key witness to Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice detailed in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election meddling and possible coordination between the Kremlin and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

McGahn could help the Judiciary Committee establish a “pattern of obstructive behavior” that would bolster the case for impeaching him on obstruction of Congress, the panel’s lawyers wrote.

“The Committee continues to suffer harm with each additional day that it is denied access to McGahn’s testimony,” the lawyers wrote. “The Committee should not be required to wait any longer.”

Trump’s holiday menu: handouts for billionaires, hunger for the poor

Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib



Republicans defend cuts to food stamps by saying that keeping people hungry will make them work harder. But we know this is just about cruelty

When it comes to billionaires benefiting from the generosity of the American taxpayer, the holiday spirit is alive year-round. Taxpayers paid out $115m to Donald Trump so he could play golf at his own resorts.

And Amazon didn’t just pay zero in federal taxes on $11bn in profits – taxpayers gifted the corporation $129,000,000 in rebates. That’s enough to pay for CEO Jeff Bezos’s three apartments in Manhattan, including a penthouse, that cost him $80m.

And what about government generosity for those who actually need help? Tax dollars are somehow much harder to come by when they’re not going to handouts for the rich. The average person in poverty, struggling to put food on the table, gets about $134 a month in nutrition assistance.

Now, just in time for the holidays, Trump has finalized the first of three policies that will make this disparity even more obscene. Two years after passing a $1.5tn tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations, the Trump administration plans to strip 3.7 million people of their nutrition benefits.

The administration’s first step is to kick 700,000 adults off of nutrition assistance as they struggle to find work. The second step: trying to punish families who have high childcare and housing costs. And third, they want to hurt families who already are making difficult choices between food or heat.

Together, the three proposals will cut billions of dollars from one of our nation’s leading anti-poverty programs. Meanwhile, the Republican tax scam is working exactly as planned. Today, the richest 400 billionaires pay lower taxes than any group in America – including the poor. Nearly 100 of the top Fortune 500 companies now pay nothing in taxes.

This is what oligarchy looks like: Trump’s appetite to shower the ultra-wealthy with corporate welfare is endless – and so is his administration’s willingness to assault our nation’s most vulnerable and hungriest families.

Republicans defend this by saying that keeping people hungry will make them work harder. But we know this is just about cruelty. We know that withholding food from needy people who are underemployed only deepens the crisis of poverty in America.

Some states will be hit harder than others. Vermont could see a 30% cut to benefits, and one in five low-income people who rely on nutrition assistance could no longer be eligible to participate. In Michigan, about one in seven would be kicked off food aid, with an estimated 15% cut in benefits. This is absolutely devastating.

It goes without saying that we must fight as hard as we can against the Trump administration’s savage attack on nutrition assistance. But we need to go beyond that. We must demand that the ultra-wealthy finally start paying their fair share so we can dramatically expand nutrition support. In the richest country in the history of the world, we have a moral obligation to eradicate the hunger that more than 37 million of our fellow Americans suffer every day.

We can start by increasing nutrition assistance by $47 per person per month – that is the shortfall between what low-income people need to prepare adequate meals and what they get in benefits. We should also significantly increase the income threshold for this program, so everyone who needs help gets it. We must also guarantee that all schoolchildren get free breakfast and lunch at every public school in America.

And we should also lift the onerous conditions on what people can buy with nutrition assistance. One Vermonter shared how, in the cold winter months, she wished she could buy her children a hot-roasted chicken from the store, because she had no access to an oven. Under the current program, she can only buy the day-old cold roasted chicken. Multiple Michigan families have similar stories to share. These are the kinds of requirements that force poor people to jump through humiliating hoops but they accomplish nothing in the fight to end hunger.

Ultimately, we must make a choice as a society: will we tolerate the insatiable greed and cruelty of the billionaire class?

This holiday season, we should work in our communities to make sure our most vulnerable neighbors are taken care of and do not go hungry. But we must also be prepared to mobilize millions of people to defeat the Trump administration’s latest attack on the poor – the same way we came together to block Republicans’ attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and kick 32 million Americans off their health insurance.

Defending already inadequate benefits is not enough. Ultimately, we must make a choice as a society: will we tolerate the insatiable greed and cruelty of the billionaire class, whose control over our political system lets them take food out of the mouths of hungry school kids? Or do we build a humane, equitable society that ends poverty, hunger, and homelessness – and allows everyone to live with dignity?

As the new year approaches, let us commit to fighting for a government and an economy that works for the overwhelming majority of the people. That is how we will make food security a human right in America.

© 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All

rights re

Opinion +

Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Soros tirade exposes three uncomfortable truths

Opinion by Lev Golinkin

Updated 11:09 PM EST, Tue December 24, 2019



Editor’s Note: (Lev Golinkin writes on refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.)

(CNN)Monday evening, as American Jews gathered to celebrate the second night of Hanukkah, news broke of Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Semitic tirade against billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

The remarks, which came during an alcohol-laden interview with New York Magazine, cap off a long, alarming year for anti-Semitism both in the United States and abroad.

Lev Golinkin

Indeed, the most dangerous thing about living at a time of constant stories about anti-Semitism is how quickly the hatred is normalized. Two and a half years ago, chants of “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virginia, stunned America; today, anti-Semitism is just a part of the news cycle.

And so, as we take stock after this latest news, it’s time to face three uncomfortable truths. First, despite his claims, Giuliani’s comments are unmistakably anti-Semitic. Second, this anti-Semitism is not merely vile but dangerous: The anti-Soros tropes like those evoked by Giuliani may tacitly encourage those prone to violence, resulting in Jewish bodies on the streets. Most disturbingly, we can’t write this off as the inebriated ravings of a single man. Everything Giuliani said had been repeated, over and over, by President Donald Trump, by Republican lawmakers and by Fox News hosts.

Of course, today’s surge of anti-Semitism isn’t limited to Republicans; the problem is widespread. Some of the leaders of the Women’s March have been plagued by accusations of anti-Semitism and a horrific kosher market attack in Jersey City earlier this month is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism thought to be fueled in part by a hatred of Jews, according to the state attorney general.

But the proliferation of anti-Semitic tropes in the GOP is so worrying precisely because it’s widespread and systematic. By now, there’s enough evidence to say that, in much of today’s Republican Party, anti-Semitic tropes are not an irregularity but a feature.

What happened to Rudy Giuliani? It’s a long story

Giuliani’s attack runs the anti-Semitic gamut, from medieval accusations of Soros not being truly religious (similar slurs were used during the Spanish Inquisition, which led to the torture and forced conversion of Jews) to claims that Soros controlled a US ambassador and “elected” district attorneys – which builds on the classic anti-Semitic trope of powerful Jews controlling the government.

Giuliani’s baseless accusation – indeed, the GOP’s obsession with Soros – is the embodiment of modern anti-Semitism, which is, at its root, a conspiracy theory: the belief that Jews are secretly undermining white nations by manipulating ideology, media, money and immigration.

Over the past 300 years, anti-Semites on both sides of the Atlantic have tirelessly spread this deadly lie, tweaking it to suit their needs. To the Russian czars as well as American anti-Semites like Henry Ford and Joseph McCarthy, the Jews were responsible for bringing communism in order to destroy their nations.

The Nazis used this conspiracy to blame Jews for orchestrating Germany’s loss in World War I; today’s white terrorists like the Pittsburgh shooter use it to claim Jews are bringing in immigrants to turn America into a white-minority state.

Trump is trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. It must stop

Every conspiracy theory needs a “them,” the shadowy puppet master pulling the strings. In the 1800s, it was Baron Nathan Rothschild, the original Soros, a businessman accused of manipulating European currency. Henry Ford focused his anti-Semitic tracts on the Warburg family and their advocacy for the Federal Reserve system.

Today’s Jewish bogeyman of choice is Soros. And, according to a number of prominent Republicans, Soros is everywhere.

In the wake of the horrific Parkland school shooting, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre exploded in an entire dog-whistle concerto, accusing globalists and Soros of plotting to take away Americans’ guns. Congressman Steve King stated that Soros is bringing immigrants to America; the same conspiracy theory was given by the Tree of Life shooter as his motivation for massacring 11 Jews in Pittsburgh. Theories of Soros being behind Black Lives Matter, Trump’s impeachment, and protests against the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to the Supreme Court have proliferated in the past several years.

The embrace of anti-Semitism posing as anti-Soros conspiracies has gone far beyond the fringe. It’s easy to dismiss the Pittsburgh terrorist or even King and Giuliani as outliers. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has also propagated the Soros theory, tweeting out a lie about Soros and other Jewish Democratic donors attempting to buy elections.

How to stop the horrifying resurgence of anti-Semitism

Rep. Louie Gohmert, like Giuliani, accused Soros of not being truly Jewish. A prominent Republican lobbyist repeated unfounded claims that Soros had ties to the former US ambassador to Ukraine. President Donald Trump has promoted the theory of Soros bringing migrants to America.

Fox News, in particular, has been a bastion for Soros conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, host Tucker Carlson devoted an entire segment to claims that Soros is “hijacking” our democracy and “remaking” the United States. Last month, another host, Laura Ingraham, blamed Soros for GOP losses in Virginia’s state election.

Indeed, earlier this month Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League took the unusual step of calling out Fox’s role in the proliferation of Soros theories in an NBC op-ed with the blunt headline “Fox News is normalizing anti-Semitism even as violence against Jews surges.”

This, then, is the state of the Republican Party as we enter a new decade as well as what will surely be a tense election year: An anti-Semitic theory has been embraced by the President of the United States, members of Congress and the No. 1 conservative cable network.

This is not simply an obsession with a prominent billionaire. It’s no longer a fringe theory. It’s not drunken ramblings by the ever-bumbling Giuliani. It is the world’s bloodiest anti-Semitic belief that has now become a tenet and a rallying cry for some of the biggest names in one of the two political parties in the United States.

View on CNN

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and the outrage and rebalance of the biblical right

Opinion +Live TV
Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Soros tirade exposes three uncomfortable truths
Opinion by Lev Golinkin
Updated 11:09 PM EST, Tue December 24, 2019

article video

Editor’s Note: (Lev Golinkin writes on refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.)

(CNN)Monday evening, as American Jews gathered to celebrate the second night of Hanukkah, news broke of Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Semitic tirade against billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

The remarks, which came during an alcohol-laden interview with New York Magazine, cap off a long, alarming year for anti-Semitism both in the United States and abroad.

Lev Golinkin
Indeed, the most dangerous thing about living at a time of constant stories about anti-Semitism is how quickly the hatred is normalized. Two and a half years ago, chants of “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virginia, stunned America; today, anti-Semitism is just a part of the news cycle.

And so, as we take stock after this latest news, it’s time to face three uncomfortable truths. First, despite his claims, Giuliani’s comments are unmistakably anti-Semitic. Second, this anti-Semitism is not merely vile but dangerous: The anti-Soros tropes like those evoked by Giuliani may tacitly encourage those prone to violence, resulting in Jewish bodies on the streets. Most disturbingly, we can’t write this off as the inebriated ravings of a single man. Everything Giuliani said had been repeated, over and over, by President Donald Trump, by Republican lawmakers and by Fox News hosts.

Of course, today’s surge of anti-Semitism isn’t limited to Republicans; the problem is widespread. Some of the leaders of the Women’s March have been plagued by accusations of anti-Semitism and a horrific kosher market attack in Jersey City earlier this month is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism thought to be fueled in part by a hatred of Jews, according to the state attorney general.

But the proliferation of anti-Semitic tropes in the GOP is so worrying precisely because it’s widespread and systematic. By now, there’s enough evidence to say that, in much of today’s Republican Party, anti-Semitic tropes are not an irregularity but a feature.

What happened to Rudy Giuliani? It’s a long story
Giuliani’s attack runs the anti-Semitic gamut, from medieval accusations of Soros not being truly religious (similar slurs were used during the Spanish Inquisition, which led to the torture and forced conversion of Jews) to claims that Soros controlled a US ambassador and “elected” district attorneys – which builds on the classic anti-Semitic trope of powerful Jews controlling the government.

Giuliani’s baseless accusation – indeed, the GOP’s obsession with Soros – is the embodiment of modern anti-Semitism, which is, at its root, a conspiracy theory: the belief that Jews are secretly undermining white nations by manipulating ideology, media, money and immigration.

Over the past 300 years, anti-Semites on both sides of the Atlantic have tirelessly spread this deadly lie, tweaking it to suit their needs. To the Russian czars as well as American anti-Semites like Henry Ford and Joseph McCarthy, the Jews were responsible for bringing communism in order to destroy their nations.

The Nazis used this conspiracy to blame Jews for orchestrating Germany’s loss in World War I; today’s white terrorists like the Pittsburgh shooter use it to claim Jews are bringing in immigrants to turn America into a white-minority state.

Trump is trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. It must stop
Every conspiracy theory needs a “them,” the shadowy puppet master pulling the strings. In the 1800s, it was Baron Nathan Rothschild, the original Soros, a businessman accused of manipulating European currency. Henry Ford focused his anti-Semitic tracts on the Warburg family and their advocacy for the Federal Reserve system.

Today’s Jewish bogeyman of choice is Soros. And, according to a number of prominent Republicans, Soros is everywhere.

In the wake of the horrific Parkland school shooting, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre exploded in an entire dog-whistle concerto, accusing globalists and Soros of plotting to take away Americans’ guns. Congressman Steve King stated that Soros is bringing immigrants to America; the same conspiracy theory was given by the Tree of Life shooter as his motivation for massacring 11 Jews in Pittsburgh. Theories of Soros being behind Black Lives Matter, Trump’s impeachment, and protests against the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to the Supreme Court have proliferated in the past several years.

The embrace of anti-Semitism posing as anti-Soros conspiracies has gone far beyond the fringe. It’s easy to dismiss the Pittsburgh terrorist or even King and Giuliani as outliers. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has also propagated the Soros theory, tweeting out a lie about Soros and other Jewish Democratic donors attempting to buy elections.

How to stop the horrifying resurgence of anti-Semitism
Rep. Louie Gohmert, like Giuliani, accused Soros of not being truly Jewish. A prominent Republican lobbyist repeated unfounded claims that Soros had ties to the former US ambassador to Ukraine. President Donald Trump has promoted the theory of Soros bringing migrants to America.

Fox News, in particular, has been a bastion for Soros conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, host Tucker Carlson devoted an entire segment to claims that Soros is “hijacking” our democracy and “remaking” the United States. Last month, another host, Laura Ingraham, blamed Soros for GOP losses in Virginia’s state election.

Indeed, earlier this month Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League took the unusual step of calling out Fox’s role in the proliferation of Soros theories in an NBC op-ed with the blunt headline “Fox News is normalizing anti-Semitism even as violence against Jews surges.”

This, then, is the state of the Republican Party as we enter a new decade as well as what will surely be a tense election year: An anti-Semitic theory has been embraced by the President of the United States, members of Congress and the No. 1 conservative cable network.

This is not simply an obsession with a prominent billionaire. It’s no longer a fringe theory. It’s not drunken ramblings by the ever-bumbling Giuliani. It is the world’s bloodiest anti-Semitic belief that has now become a tenet and a rallying cry for some of the biggest names in one of the two political parties in the United States.

View on CNN
© 2019 Cable News Network

What It Would Take for Evangelicals to Turn on President Trump

Michael Luo

December 23, 2019

Christians concerned about Trumpism may need to turn their focus inward to counter the corrosive influence of Fox News and other forces permeating evangelical culture.

One night in 1953, the Reverend Billy Graham awoke at two in the morning, went to his study, and started writing down ideas for the creation of a new religious journal. Graham, then in his mid-thirties, was an internationally renowned evangelist who held revival meetings that were attended by tens of thousands, in stadiums around the world. He had also become the leader of a cohort of pastors, theologians, and other Protestant luminaries who aspired to create a new Christian movement in the United States that avoided the cultural separatism of fundamentalism and the theological liberalism of mainline Protestantism. Harold Ockenga, a prominent minister and another key figure in the movement, called this more culturally engaged vision of conservative Christianity “new evangelicalism.” Graham believed a serious periodical could serve as the flagship for the movement. The idea for the publication, as he later wrote, was to “plant the Evangelical flag in the middle of the road, taking a conservative theological position but a definite liberal approach to social problems.” The magazine would be called Christianity Today.

During the next several decades, Graham’s movement became the dominant force in American religious life, and perhaps the country’s most influential political faction. From the late nineteen-seventies through the mid-eighties, evangelicals became increasingly aligned with the Republican Party, progressively shifting its priorities to culture-war issues like abortion. Today, evangelical Protestants account for approximately a quarter of the U.S. population and represent the political base of the G.O.P. Despite President Trump’s much publicized moral shortcomings, more than eighty per cent of evangelicals supported him in the 2016 election. Last week, however, Mark Galli, the ninth editor to lead Christianity Today since its founding, in 1956, published an editorial calling for President Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. “The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents,” Galli writes. “That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.” Galli, who will retire from his post early in the new year, implores evangelicals who continue to stand by Trump to “remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior.”

Galli and other contributors to the magazine have been critical of Trump in the past, but the forcefulness of the editorial took many by surprise. The piece became a sensation, trending online and receiving widespread media coverage. On Twitter, Trump lashed out at the magazine, labelling it a “far left” publication that “has been doing poorly.” Graham’s eldest son, Franklin, who became the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association after his father’s death, in 2018, claimed that his father would have been “very disappointed” by the piece and had, in fact, voted for Trump in the 2016 election. “It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism,” Franklin wrote on Facebook. On Sunday, Timothy Dalrymple, Christianity Today’s president and chief executive officer, issued a statement defending the editorial and reaffirming one of Galli’s assertions: that “the alliance of American evangelicalism with this presidency has wrought enormous damage to Christian witness”—the heart of believers’ evangelistic mission.

There has long been a segment of evangelical leaders and commentators who are critical of the President, including Russell Moore, the head of the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention; Peter Wehner, the author of the recent book “The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump”; and David French, a writer and constitutional lawyer whom anti-Trump conservatives courted, unsuccessfully, to mount a third-party bid against Trump in 2016. The Christianity Today editorial reflects much of their distress—about the moral hypocrisy of Christian supporters of Trump, the damage done to efforts to serve as ambassadors for the gospel in an unbelieving world, and the ways Trump and his Administration have perpetuated racism, xenophobia, and other traits that are antithetical to the God of justice and mercy. In late 2017, the Reverend Timothy Keller, a renowned Presbyterian pastor in New York City, wrote a piece for The New Yorker on the future of evangelicalism, with the headline “Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore?” “ ‘Evangelical’ used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with ‘hypocrite,’ ” Keller writes. Last year, a group of evangelical pastors, nonprofit leaders, college presidents, and scholars convened at the Billy Graham Center, at Wheaton College, in Illinois, to discuss ways to revitalize the movement in light of its turn toward Trumpism. The meeting disbanded with little to show for it, but the organizers issued a press release that states that an “honest dialogue about the current state of American evangelicalism” had occurred.

There has been little to suggest that these rumblings of dissent represent any kind of threat to Trump’s political support. Many of these Trump critics might be best understood as part of a more urban, internationalist, and broad-minded élite class within the evangelical movement. In his 2007 book, “Faith in the Halls of Power,” D. Michael Lindsay, a former sociologist at Rice University and currently the president of Gordon College, distinguished between “cosmopolitan” and “populist” evangelicalism. The populist wing of the movement “depends on mass mobilization and large-scale democratic action” and “relies upon a rhetoric of dichotomies (as in ‘good’ and ‘evil’) and appeals to the commonsense concerns of average people,” Lindsay writes. He points to prominent figures such as James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, and the pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen as representatives of populist evangelicalism. He describes cosmopolitan evangelicals as having “greater access to powerful institutions” and writes that “the social networks they inhabit are populated by leaders from government, business, and entertainment.” The problem for Trump opponents is that, when it comes to electoral sway and cultural influence within evangelicalism, the populists exercise far greater leverage.

Lindsay’s focus is on documenting the emergence of the élite class of evangelicals. He devotes less attention to the root causes of differing cultural and political attitudes between cosmopolitan and populist evangelicals—though those causes may hold the key to understanding evangelicalism’s turn toward Trumpism. Earlier this year, James L. Guth, a political scientist at Furman University, published a study on the prevalence of populist traits among white evangelicals, including distrust of political institutions, preference for strong leadership, and commitment to majority rule. Guth finds that these qualities—characteristics that lead to support for populist leaders like Trump—permeate white evangelicalism. It is a disquieting conclusion and suggests that evangelical support for Trump may be far more deeply entrenched than previously understood. Guth suggests that evangelical backing of Trump is less transactional—about his ability to, say, deliver conservative appointments to the Supreme Court—and more about certain shared cultural beliefs. Guth writes that “white evangelicals share with Trump a multitude of attitudes, including his hostility towards immigrants, his Islamophobia, his racism and nativism, as well as his ‘political style,’ with its nasty politics and assertion of strong, solitary leadership.”

The crucial question, then, is: What is driving these attitudes? In a forthcoming book, “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” the sociologists Andrew L. Whitehead, a professor at Clemson University, and Samuel L. Perry, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, propose a cultural framework for understanding support for Trumpism that goes beyond religious categories. Through extensive survey work, they discover that an amalgam of cultural beliefs—fusing Christianity with American identity and centered on the belief that America is, and should be, a Christian nation—is a better predictor of support for Trump than economic dissatisfaction, political party, ideology, religion, or a host of other possible determining factors. Whitehead and Perry call this framework “Christian nationalism” and argue that the popularity of these beliefs among white evangelicals explains their support for Trump.

Notably, Whitehead and Perry find that about a quarter of white evangelicals hold beliefs that do not align with Christian nationalism. They also find that though greater religiosity is correlated with Christian-nationalist beliefs, once those beliefs are accounted for, Americans who engaged in more frequent religious practice—church attendance, prayer, and bible reading—were less likely than their less observant peers to subscribe to political views normally associated with Christian nationalism, such as believing that refugees from the Middle East pose a terrorist threat to the United States, or that illegal immigrants from Mexico are mostly dangerous criminals. In other words, Whitehead and Perry find that the threat to democratic pluralism is not evangelicalism itself but the culture around evangelicalism. The true motivator for Christian nationalists is not actually their religious beliefs but the preservation of a certain kind of social order, one that is threatened by racial minorities, immigrants, and Muslims. “Where Christian nationalists seek to defend particular group boundaries and privileges using Christian language, other religious Americans and fellow Christians who reject Christian nationalism tend to oppose such boundaries and privileges,” they write.

Their findings highlight serious obstacles for anyone hoping that white evangelicals will abandon Trump, but they also suggest a path forward. Within evangelicalism, cultural influence in the secular world is highly prized as part of advancing the message of Christianity. Christians concerned about Trumpism and worried about the future of their faith, however, may need to turn their focus inward, to reshape the culture of evangelicalism and counter the corrosive influence of Fox News and other demagogic forces that sow division and breed suspicion. Cultural change is daunting—much of what ails the evangelical faithful is not entirely under the control of their leaders—but the challenge is not so different from the one Graham contemplated more than sixty years ago, in the middle of the night, as he launched his movement to unify Christian believers and transform them into a positive force for society.

What it Would Take for Evangelicals to Turn on President Trump

Kenneth Star thinks the Speaker is overreaching:

Nancy Pelosi is overreaching into the Senate’s power to convict, he says, by setting conditions into the procesiraal matters, namely delaying the fprwewarding of the impeachment.

Accorming to Start, such a mover certainly interferes with the process by which the Senate can conduct it’s business.

Ken Starr says the impeachment of President Trump…: youtu.be/Fy7B61vnf-8

OPINION - POLITICS

Pelosi’s best move might be to keep impeachment in her pocket and not send it to the Senate

PUBLISHED THU, DEC 26 2019 8:00 AM EST

UPDATED 19 MIN AGO

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi holds a press conference after the House passed Resolution 755, Articles of Impeachment Against President Donald J. Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on December 18, 2019. -

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

The House Democratic leadership has wanted no part of impeachment since the “blue wave” swept them back into power in the 2018 midterm elections.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi made this explicit earlier this year in an interview with The Washington Post Magazine. “I’m not for impeachment,” she said.

“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Translated, what she meant was: in this political environment, impeachment will never be bipartisan. It will never get 67 votes “aye” votes in the Senate. So why put 25–35 vulnerable Democratic House members in marginal or pro-Trump districts in harm’s way? (More to the point: Why should she put her tenure as Speaker of the House at risk?) Why engage in a process that will enrage the President’s supporters and give him a rallying cry (“witch hunt”) for his re-election campaign? Why make it harder for Democratic Senate candidates running in states that Mr. Trump won?

Impeachment put a lot at risk and promised little if any, political reward. The only way to resolve the “Trump issue” (from her point of view) was to vote him out of office. Impeachment wasn’t helpful to that cause.

The Washington Post Magazine interview was the first of a number of attempts (both public and private) by Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership to shut down the impeachment “groundswell” on the left and in the media. Down the street, President Trump was doing everything he could to enrage the media and the Democratic Party’s “progressive” wing and in so doing, escalate their demands for impeachment proceedings. The intra-Democratic Party conflict, he and his handlers reasoned, would generate copious media coverage and highlight the party’s socialist insurgents.

A key piece of the president’s reelection effort is to make the Democratic Party’s left wing (“The Squad,” among others) the face of the Democratic Party. As White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney put it a while back, the Trump reelection message revolves around three “issues”: the economy, immigration and Democratic Party “socialism.” Engaging “the Squad” and other left-wing (preferably black) legislators has been a “go-to” tactic of Trump’s pre-season election campaign.

Trump miscalculated in thinking that, in the end, Pelosi could and would shut it down. It was a rookie mistake on Trump’s part; another example of how an absence of empathy leads to miscalculation. You can’t deal productively with someone like Pelosi if you don’t make an attempt to understand the politics of her position.

In the event, miscalculation left Trump with the ignominy of being only the third U.S. president in the nation’s history to be impeached. There was no way to spin that away. It was an “own goal” of epic proportions.

That said, the politics of the vote were (and remain) tricky. No one has any doubt, really, that the president did what he stands accused of doing. But 'persuadable" voters are not convinced that the charges warrant his removal from office and they were unnerved by the speed of the House’s “deliberations.” It didn’t seem deliberate at all. It seemed like a rush to judgement.

What does Pelosi do now?

For the moment, she’s waiting, using the Christmas break to give her caucus members a chance to take soundings in their districts. But the truth is she can’t really afford to wait. Removing the president of the United States from office doesn’t wait for constituent service. Trivial as our politics is and has become, there’s no way around the magnitude of what’s happened and what might happen next. Impeachment has global implications. It sets historic precedents. And the Democrats own it, for the moment, so it’s their job to resolve it or at least move it along.

Pelosi’s best option would be a “pocket veto.” Legislative leadership, of course, can’t execute a “pocket veto.” That’s an executive function. But something very much like a “pocket veto” would serve Pelosi and her party’s interests well.

She could say: “I’m not sending these articles of impeachment over to the Senate. There’s no point in doing so. The majority leader has made it clear that he has no interest in a ‘fair trial.’ There’s no point in wasting everyone’s time and taxpayer money to arrive at a decision that Republican senators have already made. Everyone, including each and every Republican member of the Senate, knows that President Trump did exactly what he stands accused of doing. And impeachment is a fact. So we’ll let it stand as is; a monument to the president’s dishonesty and corruption, to be contemplated and remembered by Americans for generations to come.”

Owie! That would light up the night sky over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no? The White House and the reelection campaign committee would erupt in a volcano of tweets and seething appearances on Fox News. God only knows who, aside from Pelosi, would be the target of Team Trump’s collective wrath.

But everyone else, or virtually everyone else, would accept Pelosi’s proposed political resolution with gratitude. Republican Senators would be happy to be rid of the dreary task of defending the president’s conduct. Democratic senators would no longer have to explain why what voters perceive as a felony is actually a capital crime. The “progressive caucus” might be upset for a time, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t play quarterly politics. She plays a long game, emphasizing yards gained and time of possession. She can bank the House vote on impeachment as a first down, which, for Team AOC, it was and is.

If AOC is OK with a Pelosi “pocket veto,” then her massive social media following will follow along. Which in turn will bring along all the other Democratic left-wingers and their media allies. House Democrats in marginal districts will be thrilled to have the issue die a quick death. And as an added bonus, the “Pelosi rebellion” will be counted, by any number of cable television chatterboxes, as a 'win-win" for the party’s two main factions: Pelosi’s authority remains intact, Team AOC made its points and advanced its cause. Harmony restored and a tricky issue shelved, the House Democratic majority in the 2020 general election will be (all-but) secured.

Pelosi was right about the politics of impeachment back in March. Democrats don’t need to convince voters who favor impeachment to vote Democratic. They’re already committed to doing just that. And Democrats will never convince voters committed to President Trump of anything, really. The 2020 election is about those that remain — “the persuadables.” Whoever persuades them wins.

Pelosi’s job is to guide her party toward its political advantages. Impeachment is not an advantage. It’s a 48%-to-48% issue. Health care is an advantage. Shoring up Social Security is an advantage. Climate change is an advantage. Gun control is an advantage. She wants the House of Representatives, especially the Republican members, debating those issues. Because every time House members do, it helps her party’s cause.

Don’t be surprised if she executes the congressional equivalent of a “pocket veto.” It’s a smart play. And she’s nobody’s fool.

John Ellis is the Editor of News Items and a former columnist

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Beating Donald Trump in the 2020 election isn’t everything; it’s the only thing
Debating wine cellar fundraisers, free tuition and ‘Medicare for All’ won’t rid America of an unfit president: Our view
THE EDITORIAL BOARD | USA TODAY | 49 minutes ago

To the casual observer of the Democratic debates, it seems like candidates are spending a lot of time debating improbable ideas like free tuition — that is, when they are not arguing the appropriateness of holding fundraisers in wine caves.

While President Donald Trump is holding pep rallies in key battleground states, the Democrats are engaged in what looks at times like a squabble within an academic department.

Perhaps as a result, the ratings for the Democratic encounters have been slipping with each installment. To some degree, this is the inevitable outcome of a race pitting an incumbent against a large field of would-be challengers.

Focus on winning 2020
But there is also a warning in it: Few of the ideas being debated are getting much traction beyond Democratic true believers. And even many Democrats are ready to see some winnowing of the field in the early caucus and primary states.

This is a pretty good indication that the party’s voters should focus largely on one overriding issue: which of the candidates is best equipped to defeat Donald Trump next November.

Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, at the Democratic presidential debate on Dec. 19, 2019, in Los Angeles.
Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, at the Democratic presidential debate on Dec. 19, 2019, in Los Angeles.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
OPPOSING VIEW: Voters want change, not centrism

In just a few short years, Trump has promoted the interests of U.S. foes, needlessly run up massive government debts, thwarted progress on climate change, done palpable harm to America’s health care system, and turned the once-proud party of Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan into a adulation cult.

Ridding the nation of his unfit leadership is far more important than who has the most extensive plan to hand out free money (we’re looking at you, Andrew Yang) or require everyone to get their health care through an expanded Medicare (Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders).

The Democrats need a nominee who can go toe-to-toe with Trump, explain to the electorate why he is so wrong in so many ways, and build a consensus on taking the nation in a new direction.

Practical proposals
This is not to say issues don’t matter. If the candidates merely criticized Trump and touted their own electability, they would come off as lacking substance. But the ideas and issues they present in the primaries need to be the kind that can garner widespread support in a general election — particularly in crucial states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

These would include practical proposals to preserve and expand health coverage, rebuild America’s standing in the world, adopt sounder fiscal policies and address climate change.

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