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PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.

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East Lake

Member
For what it's worth, The only texts in the Bible that explicitly call out Homosexuality is in the OT, which is technically part of Jewish Law that the Apostle Paul argued did not apply to Gentiles(See also Circumcision). The verses from the New Testament that "Condemns homosexuals" are written by Paul and use terminology that could have meant a variety of things in Ancient Greek.



Like, there's an entire page on Wikipedia dedicated to both arguments for and against these words as "Homosexual"within the context of the letters.


Except that is probably as close to "Socialism" as you can get in the Bible, considering Socialism is a 19th Century Ideology. It's a stupid exercise much in the way that you can't really say that the writings of Justinian's legal reforms in the Byzantines would make him support Healthcare Reform. I get the original point(that Jesus has been corrupted by Evangelicals into "Supply Side Jesus", who espouses the values of Hayek and Rand) but the analogy is bad.

Like, the parable is "Everyone should get paid the same, regardless of their prior rank"(Much like other parables, there's a lot of subtext, especially since Matthew 20 is a continuation of Jesus's talk about the rich in Matthew 19.) I can't imagine a world where This section proceeding it is judged as "Promoting Capitalism.


He's also comparing Heaven to this system, for "The First Shall be Last in the Kingdom of God".
The Lord is clearly the original job creator my friend, and doesn't give equal pay for equal work!
 
I think TrumpCare still has a decent shot. It's going to be tough for Republican congressmen to defy a president who is popular with their base. Also, I'm not sure their base will forgive them for blocking the repeal of Obamacare even if there are good reasons for doing so.

Too bad this bill is just plan awful no matter your political viewpoints. Republicans don't have many good options.
 

royalan

Member
JESUS

I just saw Rachel Maddow's opening segment from tonight.

I've forgotten all about last week's mess because she's back to knocking it out of the park.

Her opening segment from Monday and today on Russia's cyber warfare operation...I'd make a thread if I weren't so tired. It really is important for the left to know the full scale of the cyber attacks waged against Democrats. Especially because this WILL happen again in 2018, and be much more sophisticated.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
I think TrumpCare still has a decent shot. It's going to be tough for Republican congressmen to defy a president who is popular with their base. Also, I'm not sure their base will forgive them for blocking the repeal of Obamacare even if there are good reasons for doing so.

Too bad this bill is just plan awful no matter your political viewpoints. Republicans don't have many good options.

It's popular with the Tea Party and no one else. The Tea Party can swing a primary, they have the numbers for that, but not a general election.
 
"Nobody Knew Health Care Could Be So Complicated"

aUISiUq.jpg


The only thing I could think of...
 
I'm aware of the common interpretation of that passage. It's just a human one though, and as far as I'm concerned is equally as compelling as someone who interprets it as "smart business man got a bunch of suckers to do more work for shit pay." If God wants me to read the Bible progressively, he's got my email.

To be clear, if religious stuff gets us seats, I'm totally on board with that. But I'm probably not going to be enthusiastically running around to various churches and passing out religious flyers and shit. There's a lot in the Bible that I find incompatible with a moral society I think we should have, and I'm not comfortable enough with the millennial version of religion (all the good parts, none of the bad ones, plus rock music!) to pound pavement around it.
 

East Lake

Member
Continuing with Book of Matthew chat, in your life who are the sinners and the tax collectors?

The Calling of Matthew

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. ”Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ”Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, ”It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
“When he asked me at the end of that conversation to be secretary of state, I was stunned.”

When Tillerson got home and told his wife, Renda St. Clair, she shook her finger in his face and said, “I told you God’s not through with you.”
Oh give me a break.
Even so, and even though Tillerson said he talks to Trump daily and has an open invitation to visit him at the White House whenever he chooses, he said they haven’t yet talked about what a dramatically different State Department will look like or how he will staff it.

His eyes darted down to his desk when he said, “We haven’t gotten that far yet,” as though he realized he had been caught.
That's certainly a telling tidbit considering Trump's budget proposal. They have no idea what they're doing.
 
They had SEVEN years to formulate a plan
Problem is a good chunk (perhaps a majority?) would have no problem just chucking out ACA and replacing it with absolutely nothing, and see nothing wrong with that. They bought into the "repeal and replace" mantra because that's what the leadership was pushing, without giving two fucks as to what the "replace" part would look like.
 

Teggy

Member
So a Russian whistleblower's lawyer fell out of a window and died. I don't understand how they get away with obviously killing tons of people so easily.
 
So a Russian whistleblower's lawyer fell out of a window and died. I don't understand how they get away with obviously killing tons of people so easily.
No one can really hold Russia accountable though. It'd be one hell of a diplomatic incident for a government to condemn Russia for this without solid, solid evidence.
 
So a Russian whistleblower's lawyer fell out of a window and died. I don't understand how they get away with obviously killing tons of people so easily.

i'm surprised this doesn't trigger any of those far-right conspiracy theorists to go "Hey, maybe there is a connection..." ....but on second thought, they'll probably think Obama did it. Ugh.
 
So apparently the Secretary of Labor nominee is the Prosecutor that struck a deal with Jeffery Epstein. The guy who decided 13 months in jail was an acceptable punishment for pimping out 40+ underage girls. His butler who had no knowledge of the activities was given 18 months by the way.

So basically Trump rewarding the guy who gave his "good friend" a very favorable deal to get minimum prison time.
 

sphagnum

Banned
So apparently the Secretary of Labor nominee is the Prosecutor that struck a deal with Jeffery Epstein. The guy who decided 13 months in jail was an acceptable punishment for pimping out 40+ underage girls. His butler who had no knowledge of the activities was given 18 months by the way.

So basically Trump rewarding the guy who gave his "good friend" a very favorable deal to get minimum prison time.

For a bunch of loons who bought into Pizzagate, the fact that the alt right will absolutely overlook this is hilariously obviously hypocritical.
 
For a bunch of loons who bought into Pizzagate, the fact that the alt right will absolutely overlook this is hilariously obviously hypocritical.

Also that Epstein had several contact numbers for Trump, they were very publicly friends, and Trump was named in a Civil Case against Epstein. But you know, nah man, it needs more clipart store signs and made up terminology to stand a chance.

Official Source for original claim.

Federal prosecutors detailed their findings in an 82-page prosecution memo and a 53-page indictment, but Epstein was never indicted. In 2007, Acosta signed a non-prosecution deal in which he agreed not to pursue federal charges against Epstein or four women who the government said procured girls for him. In exchange, Epstein agreed to plead guilty to a solicitation charge in state court, accept a 13-month sentence, register as a sex offender and pay restitution to the victims identified in the federal investigation.

”This agreement will not be made part of any public record," the deal between Epstein and Acosta says. The document was unsealed by a federal judge in a civil lawsuit in 2015.

Also interesting, that Epstein would often host his parties at his residence in Palm Beach. The same place Mar-a-Lago is located...
 

Slizeezyc

Member
So apparently the Secretary of Labor nominee is the Prosecutor that struck a deal with Jeffery Epstein. The guy who decided 13 months in jail was an acceptable punishment for pimping out 40+ underage girls. His butler who had no knowledge of the activities was given 18 months by the way.

So basically Trump rewarding the guy who gave his "good friend" a very favorable deal to get minimum prison time.

raw
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
He 'fell' out of the window while guys on the ground were hoisting a jacuzzi up the side of the building with ropes? C'mon.
 

pigeon

Banned
Oh boy. If you work with the Russian Government and then get involved in US Politics you're gonna have a bad time...

Holy shit.

Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse. Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP.

"We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success," Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska.

Seems newsy.

Edit:
Manafort and his associates remain in Trump's orbit. Manafort told a colleague this year that he continues to speak with Trump by telephone. Manafort's former business partner in eastern Europe, Rick Gates, has been seen inside the White House on a number of occasions. Gates has since helped plan Trump's inauguration and now runs a nonprofit organization, America First Policies, to back the White House agenda.
 

pigeon

Banned
Moment of comedy for the day: if Trump had lost, democratic norms would have prevented Hillary from prosecuting the people in Trump's campaign, so everybody would just have gotten away with all the espionage and collusion, probably with a warning to knock it off.
 
I think the exact opposite. The thing about double agents like Flynn is that you already know they're willing to screw the people they're working for.

That's true. I think of Manafort as more of a coward though.

In more depressing news, there's also this;

At least 33 people were killed in a US-led coalition strike on a school used as a centre for displaced people near a jihadist-held Syrian town, a monitor said Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike south of Al-Mansoura, a town held by the Islamic State group in the northern province of Raqa, ”took place in the early hours of Tuesday."

”We can now confirm that 33 people were killed, and they were displaced civilians from Raqa, Aleppo and Homs," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

”They're still pulling bodies out of the rubble until now. Only two people were pulled out alive," Abdel Rahman said.
 

Chumley

Banned
Moment of comedy for the day: if Trump had lost, democratic norms would have prevented Hillary from prosecuting the people in Trump's campaign, so everybody would just have gotten away with all the espionage and collusion, probably with a warning to knock it off.

Rick Wilson and a bunch of other GOP people said from the beginning that Trump winning would end up being worse for the Republican party. They were right.
 
And this from the State Department;

The United States strongly and unequivocally opposes the existence of the UN Human Rights Council's Agenda Item Seven: ”Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories." Today's actions in the Council are yet another reminder of that body's long-standing bias against Israel. No other nation has an entire agenda item dedicated to it at the Council. The continued existence of this agenda item is among the largest threats to the credibility of the Council.

So apparently Human Rights don't matter when Israel is violating them.

EDIT: Just saw this is a statement from 2 days ago. Surprising it wasn't covered a bit more, but Comey Testimony and Russia-Ties have been all the rage.
 

Pixieking

Banned
I sure wish Comey would've been more vocal about this investigation, like, I dunno, LAST FALL.

This last couple of days surely proves his intent to sway the election and break the Hatch Act. Here, he's circumspect and unwilling to reveal anything of anything. Back in October, he had nothing, and no cause to say anything, and released a statement that he must've known would affect the political landscape.
 

Diablos

Member
This last couple of days surely proves his intent to sway the election and break the Hatch Act. Here, he's circumspect and unwilling to reveal anything of anything. Back in October, he had nothing, and no cause to say anything, and released a statement that he must've known would affect the political landscape.
It's infuriating. I think he violated it too. But if he stepped down, Trump would replace him with someone even worse.

Did any Dems care to ask him why he didn't say anything before the election?
 
I'm just wondering who's the more likely one to rat Trump out if faced with prison time - Flynn or Manafort?
Flynn because as Pigeon said.. once you're a double agent, you're much more likely to flip. Also Flynn is extremely petty. Do remember that one of the main reasons Flynn went to work for Putin and others was because Barry and the CIA fired his ass.

He'll squeal (if he isn't already squealing and I would be surprised if he isn't since the Feds have him on perjury because we know that he lied to them when they sat him down to talk to him)

Manafort has several million reasons to not squeal.. but..

Oh boy. If you work with the Russian Government and then get involved in US Politics you're gonna have a bad time...

He's never going to get to enjoy those millions because he will definitely have a bullet put in his head if he runs.. This will only end for Manafort in two ways.. in cuffs or a coffin.. There's no way there is a third option where he keeps his money and life.

I sure wish Comey would've been more vocal about this investigation, like, I dunno, LAST FALL.
1) He hates Hillary
2) He, like everyone else, thought she would win easily.. so why not satisfy your bent and several factions in your house at the same time.
 

Diablos

Member
1) He hates Hillary
2) He, like everyone else, thought she would win easily.. so why not satisfy your bent and several factions in your house at the same time.
So what if he hates her? He should be smart enough to realize how much more deep this Russia thing is in comparison to omg emails. If he really loves this country as much as he said during the hearing he should be mature enough to put his personal feelings aside about Hillary.

Assuming she would win should not stop him from doing the right thing by informing the public of an investigation into a Presidential campaign BEFORE people voted and were still deciding who to vote for/if they should even bother voting at all.
 
Rick Wilson and a bunch of other GOP people said from the beginning that Trump winning would end up being worse for the Republican party. They were right.

They went from strengthening their House and Senate margins, getting another decade of Gerrymandering and stone walling Clinton while still being able to do absolutely nothing, possibly the presidency in 2020, to... this. Major people in their party under active investigation. Crippled by in fighting and unable to pass major legislation they've been promising for years. A re-invigorated Democrat party. A possible horrible showing in 2018, and potentially a slaughter in 2020, leaving them to no longer have the district advantages they were enjoying.
 

Blader

Member
So what if he hates her? He should be smart enough to realize how much more deep this Russia thing is in comparison to omg emails. If he really loves this country as much as he said during the hearing he should be mature enough to put his personal feelings aside about Hillary.

Even though the investigation started last July, it sounds like the FBI was not aware of the extent of Russia's involvement -- or their goal to boost Trump's chances of winning -- until December. And remember, the CIA was willing to make that conclusion much earlier than the FBI was.
 

Wilsongt

Member
Let's not forget with these investigations: if Hillary had won, everyone close to her would have been in front of Chaffetz, Gowdy, et all on day 1 for her emails and such.

In other historical news, there is a new opinion piece making the rounds from an Indian politician calling Churchill worse than Hitler.
 

Pixieking

Banned
Let's not forget with these investigations: if Hillary had won, everyone close to her would have been in front of Chaffetz, Gowdy, et all on day 1 for her emails and such.

In other historical news, there is a new opinion piece making the rounds from an Indian politician calling Churchill worse than Hitler.

Well, Churchill's not perfect - and I don't think he ever pretended to be - but that's just taking the piss.
 
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