Conservative evangelical groups line up behind Trump to defend 'Doctor Demon Semen'

Donald Trump defends this woman, so conservative evangelical groups are also defending her.

Eager to play the central role in what's becoming a political version of the German legend of Faust (a philosopher who sells his soul to the devil), conservative evangelicals groups have given a bit more of their soul to Donald Trump in return for political power.  In all honesty, these groups never had that much of a soul, if any to begin with, but I think they've given so much of what they do have to Trump that they're down to soul "stamps." This latest spiritual capitulation involve an incident on Monday. I think you know what I'm talking about, but I will give a short recap:

The far right publication Breitbart streamed a press conference involving individuals claiming to be medical professionals who proceeded to push insane conspiracies about COVID-19 cures.

According to NBC News:

A dozen doctors delivered speeches in front of the U.S. Capitol on Monday to a small crowd, claiming without evidence that the coronavirus could be cured and that widely accepted efforts to slow its spread were unnecessary and dangerous. It was the latest video to go viral from apparent experts, quietly backed by dark money political organizations, evangelizing treatments for or opinions about the coronavirus that most doctors, public health officials and epidemiologists have roundly decried as dangerous misinformation. 

 . . . Dressed in white coats with "America's Frontline Doctors" stitched on the chest, the stars of the Facebook video claimed that business and school closings, social distancing and even masks were not needed, because hydroxychloroquine, a drug commonly used to treat malaria, could both prevent and cure the coronavirus. In fact, the FDA has warned against using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, citing serious health effects and the conclusions from randomized clinical trials that have shown little benefit from the treatment. "We don't need masks. There is a cure!" said Dr. Stella Immanuel, a licensed pediatrician from Houston.  

In one of the event's most fiery speeches, Immanuel, who claims to have effectively treated 350 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine out of her medical clinic, but declined to provide data, referred to doctors who declined to treat patients with hydroxychloroquine as "good Nazis" and "fake doctors," and called published research "fake science."

Franklin Graham officially abandons Jesus to become Donald Trump's bitch

Once upon a time, there was a religious leader named Franklin Graham who said he stood for values and morality. In the late 1990s, there was a huge controversy in the United States with regards to its president, Bill Clinton, who got caught having an affair with a White House intern by the name of Monica Lewinsky.

Graham wrote a piece which condemned Clinton. It was called Clinton's Sins Are Not Private. In part, Graham said:

Last week Mr. Clinton told 70 million Americans that his adulterous actions with Ms. Lewinsky were a “private” matter “between me, the two people I love the most–my wife and our daughter–and our God.” 

But the God of the Bible says that what one does in private does matter. Mr. Clinton’s months-long extramarital sexual behavior in the Oval Office now concerns him and the rest of the world, not just his immediate family. If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public? 

 . . . As a boy I remember my mother telling me of the consequences of sin. Like a boat, whose wake can capsize other boats, sin leaves a wake. Just look at how many have already been pulled under by the wake of the president’s sin: Mr. Clinton’s wife and daughter, Ms. Lewinsky, her parents, White House staff members, friends and supporters, public officials and an unwitting American public. 

 . . . Mr. Clinton’s sin can be forgiven, but he must start by admitting to it and refraining from legalistic doublespeak. According to the Scripture, the president did not have an “inappropriate relationship” with Monica Lewinsky–he committed adultery. He didn’t “mislead” his wife and us–he lied.

Fast forward over 20 years later to another president, Donald Trump. Trump has not only had an affair (with a porn star named Stormy Daniels) but has also done worse. For some reason, Graham has taken a, shall we say, less Biblical view of these matters. 

These are Graham's responses to some of Trump's "lowlights."

Donald Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels (after it was proven that Daniels was paid $130,000 for her silence):

“I can promise you he is not President Perfect,” Graham replied.  . . "President Trump I don’t think has admitted to having an affair with this person and so, this is just a news story, I don’t know if it’s accurate,” . . . “Now did he have an affair with this woman? I have no clue, but I believe that 70 years of age, the president is a much different person today than he was four years ago, five years ago, ten years ago or whatever and we just have to give the man the benefit of the doubt.”

Trump's ban on refugees and immigrants from countries he claims are high-risk - Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen:

“It’s not a biblical command for the country to let everyone in who wants to come, that’s not a Bible issue,” Graham told HuffPost. “We want to love people, we want to be kind to people, we want to be considerate, but we have a country and a country should have order and there are laws that relate to immigration and I think we should follow those laws. Because of the dangers we see today in this world, we need to be very careful.”

Editor's note - it is a Biblical issue per se. There are 22 Biblical verses about welcoming immigrants, including:

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. - Hebrews 13:1-3

Donald Trump's capacity for lying:

“I don’t think the president is sitting there behind the desk trying to make up lies. I don’t believe that for a second. Has he misspoken on something? Sure. All of us do that. You do it and I do it. And sometimes we get the facts wrong and we say something that later on we realize, we could’ve said it better or it was misrepresented.” (at the time of Graham's statement, Trump has been cited for lying over 8,000 times while in office)

And the pièce de résistance:

The present impeachment hearings of Donald Trump for attempting to get the Ukraine to announce investigations of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in exchange for aide - something admitted to by Mick Mulvaney, Trump's acting chief of staff, Trump himself, and several other witnesses:

So what has changed in over 20 years for Graham? Well he claims that he supports Donald Trump because Trump defends and stands up for the Christian faith.

"What I love about our president is that our president defends the Christian faith," he said. "Our past presidents scolded Christians. This president is defending Christians and he's very open about the Christian faith. "I love that about President Trump and, of course at the prayer breakfast just a few days ago he was tremendous that America is a nation of believers," he continued. "And we're strengthened by the power of prayer, he reminded everyone. He also reminded us that faith is central to American life. It is. It is central to our life as a nation. I'm very thankful that Donald Trump takes this stand."

What a pity.

If Graham had any true faith and trust in God, he wouldn't feel the need to make excuses for the behavior of a lying, lecherous joke of a president. Since I was a child, I was told to always have faith in God. I was also told that this faith included not making excuses for people and actions which are supposed to go against your morals, no matter who much you benefited from said people and actions.

So which is it, Graham? Why are you making excuses for Trump?

 Or was all of what you claimed to have stood for about morality and values simply talk?

Conservative evangelicals willing to give Trump a 'mulligan' for causing genocide

FRC president Tony Perkins (left) and other conservative evangelicals seems to be willing to give Donald Trump another pass or 'mulligan' for his bad behavior. This 'mulligan' is for his betrayal of the Kurdish people and genocidal chaos he has caused in the Middle East after withdrawing US. troops. (the other person in the picture is Andrew Brunson.)

The Family Research Council held its yearly vilefest, the Values Voter Summit last weekend. It was as it always is - full of whining about being persecuted simply because women make their own health choices or the LGBTQ community has gained more rights.  The tone was a bit more boastful this year. FRC and conservative evangelicals are reaping some benefits with Trump in the White House, even if they have to ignore certain things, such as Trump's lies, his incompetence, his corruption, and particularly his betrayal of the Kurdish people in the Middle East.

 . . . President Donald Trump ordered all U.S. troops withdrawn from the northern border area amid the rapidly deepening chaos. 

The shift could lead to clashes between Turkey and Syria and raises the specter of a resurgent Islamic State group as the U.S. relinquishes any remaining influence in northern Syria to President Bashar Assad and his chief backer, Russia. 

Adding to the turmoil Sunday, hundreds of Islamic State families and supporters escaped from a holding camp in Syria amid the fighting between Turkish forces and the Kurds.

The fast-deteriorating situation was set in motion last week, when Trump ordered U.S. troops in northern Syria to step aside, clearing the way for an attack by Turkey, which regards the Kurds as terrorists. Since 2014, the Kurds have fought alongside the U.S. in defeating the Islamic State in Syria, and Trump’s move was decried at home and abroad as a betrayal of an ally.

When Trump initially did this, many conservative evangelicals groups, including FRC, spoke out against his action. Some in the media speculated that he could lose their support.

On Saturday, as Trump spoke at FRC's event and made platitudes of  how the United States "worships God instead of government" "America will never be a socialist country,"  and spun stories about "indoctrination of children" (that's about us LGBTQ folks) and spouted whatever other phrases designed to send religious conservatives into egotistical orgasmic frenzies, what he did in with regards to the Middle East seemed to have been forgiven. Or conveniently forgotten.

The sad irony is that when he was speaking to conservative evangelicals on Saturday night and while they were shouting "four more years" or anointing him as a "pro-life defender of Christianity," the Turkish army was benefiting from Trump's withdrawal of troops there by massacring Syrian civilians and Kurdish people. According to Mediaite:

A new report out of Syria has described the horrific impact of Turkey’s military operation in the northern countryside, which continues to endanger Syrian civilians and U.S.-allied Kurdish forces. Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst outlined a grim situation on Sunday when he reported that “there’s evidence today of war crimes being committed, civilians being targeted, and ISIS prisoners escaping.” Yingst said he couldn’t show these events, calling them “too graphic,” but he noted that these developments took place as Donald Trump’s administration withdrew American forces “meant to deter” Turkey from their incursion into the region.

And then there is this account from The Telegraph:

Kurdish officials said rebel fighters intercepted a car carrying Hevrin Khalaf, a Kurdish political leader with Future Syria Party, and murdered her along with her driver and an aide. “She was taken out of her car during a Turkish-backed attack and executed by Turkish-backed mercenary factions,” the Syrian Democratic Council said in a statement.

 . . . The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said the rebels had killed at least eight other civilians as they advanced towards the strategic M4 motorway with the support of Turkish airpower. Another video appears to show several Arabic-speaking fighters shooting an unarmed man on the side of a road. “God is great,” cries one man in the video, before urging a comrade to film him shooting the corpse with a sniper rifle.

And speaking of escapees of the ISIS terrorist group, according to Axios:

Syrian Kurdish officials on Sunday said clashes near Ain Issa, a key Kurdish-held town in northern Syria, allowed 950 Islamic State, or ISIS, supporters to escape from a camp for displaced people near a U.S.-led coalition base, AP reports. 

Why it matters: One of the fears stemming from President Trump's withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria was that a Turkish assault would force Kurdish forces to desert the prison camps where about 12,000 ISIS fighters and their families are being held. 

Details: The Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria said in a statement that the supporters escaped after they attacked camp guards and stormed the gates, per AP, which said it was not immediately possible to confirm the number of escapees. 

What they're saying: A U.S. military official told AP that northeastern Syria was “deteriorating rapidly” and that U.S. troops on the ground are at risk of being “isolated” and of clashing with Turkey-backed Syrian forces.

 All of this is Trump's doing - the actions of an incompetent moron who has less business in the White House than a deceased, rotting jackass does at Harvard. But hey, I'm sure none of this is important to conservative evangelicals or groups like the Family Research Council. As long as they have more access to the Trump Administration than anyone else and thus more power to make or initiate policy, what's a few dead brown people in a region they've probably never been to or probably couldn't point to on a map.

And I'm sure that if they become the subject of any criticism, they have a game plan:

Have a fawning interview with Fox and Friends, Jeanine Pirro, Shannon Bream or Sean Hannity; publish something in The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller or The Federalist; let Tucker Carlson do misleading monologue; or create a false panic about progressives on Twitter and this latest awful action by Trump is excused away. Then we all can talk about more important such as keeping gay couples from getting cakes and flowers for their upcoming weddings.

Last year, FRC president Tony Perkins said Donald Trump should be given a pass by conservative evangelicals on his negative past behavior, such as his affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, because he is giving them what they want in regards to policy.  Perkins called this pass a "mulligan."

On Saturday, we learned that the Family Research Council and conservative evangelicals in general are willing to give Trump a mulligan for causing genocide.

I guess they don't consider preventing genocide as a value they should be concerned about.