House TTKP members shield Kushner; Christian criminality

Mediaite reports that House TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party) members blithely rejected a motion to investigate Jared Kushner business dealings with a murdering Saudi Prince:

Six months after exiting the White House, Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund over the objections of the fund’s advisers. They were overruled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who had developed a close relationship with Kushner.

The Oversight Committee convened on Wednesday for another hearing on Hunter Biden and his business dealings that Republicans say illicitly benefitted his father President Joe Biden. Despite investigating the matter for more than a year, the committee has turned up no proof.

During the hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said Kushner had done “good work” as White House adviser when he helped forge the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the states of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

“Of course, the Democrats don’t wanna admit that,” Jordan said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) followed by making a motion to subpoena Kushner.

“Mr. Chairman, I have a motion,” he told Chair James Comer (R-KY). “I have a motion. I would move… that the committee issue a subpoena to Jared Kushner to compel testimony related to the $2 billion collected from Saudi Arabia after his service within the White House.”

After the motion was seconded, Jordan moved to table – or kill – the motion.

“Move to table the motion,” he said.

Once again, we see TTKP hypocrisy in defense of indefensible corruption. The moral rot is deep and out in the open.

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Citing research that is behind a paywall, the Friendly Atheist reports about worldwide Christian criminality that recent research turned up:

Researchers say Christian leaders will 

embezzle an estimated $86 billion in 2024

In 2024, Christian leaders around the world will embezzle an estimated $86 billion from their followers.

That “ecclesiastical crime” will jump to approximately $390 billion by 2050, according to researchers Dr. Gina Zurlo, Dr. Todd Johnson, and Peter Crossing at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, part of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

The numbers are tucked away in a larger report about global Christianity published in the January issue of the International Bulletin of Mission Research.

The Christian ministry watchdog group Trinity Foundation summarized the problem this way:

Ecclesiastical crimes take on many forms such as skimming from an offering plate, restricted donation fraud (diverting mission donations to a personal expense account), and international cash smuggling.

Televangelists have transferred funds across international borders on private jets and failed to report these transactions resulting in “bulk cash smuggling.”

We know these sorts of shenanigans occur because, frequently, Christian leaders are arrested for financial crimes. It’s incredibly hard, however, to pinpoint exactly how much crime occurs under the veil of Christianity. That can be blamed on everything from the fact that churches don’t have to file financial reports with the IRS, to the fact that they often blame crime on everything but religion, to the fact that they may not want to go public about [fleecing the flock]. In many ways, it’s like tracking sales in a black market; the very nature of how they operate—out of public sight—makes it hard to quantify.  

[In an earlier 2015 paper, the researchers] calculated, if Christians around the world gave $850.9 billion to charity and $773.5 billion to Christian causes specifically, that would suggest about $50 billion and $46 billion, respectively, “lost to fraud and embezzlement.”  

In the newer 2024 paper, with updated numbers, the researchers say that Christians all over the world will give about $1.3 trillion to Christian causes… which would result in about $86 billion lost to ecclesiastical crime.

By 2050, they estimate, the $5.2 trillion given to Christian causes could lead to $390 billion lost to fraud.

I have pointed out repeatedly that core goals of the corrupt American Christian nationalism wealth and power movement includes (ii) get taxpayers to pay for all religious operations, and (ii) replace all (100%) secular public schools with religious schools, also paid for by taxpayers. This research on theft by Christians is in synch with the larger Christian nationalist goal of raiding the US treasury to pay for Christian operations and social indoctrination via schools. 

Like Austin Texas…

...I’m an out-of-place blueberry in a bowl of Ohio tomato soup… and I know it. 😁

Here’s my question: Why do they (my politically “deep red” Ohio district) make us, well me, vote at a church when there is supposed to be separation of church and state?   

Yes, I grant you, there is a workaround.  I could do mail-in voting to solve the (my) “separation” problem, if I find it that egregious.

But that’s not what I’m getting at here.  I’m honing in on the Constitution’s “separation of church and state” angle/clause.  Indeed, I’m talking about the unabashed opposite; the “adjoining” of the church (religion) and the state (government). Constitutionally speaking, the “merging of the two” doesn’t seem on the up-and-up to me, but…. 🤷‍♀️.

Some more interesting questions:

• Do you know if churches bid on the right to be a voting precinct/location?  How does that work exactly?  Are some of them in cahoots with/have special connections to the Board of Elections or whomever decides on the designated polling places? Could it be a case of, “Friends don't let friends drive drunk go churchless?” 😉

• What if the voter is a Christian and their designated voting site in a Mosque or Synagogue?  Would there be any need for the Christian to be “riled up” over that?  How about a Muslim or a Jew voting in some Christian-denomination church?  No one should be offended in any way?  It’s just one of the “bad brakes” in life (win some, lose some)?  Or, is the discomfort one may feel (of having to go into a facility that is against their own belief/non-belief principles) just being overly sensitive/overreacting?  Not being woke enough?

• If you are an atheist, which many here claim to be, how do YOU feel about having to vote in a church environment?  Not give it any serious thought?  Or, just hold your nose and do it, no questions asked?  Be an in-and-out burger (in…vote…out ⚡) as fast as you can.  No lollygagging and you’ll emerge unscathed from any unwelcomed influence. Whew!  Dodged that one!!

• If a religious facility hosts a voting location, should that facility be allowed to lay out guilt-riddled, religion-related pamphlets right by the front door, so you can’t possibly miss them (as the church I voted at Tuesday did)?  Or say, hold a bake sale in the lobby all during voting hours, as a (let’s call it) reward/perk for hosting the voting event?  Is it a kind of “to the victor go the spoils” thing, allowing/permitting the church site to take monetary advantage of the situation, in order to “bulk up/pad” the church's coffers)? 😮

**** 

Okay, okay, that was just a bunch of rhetorical grouchbox-ery, and I know that too; my mind working overtime, making a political mountain out of a little pile of religious molehill dirt, and probably more like something I posted for your reading “amusement.”  (It was. 😊)

Life is complicated and full of complicated people and situations. IOW somebody, somewhere, isn’t gonna like the outcome of “whatever the case may be.” That’s never going away.  As a doctor once told me about my TMJ, “Why don’t you just learn to live with it?”  And that’s what I’ve done.  It’s like learning to live with left-handedness in a mostly right-handed world.  Whaterya gonna do?

No, I post this OP mostly as food for (your) thought, and not to stir up trouble.  Answer the questions if you like, no pressure or expectations.  Your prerogative.  Else, just think about them in private.  That’s good enough, as far as I’m concerned.  "Thinking" is a great benefit/blessing/perk/etc. for those of us with full bellies.  Take advantage of our luck-of-the-draw birth situation.

Just some more FWThey'reW concepts to ponder, in our never-ending struggle for that elusive “more perfect union.”

(by PrimalSoup)

Misinformation & birth control: What are the deceivers called?

The poisonous influence of dark free speech on social media is finding its way into seemingly unexpected things. The WaPo writes (not behind paywall) about social media exploiting public ignorance to trick women into making sometimes catastrophic mistakes:

Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion

Search for birth control on TikTok or Instagram and a cascade of misleading videos vilifying hormonal contraception appear: Young women blaming their weight gain on the pill. Right-wing commentators claiming that some birth control can lead to infertility. Testimonials complaining of depression and anxiety.

Instead, many social media influencers recommend “natural” alternatives, such as timing sex to menstrual cycles — a less effective birth-control method that doctors warn could result in unwanted pregnancies in a country where abortion is now banned or restricted in nearly half the states.

While doctors say hormonal contraception — which includes birth-control pills and intrauterine devices (IUDs) — is safe and effective, they worry the profession’s long-standing lack of transparency about some of the serious but rare side effects has left many patients seeking information from unqualified online communities.

The backlash to birth control comes at a time of rampant misinformation about basic health tenets amid poor digital literacy and a wider political debate over reproductive rights, in which far-right conservatives argue that broad acceptance of birth control has altered traditional gender roles and weakened the family.

Physicians and researchers say little data is available about the scale of this new phenomenon, but anecdotally, more patients are coming in with misconceptions about birth control fueled by influencers and conservative commentators.

“People are putting themselves out there as experts on birth control and speaking to things that the science does not bear out,” said Michael Belmonte, an OB/GYN in D.C. and a family planning expert with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). “I am seeing those direct failures of this misinformation.”

How many people are out there willing to knowingly lie on social media and mislead ignorant people into making tragic mistakes like this, ~5% of the population? What are those people called, disinformers or just liars? What about people who think they know things, but are wrong and unknowingly spread falsehoods that lead others to make tragic mistakes, misinformers or fools? 

The Best and Worst of US(SC)…

1. What do you consider to be the most egregious (wrong) ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in recent/living history? 
2. What do you see as its crowning (right) achievement?

Following is a short synopsis of some of the more famous modern-day cases.  But feel free to research other cases for yourself or that are of special interest to you.  There are indeed gobs.

*    *    *

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954):

The Court ruled that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

 

Roe v. Wade (1973):

The Court, in a landmark decision, recognized a woman’s constitutional right to choose to have an abortion under the right to privacy, legalizing abortion across the United States. 

 

United States v. Nixon (1974):

The Court ruled that executive privilege is not absolute and ordered Nixon to release the tapes, contributing to his resignation.

Bush v. Gore (2000):

The Court, in a controversial decision, halted the recount, effectively awarding Florida’s electoral votes to George W. Bush and settling the election in his favor.

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008):

The Court, in a landmark decision, affirmed an individual’s right to possess firearms for self-defense the home, interpreting the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to bear arms.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010):

The Court, overruling an earlier decision, Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce (Austin), that allowed prohibitions on independent expenditures by corporations. 

 

Nat’l Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012):

The Supreme Court upheld by a vote of 5–4 the individual mandate to buy health insurance as a constitutional exercise of Congress's power under the Taxing and Spending Clause (taxing power).  Upheld the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022):

The Court overturned 50 years of precedent, overruling Roe v. Wade.

 

(by PrimalSoup)