Do you know what I discovered last night following the second debate? I can’t stop vomiting, and I am at a loss for words. The “hate theater,” a term coined by Margaret Sullivan for the parade of women from Bill Clinton’s past whom Donald Trump sprang on the Presidential debate, made me sick to my stomach. (Apparently, Trump and team had planned to put the women in the VIP box so that Bill Clinton would have to bump into them to get to his VIP seat, and so that they would be directly in Hillary’s sightline so as to unnerve her and cause her to lose the debate. The dastardly deed was discovered, and the plan was thwarted.) It was wrong and it was a new low in our Presidential politics. Besides, it was Trump’s way of trying to cover up his own egregious sins. Normally, I would try to come up with something humorous or pithy about the week, but children, I’ve got nothing because I think I just watched our republic die Sunday night, aided and abetted by the Religious Right—especially the men over fifty years old.**
CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com
That’s right, my Delightful Readers, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 71 percent of white evangelical voters said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today even though he’s a racist, a xenophobe, a mocker of the disabled, a tax evader, and an adulterer, and now he seems to think its cool TO ASSAULT WOMEN. We’ve all heard the infamous open-mic chatter of Donald Trump’s workplace vulgarity (he claims it was locker room humor, but he was at work, getting ready to tape a show), but it bears repeating for the sake of removing the scales of deception from the eyes of those who refuse to see:
ACCESS HOLLYWOOD’S TAPE OF TRUMP’S “HONORING. RESPECTFUL WORDS” ABOUT WOMEN MADE RIGHT ABOUT THE TIME HE MARRIED HIS THIRD WIFE (POOR MELANIA, SHE MUST FEEL SO GREAT ABOUT HER MARRIAGE RIGHT ABOUT NOW)
“I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it,”
“I did try and fuck her. She was married,” Trump says.
“And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”
“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
(AS TRUMP AND SIDE KICK, BILLY BUSH [CAN YOU BELIEVE HE IS A BUSH RELATIVE?] APPROACH AN UNSUSPECTING WOMAN GREETER, THE MAN WHO WISHES TO BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT CONTINUES…)
“I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
“Grab them by the pussy,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”
CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Bob Englehart, CagleCartoons.com
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PAT ROBERTSON (head of The Christian Broadcasting Network) to Donald Trump: “You inspire us all.”
JERRY, FALWELL, JR. (President of the nation’s largest Christian university and one of the first Christian leaders to support Donald Trump): “In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment.”
JAMES DOBSON (Christian psychologist and founder of Focus on the Family) about Donald Trump: “I am endorsing Donald J. … I am also very enthusiastic by the selection of Gov. Mike Pence as Mr. Trump’s running mate. Together, I believe they will make America great again.”
RALPH REED (Head of Faith & Freedom Coalition) regarding Donald Trump’s “pussy grab”: “People of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defund Planned Parenthood, defend religious liberty and oppose the Iran nuclear deal. A ten-year-old tape of a private conversation with a talk show host ranks low on their hierarchy of concerns.”
CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: John Cole, The Scranton Times Tribune
WAIT, WHAT? THIS JUST IN? HOT OFF THE PRESSES! Christian women, especially those who have survived sexual abuse and women under forty years old, are beginning to peel away from The Donald, led by none other than the female American evangelist, Beth Moore (author and founder of Living Proof Ministries):
“I’m one among many women sexually abused, misused, stared down, heckled, talked naughty to. Like we liked it. We didn’t. We’re tired of it,” Moore said. She also had a word about evangelical leaders still supporting Trump: “Try to absorb how acceptable the disesteem and objectifying of women has been when some Christian leaders don’t think it’s that big a deal.”—Joshua Dubois/The Daily Beast (see full article listed under references—it is worth the read)*
All righty, now! Okay, Christian men who are voting for Trump and are supporting him, no matter what. You men who have wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers: where are your fucking balls? You better find them, because if the Donald has his way, he’s coming for their “pussies,” unless they aren’t a “10” in his eyes, then he’ll just insult them by calling them “slobs, dogs, and ugly, fat pigs.” Rise up, oh men of God, and do the right thing!
CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune Missouri
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ELEANOR’S “SELAH” (AHA MOMENT)
I am discovering “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” but when a person truly repents of their sins, which one of us who live in glass houses has a right to throw past sins in the face of the x-sinner’s spouse just to score political points or to try and win a debate? I’ll let you decide, Dear Reader, which one of these men is someone who might be the better person in spite of his egregious past choices.
BILL CLINTON’S PUBLIC REPENTENCE 18 YEARS AGO: “I don’t think there’s a fancy way to say that I have sinned. It is important to me that everyone who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine — first and most important, my family, my friends, my staff, my cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.
“To be forgiven, more than sorrow is required, at least two more things. First, genuine repentance, a determination to change and to repair breaches of my own making. I have repented.
“Second, what my Bible calls a broken spirit, an understanding that I must have God’s help to be the person that I want to be, a willingness to give the very forgiveness I seek, a renunciation of the pride and the anger which cloud judgment, lead people to excuse and compare and to blame and complain.”
DONALD TRUMP’S IDEA OF REPENTENCE TODAY: “Why do I have to repent, why do I have to ask for forgiveness if [I’m] not making mistakes?” [And since The Donald never admits he’s wrong, he never has to ask forgiveness.]
CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com
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THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUOTES
“Character is what you do when nobody’s looking. And this video captures Trump in the middle of day, sober, a few months after being married, talking with a man he barely knows, bragging about sexual assault, while wearing a microphone. This is, apparently, the real Donald Trump …”—John Avlon/Daily Beast
“Trump-loving evangelical leaders should either apologize to Bill Clinton or admit, after all these years, that they, too, have a character issue.”—Jonathan Merritt
“Donald Trump knows he won’t be president. He’s now in full carnival-barking, network-launching, party-nuking mode — a scowling, pouting menace who threatened during a nationally televised debate to throw Hillary Clinton in jail and called her husband the most sexually abusive man in political history.”—REVIEW OF THE SECOND DEBATE/Ron Fournier, writer for The Atlantic
WINNER OF DEBATE: CNN POLL=57% (Hillary)-34% (The Donald)
CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Marian Kemensky, Slovakia
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REFERENCES
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