If His Lips Are Moving – He’s Lying
Our Old Testament reading this morning is from Leviticus, that ancient book of do’s and don’ts tha tpeople cherry pick even today, even after Jesus came to clear up our misconceptions and told us many of these rules were not God-given, but man made, traditional customs.
Leviticus 19:
33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
35 You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity. 36You shall have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them: I am the Lord.
But Welcoming the Stranger is a theme throughout the book. Not cheating. Telling the truth. These rules don’t change.
Often when I don’t write, it’s because I am stunned into silence. I don’t care whether you believe as I do or not – worldwide, people share some basic beliefs because they help us survive. Kindness to one another. Compassion, even to those we might not like much. Humanity in our dealings with one another, dealing with one another straight up, giving an honest measure – often even a little more, a “bakers dozen” of 13, an extra inch of fabric, a good measure.
I knew a woman I privately considered as dishonest, and one night we were discussing the love of money as the root of evil in a group, and she said she never considered money her own, that it is God’s money, flowing through her as a conduit, going where it is meant to be.
I told AdventureMan when I got home, and he liked it, too. We decided to tip generously, to let our excess flow through our fingers, trusting God to put it where it is needed, and we would have no idea. We’ve never regretted that philosophy.
I fear for our world. I fear for the selfishness and greed putting our world at risk. I fear that the pulling back of environmental restrictions will impact on our ability as human beings to continue to live on earth. I picture Octavia Butler’s enclaves of the ultra rich while the rest of us scrabble for scraps in a world where rich and poor are breathing bad air, sweating in tropical heat and where plague and filth become common because we no longer invest in public health.
The “Truth” our leader speaks changes, not even daily, but sometimes within an hour, within 15 minutes. It’s not a War? When missiles are still destroying innocent lives? When ships cannot pass freely through a waterway that has been unguarded and open for years? When we pour the life blood of our country into guarding a war we never chose, and pulling our troops out of countries who for over half a century have been allied in creating widespread wealth, and a better world.
I gasp at his audacity, telling his citizens that a legal election was not a legal election, and that his own attempts to meddle in election results never happened, or was not illegal, or whatever the lie is today, or in his most recent speech. His truth changes according to his imagination, and he goes after those who expose his untruths.
Do you remember the wall that the Mexicans would pay for? Now we have a billion dollar ballroom, a monument to gilded vanity, that was touted as built by wealthy donors, but he is handing taxpayers the bill. The taxpayers who will pay are the same ones who have recently given up health care insurance they can no longer afford, or the dream of home ownership, or the dream of sending their first generation of American citizens to college.
What a tragic twist of fate, that the Trump years would bankrupt an entire country the way he bankrupted his own casinos and businesses. When will this stop?
Stretching the Point
Anyone who has ever served in the military knows the term 86. We used it all the time, mostly for pieces of valueless paper. 86 meant throw it in the trash can. A translation of the above would be commonly translated as “Dump Trump”.
Dump Trump is an increasingly common sentiment in the United States. It does not have violent connotations. It means, vote out this cheap fraud, lover of gilt and self-adulation, and his entire cheap entourage, pigs at the trough. Use your vote.
If you want to see truly violent inciting rhetoric, check out 45/47. He is the master of crude incitations to violent behavior. He will tell you he will bomb you back into the dark ages, and he has the record to prove it.
I applaud you, James Comey, for your balanced and fearless response. The courts have supported your case before; they will again. Thinking a photo of seashells urging the dumping of a corrupt regime is no where near an incitation to violence.
We have freedom of speech. We are allowed to say Dump Trump.
“Maybe . . . ?” His Own People are Saying
It’s not us empty headed liberal thinkers who are saying “Maybe” with that doubtful look on their face. You call “Wolf!” too many times and people just naturally start to get skeptical, especially the conspiracy crowds.
“You know the casings didn’t match the gun of the accused would-be assassin,” they are telling one another with worried frowns.
“You know that kid in Pennsylvania was a Republican? And how was he allowed to be on that rooftop? The whole thing sounds kind of loose to me,” they’re saying in the coffee shops.
These are not my people talking. We’re busy shoring up lawsuits against constitutional travesties, and fighting for voting rights for people who have paid the price of their felonies. We’re in the churches, and on the streets, helping people get the right ID to continue voting, their right as citizens of the USA. We’re protecting those immigrants who are good, honest, hard-working people, and not just another statistic to boost the extradition boasts. And we are busy fighting for US Citizens, against having their citizenship stripped at the whim of those who don’t like their color, or their religion, or their opinions.
It’s hard to believe we are really having this conversation in the United States of America.
April 9, 2026 in the Strait of Hormuz
You, too, can see the vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at Marine Traffic:
Strait of Hormuz Monitor states the following, and shows 3 ships transiting the Strait:
Regimes with a concern for their own legitimacy often make extreme efforts to hide their decisions and their decision-making process. They corrupt the language, so it is hard to determine what a victory, for example, looks like. Many of these regimes are characterized by failure to document, failure to release documentation, and destruction of documentation which might be incriminating or disturbing to the populace.
My Problem With ICE
I have a long history with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I’ve been in and out of the USA since I was a little girl. We have filled out countless forms for passports, and many times more those forms telling what we are bringing back into the country. The only time I ever had a problem with ICE was on returning from one of our African trips when I was bringing in wildebeest jerky from South Africa. I laugh now, it was me and a lot of African nationals shunted off. They were opening suitcases full of vegetables they were bringing back for family, and I was told my package of jerky was illegal in the United States. AdventureMan was annoyed with me, and I was ashamed I didn’t know. But they let me off with a mild scolding about infecting disease free animal life in the USA. I’ve never forgotten.
I’ve never minded the tiresome lines for immigration, always manned by sturdy, polite young people wanting to know where we’ve been and how did we like our trip; they were doing their job and they had been trained how to deal with people. In all my times going through those lines, I never saw any kind of incident.
They had a mission.
With the new administration, that mission changed, enlarged. They were given different, even SECRET orders, orders that encouraged them to commit the sorts of acts we saw in Minnesota. It always looked to me like those acts, committed on US Citizens, committed on resident citizens, smacked of incitement to violence. Why else would these customs and immigration officers be asked to violate the US Constitution in pursuing their mission?
I applaud those stoic and humor-filled Minnesotans who protested with restraint, who did not invite violent responses. Even if the Department of Justice will not cooperate in the investigations you are conducting into the murders of Minneapolis citizens, you are gathering witness from street cameras and witnesses against the illegal actions, and the lies and accusations, unjust, of the ICE officials and the Department of Justice. I applaud the restraint that forestalled any illusion of reason for a “national emergency” and activation of a military presence. The militaristic costumes of the immigration and customs officials did not fool nor intimadate you. Your patient, evidence based investigations will be embarrassment enough to those who thought to prevail by intimidation and brutality.
So we have to look at why the ICE men and women sent by our leader to Democratic states felt so empowered to misbehave?
Many ICE hirees have law enforcement backgrounds. Many of them have served in the armed forces. They know the basics. They know the law. They must have had second thoughts, many of them, while conducting these unrestrained acts of violence characterized as arrests of “rapists, thieves and the mentally ill,” as they arrested family men, women – and children, with no criminal records.
As well as knowing the law, and the legal use of power, those who are Christian would know Christ’s admonition to love our neighbor as ourself. Those who are Jewish would know the Old Testament verses about welcoming the stranger. Those who were raised without religion might be familiar with Spiderman, who teaches us that with great power comes great responsibility.
These $50K hires are as expendable as Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. Once they have served their purpose, they can be scapegoated for excessive zeal in pursuit of the mission, or charged with murder while their superiors, who put the secret policies into effect, escape blame and punishment.
Again, I applaud the Minnesotans, who with restraint, humor, and humanity, protected the weakest, the families and children, while EFFECTIVELY resisting the provocation they faced. Well done, Minnesota!
And lets take a minute to grieve the effects of the violence upon those who inflicted it, mere pawns in a greater game of thrones.
Expendables: Illegal and Unconstitutional
I believe the sentiments of most American people towards Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi are that their firings are no great loss.
To give credit where credit is due, before becoming national public figures, both women had achieved notoriety in their own states. Like it or not, they are accomplished women, women achieving competently in the world of politics, Noem as governor and Bondi as attorney general.
Both are transactional types. Again, like it or not, each did her bounden duty to serve the will of the President, even when his demands were illegal and unconstitutional. Each, I believe, hoped for higher offices to come, in reward for executing acts and processes to eliminate the leaders “enemies,” whether enemy aliens or political opponents. Each stretched constitutional and societal mores beyond their limits in efforts to appease the endless greed of their leader, failing only because they wouldn’t go far enough. They broke laws. It wasn’t enough. They lied for the leader, they served his means.
I’m glad they are gone, and I feel sorry for them. They did everything the leader asked. They sacrificed personal integrity. They lied. They issued unconstitutional orders.
It didn’t pay. In the end, they took attention away from the man of endless genius they served. He found them to be expendable. They did what he wanted, but were not successful and exposed his means to public scorn. That was unforgivable. They’re pretty enough (and that matters to the leader) but just women.
“Off with their heads!” exclaims the Red Queen.
The one good thing, for them, that may come out of all this is to have escaped a morality-impaired regime before it collapses in ruins. This is just the beginning. Those who will not accept accountability must have scapegoats to carry the blame.
Slight of Hand and Wires and Mirrors; No Accountability
Our leader announced a speech to the nation, which turned out to be nothing but repeats of “Truth” social posts and comments previously made. A boring, disjointed 19 minutes of nothing credible. Credibility is stating a mission and following through. Chaos is changing the mission and its achievements every ten minutes or so. If you don’t believe me, watch the stock market.
Meanwhile, behind the curtain, The Great Oz and his handlers are changing how our democracy operates. The failed military officer, Pete Hegseth is examining and removing African Americans, females, and especially African American Females from promotion lists. He is firing the top general who questions his judgement in toying with a time honored system where the military chooses its leaders based on performance and leadership abilities, not their gender nor their color.
Does Hegseth understand demographics? Does he understand that military recruitment is problematic these days days, that the pool of recruits has shrunk dramatically? Does he understand that brawn no longer wins wars, but fighter planes, drones, new ideas and weapon development are fighting a new kind of war, where every gender and color contributes the the nuances of creative strategies available to a commander in chief who genuinely understands how to function in the fog of war?
Today Heather Cox Richardson alerts us to another slight of hand, the kind of small change the controllers hope will go unnoticed: The challenge of ACCOUNTABILITY and how it impedes a sitting President. She quotes the following, and it quite takes my breath away:
Yesterday Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, of the Office of Legal Counsel, published an opinion for the White House that claims the Presidential Records Act, which requires that presidents keep records of their official business and turn them over at the end of their term, is unconstitutional. Gaiser clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
“The PRA is not a valid exercise of Congress’s Article I authority and unconstitutionally intrudes on the independence and autonomy of the President guaranteed by Article II. The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose,” the memo reads. “For these reasons, the PRA is unconstitutional, and the President need not further comply with its dictates.”
(taking a moment to catch my breath)
We burden our elected president with the requirement that we know what he does and why he is doing it?
How can anyone believe this lunacy? Any person in a position of responsibility has to answer to his polity! Elected politicians all the more. He answers to us, the voters.
Our leader has a lot to answer for. We can’t trust anything he says, from minute to minute. Our treasury has been declared insolvent. He is sending our children off to war with unclear orders and insufficient leadership.
He has hired a confederacy of ignorant, greedy sycophants. He has gutted our diplomatic service. He has gutted Consumer Oversight. He has gutted the Environmental Protection Agency. He has corrupted the Department of Education.
He is terrified he cannot win and is attempting to take over national elections. Meanwhile, he is bankrupting our country with garish monuments and wars we never agreed to fight.
He is subjecting women to outdated standards and taken away their rights to make decisions for their own bodies.
He is corrupting our social system, taking medical care away from those who need it most, and callously neglecting the veterans who have served our country so loyally.
He has made agreements with other countries that we only learn about by accidental comments.
This can’t go on. Give us Accountability. Oversight. Congressional Approval. Fair and Free Elections. Constitutional Restraints!
Even Fox News?
From Robert Reich’s post of March 29, Trump’s ratings continue to tank. The relevance? Most presidents get a bump with a war, people tend to back their leader. Then again, when most country leaders start a war, they consult with allies, and give their population a clue about what is about to happen and why. Failing to do that results in lack of enthusiasm by former friends, treated rudely, and a population treated as irrelevant to the needs and goals of the leader.
Meanwhile, Trump’s polls continue to tank. In the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 36 percent approve of his performance while 62 percent disapprove, a new record low for Trump. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, 38 percent approve of him; 56 percent disapprove. Even the latest Fox News poll shows Trump approval at only 41 percent; disapproval at 59 percent; and fully 58 percent of Americans opposing U.S. military action in Iran.
Oscar Romero, Patron Saint of The Americas and El Salvador
My friends, when you hear that the immigrants seeking a new life in our country are rapists, thieves, the mentally ill and very bad people, please think of Oscar Romero, and all those who have fought the evil forces of thuggery and dictatorship to find a life of freedom for themselves, and for their families, especially, hope for their children.
I urge you to read a much criticized book, American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins. Here is what Wikipedia says. My experience was that the struggles exposed in American Dirt are very typical of people seeking to escape the violence of their societies.
American Dirt is a 2020 novel by American author Jeanine Cummins, published by Flatiron Books. The book is about a Mexican bookseller who is forced to flee as an undocumented immigrant to the United States, along with her son, after her journalist husband exposes a local drug kingpin.
ÓSCAR ROMERO
ARCHBISHOP OF SAN SALVADOR, AND THE MARTYRS OF EL SALVADOR
(24 March 1980)
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (August 15, 1917 – March 24, 1980), commonly known as Monseñor Romero, was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador. He later became prelate archbishop of San Salvador.
As an archbishop, he witnessed numerous violations of human rights and began a ministry speaking out on behalf of the poor and victims of the country’s civil war. His brand of political activism was denounced by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and the government of El Salvador. In 1980, he was assassinated by gunshot while consecrating the Eucharist during mass. His death finally provoked international outcry for human rights reform in El Salvador.
In 1997, a cause for beatification and canonization into sainthood was opened for Romero and Pope John Paul II bestowed upon him the title of Servant of God. Pope Francis canonized Romero as a saint on 14 October 2018. He is considered the unofficial patron saint of the Americas and El Salvador and is often referred to as “San Romero” in El Salvador. Outside of Catholicism Romero is honored by other religious denominations of Christendom, like the Church of England through its Common Worship. He is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London.
from Wikipedia
Also commemorated on this day are three Maryknoll nuns and a woman lay missionary killed by a Salvadoran army death squad on 2 Dec, 1980, and additionally six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter, who were also murdered by the Salvadoran army on 16 Nov. 1989.
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 