Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 

• Texas hospitalizations: Slight drop from second day in a row. Next week will tell us more. 
  
  
  
• The guy who beat the cop with a flag pole said, "Death is the only remedy for what's in that building" after he beat him. 
  
  
  
• The guy who threw a fire extinguisher is an ex-firefighter. Video. 
  
  
  
• Good pic of the "Law and Order" crowd surrounding a cop at the Capitol. 
  
  
  
• Tremendous headline. 
  
  
  
• Why was everyone so shocked the Trumpers stormed the Capitol with the intent of taking hostages? This just happened last November:
  
  
  
• [Warning: Multiple bullet point subject.] Ok, this stopped me down yesterday. I started hearing way too many very stupid people talking about "martial law" being declared over the next six days, and the need to stock up on food and water.  And then I went down the rabbit hole. 
• I first saw lots of stories about the rumor's falsity (surprise!) and how it could be tracked to QAnon and nutcases in general (double surprise!)
  
  
  
• Then I saw this story in the Star-Telegram -- a story about a subject which went national yesterday. The pastor is Brandon Burden, lead pastor at KingdomLife Church in Frisco.

  

  Looks like an expensive piece of property.

  
  
• Thanks to a then-existing Facebook link to the sermon in the article, I was able to watch all one hour and thirty-six minutes of it. It has since been deleted -- probably as a result of all the press yesterday.  I'm so pissed. I desperately wanted you to see it. If anyone can find it, please send me a link. (The rest of the sermons are still up -- Just this one was taken down.)
  
  
  
• EDIT: Here it is. The full thing! (Thank you faithful reader!) If you only watch five minutes, please go here and then here. 
• I can't tell you how amazing it was. A normal looking pastor in a Pentecostal like church saying the craziest stuff you've ever heard.  
  
  
  
• He told his congregation last Sunday that Congress passed the Insurrection Act in 2019 (uh, they didn't) which gives Trump the authority to arrest people at the "highest level of government" and try them in front of "military tribunals" and, he told his people, that this was going to happen before the inauguration. In fact, he added, "they have already started to arrest" people. 
• He screamed "Arrest the traitors!" during a prayer asking God to send his "senior" angels "to find them . . . wherever they are hiding - expose their hiding places!" All of this in front of an adoring crowd. 
  
• It was a Trump worship service. He repeated how Trump was anointed by God, how the people -- with Texas leading -- will rise up against Washington as he compared D.C. to the City of Jericho.  At one point he "found" the beat of the U2 cover band playing in the background (why does every progressive church have a U2 cover band?) and began speaking of "the sound of war." 

  

  They marched the flags down the aisles -- Texas flag commanded to be 
  first. The other flags were the Christian (?) flag and the flag of Israel. 

  
  
• "We have an executive order—not from Congress or D.C., but from the desk of the CEO of heaven, the boss of the planet. He said from his desk in heaven, this is my will; Trump will be in for eight years." It is the church's job to "execute that order", he said.
• Finally, at the end of the hour and a half service, he tells his white congregation that he didn't want to alarm them, but they needed to be "smart" over the next several days just in case this "this goes into a military tribunal situation." He told them to stock up on water, get a generator, a short wave radio, encouraged guns, and even reminded everyone that under the Castle Doctrine that they can shoot anyone who breaks into their homes. (He joked about shooting someone at the doorstep and dragging them inside but warned of the evidence trail of blood it would leave.)
• Oh, and also "take off your Apple update" from your phone because "they" will try to prevent Trump from communicating through the use of the National Emergency System. 
• Of course,  he reminded everyone that the church would have a speaker on Tuesday night about the "truth behind Black Lives Matter." (Earlier, for no apparent reason, he mocked Native Americans with a cartoonish accent saying, "White man coming!")  
• So here's my question: Is this just some random nutcase or is this happening in small churches all across the South? And how many people don't think he is nutty at all?
• It was pure White Christian Nationalism calling for a revolution and the overthrow of the United States.
• How many people out there believe what he is saying? And how much of it is some deranged view of "faith"? Remember that the video I linked to yesterday of the Frisco realtor (what's up with Frisco?) as she filmed herself as she apparently walked in the Capitol  showed her yelling, "In the name of Jesus!"  Heck, I've long pointed out how Robert Jeffress is a disciple of Trump and not Jesus. 
• You know what I think? I think a lot of people believe this. A whole lot of people. They are sitting next to you. They look normal. They talk normal. But they are either as dumb as a box of rocks or willfully ignorant,  and they believe anything they are pre-disposed to believe -- especially if they read it on Facebook. 
• I've always known a significant percentage of our population wasn't that bright, but I never knew they were so gullible. But the problem is that they are gullible and dangerous. 
• But, hell, Gov. Greg Abbott fell for Jade Helm. 
• By the way, it seems like all of this Insurrection Act crap got started because of a fake Parler post from someone claiming to be Trump.  It would be easy to blast people who fell for this -- and I do -- but they at least have a defense in that Trump is so unstable that you could actually believe he went over the edge and said it.  That is what he has done to the country. But this false post is why Amazon took Parler down. It was a clear and present danger to the United States for allowing this: 
  
• Folks, this country is in deep trouble.  
• End of rant.
• Even those who stick to real news instead QAnon garbage have a weird focus:
  
  
  
• Is Trump's staff stealing stuff from the White House? Didn't Trump tell us to start shooting when the looting starts?
  
  
  
• I still subscribe to my "ads described as segments" theory, and I still see it all the time. Like all these people on Fox and Friends First just happening to eat Taco Bell before dawn this morning. 
  
  
  
• Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 560 days
• Messenger: Above the Fold.

That's the best picture they could get of the the school administrator? (Right column)