Sekalow Reminds Of The Ties That Blind The Church To The Binds Of The Rich

How did the faith get twisted around into all this? 

Personal counsel for the president, Jay Sekalow, said this trial was lowering the bar for impeachment and would impair the function of this nation for centuries when what he really meant was it would lower the bar for impairing and convicting the practice of political bribery and corrupt campaign finance for centuries all of which Republicans unabashedly promote and are dependent on.

Is it any wonder they are unmoved by Trump's withholding military aid for "a favor". After so many decades utilizing campaign money for political favors they are numbed to any seriousness of the quid pro quo(bribery). To them Trump is just engaging in something they've been engaged in for years. They're "so what" to the president's quid pro quo makes perfect sense and of course admittance on national TV that they did it "so get used to it" is the clincher. In short Republicans of all people cannot be trusted or expected to advocate or judge in these matters.

And watching Sekalow try to twist truth for political expediency in service to Trump I am reminded of just what is going on between compromised religio/political operatives of the rich and the Christian church, particularly the conservative evangelical element. I would like to see someone get to the bottom of this.

If it could be unraveled and articulated it could be shown how political operatives working for the interests of the rich and powerful have with the most devious careful precision crafted out a bogus false political agenda for the Christian and religious element's in this nation and by extension for those religious elements across world.

Using a few religious issues these religio/political operatives, and we're really talking Republicans, have tried to bond Christian groups to the interests of the rich and powerful because the representatives of the rich fully understood that the higher principled morals of the religious were those that would fuel the enduring strong opposition to the corruption of the rich just as they have done down through history and throughout the New Testament. They understood that Christian justice would be the foundation of that which would oppose them just as they are aware the Lord's truth and justice Precept's are the original foundation of similar ideals found around the world.

They also understood that loyalties of religious groups once crafted out and established would be enduring.

The sell off of the Christian evangelical church to a craven and corrupt president not to mention it's far too long adhesion to corrupted politics is so way not worth it and in fact is perilously dangerous to the church's children's children that will have to, if not sooner than later, bear the burden of today's high profile evangelical leaders that so criticality damage the future of the Christian witness for those that follow.

What's most frustrating is to see this significant faction of Christianity, in part my faction, tied into attempts to oppose at every turn the reform of money bought off campaign financing with it's bought off politicians that shame our nation.

What are we doing tied into this service to the rich and powerful when we should be focused on the favor of the many souled broader people? How could we be so blind and where did we come by this stoney heart? Are we not about souls first over the lock step demands of the well monied?
Yes we are. Of course we are. That's the direction we must move, toward love for the people once again and with much prayer we just might not do it the hard way.

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Every Previous U.S. Impeachment Trial Included Witnesses And Documents - 70% of Americans Want Witnesses And Documents For Trump's Trial

As you can see above we can expect about 28% to 32% to always side with Trump regardless. If Trump said it, it's so. No matter how crystal clear something may be against Trump the maximum support you can get opposing him is 70% so on this we got 100% of what is realistically possible.

But how ridiculously juvenile this all is. Obviously if you try to stop all this evidence you are hiding something and that would be the default thinking even if you didn't know where the majority of the Senate or Mitch McConnell stood but.....well yea you get the ridiculous factor here.

So McConnell are you listening? Look me straight in the eyes and promise you'll do me a great favor. Yea, fast track this thing through the senate. Whip it past the American people before they know it and refuse to call witnesses. Please do this, it 's what you've been saying you want to do right?

Stick to your "I think I'm so clever" style. As you know many believe you are the great tactician of the Congress so carry all this out and don't disappoint them.

During the first two hours of this impeachment trial when the nation is truly transfixed, the Democrats make a rock solid case for witnesses and documents up front and then you, believing  your little head fake of conceding minor procedural changes that were ridiculously pre-constrained fooled anyone, proceed to, in the more muddled stages of the trial, vote down  by full party line vote every amendment to allow witnesses. Even if you allow witnesses later the corrupt first impression has been established but this isn't really the beginning of any of that is it?
Democrats have virtually swept all elections this year against Republicans, most in your face now the faux pas gun protests on MLK day(really racist protests against MLK day so obvious can one even stop laughing) at the Virginia state capitol where Democrats overturned it all for the first time in decades. It's a wave and you clearly are it's 2nd best inspiration. In other words Mitch thanks for reinforcing the continuing perception of GOP-in-servitude-to-Trump corruption that fuels the removal of Republicans from office across the board.

There is nothing that would be better or more satisfying than to see you to be the arbiter and architect of the Democrats take over of the U.S. Senate and impetus for Democratic reinforcement of the House in the 2020 election.  As for the presidency your role as liberator of the oval office becomes more and more likely with each passing day and a few more days of suppressing the truth like yesterday in the form of blocking witnesses and evidence should just about cinch it. It's looking like either way you lose here but then that turns out to be the will of the American people doesn't it?

So Mitch, good job! Stick to those stubborn intransigent double down guns, carry on, and follow through.

Pelosi And Schumer Were Right With The Strategy To Delay Impeachment

“In politics, timing is everything” goes the popular expression. If this is true, it helps explain why Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose this week to pass a resolution naming the House impeachment managers for the long awaited trial of President Trump and transmitting the two articles to the Senate.

I have written before about the deft sense of timing and sensitivity that Pelosi has to the sometimes imperceptible frequencies of public opinion. In leadership meetings, when hashing out legislative strategies, she would often point to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln when he was a member of Congress and remind her colleagues of his famous quote, “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail, and against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”

That does not mean wetting a finger to sense prevailing winds. It may be too late by then. It means creating the wind or counterwind to achieve a favorable climate. Sometimes that requires a great deal of patience. Take the impeachment resolutions, which the House is expected to transmit today. In the immediate aftermath of the House vote to impeach Trump last month, the general public was insufficiently aware of the short shrift the Senate would give it. The donors at Democratic fundraisers knew. So did engaged Democrats who watch MSNBC and treat Twitter like a life sustaining oxygen machine. However, the less committed swing voters in battleground districts probably did not think about the fairness of a trial.

At the time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did have a favorable climate in which to conduct a sham trial, instantly acquit Trump, and hand the president a major political victory with a credible case for exoneration. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer needed the time and space to build a different case. The truth was being suffused by partisan Republicans, the trial was rigged, and witnesses were needed. Ironically, the case was convincingly made by McConnell himself, first admitting to Fox News that instead of acting as an impartial jury under the Constitution he would coordinate with the White House for the trial, then indicating he would oppose the calling of witnesses who might lend any credence to the notion that the president committed impeachable offenses.

The strategy worked. By the end of October, when the House passed its impeachment resolutions, an acquittal might have been readily accepted by the public. Now it will come under a very dark cloud. It is pretty clear that the process and rules have been rigged and that even an acquittal comes laden with skepticism and doubt. In a survey by the Washington Post and ABC News, six in 10 Americans expect a fair trial in the Senate, and 55 percent believe Trump was treated fairly in the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee hearings that bore the articles of impeachment.

A month ago, the five Republican senators facing tough elections this year, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, and Joni Ernst of Iowa, may have wanted to rip the bandage off impeachment by voting to acquit and moving on quickly to mend fences with alienated voters. Now they are doing some political bleeding. In addition to a sense of timing, both Pelosi and Schumer proceeded with two other indispensable strategic skills, the ability to act as hedgehogs and foxes at the same time.

The hedgehog reaches a goal with obsessive, undistracted, purposeful determination. The fox uses cunning, agile, clever tactics. The problem for a hedgehog is figuring out how to maneuver around barriers. The problem for the fox is often losing itself in detours and even sight of the goal itself. A grand strategist will operate as both the hedgehog and the fox at the same time. Pelosi and Schumer fully maintained the determination of the hedgehog to get to the truth behind how Trump dealt with Ukraine.

But the fox in both of the Democratic leaders developed a strategy that educated less partisan voters that the truth was being undermined. It did not have to be this way. Leader McConnell could have worked with his colleagues on a credible trial and left Americans with the confidence that the outcome, whether it is conviction or acquittal, was not only fair but compliant with the Senate responsibility under the Constitution.

But these days, that responsibility has been cast aside by the imperative of electoral survival. Staying on the good side of Trump is more important than siding with the Constitution. If you still believe, at this point in time at least, that an acquittal of Trump will have been achieved through a sober and untainted search for “the truth and nothing but the truth,” meet me in New York, the state where Schumer hails from, specifically at the intersection of Fulton and Boerum in Brooklyn. There is a bridge for sale.

- Steve Israel, The Hill

Lev Parnas And Rudy Giuliani Have Demolished Trump's Claims Of Innocence

New documents show why the president has been trying to hide evidence from Congress.

Americans who have been wondering why President Trump has taken the extraordinary step of trying to block every document from being released to Congress in his impeachment inquiry need wonder no longer. The new documents released Tuesday evening by the House Intelligence Committee were devastating to Trump’s continuing — if shifting — defense of his Ukraine extortion scandal, just days before his impeachment trial is likely to begin in the Senate. These new documents demolish at least three key defenses to which Trump and his allies have been clinging: that he was really fighting corruption when he pressured Ukraine on matters related to the Biden family; that Hunter Biden should be called as a witness at the Senate impeachment trial; and that there’s no need for a real, honest-to-goodness trial in the Senate.

The most basic principles of constitutional law require relevant information, including documents and executive branch witnesses, to be turned over to Congress in an impeachment proceeding. Particularly because sitting presidents cannot be indicted, impeachment is the only immediate remedy we the people have against a lawless president. For that remedy to have any teeth, relevant information has to be provided. That’s why President James Polk said that, during impeachment, Congress could “penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Executive Departments … command the attendance of any and every agent of the Government, and compel them to produce all papers, public or private, official or unofficial.” No president, not even Richard Nixon, thought he could just say “no” to impeachment. That’s why the House added Article II to Trump’s impeachment: “Obstruction of Congress.” It was a response to an unprecedented attempt by a president to hide the truth.

New evidence for impeachment keeps turning up. That's why we need a real trial.

The documents released Tuesday show what Trump has been so afraid of. For starters, they prove that his already-eyebrow-raising claim to have been fighting corruption in Ukraine was bogus. Notes taken by Lev Parnas — who is an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and is now facing federal criminal charges — show what his and Giuliani’s mission was when they got in touch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “get Zalensky to Announce that the Biden case will Be Investigated.” Look hard at the real goal here: not to prompt an investigation of Hunter Biden, but to score an announcement of a Biden investigation. Pursuing an announcement, rather than an investigation, makes sense only if Trump’s objective was to dirty the reputation of Joe Biden, a leading political rival.

Both of us served in high-ranking Justice Department positions; we’ve never heard of an investigation that is kept from the Justice Department, given to a private lawyer and then publicly announced — investigations work best when done in secret. If Trump, as he has long claimed, was truly interested in pursuing anti-corruption efforts in the bizarrely specific form of a single investigation of a single American citizen, then he would have wanted an actual investigation. Instead, he was fixated on the public announcement of one — which, if anything, would have harmed the investigation by tipping off its subject. The public announcement would have helped only one thing: Trump’s personal political prospects.

And if Trump wasn’t really pursuing corruption in Ukraine, then his demand that Hunter Biden be called as a witness at the upcoming Senate impeachment trial also crumbles. This effort by Trump and his allies to shift attention away from Trump and toward the Bidens makes no sense on its own terms — after all, the president is the one being accused of impeachable offenses, not Joe or Hunter Biden. But the effort defies logic entirely, because Parnas’s notes make clear that his and Giuliani’s marching orders from Trump were to provoke a Ukrainian announcement of a Biden investigation, rather than an investigation itself. What could Hunter Biden possibly tell the Senate about that?

Trump’s push had nothing to do with what Hunter Biden did or didn’t do, and everything to do with whether Trump could extort and bully the Ukrainian leadership into casting aspersions on Biden regardless of what he did or didn’t do. That leaves Biden with nothing of relevance to say at a Senate impeachment trial — the final word on Trump’s preposterous effort to refocus scrutiny on the Biden family. That was, of course, the very push that got Trump into this mess in the first place, so to allow him to succeed now through the mechanism of impeachment would be irony bordering on tragedy.

But that’s not to say there’s nothing to learn at a genuine Senate impeachment trial — which, as the word “trial” suggests, features actual evidence and witnesses. That’s the third point emerging from the documents released Tuesday night. One of those documents shows how important it might be to have such witnesses testify before the Senate. The document is a letter from Giuliani to Zelensky when he was Ukraine’s president-elect. It begins: “I am private counsel to President Donald J. Trump. Just to be precise, I represent him as a private citizen, not as President of the United States.” The letter then requested a meeting with Zelensky. This letter is a devastating indication of what has been clear to many all along: that Trump’s pursuit of an announcement that Ukraine was looking into Biden was an abuse of his public office for personal gain. That’s what this letter sure seems to be saying. And it makes clear that what was afoot had nothing to do with law enforcement or Biden’s possible corruption — it wasn’t a request from the official “President of the United States” but from a “private citizen.”

The Senate has conducted 15 impeachment trials. It heard witnesses in every one.

The letter is so damning to Trump that we can foresee the president claiming during an impeachment trial that Giuliani was lying — back then, and even still today. That’s where Senate testimony can prove crucial. There’s a reason the Supreme Court has called live testimony, including cross-examination, “the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” Put Giuliani on the witness stand — and Trump, too, if he has the guts. And let the truth come out.

All told, the documents help explain Trump’s consistent push to bury the evidence against him. Every week, it becomes clearer why Trump has withheld documents from Congress, blocked executive branch officials and even private citizens from testifying before Congress, and overall, well, obstructed Congress, as the second article of impeachment rightly describes it. It’s because Trump is a man with something to hide. Let’s see what else he’s hiding — in front of the Senate next week, in a good, old-fashioned American trial for all to see.

--  Neal Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer 

My take: This is why Nancy Pelosi delayed sending over the articles of impeachment; to let the pot of "rushing the Senate trial without witnesses and documents" stew fully in the public mind. The result: 70% favoring inclusion of witnesses and documents, meaning essentially 100% of possible voters since the president's base of about 30% is fixed in impermeable concrete.

Trump Impeachment Now Imperative - Wag The Dog On Top Of Everything Else?

What I want to see is continuing heightened national dialogue over Trump's impeachment and his attempt to distract the nation's attention from that to a "war" in Iran. Put a possible conflict with Iran on the news back burner well behind impeachment. That is what the occupant of the oval office richly deserves.

Donald Trump withheld arms from Ukraine in order to help himself, his election campaign and here now unbelievably yet not unbelievably orders a strike on a government official, albeit a general in the Iranian Revolutionary army, that he full well knew would blow up the entire region and cause a severe Iranian government reaction just before what?

JUST BEFORE WHAT?

HIS IMPEACHMENT TRIAL IN THE SENATE,  THE ONE THAT HAS THE CHANCE OF PUTTING HIM AWAY SHOULD WITNESSES AND DOCUMENTS PRESENT EVIDENCE THAT EVEN REPUBLICAN SENATORS CANNOT IGNORE EXCEPT PERHAPS BEHIND THE FOG OF WAR.

But if a seriously escalating conflict in the middle east drums up the usual historical support for a president that freezes all efforts to remove him from office he wins and that is all that matters to Trump, Ukrainian vulnerability to Russia or middle east war be damned. The man is a black hole of ego focus on the Trump ME, a big spoiled brat with a loud mouth. Sometimes can you even believe we are here? 

Because of General Soleimani's past behavior he is considered a terrorist and essentially a threat for years. Past presidents Bush and Obama have considered taking him out for that reason but wisely avoided him because it is a grave and unnecessary inciting move due to the governmental ties. Taking out Soleimani was clearly the dumbest thing you could do, that is, unless you wanted to start a war.

So where is the evidence of the imminent threat of General Soleimani? Nowhere. There has been no credible evidence offered for carrying out this assassination at this time and you know that with so much on the line evidence would have been put out there by now if it was real. The only imminent threat out there as of now is the imminent threat to Trump's presidency courtesy of the impending Senate impeachment trial. Yesterday there was a military briefing with congressmen and the Trump administration and two prominent Republican Senators came storming out of it with Mike Lee, a strong conservative Republican and Christian, declaring it was a sham and the worst briefing he has ever witnessed with questions and debate relative to the "imminent" threat suppressed by the administration. Rarely do you see Senator Lee this upset.

With yesterday's almost miraculous outcome of Iranian ballistic missiles landing on military bases  killing nor even harming anyone we must be thankful and thankful that Trump didn't get a good reason to start a war. I full well believe he did not get to do something worse because at some point military leaders "weigh in". With Trump's dumb obvious "have to do what he's told" monotone delivery when he's not really into it style you know he didn't get his way and you know this is how he telegraphs his base he would have rather stirred up some more tough distraction dirt.
He gets credit for this tentative peaceful resolution in certain quarters but we also have to be smarter than that don't we.
I'am very thankful to the Lord yesterday turned out as it did and be sure it was an answer to many prayers. It is almost surreal that it turned out almost as well as it could have and that clearer heads in both governments prevailed. None of that is lost on this one but we, as I said before have to be smart here and realize what happened and what was originally intended.

The only thing left for Trump out of this is to pose as the good guy out of a crisis of his own selfish creation to get public favor immediately preceding his Senate impeachment trial. Trump and his administration are selling but I'm not buying and hopefully you aren't either. We still have a brain right?

What I want to hear now is the tying in of Trump's Ukraine self-serving with Trump's self-serving assassination of this Iranian General. Again this president is a black hole of ego focus on the Trump ME and as it has been clearly pointed out before and as you can see before you here and now impeachment is more imperative than ever before. That he would pull the "wag the dog" lever right now, right now at this time should be the last straw. Get the dog out of here. Get him out of here cause he is risking death and destruction on thousands as he uses us all to preserve and exalt himself.

Like DeNiro said he needs to be seriously humbled so that he doesn't have such a big ego to protect.

Should have been done long ago. 

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One more thing: We should think and meditate on what happened Wednesday. This was a gift. One side was robbed of a reason to retaliate. It would have been so easy for men to have tripped over a gnat and gone the way of raining death and destruction down on so many innocents but 22 ballistic missles fired into active military bases did not harm even one person. Even if one thinks this was choreographed it would be no small feat. Maybe something happened yesterday that will change the future for the better. It can be changed and it has been changed. Let's work on that. 

A Majority Of Americans Now Support Trump's Impeachment And Removal From Office

• A majority of Americans in a new poll by Politico and Morning Consult support President Donald Trump's impeachment and believe he should be removed from office.
• The 52% of respondents who said they approved of Trump's impeachment marked a slight increase from before the House impeachment vote, according to Politico, which noted its previous polls had found slightly more support for Trump's impeachment than other polls.

A slight majority of Americans in a new poll by Politico and Morning Consult said President Donald Trump should be removed from office.

The share of Americans saying they approved of Trump's impeachment was also up slightly from the previous Politico/Morning Consult poll, which was taken before Wednesday's House impeachment vote.

Fifty-two percent of respondents in the new poll approved of Trump's impeachment. That was up slightly from 50% in the previous poll, though Politico noted that its polls had found a bit more support for impeachment than others had. Fifty-two percent of respondents in the latest poll also supported removing Trump from office.

Like the impeachment vote itself, respondents' views on Trump fell largely along party lines. Eighty-five percent of Democrats in the new poll agreed with the House's decision to impeach, compared with only 17% of Republicans.

Trump is the third president in US history to be impeached. The president now faces trial in the Senate, during which he is expected to be acquitted and maintain his post. The timing of the Senate trial is unclear, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate. The articles charge the president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The Virginia-based news outlet and the marketing researching firm interviewed 1,387 registered voters online Thursday and Friday.

The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

- Taylor Nicole Rogers


My take: In the Nixon years surrounding his impeachment there was talk of how difficult it would be for a president to govern with little support from the people. They were talking less impeachment support then (43%) compared to now (52%) so if the support for impeachment now is that much higher one should expect even some of his supporters in the Senate to admit that it's time for him to voluntarily step down. That's the honorable way and the way this should all play out. 

Trump Should Be Removed From Office - Christianity Today Magazine

It’s time to say what we said 20 years ago when a president’s character was revealed for what it was

In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.

That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.

This concern for the character of our national leader is not new in CT. In 1998, we wrote this:

The President's failure to tell the truth—even when cornered—rips at the fabric of the nation. This is not a private affair. For above all, social intercourse is built on a presumption of trust: trust that the milk your grocer sells you is wholesome and pure; trust that the money you put in your bank can be taken out of the bank; trust that your babysitter, firefighters, clergy, and ambulance drivers will all do their best. And while politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises, while in office they have a fundamental obligation to uphold our trust in them and to live by the law.

And this:

Unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.

Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? 

Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump. To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.

- Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today..

My take: "If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?" Exactly. The faith is in perilous danger of that reality coming to pass. It is bad enough what the Catholics have done regarding child abuse so clearly a lot of bad energy is being built up against Christianity. You've got to wonder what Christianity will think the world is persecuting them for when that tribulation comes to pass? It's love? 
And how is it that certain evangelical leaders full well knowing the immoral and darker side of Trump so abruptly lash out at C.T. for it's opinion. Are these so-called leaders so under Trump's cult-like trance that they cannot calmly and maturely give C.T. their right to their opinion considering Trump himself?
Above that thank the Lord for Christianity Today magazine. Sometimes it takes just one strong voice to light again the torch of encouragement for standing up for truth within your in-group.

Applying The 1977 Prophetic Vision's Oakland Raider Comeback Year To 2019

After several years here we are at a possible moment when part of the 1977 Vision's sports element could be close to taking place. So what could happen relative to the Oakland Raiders comeback year scenario as it stands now? 
In the year this occurs the NFL football season is tentatively cancelled but is resumed and in the 1977 prophetic vision it is noted the Raiders are very glad it is because they are making their comeback. As it is now we should be able to narrow things down somewhat because for the vision to mention that the Raiders are very glad the season is resumed they must be at a point where they see themselves clearly on a comeback trail with prospects for making the playoffs in view. The team is 6-4 and improved over as it is now at least last year's 4-12 record but the proof will be in the won-loss record and their ensuing chance to make it into the post-season.

What we are trying to nail down now is the approximate time of the decision or event that precipitates the initial cancellation of the NFL season. On tap here is something I just discovered and that is the NFLPA is advising players to plan for a possible one year “strike” as the present agreement expires in 2020. Wow! That would mean a possible strike next year or in 2021 the year after but look at that, “expires in 2020”. That’s just another point for things coming together in and around 2020 but that could end up being unrelated to a cancellation as some other event could intervene. In the fall of one of these years there is a debilitating national crisis and the timing of that makes it something to keep on tap however several events could be the cause of the NFL season tentative cancellation. One note here: I have still been unable to recall with certainty the exact sequence of certain parts of the vision but it always seemed like the vision's election and political events could precede some of the sports events and if so I'm comfortable with that. However if everything in the latter part of the vision gets jammed into the same year then that's where we go.

Now back to the timing. At 6-4 the Raiders and most teams would like to keep on playing but what would give the Raiders extra incentive and what would the situation have to look like. In the vision the Raiders are in their comeback year and they are very glad the season is resumed so what would make them very glad it’s resumed? The team surely must have a winning record and be far enough along to have realistic hopes of getting into the playoffs and 6-4 is a reasonable point of having hopes of getting into the playoffs. Here is where we can try to narrow down the time of this decision to cancel the season. I would draw the line at about this 6-4 record as being a point where the Raiders could be feeling good about making the playoffs. It seems unlikely a season would be cancelled once the teams actually get into the playoffs, that is, if it’s related to a players strike so with that assumption all we need to do is look at the time the NFL playoffs begin and that is in the first week of January, 2020.

Now looking beyond an NFLPA players strike an extraordinary event could occur then  anywhere between around mid-November and probably the early playoffs. I say this because I think the vision in this scenario would have noted that the Raiders were on the verge of the AFC title game or Superbowl so it looks most likely the event or decision that tentatively cancels the NFL Football season occurs between mid-November and early January.

One note here. There is some case for leaning toward more practical reasons for events occurring because it seems that is the way it is with many revelations, prophecies and visions and I suspect it will be that way even with some of the events in the Book Of Revelation. As the time approaches you begin to see that the apparent original fantastic nature of the vision is no longer that fantastic come the present time. I have to expect that events with this vision could also be this way and to some extent it seems that way with the cyber-war although the possible disastrous consequences are still ever present. 

With the subject here it may end up that the cancellation of the NFL Football season is simply related to a players strike occurring in 2021 but we will see. Most interesting that would have to be a comeback year as well.

A lot could come together in 2020 and could, as it unfolds, tie into all this written here. There is an earthquake in the bay area that damages a stadium but the stadium is repaired in time for the originally schedule game. There is an election where a politician dies around that time, the election is delayed and there is a serious national crisis where it is eventually said later in the summer that things are back to business as usual but it is a deception and the nation is not the same. I should note here that cyber-war is prominent in the vision around the time of the national crisis and yes, back in 1977 we were using the term cyber-war. Wild huh?

In ensuing posts I want to elaborate on some of these events above and how they can apply in the ongoing situation of the nation. I believe that as the events from the vision develop we should see real time evidence of them. Engaging in this sports aspect of the vision seems tenuous as a seemingly larger crisis looms but it must have some purpose to it all. The national crisis must be looked at next.
As I have said before in the previous articles, prayer may avert or may have averted much of the bad and we must pray that is the case. If there is any other purpose for this vision than to warn of the bad so that it can be avoided or to glorify the Lord I’m not sure what it is.

There’s a reason for all this finally coming back to remembrance. I pray it fulfills it’s purpose.

To get a comprehensive overview of the 1977 Prophetic Vision scroll down in the Blog Archive on the right panel to the articles in the fall of 2016.


**UPDATE** Dec. 2, 2019
So the Raiders have lost the last two games putting themselves at 6-6. The vision say's that the Raiders will have a hard fought season and barely make the playoffs and so that is becoming highly apparent at this time. The team will have to win the last 4 games or at least 3 of the last 4. Teams sometimes make the playoffs at 9-7 and almost always do at 10 -6. I have to say that at 6-6 the Raiders may not feel so bad about a season being cancelled especially after losing the last two games but if they win the next two then that flips and we are back where we were. It also means that an "event", or more accurately the tentative decision to cancel the season may not likely happen until they are in that winning position so the window is slightly narrowed as we go forward. Got to remember that 2020 is less than a month away and this season has been the supposed highly touted Gruden/Raider comeback year.

**UPDATE** Dec. 16, 2019
The Raiders have lost the last two games and I thought from a distance that two more loses would surely do it but with the Steelers loss last night, voila, a thread we hang on. What are the odds that a next comeback year would end up with the team barely making the playoffs? No doubt it could happen. How interesting.

**UPDATE** Dec. 31, 2019
The 2% chance thread that the Raiders were hanging on that actually incredibly turned into a thin rope after everything went Oakland's way last week has now broke. The team lost Sunday so it didn't matter what else other teams did. As it is the Raiders end up with a losing record of 7 -9 and although the media had declared and pushed this as their comeback year the team does have to follow through with an actual comeback. They did not so this should not be their actual comeback year. They did come close however and if everything had gone their way this weekend as the weekend before it would have given new meaning to "barely making the playoffs". It would have been a miracle.
With that I'm trying to remember if in any way there could have been a different media declared comeback year and an actual comeback year in the 1977 vision and if a media comeback year could still be relevant. Any cancellation now of the season isn't relevant but it's not impossible, thanks to my less than pristine memory, that it could be tied to the initial national crisis event so there needs to be prayer about this and also this could even be the year of the S.F. earthquake with the damaged stadium since, as you may recall, I was not absolutely sure the Raiders had to be involved in the stadium event or what year it occurred. For that matter any isolated event not tied to other events such as a second Korean War could materialize almost anytime but beyond that we are on to next year, 2020.
That's where we wake up tomorrow so here we go.

Devin Nunes Was Directly Involved In The Push For Biden Ukraine Investigations, Says Lev Parnas

Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, says he helped arrange meetings between Nunes and Ukrainians.

Ed MacMahon, a lawyer for Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who faces charges of campaign finance violations, has told the Daily Beast that his client helped Republican Rep. Devin Nunes arrange meetings meant to advance the Ukrainian investigations into the Biden family that are at the center of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Now, another lawyer for Parnas — Joseph A. Bondy — has told CNN that Parnas is willing to testify before the House Intelligence Committee about Nunes’s involvement in the Ukraine scandal. Nunes is the ranking member of that committee, and in that capacity has led the Republican defense of Trump during the recent public impeachment inquiry hearings.

Nunes has argued the impeachment inquiry is a partisan attack on the president; he tried to derail the proceedings by introducing (disproved) conspiracy theories, worked to out an anonymous whistleblower whose complaint launched the inquiry, and repeatedly referred to the inquiry as a “drug deal.”

During Thursday’s hearing — at which former National Security Council official Fiona Hill and State Department official David Holmes testified — Nunes himself briefly became the subject of the proceedings due to the Daily Beast article, which Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell read into the record.

Parnas has said his efforts, as described in the Daily Beast article, bore fruit — and that Nunes eventually met with with disgraced former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in Vienna in December 2018.

Congressional records show that Nunes and members of his staff travelled to Europe in late November and early December 2018. The records do not specify whether he went to Vienna, however, or who he met with.

“I can confirm that Victor Shokin told Lev Parnas that he had met with Nunes in Vienna in late 2018, and that [Nunes aide] Derek Harvey informed that they were investigating the activities of Joe and Hunter Biden related to Burisma,” Bondy told NBC News.

Shokin was pushed out of his role by the US and its allies in March 2016 over concerns he was not properly pursuing anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. Former Vice President Joe Biden helped lead these efforts for the US, and it is his role in Shokin’s removal that sits at the heart of the conspiracy theory behind Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden — namely, that the former vice president fired Shokin to protect a Ukrainian company on which his son had a board seat.

This meeting would suggest that efforts to discredit the Bidens were well underway before Giuliani began to publicly discuss them this spring, and that attempts to launch some sort of investigation into the Biden family went beyond executive branch officials.

It could also lead to Nunes facing his second ethics investigation in less than three years. Democratic Rep. Adam Smith told MSNBC’s Joy Reid Saturday he believes it is “quite likely” Nunes will face an ethics inquiry. Ethics investigators cleared Nunes of accusations he disseminated classified information related to Russian election meddling in December 2017.

Parnas also claims to have met with Nunes and his aides personally in Vienna, and that he and Nunes spoke on the phone at least twice following that in-person meeting. Parnas says he continued to occasionally meet with Harvey at the Trump hotel in Washington, DC, where they discussed investigations into the Biden family and a Democratic National Committee server that a disproved conspiracy theory holds contains information of Ukrainian election meddling to benefit Democrats in the 2016 elections.

Parnas claims to have told Nunes that the basis for his suspicions about the Bidens came from the writings of John Solomon, who, as Vox’s Jane Coaston has explained, published columns in The Hill regarding what are now known to be conspiracies theories about the Bidens and Ukraine. Harvey would occasionally attend meetings at the Trump hotel that included Solomon, Parnas claims, as well as Giuliani.

Nunes has refused to answer any questions about the allegations of his involvement in these investigations, but did tell alt-right outlet Breitbart the reporting is “demonstrably false” and that he plans to sue both CNN and the Daily Beast.

Parnas wants to testify about Nunes
Nunes has in the past accused House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff of withholding valuable information from the committee. Ahead of the public hearings, Nunes sent Schiff a letter demanding the chairman “sit for a closed-door deposition before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees” in order to discuss the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint helped launch the impeachment inquiry.

Schiff has claimed he does not know the identity of this whistleblower — Nunes maintains he is lying about this, largely because this whistleblower reportedly reached out to members of Schiff’s staff for advice on the proper way to detail his concerns about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine. Those aides gave the whistleblower the procedure for filing a complaint, and have said the whistleblower contacted them because he is a member of the intelligence community and Schiff leads the House committee associated with that group.

Now, however, Nunes himself may be of interest as a witness, and Bondy has begun to argue the representative ought to recuse himself from further proceedings.

If all of this — and his latest claims about Nunes — are indeed accurate, that would make Parnas a wealth of firsthand knowledge about the campaign to investigate the Bidens.

Much has already been revealed in public impeachment inquiry hearings held during the last two weeks. US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland testified that “everyone was in the loop” — meaning that top Trump administration officials were informed and on board with Giuliani’s mission on behalf of the president to pressure Ukraine into investigating the Biden family. A day later, State Department official David Holmes testified he heard Trump personally ask Sondland for a status update on the pressure campaign.

Together, the witnesses have painted an image of a campaign led by Trump and Giuliani that subverted US foreign policy in Ukraine into a mechanism for domestic political gain that — sometimes with their willing cooperation, and sometimes despite their best efforts — swept up career diplomats and Trump-appointed officials alike.

House Democrats have signaled they would like to end the impeachment inquiry sooner rather than later, and have gathered a large quantity of evidence that could be used in drafting articles of impeachment.

However, lawmakers have yet to hear the testimony of key high ranking officials like Pompeo or former National Security Adviser John Bolton. It is possible that lawmakers could pursue testimony from these witnesses, and the testimony of Parnas — who appears to have been a close confidant of Giuliani’s — could help guide the questioning.

Many of these top officials, however, like Bolton or acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, have signaled that it would take a court order for them to testify — that simply being subpoenaed is not enough. Nevertheless, House Democrats may issue additional subpoenas, Parnas included.

- Sean Collins

"In The Age Of A.I." - One Of The Most Important Documentries Ever Presented To The American Public

You can view the PBS 2 hr. episode and read the transcript of "In The Age Of A.I." here:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/in-the-age-of-ai/transcript/


Things are encapsulated here and laid out so it is easy for people to understand the profoundness of what is going on relative to A.I, technology and U.S./China. You have a voice and can still determine what is going to go on but A.I. does not appear to be inclined to limit itself. There are voices in high places that are very concerned and very cautious about what could happen here. Movies have been made about a world run amok by A.I. however we are not looking at a "Skynet" yet but complications involving A.I., computer programming and cyber-warfare are very real and very now. The most important thing for representatives of our government is to do is what is important for the nation, not what is important for corporate profit or a security superstructure enabled by A.I.  You will have to make your stand and you will have to make democracy work. Your voice in government is all that stands in the way of a potentially uncontrollable A.I. and I mean that in the sense of men in pursuit of greed succumbing to the callous logic of artificial intelligence as the value of the person slowly falls by the wayside.
That is the key, a form of government. A democratic form of government can still control what A.I. can do and that form of government doesn't exist in Russia or China. Only in the United States does it exist in any reasonably resistant form. That fact of reality will surely and inevitably initiate a nexus. Your last real chance may be at the very door. The next checkmate will be the last where your voice is concerned and you probably will not even know because as we all know, the American public must not be brought to the point of panic and those entities who could overcome us in an A.I. enhanced cyber-war, namely China or Russia should they win, know that. The very fact that they win means they have the controlling hand in it all and so, outside a few quickly discredited voices, you probably will not even be allowed to know, period. It will just seem like your will is not being done in government but you have already been conditioned to accept that haven't you? At first you will begin to strangely see policies favoring a particular nation then after so much of that it will all begin to morph into a public pronouncement of a global government but covertly with one nation in control in the background. Inevitably that nations will and way, hardened by the logic of A.I., could be worked forcibly in and around us should it not be a democracy. The implications of that should be clear.

We all must become close attending stewards in what could be our last chance to inhibit and control a potential all controlling global "mind" of cold calculus. In the environment we have now may reside our last real chance. Chilling and alarmist? Yes. Necessarily sobering? Absolutely.

So we have witnessed a form of artificial intelligence called "deep learning" that mimics the neural networks of the human brain. This will be known always as the beginning of the real A.I. and so we are on our way.

Google’s AlphaGo was a computer program that, starting with the rules of Go and a database of historical games, had been designed to teach itself. Lee Sedol the world's greatest GO champion, in a head to head match was expected to beat AlphaGo but he lost decidedly. This was the moment, this was the beginning of the true artificial intelligence revolution...only two and one half years ago.

Where will we be in 10 years? Where will we be in two?

I have a real sense that you and I could be overwhelmed in a turnkey blink of an eye unless we grab the controls and quickly. For now it is still a civics exercise.

James Dean, Who Died In 1955, Just Landed A New Movie Role, Thanks To CGI

Directors say he was the ‘perfect’ actor to play the role

James Dean is making his return to the big screen more than 60 years after dying in a car crash, thanks to two VFX companies.

Finding Jack is a movie set within the Vietnam-era that is “based on the existence and abandonment of more than 10,000 military dogs at the end of the Vietnam War,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Dean isn’t the leading role, but his performance as “Rogan” is “considered a secondary lead role,” according to the Reporter. Finding Jack marks the first movie that Dean will star in since Giant in 1956, just one year after his iconic role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause.

Magic City Films, the company producing the movie, obtained the rights to Dean’s image from his family. The goal is to re-create “a realistic version of James Dean,” the film’s directors told the Reporter. To do so, they’re working with Canadian VFX studio Imagine Engine and South African VFX company MOI Worldwide. Dean’s body will be fully re-created using CGI technology, and another actor will voice his lines.

“We searched high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan, which has some extreme complex character arcs, and after months of research, we decided on James Dean,” co-director Anton Ernst told the Reporter.

It’s unclear exactly what any of that means, especially since there are thousands upon thousands of living actors who are probably capable of performing the role. Acquiring the rights to actors’ looks and using them for CGI re-creation purposes isn’t totally new — just look at Furious 7 or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — but it is a conversation Hollywood is taking more seriously than ever. Vox critic Alissa Wilkinson touched upon the problem this faces in her review of Gemini Man, Ang Lee’s action movie that stars Will Smith and a younger version of Will Smith who plays his clone. Wilkinson wrote:

So just imagine the options if you could perfectly recreate any actor — and the potential savings (and earning potential) for a movie studio that owns the rights to, say, the perfect replica of Keanu Reeves or Angelina Jolie or Will Smith, all while sharing licensing with the actor’s estate. You might doubt it will ever be done; I would put money on it happening in the next decade, unless somehow the industry unions intervene. It’s already happened before, with actors like the late Peter Cushing recreated for Rogue One. And if you can recreate actors, you can create them, too, replacing the need to hire people to play all of those parts where nobody knows the actor’s name anyhow.

Was James Dean really the only actor who could play this role? Doubtful. Whether it’s a marketing stunt that will draw attention to the movie or the future of cinema, it’s representative of a world we may soon be living in.

- Julia Alexander

My take: I've been talking about this for several years when soon we would have movies and series reproduced with new episodes but the same actors and be unable to tell it wasn't the original actors. That day should come but I doubt "a realistic version" as they state here is really there, it would have to be absolutely perfect as even the slightest flaw would ruin the illusion. Frankly I hope that if this actually comes to fruition people would get their fill of this kind of thing and move on because we cannot just give up on creating new things with new people. For me knowing we can do it is enough.