Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 192
November Surprises
“Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the Catholic Church’s pastoral services to Catholics in the U.S. military, is condemning the proposed livestream of the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan,” Politico reports.
“Broglio, in a statement Monday, also stipulated that any Catholic soldier assigned to the U.S. Army firing squad should ask to be excused from that duty, which he described as contrary to the teachings of the church.”
“Jim Bakker, a television evangelist who lost his popular and prosperous ministry in a 1980s sex scandal and then lost his freedom for five years, imprisoned for having violated federal laws with his conflation of God and mammon, died on Monday. He was 86,” the New York Times reports.
MS NOW: Jim Bakker, who built “PTL Club” televangelism empire, has died at 86.
Sidney Blumenthal: “Ken Paxton’s political career, more than that of any other Republican candidate campaigning in this cycle, charts the arc of the religious right. The most influential of its activists and donors engineered his rise as a culture warrior at each of its phases from his creation through every disgrace. His race for the Senate, the culmination of his ambition, has become not only his last stand, but also the Alamo for Christian nationalists in Texas.”
“Paxton’s rap sheet explains his Christian identity politics as a shield to distract from the liability of his own record of financial and sexual scandals scrolling back decades.”
“Since the epicenter of ‘power’ is not Washington, D.C. but Heaven, every morning I listen to a few chapters of the Bible on audiobook, and pray for God’s wisdom and strength in whatever situations may arise.”
— White House aide Natalie Harp, in an interview with the Washingtonian, on what she does on her own time.
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a New York woman’s bid to send her son to kindergarten without receiving state-required vaccines, in a case that highlights the limits of the court’s push to expand religious rights,” the Washington Post reports.
“In a one-line order, the high court effectively sided with state and local officials, who argued that a religious exemption would undermine their attempts to prevent the spread of disease among children and the general public.”
“Do I think we are in the end times? I don’t know… I would not be shocked if the Antichrist was walking amongst us.”
— Vice President JD Vance, talking about his new book on his conversion to Catholicism.
“Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed apologized to Jewish Democrats on Saturday for saying ‘hurt people hurt people’ as part of his response to a March attack on a synagogue near Detroit,” CNN reports.
Said El-Sayed: “My comments might have been misconstrued to be justifying something I did not intend to justify. To anybody who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”
He added: “We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright. What I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened, but it wasn’t the time for context. And you don’t ever want to trample somebody’s pain.”
“Hours after Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan this month, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) called the man who could be the first Muslim senator a ‘TERRORIST’ and ‘RADICAL ISLAMIST’ on social media,” the Washington Post reports.
”Tuberville’s post previewed a deluge of attacks on El-Sayed’s Muslim identity from influential and high-profile conservatives.”
”By mid-August, 15 days after the primary, religion had become the dominant topic of conservative conversation online about El-Sayed — overtaking mentions of socialism and communism that once dogged the progressive candidate.”
“I mean, it would be a lot easier to just mass deport Muslims and start to use military force to round them up. I mean, really, honestly, it would be much easier. It would be much easier, instead of having Americans relocate. It would be much easier to actually start using military force to start raiding mosques and removing these people from our country. I mean, that’s what needs to happen. They need to be removed from our country with force.”
— Trump ally Laura Loomer, on her podcast.
“Civil liberties groups on Monday asked the Supreme Court to hear their challenge of a Texas law requiring that all public school classrooms display the Ten Commandments, potentially setting up a landmark clash over the separation of church and state,” the Washington Post reports.
“For years, Republicans have had a lock on those who base their vote on their religious preferences and values, but this year’s midterm elections have seen some Democratic candidates sharing their faith to try to connect with voters,” ABC News reports.
“Starting in the 1980s, in what one expert called an ‘exodus,’ there was a shift of voters to the Republican Party based on moral issues.”
“But in some of the most critical races that will help decide control of the next Congress, several Democrats are openly sharing how their faith shapes them and their politics.”
“Abdul El-Sayed made history this month in Michigan by becoming the first Muslim nominated by the Democratic Party to run for the U.S. Senate,” the Associated Press reports.
”But elation among many of his fellow Muslim Americans was tempered by awareness of persisting and widespread anti-Muslim sentiment across much of the nation.”
“Some Republicans, including President Donald Trump, swiftly began referring to the nominee by his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, while depicting him as a danger to America.”
New York Times: “In the days since Dr. El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, Republican leaders have embraced Islamophobic attacks and falsehoods…”
“The onslaught is being fueled in part by Republican Party officials and has quickly become a central aspect of the strategy to beat Dr. El-Sayed in the fall. Few officials in the Republican Party have publicly tried to tamp down such messaging, though Dr. El-Sayed has not hesitated to parry the attacks.”
“Representative Jared Huffman, Democrat of California, thought he was going to make himself a political pariah when he announced publicly that he did not believe in God,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Huffman, the only self-declared ‘humanist’ in Congress, found that constituents in his mostly liberal Northern California district were unfazed.”
“Now Mr. Huffman has written a book in which he takes on how religion influences politics in America, in which he argues that extreme Christian nationalism, embraced and enabled by influential Republicans, is the country’s most dangerous political movement. He also accuses many of his own Democratic colleagues of being ‘incapable’ of naming and confronting the threat.”
“Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic. We refuse to be silent.”
— Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), on X.
“Muslim American voters celebrated Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on Wednesday, declaring they had found a place in American politics even amid a rise in fiercely anti-Muslim political rhetoric, especially in the South,” the New York Times reports.
“Dr. El-Sayed’s win against a centrist congresswoman funded by pro-Israel groups and backed by the party establishment was especially sweet in Eastern Michigan, where Arab and Muslim Americans have long lived.”
“In Jerusalem’s Old City, a group of Israeli teenagers recently banged on the door of the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church and asked if there were Christians inside it. They wanted to spit at them,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The boys said it was a religious duty, or mitzvah, to humiliate Christians, or, as they called them, idol worshipers.”
“Young Latinos are abandoning organized religion at a faster rate than any other demographic in the United States,” Axios reports.
“The declining religious affiliation of Latinos ages 18 to 29 — particularly among Catholics — is challenging long-held assumptions that their explosive growth would boost traditional religious values in American culture.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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