Trump files suit against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
By JILL COLVIN and MATT O'BRIEN
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has filed suit against three of the country's biggest tech companies, claiming he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored.
Trump announced the action against Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube, along with the companies' CEOs, at a press conference in New Jersey on Wednesday. He was joined by other plaintiffs in the suits, which were filed in federal court in Miami.
“We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well,” he said.
Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media platforms are allowed to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in “good faith.” The law also generally exempts internet companies from liability for the material that users post.
But Trump and some other politicians have long argued that Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms have abused that protection and should lose their immunity — or at least have to earn it by satisfying requirements set by the government.
Trump was suspended from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube after his followers stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6. The companies cited concerns that he would incite further violence.
Nonetheless, Trump has continued to spread lies about the 2020 election, baselessly claiming that he won, even though state and local election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges, including some he appointed, have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
Facebook, Google and Twitter all declined comment Wednesday.
The suits argue that banning or suspending Trump and the other plaintiffs is a violation of the First Amendment, despite the fact that the companies are private. The suit against Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook acted unconstitutionally when it removed Trump from the platform. Suits against Twitter and YouTube make similar claims. All three ask the court to award unspecified damages, declare Section 230 unconstitutional and restore Trump’s accounts, along with those of the other plaintiffs - a handful of others who have all had posts or accounts removed.
But Trump’s lawsuits are likely doomed to fail, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University in California who has studied more than 60 similar, failed lawsuits over the past few decades that sought to take on internet companies for terminating or suspending users' accounts.
“They’ve argued everything under the sun, including First Amendment, and they get nowhere,” Goldman said. “Maybe he’s got a trick up his sleeve that will give him a leg up on the dozens of lawsuits before him. I doubt it.”
Goldman said it’s likely Trump is instead pursuing the suits to garner attention. As president, Trump last year signed an executive order challenging Section 230.
“It was always about sending a message to their base that they’re fighting on their behalf against the evil Silicon Valley tech giants," Goldman said.
Matt Schruers, the president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a tech industry trade group that includes Facebook, Twitter and Google, said internet companies have a right to enforce their terms of service.
“Frivolous class action litigation will not change the fact that users — even U.S. Presidents — have to abide by the rules they agreed to,” he said in a statement.
__ O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writer Mae Anderson contributed to this report from Nashville.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Only the best people, folks, only the best. Bahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha! Desparado, particularly as another report has POOTWH cutting him off from billings. Poor Ruddy Ghouliani. Wonder if we'll see him behind home plate at Yankee Stadium? I hope it was all worth it Ruddy.
Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in D.C., weeks after similar action in New York
A District of Columbia court has suspended former President Donald Trump’s most prominent attorney, Rudy Giuliani, from practicing law in the nation’s capital, roughly two weeks after a New York court took action against the former New York mayor for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Giuliani, who has claimed rampant fraud during the 2020 presidential election, will be banned from practicing law in Washington at least until New York resolves his case, and possibly longer depending on how the District decides to proceed on the matter, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday. A New York court suspended Giuliani from the New York bar on June 24 for his “false and misleading” statements on behalf of Trump and the 2020 election.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s suspension.
“We conclude that there is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020,” a five-judge New York Supreme Court appellate panel concluded in a per curiam opinion issued on June 24.
The judges added that Giuliani’s conduct “threatens the public interest,” therefore warranting an interim suspension from practicing law. The court panel said an interim suspension, as imposed on Giuliani, is an action taken only in the most serious cases of alleged misconduct.
Giuliani argued that being punished for his public advocacy was a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights, according to the New York Court order, but the court disagreed.
“We reject respondent’s argument,” the court said in its June 24 opinion. “This disciplinary proceeding concerns the professional restrictions imposed on respondent as an attorney to not knowingly misrepresent facts and make false statements in connection with his representation of a client. It is long recognized that ‘speech by an attorney is subject to greater regulation than speech by others.’”
Trump weighed in on the New York ruling in a June 24 statement, calling Giuliani a “great American patriot” and dismissing Giuliani’s suspension as “nothing but a Witch Hunt.”
Grifting, grifting, grifting away
I loaned myself a mansion, then I loaned it away It's not the world that's heavy, just the things
that you steal
And I'm grifting, grifting away
Grifting, grifting, grifting along
I don’t have worries, so the worries were gone
I only blog when I want to and I sleep like a dog
I'm just grifting, grifting along
The turn coats say, "There is money to be
made."
They get so damn excited, but I guess it's our way
My road it may be lonely just because it's paved
It's good for grifting, grifting away
The turn coats say, "There is money to be
made."
They get so damn excited, nothing gets in our way
My road it may be lonely just because it's paved
It's good for grifting, grifting away
Grifting, grifting, grifting, uh huh
I feel like going back there, but for ever long I sometimes wonder if they know that I'm back
I'm just grifting, grifting along
Grifting, grifting along. Grifting, grifting along
Sad! Suckers.
Trump charged Secret Service nearly $10,200 in May for agents’ rooms
Former president Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., charged the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for guest rooms used by his protective detail during Trump’s first month at the club this summer, newly released spending records show.
The records — released by the Secret Service in response to a public-records request — show that the ex-president has continued a habit he began in the first days of his presidency: charging rent to the agency that protects his life.
Since Trump left office in January, U.S. taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $50,000 for rooms used by Secret Service agents, records show.
The Washington Post reported previously that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club — where he lived from January, when he left the White House, to early May — charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 so that agents could use a room near Trump.
These newly released records provide the first proof that, when Trump moved north to Bedminster, the invoices kept coming.
The Secret Service released a bill it paid to Trump Bedminster in May, totaling $10,199.52. The agency redacted the nightly rate, but the dollar amount itself offered a clue: The bill was an exact multiple of what Trump Bedminster charged the Secret Service while Trump was still in office: $566.64 per night for a four-bedroom “cottage” on the property.
At that rate, the bill from May 2021 would have paid for 18 nights in the cottage. Trump arrived in Bedminster on May 9.
The bill from May is the only one that the Secret Service has released from Trump’s time at Bedminster this year. But the agency released another document showing that charges probably continued after that: It released an internal document called a “hotel request” form, covering the period from May 28 to July 1. The form showed that agents planned to rent rooms at Bedminster through at least the start of July.
Separately, the Secret Service also released other bills showing $3,400 in charges from Trump Bedminster before Trump himself arrived. Those receipts — from January, February and early May — did not say why the Secret Service was at the club.
NeitherTrump’s family business — the Trump Organization — nor Trump’s political operation responded to a request for comment.
A Secret Service spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the agency does not talk about protective operations.
Legal experts have said there are no laws to prohibit Trump’s company from charging the Secret Service rent at his properties, either during or after his presidency. The rate is effectively up to him: By law, the Secret Service can pay whatever it must to rent rooms near its protectees for use as command posts and meeting rooms.
“The service is more focused on the protective necessity, as opposed to, ‘How much is it going to cost after the fact?’ There’s nothing they can do” if rates are high, said Jonathan Wackrow, a longtime Secret Service agent who now works for the consulting firm Teneo. “It’s a question of not, ‘Can they do it?’ but ‘Should they be charging that much?’ ”
In recent history, The Post could find only one other protected person who had charged the Secret Service rent: Joe Biden. As vice president, Biden charged the Secret Service $2,200 per month to use a cottage on his property in Delaware. In total, Biden received $171,600 between 2011 and 2017.
Biden has not charged the Secret Service rent since becoming president in January, a White House spokesman said.
The charges from Trump’s company exceeded Biden’s lifetime total by March 2017, Trump’s third month in office, according to records obtained by The Post. Trump’s company charged the State Department to host summits with foreign leaders, the Secret Service for rooms while protecting Trump and his children, and the Defense Department for aides accompanying the president to Mar-a-Lago and to his Irish golf club.
In all, Trump’s company charged the government more than $2.5 million during his presidency, according to a Post analysis of federal spending records.
It is unclear how the Trump Organization set the rates that it charges the Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster. Before The Post revealed the extent of the charges, Trump’s son Eric said in 2019 that the rate was “like 50 bucks” per night.
The Post has now examined charges for more than 3,600 nights at Trump properties and found no rates that low. Instead, at Mar-a-Lago, rates ranged from $396.15 to $650 per room. At Bedminster, the rate for the four-room “Sarazen Cottage” was $566.64.
As former president, Trump is entitled to a government pension of $219,000 per year; the General Services Administration said he had received $99,323 of it as of this week.
Jordan Libowitz, of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that — in light of Trump’s other assets and income — he should consider allowing the Secret Service to stay at his properties free.
“He obviously should have Secret Service protection,” Libowitz said. However, Libowitz said, “there’s no reason that his company should not do the patriotic thing, and just comp the government for the securityitis providing him.”
Who’s going to visit POOTWHcard.PatriotsSOAR.com and report back on that fleece?
It's really hard to believe what's going on on that site. Key takeaways:
-If you use an ad blocker and a private browser session, it is safe - so feel free to check it out for a jaw-drop or a laugh -This pursuit is being done "In Honour of Rush Limbaugh" -The DNC were responsible for three Occult killings (MLK Jr., JFK, and a supposed sacrifice of a woman named Mary, who was designed to be a Virgin Mary sacrifice). These were associated closely with the Zodiac killer -Joe Biden is 'scripted' to be the anti-Christ -Nancy Pelosi worked closely with Jim Jones to bring communism to San Francisco (and Jim Jones may be responsible for the rise of Nancy) -The Black Lives Matter movement is a reincarnation of the Black Liberation Army. The birth of the BLM movement is a coded message marking the end of the "Age of the White Man" -Acts like the above are so nefarious that they're omitted from mainstream media
This summary is from pages 1-5 out of 13. My head is sore from shaking it.
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Who’s going to visit POOTWHcard.PatriotsSOAR.com and report back on that fleece?
It's really hard to believe what's going on on that site. Key takeaways:
-If you use an ad blocker and a private browser session, it is safe - so feel free to check it out for a jaw-drop or a laugh -This pursuit is being done "In Honour of Rush Limbaugh" -The DNC were responsible for three Occult killings (MLK Jr., JFK, and a supposed sacrifice of a woman named Mary, who was designed to be a Virgin Mary sacrifice). These were associated closely with the Zodiac killer -Joe Biden is 'scripted' to be the anti-Christ -Nancy Pelosi worked closely with Jim Jones to bring communism to San Francisco (and Jim Jones may be responsible for the rise of Nancy) -The Black Lives Matter movement is a reincarnation of the Black Liberation Army. The birth of the BLM movement is a coded message marking the end of the "Age of the White Man" -Acts like the above are so nefarious that they're omitted from mainstream media
This summary is from pages 1-5 out of 13. My head is sore from shaking it.
Brilliant brilliance in all its brilliancy. 13 pages? Any mention of the Clintons? There’s got to be a Hillary citation? Special shout-out? Sumptin?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
If this doesn't frighten you, it should. There was a very good reason Kelly Ann CONway, Sarah Hucksterbee Sanders and Kayleigh McAmeany, always made sure their/there/they're gold crosses were visible during press conferences. The evangelicals believe in the end days and want to see it happen. Imagine them in power? It can happen here. Tejas no less. Must be the heat. And what's religion without a reference to sex trafficking/abuse (they seem really keen on it)?
An American Kingdom
A new and rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, wants a nation under God’s authority, and is central to Donald Trump’s GOP
FORT WORTH — The pastor was already pacing when he gave the first signal. Then he gave another, and another, until a giant video screen behind him was lit up with an enormous colored map of Fort Worth divided into four quadrants.
Greed, the map read over the west side. Competition, it said over the east side. Rebellion, it said over the north part of the city. Lust, it said over the south.
It was an hour and a half into the 11 a.m. service of a church that represents a rapidly growing kind of Christianity in the United States, one whose goal includes bringing under the authority of a biblical God every facet of life, from schools to city halls to Washington, where the pastor had traveled a month after the Jan. 6 insurrection and filmed himself in front of the U.S. Capitol saying quietly, “Father, we declare America is yours.”
Now he stood in front of the glowing map, a 38-year-old White man in skinny jeans telling a congregation of some 1,500 people what he said the Lord had told him: that Fort Worth was in thrall to four “high-ranking demonic forces.” That all of America was in the grip of “an anti-Christ spirit.” That the Lord had told him that 2021 was going to be the “Year of the Supernatural,” a time when believers would rise up and wage “spiritual warfare” to advance God’s Kingdom, which was one reason for the bright-red T-shirt he was wearing. It bore the name of a church elder who was running for mayor of Fort Worth. And when the pastor cued the band, the candidate, a Guatemalan American businessman, stood along with the rest of the congregation as spotlights flashed on faces that were young and old, rich and poor, White and various shades of Brown — a church that had grown so large since its founding in 2019 that there were now three services every Sunday totaling some 4,500 people, a growing Saturday service in Spanish and plans for expansion to other parts of the country.
“Say, ‘Cleanse me,’ ” the pastor continued as drums began pounding and the people repeated his words. “Say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servants are listening.’ ”
The church is called Mercy Culture, and it is part of a growing Christian movement that is nondenominational, openly political and has become an engine of former president Donald Trump’s Republican Party. It includes some of the largest congregations in the nation, housed in the husks of old Baptist churches, former big-box stores and sprawling multimillion-dollar buildings with private security to direct traffic on Sundays. Its most successful leaders are considered apostles and prophets, including some with followings in the hundreds of thousands, publishing empires, TV shows, vast prayer networks, podcasts, spiritual academies, and branding in the form of T-shirts, bumper stickers and even flags. It is a world in which demons are real, miracles are real, and the ultimate mission is not just transforming individual lives but also turning civilization itself into their version of God’s Kingdom: one with two genders, no abortion, a free-market economy, Bible-based education, church-based social programs and laws such as the ones curtailing LGBTQ rights now moving through statehouses around the country.
This is the world of Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White and many more lesser-known but influential religious leaders who prophesied that Trump would win the election and helped organize nationwide prayer rallies in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, speaking of an imminent “heavenly strike” and “a Christian populist uprising,” leading many who stormed the Capitol to believe they were taking back the country for God.
Even as mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations continue an overall decline in numbers in a changing America, nondenominational congregations have surged from being virtually nonexistent in the 1980s to accounting for roughly 1 in 10 Americans in 2020, according to long-term academic surveys of religious affiliation. Church leaders tend to attribute the growth to the power of an uncompromised Christianity. Experts seeking a more historical understanding point to a relatively recent development called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR.
A California-based theologian coined the phrase in the 1990s to describe what he said he had seen as a missionary in Latin America — vast church growth, miracles, and modern-day prophets and apostles endowed with special powers to fight demonic forces. He and others promoted new church models using sociological principles to attract members. They also began advancing a set of beliefs called dominionism, which holds that God commands Christians to assert authority over the “seven mountains” of life — family, religion, education, economy, arts, media and government — after which time Jesus Christ will return and God will reign for eternity.
None of which is new, exactly. Strains of this thinking formed the basis of the Christian right in the 1970s and have fueled the GOP for decades.
What is new is the degree to which Trump elevated a fresh network of NAR-style leaders who in turn elevated him as God’s chosen president, a fusion that has secured the movement as a grass-roots force within the GOP just as the old Christian right is waning. Increasingly, this is the world that the term “evangelical voter” refers to — not white-haired Southern Baptists in wooden pews but the comparatively younger, more diverse, more extreme world of millions drawn to leaders who believe they are igniting a new Great Awakening in America, one whose epicenter is Texas.
That is where the pastor wearing the bright-red T-shirt, Landon Schott, had been on the third day of a 40-day fast when he said the Lord told him something he found especially interesting.
It was 2017, and he was walking the streets of downtown Fort Worth asking God to make him a “spiritual father” of the city when he heard God say no. What he needed was “spiritual authority,” he remembered God telling him, and the way to get that was to seek the blessing of a pastor named Robert Morris, an evangelical adviser to Trump, and the founder of one of the largest church networks in the nation, called Gateway, with nine branches and weekly attendance in the tens of thousands, including some of the wealthiest businessmen in Texas.
Morris blessed him. Not long after that, a bank blessed him with the funds to purchase an aging church called Calvary Cathedral International, a polygonal structure with a tall white steeple visible from Interstate 35. Soon, the old red carpet was being ripped up. The old wooden pews were being hauled out. The cross on the stage was removed, and in came a huge screen, black and white paint, speakers, lights and modern chandeliers as the new church called Mercy Culture was born.
“Mercy” for undeserved grace.
“Culture” for the world they wanted to create.
That world is most visible on Sundays, beginning at sunrise, when the worship team arrives to set up for services.
In the lobby, they place straw baskets filled with earplugs.
In the sanctuary, they put boxes of tissues at the end of each row of chairs.
On the stage one recent Sunday, the band was doing its usual run-through — two guitar players, a bass player, a keyboardist and two singers, one of whom was saying through her mic to the earpiece of the drummer: “When we start, I want you to wait to build it — then I want you to do those drum rolls as we’re building it.” He nodded, and as they went over song transitions, the rest of the worship team filtered in for the pre-service prayer.
The sound technician prayed over the board controlling stacks of D&B Audiotechnik professional speakers. The lighting technician asked the Lord to guide the 24 professional-grade spotlights with colors named “good green” and “good red.” Pacing up and down the aisles were the ushers, the parking attendants, the security guards, the greeters, the camera operators, the dancers, the intercessors, all of them praying, whispering, speaking in tongues, inviting into the room what they believed to be the Holy Spirit — not in any metaphorical sense, and not in some vague sense of oneness with an incomprehensible universe. Theirs was the spirit of a knowable Christian God, a tangible force they believed could be drawn in through the brown roof, through the cement walls, along the gray-carpeted hallways and in through the double doors of the sanctuary where they could literally breathe it into their bodies. Some people spoke of tasting it. Others said they felt it — a sensation of warm hands pressing, or of knowing that someone has entered the room even when your eyes are closed. Others claimed to see it — golden auras or gold dust or feathers of angels drifting down.
That was the intent of all this, and now the first 1,500 people of the day seeking out those feelings began arriving, pulling in past fluttering white flags stamped with a small black cross over a black “MC,” in through an entrance where the words “Fear Go” were painted in huge block letters above doors that had remained open for much of the pandemic. Inside, the church smelled like fresh coffee.
“Welcome to Mercy,” the greeters said to people who could tell stories of how what happened to them here had delivered them from drug addiction, alcoholism, psychological traumas, PTSD, depression, infidelities, or what the pastor told them was the “sexual confusion” of being gay, queer or transgender. They lingered awhile in a communal area, sipping coffee on modern leather couches, taking selfies in front of a wall with a pink neon “Mercy” sign, or browsing a narrow selection of books about demonic spirits. On a wall, a large clock counted down the final five minutes as they headed into the windowless sanctuary.
Inside, the lights were dim, and the walls were bare. No paintings of parables. No stained glass, crosses, or images of Jesus. Nothing but the stage and the enormous, glowing screen where another clock was spinning down the last seconds as cymbals began playing, and people began standing and lifting their arms because they knew what was about to happen. Cameras 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were in position. The live stream was on standby. In the front row, the 85-year-old retired pastor of the church this used to be secured his earplugs.
What happened next was 40 nonstop minutes of swelling, blasting, drum-pounding music at times so loud that chairs and walls seemed to vibrate. The huge screen became a video of swirling clouds, then a black galaxy of spinning stars. The spotlights went from blue to amber to gold to white. A camera slid back and forth on a dolly. Fog spilled onto the stage. Modern dancers raced around waving shiny flags. One song melded into the next, rising and falling and rising again into extended, mantralike choruses about surrender while people in the congregation began kneeling and bowing.
A few rows back, the pastor stood with one hand raised and the other holding a coffee cup. And when the last song faded, a worship team member walked onstage to explain what was happening in case anyone was new.
“The Holy Spirit is in this room,” he said.
Now everyone sat down and watched the glowing screen. Another video began playing — this one futuristic, techno music over flash-cut images of a nuclear blast, a spinning planet, advancing soldiers, and when it was over, the pastor was standing on the stage to deliver his sermon, the essence of which was repeated in these kinds of churches all over the nation:
America is in the midst of a great battle between the forces of God and Satan, and the forces of Satan roughly resemble the liberal, progressive agenda. Beware of the “seductive, political, demonic, power-hungry spirit that uses witchcraft to control God’s people.” Beware of “freedom that is actually just rebellion against God.” Beware of confusion. Beware of “rogue leaders.” Beware of a world that “preaches toleration of things God does not tolerate,” and on it went for a full hour, a man with a microphone in a spotlight, pacing, sweating, whispering about evil forces until he cued the band and gave instructions for eternal salvation.
“Just say, ‘Holy Spirit, would you teach me how to choose to obey you,’ ” he said, asking people to close their eyes, or kneel, or bow, and as the drums began pounding again, the reaction was the same as it was every Sunday.
People closed their eyes. They knelt. They bowed. They believed, and as they did, people with cameras roamed the congregation capturing peak moments for videos that would be posted to the church’s website and social media accounts: a man with tattooed arms crying; a whole row of people on their knees bowing; a blond woman in a flower-print dress lying all the way down on the floor, forehead to carpet.
When it was over, people streamed outside, squinting into the bright Fort Worth morning as the next 1,500 people pulled in past the fluttering white flags.
“Welcome to Mercy,” the greeters said again.
By late afternoon Sunday, the parking lot was empty and the rest of the work of kingdom-building could begin.
One day, this meant a meeting of the Distinct Business Ministry, whose goal was “raising up an army of influential leaders” across Fort Worth.
A candidate for the 2022 governor’s race stopped by. A wealthy businessman who helped lead the Republican National Hispanic Assembly drove over from Dallas. The pastor came by to declare that “this is the beginning of a righteous movement.”
“We are not just going after the mayorship — we’re going after every seat,” he said as the first batch of votes came in showing Penate in sixth place out of 10 candidates, and then fifth place, and then fourth, which was where he stayed as the last votes came in and he huddled with his campaign team to pray.
“Jesus, you just put a dent in the kingdom of darkness,” his campaign adviser said. “We stand up to the darkness. We stand up to the establishment. God, this is only the beginning.”
Another day, 100 or so young people crowded into a church conference room singing, “God, I’ll go anywhere; God, I’ll do anything,” hands raised, eyes closed, kneeling, bowing, crying, hugging. At the front of the room, a man with blond hair and a beard was talking about love.
“Everyone says they have the definition for what love is, but the Bible says, ‘By this we know love,’ ” he said. “Jesus laid down his life for us, and we are to lay down our lives for others.”
He dimmed the lights and continued in this vein for another hour, the music playing, the young people rocking back and forth mouthing, “Jesus, Jesus,” trancelike, until the blond man said, “It’s about that time.”
He turned the lights back on and soon, he sent them out on missions into the four demonic quadrants of Fort Worth.
One group headed east into Competition, a swath of the city that included the mirrored skyscrapers of downtown and struggling neighborhoods such as one called Stop 6, where the young people had claimed two salvations in a park the day before.
Another team headed west toward the green lawns and sprawling mansions of Greed.
Another rolled south toward Lust, where it was normal these days to see rainbow flags on bungalow porches and cafe windows including the one where a barista named Ryan Winters was behind the counter, eyeing the door.
It wasn’t the evangelicals he was worried about but the young customers who came in and were sometimes vulnerable.
“Maybe someone is struggling with their identity,” Ryan said.
He was not struggling. He was 27, a lapsed Methodist who counted himself lucky that he had never heard the voice of a God that would deem him unholy for being who he was, the pansexual lead singer of a psychedelic punk band called Alice Void.
“I never had a time when I was uncomfortable or ashamed of myself,” he said. “We all take care of each other, right, Tom?”
“Oh, yeah,” said a man with long gray hair, Tom Brunen, a Baptist turned Buddhist artist who was 62 and had witnessed the transformation of the neighborhood from a dangerous, castoff district that was a refuge for people he called “misfits” into a place that represented what much of America was becoming: more accepting, more inclined to see churches in terms of the people they had forsaken.
“It’s all mythology and fear and guilt that keeps the plutocracy and the greed in line above everybody else,” Tom said. “That’s what the universe showed me. If you want to call it God, fine. The creative force, whatever. Jesus tried to teach people that it’s all one thing. He tried and got killed for it. Christianity killed Jesus. The end. That’s my testimony.”
That was what the kingdom-builders were up against, and in the late afternoon, Nick Davenport, 24, braced himself as he arrived at his demonic battlefield, Rebellion, a noisy, crowded tourist zone of bars, souvenir shops and cobblestone streets in the north part of the city. He began walking around, searching out faces.
“The sheep will know the shepherd’s voice,” he repeated to himself to calm his nerves.
“Hey, Jesus loves y’all,” he said tentatively to a blond woman walking by.
“He does, he does,” the woman said, and he pressed on.
“Is anything bothering you?” he said to a man holding a shopping bag.
“No, I’m good,” the man said, and Nick continued down the sidewalk.
It was hot, and he passed bars and restaurants and gusts of sour-smelling air. A cacophony of music drifted out of open doors. A jacked-up truck roared by.
He moved on through the crowds, scanning the faces of people sitting at some outdoor tables. He zeroed in on a man eating a burger, a red scar visible at the top of his chest.
“Do you talk to God?” Nick asked him.
“Every day — I died twice,” the man said, explaining he had survived a car accident.
“What happened when you died?” Nick asked.
“Didn’t see any white lights,” the man said. “Nothing.”
“Well, Jesus loves you,” Nick said, and kept walking until he felt God pulling him toward a young man in plaid shorts standing outside a bar. He seemed to be alone. He was drinking a beer, his eyes red.
“Hi, I’m Nick, and I wanted to know, how are you doing?”
“Kind of you to ask,” the man said. “My uncle killed himself yesterday.”
“Oh,” said Nick, pausing for a moment. “I’m sorry. You know, God is close to the brokenhearted. I know it doesn’t feel like it all the time.”
He began telling him his own story of a troubled home life and a childhood of bullying, and how he had been close to suicide himself when he was 18 years old, and how, on a whim, he went with a friend to a massive Christian youth conference in Nashville of the sort that is increasingly common these days. A worship band called Planet Shakers was playing, he said, and deep into one of their songs, he heard what he believed to be the voice of God for the first time.
“The singer said if you’re struggling, let it go, and I halfheartedly said, ‘Okay, God, I guess I give it to you,’ and all of the sudden I felt shaky. I fell to the ground. I felt like a hand on my chest. Like, ‘I have you.’ I heard God say, ‘I love you. I made you for a purpose.’ When I heard that, I bawled like a baby. That was when I knew what I was created for. For Jesus.”
The man with red eyes listened.
“Thanks for saying that,” he said, and Nick continued walking the sidewalks into the early evening, his confidence bolstered, feeling more certain than ever that he would soon be leaving his roofing job to do something else for the Lord, something big. He had been preparing, absorbing the lessons of a church that taught him his cause was righteous, and that in the great spiritual battle for America, the time was coming when he might be called upon to face the ultimate test.
“If I have any choice, I want to die like the disciples,” said Nick. “John the Baptist was beheaded. One or two were boiled alive. Peter, I believe he was crucified upside down. If it goes that way? I’m ready. If people want to stone me, shoot me, cut my fingers off — it doesn’t matter what you do to me. We will give anything for the gospel. We are open. We are ready.”
Ready for what, though, is the lingering question.
Those inside the movement have heard all the criticisms. That their churches are cults that prey on human frailties. That what their churches are preaching about LGTBQ people is a lie that is costing lives in the form of suicides. That the language of spiritual warfare, demonic forces, good and evil is creating exactly the sort of radical worldview that could turn politics into holy war. That the U.S. Constitution does not allow laws privileging a religion. That America does not exist to advance some Christian Kingdom of God or to usher in the second coming of Jesus.
To which Penate, the former mayoral candidate, said, “There’s a big misconception when it comes to separation of church and state. It never meant that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics. It’s just loving the city. Being engaged. Our children are in public schools. Our cars are on public streets. The reality is that people who don’t align with the church have hijacked everything. If I ever get elected, my only allegiance will be to the Lord.”
Or as a member of Mercy Culture who campaigned for Penate said: “Can you imagine if every church took a more active role in society? If teachers were preachers? If church took a more active role in health? In business? If every church took ownership over their communities? There would be no homeless. No widows. No orphans. It would look like a society that has a value system. A Christian value system.”
That was the American Kingdom they were working to advance, and as another Sunday arrived, thousands of believers streamed past the fluttering white flags and into the sanctuary to bathe in the Holy Spirit for the righteous battles and glories to come.
The drums began pounding. The screen began spinning. The band began blasting, and when it was time, the pastor stood on the stage to introduce a topic he knew was controversial, and to deliver a very specific word. He leaned in.
“Submission,” he said.
“We’ve been taught obedience to man instead of obedience to God,” he continued.
“God makes an army out of people who will learn to submit themselves,” he continued.
“When you submit, God fights for you,” he concluded.
He cued the band. The drums began to pound again, and he told people to “breathe in the presence of God,” and they breathed. He told them to close their eyes, and they closed their eyes. He gave them words to repeat, and the people repeated them.
“I declare beautiful, supernatural submission,” they said.
Comments
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has filed suit against three of the country's biggest tech companies, claiming he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored.
Trump announced the action against Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube, along with the companies' CEOs, at a press conference in New Jersey on Wednesday. He was joined by other plaintiffs in the suits, which were filed in federal court in Miami.
“We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well,” he said.
Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media platforms are allowed to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in “good faith.” The law also generally exempts internet companies from liability for the material that users post.
But Trump and some other politicians have long argued that Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms have abused that protection and should lose their immunity — or at least have to earn it by satisfying requirements set by the government.
Trump was suspended from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube after his followers stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6. The companies cited concerns that he would incite further violence.
Nonetheless, Trump has continued to spread lies about the 2020 election, baselessly claiming that he won, even though state and local election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges, including some he appointed, have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
Facebook, Google and Twitter all declined comment Wednesday.
The suits argue that banning or suspending Trump and the other plaintiffs is a violation of the First Amendment, despite the fact that the companies are private. The suit against Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook acted unconstitutionally when it removed Trump from the platform. Suits against Twitter and YouTube make similar claims. All three ask the court to award unspecified damages, declare Section 230 unconstitutional and restore Trump’s accounts, along with those of the other plaintiffs - a handful of others who have all had posts or accounts removed.
But Trump’s lawsuits are likely doomed to fail, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University in California who has studied more than 60 similar, failed lawsuits over the past few decades that sought to take on internet companies for terminating or suspending users' accounts.
“They’ve argued everything under the sun, including First Amendment, and they get nowhere,” Goldman said. “Maybe he’s got a trick up his sleeve that will give him a leg up on the dozens of lawsuits before him. I doubt it.”
Goldman said it’s likely Trump is instead pursuing the suits to garner attention. As president, Trump last year signed an executive order challenging Section 230.
“It was always about sending a message to their base that they’re fighting on their behalf against the evil Silicon Valley tech giants," Goldman said.
Matt Schruers, the president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a tech industry trade group that includes Facebook, Twitter and Google, said internet companies have a right to enforce their terms of service.
“Frivolous class action litigation will not change the fact that users — even U.S. Presidents — have to abide by the rules they agreed to,” he said in a statement.
__ O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writer Mae Anderson contributed to this report from Nashville.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Ironically if you remove the section 230 shield, the platforms will just get more aggressive in their moderation since they would have some liability.
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Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in D.C., weeks after similar action in New York
A District of Columbia court has suspended former President Donald Trump’s most prominent attorney, Rudy Giuliani, from practicing law in the nation’s capital, roughly two weeks after a New York court took action against the former New York mayor for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Giuliani, who has claimed rampant fraud during the 2020 presidential election, will be banned from practicing law in Washington at least until New York resolves his case, and possibly longer depending on how the District decides to proceed on the matter, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday. A New York court suspended Giuliani from the New York bar on June 24 for his “false and misleading” statements on behalf of Trump and the 2020 election.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s suspension.
“We conclude that there is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020,” a five-judge New York Supreme Court appellate panel concluded in a per curiam opinion issued on June 24.
The judges added that Giuliani’s conduct “threatens the public interest,” therefore warranting an interim suspension from practicing law. The court panel said an interim suspension, as imposed on Giuliani, is an action taken only in the most serious cases of alleged misconduct.
Giuliani argued that being punished for his public advocacy was a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights, according to the New York Court order, but the court disagreed.
“We reject respondent’s argument,” the court said in its June 24 opinion. “This disciplinary proceeding concerns the professional restrictions imposed on respondent as an attorney to not knowingly misrepresent facts and make false statements in connection with his representation of a client. It is long recognized that ‘speech by an attorney is subject to greater regulation than speech by others.’”
Trump weighed in on the New York ruling in a June 24 statement, calling Giuliani a “great American patriot” and dismissing Giuliani’s suspension as “nothing but a Witch Hunt.”
Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in D.C., weeks after similar action in New York (msn.com)Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Grifting, grifting, grifting away
I loaned myself a mansion, then I loaned it away
It's not the world that's heavy, just the things that you steal
And I'm grifting, grifting away
Grifting, grifting, grifting along
I don’t have worries, so the worries were gone
I only blog when I want to and I sleep like a dog
I'm just grifting, grifting along
The turn coats say, "There is money to be made."
They get so damn excited, but I guess it's our way
My road it may be lonely just because it's paved
It's good for grifting, grifting away
The turn coats say, "There is money to be made."
They get so damn excited, nothing gets in our way
My road it may be lonely just because it's paved
It's good for grifting, grifting away
Grifting, grifting, grifting, uh huh
I feel like going back there, but for ever long
I sometimes wonder if they know that I'm back
I'm just grifting, grifting along
Grifting, grifting along. Grifting, grifting along
Sad! Suckers.
Trump charged Secret Service nearly $10,200 in May for agents’ rooms
Former president Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., charged the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for guest rooms used by his protective detail during Trump’s first month at the club this summer, newly released spending records show.
The records — released by the Secret Service in response to a public-records request — show that the ex-president has continued a habit he began in the first days of his presidency: charging rent to the agency that protects his life.
Since Trump left office in January, U.S. taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $50,000 for rooms used by Secret Service agents, records show.
The Washington Post reported previously that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club — where he lived from January, when he left the White House, to early May — charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 so that agents could use a room near Trump.
These newly released records provide the first proof that, when Trump moved north to Bedminster, the invoices kept coming.
The Secret Service released a bill it paid to Trump Bedminster in May, totaling $10,199.52. The agency redacted the nightly rate, but the dollar amount itself offered a clue: The bill was an exact multiple of what Trump Bedminster charged the Secret Service while Trump was still in office: $566.64 per night for a four-bedroom “cottage” on the property.
At that rate, the bill from May 2021 would have paid for 18 nights in the cottage. Trump arrived in Bedminster on May 9.
The bill from May is the only one that the Secret Service has released from Trump’s time at Bedminster this year. But the agency released another document showing that charges probably continued after that: It released an internal document called a “hotel request” form, covering the period from May 28 to July 1. The form showed that agents planned to rent rooms at Bedminster through at least the start of July.
Separately, the Secret Service also released other bills showing $3,400 in charges from Trump Bedminster before Trump himself arrived. Those receipts — from January, February and early May — did not say why the Secret Service was at the club.
Neither Trump’s family business — the Trump Organization — nor Trump’s political operation responded to a request for comment.
A Secret Service spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the agency does not talk about protective operations.
Legal experts have said there are no laws to prohibit Trump’s company from charging the Secret Service rent at his properties, either during or after his presidency. The rate is effectively up to him: By law, the Secret Service can pay whatever it must to rent rooms near its protectees for use as command posts and meeting rooms.
“The service is more focused on the protective necessity, as opposed to, ‘How much is it going to cost after the fact?’ There’s nothing they can do” if rates are high, said Jonathan Wackrow, a longtime Secret Service agent who now works for the consulting firm Teneo. “It’s a question of not, ‘Can they do it?’ but ‘Should they be charging that much?’ ”
The scale of Trump’s charges appears to be unusual among recent presidents and vice presidents.
In recent history, The Post could find only one other protected person who had charged the Secret Service rent: Joe Biden. As vice president, Biden charged the Secret Service $2,200 per month to use a cottage on his property in Delaware. In total, Biden received $171,600 between 2011 and 2017.
Biden has not charged the Secret Service rent since becoming president in January, a White House spokesman said.
The charges from Trump’s company exceeded Biden’s lifetime total by March 2017, Trump’s third month in office, according to records obtained by The Post. Trump’s company charged the State Department to host summits with foreign leaders, the Secret Service for rooms while protecting Trump and his children, and the Defense Department for aides accompanying the president to Mar-a-Lago and to his Irish golf club.
In all, Trump’s company charged the government more than $2.5 million during his presidency, according to a Post analysis of federal spending records.
It is unclear how the Trump Organization set the rates that it charges the Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster. Before The Post revealed the extent of the charges, Trump’s son Eric said in 2019 that the rate was “like 50 bucks” per night.
The Post has now examined charges for more than 3,600 nights at Trump properties and found no rates that low. Instead, at Mar-a-Lago, rates ranged from $396.15 to $650 per room. At Bedminster, the rate for the four-room “Sarazen Cottage” was $566.64.
As former president, Trump is entitled to a government pension of $219,000 per year; the General Services Administration said he had received $99,323 of it as of this week.
Jordan Libowitz, of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that — in light of Trump’s other assets and income — he should consider allowing the Secret Service to stay at his properties free.
“He obviously should have Secret Service protection,” Libowitz said. However, Libowitz said, “there’s no reason that his company should not do the patriotic thing, and just comp the government for the security it is providing him.”
Secret Service charged almost $10,200 for room used by agents protecting Trump in May. - The Washington Post
But it really doesn't matter.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/rudy-giulianis-election-fraud-hotline-013055699.html
Rudy Giuliani's election fraud hotline was inundated with 'thousands of dick pics' and animal porn, new book says
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The question keeping Trump-loving men up at night: Why won't women date us?. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/question-keeping-trump-loving-men-night-why-won-t-women-ncna1273594
-If you use an ad blocker and a private browser session, it is safe - so feel free to check it out for a jaw-drop or a laugh
-This pursuit is being done "In Honour of Rush Limbaugh"
-The DNC were responsible for three Occult killings (MLK Jr., JFK, and a supposed sacrifice of a woman named Mary, who was designed to be a Virgin Mary sacrifice). These were associated closely with the Zodiac killer
-Joe Biden is 'scripted' to be the anti-Christ
-Nancy Pelosi worked closely with Jim Jones to bring communism to San Francisco (and Jim Jones may be responsible for the rise of Nancy)
-The Black Lives Matter movement is a reincarnation of the Black Liberation Army. The birth of the BLM movement is a coded message marking the end of the "Age of the White Man"
-Acts like the above are so nefarious that they're omitted from mainstream media
This summary is from pages 1-5 out of 13. My head is sore from shaking it.
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
then its volcels( voluntary celebates) they freely choose to engage the world that way
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
also apparently FOX ran a "HE"S LYING" chyron in all caps under his "address" to the lunatics.
who's address?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Trump says being impeached twice didn't change him: 'I became worse'
did fox announce a control room opening soon after?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
An American Kingdom
A new and rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, wants a nation under God’s authority, and is central to Donald Trump’s GOP
FORT WORTH — The pastor was already pacing when he gave the first signal. Then he gave another, and another, until a giant video screen behind him was lit up with an enormous colored map of Fort Worth divided into four quadrants.
Greed, the map read over the west side. Competition, it said over the east side. Rebellion, it said over the north part of the city. Lust, it said over the south.
It was an hour and a half into the 11 a.m. service of a church that represents a rapidly growing kind of Christianity in the United States, one whose goal includes bringing under the authority of a biblical God every facet of life, from schools to city halls to Washington, where the pastor had traveled a month after the Jan. 6 insurrection and filmed himself in front of the U.S. Capitol saying quietly, “Father, we declare America is yours.”
Now he stood in front of the glowing map, a 38-year-old White man in skinny jeans telling a congregation of some 1,500 people what he said the Lord had told him: that Fort Worth was in thrall to four “high-ranking demonic forces.” That all of America was in the grip of “an anti-Christ spirit.” That the Lord had told him that 2021 was going to be the “Year of the Supernatural,” a time when believers would rise up and wage “spiritual warfare” to advance God’s Kingdom, which was one reason for the bright-red T-shirt he was wearing. It bore the name of a church elder who was running for mayor of Fort Worth. And when the pastor cued the band, the candidate, a Guatemalan American businessman, stood along with the rest of the congregation as spotlights flashed on faces that were young and old, rich and poor, White and various shades of Brown — a church that had grown so large since its founding in 2019 that there were now three services every Sunday totaling some 4,500 people, a growing Saturday service in Spanish and plans for expansion to other parts of the country.
“Say, ‘Cleanse me,’ ” the pastor continued as drums began pounding and the people repeated his words. “Say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servants are listening.’ ”
The church is called Mercy Culture, and it is part of a growing Christian movement that is nondenominational, openly political and has become an engine of former president Donald Trump’s Republican Party. It includes some of the largest congregations in the nation, housed in the husks of old Baptist churches, former big-box stores and sprawling multimillion-dollar buildings with private security to direct traffic on Sundays. Its most successful leaders are considered apostles and prophets, including some with followings in the hundreds of thousands, publishing empires, TV shows, vast prayer networks, podcasts, spiritual academies, and branding in the form of T-shirts, bumper stickers and even flags. It is a world in which demons are real, miracles are real, and the ultimate mission is not just transforming individual lives but also turning civilization itself into their version of God’s Kingdom: one with two genders, no abortion, a free-market economy, Bible-based education, church-based social programs and laws such as the ones curtailing LGBTQ rights now moving through statehouses around the country.
This is the world of Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White and many more lesser-known but influential religious leaders who prophesied that Trump would win the election and helped organize nationwide prayer rallies in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, speaking of an imminent “heavenly strike” and “a Christian populist uprising,” leading many who stormed the Capitol to believe they were taking back the country for God.
Even as mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations continue an overall decline in numbers in a changing America, nondenominational congregations have surged from being virtually nonexistent in the 1980s to accounting for roughly 1 in 10 Americans in 2020, according to long-term academic surveys of religious affiliation. Church leaders tend to attribute the growth to the power of an uncompromised Christianity. Experts seeking a more historical understanding point to a relatively recent development called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR.
A California-based theologian coined the phrase in the 1990s to describe what he said he had seen as a missionary in Latin America — vast church growth, miracles, and modern-day prophets and apostles endowed with special powers to fight demonic forces. He and others promoted new church models using sociological principles to attract members. They also began advancing a set of beliefs called dominionism, which holds that God commands Christians to assert authority over the “seven mountains” of life — family, religion, education, economy, arts, media and government — after which time Jesus Christ will return and God will reign for eternity.
None of which is new, exactly. Strains of this thinking formed the basis of the Christian right in the 1970s and have fueled the GOP for decades.
What is new is the degree to which Trump elevated a fresh network of NAR-style leaders who in turn elevated him as God’s chosen president, a fusion that has secured the movement as a grass-roots force within the GOP just as the old Christian right is waning. Increasingly, this is the world that the term “evangelical voter” refers to — not white-haired Southern Baptists in wooden pews but the comparatively younger, more diverse, more extreme world of millions drawn to leaders who believe they are igniting a new Great Awakening in America, one whose epicenter is Texas.
That is where the pastor wearing the bright-red T-shirt, Landon Schott, had been on the third day of a 40-day fast when he said the Lord told him something he found especially interesting.
It was 2017, and he was walking the streets of downtown Fort Worth asking God to make him a “spiritual father” of the city when he heard God say no. What he needed was “spiritual authority,” he remembered God telling him, and the way to get that was to seek the blessing of a pastor named Robert Morris, an evangelical adviser to Trump, and the founder of one of the largest church networks in the nation, called Gateway, with nine branches and weekly attendance in the tens of thousands, including some of the wealthiest businessmen in Texas.
Morris blessed him. Not long after that, a bank blessed him with the funds to purchase an aging church called Calvary Cathedral International, a polygonal structure with a tall white steeple visible from Interstate 35. Soon, the old red carpet was being ripped up. The old wooden pews were being hauled out. The cross on the stage was removed, and in came a huge screen, black and white paint, speakers, lights and modern chandeliers as the new church called Mercy Culture was born.
“Mercy” for undeserved grace.
“Culture” for the world they wanted to create.
That world is most visible on Sundays, beginning at sunrise, when the worship team arrives to set up for services.
In the lobby, they place straw baskets filled with earplugs.
In the sanctuary, they put boxes of tissues at the end of each row of chairs.
On the stage one recent Sunday, the band was doing its usual run-through — two guitar players, a bass player, a keyboardist and two singers, one of whom was saying through her mic to the earpiece of the drummer: “When we start, I want you to wait to build it — then I want you to do those drum rolls as we’re building it.” He nodded, and as they went over song transitions, the rest of the worship team filtered in for the pre-service prayer.
The sound technician prayed over the board controlling stacks of D&B Audiotechnik professional speakers. The lighting technician asked the Lord to guide the 24 professional-grade spotlights with colors named “good green” and “good red.” Pacing up and down the aisles were the ushers, the parking attendants, the security guards, the greeters, the camera operators, the dancers, the intercessors, all of them praying, whispering, speaking in tongues, inviting into the room what they believed to be the Holy Spirit — not in any metaphorical sense, and not in some vague sense of oneness with an incomprehensible universe. Theirs was the spirit of a knowable Christian God, a tangible force they believed could be drawn in through the brown roof, through the cement walls, along the gray-carpeted hallways and in through the double doors of the sanctuary where they could literally breathe it into their bodies. Some people spoke of tasting it. Others said they felt it — a sensation of warm hands pressing, or of knowing that someone has entered the room even when your eyes are closed. Others claimed to see it — golden auras or gold dust or feathers of angels drifting down.
That was the intent of all this, and now the first 1,500 people of the day seeking out those feelings began arriving, pulling in past fluttering white flags stamped with a small black cross over a black “MC,” in through an entrance where the words “Fear Go” were painted in huge block letters above doors that had remained open for much of the pandemic. Inside, the church smelled like fresh coffee.
“Welcome to Mercy,” the greeters said to people who could tell stories of how what happened to them here had delivered them from drug addiction, alcoholism, psychological traumas, PTSD, depression, infidelities, or what the pastor told them was the “sexual confusion” of being gay, queer or transgender. They lingered awhile in a communal area, sipping coffee on modern leather couches, taking selfies in front of a wall with a pink neon “Mercy” sign, or browsing a narrow selection of books about demonic spirits. On a wall, a large clock counted down the final five minutes as they headed into the windowless sanctuary.
Inside, the lights were dim, and the walls were bare. No paintings of parables. No stained glass, crosses, or images of Jesus. Nothing but the stage and the enormous, glowing screen where another clock was spinning down the last seconds as cymbals began playing, and people began standing and lifting their arms because they knew what was about to happen. Cameras 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were in position. The live stream was on standby. In the front row, the 85-year-old retired pastor of the church this used to be secured his earplugs.
What happened next was 40 nonstop minutes of swelling, blasting, drum-pounding music at times so loud that chairs and walls seemed to vibrate. The huge screen became a video of swirling clouds, then a black galaxy of spinning stars. The spotlights went from blue to amber to gold to white. A camera slid back and forth on a dolly. Fog spilled onto the stage. Modern dancers raced around waving shiny flags. One song melded into the next, rising and falling and rising again into extended, mantralike choruses about surrender while people in the congregation began kneeling and bowing.
A few rows back, the pastor stood with one hand raised and the other holding a coffee cup. And when the last song faded, a worship team member walked onstage to explain what was happening in case anyone was new.
“The Holy Spirit is in this room,” he said.
Now everyone sat down and watched the glowing screen. Another video began playing — this one futuristic, techno music over flash-cut images of a nuclear blast, a spinning planet, advancing soldiers, and when it was over, the pastor was standing on the stage to deliver his sermon, the essence of which was repeated in these kinds of churches all over the nation:
America is in the midst of a great battle between the forces of God and Satan, and the forces of Satan roughly resemble the liberal, progressive agenda. Beware of the “seductive, political, demonic, power-hungry spirit that uses witchcraft to control God’s people.” Beware of “freedom that is actually just rebellion against God.” Beware of confusion. Beware of “rogue leaders.” Beware of a world that “preaches toleration of things God does not tolerate,” and on it went for a full hour, a man with a microphone in a spotlight, pacing, sweating, whispering about evil forces until he cued the band and gave instructions for eternal salvation.
“Just say, ‘Holy Spirit, would you teach me how to choose to obey you,’ ” he said, asking people to close their eyes, or kneel, or bow, and as the drums began pounding again, the reaction was the same as it was every Sunday.
People closed their eyes. They knelt. They bowed. They believed, and as they did, people with cameras roamed the congregation capturing peak moments for videos that would be posted to the church’s website and social media accounts: a man with tattooed arms crying; a whole row of people on their knees bowing; a blond woman in a flower-print dress lying all the way down on the floor, forehead to carpet.
When it was over, people streamed outside, squinting into the bright Fort Worth morning as the next 1,500 people pulled in past the fluttering white flags.
“Welcome to Mercy,” the greeters said again.
By late afternoon Sunday, the parking lot was empty and the rest of the work of kingdom-building could begin.
One day, this meant a meeting of the Distinct Business Ministry, whose goal was “raising up an army of influential leaders” across Fort Worth.
Continued next post
At Mercy Culture, the nations fastest-growing Christian movement is openly political and central to Trump’s GOP - The Washington Post
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A candidate for the 2022 governor’s race stopped by. A wealthy businessman who helped lead the Republican National Hispanic Assembly drove over from Dallas. The pastor came by to declare that “this is the beginning of a righteous movement.”
“We are not just going after the mayorship — we’re going after every seat,” he said as the first batch of votes came in showing Penate in sixth place out of 10 candidates, and then fifth place, and then fourth, which was where he stayed as the last votes came in and he huddled with his campaign team to pray.
“Jesus, you just put a dent in the kingdom of darkness,” his campaign adviser said. “We stand up to the darkness. We stand up to the establishment. God, this is only the beginning.”
Another day, 100 or so young people crowded into a church conference room singing, “God, I’ll go anywhere; God, I’ll do anything,” hands raised, eyes closed, kneeling, bowing, crying, hugging. At the front of the room, a man with blond hair and a beard was talking about love.
“Everyone says they have the definition for what love is, but the Bible says, ‘By this we know love,’ ” he said. “Jesus laid down his life for us, and we are to lay down our lives for others.”
He dimmed the lights and continued in this vein for another hour, the music playing, the young people rocking back and forth mouthing, “Jesus, Jesus,” trancelike, until the blond man said, “It’s about that time.”
He turned the lights back on and soon, he sent them out on missions into the four demonic quadrants of Fort Worth.
One group headed east into Competition, a swath of the city that included the mirrored skyscrapers of downtown and struggling neighborhoods such as one called Stop 6, where the young people had claimed two salvations in a park the day before.
Another team headed west toward the green lawns and sprawling mansions of Greed.
Another rolled south toward Lust, where it was normal these days to see rainbow flags on bungalow porches and cafe windows including the one where a barista named Ryan Winters was behind the counter, eyeing the door.
It wasn’t the evangelicals he was worried about but the young customers who came in and were sometimes vulnerable.
“Maybe someone is struggling with their identity,” Ryan said.
He was not struggling. He was 27, a lapsed Methodist who counted himself lucky that he had never heard the voice of a God that would deem him unholy for being who he was, the pansexual lead singer of a psychedelic punk band called Alice Void.
“I never had a time when I was uncomfortable or ashamed of myself,” he said. “We all take care of each other, right, Tom?”
“Oh, yeah,” said a man with long gray hair, Tom Brunen, a Baptist turned Buddhist artist who was 62 and had witnessed the transformation of the neighborhood from a dangerous, castoff district that was a refuge for people he called “misfits” into a place that represented what much of America was becoming: more accepting, more inclined to see churches in terms of the people they had forsaken.
“It’s all mythology and fear and guilt that keeps the plutocracy and the greed in line above everybody else,” Tom said. “That’s what the universe showed me. If you want to call it God, fine. The creative force, whatever. Jesus tried to teach people that it’s all one thing. He tried and got killed for it. Christianity killed Jesus. The end. That’s my testimony.”
That was what the kingdom-builders were up against, and in the late afternoon, Nick Davenport, 24, braced himself as he arrived at his demonic battlefield, Rebellion, a noisy, crowded tourist zone of bars, souvenir shops and cobblestone streets in the north part of the city. He began walking around, searching out faces.
“The sheep will know the shepherd’s voice,” he repeated to himself to calm his nerves.
“Hey, Jesus loves y’all,” he said tentatively to a blond woman walking by.
“He does, he does,” the woman said, and he pressed on.
“Is anything bothering you?” he said to a man holding a shopping bag.
“No, I’m good,” the man said, and Nick continued down the sidewalk.
It was hot, and he passed bars and restaurants and gusts of sour-smelling air. A cacophony of music drifted out of open doors. A jacked-up truck roared by.
He moved on through the crowds, scanning the faces of people sitting at some outdoor tables. He zeroed in on a man eating a burger, a red scar visible at the top of his chest.
“Do you talk to God?” Nick asked him.
“Every day — I died twice,” the man said, explaining he had survived a car accident.
“What happened when you died?” Nick asked.
“Didn’t see any white lights,” the man said. “Nothing.”
“Well, Jesus loves you,” Nick said, and kept walking until he felt God pulling him toward a young man in plaid shorts standing outside a bar. He seemed to be alone. He was drinking a beer, his eyes red.
“Hi, I’m Nick, and I wanted to know, how are you doing?”
“Kind of you to ask,” the man said. “My uncle killed himself yesterday.”
“Oh,” said Nick, pausing for a moment. “I’m sorry. You know, God is close to the brokenhearted. I know it doesn’t feel like it all the time.”
He began telling him his own story of a troubled home life and a childhood of bullying, and how he had been close to suicide himself when he was 18 years old, and how, on a whim, he went with a friend to a massive Christian youth conference in Nashville of the sort that is increasingly common these days. A worship band called Planet Shakers was playing, he said, and deep into one of their songs, he heard what he believed to be the voice of God for the first time.
“The singer said if you’re struggling, let it go, and I halfheartedly said, ‘Okay, God, I guess I give it to you,’ and all of the sudden I felt shaky. I fell to the ground. I felt like a hand on my chest. Like, ‘I have you.’ I heard God say, ‘I love you. I made you for a purpose.’ When I heard that, I bawled like a baby. That was when I knew what I was created for. For Jesus.”
The man with red eyes listened.
“Thanks for saying that,” he said, and Nick continued walking the sidewalks into the early evening, his confidence bolstered, feeling more certain than ever that he would soon be leaving his roofing job to do something else for the Lord, something big. He had been preparing, absorbing the lessons of a church that taught him his cause was righteous, and that in the great spiritual battle for America, the time was coming when he might be called upon to face the ultimate test.
“If I have any choice, I want to die like the disciples,” said Nick. “John the Baptist was beheaded. One or two were boiled alive. Peter, I believe he was crucified upside down. If it goes that way? I’m ready. If people want to stone me, shoot me, cut my fingers off — it doesn’t matter what you do to me. We will give anything for the gospel. We are open. We are ready.”
Ready for what, though, is the lingering question.
Those inside the movement have heard all the criticisms. That their churches are cults that prey on human frailties. That what their churches are preaching about LGTBQ people is a lie that is costing lives in the form of suicides. That the language of spiritual warfare, demonic forces, good and evil is creating exactly the sort of radical worldview that could turn politics into holy war. That the U.S. Constitution does not allow laws privileging a religion. That America does not exist to advance some Christian Kingdom of God or to usher in the second coming of Jesus.
To which Penate, the former mayoral candidate, said, “There’s a big misconception when it comes to separation of church and state. It never meant that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics. It’s just loving the city. Being engaged. Our children are in public schools. Our cars are on public streets. The reality is that people who don’t align with the church have hijacked everything. If I ever get elected, my only allegiance will be to the Lord.”
Or as a member of Mercy Culture who campaigned for Penate said: “Can you imagine if every church took a more active role in society? If teachers were preachers? If church took a more active role in health? In business? If every church took ownership over their communities? There would be no homeless. No widows. No orphans. It would look like a society that has a value system. A Christian value system.”
That was the American Kingdom they were working to advance, and as another Sunday arrived, thousands of believers streamed past the fluttering white flags and into the sanctuary to bathe in the Holy Spirit for the righteous battles and glories to come.
The drums began pounding. The screen began spinning. The band began blasting, and when it was time, the pastor stood on the stage to introduce a topic he knew was controversial, and to deliver a very specific word. He leaned in.
“Submission,” he said.
“We’ve been taught obedience to man instead of obedience to God,” he continued.
“God makes an army out of people who will learn to submit themselves,” he continued.
“When you submit, God fights for you,” he concluded.
He cued the band. The drums began to pound again, and he told people to “breathe in the presence of God,” and they breathed. He told them to close their eyes, and they closed their eyes. He gave them words to repeat, and the people repeated them.
“I declare beautiful, supernatural submission,” they said.
At Mercy Culture, the nations fastest-growing Christian movement is openly political and central to Trump’s GOP - The Washington Post
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