I watch you every week as you repeatedly distort the truth,
as you attack journalists who come carrying facts.
as you vilify politicians who oppose your employer’s malfeasance,
as you categorically defend his every vile statement, every personal attack, every nonsensical Tweet, every baseless firing, every legislative assault.

I watch your face contort with the unmistakable tells of a person who doesn’t believe a word they’re saying; one who’s sold their soul and is now hopelessly trapped in a lie about a lie about a lie.

I wonder what Jesus-story you tell yourself, about the fact that every week you stand in front of a microphone and willingly perpetuate falsehoods that do great harm to millions of people?

That has to be rough—or maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s a breeze for you now. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself it’s somehow all the Lord’s work. Maybe you’ve been on this slippery slope of deception for so long that you actually believe the lies now too.

Or maybe your Jesus and my Jesus are just that different.

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/05/01/dear-sarah/

Senate Confirms C.I.A. Chief Mike Pompeo to Be Secretary of State
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/politics/mike-pompeo-secretary-of-state.html

...
His confirmation seemed all but assured after Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, a Democrat who is running for re-election in a state that Mr. Trump won by a wide margin, said last week that she would support him.

Four other Democrats who are also running for re-election in states won by Mr. Trump — Senators Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Bill Nelson of Florida — also voted to confirm Mr. Pompeo.



https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=2&vote=00084#position

Our president ignores an American hero: Trump’s silence on the Waffle House murders is deafening
James Shaw Jr. disarmed a mass shooter single-handed. Everything about that is a problem for Donald Trump

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

APRIL 24, 2018

During the early morning hours last Sunday, a 29-year-old white man named Travis Reinking allegedly used an AR-15 rifle to kill four people and injure two others at a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville. Reinking is reportedly a member of the Sovereign Citizens, a right-wing extremist movement that is heavily influenced by white supremacist political ideology. It is likely not a coincidence that all of Reinking's victims were nonwhite.

A 29-year-old black man named James Shaw Jr. disarmed Reinking by grabbing the barrel of his AR-15. Shaw is the true definition of a hero. He acted selflessly, without training or compensation, and at great personal risk.
...
During those few minutes last Sunday morning in a Waffle House, a mini-drama of American life in the age of Trump took place. A young black man protected the public from a white man hell-bent on committing mass murder. In America, black men are all too often subjected to harassment, state-sponsored violence and racial profiling. By comparison, white men -- even when they are mass murderers or domestic terrorists -- are described by default as "nice" and "normal" people who are "lone wolves" or suffer from mental illness. Their crimes come as a surprise and not indicative of a broader "cultural problem" among the "white community."

The patrons at the Nashville Waffle House were lucky that James Shaw Jr. was not arrested and kicked out for trespassing like the two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks store last week. If the manager in Nashville had a case of "negrophobia" like his peer in Philadelphia, more people might have died. On the same day that Shaw saved lives in a Nashville, a black woman was arrested, stripped almost naked, and brutalized by police at a different Waffle House, a few hundred miles away in Alabama. Her crime? She complained to the manager about why her party had been charged for plastic utensils, when on a previous visit they had not been.

America's police routinely claim that they were in fear for their lives and "had no choice" after they kill unarmed or otherwise vulnerable black and brown people. James Shaw Jr., who had neither weapons nor police training, disarmed a killer with his bare hands.

And once again a white man who commits mass murder is captured alive, while black and brown people who are unarmed, talking on telephones, sitting in their cars, sleeping or generally minding their own business are killed by America's police nearly as a matter of routine. Reinking, who is accused of four murders, was even offered bond by a judge -- although in the face of public outrage this has since been revoked. Do you believe that a black or brown person credibly accused of mass murder would be given the opportunity to go free while awaiting trial?

https://www.salon.com/2018/04/24/our-president-ignores-an-american-hero-trumps-silence-on-the-waffle-house-murders-is-deafening/