Tag: Religion

The Family

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It looks like the Christofascist organization known as “The Family” is getting a documentary on Netflix.

Here is hoping that shedding light on the organization, which among other things was largely responsible for Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill, gets some much deserved scrutiny as a result.

From the Illuminati to the freemasons to QAnon, there’s no shortage of conspiracy theories trying to explain how power is accumulated and shared in Washington, D.C. But the wide-ranging network of politicians, world leaders, and men of faith that make up the Fellowship isn’t mere conspiracy theory: it’s 100 percent true. What’s more, some of its members are speaking on the record about it for the first time in the new five-part Netflix series The Family, directed by documentarian Jesse Moss.

The Fellowship, also known as the Family, is a highly secretive group of evangelical Christian men who meet for Bible study and prayer meetings; it’s best known for serving as the organizer of the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual gathering of diplomats and world leaders in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1935 by a man named Abraham Veride, the Fellowship initially arose from Vereide trying to arrange a meeting of business owners to crush laborers’ attempts at organizing. Over the course of the past 75 years, it has evolved into what some have referred to as a secret theocracy, or an underground movement of prominent Christian men who exert their influence not just in the United States, but abroad as well.

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Fellowship members operate under a veil of secrecy, which is by design; Fellowship head Douglas Coe, who died in 2017, believed that the group could best exert its influence that way. Its members include senators, diplomats, and religious leaders around the world: Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Jim Inhofe, and Rep. Bart Stupak have been linked to the group, while Vice President Mike Pence and attorney general Jeff Sessions have also been referred to as “friends of the Family.” And it’s a testament to the persistence of the production team that a handful of Fellowship members, including former Congressman Zach Wamp, speak on the record for the first time about the organization in the series. Moss attributes their willingness to talk in part to the organization’s attempts to “adapt to the 21st century with a greater degree of transparency, though only time will tell if that’s true.” Sharlet, however, has a slightly different take: “They’re not opening the doors. They’re not becoming transparent. That simply hasn’t happened. But they do want to have their say.”

The primary way the Fellowship maintains influence, the series argues, is through the National Prayer Breakfast, which every president since Eisenhower has attended over the past 50 years. Though many consider the Prayer Breakfast something of a “banal event,” according to Moss, he says, “It’s really quite an impressive demonstration of influence and power.”

………

In its efforts to consolidate its power, the Family has extended its tentacles overseas. One episode of The Family focuses in large part on a trip that Rep. Robert Aderholt, a right-wing politician tied to the group, made to Romania to campaign for anti-LGBTQ rights and advocate for Christian policy. Members of the Family have also aligned themselves with global leaders who had committed atrocities in their home countries, including Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, who once prayed with Coe. “In the face of all these dictators, they don’t say anything at all,” says Sharlet. “They don’t ask any accountability.”

This is a group that literally orchestrated the introduction of a bill that had the death penalty for homosexuality.

They are dangerous fundamentalist extremists.

Don’t Worry About the DPRK and Iran

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Because it looks like two nuclear powers may be on a path to military conflict over Modi’s revoking Kashmir’s automomy.

From a purely selfish perspective, it makes sense for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do this, it gives him a political boost, and he legitimately wants to make sure that Muslims in India are second class citizens.

He is a bigot and a fascist a half step removed from the Hindu nationalists who assassinated Mahatma Ghandi:

India on Monday revoked the special status of Kashmir, the Himalayan region that has long been a flashpoint in ties with neighboring Pakistan, moving to grasp its only Muslim-majority region more tightly.

In the most far-reaching political move in one of the world’s most militarized regions in nearly seven decades, India said it would scrap a constitutional provision that allows the state of Jammu and Kashmir to make its own laws.

“The entire constitution will be applicable to Jammu and Kashmir,” Interior Minister Amit Shah told parliament, as opposition lawmakers voiced loud protests against the repeal.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged India and Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, to exercise restraint. The U.S. State Department said it was closely following the events and expressed concerns over reports of detentions.

………

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said the move “was in clear violation of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions” in the region, according to a statement released after a telephone call with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Monday evening.

“As the party to this international dispute, Pakistan will exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps,” its foreign ministry said in a statement.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, where a nearly 30-year armed revolt has killed tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of Indian troops have been deployed to quell it.

………

Hours earlier the Indian government launched a security crackdown in the region, arresting local leaders, suspending telephone and internet services, and restricting public movement in the main city of Srinagar.

Local TV channels citing Press Trust of India reported that former Kashmiri chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah had been detained at a state guest house.

To quote (not) Tallyrand, this is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.

Modi’s bigotry and arrogance could end up killing hundreds of millions of people.

Uses for an Oyster Knife

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I was at 7-Mile Market, the largest kosher market in Baltomore today, and they had some kitchen tools hanging from a display, an onion splitter, a strawberry corer, and an ………OYSTER KNIFE????

I know of one use for an oyster knife, and that is for opening oyster.

It’s basically a paring knife with a heavy spine and a handle suited to prying up shellfish.

Shellfish are (of course) not kosher, so I am unsure as to who would be inclined to buy this knife at 7-Mile Market.

Today in Self-Ownership

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Evangelicals have have organized a letter writing campaign to convince Netflix to cancel the show Good Omens.

I do not expect this to be successful, particularly since the show is produced by Amazon, not Netflix:

More than 20,000 Christians have signed a petition calling for the cancellation of Good Omens, the television series adapted from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 fantasy novel – unfortunately addressing their petition to Netflix when the series is made by Amazon Prime.

………

But Christians marshalled by the Return to Order campaign, an offshoot of the US Foundation for a Christian Civilisation, disagree. More than 20,000 supporters have signed a petition in which they say that Good Omens is “another step to make satanism appear normal, light and acceptable”, and “mocks God’s wisdom”. God, they complain, is “voiced by a woman” – Frances McDormand – the antichrist is a “normal kid” and, most importantly, “this type of video makes light of Truth, Error, Good and Evil, and destroys the barriers of horror that society still has for the devil”. They are calling on Netflix to cancel the show.

Gaiman responded to the petition on Twitter, writing: “I love that they are going to write to Netflix to try and get #GoodOmens cancelled. Says it all really. This is so beautiful … Promise me you won’t tell them?”

This may be the best way to honor the memory of Terry Pratchett ever.

Any of My Reader(s) in Tennessee, Please File a Complaint with a State Bar

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Craig Northcott, the Coffee County, TN District Attorney, has announced that he will not enforce domestic violence laws for same-sex couples.

Not enforcing the law of the land because you are a bigot is evil.

Publicly announcing it is literally criminally stupid.

This guy needs his law license pulled, and some jail time would be nice:

Prosecutorial discretion is one of the greatest tools in a prosecutor’s toolbox. But the chief prosecutor in Tennessee used that power to impose his moral and religious views onto the people his office was tasked with protecting, according to a video released by Nashville television station News Channel 5.

Craig Northcott, the district attorney general of Coffee County, was recorded telling participants at a 2018 Bible conference what happens when voters elect a “good Christian man as DA.”

“Y’all need to know who your DA is,” he reminded the crowd. “You give us a lot of authority. . . . We can choose to prosecute anything. We can choose not to prosecute anything.”

Using what he termed “prosecutorial discretion,” Northcott said, “the social engineers on the Supreme Court now decided we have homosexual marriage. I disagree with them.”

In his jurisdiction, which includes the area that hosts the summer music festival Bonnaroo, Northcott ensured that same-sex partners would not be afforded the protections of domestic violence laws.

In Tennessee, a domestic assault conviction carries enhanced punishments, like permanently forfeiting the right to own a firearm. The prosecutor’s interpretation of the statute was that the sanctions were created to “recognize and protect the sanctity of marriage.”

When reached by phone, Northcott said, “There’s no marriage to protect with homosexual relationships, so I don’t prosecute them as domestic,” and refused to comment further.

………

A group of 200 attorneys permitted to practice in Tennessee wrote the state’s Board of Professional Responsibility on Wednesday, reporting Northcott and calling his “unacceptable” and “unethical” conduct the “highest level of prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of discretion.”

………

Northcott is no stranger to controversy.

Less than two months ago, he was severely criticized for saying that Muslims have “no constitutional rights.”

This guy should not be allowed to practice law, much less be a DA.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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Alabama’s new anti-abortion law is too extreme for Pat Robertson.

What the f%$#?

Longtime televangelist Pat Robertson decried Alabama’s new abortion ban as “extreme,” saying on his show on Wednesday that the state legislature has “gone too far.”

Alabama’s law, which has been passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, includes a penalty of up to 99 years in prison for doctors who perform abortions and has no exceptions for rape or incest, Robertson noted on his show.

“They want to challenge Roe vs. Wade, but my humble view is I don’t think that’s the case I’d want to bring to the Supreme Court because I think this one will lose,” Robertson told viewers of CBN’s “The 700 Club” on Wednesday.

Let me repeat this:  What ……… the ……… f%$#?

Do Not Share the Pix With Me

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It turns out that Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen did similar work for other people.

It turns out that Cohen helped Jerry Falwell, Jr. acquire and destroy “embarrassing” photographs.

I am not surprised that such photographs exist, but I am studiously avoiding any descriptions of said evidence.

That which is seen cannot be unseen:

Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters.

 Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy “personal” photographs — the sort that would typically be kept “between husband and wife,” Cohen said in the taped conversation.

 According to a source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the person who possessed the photos destroyed them after Cohen intervened on the Falwells’ behalf.

 The Falwells, through a lawyer, declined to comment for this article.

………

The Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen told [Comedian Tom] Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”

Cohen would later prove successful in another matter involving Falwell, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Cohen helped persuade Falwell to issue his endorsement of Trump’s presidential candidacy at a critical moment, they said: just before the Iowa caucuses. Falwell subsequently barnstormed with Trump and vouched for the candidate’s Christian virtues.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

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In what I find some of the least surprising news of the day, the right wing Evangelical National Christian Foundation, which claims to be the largest Christian charity in the US is helping people launder donations to hate groups.

Shelby Spong has asked, “Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized?”

The answer is, of course:  Fomenting hate is all the Talibaptists have left:

The nation’s eighth-largest public charity is pouring tens of millions of dollars each year into a number of mostly anti-LGBT hate groups, a Sludge investigation shows.

According to the three most recent available tax filings—which cover 2015-17—it has donated $56.1 million on behalf of its clients to 23 nonprofits identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.

“I certainly don’t know of any public disclosures of funds to hate groups at levels anywhere near this,” Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Sludge. “It’s pretty astounding and certainly concerning.”

The far-right evangelical National Christian Foundation (NCF), which offers Christian donors “expert guidance and creative giving solutions,” is the fourth-largest donor-advised fund by 2017 revenue in the U.S., having raised over $1.5 billion that year. Such funds offer individual accounts to their clients, allowing clients to get immediate tax breaks on donations to these accounts and to direct NCF to disperse the money to the nonprofits of their choice, mostly churches and other Christian nonprofits, at their own pace. Clients donate through donor-advised funds anonymously, so even the Internal Revenue Service won’t know their identities.

According to a 2017 Inside Philanthropy article, NCF “is probably the single biggest source of money fueling the pro-life and anti-LGBT movements over the past 15 years.” In 2017, NCF’s donation to anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant hate groups rose to over $19 million.

By far the biggest recipient of NCF donations is Alliance Defending Freedom, a large network of Christian extremist lawyers who have supported criminalizing homosexuality, sterilizing transgender people, and claimed that gay men are pedophiles. The group recently came out against congressional Democrats’ Equality Act, which would ban discrimination against LGBTQ Americans.

………

Anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council, which has attempted to tie gay men to pedophilia for many years, accepted over $5.3 million from NCF from 2015-17.

As Lisa Gilbert at Public Citizen notes, “It’s interesting to me that big donors have a mechanism to give money to causes that would be unpopular, like going after gay rights ……… It’s not always so much about the total amount as it is about the mechanisms for funneling money into politics ……… This is like a shell-game funnel of corporate money. So it might be an organization that has an innocent name, that sounds like a good, upstanding, innocent group” but is being backed by wealthy donors.”

It really is remarkable just how much hate trumps any other considerations with the Christofascists.

This is Heartbreaking

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The spire falls at about 15s

There has been a at a massive fire at the Notre Dame de Paris :

A fire that devastated Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris was brought under control by firefighters in the early hours of Tuesday morning, though officials warned there were still residual fires to put out.
 Thousands of Parisians watched in horror from behind police cordons as a ferocious blaze devastated Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday night, destroying its spire and a large part of the roof.

 An investigation has been opened by the prosecutor’s office, but police said it began accidentally and may be linked to building work at the cathedral. The 850-year-old gothic masterpiece had been undergoing restoration work.

 The French president, Emmanuel Macron, attended the scene and later gave a speech in which he vowed that the cathedral would be rebuilt, as fire crews said the landmark’s rectangular bell towers and structure of the building had been saved.

I’m not sure how much has been lost, but given that the structure, the part that isn’t wood, is limestone and old mortar, which is very susceptible to fire damage.

I’m not sure what has been lost, but I’m pretty sure that when a final inventory is made there will be some very sad architects, artists, and historians.

In bizarrely related news, there has been a (relatively minor) fire at the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

Unlike the Notre Dame fire, the source of this one is currently suspicious, having occurred during a 15 minute change-over of local security:

A fire broke out in al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the third-holiest site in Islam, on Monday. The blaze didn’t cause significant damage, but it did endanger a part of the worship site that’s over 2,000 years old.

​The fire broke out in the guard room outside the al-Marwani Prayer Room Monday evening, according to a statement by the mosque’s Islamic Waqf (Endowments) Department. According to The New Arab, a guard reported a short gap in guard rotations between 7:15 and 7:30 p.m. local time.

Weird.

Well, That’s Very White of You

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I just came across an article suggesting that the Jewish practice of Shmita could save sustainable architecture.

For those not up on obscure biblical laws, it is the requirement for a field to lie fallow once every 7 years.

When all is said and done, allowing fields to lie fallow, and thus allowing the soil to rest is a good idea.

My problem is not that it’s a just a Jewish idea.

It has been practiced almost universally around the world since the introduction of agriculture by almost every farming society until the advent of modern fertilizer technology.

The idea that this is some sort of uniquely Jewish (and by implication “white”) secret is bullsh%$.

It is Purim

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So I may be blogging drunk, which means that I will likely be even less coherent than usual.

I know what you are asking yourself, “How could he get any LESS coherent?”

However, I promise that even if I drink so much that I cannot tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman, I will be able to tell the difference between Donald Trump and a fence post, with the latter being more honest, more intelligent, and more attractive.

What a Surprise: Ballot Fraud by Conservatives

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In this case, it was anti-gay bigots in the Methodist Church who were stuffing ballot boxes, because they need someone to hate:

It was a momentous vote for the United Methodist Church, as the future of the country’s second-largest Protestant church hung in the balance. In a former football stadium in St. Louis last month, church officials and lay leaders from around the world voted to strengthen their ban on same-sex marriage and gay clergy, a decision that could now split the church.

But at least four ballots were cast by individuals who were not authorized to vote, according to interviews and a review of the church’s records. The individuals were from African delegations whose votes were critical to restricting the church’s rules on homosexuality.

The final 54-vote margin against gay clergy and same-sex marriage exceeds the number of unauthorized votes discovered so far. But the voting irregularities raised questions about the process behind the divisive decision, which devastated progressive members. Some have discussed leaving the denomination and possibly creating a new alliance for gay-friendly churches.

Church leaders are now discussing whether new votes should be called, Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton, who serves on the commission on the general conference, said in a phone interview.

………

 The United Methodist legal structure does not have a clear procedure on how to investigate or adjudicate improper election activity. The relevant ethics committee does not have jurisdiction when the general conference is not in session.

I’m not sure of the exact words to describe this behavor, but, “Godly,” and “Humane,” are most certainly not on this list.

A Shande far di Goyim

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I knew that there was a major Measles outbreak in the New York City area, but I had not realized that it was almost exclusively among the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, where vaccination is far less common than the general population:

Through the fall, traveler after traveler arrived in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities of New York from areas of Israel and Europe where measles was spreading. They then spent time in homes, schools and shops in communities where too many people were unvaccinated.

Within months, New York State was facing its most severe outbreak of the disease in decades, with 182 cases confirmed by Thursday, almost exclusively among ultra-Orthodox Jews. Health officials in New Jersey have reported 33 measles cases, mostly in Ocean County, driven by similar conditions.

In 2018, New York and New Jersey accounted for more than half the measles cases in the country.

Alarmed, health officials began a systematic effort to bring up vaccination rates and halt the disease’s spread.

But while there has been progress, the outbreak is not yet over. Health officials said part of the problem has been resistance among some people in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods to fully cooperate with health workers, get vaccinations and promptly report infections.

………

Dr. Ruppert said that health officials discovered that some religious schools, or yeshivas, in ultra-Orthodox communities in Rockland County had vaccination rates as low as 60 percent, far below the state average of 92.5 percent. Audits found that some schools were overreporting vaccination rates, she added.

Seriously.  What the F%$# is wrong with these people.

This is a danger to their community, and a danger to the surrounding community.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases on the face of the earth, and all the rabbis would have to do is explain this to their congregants, and ten pick up the phone and get the state to set up some vaccination clinics

This has not happened..

Today in Unclear Headlines

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In. the publication Deutsche Welle, they headline a story as,  “Germany mulls introducing ′mosque tax′ for Muslims,” which makes it look like one of the increasingly bigoted steps against Muslims in Europe.

In reality, it constitutes an official recognition, and state subsidy being extended to the religion:

Lawmakers from Germany’s grand coalition government said on Wednesday that they were considering introducing a “mosque tax” for German Muslims, similar to the church taxes that German Christians pay.

Thorsten Frei, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) told Die Welt daily that a mosque tax was “an important step” that would allow “Islam in Germany to emancipate itself from foreign states.”

In Germany, church taxes are collected from practicing Catholics and Protestants in order to fund church activities. They are collected by the state and then transferred to religious authorities.

The justification is that this would reduce the dependence of the German Muslim community on the largess of the House of Saud.

In the absence of a similar tax, mosques in Germany are reliant upon donations, raising concerns about possible financing by foreign organizations and governments, which has sometimes prompted questions about the promotion of fundamentalist ideologies. For example, there has been growing concern about the influence of the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), an arm of the Turkish government based in Germany.

I do not approve of the policy, I believe that church and state should be separate, but if such a policy exists, then it should apply to mosques, particularity as the effect of Saudi Money is corrosively Medieval.

It’s Genocide

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There are increasing (weak tea) concerns in the west over China’s treatment of its Uygur pupulation in the west of the country.

What they are not saying is that Beijing’s efforts in Xinjiang are an attempt to destroy them as a distinct people, which is by any definition genocide:

Few governments send ambassadors to China to be brave about human rights. Envoys to Beijing are scholars of realism, their fine minds applied to a delicate task: managing profitable relations with a deep-pocketed, unapologetic dictatorship.

It is, therefore, a big deal that at least 14 ambassadors from Western countries, led by Canada, have come together to confront China over its mass detentions of Muslims in the far-western region of Xinjiang, most of them ethnic Uighurs. Officials say the purpose is to stamp out extremism. In a letter leaked to Reuters, a news agency, the ambassadors have asked to meet Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party’s boss in Xinjiang. A hardliner transferred from Tibet, Mr Chen oversees a gulag into which perhaps a million Uighurs have been sent for “transformation-through-education”, many for indefinite periods without trial.

Millions more endure surveillance by facial-recognition cameras, smartphone scanners and police patrols at every turn. Some must host officials as houseguests, sent to assess their loyalties. China calls these measures vital after terrorist attacks carried out in recent years by Uighur fanatics.

This is genocide.

It is a deliberate and systematic attempt to destroy the Uighurs as a people.

Let me repeat:  This is genocide.

Not What I Expected in Lakewood

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For those of you who don’t know, Lakewood, New Jersey has a large Orthodox Jewish community and dozens of religious schools.

This is not a community that I would generally considered to be “woke” on the issue of vaccinations, but the shuls and yeshivas in the area are refusing to admit people without vaccinations:

The measles outbreak continues to grow, thanks to the anti-vaxxers, and now some Shuls are sending a strong message to them.

According to TLS, a few Shuls in Lakewood have sent out letters to their Mispallelim that they should not bring anyone who was not vaccinated into the building.

A number of Lakewood schools have also taken a stance, and have informed their parent body that children who are not vaccinated are not permitted into school.

………

The Viznitz Monsey Girls School announced that any child who is not immunized, can’t return to school for 21 days. No “religious exemption” is accepted. A religious exemption does not work when there is a measles outbreak.

Rockland County’s Commissioner of Health, Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, announced Wednesday that all schools in the Village of New Square are now required to keep students who are un-vaccinated or under-vaccinated against the disease home until 21 days have passed since the last case of measles is confirmed in the county.

So far, the county has given more two thousand doses of the measles vaccine, referred to as MMR. Ruppert is urging parents to make sure their whole families vaccination history.

They should have done this months ago.

Hope for Humanity

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A crowdfunding campaign formed by two Muslim groups has raised more than $60,000 for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, which killed 11, the Independent reported.

Muslim-American non-profits Celebrate Mercy and MPower Change were behind the campaign, “Muslims Unite For Pittsburgh Synagogue.” It is also in partnership with the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh.

The campaign reached its initial goal of $25,000 goal in six hours. As of press time, it raised $62,500 of its new $75,000 goal. The proceeds will help with funeral expenses and medical bills.

And

A group of Jewish leaders told President Trump that he is no longer welcome in Pittsburgh until he denounces white nationalism following the shooting at a synagogue there over the weekend.

Eleven members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice penned a letter to Trump following the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue.

“Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted,” the group wrote. “You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.”

Hopefully the rest of the community in Pittsburgh take a similar position.

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

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A coven of witches in New York have cast a hex on Brett Kavanaugh, which is weird, but it appears that some of the flying monkey right wing crowd took it seriously enough that they sent the witches death threats.

No, this is not the Onion:

Melissa Madara was not surprised to receive death threats on Friday as her Brooklyn witchcraft store prepared to host a public hexing of newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh this weekend.

 The planned casting of an anti-Kavanaugh spell, one of the more striking instances of politically disgruntled Americans turning to the supernatural when frustrated by democracy, has drawn backlash from some Christian groups but support from like-minded witch covens.

 “It gives the people who are seeking agency a little bit of chance to have that back,” Madara said. The ritual was scheduled to be livestreamed on Facebook and Instagram at 8 p.m. EDT on Saturday (1200 GMT Sunday).

………

More than 15,000 people who have seen Catland Books promotions on Facebook have expressed interest in attending the event, vastly exceeding the shop’s 60-person capacity.

I honestly have no idea how people who do satire complete with this sh%$.