Trump on Bible: The whole thing is good

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 0 Comment
I don't know why you have to Photoshop the sign in this perfectly good picture of Donald Trump buying a Guatemalan.

Someone photoshopped the sign in this perfectly good picture of Donald Trump buying a Guatemalan.

Now that Donald Trump is a Republican candidate for president, he has to lie about how often he reads the Bible. Last week, he told interviewers from the Bloomberg program With All Due Respect that it was his favorite book. They asked him to cite a favorite verse. Instead of just saying “Jesus wept” and staring at the hosts until they fell silent, he ad libbed:

Trump: I wouldn’t want to get into it, because to me that’s very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible, it’s very personal, so I don’t want to get into verses…The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.

Interviewer: Are you an Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy?

Trump: Uh, probably equal. I think it’s just an incredible…the whole Bible is an incredible…I joke, very much so, they always hold up The Art of the Deal, I say “my second favorite book of all time.”

It tells us something about our present politics that the man who called Mexicans drug dealers and rapists during his announcement speech won’t just say he doesn’t read the Bible. Video and close reading after the jump.

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Friday links! From each according to his abilities edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Rick Santorum donates another unit of language to internet culture.

Rick Santorum donates another unit of language to internet culture.

You think it’s his hand that makes this GIF funny, but it’s his facial expressions. Does Rick Santorum understand the awesome contributions he has made to internet culture? Letting us re-coin his name would have been plenty. But last night, he give us a meme we can use to belittle one another on MMA discussion boards for centuries. Richard John “Rick” Santorum walks the history of online discourse a god, remaking the terrain as he goes, yet he thinks he should settle for being president. Yeah, bro, our society needs your leadership skills. Today is Friday, and each of us contributes according to abilities he may not know he has. Won’t you take according to your needs with me?

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Ted Cruz uses machine gun to cook bacon, become president

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 1 Comment

“There are few things I enjoy more than, on weekends, cooking breakfast with the family,” Ted Cruz says at the outset of this video in which his family will not appear. “Of course, in Texas, we cook bacon a little differently than most people.” Then he wraps bacon around the barrel of a machine gun and fires it until the bacon cooks, sort of. Then, I presume, he rides a stallion through the window of the Oval Office and knocks Barack Obama out of his chair. We haven’t gotten to that part yet. But surely this guns-and-bacon viral video will clinch the presidency for Cruz, and eventually the Chinese will be our masters. Breakdown after the jump.

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Friday links! I can’t breathe edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Four NYPD officers kill Eric Garner on video.

Four NYPD officers kill Eric Garner on video.

The picture above shows Officer Daniel Pantaleo applying a rear naked choke to Staten Island man Eric Garner in the moments before Garner’s death. The NYPD forbids choke holds, because they can kill people when applied improperly. In the picture above, Pantaleo fails to get his elbow below Garner’s chin; instead of applying pressure to the carotid arteries, cutting off the blood supply to Garner’s brain, he presses against Garner’s throat, potentially damaging his trachea. But an autopsy found no injury to Garner’s windpipe. He died of cardiac arrest, which just happened to result from four officers using explicitly prohibited force to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. As you have certainly heard by now, none of those officers will be charged. A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo, who testified that he was merely trying to wrestle Garner to the ground. Today is Friday, and the police are above the law. Won’t you stagger beneath it with me?

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Friday links! Corporatocracy edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment

jammer5_corporate_us_flag

I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, but “Kleenex” is in the Mac OS spellchecker where “corporatocracy” is not. Postindustrial America is the land of the free, meaning that government has declined to struggle with multinational corporations for control of our lives. Multi-thousand dollar insurance that doesn’t cover doctor visits? Fine, as long as it keeps government out of health care. Refusal to regulate high-efficiency killing machines that the vast majority of Americans want controlled? Whatever you say, paid lobbyists of gun manufacturers. Today is Friday, and the wolves want to set you free from the shepherds. Won’t you bleat plaintively with me?

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