• “I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Donald Trump promised as a candidate for president. “Every other Republican’s going to cut, and even if they wouldn’t, they don’t know what to do because they don’t know where the money is. I do.” As president, Trump is now attempting to cut $845 billion from Medicare and billions more from Medicaid. (Yes, I posted this item yesterday. It’s still true today, too, and needs to be repeated until this campaign promise gets as... Read more
If God is a monster, then we are damned. And vice versa. Plus: Rich people caught cheating at musical chairs; and the tawdriness of international espionage. Read more
If it wasn't a lie, then everything described above would be happening. None of it is. Why not? Because even the people telling this lie cannot manage to believe it. Read more
Tsion Ben-Judah is what the authors imagine to be an Honest Jew. Any Honest Jew, in their view, is one who rejects Judaism. The implication, of course, is that any Jewish person who fails to do this is a Dishonest Jew. Read more
The more "competitive" and "exclusive" and zero-sum education becomes, the more warped and warping that education becomes. If college education turns into a game of musical chairs, then that is all it can ever be. Read more
Check out the late Luke Perry in "Jeremiah" and you'll learn something about the End of the World that Tim LaHaye never came close to understanding. Also: Media bubbles and autocrats; U.S. Grant on white evangelicals; and news-adjacent theater. Read more
Harvest Bible Chapel is/was “one of the 50 largest churches in America.” That’s an impressive-sounding category until you stop to think about it. Take a moment, though, and you’ll realize that most of the familiar names on such a list are recognizable because of their notoriety. “Church growth” is a popular topic in religious publishing, but the list of “the 50 largest churches in America” seems to offer more cautionary tales than it does models that other congregations would want... Read more
The Not What It Looks Like plot twist is one of the oldest rom-com tricks in the book, but Jerry Jenkins botches the set-up, plays it backwards, and then drags it out for way too long (and then longer still) until we hate every character involved. Read more
If half of what Michael Cohen testified can be corroborated and proved, then Donald Trump is Spiro Agnew on steroids. Also: The affair is no longer "alleged;" Romans 13 deserves better readers; and Ken Starr is horrible. Read more
Hey, remember that time when white evangelical gatekeepers had a kangaroo-court "heresy trial" for a preacher who talked too much about the poor and the hungry? Also: "Small government" means unpaid homework; Pat Robertson can't keep up; and a happy benediction for a three-month church service. Read more
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