…not sure where on the godless heathen spectrum an agnostic lands these days
“clearly this person is stupid and dangerous, I will humor them and then report on what they do”
The Ghost of GK Chesterson: “is it Thursday already?”
…but…this is out of hand
exhausted historian of christianity screaming into the void, once again: christianity has never been apolitical. to wit: jesus was executed by the roman state.
articles like these begin with the assumption that christianity (and its leaders) are somehow removed from politics and/or culture. the only thing remarkable about leo’s beef with trump is NYT’s round of truly bad religion reporting.
Also: Don't they know that the Vatican is an actual nation state with the Pope as head of state and government? And that there were a multitude of church run states over the course of history?
think of it this way: popes don’t get “entangled with politics” so much as they are, and have always been, political actors.
this matters: we ascribe an “apolitical-ness” to christianity that we rarely ascribe to islam, for example.
…long story short
so where in sw florida are they gonna put the american antipope?
…clearly I bow to superior local knowledge…but…could we not?
naples has some real appeal because you know as soon as they finished building the church it would get absolutely obliterated by a cat 5
…well…could we not *more*
Didn't the Dominos dude build some Catholics-only town somewhere in Florida?UPDATE: Yup, he did. And WTF Government Type is a "Stewardship Community District"?en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_Mar…
…it’s all very well that they want to get the news to talk about something other than how they fucked it all up “over there”…but…picking another fight you were already losing all by yourself is like trying to stop people see you get kicked in the nuts by punching yourself in the face?
hey Vance, buddy, didn’t you explicitly DM @kevjg.bsky.social about his article on integralism, otherwise known as the doctrine where the Church would be all of US politics?
I do not believe Roberts is offended about Trump’s disrepect of the Pope. He’s aligned with Opus Dei. That group and the Pope are at odds. ( I doubt it. )
He, Greene, and other MAGA figures are shifting people away from Trump. They’re on the Vance train. They want him to be the next president.
Meet Bishop Robert Barron (shown w/ Heritage president Kevin Roberts in 2023). Today, he wrote that he thinks Trump “owes the Pope an apology”, while gushing that it’s “been a high honor to serve on [Trump’s] Religious Liberty Commission” from which Barron gave no indication of resigning. 1/
5/ If I recall correctly, Bishop Barron first landed on my radar in 2024 when he helped associates of Project 2025 in their crusade to cancel then Politico journalist Heidi Przybyla after her viral report on P2025 leader Russ Vought’s “Christian Nationalism” collaboration w/ William Wolfe.
“It's a shame that the Pope has made the Catholic Church political” is one of the most amazing sentences ever uttered by a politician. Elite stuff. Arguably the most wrong a person could be, including rejecting basic arithmetic.
i actually am beginning to think this pope stuff might break through because trump and vance just won’t shut the fuck up
vance in particular just won’t shut the fuck up
…or
The church spent ~1000 years outright ruling some of Europe, and playing literal king maker and consigliere for the rest, and, by extension, much of the rest of the world through colonialism.
There is no more political body in the history of the world than the Roman Catholic Church.
…go on ahead & declare yourselves the new knights templar
It was not that long ago that they decided that priests should not seek elected office.
And the US Catholic bishops allied with white segregationists in the 1970s to get abortions banned (and to hate on gay people).
If fact, the reason why Catholic priests are celibate is to prevent bishops from starting their own little monarchies with a built-in line of succession, creating an inheritable power base that could be used to challenge either the local monarch or Rome.
…or…say…georgia meloni…your otherwise reliable fellow traveller…in…the place that put the roman in catholic
More of this distancing again today, as Meloni brands Trump's words about the Pope as "unacceptable", adding that: "it is inevitable and right that the Head of the Catholic Church will ask for peace to prevail & condemn any kind of war"…
There are certain people who consider being able to take communion every week VERY seriously AND they love Trump. They believed the local Bishop would *never* deny them that so long as the Pope was from another country. With Leo they're suddenly not so sure, and it worries them greatly.
Leo's also smart enough to know this AND that it holds even more power the longer he doesn't do it. Until the time is right and he'll excommunicate someone. Not Vance; too unrelatable & easy to dismiss. It'll be some loudmouth right-wing asshole police chief of a large-ish city. Somebody like that.
…how many of them red caps stay on if it becomes an excommunicable offense…not saying chicago pope goes there…just…call it a thought exercise…because…he deleted the donnie-messiah heals jeffery epstein with a med bed just in time to greet the devil’s host as armageddon kicks off thing that was actually him looking like a doctor
The replacement of Jesus with Trump as the messianic figure in right wing American Christianity is predicated on plausible deniability, and Trump breaks this contract every time he explicitly acknowledges that he has taken the place of Christ in their worship.
…once someone told him it happened so he could say it hadn’t
it's going to be a long, slow, messy process, and it will take longer with the base than the griftersbut Trump is starting to acquire the loser stink even among his erstwhile allies, all of whom would like to come out the other side of this with their influence intact
…while it was still up to make him look dumb enough they took it down
It's telling that: a) he caught enough pushback from the religious right to delete something, which he almost never does b) those people have not used this influence to cross him on anything more substantive than a gross but fundamentally superficial aesthetic insult to their brand
…fucking *iran* dunked on this wide open net…although…there were some issues with autotranslate & they had to pull it & refine so it stopped seeming to call chicago pope a long dead king of france
My favorite part of going to the doctor is when he touches my forehead holding the glowing orb of light
…disappointed in the philosophers that I didn’t see anyone making jokes about the present king of france being bald while that was all working itself out
Donald Trump’s existence is a living testament to the impotence of every shadowy group people projected as some sort of Illuminati.
You can’t imagine the CIA runs shit, when Donald Trump is alive. You can’t imagine the Knights Templar as powerful when their response to threatening the Pope is a social media post. Masons, Bilderbergers, etc etc any edifice of secret power must fall in the face of this obvious buffoon.
The next time someone tries to tell you who’s “really” running things, ask why they didn’t stop Donald Trump.
…I mean…this is how you get stuck in the agnostic zone…there are entirely too many clear & obvious answers to that part…many not even disputed really…but…also that was a sound point you just made into a hill that…if you’re willing to die on…maybe don’t stand at the top of to provide a neat silhouette?
evangelicals eagerly, gleefully pretended not to see the myriad ways trump is the most heretical politician to hold american higher office in modern history so i don't think we should take their outrage as sincere now that they need a way out of his sinking coalition
It’s comforting for people to imagine there’s some hypercompetent secret power because the idea that everyone’s kind of just making shit up as they go along is disturbing.
Trump really revealed to me that I did think there was some kind of shadow force and that someone doing what he's done would just get got. The fact that he's still around clearly indicates I was wrong.
…ok…maybe…I’d have some sympathy I guess…but…even if it took that to get you to grasp that perverse incentives are real…& operative…& have been so for a very long time in whatever guise that arms race has reached when you show up…& that thought the past is prologue…these days we’re mostly about not doing the reading…*even then*
The stickers are returning, my cousin sent me this over the weekend. I think 2026 is gonna be a GOP bloodbath.
This post feeds the dangerous antisemitic conspiracy theory that Soros is pulling the strings behind anti-fascist movements.The reality is this: Viktor Orbán, an authoritarian antisemite, was voted out by a large majority of Hungarians. Musk knows exactly who he's activating when he invokes Soros.
tbf “it’s a shame the Pope has made the catholic church political” is a thing people been saying for 1800 years
…sometimes it takes a not-one to know some?
so within like 48 hrs they threatened the Pope and posted the leader as Jesus?
I had not foreseen maga vs the catholics as the next major front in their culture war, ngl
…I…dunno what to tell you, man…I read that book & I dunno as I’d call a lot of it “good”…much less hit the upper case on that billing…but…that can’t all be a surprise…not the way “jesus is a prophet in islam along with really a lot of that thing” is a surprise to some “faithful” who don’t let the co-option of loa or orisha as saints to simplify conversion by not having to suppress cultural festivities & whatnot…so…despite pretty much all of them at some point getting around to mentioning a need to get universal on the righteous path following…at some point the picking of a religious lane in the specifics of your personal church does somewhat become about who you’re pretty sure called that wrong…which is all the others…even the ones that ostensibly play for your team…it’s…complicated?
as a non Christian I am wildly impressed by how well they predicted Trump in the Know Your Antichrist section of the Bible
he’s literally obsessed with gold! It’s like a psy op to make you believe it’s actually prophecy
Being an ex-Evangelical under this regime feels like riding the bus with somebody whose stop you know, as they ignore you politely pointing at everything that should have tripped something in their brain that this is their stop.
Will I have to get this person’s stuff and walk them home? More at 11
It used to be your stop. You know it by heart. You hate that your brain still sends all the signals to get off here.
Meanwhile they’re calling you a blasphemer for saying that actually this has always been their stop and they’ve forgotten it.
Considering the OG Antichrist was Nero it makes perfect sense.
The beast from the earth could also have been Domitian or a combo of Nero and Domitian.
we need to write bibles for dumber people so they actually get the point
Somebody on here made a pretty good point that a LOT of self-proclaimed Christians have never read the Bible, just third-hand sources, and that many "Christian" preachers never refer to Bible verses, let alone quote them in proper context.
Which was once bluntly summed up to me as "You'll hear a lot about Leviticus has rules against homosexuality, but that's a book that goes on for literal pages about creeping on your cousin, weird how the youth pastor never brings THAT up."
…it takes an obvious photo op with a wait-I-know-you-from-somewhere to suggest that dropping tax on tips could pay for cancer treatment…which…seems to be the intended takeaway on an implied but very much not said basis…&…even then
The quote is: DoorDash Person“…no opinion on that.”T: you don’t I’ll be you do!DD: no, I’m here about…(slight pause)T: Pizza!DD: no tax on tips. – just laughable.
Was anyone supposed to think it was a real delivery? At one point, responding to a question, she says something like “I’m just here to talk about no tax on tips.”
Hassett: "Last night, I was in a restaurant and I asked every waiter, 'How much money did you make?' now that they're doing their taxes because of the no tax on tips. The lowest answer was $3,000 and the highest was $10,000. This is really an economy that can't be slowed down."
Tax accountant here…I’ve done exactly 3 tax returns this season (out of a few hundred) where the no tax on tips actually benefitted the taxpayer.I’ve done many returns with tips up to about $1K, which really has no booming consequential outcome on the tax return.
…come on people…we need to get our collective shit together…because this is
Sub-investment grade (aka "junk" or "high yield") debt as the canary in the coal mine for economic and financial impacts of tariff excess. Makes sense! HY spreads are typically a leading indicator.www.bloomberg.com/news/article…
Underappreciated aspect of vibescession is we're a nation of idiots who understand how nothing works and get extremely angry about itIf you asked people to explain the power grid, wireless communication, and internal combustion at a 101 level you'd get a sub 20% acceptable answer rate for all 3
Shorter path between "I don't care about figuring out what material conditions actually are, MY life is bad" and "I think electricity is magic" than people are willing to admit
This post brought to you by a conversation the other day on this topic where my interlocutor, who otherwise agreed with me on the general point, was blown away when I mentioned power on the grid is generated and consumed simultaneously and thus has to be directly managed 24/7
…it’s…I dunno…maybe it is by some definitions…but…it shouldn’t be controversial or elitist to suggest that the people responsible for important shit like the lights staying on & the water not being poisoned at the well & the toilets still flushing & there being food in the shops…since…that’s where that comes from…in the world way too many people live in…should be people who know *more* about how that stuff *actually works* than the median information-avoidant voter in bullshit saturated media hellscape…&…consider that to be…not just a virtue not a sin…but a baseline prerequisite of putting yourself forward for the fucking post…or are we gonna start having a vote after boarding for which passenger flies the fucking plane?
this is why there’s been mass revolt and opposition to data centers being built in communities. it is genuinely a health hazard to live this close to something emitting this much sound. these need to stop being built
…I know…it sounds like people bitching about windfarms being noisy…&…I haven’t been to all of them so maybe some are…but…I have walked places where there are those sorts of windmills…&…even in the next field over I couldn’t hear those…& that was someplace there wasn’t traffic to speak of so the ambient noises you could hear was breeze-in-the-hedgerow levels of “can still hear the birds”…anyway
But why?
Why does “AI” need to be “scaled”, DIA?
What do your agentic agents do?
Why has JWICS’ LLM saved only “100s” of hours? Is it unnecessary?
Are you scared of Emil Michael, is that it?
DIA stands up Digital Modernization Accelerator to scale AI
I am going to become the joker: "Iran said Monday that it could suspend uranium enrichment for up to five years — an offer the Trump administration rejected" www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04…
…must be working, though…there’s…five things, easy, off the top of my head…I’d have thought worth going on about at least this much that I haven’t even mentioned…& I failed to find half the examples I remember coming across for the stuff this is made up of…still…there are things that don’t suck
This is Rex. He found a missing child in 12 minutes on his first tracking mission. "He’s kind of a triple threat," his handler said. He's trained as a therapy dog, explosive detection canine, and missing person tracker. When the girl was safe, Rex shifted to comfort mode. 14/10 (IG: arapahoeso)
…there may even be things that don’t suck that aren’t wonderdogs…there’s also a bunch of god-awful calamity I would have called matters of urgent priority for most of my lifetime…that…are cast as ignore-able background noise…but…that’s probably why they say the thing about seeing some values of “U” next tuesday…so you can tell I swim upstream because when I say that about you lot I think of it as not implying offense…also…I don’t generally say it on a tuesday…so the “next” mostly gets dropped…&…you all make the CUT?
…I’m not really a representative of the metal shop…maybe way back when I did get shown how to weld but would have been illegally young to employ for anything & much less metal shop work…in a getting the led out to see where the thrash was born…but…despite the irksome way they hide the part where they’re sometimes playlists…they still play their way down the list without the ads so long as I don’t have to refresh the page…so…if you *were* in my shop today…guess it might sound a bit like this?
…fuck it…that’s time…so
…since I probably lack time to go again
…that’s maybe where this taps out?
…at least for the time being?
16 Comments
Every time they pull one of these appallingly stupid stunts, I’m amazed by how stupid they think the general public actually is.
Okay, I’m calling it now. The election in Hungary has freaked out every fascist in the world, including our own. We’re going to see snowballing rejections and denunciations of Trump as his faithful bootlickers quietly shift to the back of the line and then sneak off, attempting to salvage something from this goddamn mess they helped create, and hoping we won’t remember that they did help. Note right-wing Axios quietly sidling toward the nearest exit.
I never liked how fundies LOVE to use modern technology and medicine, but continue to deny the science behind it.
Same with the Peter Heils, Emol Sukm and their intellectual pet Curtis Yarvin among many of the tech brahs who want to destroy democracy and install autocrappy on everyone.
Our own Mini Trump PP just watched his wingnut vote collapse as the Libs get a majority gubbiment in parliament.
At least it means that whackadoo Marylin Gladu no longer becomes the potential deciding vote.
PP’s still being defiant and pointing to his vote total from the last election as if it justifies his existence. He can talk all he wants, but the further things go he gets more and more impotent.
If he wasn’t such a smary shit I might have some sympathy for him, but I don’t.
That Moira Donegan post is the whole ballgame: They absolutely see Trump as New Christ (Christ II Electric Boogaloo?) but he can’t say that out loud or else the whole thing falls apart, and all he wants to do is say it out loud every time he opens his mouth, intrusive thought-level desire paired with increasingly less brain filter.
I almost want to start a Truth Social and just post increasingly amazing Trump-as-Jesus memes because he will absolutely do this again soon.
I started to give it two weeks before we see another Messiah post, but probably closer to one, I suspect.
He’s increasingly desperate and his limited cognitive skills are being destroyed by his dementia. He started a freaking war to improve his approval ratings. He’s beefing with the entire Catholic Church. Yeah, the memes are going to be increasingly batshit.
I saw someone posting about the “Trump stink” and how it’s going to cling to everyone that’s part of this administration. JD is standing right behind the skunk. He’s already cooked, and that’s before Trump blames him for Iran and the Pope.
It’s even more pathetic because he already saw all this happen to Mike Pence.
I really do like the idea of Trump pushing for regime change at Vatican City and Marco Rubio sighing deeply and having to explain for the 19th time that it’s the worst possible idea.
Our local news yesterday had a “financial expert” on that was asked “who is to blame for all the high costs currently?” He blamed Mamdani, our new mayor Katie Wilson, Biden & maybe even Trump! WTF? I almost spit my coffee at the TV!
…I haven’t though I recall seeing myo mention fairly recently that the server was doing something aggravating that didn’t have an obvious cause or reason so it might either be whatever that headache was or a temporary transitive state thing because it’s getting straightened out
…either way with any luck it shouldn’t continue to be a problem if it’s that?
Every time they pull one of these appallingly stupid stunts, I’m amazed by how stupid they think the general public actually is.
Not lovin’ it: Trump’s latest McDonald’s stunt was a big miss
They aren’t that smart to begin with which makes it even more insulting.
Okay, I’m calling it now. The election in Hungary has freaked out every fascist in the world, including our own. We’re going to see snowballing rejections and denunciations of Trump as his faithful bootlickers quietly shift to the back of the line and then sneak off, attempting to salvage something from this goddamn mess they helped create, and hoping we won’t remember that they did help. Note right-wing Axios quietly sidling toward the nearest exit.
Trump’s incredible shrinking tent
I never liked how fundies LOVE to use modern technology and medicine, but continue to deny the science behind it.
Same with the Peter Heils, Emol Sukm and their intellectual pet Curtis Yarvin among many of the tech brahs who want to destroy democracy and install autocrappy on everyone.
Our own Mini Trump PP just watched his wingnut vote collapse as the Libs get a majority gubbiment in parliament.
At least it means that whackadoo Marylin Gladu no longer becomes the potential deciding vote.
PP’s still being defiant and pointing to his vote total from the last election as if it justifies his existence. He can talk all he wants, but the further things go he gets more and more impotent.
If he wasn’t such a smary shit I might have some sympathy for him, but I don’t.
That Moira Donegan post is the whole ballgame: They absolutely see Trump as New Christ (Christ II Electric Boogaloo?) but he can’t say that out loud or else the whole thing falls apart, and all he wants to do is say it out loud every time he opens his mouth, intrusive thought-level desire paired with increasingly less brain filter.
I almost want to start a Truth Social and just post increasingly amazing Trump-as-Jesus memes because he will absolutely do this again soon.
I started to give it two weeks before we see another Messiah post, but probably closer to one, I suspect.
He’s increasingly desperate and his limited cognitive skills are being destroyed by his dementia. He started a freaking war to improve his approval ratings. He’s beefing with the entire Catholic Church. Yeah, the memes are going to be increasingly batshit.
Sorry, but JD Vance is an empty power hungry suit like the Iron Man suit, but no man.
He literally has no convictions. And those idiots want to make him Preznit? No thanks.
I saw someone posting about the “Trump stink” and how it’s going to cling to everyone that’s part of this administration. JD is standing right behind the skunk. He’s already cooked, and that’s before Trump blames him for Iran and the Pope.
It’s even more pathetic because he already saw all this happen to Mike Pence.
I really do like the idea of Trump pushing for regime change at Vatican City and Marco Rubio sighing deeply and having to explain for the 19th time that it’s the worst possible idea.
Our local news yesterday had a “financial expert” on that was asked “who is to blame for all the high costs currently?” He blamed Mamdani, our new mayor Katie Wilson, Biden & maybe even Trump! WTF? I almost spit my coffee at the TV!
A new way to grift w/ the courts? Cool cool…
https://www.salon.com/2026/04/12/slap-in-the-face-trump-doj-plans-to-settle-predatory-lending-case-without-compensating-victims-partner/
Everything is fucked!
https://popular.info/p/coachella-performers-are-funding
I especially like #3!
https://deanobeidallah.substack.com/p/orbans-loss-in-hungary-gives-us-a
Anyone else having login issues? Works on phone but not on my PC.
…I haven’t though I recall seeing myo mention fairly recently that the server was doing something aggravating that didn’t have an obvious cause or reason so it might either be whatever that headache was or a temporary transitive state thing because it’s getting straightened out
…either way with any luck it shouldn’t continue to be a problem if it’s that?