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Please also say out loud that EVEN *IF* Hegsth were completely sober, celibate and Jesus managed to fix all of his character flaws, even if he were a totally "nice guy", he is still COMPLETELY UNQUALIFIED to be SECDEF (or frankly anything other than a Fox talking head). He shouldn't be allowed within a half mile of the Pentagon he can stop campaigning the Senators for votes. Tell him it's over and to go home.

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Yep. Even if they put a breathalyzer on his key card to get into the office, he’d still have no business being there.

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"I added that unfortunately, too many of us, on a societal and on a personal level, often subconsciously carry the idea that Those People actually are the Moral Majority they claim to be. That their claim to that mantle is somehow valid."

THIS right here is why we have such a glaringly obvious double standard in media coverage of our political parties. Why "he can be lawless, she must be flawless." It's because of the baseline assumption that Republicans = white Christian patriarchy = assumed to be perfect in every way, and Democrats = minority non-religious matriarchy = assumed to be intrinsically flawed. That's why we're always back on heels trying to justify our right to a seat at the table.

This may seem off-topic but it is really the same thing ( and I've been thinking about it lately so I'm going to make the connection)... it's why women are held to.the impossible baseline standard of "never getting pregnant unless they want to be" when the actual baseline is "pregnant on average every other year, until dead at age 32 in childbirth or of exhaustion."

Honestly, it makes me want to scream.

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Not off topic at all.

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"And, frankly, the man I am today, because of my faith in my lord and savior Jesus Christ and my wife Jenny right here, I'm a different man than I was years ago." He added, “And that's a redemption story that I think a lot of Americans appreciate.”

Hahahahahaha, go fuck yourself.

This. This is why I started The Moral High Ground."

"(What? A conservative Christian brainwashed by a fan-fiction version of history that never happened? THE FUCK YOU SAY.)"

"...pretend we are attacking Christians when we criticize this poor, put-upon boy who looks like Pepé Le Pew had sex with the BP oil spill and made a love baby."

Please never ever stop writing this stuff! It brightens my day more than you could know! 😂😂😃😃

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Aside all of horrible things we know about Hegseth the human being, he also has no qualifications for the job.

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He could be the best guy ever, he’d still be unqualified

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Thank you thank you. You are saving my sanity. I grew up with this. In fact Pete and I were in the same Sunday school class at church during elementary school

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If he has rededicated himself to this, then he has rededicated himself to the nonsense that helped bring him to where he is today

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"In the very first post on this site, I wrote about the sick and insidious idea that still persists in our society that white conservative Christian people — despite all evidence to the contrary — somehow are holier or more moral than the rest of us. I wrote that the white conservative Christian men and the women who prop up their patriarchy, those who are subjecting the entire universe to their histrionic temper tantrums over their loss of cultural supremacy, “are absolutely, 100 percent certain that they have sole proprietorship over The Moral High Ground. They have God on their side, they will ultimately be victorious, on earth as it is in Heaven, give us this Trump our daily bread, etc.”"

They act like they're the only ones who know what's good and the rest of us should follow what they say because we obviously don't. *barf*

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The ‘Moral Majority’ was neither moral nor a majority.

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"long after Hegseth fucks off out of the airlock of national prominence." - This made me laugh out loud. Great essay.

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Thank-you Evan! The utter depravity of the Hegseth pick requires an analysis of the whole corrupt, criminal system (Fox. ‘Christian’ churches) propping up this POS.

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I’m Catholic. Though more fallen away, I remember enough that redemption requires atonement and “go and sin no more”. Has he stopped treating people badly? Has he apologized and atoned for all the hurt he’s caused? Is he indeed a “different person”? I’m going to say probably not.

How is it that macho men like Hegseth and Musk have moms who act like Marie Barone and they are OK WITH IT?

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James, the brother of Jesus, wrote that "faith without works is dead." Where are Hegseth's works proving that he's a changed, for the better, man? Has he helped anyone in need? I don't mean helping a "man" rape and/or beat his wife. I mean helping out at a soup kitchen, or an animal shelter, or just not being a dick to his wife. Evan, you are right that these fake Christians use their "faith" as a way to stop all discussion about how awful they are. Zacchaeus, that "wee little man," demonstrated his faith by repaying the money he stole, and giving half of his remaining wealth to the poor. In God's eyes, Zacchaeus is the big man, admitting his wrongdoing, making restitution, and helping the needy, but Hegseth isn't a real man at all - he's a monster.

Oh, and that thing about "God is with us" has it backwards - it should be "We are with God."

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the two candidates Trump is really willing to go to bat for are Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

We can guess who is being most insistent about Tulsi being in a major role

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I would call him a whited sepulchre, except that he isn't clean and shining on the outside - he proclaimed during the pandemic that he hadn't washed his hands in ten years. However, just as whited sepulchres, he is filled with dead men's bones, all all kinds of filth.

Not that my opinion would matter to him; I'm a woman, a liberal, and the Wrong Kind Of Christian.

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Don’t forget that their mothers are often among the women such men abuse, physically and sometimes sexually. Their mothers (along with their sisters) can be their longest-running victims, and with relatively little power to protest given family ties, obligations, and enforced silence. Consider it these men’s training.

The disparity between Hegseth’s mother’s blistering email of a few years back and the sheer extent of her current protestations on his behalf suggest that some extreme pressure was applied to her to “correct” her “mistake” - by Hegseth himself perhaps or by other family members. I’m not saying she’s blameless - somebody created this monster - but her 180-degree turnaround + her vehemence do suggest that she might also be a casualty of the thing she’s now seeking/forced to protect. I.e., the state of women under extreme white Christian nationalism in America.

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If you need to spend your time loudly announcing in multiple ways that you are a Christian and a patriot, you are neither. You believe that all your gross behavior will be forgiven if you accept the magical Jesus as your savior, so it doesn’t matter what you do on earth as long as you “believe”. That’s an extremely permissive and dangerous world you’re living in. And I respected his mom a lot more when she was telling him the truth rather than shilling for favors on his behalf.

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"this poor, put-upon boy who looks like Pepé Le Pew had sex with the BP oil spill and made a love baby."

Chef's fucking kiss, Evan.

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These soi-disant moral people use the word “Christian” like it’s some kind of get out of jail free MONOPOLY card, a magic spell that destroys and deflects any criticism of anything that they have ever done. An as you point out, it works too many times. Fuck that and fuck all those ppl and their apologists.

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An my typing sucks.

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