Cult of Fools Weekly (May 26, 2024) – “TRUMP: "DOJ authorized to kill me"” • Skeptical Science

On social media, and in a Tuesday fundraising email, Donald Trump claimed that the Department of Justice, was authorised to kill him …

This new bold lie is designed to stoke up anger and potential violence amongst his utterly delusional supporters.

Where exactly is this utterly bizarre claim coming from?

It relates to the execution of the search warrant by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago back to Aug 2022. The standard operational Policy for the FBI includes this guidance …

“Law enforcement officers and correctional officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”

It perhaps started via a recent court filing by Trump’s legal team, under a section titled “The Illegal Raid” (page 4 here), which misrepresented that standard policy as something explicit and unique to that order and also nefarious …

The Order contained a “Policy Statement” regarding “Use Of Deadly Force,” which stated, for example, “Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary . . . .”

From there, Trump then used his own court filing to promote the absurd claim.

It is standard boilerplate procedural stuff that is always read aloud to the FBI team prior to a search. You would think that someone who has served as president of the US and is also running for another term would have an understanding of how the FBI functions … but apparently not. Then again, I suspect he does know, and is deliberately twisting it all.

It is also a matter of public record that he faced exactly zero risk. At the time the FBI were very careful to conduct the raid when Trump was away. Not only that, but as has been previously reported, the FBI had worked with the Secret Service agents present to ensure a smooth operation.

As described by the FBI assistant director in charge, Steven D’Antuono, this is what actually happened …

“It wasn’t even a show of force, right, because we were all in agreement,” D’Antuono said. “We didn’t do a show of force, right. I was adamant about that, and that was something that we agreed on, right, the FBI agreed on, right. No raid jackets, no blazed FBI. We interact. We made sure we interacted with the Secret Service to make sure we could get into Mar-a-Lago with no issues. We’re not banging down any doors. We weren’t bringing any, like, FBI vehicles, everything that was reported about helicopters and a hundred people descending on, like a Die Hard movie, was completely untrue, right. That is not how we played it.”

What would have happened if Trump had actually turned up and then ordered his secret service detail to resist?

As is made clear within documentation, they had also thought that though …

if Trump were to appear, the Miami FBI executive manager and the on-scene coordinator “will be prepared to engage with FPOTUS [former president of the United States] and USSS [Secret Service] Security team.” In this context, “engage” means talk and coordinate. If the Secret Service agents on the ground were to resist, then the document directed that the discussion would be elevated to more senior officials, including “points of contact” that the FBI has with Secret Service through existing liaison relationships. (Two names are redacted.)

For a bit more context, try and wrap your head around this. Donald Trump, the GOP candidate for the 2024 election, is now claiming that President Biden was trying to assassinate him via the FBI’s “lethal force operational policy,” … yet at the exact same time …. his own lawyers are arguing before the US Supreme Court last April that the president has the right to assassinate his political rivals.

You know how this works. His cultish supporters will simultaneously embrace both.

This takes his usual lies to an entirely new level of batshit crazy. Given the fanaticism of his cult, such lies are also incredibly dangerous rhetoric.

Just to illustrate how utterly insane this all is, you also have this rather obvious insight from a former FBI officer…

Moving on, below you will once again find my usual selection of some of the other truly bizarre and extreme claims that have popped up during the last 7 days. As is my way, each is laced with my snarky commentary so that we can laugh at and mock the utter absurdity of it all.

With my usual hat tip to my various sources, let’s once again dive into this very murky pool of pure stupidity.

Christian Nationalism

Emerald Robinson proclaims that “America is a Christian nation” and “if this offends you, then you should find another nation.”

As is well known to everybody except Christian nationalists who prefer to promote fiction as fact, her claim is just one more lie. We all know, and so does she, that America is a nation that has people who hold lots of variations of religious belief and also non-belief, and has a system of government that officially endorses none and remains totally neutral. If that fact offends her, then she is right out of luck, because not being offended is not a human right.

During a religious-right forum last week, candidates running for chair of the Republican Party of Texas were asked to list their top three priorities. Mike Garcia said his main priority is putting God and prayer into public schools.

Any individual student within every school is, and always has been, free to pray or read the bible. What public schools don’t get to do is to impose a specific religious beliefs upon all students. Guys like Mike are never honest and tell you that turning schools into religious indoctrination camps is what they actually mean.
It is truly fascinating that conservatives are supposedly all about “parents choice” on education, but suddenly that “choice” goes flying out the window when it comes to forcing religion on kids.

Religious-right pollster George Barna claims that during the founding of this nation, “it appears that … a large share of Americans had a biblical worldview.”

His evidence for this claim, the actual data he uses to establish this as a “fact”, is … literally nothing at all.
It is probably true that large numbers did lean upon the bible, but what exactly does “biblical worldview” actually mean? Not only were the variations of belief quite different, but also what people use the bible to justify has radically altered, for example slavery. Meanwhile the government was then, and still is today, wholly secular.

Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau is leading an election-oriented “Courage Tour” in swing states designed to train Christians to “occupy territory now” in preparation for ruling with Jesus when he returns.

Here, let me fix that for you … “is leading an election-oriented “Courage Tour” in swing states designed to grift off gullible people” … there, that’s far more accurate now.

When former President Barack Obama celebrated the confirmation of the 200th federal judge nominated by President Joe Biden today by noting that “more than half are women and people of color,” Christian nationalist worship leader Sean Feucht responded by dismissing them as “DEI judges.”

Sean is apparently eager to ensure that we all know he is a racist.

Ben Zeisloft declares that “if anything in the Constitution is found to be at odds with the Bible, then the Constitution should be lawfully amended.”

The bible itself is a deeply confusing mess and is at odds with itself, so people tend to cherrypick the bits they like, ignore any contradictions, and discard the rest. Perhaps Ben needs to sort that out before suggesting aligning the Constitution with it.

The Cult of Trump

Texas state Sen. Phil King says that if President Joe Biden is reelected, this nation is “in for some very, very difficult times.” But if former President Donald Trump wins, King says “it’s a brave new world.”

The fact that he meant that as a compliment suggests that he never read the book. Even if he does not read, there was also the TV series back in ancient 2020
Then again, perhaps Mr King really does look upon dystopia and yearn to deploy it as a template for the US

Lance Wallnau (yes, him again) believes that future historians will date the beginning of the Third Great Awakening to when Christians prayed Donald Trump into office in 2016: “The only people that don’t agree with me are religious people and people that got devils.”

Wait … hang on a second … if those that don’t agree with him are the religious and also the non-religious, then who exactly is it that does agree with him? (it’s word play by a con man of course, as in “we are not religious, but instead are christian“, which fools absolutely nobody except his marks)
Actual historians who look back upon evangelical support for the pussy-grabbing orange messiah will not be using the word “awakening“. The actual words they will use are words that you can already guess. Lance most probably knows this, but he still needs to stroke their egos gently to ensure that they roll over and open up their wallets for him.
Meanwhile, it is generally recognised by religious historians that there have already been four Great Awakenings, so I have no idea why Lance thinks 2016 was a third. The term “Great Awakening” is also used by QAnon nutters to refer to a rising awareness of their nutty theories.

Reminder: Trump is Not a pastor …

Christian “Love”

Does Ben Zeisloft actually believe that this is a logical argument? “Men can be pastors. Men cannot be mothers. Women can be mothers. Women cannot be pastors.”

The one and only book he reads very clearly does not say that, but instead says “there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28)
Then again, why should we discourage him from saying stuff like this. We need far fewer religious people, and he is doing a fine job helping to ensure that.

Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon would like to see this nation … “reinstate blasphemy laws that defend Christ.”

Blasphemy is a deeply weird concept. From the viewpoint of every single belief, every other variation of belief is “blasphemy”, so unless you impose it for just one strand of belief, then you end up stoning literally everybody … for a “crime” is imaginary and has no actual victim.
The other rather glaring niggle is his use of the word “reinstate”. The US never ever has had a blasphemy law.
Well yes, this has just got to be a cue for this clip …

Supposedly “Pro-Life”

Fundamentalist Christian preacher John MacArthur says God “rescues” aborted fetuses.

Embrace such “Logic” and it becomes clear that not aborting them runs the risk of sending them to Hell, no?

Tony Perkins warns the GOP to stand firm in its opposition to reproductive choice: “To abandon it now, to adopt a platform that declares this issue of no national significance, that leaves the unborn completely exposed to dismemberment, cardiac injections, and poisoning in the womb, that sets the stage for a national policy of abortion on demand by a Democratic majority, would be a tragedy of historic proportions.”

As we all know, the “pro-life” crowd is also the pro-gun and pro-death penalty crowd, so I have no idea how they reconcile that.
In addition, the text supposedly written by the god they embrace explicitly describes this god slaughtering rather a lot of people on a biblical scale, so I have no idea how they reconcile that either.

Gaza

Rep. Glenn Grothman says the International Criminal Court has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of war crimes and crimes against humanity because the ICC is controlled by “anti-God countries.”

The ICC works with facts, Rep Glenn Grothman instead embraces religious rhetoric, the stuff that motivated both Hamas, and Netanyahu to embark upon campaigns of bloody indiscriminate slaughter.

Homophobia on Steroids

Robert Knight declares that “by redefining marriage to dispense with the universally recognized male-female union, the [progressive] movement has engineered a legal juggernaut that criminalizes common sense and Judeo-Christian morality.”

Getting married to the person you love does not in any way criminalise either “common sense” or “Judeo-Christian morality“
For guys such as Mr Knight, “common-sense” is so rare within his demographic that actually encountering it would be akin to finding somebody with a super power
Fact Check: Same sex marriage is not new, but instead has been around since ancient times.

Dave Daubenmire is boldly “supporting heterosexuality while it’s still legal.”

The raw stupidity of these people is truly jaw dropping stuff

Deeply Weird

Elijah Schaffer attempts to explain “why racism is actually good.”

For a guy who embraces a book that advises “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you“, the promotion of discrimination is not his smartest move.

White nationalist Lauren Witzke delivered a speech about “the slow fade, decades-long agenda that led to the crumbling of America’s foundation” to a gathering of pro-family activists in Russia.

Reminder: She is not just some fringe flat-earth believing nut, but instead was the officially selected GOP candidate for the senate back in 2020.

McConnell on Alito: We need to leave the Supreme Court alone.

Guy who broke the Supreme Court now wants everyone else to back off.

Mary Szoch of the Family Research Council digs deep to rationalize the organization’s opposition to IVF: “Pornography is an integral part of the IVF process … That’s not good for a marriage.”

But of course, everybody knows that IVF clinics are famous for all the porn there. That’s the only reason people go.
Reminder: The “Family Research Council” sounds like a warm friendly organization but is in reality a deeply homophobic evangelical hate group. Their dishonesty is also jaw-dropping – they claim to be a “church” for tax purposes, and that their office is a church meeting – simply to avoid having to submit 990 to the IRS.

Rafael Cruz, father of Sen. Ted Cruz, told Lance Wallnau that “we have a communist regime in the White House today”: “The Biden administration is a communist administration.”

Pastor Rafael Cruz is a subject matter “expert” on “communist regimes“, he has been banging this “they are communists” drum since Jimmy Carter was president. He went down that rabbit hole when he realised that Carter’s plan to get the rich to pay their fair share of taxes would impact his wealth. In other words his stance is not about politics at all, but rather greed and money.
For a bit of further context, Rafael Cruz is also a fanatical Christian Nationalist just like Lance Wallnau
With a dad like this, its just amazing that his son Ted Cruz turned out to be “normal”.

Ben Zeisloft says that birth control “may prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo” and therefore “should be banned”: “We need equal protection under the law for all humans, with no exceptions or compromise.”

We are literally going to a place where every single sperm will be considered sacred, and masturbation will be declared to be genocide and thus punishable by death.

Flags

Apparently Alito likes having fun with flags …

To be clear, it is not just about a flag. The loans, flights, and vacations, all point to the capture of SCOTUS by money interests allied to Christian Nationalist outfits that litigate various cases. It makes it clear that SCOTUS corruption is one the big issues in the 2024 election.

The False Profit$

Apparently, radical right-wing pastor Greg Locke is an “apostle” now.

It is in many ways akin to getting a couple of buddies to officially recognise you as a Jedi .. except here they all think it is real. But then again, “These Aren’t The Apostles You Were Looking For” is a thought that pops into mind
Apparently Locke’s wife is now also an apostle. She was once the church secretary but then Locke took a fancy to her, so he dumped his wife in 2018 and shacked up with her instead (He literally put his wife on a bus and sent her away) – Very Apostle like stuff. Oh and yes, this divorced apostle also preaches against divorce.

Johnny Enlow is telling people to pre-order his new book because doing so will “really help the body of Christ and help the Kingdom.”

Such a blatant bit of grifting … and yet there will of course still be people who will actually buy the book and think that by doing so they are helping god.

Ali Alexander Update

Hey, do you remember Ali Alexander, the guy who organised the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan 6 and then since then has been making lots of weird claims such as him being like Jesus, or that he is a time traveller, hence pops up in previous editions … well guess what … he made the news last week.

This update happened this past week: A police investigation into Ali Alexander over allegations he groomed underage boys now extends to Texas

Alexander used promises of advancement in the conservative movement to try and groom underage boys. Alexander is also accused of offering jobs to the boys, who were in the orbit of Nick Fuentes’ fascist America First movement, in exchange for send him sexual images and videos.

Seriously now, are you in any way surprised?