https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/election-deniers-still-try-their.html

Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva asks the DOJ to investigate illegal activity committed by the two Republican, election denying members of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors.

The two Republican supervisors were quite the election deniers. They refused to certify the vote count by the deadline, which is a violation of the law. Then, not trusting the vote counting machines, they ordered the county election supervisor to count the ballots by hand, something like 55,000 of them. That was also deemed illegal, so she refused, so the two supervisors sued her, costing the county more than a hundred thousand dollars in legal fees, and the elections supervisor who resigned. Following that, the two supervisors tried to roll the duties of the supervisor into the county recorder's office, currently held by another election denying Republican. That action is illegal as well, and so the Congressman who represents the district in which the county seat, Bisbee, is located, has asked the DOJ to get involved.

With counting ballots falling to county election supervisors, it is possible for politically motivated deniers to cause problems that would wind up disenfranchising voters who cast ballots for candidates they've targeted for defeat. Congressman Grijalva is claiming that Cochise County's supervisors have violated the law, particularly in rolling the duties of the county election supervisor into the job description of the county recorder, which is illegal. The duly elected and long-serving election supervisor in the county resigned, citing a hostile work environment when she was harassed by Crosby and Judd for not giving in to their orders to conduct an illegal hand count of the ballots. So the job now belongs to a partisan, Republican election denier.

If it didn't work for this election, they've set things up for down the road. And if something isn't done about all of this very illegal activity, it will change the course of electoral politics in Arizona.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/if-democratic-representatives-child-had.html

Let's just think of that possibility for a moment. What kind of holy horror would prompt the screams and shrieks and flapping of lips by Republicans if a Democrat with a "holier than thou" reputation had publicly attempted to justify their child's sin of fornication? They would already be appropriating funds for a full investigation of the incident, to see if this really was sexual abuse, given the ages involved, or worse, a case of covered-up rape.

It's not hard to imagine. Republicans have been apoplectic over Hunter Biden and his alleged laptop. In that case, they have nothing to shriek about, but that hasn't stopped them from trying to keep it in the news cycle or hint that there might be something incriminating, though they've been digging and searching for years, now, with no results. Hunter Biden is an adult, and the President has never worn his Catholic faith on his sleeve, or used it as a campaign slogan.

It's been incredibly disappointing to see individuals who claim to be conservative, Evangelical Christians, who are looking to be examples and leaders, not only as people of faith, but as political leaders, set aside the values of the Christian gospel, or demonstrate inexcusable ignorance of it, or try to change it, once they achieve their goal. It's been even more disappointing to see Evangelical Christians give them a pass on their immorality, greed and lack of integrity simply because they agree with a few political points, or can get them something politically in exchange for their support. That's an even worse apostasy.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/grumblers-malcontents-and-loud-mouthed.html

I can think of several, "loud mouthed boasters" among the maga cult.

A present day application of the New Testament book of Jude would be to consider the book a warning, in fairly harsh terms, against infiltration and perversion of the message of the gospel by what Paul references as "philosophy and empty deceit," and the "elemental spirits of this world," in his epistle to the Colossians, which bears some similarity to Jude's message. In that aspect of its interpretation, Jude is a Biblical warning to Christians in American churches of the infiltration of malcontents and loud-mouthed boasters who are leading Christians astray into alliances with extremist right wing political philosophies, mainly the MAGA cult of Trumpism, that are, indeed, bringing heresy right into the church's pulpits and rendering congregations apostate because they are, indeed, perverting the gospel message of Jesus Christ. And it is being done, as it was in Jude's day, by trusted leaders of the church who don't know any better.

There is no question that the MAGA cult has completely disrupted American politics, bringing, as Jude says, it is these scoffers, worldly people following their own passions who have caused division in government. They worked themselves up into a mob and attacked the Capitol with the intention of pulling off a coup against the American constitutional republic. And they are dividing the churches which they are infiltrating, setting their feet on the path to destructive heresy and declared apostasy.

The book of Jude is a warning against intruders in the church, bringing in false teaching and worldly influence when it comes to righteous living according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I can no longer read the book and not see images of what's going on in American politics today.

Or is the rescue money still paying for their incompetence?

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/white-evangelicals-and-catholics-turn.html

I've said it multiple times, and will say it again, glad to see that there are others who not only also see it, but dig in and find the facts to support their view and help those of us who struggle with it to understand it and remain completely committed to eradicating the evil from our churches. The dependence of white, conservative, Evangelical Christians on the political power of right wing extremism, including the worldly and secular Trumpism, and white, Christian nationalism, instead of reliance on the divine spirit of God produces a theological monstrosity."

The sharp decline of younger generation participation in Evangelical Christianity, and the decline of their church membership numbers means that they are not likely to "win" their culture war democratically. They don't understand that their ability to practice their religious beliefs is guaranteed by the constitution and that a religiously, racially, culturally diverse and pluralistic America is no threat to their freedom, though they don't get it that some of their more extreme ideology, which is not rooted in the Christian gospel, is what is helping drive members, especially younger ones, completely away from their churches.

So they are willing to support the politics of lying, character assassination, election denying, fraud, and the overturning of democracy to achieve their own ends and force their perspective on everyone else. Robert Jones says that is "mortgaging their future." I say that it is the destruction of the Christian church in America because they've let the enemy come in and are now dependent on his support.

but still nothing. Georgia, Manhattan, Jan 6.

News media upping their coverage of a Presidential election just under two years away. No mention of any consequences for crimes.

"Bible quote."

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/slavery-analogy-used-by-white-coach-to.html

Former Texas Tech men's basketball coach Mark Adams, who is white, told one of his players, who is black, that there is "always a master and a servant." Adams claimed he was quoting the Bible, no reference included, about "coaching and when you have a job and being coach able." Apparently, the word "slave" was used in the original conversation he had with the player.

"I said that in the Bible, Jesus talks about how we all have bosses and we all are servants," Adams said, in defense of his remark, for which he did not apologize. "I was quoting the Bible about that."

I can see where those who jumped up to defend him, mostly white, Southern Baptist complementarians, as Mark Wingfield, the author of the article in Baptist News Global called them, doing so because they have so sharply divided the world into their definition of "woke" when it comes to their culture war issues that they are blinded to any kind of sensitivity. Frankly, I don't see where the master-slave analogy really fits in a coaching situation, that's not how athletic coaching works. It's not a "master-servant" relationship, the players are not "servants" of a coach who acts as a master. But that's really beside the point. The use of the term, by a white man to a black man, was insensitive and inappropriate and the defense of it was insensitive and wrong.

Racism is still alive in this country, and it can still be found in places where it isn't expected.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/rally-participants-defy-desantis-dare.html

Wendell Griffen, an Arkansas Baptist pastor, news commentator, addressing the gathering in Tallahassee on March 9th, wore a "woke" button and dared Florida Governor Ron Desantis to apprehend him "for being politically and racially aware." He advocated that those gathered at the rally, and others who are opposed to the restrictions on personal liberty and conscience that Desantis is promoting "be a community of prophets."

"But teach as one," he said, "and correct, confront, organize, interact, defy, dissent, disrupt," he added.

He equated Desantis' anti-education measures with those of Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and called them "Confederate States of America thinking."

Elections have consequences, Democrats.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/will-someone-help-me-make-sense-of-this.html

Aren't you?

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/03/letter-writer-to-arizona-central.html

You'd think that asking a county employee to do something that was illegal, and then suing her when she refused to break the law, would be an easy call when it came to enforcing the law. On top of that, having to dig $30,000 out of county funds to pay legal fees because of their actions, and then refusing to obey their oath of office, and disobeying a direct court order to do something required by law would tend to add up.

If an "ordinary person" like most of us had committed that many violations of the law in, say, a traffic case, we'd be a month or so into our 90 day jail sentence by now and someone else would be sitting in our seat on the county board of supervisors. But these people are Republicans in a Republican county in a state that has only recently shown signs of a leftward shift. The "rule of law" doesn't apply to them, in their minds, it is OK to break the law in order to fix an election with an outcome they don't like. The law should only be applied here when Democrats do this, not Republicans. Or so goes their reasoning.

I hope the Arizona attorney general takes the letter writers suggestion, along with that of a whole host of angry residents of Cochise County, Arizona, and prosecutes these two supervisors to the full extent of the law.