The Self-Parody of Franklin Graham

 

I have a church history. I sat in a hard wooden pew three times a week from the age of 12 until I went off to college at 18 (and found perdition). I've been harangued as a hormonal teenager by a pastor who demanded I reject worldly ways and turn away from temptation. I've been told by another preacher of the Gospel that I was inviting the Devil into my life by watching TV. I've been electrified by an evangelist who told us, as Christians, that we had every right to demand God smite the wicked wicked world on our behalf, and that if we did not pray with muscle and sweat, we were insufficient in our faith. I've been elated -- transported into the bare rafters -- by a visiting Christian platform performer who embodied the bubbling smug champagne of knowing we're saved and most others are lost.

I freed myself of preachers. I turned to other idols. Great is the God Irony. 

Last Thursday, Reverend Franklin Graham posted on Facebook an hilarious self-parody of the preacherdom I left behind:

I do not believe President Trump would knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ — that would certainly be inappropriate. I’m thankful the President has made it very clear that this was not at all what he thought the AI-generated image was representing — he thought it was a doctor helping someone, and when he learned of the concerns, he immediately removed the post.

 

It's weak, limping around "that would certainly be inappropriate" with "I'm thankful the President has made it very clear yada yada" -- because, after all, Franklin Graham has been the main one to say that Trump is ordained by God and represents the living hand of Jesus Christ on earth. Which boxes the preacher in. "I do not believe Trump would depict himself as Jesus" is just plain bearing false witness. I chuckled as I read it. Pride goeth. 

 

The Holy Man Said

 

Most interesting sentence from this Christian nationalist: "I'm not telling you to vote for him...."

That's a crack. That's a small cloud the size of a man's hand, which could bring a flood. Pardon me while I remember the Bible verses of my youth:

1 Kings 18:44

The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’ ”

Ahab's on trial, and the Pharisees don't like it.

We Doubt Billy Graham's Extended Family Gets Together for Thanksgiving

 

Jerushah Duford, the granddaughter of Billy Graham and the niece of Franklin Graham, has come out strong for Joe Biden. In fact, her outspokenness, she explained, has been prompted by Uncle Franklin's slavish Trump-enabling.

The first sign of her split with Franklin actually came in late August in an op-ed she wrote for USA Today: “I have spent my entire life in the church, with every big decision guided by my faith. But now, I feel homeless. Like so many others, I feel disoriented as I watch the church I have always served turn their eyes away from everything it teaches .... Jesus said repeatedly to defend the poor and show kindness and compassion to those in need. Our president continues to perpetuate an us-versus-them narrative, yet almost all of our church leaders say nothing.”

Duford told Newsweek that Uncle Franklin's cheerleading for Trump “was a large reason for my speaking out.”

Just two days ago Duford was one of some 1,600 "faith leaders" who signed a letter endorsing Joe Biden for president. “Four years ago, many religious voters decided to look the other way and give Trump a chance, but after witnessing his cruelty and corruption, a growing number of them are turning away from the president,” said Doug Pagitt, executive director of the Christian campaign organization Vote Common Good, which compiled the endorsements.

Footnote: Jerushah is, of course, an Old Testament name. She was the daughter of a high priest in the reign of King David, married King Uzziah, and gave birth to King Jotham. I wouldn't mess with her, if I were you.

The Bankruptcy of the Republican Party

And you can add to that the complete moral and ethical bankruptcy of Franklin Graham and much of the evangelical movement.

Sen. Deanna Ballard Wants to Unleash Digital Billboards in North Carolina

The billboard industry in North Carolina has tried at least three times in recent years to get massive new power to override local laws and local governments and put their massive signs pretty much anywhere they want to. They're trying again this year with simultaneous bills in NC House (H645) and Senate (S534), "Revisions to Outdoor Advertising."

The industry's revisions (and have no second thoughts about who wrote or dictated the language of this bill) will allow more tree cutting around billboards, force taxpayers to pay billboard companies more to remove existing signs for public works projects, and allow billboards to be relocated from one part of a community to another even if local ordinances prohibit them. Worst of all, the bill will unleash a new scourge, digital billboards, the garish lighted eyesores the industry wants to replace their old billboards with.

Talk about distracted driving.

Sen. Deanna Ballard of Watauga is a secondary sponsor of the Senate bill. You gotta ask yourself, on those occasions when Sen. Ballard is pushing some new law, what's in it for Franklin Graham? Dunno. Why is unleashing the billboard industry -- to override existing municipal laws -- of such burning interest to Deanna Ballard?

Franklin Graham, Winking

In case you missed it -- as did I -- here's your chance to read Isaac J. Bailey (member of the Charlotte Observer Editorial Board), assessing the Christian witness of Franklin Graham (hattip JF):

Donald Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any support. It was, and remains, the most insulting thing anyone has said about Trump voters because it means they have no principles, no core. It didn't bother them that he said that about them.

I didn’t know then that Trump was referring to the Rev. Franklin Graham, who has become a parody of himself. I should have known, given that Graham decided to side with the man who wanted American missionaries who contracted Ebola in 2014 to be left to die in Liberia.

“The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back,” Trump tweeted. “People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!”

One of those missionaries was Kent Brantly, who said he had felt called by God to travel to West Africa. He went on behalf of Graham’s non-profit, Samaritan’s Purse. Fortunately, the Obama administration ignored Trump and brought Brantly home, saving his life.

Not even that level of callousness gave Graham pause about Trump. Graham assesses behavior, not on right or wrong, but political affiliation. That truth slowly began revealing itself during the 2016 presidential election cycle. It continued as Graham began embracing Trump no matter how many lies the president told and was recently cemented in an interview with The Associated Press.

For months, Trump denied knowing that his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to remain silent about an affair with Trump.

“I found the president to be truthful with me,” Graham said.

We “just have to give the man the benefit of the doubt,” he reasoned, despite Trump’s history of bragging about extra-marital conquests, his declaration that he needn’t repent for anything, his propensity to lie about issues consequential and not.

But all doubt was erased when Rudy Giuliani said Trump reimbursed Cohen for the money. Giuliani did that after consulting with Trump. They’ve since tried to muddy the waters with a partial reversal, but serious people should not believe them. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post have nailed down further confirmation of the scandal. Cohen had hundreds of thousands of dollars to use to keep such issues private and Trump knew about this for months, even as he and his press secretary repeatedly told the American public otherwise.

Still, Graham recently told the AP: “I think this thing with Stormy Daniels and so forth is nobody’s business. … I think when the country went after President Clinton, the Republicans, that was a great mistake that should never have happened.”

Graham led the charge against Clinton, declaring in the Wall Street Journal in 1998 that private conduct has public consequences.

“Clinton’s months-long extramarital sexual behavior in the Oval Office now concerns him and the rest of the world,” Graham wrote. “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?”

Graham says Trump’s affair happened before he was president. He cares not at all that Trump has been proven a pathological liar since he was sworn into office, telling a list of lies and misstatements that has surpassed 3,000, according to the Washington Post fact-checker.

This isn’t about political hypocrisy; it’s that Graham is teaching his flock that nothing really matters. He’s become a moral leader who no longer believes in morality.

That he and his most ardent supporters aren’t ashamed of what they’ve become in service of Trump is most shameful of all.

Sarah Palin Endorses Deanna Ballard in NC Senate District 45

"I don't know about you, but I've had it with establishment politicians," says Sarah Palin in an endorsement message posted on Sen. Deanna Ballard's website.

The establishment politician in question here is Shirley Randleman from Wilkes who was first elected from Senate District 30 in 2012 and has been reelected twice since then, before redistricting threw her into Ballard's Senate District 45.

I'm assuming that Ballard's mentor Franklin Graham arranged for the Palin endorsement. Because he thinks the failed governor of Alaska and the failed candidate for vice president will carry great weight with Republican voters in District 45. And perhaps she will.

Evangelical Christianity in Crisis Over Its Political Choices

Wow. Even before the first vote was cast in the Alabama Senate race on Tuesday, Mark Galli, the editor of Christianity Today, had written an editorial that evangelical support for Roy Moore (and Donald Trump too) had tarnished "Christianity's integrity" for at least a generation.

Galli is critical of liberal evangelicals too. (Yes, Dorothy! There are liberal evangelicals in this world, though they are infrequently featured on Fox and Friends.) Galli says that liberal Christians have been too quick to condemn all conservative Christians for the "conservative idolators of political power," that handful of media whores like Franklin Graham who get all the attention:

This is not to excuse some statements by conservative leaders that cannot be interpreted in any other way than as a slur against gays, Muslims, Mexicans, and others. Some conservatives are fearful beyond reason. Some conservatives clearly worship political power as much as they do Jesus Christ. But too often, we mistake the inarticulate groanings of certain foolish conservative leaders for the actual beliefs and behavior of the mass of evangelicals who vote for Donald Trump or Roy Moore.

Galli continues:

The problem with many Christian conservatives is this: They believe they can help the country become godly again by electing people whose godliness is seriously questioned by the very people they want to influence.

According to Laura Goodstein,

The bloc [of Christianity] that has marched under the banner of the “Moral Majority” and “values voters” has now been tagged as the most reliable base of support for both Mr. Moore and President Trump, two politicians who are known for fanning racial and religious prejudices and who stand accused of sexual harassment by numerous women .... White evangelicals across the country delivered 81 percent of their votes to Mr. Trump last year, according to exit poll data, and backed Mr. Moore in Alabama by the same proportion on Tuesday.

Evangelical slavishness for the likes of Donald Trump appears to be cracking a little. According to Goodstein, "There are young evangelicals who are disavowing their elders. There are Latino, Asian, black and Native American evangelicals who are outraged at white believers for allying with a president they regard as racist and hostile to immigrants."

A poll conducted from Nov. 29 to Dec. 4 by the Pew Research Center found that the president’s job approval among white evangelical Protestants had fallen to 61 percent, from 78 percent in February.

Are some evangelicals having their moment of light like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus? 

We Have Seen the Future, and It Is Chaos

We have barely entered the second week of the Rollerball President, and the spontaneous uprisings against him should sober up any man drunk on his own ego.

Decisive action. Decisive action aimed at pleasing a rabidly nationalistic base. That's what Trump-Bannon will deliver. Forget careful deliberation. Forget planning. Forget coalition-building. Just give Franklin Graham the Muslim ban he's been praying for.

Green card holders are legal permanent residents of these United States, but Trump's executive order banning foreigners applied to them. Then it didn't apply to them. Then it didn't really seem to matter, as green card holders were being detailed at dozens of airports, both foreign and domestic. It took until late yesterday for the Trump administration to issue another order declaring that green card holders were exempt.

And, congratulations, Trump-Bannon! You now have your first constitutional crisis, as various judges are studying whether you crossed the line.

The order bars entry to refugees from anywhere in the world for 120 days and from Syria indefinitely. That's just exactly how Trump feels about the promise carved into the base of the Statue of Liberty. The order blocks any visitors for 90 days from seven designated countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. (Majority Muslim countries where Trump does business were noticeably exempt.) The Department of Homeland Security initially said the order would bar green card holders from those seven countries from returning to the United States. Many were trapped in foreign airports, trying to get home.

Trump is now claiming it isn't a Muslim ban. Of course, everyone knows that's precisely what he promised during the campaign, in those exact words. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in an interview on Saturday that President Trump had previously asked him about legally implementing a "Muslim ban." Certainly, all the Franklin Grahams in this country understand it as a Muslim ban.

As do all the Muslims in the rest of the world, who are now targets of jihadi propaganda showing conclusively that the United States has a religious crusade underway. All of which makes every last one of us less safe.

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'

1. Our new governor Roy Cooper announced that he will file the paperwork tomorrow to expand Medicaid in North Carolina under the Affordable Care Act. As many as 650,000 working people who can’t get private insurance or otherwise make too much to get Medicaid could benefit, generating jobs, helping rural hospitals, and boosting the economy. GOP legislative leaders said Cooper would be violating state law if he went forward. Cooper replied that the 2013 NC General Assembly law banning Medicaid expansion intrudes upon a governor’s “core executive authority” to accept federal funds and look out for the public’s health.

2. Donald Trump has formed a united front with Julian Assange in claiming that the Russians did not hack emails in order to help get Trump elected president.

3. Yesterday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) called Julian Assange a “sycophant for Russia.”

4. Franklin Graham has converted to veganism.

5. After a contentious closed-door meeting between Republican senators and Vice President-elect Mike Pence over how and when to repeal Obamacare, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, “What we [Republican senators] own is the responsibility for getting something that can actually improve health care. That was the message that was coming across in the meeting today.”

6. People who live very near busy roads may be more susceptible to dementia.

The Word

So Trump's inauguration planners have announced that they'll have a half-dozen religious leaders speaking/praying at the swearing in, considerably more of those types than either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush featured at their inaugurations, because either (a) the Donald -- and the rest of us schnooks too, of course -- need extra lift this year or (b) the Donald knows carnivals and intends to give the masses what he thinks they want. Crackerjacks and cotton candy.

Among the clerics will be Franklin Graham because of course. Graham, you'll recall, came down from The Mount soon after the election and admitted that Vladimir Putin God had directly intervened to push Donald Trump into the White House.

(Still haven't reconciled ancient theology with the choice of a thrice-married, racist, misogynist sexual predator with a trophy wife, who brags about getting away with sexual assault, who cheated his workers, is notoriously stingy with charity, and who declared serial bankruptcy to get out of paying his bills. Who also bears false witness, constantly.)

Praise the Lord and fuggetaboutit!

What's Going On in Caldwell County?

Franklin Graham

News arriving from next door in Caldwell: Republican volunteers were apparently handing out sample ballots at Early Voting marked "Christian candidates" and some were overheard claiming that Democrats "support imposing Sharia law in North Carolina."

Deanna Ballard, Franklin Graham's assistant, was appointed to the NC Senate seat (Dist. 45) after Dan Soucek quit -- another Franklin Graham assistant. Deanna Ballard is now listed prominently on that slate of "Christian candidates." Ballard is running for reelection.

Her opponent, Caldwell County Democrat Art Sherwood, issued a statement: "I know the GOP does not hold exclusive ownership of Christianity, because it is my Christian faith that led to me to seek office – proudly as a Democrat .... Since when did lying become acceptable in the Bible?  With the vulgar Donald Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, claims by Republican poll workers that the GOP represents Christian values is laughable.”

Will the United States of America Survive This Election?

Donald J. Trump went full demagogue in his speech yesterday in West Palm Beach. If I don't win, he told the alternately booing and cheering crowd, it's because of a giant conspiracy "against YOU." I've heard Trump supporters on camera say they're going for their guns if Trump doesn't win. Trump has laid the groundwork for that kind of violence.

So has Franklin Graham. At a "Carolina Values Summit" and rally in Raleigh yesterday, the reporter there from The Independent experienced this:

...an old man wearing a cowboy hat lets me know who’s in charge.

He calls me a “fucking sodomite” and tells me he hopes I “burn in the fires of hell.”

But wait. I’m married, I tell him. To a woman. I have kids.

“Well, then, you’re a sodomite lover,” he snarls....

Fast-forward a few minutes. It gets personal.

I’m talking to a sweet-looking little old lady who is attending the rally with her forty-six-year-old son. When he heard my line of questioning, he grabbed his mother by the arm.

“Look at his nose,” he says. “He’s a fucking Jew-boy. Don’t waste your time with him.” (Technically, my dad is Jewish, but my mom isn’t, so, according to Jewish law, I’m not actually a Jew.)

I believe this is what the Trump fans mean when they scream their disdain for "political correctness." Yeah, we fully understand the pinch on your "freedom" to express your hatred for fellow Americans who don't attend your church.

Trump told them yesterday that if he doesn't win the election, then his politically incorrect followers have lost America forever. The whole shooting match will be over. Except for the shooting, of course.

When you've set the table for famine, what's left but cannibalism?

McCrory Gets Boone Book-Banner Confirmed for State Board of Education

What we need on the state Board of Education is an avid book-banner! We've said that for years, yet it took Governor Squishy to finally step up to the plate and appoint Todd Chasteen of Samaritan's Purse.

You'll be forgiven for failing to remember that Chasteen was a leading community force in trying to ban Isabel Allende's "House of the Spirits" from English honors classes early in 2014.

Chasteen's appointment sailed through the General Assembly today with only one dissenting vote.

Both Chasteen and Senator Deanna Ballard, who introduced him to the joint Senate-House meeting this morning, work for Franklin Graham.

According to Lindsay Wagner, Chasteen's wife Kim "runs a private Christian school in Boone called Grace Academy. And Chasteen is a proponent of home schooling, having served as a government instructor for High Country Christian Home Schoolers. Chasteen’s bio for HCCHS says he 'has a passion to help ground and prepare our students against an onslaught of liberal views that they may face in higher education, and to be able to convey the subject matter with academic freedom.' ”

Yep. Public education in North Carolina is in good hands now!

Primary Results

Some takeaways from yesterday's primary:

1. Ted Cruz outpolled Donald Trump in Watauga.

2. The total Democratic ballots cast yesterday in Watauga = 1,181 more individual ballots than the total Republican ballots case for all 13 presidential candidates (including "No Preference").

3. Bernie Sanders buried Hillary Clinton in Watauga. The interest in that race obviously explains # 2 above.

4. Incumbent NC House Rep. Jonathan Jordan easily beat challenger Lew Hendricks, which is too bad.

5. Second-time Democratic candidate Sue Counts easily beat challenger Ronnie Marsh.

6. Franklin Graham's tool Deanna Ballard edged the vastly more qualified Ken Boham in the Dist. 45 NC Senate Republican primary, 52.96% to 47.04%. Boham should have won it.

7. Former Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker won his Secretary of Labor primary and is well set up to take on and beat incumbent disgrace Cherie Berry, "the elevator lady."

8. Ron Elmer, the more qualified candidate in the Democratic primary for Treasurer, took Watauga County but lost the state to Dan Blue III, who can still win the general election on the strength of his name alone.

9. Linda Coleman won the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor. Watauga County went for  her opponent Holly Jones, a Buncombe County Commissioner.

The Mixed Message of Franklin Graham

Franklin Graham says he now hates the Republican Party as much as he hates the Democratic Party. That's a fib, of course, but he recently announced on Facebook that he was leaving the Republican Party over the Paul Ryan budget deal just passed in Congress and signed by the president.

But he's also just announced that he'll be leading a 50-state "Get Right With God" tour to rally conservative Christians to vote for ... for whom? "Godly leaders," Graham says. He won't exactly say who fits that bill for him. In fact, he was quoted as vowing to let no candidates of whatever stripe speak at his rallies. Let's take a wild stab at nailing this down and suggest that no Democrats need apply for "godly." His rallies are meant to favor certain Republicans ... those despised Republicans who so recently failed to live up to Franklin Graham's exacting standards.

May we now call Franklin Graham a "RIEBN" -- "Republican in Everything But Name"?

So very soon in Iowa, on the steps of the state capitol in Des Moines, Franklin Graham will invite all the good Christians to come rally for godly candidates just prior to attending caucus meetings in which everyone is supposed to vote for "Candidate To Be Named ... Never."

Good plan!

Franklin Graham Quits the Republican Party

Someone should send the Party a sympathy card.

Franklin Graham's snit-fit is all over the funding of Planned Parenthood, about which Graham reportedly got linguistically vivid on his Facebook page.

But what about Graham's local puppet, Republican Deanna Ballard, for whose benefit Sen. Dan Soucek engineered a fast one and withdrew from the race last week? Is Deanna Ballard now a political orphan? Is Franklin suggesting that he'll step back from that local race because the Republican Party disgusts him?

No. He's not saying that. The man's not a fool. He's a power broker, and he needs his person in the Senate in Raleigh.

Not a fool but consistently bent in strange directions. He praised the narcissistic tyrant Vladimir Putin (granted, he praised him for persecuting gays), and he says he really really likes the narcissistic Donald Trump. Does Franklin Graham know that Donald Trump was pro-choice all his life? Oh, he says now that he's pro-life, but Donald also says he reads the Bible and that all of it is his favorite. Trump is also pretty squishy about gay rights.

Maybe Donald Trump is a fool after all. He's certainly his own species of narcissist.

Franklin Graham's Hand-Picket Candidate Will Have a Primary

Ken Bohum

Surprise! Not every Republican is willing to bow down to what Franklin Graham wants in the way of a senator representing Dist. 45 in the NC General Assembly.

Deanna Ballard, a Samaritan's Purse employee beholden to Franklin Graham, filed for the Dan Soucek Senate seat minutes after Dan Soucek, a Samaritan's Purse employee beholden to Franklin Graham, withdrew from the race.

Nearly at the last minute yesterday, Ken Bohum, the long-time and now retiring president of Caldwell Community College, filed for the same seat and will trigger a Republican primary with Ballard on March 15.

We consider the Bohum candidacy a sign of two things: (1) Caldwell County, which contains around 40% of the primary voters in Dist. 45, intends to vie with Watauga County for the privilege of having a representative in the NC Senate.

(2) Soucek's sorry and downright disgraceful voting record on education gets a new comeuppance with Bohun's filing.

The "Franklin Graham Seat" in the NC General Assembly

Deanna Ballard

Sen. Dan Soucek was Franklin Graham's boy in the NC Senate. Soucek had a job with Samaritan's Purse and did Graham's bidding in Raleigh, including the introduction of the anti-gay marriage Amendment One (subsequently overturned in court).

Soucek pulled a fast one today, suddenly withdrawing from a reelection run. Within minutes of that announcement, Deanna Ballard, "Director of the Office of the President/CEO at Samaritan's Purse and Billy Graham Evangelistic Association," filed for the office. We know Franklin Graham will underwrite her campaign.

Why did Soucek file in the first place, when his replacement candidate was clearly lined up and ready for lift-off?

One good reason: To prevent Soucek's 2014 Republican primary opponent for the Senate seat, George Robinson of Caldwell County, from filing for the seat. Robinson had been appointed to a vacant seat in the NC House and had already filed to run for election. Now it's too late for him to mess up Franklin Graham's grand plan to keep a willing puppet in the NC Senate.

Too cute by half.

Thom Tillis Signs on to the Donald Trump/Franklin Graham Brand of Racist Poison

Yesterday afternoon in the U.S. Senate, Senator Patrick Leahy offered a "sense of the Senate" amendment to a nuclear terrorism bill being considered in the Judiciary Committee: “It is the sense of the Senate that the United States must not bar individuals from entering into the United States based on their religion, as such action would be contrary to the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded.”

All the Democrats and seven of the Republicans on the committee voted for the amendment, which after all just reasserts a founding principle of "no religious tests" in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution.

Sen. Ted Cruz voted against it, even though he wasn't present. Also voting against the amendment -- Thom Tillis, that towering monument of statesmanship which is crumbling like chalk under the pressure of un-American "Trumpism."

Tillis reads the polls, and although he has another five years before he faces the voters in North Carolina again, he evidently decided that he'd just go ahead and proclaim his far right credentials now to all those extreme elements in his own party who are currently gung-ho for Trump's brand of racism.

It was an easy call, probably. What North Carolina politician has ever gone wrong parroting the latest in racial fear?