Well, folks, it’s over. And, given the situation, it couldn’t have come out better for us NeverTrump conservatives. God has been w-a-a-y more gracious to us than we deserved. (But ain’t that always so?)

Here’s what I thought the choice was:

Trump wins again with a minority of the popular vote and a squeaker in the Electoral College. The country goes up in flames—literally and metaphorically,

or

The Blue Tsunami washes over the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, making it almost impossible for Biden to resist the push to move toward the progressive left.

Of course I went with option #2, but don’t think that I wasn’t pretty leery about how things would go. One of the very, very few NeverTrumpers who said he’d love to see Trump out but the GOP to keep the Senate was David French. And even he said that he knew it was a total pipe dream.

Well, he was wrong. Or, rather, he was right.

Now I’m not at all pleased that the loathsome Lindsey Graham is keeping his seat. And I was so looking forward to the spectacle of Mitch McConnell’s being the Senate Minority Leader.

But we’ll take it.

Biden will have to work with Republicans to get anything at all done. I think MM and he are going to make some deals. They’re longtime friends, actually. So we won’t have Elizabeth Warren as Secretary of the Treasury or some other left-wing nuttery Cabinet picks.

Stephen Breyer will retire, and Merrick Garland will take his seat, thus restoring some kind of karmic balance to the universe.

And maybe Biden will surprise us all and run for a second term, thus sparing us for another four years from a Kamala Harris presidency. (Oh, Amy! How I wanted you to be VP!)

And I’m prouder than ever to be an American. We’ve weathered a terrible storm. I know there’s more to come, so don’t ever paint me as a sunny optimist. But when it came down to a decision point, enough good-hearted Americans looked at this despicable man who was a disgrace to his office and said, “I don’t think so.”

Donald Trump is OUT. O-U-T. At least part of our national nightmare is OVER.

This is another one of those self-indulgent posts in which I spend my (unpaid) time writing about a subject that other (paid) people handle much better than I can or do. But hey! Sometimes you just hafta express yourself!

I was inspired to write this post because of a video I watched by a man named Brandon Holthaus who is the pastor of a church out in California called Rock Harbor and who makes “prophecy update” videos about once a week. I had been told that he’d “thoroughly debunked” the whole QA hoo-ha, which seemed a little unlikely given the other nonsense he peddles, but I decided to check this particular video out. So I watched the first little bit. Hmmm, I thought, He seems to be on the right track. He said something I’ve said repeatedly, that a belief in conspiracy theory is actually a form of Gnosticism, the idea that there’s some “secret knowledge” out there that only the initiated, the worthy, can know. It’s a very seductive idea, which, if you think about it, goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Satan said to Eve, “In the day you eat of it you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” This school of thought is totally opposed to the message of the Gospel, which is “whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely.” C. S. Lewis says something somewhere about the Gospel’s being “as plain as bread and as clear as water.” In other words, the idea of secrecy and mysticism is satanic, not godly.

So far, so good. Then this pastor said that it was a mistake to think of Donald Trump as a savior, and that only Jesus could save us. Okay, great. Good to hear that, too. But I decided to go ahead and watch the segment specifically on QAnon. Just in case you’ve missed out on this idea (lucky you, if so—but your luck just ran out), the QA conspiracy—and I’m not making this up, I swear—says that there’s a worldwide cabal of globalists and elitists who, among other things, are pedophiles and child murderers, using the blood and other bodily fluids of the children to renew their youth—so cannibals as well. “Wait!” you may say, clutching your head, “Nobody actually believes this!” Well, folks, we have two QA believers running for Congress in the upcoming election, and one of them, Marjorie Taylor Greene, will probably win her seat since she’s running in Georgia, a heavily-Republican state. Nothin’ like a few cuckoos in Congress, I always say.

If you’re up on your history you’ll immediately see parallels between this theory and one circulated during the Middle Ages about the Jews kidnapping Christian children and drinking their blood. (Side note here: Any time you see the words “elitists” or “globalists” you know you’re dealing with ideas that have anti-Semitic roots. And yet many of the people who most loudly espouse their support of Israel buy into these theories. Holthaus has an Israeli flag displayed along with the American flag in the background of his video. Weird, huh?) And if you’re up on your iconic movies you’ll recognize “our precious bodily fluids” from Dr. Strangelove.

So what does Holthaus say specifically about QAnon? Does he really debunk it? Well, I’ll post the video below so you can judge for yourself, but here are some of his main ideas:

1. QAnon is the idea that there’s a globalist worldwide cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who control everything.
2. There are elements of truth in that. We know that the elites—politicians, the UN—are moving us toward a one-world government.
3. We know that lots of these people are pedophiles. Like whom? Well, Jeffrey Epstein, for one, he says. Look at the people around him—we know that there’s a lot of that going on. But—my insertion here–just as a matter of public record, the “people around” Jeffrey Epstein have included Donald Trump. (and Bill Clinton.)
4. A lot of these people are Satan worshipers. We’ve seen a lot of these people get involved in “spirit cooking,”* like John Podesta and Hillary Clinton.
5. George Soros is of course involved, with these politicians “doing his bidding.” “Yes,” Holthaus says, “that’s true.” (Poor old George! He gets blamed for just about everything!)
6. So, Holthaus says, all of the foregoing is true, or has truthful elements to it. He actually does believe that Podesta and Hillary Clinton have been involved in this whole thing. (Can anyone say “Pizzagate”?) He actually does believe that George Soros is pulling the strings. (Soros is Jewish, by the way.)
7. BUT—these QAnon people go too far when they say that Donald Trump is going to save the world from this Satanic worldwide conspiracy. That’s the part that they get wrong.

You see what’s been done here? In the name of debunking a ludicrous conspiracy theory, this man (and many others like him, believe me—Holthaus is a very tiny rivulet in a huge river of this bilge) actually supports great swathes of it. The whole thing is very cleverly done. As a sadly misled Christian, you can tell yourself, “Well, I haven’t been sucked into this nonsense! I don’t believe in Donald Trump as Savior of the world! I’m good! But I also know that Hillary Clinton is a Satan-worshipping blood-drinker!” It’s a way of having it both ways. The right hand giveth, and the left hand taketh away. It’s very insidious.

Man! What’s next—the Dark Ages?

*What’s “spirit cooking,” by the way? It’s a term used by a seriously weird artist named Marina Abramovic who does art installations that include “recipes” with ingredients such “13,000 grams of jealousy.” She’s a strange, strange woman—but that’s about as far as it goes. Podesta’s brother Tony apparently donated to a Kickstarter campaign of hers, and because of that connection John was also invited to a dinner at her house, which he didn’t attend.  That’s about it.

Here’s the video. If you’re interested specifically in the QAnon section, that begins at around 18:15:

This is a totally self-indulgent post, and I’m trying to limit my time spent on it to the minutes between now and our church’s noon prayer meeting. Here’s the snarky, juvenile, just plain dumb meme from, I wasn’t surprised at all to see, Laura Ingraham, or, as I like to call her, the Loathsome Laura.

First let me parse out what this great piece of wit and wisdom is trying to say: that the libs are saying that people should not have a choice about wearing masks, but that these same people say that people should have a choice about having an abortion, so they (that is, the libs) are being inconsistent. Pretty deep, huh?

Let’s break this down a little.

First there’s the implication that it’s only the dastardly Democrats who are saying that people should wear masks, thus making a stupid partisan issue out of what should be a sober, scientific public-health concern. So now if you wear a mask you’re somehow on the side of the pro-abortion crowd.

May I point out the obvious? THE PURPOSE OF WEARING A MASK IS TO PROTECT OTHER PEOPLE FROM YOUR GERMS. It is therefore an action that is supposed to save lives. So when you try to equate choosing to wear a mask with choosing to have an abortion, you’re completely undercutting the point you’re trying to make, because the two things have completely opposite ends in mind.

Hey, prove you’re a real lover of liberty, light up a cigarette, and go around blowing smoke in people’s faces! That’ll show ‘em!

I keep saying that I want my dear FB friends to search out and support good solid news sources, so here’s the first installment in my endeavors to share information along those lines. These articles will be short but helpful, I hope.

If I had to choose the absolute top conservative news outlet in the country right now I’d have to pick The Bulwark. It has a very interesting origin story and great writers. Let’s start with the origin:

During our time at Capitol Hill Baptist Church from 1999-2009 we were acquainted with a member named Claudia Winkler. I was vaguely aware that she was some sort of editor at some sort of newspaper called The Weekly Standard which was said to be conservative. As my interest in any type of news not contained in the Style section of The Washington Post or on National Public Radio was pretty minimal, I never investigated. Indeed, I didn’t do any reading online of any news sites. We actually got, like, a newspaper delivered every morning. I read the aforementioned style section and Jim read the front pages. That was pretty much it for me.

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