Today's reading from the only book Donald J. Trump claims to like more than The Art of the Deal

Mark 10:21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest; Goe thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poore, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the crosse & folow me.

22 And hee was sad at that saying, and went away grieved : for hee had great possessions.

23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the kingdom of God!

25 It is easier for a camel to goe throw the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

This is taken, of course, from the 1611 King James Version, known here at trueblueliberal.org as "The Real Bible For Real Christians."

Robert F. "Bob" McDonnell and his CBN University Thesis on the GOP and the Family

No one should be surprised that when you do a Google image search for "bland generic white guy" you get a page full of "Bob" McDonnell photos, should they? (And TBL readers don't need me to label this image as satire, do you?)

That, and the fact that he wrote the following in his 1989 thesis at Christian Broadcasting Network University (now Regent University) as a 34-year-old married man make it all the more surprising predictable that he is now in the process of throwing his wife under the bus to protect himself and whatever shreds may be left of his former political daydreams.

The family as an institution existed antecedent to civil government, and hence is not subject to being defined by it. It is in the law of Nature of the created Order that the Creator instituted marriage and family in Eden, where He ordained that "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." Family arises out of this divinely-created covenant of marriage between a man and woman, the terms of which can neither be originally set nor subsequently altered by the parties or the state.   --page 13 of "The Republican Party's Vision For the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade"

Another gem from the young Republican politician's CBN University thesis and wedge-issue playbook about the importance of paying lip service to marriage and the family.

 {NOTE: While the Google Image Search results may have been altered for satirical purposes, there actually was a university founded by Pat Robertson and named after his Christian Broadcasting Network in 1978. It changed its name to Regent University in 1989 when Bob McDonnell received his master's and law degrees from that institution of religious indoctrination. If you look at the first page of his thesis, you'll see that it was written at "CBN University", not Regent.}

The Last Nation on Earth to Be Lecturing About 21st-Century Invasion Ethics

"You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext." --US Secretary of State John Kerry on Face the Nation, 2 March 2014

To show that this was the official unironic talking point of the US State Department, here was his statement when he moved from CBS's Sunday talking heads show to NBC's.

"You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests.” --US Secretary of State John Kerry on Meet the Press, 2 March 2014

"You" don't.

Only we do.

The Quote of the Day about the double standards regarding religious extremists

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and I sent a letter to President Obama Friday, urging him to override the DoJ’s decision to try the Christmas Day Bomber in civilian court and designate him as an enemy combatant, so that he might still be interrogated in order to glean critical intelligence that might avert a future terrorist attack.

--Sen. John Cornyn
Texas GOP Vote blog, 24 January 2010

So if the Republican right-wing leadership and their teabagger shock troops were intellectually consistent in any way they'd want Scott Roeder waterboarded at Guantanamo to find other murderous Christianist terrorist cells, wouldn't they? I guess that, in certain world views, successfully shooting a doctor in a church is much less of a crime than unsuccessfully lighting your underpants on fire.

But there are many on the Right supporting the murderer of Dr. George Tiller during services at his Lutheran Church back in May. Just look at the comments on this Fox News article supporting Christianist extremism and murder. Even the judge is considering allowing the jury to consider a verdict of voluntary manslaughter if this admitted murderer can prove he held an "unreasonable but honest belief" that he had to use force to protect another. What if Islamist extremists were allowed to make the same argument in an open court? Imagine the volume of the squeals from Cornyn and the teabaggers.