The Boeskool

First They Came For The Talk Show Hosts…

Posted on September 18, 2025 by theboeskool

It’s a very short poem. You’ve probably read it, or seen it, or heard it before. It was written by a German pastor named Martin Niemöller in 1946. And it’s not so much a reflection on the atrocities committed by the nazi party in his country, as it is a condemnation of the COMPLICITY of the people—especially of people like clergy and intellectuals—who said nothing while they watched fascists get bolder & bolder with their silencing of groups they hated. Here is one of the English translations:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

This version is probably the one that most people in America are familiar with… It’s the version posted in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Funny story: The first stanza of the original version written by Niemöller says that they came for the COMMUNISTS first… But the in the middle of The Cold War, I guess American decision makers conveniently left out the bit about the evils of staying silent while they rounded up all those dirty commies. Anyway, if you want to see the poem in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, I’d go quickly… The way things are going, I doubt it’ll be up much longer.

Public enemies #1 and #2. Imagine sitting in the most powerful seat on the planet, and still being such an absolutely fragile, insecure man-baby that you can’t handle comedians making jokes about you.

Yesterday, a couple significant things happened in the trump administration’s goose-stepping march toward full-on fascism ( I say “full-on” fascism, because fascism is already here… it’s just a matter of whether or not there are any meaningful limits left in place to safeguard democracy & the constitution). One you almost certainly heard about by now: Jimmy Kimmel’s show was suspended indefinitely. The other was somewhat overshadowed by the Jimmy Kimmel news: trump’s declaration that he’s targeting the Antifa movement as a “terrorist organization.” I address this one briefly first…

For those who don’t know, Antifa is just a shortened way of saying “anti-fascist.” Little-known fact: The name “Antifa” was borrowed from the German Antifa movement that started in 1933, opposing what Hitler and the other fascists were trying to do before the nazi party came into power there. Most people in America (myself included) heard about Antifa for the first time after clashes with the violent white supremacist & neo-nazi groups at the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. To refresh your memory, after a white supremacist murdered nine Black people at a prayer meeting in Charleston, SC at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, many states were like, “Maybe we should take down some of these confederate monuments.” In Charlottesville, they decided to take down a Robert E. Lee statue, and white supremacists, neo-confederates, and many other trump supporters were not too happy about it. The Unite The Right rally was well-advertised, so a bunch of counter protestors showed up as well… Many of them clergy. Some more militant anti-fascist groups showed up as well, and some violence broke out, culminating with a 20 year old neo-nazi murdering Heather Heyer with his car and wounding many others. You may remember that this was the event of which trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

Antifa has no centralized structure or leadership. There is no chain of command. There is no central office. Antifa is simply a loose affiliation of people who think that fascism is a bad thing, and they’re against it. MANY people who call themselves “Antifa” rely on totally non-violent means of protests. Some do not. Some carry shields and weapons and look ready for battle. Cornel West was at the UTR rally & described anti-fascists forming a barrier that prevented their group of counter protesters from being “crushed like cockroaches“ by white supremacists. Imagine if there was a decentralized anti-racist movement called “Antira,” some people identifying as Antira occasionally had violent interactions at protests, and the president of the United States declared anti-racism groups as “terrorist.” In the same way, to “designate” the entire Antifa movement as a terrorist organization would be designating everyone who is anti-fascism as a terrorist. It’s lunacy. It’s another direct attack on free speech. And coincidentally, it comes on the same day as this corrupt, fascist administration quietly took down a report from a government study showing that THE VAST MAJORITY OF VIOLENCE in this nation comes from people on the political right rather than the Left. But really, this is just another day for the fascists in the White House. If being anti-fascist is a crime, y’all might as well lock me up.

On to Jimmy Kimmel… Here is what JD Vance, who once referred to donald trump as “America’s Hitler,” posted this morning:

Everyone please congratulate @marcorubio, the new host of ABC's late night show!
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 18, 2025

ABC claimed that parts of Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue about Charlie were “insensitive.” Below is a video of the commentary and joke that got him indefinitely suspended… Please watch it.

That’s it. That’s what got him pulled. I suppose this shouldn’t come as TOO much of a surprise to those of us who are paying attention. A mere two weeks ago, after celebrating the cancelling of Stephen Colbert’s top-rated late night talk show, trump posted, “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.“

But Jimmy Kimmel’s removal—much like Stephen Colbert’s—wasn’t just about a whiney orange man-baby silencing criticism when he gets his wittle feewings huwt. It is—as with most things—about money. You see, CBS’s parent company Paramount Global was attempting a merger with Skydance Media… And in order for something of that size to go through, they needed the approval of the trump’s hyper-loyal FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr. This is the reason CBS settled a lawsuit that legal scholars agreed was frivolous and bound to fail, paying trump $16 million for “deceptively editing” part of a Kamala Harris video. And many speculate that this is also why Stephen Colbert—a vocal trump critic who had the highest-rated nighttime talk show on television—had his show cancelled.

Jimmy Kimmel’s situation is very similar. Trump’s FFC Director Brendan Carr was upset about Kimmel’s opening monologue. A media company called “Nexstar” announced on Tuesday that it plans to acquire another media company called “Tegna.” You can read about it HERE. Basically, there are policies put in place to prevent companies from owning too many stations across the country, and those policies would prevent this merger from going through. But—WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT—Brendan Carr signaled that the FCC is open to changing the rules. In an interview with Benny Johnson, Carr said there could be “a path forward for suspension over this” and “urged other media companies and local broadcasters to ‘push back’ and stop airing the show.” Now, you probably won’t believe this giant coincidence, but shortly after this, Nexstar (who needs Carr’s approval for their acquisition to go through) announced that—because of Kimmel’s comments—their channels would stop airing Kimmel “for the foreseeable future.”

Sinclair (a notoriously right-wing leaning media company who ALSO has its sights set on acquiring Tegna) also said that they would stop airing Kimmel and wrote, “Regardless of ABC’s plans for the future of the program, Sinclair intends not to return Jimmy Kimmel Live! to our air until we are confident that appropriate steps have been taken to uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform.” Before returning Kimmel Live to its stations, Sinclair is demanding that Kimmel to apologize to Charlie Kirk’s family, make a meaningful personal contribution to Kirk’s “Turning Point USA” organization, and “uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform,” whatever that means. AND ALL OF THIS COINCIDENTALLY HAPPENED RIGHT AFTER BRANDEN CARR CALLED ON LOCAL CHANNELS TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST KIMMEL… AND BOTH OF THE MEDIA COMPANIES JUST *HAPPENED* TO NEED CARR’S APPROVAL FOR MERGERS. Anyway, this basically forced ABC’s hand in cancelling Kimmel. Can you believe what a giant coincidence this all was?!?

Listen—A few day ago on Fox & friends, Brian Killmeade suggested “involuntary lethal injection” for homeless people. If Jimmy Kimmel had said THAT instead of making fun of republican’s rush to use Charlie Kirk’s death for political points and poking fun of trump’s dementia-addled comments, he’d still have a job. It should also be pointed out that within a few days of Killmeade’s comments, there were two separate mass shootings at homeless encampments…

But this is the kind of stuff that happens when you appoint department secretaries who are more loyal to a person than they are to the law. This is how AUTHORITARIANISM happens.

Here is how far-right fascism and oligarchy fit together like a hand in a glove:

1) Far-Right fascists promise to lower taxes for the rich, but more importantly they promise to get rid of regulations that prevent the ultra rich/oligarchy class from unfairly using their wealth and influence to get even richer (while eliminating protections for the poor & working class).
2) The ultra rich use their billions to get those far-right fascists elected (thank you, Citizens United!).
3) In turn, far-right fascists promise to use the power of the government and the military to preserve the privilege of the oligarchy class, often corruptly taking payments and favors for policy decisions that protect their interests.
4) The far-right fascist provide “strongman” tactics to fight social upheaval and movements for equality & justice, while the State demands corporations use their considerable means of control (as billionaires buy up journalism outlets, media corporations, and all social media platforms) to use their powers for “national interests.”
5) In return, the oligarchs are given lucrative government contracts, even more extreme wealth, and approval for their mergers and acquisitions that further consolidate their power.
6) You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours… Rinse & repeat. Robert Reich writes about this rotten process RIGHT HERE.

And that is where we are in America right now. We are at the stage where being ANTI-FASCIST means you are a terrorist. And we are at the stage where the free speech of comedians on TV is being silenced because make fun of Dear Leader… Otherwise Dear Leader won’t approve your multi-billion-dollar merger. And the political right is reveling in their own hypocrisy. The party against cancel culture is celebrating it when people critical of trump are cancelled. But everyone know it was never about protecting “free speech.” It was only ever about protecting speech they liked. The party that wanted comedy to be legal again is celebrating when the government silences comedy they don’t like. It won’t be long until news stations are given a script, and if you don’t read it, you’ll be taken off the air. THAT’S where we are.

Where did all those “Don’t Tread On Me” people go? Where are all the republicans who were so worried about too much government control? And what worries me most is that this administration seems frighteningly unconcerned with how DEEPLY unpopular these actions are… Like they’re not worried about the backlash coming in the next election. Which has me thinking that they are not at ALL worried about being voted out. Perhaps trump (for once) wasn’t lying when he told christians they won’t have to vote after the 2024 election. I fear we may have seen the last free & fair election in this nation for quite some time. But who knows? Part of authoritarianism and fascism is the public’s perception that the people in power ACTUALLY HAVE THE AUTHORITY to do the unconstitutional things they are trying to do. And perhaps if we—the millions of us who see this nazi-level shit for what it is—refuse to believe that the corrupt dimwits in charge CAN do these things… Perhaps we decide to bravely stand together, flooding the streets, to KEEP them from doing these things before it’s too late.

So back to the poem… It’s pretty short. And we’re most of the way through it. How long do you think it will be before they come for you?

Thank you SO MUCH for reading. Once again, please let me know what you think in the comments. I also wanted to say an extra GIANT THANK YOU to a person who decided to support my work with a generous tip. I can’t say her name, because she is fearful of the repercussions of even LIKING something that could get her in trouble… But you know who you are, and THANK YOU! If you also value the stuff I write, the best way you can show that support is by sharing the post. If you REALLY like the stuff I write, you can help support me either by BECOMING A PATRON, or by LEAVING A TIP ON PAYPAL or by Venmoing me at chris-boeskool. Otherwise, you can follow me ON FACEBOOK or also ON BLUESKY. Stay strong and stay hopeful.

Posted in 2) Politics, 5) Not Quite Sure | Tagged Antifa, Brendan Carr, Brian Killmeade, Cancel Culture, Fascism, First They Came, Free Speech, history, Jimmy Kimmel, Kimmel Cancelled, Paramount, Politics, Skydance, Stephen Colbert | Leave a comment

Charlie Kirk Was A Christian

Posted on September 12, 2025 by theboeskool

People are calling him a “martyr.” Sorry—That’s just not true. If an author writes a book, goes on a book tour, and is killed at one of the events, that doesn’t make them a martyr for the cause of the book. Words have meanings. I write and say things that people disagree with all the time. If someone who doesn’t like my ideas decides to kill me, that doesn’t mean I’m a martyr… It means a violent person decide to kill me. My understanding of the definition of “martyr” is a person who voluntarily chooses death rather than renouncing their religious beliefs. That’s not how he died. Now, if someone gave Charlie a choice between death and denying Jesus, he refused, and he got killed because of it, THEN he’d be a martyr. Charlie Kirk was the victim of an American culture that puts weapons of war in the hands of little boys and tells them that emotions, empathy, and compassion make them feminine… And femininity is weakness… And weakness is bad. Yeah, even trump called him a martyr. But he was no martyr.

He WAS, however, a Christian.

In the storm of posts and opinions flooding social media, I have seen people site examples from the very long, very well-documented list of hateful, bigoted things Charlie Kirk said while he was alive… And they followed those examples with comments like, “There is nothing Christian about him.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but that’s just not true either. In fact, a case can be made that Charlie Kirk is EXACTLY what American christianity looks like.

More craziness. Not a martyr, but “True Modern Day American Christian” I can agree with… Full of hatred and bigotry, and dedicated to capitalism & white supremacy FAR more than being dedicated to Jesus Christ.

Imagine if a child endured horrific abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest… And that same child grew up holding resentment, distrust, and blame against the Catholic Church for the ways that abuse traumatized them… And THEN someone tried to explain to them that the abuser wasn’t a REAL Catholic. A REAL Catholic would never do something like that. That’s some “No true Scotsman”/appeal to purity bullshit, right there. It looks like this… Person A: “Christians are good!” Person B: “Here is a long list of hatred & harm done in the name of Jesus.” Person A: “Well, those people weren’t REAL Christians, because Christians are obviously good.”

It’s the same thing that happens when people call attention to the numerous examples of corruption, abuse, & injustice done by police, and people respond with some tired “one bad apple” defense. REAL cops would NEVER do a racism… Because they start with the axiom that “Police are good.” “Christians are good.” “America is good.” And when people’s foundational beliefs are challenged, their response is usually very heated.

There are MANY people out there who have come to understand that the white nationalist, patriarchal, authoritarian version of the christian church is horribly toxic and harmful. But they are still operating under the axiom that christianity is GOOD… Therefore, those people practicing & celebrating the white nationalist, patriarchal, authoritarian brand of christianity can’t be REAL christians… They can’t be TRUE christians… They can’t be GENUINE christians… Because christians are Good. So then the harm that people did & do in the name of christianity is filed under FAKE christianity. Well, that is neither fair nor honest.

Charlie Kirk was virulently anti-immigrant. And I hate to break this to you, but the majority of the white christian church in America is anti-immigrant. How many of all those people holding all the “Mass Deportations Now” signs at those trump rallies do you think identified as “christians?” Every one of them. So just because your consciousness has evolved to the point that you understand xenophobia to be “bad,” it doesn’t change the views of a SIGNIFICANT portion of the church. And yes, admittedly, a very strong case can be made that the Bible—front to back—calls people to welcome the immigrant, alien, & stranger and to treat those people as one of your own. But that doesn’t change the fact that a huge chunk of the church doesn’t read it that way… Or credits it to cultural differences… Or suddenly thinks that “context” is hugely important to take into consideration.

Charlie Kirk was a sexist, patriarchal misogynist. And he had plenty of biblical reason to back that position up. After hearing about her engagement, he told Taylor Swift to “reject feminism” and submit to her husband, saying that “a woman should have more kids than houses” and hoped that being married to Travis Kelce might “de-radicalize” her. He told an ambitious 14 year old girl who had dreams of being a journalist that she should go to collage for an “MRS degree,” and warned young women that if they focused on their career and didn’t get married by 30, they would “die alone.” To him, the worth of a woman was her ability to give a man children. I think it’s fair to say that the staying power in America of these ideas of what “good” femininity looks like can be directly credited to American christianity. Hell, rather that vote for an overly qualified, competent woman, 4 out of 5 American christians voted for a bigoted, orange, buffoonish gameshow host…

Charlie Kirk was a homophobic, trans-hating bigot. He called trans identity a “mental disease.” He championed himself as a proponent of a Biblical, “traditional” family—even though a traditional Biblical family often involved multiple wives and viewing wives & daughters as property (and all while supporting a thrice-married serial adulterer who paid a porn star for her silence and frequented the island of America’s most famous pedophile). He even called for “Nuremberg-style trials” (where people were sentenced to death for holocaust atrocities) for doctors who provide gender-affirming care.

Charlie Kirk was a white supremacist and a racist. He might not have described himself using those words (because he, like all of us, was raised & marinated in the axiom “Racism is Bad,” and no one likes to think of themselves as the bad guy), but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. The Bible and christianity were used to justify slavery, used to justify manifest destiny, used to justify the holocaust, used to justify white supremacy… Think of the world’s most horrific events—chances are good people used christianity to justify them. Racism is not an aberration of American christianity… It is a FEATURE.

Now… Does this mean that I believe that everyone who calls themselves a “christian” is necessarily xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, & racist? Of course not. Just as I would say that every American is xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, & racist. There are lovely, amazing, wonderful things being done by people who call themselves “christians,” just as there are lovely, amazing, wonderful things being done by Americans. But you don’t get to say that someone who does something horrible wasn’t a “REAL American.” Just like you don’t get to say someone who lived a life dedicated to xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and racism wasn’t a “REAL christian.”

I know what it’s like to deflect with “not a REAL christian,” because I did it for decades. And I’d like to genuinely apologize for all the times in the past that I excused & deflected the harmful actions of christians by explaining that they we just “FAKE christians.” I am certain that, in doing this, I furthered the harm that was done to people in the name of Jesus and the name of christianity. I still think there ARE fake christians… For example, I’d bet everything I have that donald trump believes zero percent of what the traditional christian faith affirms. I think he’s incapable of any love other than love for himself, money, & power, and he falsely uses the ruse of christianity as a device to acquire more money, power, & praise. Regardless, I am very sorry for any harm I have done in the past by attempting to “No True Scotsman” the harmful, destructive, traumatic things done in the name of Jesus.

There are over 40,000 different christian denominations in the world—each using nearly the same Bible, and EACH with significant enough theological differences to warrant a division in the church. There is not “one REAL Christian Church” anymore than there is one “REAL” kind of christian. You can try to make a litmus test all you’d like. You can take verses about “knowing Christians by how they love” or “knowing by a tree by its fruit” all you want. The hateful brand of christian will just tell you that the best way to love somebody is by telling them they’re going to burn in hell… Or by hitting & “disciplining” them like you’d discipline a pet dog… Or kicking them out of their house when they come out of the closet… Or by MAKING a woman submit like the Bible says to submit… Or by reestablishing a natural, “Biblical” hierarchical racial order. Jesus… There is not one kind of Christian. There are 40,000+ brands of christians, each with hundreds of sub-brands inside them.

I actually saw this on Facebook. It was posted by someone I used to go to church with. Phrases like “The truth sounds like hatred to those who hate the truth” can be used to cover up and excuse ALL KINDS of hatred.

Someone once said, “If it weren’t for christians, I’d be a christian.” And Mahatma Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” The fact remains that 81% of white evangelicals voted for a man whose xenophobia, sexism, bigotry, & racism is about as well-documented as things get. And Charlie Kirk is one of that brand. Sorry, but you don’t get say that Charlie Kirk wasn’t a REAL christian just because he did things that were REAL gross to you. Yes, he said many, many things that can rightly be called “hateful.” But the christians venerating him and calling him a hero right now do not do it DESPITE the giant list of the abusive, hateful, bigoted things he said while he was alive… They call him a hero BECAUSE OF the hateful things he said. Charlie Kirk was a christian… And that fact is why I no longer want anything to do with the christian church.

Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think in the comments. If you like the stuff I write, the best way you can show that support is by sharing the post. If you REALLY like the stuff I write, you can help support me either by BECOMING A PATRON, or by LEAVING A TIP ON PAYPAL or by Venmoing me at chris-boeskool. Otherwise, you can follow me ON FACEBOOK or also ON BLUESKY. One last thought here:

Posted in 1) Jesus, 2) Politics | Tagged Charlie Kirk, Charlie Kirk Shooter, Christianity, Faith, God, Jesus, Martyr, news, No True Scotsman, Racism, Sexism, The Bible | 2 Comments

Just Because I Don’t Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Death Doesn’t Mean I Have To Celebrate His Life.

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theboeskool

Do not let people tell you that these are your only choices. Because it’s just not true. No, Charlie Kirk was not a good person. And no, I don’t think he deserved to die.

You’ve almost certainly heard by now: Charlie Kirk was shot and killed yesterday. He was shot while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. Utah—coincidentally—is one of two states (along with West Virginia) that passed a “Campus Carry” law (2025’s Utah HB128) REQUIRING colleges to allow students to carry firearms while on campus and restricting colleges from putting policies in place that prohibit both open and concealed carry while at school. I heard about the shooting later in the day, and since then, I’ve spent many hours reading people’s thoughts on social media. The reactions are far-ranging: From painting him as some sort of hero or even a “martyr,” all the way to sarcastic calls for “Thoughts & Prayers.” Me? I’m not sure how to feel. I mostly feel sick to my stomach. But what I DON’T see is “celebration.” What I saw is nearly universal condemnation of this act of violence from leaders who opposed Charlie Kirk’s hateful ideology:

This is the furthest thing from celebration. This overwhelming condemnation. MOST of what I see is summed up in this Bluesky post:

I’d add to that a general category of “Pointing Out Hypocrisies and Inconsistencies” in the criticisms of peoples’ reactions—ESPECIALLY when using Charlie Kirk’s own words. Listen—if someone dies from a head injury sustained in a motorcycle accident, and then it turns out that same person spent their life calling motorcycle helmet laws “tyranny” and even had a popular podcast where they encourage people to fight against those tyrannical helmet laws… pointing out that fact is not “dancing on their grave.” If you claim to be the party of “Law & Order” but then you hand out presidential pardons to every January 6 insurrectionist who violently attacked police officers, drawing attention to that inconsistency is not an act of hatred. When talking about the three 9-year-old kids and three adults were killed by a shooter at The Covenant School here in Nashville, Charlie Kirk heartlessly said the following: “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” He said, “We cannot allow them to emotionally hijack the narrative.” So when someone post his words next to the news that he was killed by gun violence, it’s not celebration or schadenfreude. It’s just honesty… Honesty about what he stood for.

So what I’m saying is NOT that I support what happened to Charlie Kirk… I’m using his own words to point out that CHARLIE KIRK supported what happened to Charlie Kirk.

“HOW DARE YOU BE SO CRUEL! HE WAS A FATHER! HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT HIS KIDS?”

“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? HAVE YOU NO EMPATHY?!?

I can go all day. Charlie Kirk was awful. He was NOT a good person. What’s that? You don’t think we should speak ill of the dead? Charlie literally said that Martin Luther King, Jr. was “awful” and “not a good person.” Charlie was a sexist. When a 14 year old girl asked him a question about her wanting to be a political journalist, he actually suggested that she go to school for “an MRS degree.” Charlie was racist. He talked openly about how Black pilots make him nervous, saying, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.'” Charlie had a special place in his hateful heart for being both sexist and racist at the same time: He said that Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee are “affirmative action picks” and told them, “You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously. [without affirmative action] You had to steal a white person’s slot.”

He actually said that. This is the person for which the president of the United States is ordering flags at half mast. Sit with that for a moment…

People act like he was some paragon of nonviolence. No. He wasn’t. Not even close. Just because he was made famous by his “prove me wrong” debate style doesn’t mean he didn’t advocate for violence. He cheered as the US military extrajudicially killed 11 people on a boat from long range because they were suspected of smuggling drugs. He said to “bomb the cartels.” Of the nation with the most incarcerated people on the planet, he said, “We don’t have enough people in prison in America. We need a lot more prisoners.” When Nancy Pelosi’s husband was brutally attacked and his skull was fractured, Charlie Kirk called for a “patriot” to bail him out. And now we have Elon Musk tweeting to his 200 million followers, “The Left is the party of murder,” before we have any idea who committed this murder.

But this is fairly routine now. Does anyone remember hearing about David DePape, the crazy person who broke into the Pelosi’s home and tried to commit murder? He was a FAR-RIGHT QAnon crazy person, reposting the My Pillow guy’s stolen election conspiracies… The same conspiracies pushed by Charlie Kirk. David DePape railed in his blog against People of Color, women, LGBTQIA+, Muslims, immigrants… Any of this sound like anyone else we know? He was an anti-vaxxer and he ALSO thought George Floyd was a scumbag who died of a drug overdose. A month before the Pelosi attack, he wrote that any journalist who challenged Trump’s election fraud claims “should be dragged straight out into the street and shot.” And the shooter at trump’s Butler, PA rally was also part of the “violent radical left…” Right up until they found out he was a republican. People asked elon’s AI “GROK” about American political parties and violence, and if you’re still reading, the answer probably won’t surprise you…

And now donald trump has weighed in—with no evidence whatsoever—on who is to blame for Charlie Kirk’s death: It’s “the radical left.” The party of “LET’S NOT POLITICIZE A TRAGEDY” has weighed in and started pointing fingers with startling speed. Trump’s confidante Laura Loomer called for trump to “shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organization” and called the left a “national security threat.” This person with trump’s ear—without anything even resembling evidence—wrote, “They sent a trained sniper to assassinate Charlie Kirk while he was sitting next to a table of hats that said 47” and added “The Left are terrorists.” Later she alluded to calls for violent retribution, tweeting to her 1.7 million followers, “A message to the Left: Debate time is over. You ended it.” She added, “More people will be murdered if the Left isn’t crushed with the power of the state.” Stephen Miller’s wife said liberals “have blood on their hands” and Nancy Mace is blaming his death on democrats, saying “Democrats own this.” FoxNews’ Jesse Waters joined in and said, “Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate?”

It turns out republicans ARE capable of outrage over a shooting… It just had to be someone they cared about who got shot.

It’s very bewildering to watch as the people who throw their hands up at the steady drumbeat of school shootings in America, like “Well, there’s nothing we can do… I guess this is just part of the unfortunate reality of living in a country with more guns than people” are the SAME people who are so outraged that they’re wanting to start a civil war when that same gun violence touches one of their own. When kids are the victims of senseless gun violence, they’re the eggs that need to break when making a freedom omelette. When that same senseless gun violence ends the life of one of their heroes, IT HAD TO HAVE BEEN A TRAINED ASSASSIN! HIRED BY BARACK OBAMA!!!

I mean, I get that many people are upset—one of their ideological mouthpieces was murdered… But isn’t it weird how NONE of these folks had anywhere NEAR the same distain for “political violence” when a far-right trump-supporter Vance Boelter dressed up like a police officer and assassinated Minnesota democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman, killing her, her husband Mark, and their Golden Retriever rescue service dog Gilbert… Or when that same republican extremist also shot State Senator John Hoffman and his wife…. While carrying a list of other democrats to he wanted to kill. At least Utah Senator Mike Lee condemned those shootings, saying, “This murder was a cowardly act of violence, an attack on champions of freedom.” Just kidding. Those were some of his remarks on Charlie Kirk’s death… When the democratic lawmakers were shot he posted “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way” & tweeted what I ASSUME (I guess?) is an attempt at a joke, “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” referencing somehow Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. But in Mike Lee’s defense, he—like trump and Loomer and Charlie Kirk—is just a truly, truly horrible person.

True to form, trump recorded a consoling yet encouraging message to the people of the United States, telling them, “It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.” Just kidding again… Those were his comments to the people of Iowa just one day after a yet another school shooting took the life of a 6th grade student and wounded seven others on the first day of school. Technically, it was about 36 hours after the shooting. When he told them to “get over it” and “move forward,” that was the first things he had said on the shooting. To be fair, you can’t expect the guy to hold a press conference every time there is another school shooting in this country… He’d barely have any time to golf. Still, ANY comment is better than his non-existent comments on the assassination of Melissa Hortman. But within hours of the news of Charlie Kirk’s death, trump addressed the nation to calm rising tensions in an attempt to dissuade further violence. Just kidding a third time… He blamed the rise in political violence on the “radical left.”

So I’m definitely not happy about Charlie Kirk being killed. I’m not celebrating… I’m sad. My kids are sad. This murder makes us ALL less safe. It’s been less than 24 hours, we still have no idea who did it, and his death is already being used as a rallying cry for violence against people on the left. While I was doom-scrolling people’s thoughts, I was watching Django Unchained. And I was at the part of the movie where a runaway enslaved fighter was being ripped apart by dogs, and Calvin Candie comments, “Your boss looks a little green around the gills.” Django replies, “He just ain’t used to seein’ a man ripped apart by dogs is all.” Calvin says, “But you are used to it?” Django responds: “I’m just a little more used to Americans than he is.” And I started crying. Violence is like a national religion here… And gun deaths are like some twisted ritual. Here’s what my friend Kristen had to say… It felt right:

So while I don’t celebrate Charlie Kirk’s death, I don’t have to mourn the death of a terrible man either. Charlie Kirk was no hero. And if he is a martyr, he is only a martyr to a church so demented and warped by nationalism, bigotry, and white supremacy that if Jesus returned today, those church members would call ICE on him and have him thrown into one of our new concentration camps… A church so foreign to the Jesus I grew to love in my youth that I want nothing more to do with it. Here is one more take… I haven’t decided if I believe it or not yet:`

I’m not sure if I care. But I’m definitely not mourning. If I’m going to mourn anything, it’s the death of a part of me that believed a rational argument would be enough to change someone’s mind… The death of a part of me that DIDN’T enjoy watching the occasional nazi get punched in the face… The death of the part of me that still had faith in the christian church and christian leaders to speak to people in times like these and call our hearts & souls to something better. I mourn those deaths. I remember a time before the cult of trump infected so many minds. I remember a more compassionate me… A more nonviolent me… A more hopeful me… A BETTER me. I mourn THOSE losses. And I miss that time… But I will not miss Charlie Kirk.

This took a long time to write… I’m still working through some things. I wanted to thank all the calm, rational, loving voices in my life… In person and on social media. Thank you for the way your thoughts helped me work out my own. May we never lose hope, never lose our empathy, and never lose each other. If my writing or this blog matters to you, and you want to support me, you can do that either by BECOMING A PATRON, or by leaving a tip TIP ON PAYPAL or by Venmoing me at chris-boeskool. You can follow me ON FACEBOOK or ON BLUESKY. (Also, the words “Please care like this when it’s a third grade classroom” came from a meme I was sent that was created by AudreyLovesParis. Thank you for the simple truth of those words.)

Posted in 2) Politics, 5) Not Quite Sure | Tagged Assassination, Charlie Kirk, David DePape, Faith, Gun violence, Hypocrisy, Laura Loomer, Melissa Hortman, Mike Lee, news, Political Violence, Politics, Racism, Thoughts and Prayers | 3 Comments

Dear John MacArthur Fans: Thank God Hell Isn’t Real, Because That’s Where He’d Be

Posted on July 17, 2025 by theboeskool

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you who behave lawlessly.’” ~ Jesus

That passage is Matthew 7:21-23. Matthew 5 through 7 are commonly known as “The Sermon on the Mount,” and the above passage comes at the end of that sermon. If you grew up in the church, you’ve probably HEARD of the Sermon on the Mount before, but you might not be too familiar with what it actually says. It doesn’t get a whole lot of press in American christianity these days… The sort of christianity that claims to follow Jesus while voting for fascists and cheering for the building of concentration camps to round up all the immigrants and aliens who Jesus (as well as the entirety of the Bible) calls us to love. Sure, they’ll spend thousands of dollars on poverty tourism mission trips, but if those people come on THIS side of the border, they’d better plan on Alligator Alcatraz/Auschwitz. No, American christians are not very big fans of the red words in the Bible these days. They’ll fight tooth & nail to get those 10 Commandments put up in schools, but the actual words of Jesus in the Bible have become a little too “woke” for them.

The Sermon on the Mount starts with “The Beatitudes,” which are basically Jesus saying that the people the world looks down on are actually the ones who are BLESSED: The poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the spat-upon. The second half of Chapter 5 ends with the “You have HEARD that is was said… But *I* tell you” section. Murder? Don’t have a heart full go anger. Adultery? Cut out your lustful eyes if they cause you to sin (notice he didn’t tell women to change what they’re wearing). Turn the other cheek… Love your enemies… All the parts that no one in the Republican Party is trying to put up on the walls in public schools. Jesus is basically talking to people who are concerned with following Moses’ Law, but Jesus says “I am the fulfillment of that law” and instead tells them that it needs to be less about the letter of the law and more of an internal transformation.

Chapter 6 is Jesus talking about sincerity and a critique of the hypocrisy of outward acts of piety vs. inward righteousness. You know—all the stuff about not giving, fasting, and praying in public just to be seen…

Here we see Mike Johnson and the House republicans in a “Prayer Photo Shoot.” He and this room full of rich white people are seen here, I assume asking God for the strength to take away healthcare from the least of these, while also having the perseverance to cut programs that feed hungry kids.

Seriously, if you haven’t read Matthew 5-7 in a while you should. There’s some good stuff there… All of it starkly contrary in every way to the politics of evangelicals and “christian conservatives.” And I realize I’m probably losing the attention of some of you with all this Bible talk, but Chapter 7 talks about judging others, The Golden Rule, and right before the verses I shared at the beginning of this post, Jesus gives a warning about false teachers. Which leads us to the point of this post…

So if you haven’t heard yet, John MacArthur, the influential evangelical pastor of California’s Grace Community Church (quite possibly the most ironically named church in history), has died at age 86. A Facebook acquaintance of mine made a post that said “Praise God for Pastor John MacArthur’s life and devotion to the gospel of Jesus!” I responded with a comment similar to the title of this blog post, and the poster promptly deleted it… So I figured I’d write a short eulogy here.

John MacArthur died a hero to white, bearded theobros mired in reformed theology. He hated all of the things that they hate, and his longevity and financial success gave an air of legitimacy to their own theology of exclusion and supremacy. MANY of you probably have no idea who he was. You may have heard about him during the COVID pandemic when he made national news by suing the State of California for infringing his religious freedom by not letting him hold church services while a deadly & mysterious virus was killing people by the thousands each day. But here’s some things you may NOT know about him:

He was rabidly anti-social justice. He was the lead signer of an anti-social justice statement signed by about 4400 pastors and leaders (all men), and he described christians working for social justice as one of the most dangerous heresies the church faces. Never mind all that stuff Jesus said about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or caring for the sick. Sure, his message was good news to the poor, setting the captive free, and proclaiming freedom for the oppressed… But what does any of that nonsense have to do with “SOCIAL JUSTICE,” amirite??
He said Martin Luther King, Jr. was “not a christian at all.” He called him “a nonbeliever who misrepresented everything about Christ and the gospel.” This one doesn’t come as too much of a surprise to me. When MLK dreamt of a time when “every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together,” that probably doesn’t sound great to someone like John MacArthur, who enjoys and has grown accustomed to the view from one of his three multi-million dollar mansions.
He said that slavery is not immoral. And yeah, this one kind of follows naturally from the one above. But you read that right. He was quoted as saying, “Slavery is not immoral. God allowed it. Slavery is not a sin.” He said he thinks “It’s strange that we have such an aversion to slavery, because historically there have been abuses.” He rationalizes that statement by saying, “There have been abuses in marriage, and we don’t have an aversion to marriage.” So gross.
He denies the reality of mental illness. In interviews, he said that there is “no such thing” as PTSD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or ADHD. That stuff is just SIN, y’all. And all those medications for those mental illnesses just work to turn kids into criminals and drug addicts. And to be fair, he said this when he was in his 80’s, but his followers defend him. Beth Moore (whose ministry he invalidated because she is a woman) is much more gracious than I am capable of being. She said, “I’ve had several very serious conversations with my daughters and my board concerning my public voice in my aging when filters naturally thin and we’re at greater risk of saying more than we should. Please love and respect him enough to sift what should and shouldn’t be publicized.” Basically, John MacArthur thought that prayer, church pressure, and “biblical counseling” were the answer to every problem. Rachel Klinger Cain talks about this rotten fruit here…

@iblamebill
Replying to @Rachel Klinger Cain Watched the connected video for more. #johnmacarthur
♬ 5 Minutes of Silence – Silenzio

He was a giant hypocrite. He told other pastors not to speak at conferences that had women speakers… even though he did that himself. He also disqualified other leaders in the church based on the behavior of their children, even though his own son was found guilty of defrauding clients in a $16 million investment scheme and forced to pay $367,000 in penalties to the SEC.
He believed that “empowering women makes weak men.“ Yeah, I know there are plenty of complementarian pastors running around, but it doesn’t make it any less gross. When MacArthur was on a panel and asked about pastor Beth Moore (the same Beth Moore who offered him grace after his disgusting and false comments about mental illness), his response to hearing her name was two words: “Go home.” He preached that “Women are to maintain submission to men in all churches in all times” and that “Women pastors and women preachers are the most obvious evidence of churches rebelling against the Bible.” Just writing these words is like taking a time machine to an era when I am throwing up in my mouth all the time…
He excommunicated a mother for refusing to take back her abusive husband. Read those words again. The woman, Eileen Gray, had filed for a separation and a protective order because her husband was physically abusive to her. She later found out that he was also sexually abusing their children. She reported the abuse to elders at GCC. The abuser, David Gray, taught Bible and music at MacArthur’s Grace Community Church. John MacArthur ordered the church to publicly shame her and disfellowship. The associate pastor told Eileen that she should model how to “suffer for Jesus” by staying with the man who was kicking the shit out of her and her kids. That same man, by the way, is currently serving a sentence of 21 years to life in a California prison for aggravated child molestation, corporal injury to a child, and child abuse. You can read the whole tragic, infuriating story (and even see video of his shaming her from the pulpit) HERE.
And OF COURSE he supported donald trump. On a phone call with trump, he told him that “any real, true believer is going to be on your side in this election.” I mean, duh, right? Was there ever any doubt that a man who demonizes calls for social justice, vilifies Martin Luther King, Jr., justifies slavery, denies science, practices hypocrisy, fights against women’s rights, protects abusive men, and was seemingly devoid of compassion and just consistently wrong on every issue was going to throw his support behind a monster like trump? (Of course JM is also hugely anti-LGBTQIA+ as well. It goes without saying that someone whose bad theology and level of consciousness don’t allow him to see something as established as racial injustice or the evil of misogyny is ALSO going to treat marriage equality and LGBTQIA+ rights as some sort of demonic plot).

And right now, some of you might be thinking about saying to me, “What about ‘Judge not, lest YE be judged?’ Aren’t YOU judging John MacArthur right now??” Yes. I am. I’m judging him. I think it’s right and good to draw attention to people in power—especially people with large platforms—who preach hatred… Who practice hypocrisy… Who—with their words and their actions—do HARM. And I’m not trying to compare myself to Jesus here, but if we’re supposed to follow his example, Jesus saves his harshest critiques for church leaders who SHOULD know better.

I mean, who knows? Maybe John MacArthur is a victim too? Maybe he’s a VICTIM of the sort of harmful theology that refuses to acknowledge any sort of progress in the Bible… the sort of theology that has to believe that if someone living in an incredibly misogynistic, barbaric time wrote the words “Women shouldn’t be leaders” in a letter, and then a group of men 300 years later decided to include that letter in the Biblical canon, then we HAVE to believe that those words are true and commanded of us for all time… otherwise the Bible means nothing! I mean, his dad was a preacher too. We have no idea the kind of trauma he lived through… then to be told that PTSD is just sin and disobedience, prayer is the only antidote, and if you disagree, you are going to burn in hell forever?!? Yikes! I can see how something like that could totally turn you into a giant ass and a flaming theological turd in a paper bag on the doorstep of the christian church. Now kind of feel bad for him and his family.

Nah, I can’t feel THAT bad for them… At least his family is inheriting all that cash from all those expensive, leather-bound Bibles he sold with his name on them.

I don’t know. I didn’t know the guy. I’m sure—like all of us—he had some good things and some bad things. He was a good speaker. For a preacher who became a multi-millionaire, he seemed critical of the Prosperity Gospel, so I guess that’s something? He was certainly passionate… but then, so were nearly all of the world’s villains. I have done a LOT of research for this post, and watched hours and hours of videos, and the more I learn, the worse he seems. They called him “A lion of the pulpit.” I could see them engraving those words on his headstone. But if I was in charge of carving the words, the epitaph would read, “Here lies John MacArthur. He embodied nearly everything that is wrong with the church.” I just keep thinking about him saying those words: “EMPOWERING WOMEN MAKES WEAK MEN.” Jesus. These are the words of a man who is just so profoundly broken. And scared. And pathetic. And very ironically… So weak.

I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but the world is a better place without his hateful preaching in it. One of the reasons they say we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead is because they can’t defend themselves… But that didn’t stop MacArthur from attacking Martin Luther King, Jr. a few years ago. MacArthur himself said (when he called The Gospel Coalition “woke” for honoring MLK and my eyes rolled back so far my retinas detached) that “You don’t honor a non-believer who misrepresented Christ and everything about the gospel.” John MacArthur’s legacy is one of abuse, hatred, and harm…May his legacy die with him. He’s the kind of person who reads a Bible verse that says, “you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you,” and he feels compelled to believe that being hated by the world somehow proves he is loved by God. But all it really proves is that he was wrong about so much and cruel to so many. He was the worst kind of christian: That brand of christian whose monstrous, untrustworthy, compassionless theology proclaims and professes an equally monstrous, untrustworthy, and compassionless god. And what’s worse, his preaching skills and large following allowed his perverse theology to do more harm than most. You’d be hard-pressed to come up with a name of someone who’s done more to harm American Christianity than John MacArthur. Sure, trump has done huge amounts of harm to the church in America… But hateful preachers like MacArthur are the reason a trump presidency was ever even possible.

Perhaps he just didn’t possess the intelligence or imagination to free himself from the trappings of unchallenged reformed theology. Think about it: Jesus shows up and tells the Jewish leadership that their sacrifices, rituals, and rule-following are not what God cares about… telling them “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” The Bible describes our safety & salvation as something God gives freely to us, rather than something we earn… Paul says it’s “so that no one can boast.” But the worst parts of Reformed theology turn that free gift into something they must gate-keep with everything they have. Where the old dysfunctional religion thought their right actions & sacrifices are what justify them before God, the new dysfunctional religion have replaced those idols with the idea that it’s their right theology & beliefs that justify them before God. But the Spirit of Jesus still is desperately seeking MERCY. It tells us that the best way to love God is to love our neighbor. And it cries out: “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” Spending 50+ years in ministry and missing something this central? What a tragedy… If hell was real, that kind of thing would make a person a real good candidate for a face-full of “Depart from me, I never knew you.” Thank God it’s not. I like to think that right now, God is explaining to John MacArthur all of the many places he got it so wrong over his many years… All of the people he hurt… All of the times he “did not do it to one of the least of these.” And maybe John responds with profound regret and a genuine and anguished apology. That sounds WAY better than a lake of fire. One can hope…

What a weird post. It’s been a while since I’ve written something like this. There’s such a big part of me that wants nothing to do with Christianity anymore… but there’s another part of me that feels like so many of this country’s problems could be solved by correcting people’s harmful, broken, bad theology. This one took a lot out of me. But I was also so energized by a new supporter on PATREON. Her name is Stacy, and she has generously decided to support this blog and my writing by becoming a patron. Thank you, Stacy! Thank you also for the good reporting of Julie Roys and The Roys Report. And thank you to the brilliant Rachel Klinger Cain for what she does. You can follow her on TikTok HERE. If you’d like to support what I do here, you can do that ON PATREON, by leaving a tip ON PAYPAL or by Venmoing me at chris-boeskool, or you can follow the things I post on Bluesky or on this blog’s Facebook page (until something less evil than Facebook comes along). THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!

Posted in 1) Jesus, 2) Politics, 5) Not Quite Sure, Uncategorized | Tagged Beth Moore, Eileen Gray, Hell, I Never Knew You, John MacArthur, John MacArthur Legacy, Martin Luther King Jr, Rachel Klinger Cain, Reformed Theology, Social justice, The Roys Report, The Sermon On the Mount | 4 Comments

Christians: Want To Actually Help Flood Victims? Keep Your Prayers… Stop Voting Republican.

Posted on July 10, 2025 by theboeskool

If you are friends with any conservative Christians on social media platforms, you’ve undoubtedly seen calls for people to “PRAY FOR TEXAS” after this latest round of floods that washed away homes and left 120 people dead with another 170 more still missing. Mourners gather together to “honor the dead” and sing worship songs with hands raised, crediting the lost lives to an “Act of God.” Do any of these emotional vigils and calls to prayer feel familiar to anyone else?

If your response to a tragedy is “thoughts & prayers” rather than working to ensure it doesn’t happen again, you are missing the point of Christianity. *Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images*

They leave me with the same taste in my mouth as when Christians have candlelight vigils and post calls for prayer after each new mass shooting in some mall or church or school… After those same Christians have spent all their political capital getting people elected who work as hard as possible to fight against any gun regulations which might have prevented another tragedy. It’s a pattern to which we’ve become accustomed—Especially in red states: 1) Deny the data showing there is a growing problem, 2) Work to elect leaders with an open distain for anything that smacks of regulation or prevention, 3) Claim “There’s nothing we could have done” when tragedy strikes, 4) Offer up fervent “Thoughts & Prayers,” 5) Rinse & repeat. And nothing changes. It’s a handy little republican byproduct of a theology that believes God is in control of everything: If a tragedy happened, and God is in control, then God must have either wanted it to happen or at least allowed it to happen… Either way, it’s an act of God and we have no control, right? RIGHT???

(On a side note, the other way republicans exploit bad Christian theology/ignorance is this: Intentionally work to make government as inept, dysfunctional, untrustworthy, & corrupt as possible… So that when problems arise that require and are best-suited for government intervention, this same voting block is like, “YOU WANT ME TO VOTE FOR MORE INCOMPETENCE AND CORRUPTION?!?” It’s a strategy that’s both cynical and diabolical, but it’s also grossly effective.)

Whether it’s disturbed teenagers with access to weapons of war repeatedly showing up at schools and opening fire, or the lost lives of dozens of young girls at a summer camp swept away by a another 1000-year-flood that seems to be coming every few years, the republican response is always the same: “There’s nothing we could have done.” But in 2016—after research showed the emergency alert systems along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas were woefully lacking—the Obama administration tried to give them federal funds to make it safer. The republican-led commission laughed about taking the $5.1 million dollars (to keep the money from going to liberal states), but decided not to use the money to update the warning system. They even make jokes/puns about how using the funding for a river alert was “dead in the water.” Please watch this video.

@itsamemollio0
Kerr County commissioners refused two grants from Obama and Biden to update their flood emergency warning system. #Republicans #politicstiktok #texasflooding #campmystic #kervilletx #politicalnews #texas #texaspolitics
♬ original sound – its-a-me-Mollio

This isn’t the only way the republican response to school shootings is similar to the republican response to increased climate disasters. Just like the dishonest claims that the mass shootings are “false flag” operations conducted to swing public sentiment toward more gun control, there’s even conspiracies going around that “they” (the all-powerful THEY) are intentionally controlling the weather to produce these tragedies. After Hurricane Helene destroyed huge parts of North Carolina in October 2024, American embarrassment Marjorie Taylor Greene made several comments suggesting a link between the path of the storm and deliberate weather manipulation… And now this same elected idiot is making similar wild conspiracies about the Texas flooding. She even trying to introduce legislation. Just look at this utter lunatic:

I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense.

I have been researching weather…
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 5, 2025

That’s right, folks… The party who doesn’t believe in the data and science behind climate change is the same party that believes some powerful illuminati are able to control the weather… perhaps with Jewish Space Lasers. This is where we are in this country. And for me, the really depressing part is that there are enough people in Georgia who are either so easily deceived, so utterly ignorant, or so hopelessly evil that they keep voting for fools like Marjorie Taylor Greene. But one thing’s for sure: With morons like this in charge, it’s NO WONDER so many people think that “government is the problem.”

When disasters happen to people, the need for basic empathy and human decency is suddenly so clear to those affected by the disaster. But isn’t it strange that these same republican voters seem to be unable to muster any of that same empathy or basic human decency when they cheer on the opening of a concentration camp on American soil?

@goodtrouble_
A tragedy is a tragedy is a tragedy
♬ original sound – GoodTrouble

Isn’t it weird how—in the midst of something bad happening to YOU—it’s always so clear that we, as human beings, should be taking care of each other? But somehow, these same people are capable of laughing and mocking hispanic people being rounded up and put into concentration camps, and even buying “Alligator Alcatraz” merch?? When liberal California is burning with wildfires, the cause is a complex mix of God’s holy retribution and the inept Democratic leadership… But when disaster hits YOU, it’s suddenly time to read those verses about taking care of those in need.

This nation is so broken. So many people celebrate selfishness while demonizing decency, compassion, & empathy. America is infected by a disease of hatred, bigotry, & indifference… And the festering open wound that keeps us so sick is the continued moral & political failure of the christian church in this time. The christian church is the voting block that keeps the people in charge who are determined to do nothing to prevent preventable tragedies. People are stirred to prayer when they see videos of people swept up in a flash flood… But those same people CELEBRATE when they see families torn apart as people are swept up by ICE’s masked goons in “immigration raids.” And the pastors of those evangelical churches preach NOTHING about this inconsistency & hypocrisy on Sunday mornings. The Christian Church could stop America’s descent into fascism in ONE ELECTION. Instead, it cheers. It leads the way.

So if you’re a christian and you’re somehow still reading this, I have something to tell you: If seeing a natural disaster makes you feel stirred to action, and the action you choose is “thoughts & prayers” rather than working to elect competent, compassionate leaders who work to prevent that sort of thing from ever happening again, you have failed. You want to help flood victims? Stop voting for the party that acts like the science behind man-made climate change is some sort of conspiracy theory while they pull out of climate treaties designed to lessen our impact on the earth we all share & our children will inherit. You want to help flood victims?? Stop voting for the party that would rather fund tax breaks for billionaires than fund early warning systems that could have saved the lives of the girls at Camp Mystic. You want to help flood victims??? Stop voting for the party that cuts funding & staffing to FEMA and NOAA and every other administration designed to help people & make our lives better and safer… All so they can increase the deficit while making the rich richer at the expense of the poor and vulnerable.

Seriously, though…Have these people ever even READ the Bible? You can read the words of Jesus to them, and they’d accuse you of “liberal indoctrination.” Keep your empty prayers. I’d prefer Christians stop praying and start voting for people and policy that aren’t opposite of Jesus in every conceivable way. You want to pray? Pray that your heart is changed. Pray that you start to care enough for the poor and vulnerable that you stop voting against their interests. Pray that feel the same compassion for the brown people swept up by ICE as you feel for the Texans swept up by a flood. You feeling stirred to pray? Pray that you care enough about your neighbor to stop voting republican.

Thank you again for reading! I understand that most of the christians who are in the cult of trump are too far gone to hear anything I’ve written here. But if you have friends of family who are not totally gone, I’d love for you to share this post with them. You can also share it on Facebook or on Bluesky. And if you value my writing or this post, you can BECOME A PATRON, leave a TIP ON PAYPAL, or buy me a sandwich by Venmoing me at chris-boeskool. Stay strong, stay connected, and don’t lose hope.

Posted in 1) Jesus, 2) Politics | Tagged Alligator Alcatraz, bible, Camp Mystic, Christianity, Empathy, Faith, Hypocrisy, Jesus, Kerr County, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Prayer, Texas Flood, Thoughts & Prayers | Leave a comment

It’s Time For Americans To Be Brave

Posted on June 27, 2025 by theboeskool

Anyone else feeling that tension between wanting to be informed and wanting to be happy? I sure am. Every day immigrant families are torn apart as armed, masked, goose-stepping goons in unmarked cars kidnap brown, Spanish-speaking people in ICE raids. I watch in horror as our country’s leaders either cheer on the genocide in Gaza or stand idly by as families are bombed and children are starved in an open air concentration camp. Meanwhile, the government is pulling federal funding from institutions—from colleges to hospitals to businesses—who dare to promote or encourage Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. It never ends. Dismantling consumer and worker protections… Blatant acts of corruption… Gutting care for Veterans… Slashing medicaid funding that will lead to the closing of rural hospitals… Installing a conspiratorial, anti-vax moron in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services… Demonizing trans people who just want to live their lives, while criminalizing the medical care for trans youth that keeps them from being a group that is eight times more likely to commit suicide… Attacking higher education. Attacking Women’s Rights. Attacking the press. Attacking the rule of law. Attacking the truth.

That hopelessly overwhelmed, powerless feeling is strategic. Steve Bannon has talked about it many times. He calls it “flooding the zone.” You can read about it HERE. Even this whole 1000+ page “Big Beautiful Bill” bullshit is an example of flooding the zone. It’s filled with so much awfulness that you can’t take it all in… Especially difficult for a population with an attention span incapable of following something that can’t fit on a bumper sticker or a red hat. I mean, do people even REMEMBER tariffs?? Prices are going up because of trump’s stupid tariffs, and WE are paying for those price increases. But just when people are like, “Wait, I don’t like THAT,” we’re flooded with news of Marines being deployed to Los Angeles. And as people start asking, “Wait a sec… You mean to tell me we’re rounding up Spanish-speaking people in a city named LOS-FREAKING-ANGELES?!? HALF OF THE DAMN CITIES IN CALIFORNIA HAVE SPANISH NAMES,” next thing you know, they’re dropping bombs on Iran. And people are like, “What was I saying?”

There’s no doubt about it — Evil is definitely flourishing right now in America. They’re cutting funding to NPR and PBS, for God’s sake. The GOP is so far gone that when they see Sesame Street teach kids to be compassionate, empathetic, and kind, they think that those moral messages are some kind of ‘propaganda” against the Republican Party. What do you think Mr. Rogers would do if he were alive today seeing all this happen? Well, 56 years ago, he sat down in front of a skeptical Senate subcommittee and asked them to financially prioritize & value the good work PBS does with children. Please enjoy this moment of simple goodness and moral clarity brought to the world courtesy of Fred Rogers…

This isn’t the first time that Fred Rogers has reminded me that Not Everything Is Crap. But for today’s Republican Party, the sort of sentimental display of compassion and caring you just watched is painted as somehow anti-American. There’s a significant portion of the American populace that is so addled by cultist loyalty and deceived by media manipulation that as their leader attacks democracy and the rule of law, their response is, “Well, democracy and the rule of law aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.” It will take decades to repair all of the damage that trump and his army of bigoted idiots have done to the institutions that actually made America great. But I think it’s time to forget about being “great” again. It’s time for America to be BRAVE again.

When one person bravely stands up against tyranny and says, “Not to men like you” when they are told to kneel, EVERYONE gets more brave. Maybe YOU are you one to stand up…

I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery lately. And discomfort. And distraction.

I work at a restaurant. In our kitchen, there are Spanish-speaking people. They’re not criminals… They come into a hot kitchen, work hard, and cook delicious food. They have families. They laugh and tell jokes that I often can’t understand. I sometimes teach them some English, and they sometimes teach me some Spanish. Without being able to fully communicate with them, I know I like them. Just like with everyone else, there are some I like more than others. But because of the ICE raids in the Nashville area, we had to have a protocol for what to do if ICE shows up. And as my soul welled up with righteous anger at the injustice we’re living though, I decided that I think I’ve lived long enough. Not in a “I want to die” sort of way… I don’t. I really enjoy living. There’s a quote by author Tom Robbins that says, “There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.” But I’ve been thinking about how our grandparents and great-grandparents literally ran toward nazi machine gun fire on the beaches at Normandy. And about people marching in Selma, knowing there was a good chance they would be beaten up and arrested. And I think people are probably going to have to be willing to die for this cause.

We are PERILOUSLY close to losing the right to free and fair elections. Honestly, we might have already lost them. Think about this for a minute: To this day, trump insists that the election he lost to Joe Biden was “rigged.” He is purging federal employees who do not hold this same view. Watch the complete distain that trump appointees show for anyone who questions their authority. Observe the ease with which the lies flow when someone dares to confront them with facts. In this BS bill they’re trying to pass, there is a section (specifically section 70302) that allows them to ignore judicial orders. If that happens, it’s basically game over for the separation of powers. The actions and policies put forth by this corrupt administration are DEEPLY unpopular with the American people. And the lack of concern shown by republicans about losing mid-term elections makes me think that perhaps they are not planning on HAVING mid-term elections. How hard would it be for them to see polls that foretell a loss, declare the elections “rigged,” and take control of the mean & technology for voting? How out of character would that seem?? I suspect that the injustice around us will not go away without conflict, and the power that this group of fascists has acquired will not be given up without a fight.

We cannot be distracted… Not by the flood of misery and awfulness and injustice that makes us feel like we are drowning, and not by the phones in our hands or the screens in front of our eyes. We have to be prepared to be uncomfortable. Think about how many people can’t even WATCH Saving Private Ryan. It’s too uncomfortable for so many of us to even sit through three hours of cinema to see the sorts of sacrifices people made to fight tyranny. We have to be willing to get arrested… To be hit by the stones they are throwing at the most vulnerable people around us… And—if necessary—to put ourselves between them and the guns that are pointed at them. We have to be brave. Generation before us ran toward gunfire. They marched toward the dogs and the firehoses and the batons.

Thank you for reading. If you’re low on hope, perhaps anger will suffice. Look for inspiration in the arts. Read The Hunger Games. Watch some Andor… Or any of the Stars Wars movies, really. Watch those young men run toward the bullets in Saving Private Ryan. Look at the photos of the millions of people who were at the “No Kings” protests. Hell, watch some episodes of Mr. Rogers if that’ll help. Don’t be distracted. Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be brave.

And if you like this post and you’d like to leave this server/blogger a tip, you can do that on PAYPAL or Venmo me at chris-boeskool. If you really want to support my writing, you can also become a patron on PATREON. You can also follow me or share this post on FACEBOOK or on BLUESKY. Thanks again, and take care of each other.

Posted in 2) Politics, 5) Not Quite Sure | Tagged Big Ugly Bill, Bravery, DEI, Free and Fair Elections, Gaza, ICE Raids, Mr. Rogers, No Kings, Saving Private Ryan, Trump, Voting Rights | 1 Comment

The Real Reason Birth Rates Are Dropping In America

Posted on April 25, 2025 by theboeskool

The trump administration has identified a new “crisis” that must be addressed: Birth Rates are dropping in America. This is not just a recent issue—birth rates have been fairly steadily dropping since the 1960s, but they’ve gotten especially low over the last ten years. And so, elon and RFK Jr. and Shitler himself are setting their sights on the goal of increasing birth rates in America. To that end, the brain trust in the Oval Office is floating a brilliant idea: “Maybe we give these reluctant incubators a nice little $5000 check if they pop out a kid… That, and we can give them some ‘menstrual classes'” (as if the problem is that women have forgotten how ovulation works). Trump has dubbed it a “Baby Bonus,” as all good ideas have to have an alliterative title.

And I mean, who BETTER to figure out why women aren’t having as many babies than a room full of men, amirite? So then I figured, “Hey, *I’M* a man! I must have some important things to say about this as well!! [screams internally while not knowing whether to laugh or cry]

Okay… Okay… Just… Okay. I need to turn off the sarcasm and get serious. I did about five minutes of deep breathing with my face in my hands… quietly considering whether it’s worth it to continue writing this post… wondering how in the world we got into this situation, where a man who is quite possibly the most immoral, most broken, most incompetent person on the planet is holding the most powerful office in the nation. Okay… Deep breath.

Let’s start at the beginning: Birth rates in America have been dropping since 1960. Do you know what else happened in 1960? The FDA approved the birth control pill for women. Interestingly, scientists have had many successful attempts at making a birth control pill for men, but those pills were abandoned because of the side effects… Even though the side effects men experienced were nearly identical (and often less severe) than the side effects women experience when taking the pill. And let’s be honest—Do we really trust young men to be responsible enough to remember to faithfully take a daily birth control pill. So men are really left with two options for their own birth control: Condoms and vasectomies. Still, the pill—along with access to safe and legal abortions—gave women more control over when and if they CHOOSE to have a baby… and that was a GIANT leap forward for women’s rights. Which is one of the reasons why birth-rate-obsessed republicans and their pernicious Project 2025 have been so focused on removing those rights from women and undermining access to birth control.

Before I continue, let’s be real: Republicans are not interested in raising ALL birth rates. That’s clear to everyone, right? The “crisis” America is facing is not that birth rates are dropping… For them, the crisis is that WHITE birth rates are dropping. They’re not trying to raise the birth rates of Black & Brown families. They’re worried about America getting less white. It’s the beating, racist heart behind trump’s remarks about people from “shithole countries” (referring to Haiti and African nations) wanting to come here, while he lamented that people from Norway weren’t immigrating. He actually said this. And said and did so much worse. And 77 million Americans still voted for him. Lord have mercy. ANYway… If they were so worried about not having enough people, they could just let in some of those brown people looking for work and hungry for a better life lined up at our southern border. So we can all agree that republicans are not focused making more babies. They’re focused on making more WHITE babies. Concern about falling birthrates is almost always about eugenics and racism. Just so that’s settled…

So the pill is one of the main reasons for the START of the decline in U.S. birth rates. But I’d like to focus more on the precipitous drop in birth rates since 2015. Let’s think back… What was happening in the American zeitgeist around 2015? What fetid narcissistic monstrosity came forward like the orange, ready-to-pop head of a giant pimple that was symptomatic of the pent-up racism and white fragility buried beneath America’s unwashed back?

Just look at this fucker’s face. I’m sorry, I know… “Earmuffs.” But that word needs to be used here. This is the picture HE ACTUALLY CHOSE for his inauguration photo. Hollywood’s most creative minds would have to work very hard to come up with a portrait that says “I’m a villain” more effectively than this one.

Stay with me for a minute or two. Imagine you have a large portion of America that’s grown accustomed to a certain amount of privilege. This privilege comes in many forms: Maybe you got used to getting hired for a job over someone who’s just as qualified as you are because you’re white or you’re a man… Maybe you got used to getting let off with a warning when you’re pulled over, when the same thing doesn’t happen for people who don’t look like you… Maybe you got used to feeling valued as a “provider” for someone whose options were severely limited by the society they live in. And THEN, you start seeing changes around you… People noticing your privilege… People calling for equality. And as you experience the growing equality around you, you interpret that equality as oppression. And you long for older times… BETTER times… A time when America was GREAT.

And it’s unthinkable that “privilege” had anything to do with you getting to where you are. So if a woman or a Black person got a promotion, it HAD to be because of unfair policies… and not because of the character-building process of having to work twice as hard to get half as much. Sure, social media exposes you to videos of Black people having interactions with law enforcement that seem very different than the ones you are used to… But it must be because they had it coming. Because if the playing field isn’t level, that means you might not have EARNED everything you have. Maybe your wife left you—or your mom left your dad—and maybe you don’t feel valued simply by virtue of you being a man—even though you bring nothing to the relationship other than anger and fragility and a need for control—and you like the sound of this Project 2025 and its plan to end no-fault divorce.

And so they’ve given you something to BLAME for your dwindling privilege. It’s not your own mediocrity… It CAN’T be. It’s that evil DEI!! (side note: I don’t think I’ll ever get over the fact that they’ve managed to get a significant portion of America to demonize DIVERSITY, EQUITY, and INCLUSION). And you’re angry! And you’re wanting to make America great again! And then a bunch of corrupt, incompetent, liars and criminals—with the help of billionaires who control the media you take in—ride your wave of working man’s anger and misplaced nostalgia to an electoral victory. God help us.

And now here we are: With a whole administration believes that we have to get “back” to “meritocracy,” while ALSO believing that the only ones with true merit are STRAIGHT WHITE MEN. Add to that the fact that any reasonable republicans have either left or been abandoned by the trump cultists in charge, so they’re only accepting applications from the kind of fiercely loyal cowards who are either drowning in the kool-aid or terrified to speak up… The sort of people who know for SURE that if they DO speak up with ideas contrary to the party line, the brain-rotted, character-lacking boy’s club in charge will replace them in an INSTANT with some other fiercely loyal, incompetent coward. Compassion is foreign to Dear Leader, and it must be foreign to his loyal lackeys as well.

And a nation of women look on in disbelief at the horrors unfolding… at their rights being whittled away… at a psychotic & growingly toxic ideology pushing a narrative that tells young men that compassion is FEMININE, and femininity is WEAKNESS. They demonize & scapegoat femininity & compassion, all while encouraging the worst, most toxic parts of masculinity to thrive. Women watch as aggrieved, fragile morons work to dismantle every social safety net and remove any bit of government support that sniffs of compassion or works to help people in any meaningful way. Housing prices skyrocket, healthcare is unaffordable, and when a competent person comes along with actual plans to help working people, both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris lose the general election … wait for it… because America isn’t really ready for a woman to lead. All of this while attacking education, sowing distrust of the vaccines that keep our kids safe from diseases, and calling climate change a “hoax.”

And into this symphony of sadness and dysfunction, they have the nerve to ask women to have more babies. I mean… Seriously.

Please read this very good post.

So just to recap: Republicans have been steadily working to remove any programs that help mothers and children, fighting tooth and nail against universal or even affordable healthcare, making the future more & more frightening and uncertain. They refuse to raise the living wage, refuse to raise taxes on billionaires, refuse to help with exploitative student debt, refuse to pay for pre-K, refuse paid parental leave, refuse to do anything about affordable housing… All while demonizing & diminishing femininity and encouraging a significant portion of American men to become infinitely more unfuckable—but they’re wondering why fewer women are deciding to have babies? Am I getting that right?

Thank you so much for reading. If you managed to read all this way, you are probably—like me—very discouraged. You might—like me—be wondering if anything you do makes any sort of difference in the face of such evil. I’m reminded of King Theoden asking, “What can men do against such reckless hate?” And Aragorn’s brave response, “Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them.” I’m so sad. And so angry. And so ready to ride out and meet them. THANK YOU to the people who support this blog. If appreciated this post, & you’d like to leave a tip, you can do that ON PAYPAL or you can Venmo me at chris-boeskool. If you’d like to become a patron, you can do that ON PATREON. Or you can follow me ON BLUESKY (elon’s twitter is for fascists) or still on Facebook (ugh, I know). Stay strong, stay hopeful, and stay active.

Posted in 2) Politics | Tagged baby, Baby Bonus, Birth Control, Birth Rates, Compassion, DEI, elon musk, Eugenics, health, Meritocracy, Motherhood, Politics, Pregnancy, Racism, RFK Jr., Shitler, Trump | 1 Comment

An Honest Question For Christians Who Support Trump

Posted on September 15, 2024 by theboeskool

My question to you is this: Is there anything Donald Trump could say or do that would make you stop supporting him? Genuinely… ANYTHING? Is there any act of immorality vile enough, or any biblical or civil law he could break, that he could lose your vote? Is there anything resembling a bottom for you? I’m honestly wondering…

Nearly nine years ago, Donald Trump stood in front of a crowd of people at a small Christian college in Iowa called Dordt (a college very demographically & theologically similar to my alma mater Calvin University), and there he bragged “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” Well, I’m not sure if “bragged” is the word. I think—in a rare moment of honesty—he was just expressing genuine amazement at the lack of any sort of moral standard below which he could sink for his supporters. And he was right… 81% of those same white evangelicals he was speaking to at Dordt College went on to vote for him… Ignoring him bragging about sexually assaulting women… Ignoring a lifetime of corruption & failure & adultery… Ignoring him mocking a disabled reporter… Ignoring him attacking a Gold Star family… Ignoring a MOUNTAIN of evidence that would very reasonably place this dishonest man among history’s most repulsive & corrupt villains.

Then came his presidency, where his supporters watched with indifference as the president of the United States and “leader of the free world” literally praised dictators… As he fired the government employees responsible for investigating the illegal things he did… As evidence came out that he used campaign funds to pay off a porn star… As he bumbled a pandemic response which led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths… As he withheld military support for Ukraine unless they produced information which would harm his political opponent… And finally as he incited an insurrection with his lies on January 6, watched as his supporters attacked the Capitol, and then sat in silence FOR MORE THAN THREE HOURS as his political allies pleaded with him to call off his minions.

Now we watch as he promises to be “a dictator on day one.” He has repeatedly said he would use the federal government to go after political rivals. He stands in front of cheering, sneering crowds and channels Adolf Hitler, referring to immigrants as “vermin” and accusing them of “poisoning the blood” of America. And just this past week, we watched as he stood on a debate stage, in front of an audience of nearly 70 million people, and accused Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio of stealing & eating people’s pets.

I have heard the immigrants-come-to-town-and-eat-pets racist trope ever since I was a child. This is very old racism .
— May-lee Chai 翟梅莉 (@mayleechai) September 11, 2024

This trope about immigrants eating pets has a long & very racist history. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve heard some “joke” about there being dog or cat meat in Chinese food. This started a LONG time ago. In the 1888 presidential election, Grover Cleveland printed trading cards portraying Chinese immigrants eating rats in order to smear his political opponent. This stoked people’s fears that these brown people were taking the jobs, bringing disease, and even killing pets and putting them into their food. Sound familiar? Demonizing immigrants is straight out of the nazi handbook…

From the holocaust museum. https://t.co/yU3K8PVbnu pic.twitter.com/sTwA4Oqb7k
— Alejandra Caraballo is on Threads/Bluesky (@Esqueer_) September 14, 2024

Many times, when Trump says something super racist or insane, the press will question J.D. Vance about it in a kind of “Hey man, your wife is the daughter of immigrants and you have biracial kids… Are you OKAY with this?” sort of way. But as you can see above, he doubles down on Trump’s virulent xenophobia. And speaking to J.D. Vance’s point about a rise in car insurance rates, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post published a story about a minor fender bender in Springfield, Ohio involving a Haitian immigrant—who, by the way, are in this country legally. Imagine a large New York paper posting a whole story about a minor traffic accident that happened over 600 miles away. Incredible.

Notice that in the "Trump" future, everyone is white, and in the "Kamala" future, pretty much everyone is non-white.

Very subtle. pic.twitter.com/br1lemP6cR
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 13, 2024

They’re really not even trying to hide it anymore. They are catering to racists. If you meet someone who is is open about them being a white supremacist or a neo-nazi, you can be nearly certain that they are voting republican. And Christians don’t care.

In 2016, J.D. Vance wrote (in a tweet that he has since deleted), “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.” After the release of the Access Hollywood tape (where trump bragged about kissing women without their permission and “grab[ing] them by the pussy”), Vance tweeted “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.” He even referred to trump as “America’s Hitler.” But it seems that—like so many other people who identify as “Christian”—the promise of a bit more power was enticing enough to make him abandon his beliefs and ignore his moral repulsion to trump’s constant vileness… And now he’s blaming Black & Brown folks for “communicable diseases.” This is the man on the republican ticket who’d be one 78 year old man’s heartbeat away from the presidency.

“I didn’t change my mind about Trump being ‘America’s Hitler’; I changed my mind about that being a bad thing.” https://t.co/CGkrkaLjRH
— Ryan Marotta (@RyanJMarotta) September 14, 2024

Seriously though, read what JD Vance wrote on that tweet. It reads like a Hitler speech… If Hitler was boring as shit, didn’t know how to order donuts, & sexually attracted to couches.

And to let you know the fruit of these lies that fan the flames of racial fear and hatred, the Haitian families living in Springfield are feeling scared to let their kids go to school as the presidential candidate most white christians support spreads false stories about their community (and not that it should matter, but a community that is LARGELY CHRISTIAN… though there have also been accusations of “voodoo”). But it turns out that actually works out well, because for a third day in a row since Trump & Vance have spread their racist lies about Haitians, people have been calling in bomb threats to schools, community & government buildings, and hospitals in Springfield. So to sum up: A largely Christian, Black immigrant community—here legally from an impoverished & largely decimated country that Christians LOVE to take mission trips to—is scared to go outside because the candidate that christians are voting for is spreading lies about them eating pets. That’s where we are.

Lynch mob arrives in Ohio town due to Ohio Senator and former president of the United States spreading a false rumor about Haitians. https://t.co/xjAdfxm2PD
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) September 14, 2024

And now the Proud Boys have shown up… Perfect.

So I repeat my question to you, Christian: Is there NOTHING he could do that is despicable enough, demented enough, vile enough, to lose your support?

Though, again—to be fair—it is really almost exclusively only WHITE Christians who support him. Pew Research recently came out with a poll showing 82% of white evangelicals support Trump in this coming election. That’s slightly up from the 81% of white evangelicals who voted for trump in 2016. Perhaps it’s not that there are even more white evangelicals who support trump… Perhaps there are so many people whose disgust with the Christian support of this vile man has resulted in enough people leaving evangelicalism that those who remain simply account for a bigger percentage. One can hope…

In the Bible, there is a story of a Faustian bargain of sorts—before Jesus starts his ministry—where the devil tempts or “tests” Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus is hungry, and the devil suggests that he turns a stone into bread. He then tempts him to throw himself off the top of the temple, because supposedly angels will catch him & keep him from getting hurt. In the third temptation, the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain, shows him “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” (must have been a REALLY tall mountain to see the kingdoms on the other side of the planet), and the devil tells him that it’s all his if he just bows down and worships him. Jesus passes this third test, and he goes on to start his ministry.

I grew up being taught these stories… Both in Sunday school AND in the Christian schools I attended. These stories MEANT SOMETHING to me—I was TAUGHT the story about Jesus being offered all this power, but him turning it down to be a servant. I was TAUGHT the story of a people who desperately wanted a king, holding a sword, riding on a horse… But God deciding to show up as a carpenter, healing his enemy’s ear, riding on a donkey. I was TAUGHT the story of a man who loved sinners, who welcomed the outcast, who healed the sick… And then I watched as roughly 81% of the people who taught me those stories—at the first opportunity for a little bit more power—bowed down at the feet of a man who couldn’t be more totally opposite of the Jesus of those stories if he had tried.

Did y’all not see the VeggieTales about not bowing before the chocolate bunny? This is Christianity 101, people!!

So was he right? When he said he could murder someone in the street and not lose a voter, was he talking about you? The only reason a vile lying ghoul like trump has a chance in hell of winning is because white Christians in America love power more than they love Jesus. That’s it. Otherwise, the only ones voting for him would be a smattering of incels & dropouts & people who spend time in white supremacist chat rooms. White Christians are the only reason it’s even close. And if that’s you and you’re reading this, YOU are the only reason it’s close. You watch in silence as “America’s Hitler” equates immigrants from “shithole countries” with crime, disease, and missing pets… stirring hateful, stupid people into actions that do VERY REAL HARM. Every day you keep supporting this racist, sexist, adjudicated rapist conman is another day the devil in that Bible story offers you power if you just bow down, and you fail the test. Miserably.

But if you still support trump and you call yourself a Christian, I’ve got some good news for you… Some “Gospel,” if you will: This test you keep failing is not a test that you only get to take once. It’s a test that is going to be there tomorrow as well. It’s a test that you get another chance at passing every day… Particularly on November 5th. I mean, come on—Something inside of you instinctively has to be feeling weird about the fact that you keep ending up on the same side as nazis. When Rach, Shack, & Benny were threatened with the furnace if they didn’t bow down to the Chocolate Bunny in that VeggieTales episode, even vegetables knew that their integrity meant more. When the devil offered power to Jesus if he’d bow down, he said, “Away from me, Satan!” It never works out well for the people in those faustian tales who sell their integrity… their most deeply-held beliefs… Their SOUL in exchange for a little more power. If you call yourself a christian, it’s time to consider choosing to love Jesus more than you love power.

Thank you very much for reading. I must confess that part of the reason I want/need so badly for trump to lose is out of a place of selfishness. I feel like I need trump to lose for the sake of my own soul. I don’t know that my belief in goodness could survive another election night where the results leave me reevaluating my beliefs about human nature, or could sustain another presidential term that leaves me looking at the people around me with suspicion & disgust. Please, PLEASE vote. And if you’re interested, you can follow me ON FACEBOOK or ON TWITTER. Also, if you value the things I write, you can also BECOME A PATRON or leave me a tip either ON PAYPAL or Venmo me at chris-boeskool

Posted in 1) Jesus, 2) Politics | Tagged 81% of white evangelicals, America's Hilter, Chocolate Bunny, Christian Trump Supporters, Christianity, Donald Trump, Eating Pets, JD Vance, news, Politics, Racism, Trump, VeggieTales, Welcoming Immigrants, White Evangelicals | 4 Comments

I’m Not Done Talking About Gus Walz

Posted on August 29, 2024 by theboeskool

Yeah, I realize the discussion has moved on. The DNC is last week’s news. Little donald’s constant barrage of vileness makes it hard to stay focused for very long on any one act of MAGA depravity for very long. It’s hard to even REMEMBER the disgusting thing he did last week, because he’s done half a dozen even more disgusting things since then. And our attention wanes. We get distracted by the outrage we feel by something like him telling Sheldon Adelson’s wife Miriam that the Presidential Medal of Freedom is “actually much better“ than the Congressional Medal of Honor (the nation’s highest military award) “because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead. She gets it and she’s healthy, beautiful woman.” Trump awarded Miriam Adelson the Medal of Freedom because she was the wife of a Casino tycoon who used his billions of dollars to get republicans elected.

Trump: When we gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom… It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor— it’s actually much better because everyone who gets the Congressional Medal, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many… pic.twitter.com/a766KxAC2e
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 16, 2024

And before we can focus on that piece of filth, he does something like going into Arlington National Cemetery to get some creepy, smiling thumbs-up photo ops next to soldiers’ graves, so his campaign can make a neat TikTok video ad.

Now it's come out the Arlington Army official the Trump team assaulted for trying to enforce federal law was a woman.

They assaulted a female army official and then announced she must have had a mental health episode for asking them to follow the law.

Fucking animals. pic.twitter.com/U7L5Zehe3Z
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) August 28, 2024

And just when you think he can’t sink any lower, he posts this repulsive sexist garbage to his “Truth Social.”

Donald Trump just reposted this on Truth Social.

The man is utterly unfit for office. pic.twitter.com/CfLhWShI0K
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 28, 2024

It’s hard to stay focused in the midst of such a vile shitstorm… But I’m going to draw your attention back a week or so to one of the grossest displays of political ugliness I’ve ever seen.

At the Democratic National Convention, Tim Walz’s kids sat with their mother as their father spoke to the crowd. During his speech, Tim looked at his family and said, “Hope, Gus, and Gwen: You are my entire world, and I love you.” And in a beautiful and uncharacteristic moment of emotion, his 17 year old son Gus stood up. His eyes filled up with tears. He put his hand on his chest. He clapped, and encouraged those around him to applaud as well. And then—through the tears and cheers—he proudly yelled, “THAT’S MY DAD!” I honestly can’t even type those words without crying, it’s so beautiful.

When I was in college, my roommate was one of my best friends. He played basketball for Calvin our freshman year. Because of injuries to other players, he was put into the game against a pretty big rival. The Fieldhouse was packed, and I was cheering from the stands. He got hot shooting that day, and I watched in amazement as he hit 6—SIX—three pointers in a row. The place went wild. After he made the sixth shot, the other team called a time out, and right as the cheering started dying down, I yelled, “THAT’S MY ROOMMATE!” at the top of my lungs. Everyone heard me yell those words, and the cheering started back up… I was so proud. But the pride I felt that day watching my friend catch fire in a basketball game doesn’t even come close to the pride a kid must feel watching his dad—the teacher and coach—stand up and accept the nomination for Vice President of the United States of America, and then look at you and tell you you’re his entire world. Just look at this picture:

But there were many people on the political right who did not see this moment as something beautiful. They saw it as an opportunity to ridicule.

We all knew it was coming, the shitty, repulsive comments about Gus Walz… https://t.co/gqVOnpDZXM pic.twitter.com/KhzdMatPjK
— Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) August 22, 2024

Conservative talk show host and republican talking head Jay Weber referred to Gus as a “blubbering bitch boy.”

Im curious, @iHeartRadio/@newstalk1130, how would your advertisers feel about one of your radio hosts referring to a DISABLED CHILD as a “blubbering bitch boy”?

Do you think they’ll still buy ads from you once we start showing them the kind of monsters you employ & protect? pic.twitter.com/85y9dHnK1G
— Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) August 22, 2024

Gus is neurodivergent and grew up with a non-verbal leaning disorder, and after getting ratioed into oblivion, Jay deleted his post, apologizing about not knowing that “the kid was disabled.”

Looks like @JayWeber3 has also deleted his non-apology tweet after it started gaining traction nationally.

Dont worry though, I grabbed screenshots. Feel free to share far and wide! Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, big guy. pic.twitter.com/OPOSjlIxCf
— thebluntanalyst (@theblunta) August 22, 2024

And I guess this is what I wanted to talk about: The seemingly insurmountable chasm between the political left and the political right in this country. People talk about wanting us to “come together” as a country… But is there any hope of “coming together” when we see a kid getting emotional about being proud of & loving his dad, and one side sees it as heartbreakingly beautiful, while the other side sees it as something to make fun of? How do you “come together” when you see healthy male emotion, and one side sees it as strength while the other side sees it as weakness?

And what’s even MORE bewildering and disheartening (to me, at least) is this: How are there enough broken people in this country that this election is even close? Who looks at the side calling a kid a “blubbering bitch boy” for being so proud of his dad that he cries, and says, “I’m voting with THOSE people.” I hesitate to put this in terms of “good & evil,” but it’s difficult NOT to. If ridiculing a kid for loving and being proud of his dad is not evil, then what is? The list of disgusting, disgraceful, repugnant things donald trump does gets longer every day. The evidence of his vileness is simply overwhelming. If you tried to compile a list, no one would have the time or the stomach to read it… And somehow the race is still close. One side is like, “He’s a felon and an adjudicated sexual assaulter who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, fanboys over dictators, lies hundreds of times every day, and literally sent his minions to storm the Capitol in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power,” and the other side is like, “She laughs too much.” We are not the same.

But listen: Even though it’s hard to not focus on all the depravity coming from the political right these days, if you look, there’s so much to be encouraged by. The reaction to the people mocking Gus Walz was swift and severe. Sure, it sucks when a few assholes bully a kid. But how cool is it when your whole community comes together to defend that kid, you know? I’m not really that discouraged about the wickedness we see coming from trump and his MAGA minions… I’m pretty used to that by now. I’m more discouraged at what seems like a widening chasm between those who can see it for the evil it is, and those who somehow have talked themselves into embracing being “deplorable.” But I’m hopeful today. Someday in the future, there may be a legitimate reason for voting republican again, but there is no moral case for it right now. This election is not a matter of right & left… It’s a matter of right & wrong. Do the right thing, America.

Thank you for reading. Thank you to my friends who encourage me to keep writing… It really does means a lot to me. If you’d like to support me & this blog, you can BECOME A PATRON. Or you can leave a tip on PayPal or by Venmo at chris-boeskool. You can also follow me ON FACEBOOK and ON TWITTER. Stay hopeful. Look for the helpers. Take care of each other. And for God’s sake, VOTE! This election needs to be an absolute ass kicking.

Posted in 2) Politics | Tagged 2024 Election, Ann Coulter, Blubbering Bitch Boy, Gus Walz, Jay Weber, Kamala Harris, Right and Wrong, Tim Walz, Toxic Masculinity, Trump | 1 Comment

See If You Can Tell The Differences Between The Republican Convention and A Nazi Rally

Posted on July 19, 2024 by theboeskool

Last year, Tennessee’s theocratic Governor Bill Lee signed Senate Bill No. 3, which has become known as the “Anti-Drag Bill.” It makes it illegal to engage in “adult cabaret” in any location where a person who is not an adult could view the performance, and even though the word “drag” appears nowhere in the bill, it goes on to describe performers as “male or female impersonators” and makes it a crime to do this where it might be “harmful to minors.” Basically what happened is this: As christian conservatives caught wind of drag queens reading to kids in libraries, white evangelicals did what they do in red states: They clutched their collective pearls, cried out for somebody to “think of the children,” and went on to pass a law to enforce their religion’s sexual ethic on everyone else. Yesterday, a trump appointed circuit court judge just reversed a lower court ruling against the unconstitutional Anti-Drag Bill. So as of right now in Tennessee, if someone dresses in drag in public and there are children around, they are in danger of being arrested. Because for MANY people, a person who is in drag just sitting on a couch and EXISTING can be harmful to kids… As we see here where Mom’s For Liberty member Beth Bourne accosts drag queens who were just waiting in a Waikiki hotel lobby.

While on vacation in Hawaii, this Karen gets shaking mad when she sees a drag queen in the lobby for a Pride Celebration brunch.

Most mainlander haoles are unaware that Mahu have been an integral and accepted part of Polynesian society for hundreds of years. pic.twitter.com/FvGcroXbGh
— StrictlyChristo  🇺🇦🌻 (@StrictlyChristo) June 24, 2024

So yeah… That’s what these folks think is harmful to children. Just their kids SEEING a man in makeup and a dress is an existential threat to them and the precious eyes of their children. Where they can, christians pass laws to make it illegal for drag performers to be places where kids might even see them (even though kids are about 1000 times more likely to get sexually abused at church than at a drag show… but I digress). In the state I live in, if men in drag—wearing dresses & makeup—march for their right to dance and express themselves, they can be arrested for that. Fast forward from June to July…

Earlier this month, multiple different white supremacist and neo-nazis groups marched through the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, shouting their hatred & bigotry through bullhorns and cowardly identity-hiding masks (while talking about “pride,” ironically). Disaffected and angry white men took to the streets of Nashville to protest their perceived dwindling privilege. And the people to blame? Black & Brown people, immigrants, and Jews apparently. They believe there is a white genocide happening… A “Great Replacement” conspiracy designed by powerful people to use immigration and interracial marriage to dwindle the numbers and power of white Americans.

Unlike drag queens in public places, THESE people playing dress up were not worried about being arrested for their actions. Quite the opposite—they had police protection as they marched. Because dressing up and marching is USUALLY protected actions in America. Genuinely, it feels like the GOP enjoys these sorts of glaring hypocrisies. It feels like a flex. Like, “Yeah, I SEE that it’s hypocritical… We’re going to do it anyway, so you fear how powerful we are.” One of the slogans that the white supremacists and neo-nazis shouted as they marched was the phrase “DEPORTATION SAVES THE NATION.” Fast forward from the nazi marches in early July to this week’s Republican Convention...

Well, you have to hand it to them… Unlike the neo-nazis in Nashville, at least they are brave enough to show their faces while they shout their racist & xenophobic slogans.

And I would bet you that 100% of the throngs of white people at the ~~nazi rally~~ Republican Convention holding up those ~~Deportation Saves The Nation~~ “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” signs identify as christians. They probably go to church that supports Tennessee’s Anti-Drag Law, and the pastor backs up his bigotry by quoting a Bible verse that says, “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lᴏʀᴅ your God.” But something tells me that same church is not giving a lot of time to the many verses commanding God’s people to be kind and hospitable to the alien, immigrant, & stranger… Verses like, “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lᴏʀᴅ your God.” But again—The hypocrisy is a flex. It’s the same sort of hypocrisy that has an executive of the gay hook-up app Grindr refer to the republican Convention as “basically Grindr’s Super Bowl.”

Gay dating app Grindr is experiencing an unprecedented 350% increase in traffic this week in the city of Milwaukee and the RNC being there is the obvious reason.

The biggest homophobic hateful bigots are often the most closeted hypocrites. 🏳️‍🌈
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) July 18, 2024

I’m convinced that WAY more people are bisexual than I used to think… Especially the ones who think that sexual orientation is something that a person can CHOOSE. I don’t know what it’s like to be so bisexual that the gender I’m attracted to is determined by a choice I can make. Anyway, Grindr crashed in Milwaukee this week LOL.

It’s said that “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” This week’s Republican Convention is a testament to that saying. We are on the precipice of a very, very dangerous time. People really didn’t think that Trump would win in 2016, so there wasn’t a plan in place for what to do with him in the White House. 2024 is different. If you haven’t watched this segment from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, PLEASE take the time to do it now.

John Oliver on Project 2025 and a second Trump term.

I was going to clip this segment out into shorter sections but decided to keep it together because it's too important and, frankly, it should terrify you. pic.twitter.com/Kaqo07lurB
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) June 18, 2024

We are living in a time where a white supremacist billionaire literally BOUGHT the platform where hundreds of millions of Americans got their news, he changed the rules to encourage the views of avowed racists & neo-nazis (where you can now drop the N-word with impunity, but you can’t say “cisgender”), and he changed the algorithm to boost his own conspiracies while he donates $45million a month to trump’s super pac. Mere minutes on social media can make you feel so defeated and hopeless… And people who are hopeless are a lot less likely to vote. But I’ve got some good news for you that I swear is true: There are WAY more people who are disgusted by the Republican Party and the cult of trump than there are people who support it. All that needs to happen to prevent America’s slide into fascism is for those people to vote.

So listen… I realize you’re scared. I’m scared too. I realize you’re tired & frustrated. I’m tired & frustrated too. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably angry… Angry at the utter failure of the American church in this time… Angry at the way so many of our neighbors seem to embrace the hateful ideology of trump’s Republican Party… Angry that our choice for president—once again—comes down to two very old white men. But we MUST allow that anger to turn to ACTION and not APATHY. I really don’t care if you think that the fact that Joe Biden is 3 years older than the narcissistic rapist felon conman he’s running against somehow makes him too old to be president. We are not voting for one man. We are voting for an ADMINISTRATION. One is an administration that is trying to improve worker’s rights, provide Americans with affordable healthcare, and ask more from millionaires and billionaires to give back to the nation & system that allowed them to amass such wealth.

The other administration includes a VP who referred to trump as “America’s Hitler” (which I feel like SHOULD be a negative, but turns out it might be a selling point). They want to get rid of the Department of Education. They want to get rid of NOAA, OSHA, the FDA and any other agency that regulates or protects workers. They want to get rid of non-partisan specialists and experts within the government, and be able to replace them with MAGA loyalists. They want a nation-wide abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or even cases where the life of the mother is in danger. They are running on MASS DEPORTATIONS, for God’s sake. And they want to reduce taxes on the super rich while increasing taxes on the poor and middle class… even though trump added nearly $9trillion to the national debt while in office.

Budget Deficit (numbers in parentheses mean surplus)
Under Jimmy Carter
1977: $54B
1981: $79B
Change: +46.2963%

Under Ronald Reagan
1981: $79B
1989: $153B
Change: +93.6709%

Under George H.W. Bush
1989: $153B
1993: $255B
Change: +66.6667%

Under Bill Clinton
1993: $255B
2001:…
— Craig Rozniecki (@CraigRozniecki) December 16, 2023

One administration is trying to help working people by pushing policy which protects us from the whims & power of an aspiring oligarchy. The other is working directly on behalf of that oligarchy.

One is led by an old white man who has a stutter. The other is led by an old white man who’s a convicted felon whose name appears all of Jeffery Epstein’s flight records, was found liable by a jury of his peers in a court of law for rape and slander, incited and insurrection and then waited HOURS before telling his followers to stop, bragged about sexual assault and “grabbing them by the pussy,” took the side of Putin over the American intelligence community, lies so much it’s nearly impossible to fact check him in real time, and has a convention that is almost impossible to tell apart from an actual nazi rally.

You. Me. WE have a responsibility to vote. Whoever’s name is at the top of the democratic ticket… THAT is who we must vote for. I don’t care if it’s Joe Biden, Joe Biden’s ghost, or Joe Biden’s shadow. Hell, I would vote for Donald Trump’s bloated & soiled Depends Undergarments before I’d vote for Donald Trump. We’re voting for an administration. If Biden says he’s staying in the race, then that’s who we are voting for. We are voting for FILL IN THE BLANK, because the other option would be unthinkable, and he’d do harm that could take decades to repair. We can & will do this… Do NOT lose hope!

If you are feeling hopeful right now, please don’t forget to take the time to encourage the people around you. These are dark days, but it’s far from over. In both France and England, voters overwhelmingly rejected fascism and right-wing extremism in their most recent elections. The news wants to paint a picture of hopelessness, because people without hope don’t stand in line to vote. But there IS hope. In the words of Winston Churchill, “I am an optimist. It does not seem of too much use being anything else.” Anyway, f you’d like more of me in your life, you can follow my on Facebook or on Twitter. And if you’d like to support my writing, leave a tip, or pass on some financial encouragement, you can do that on PATREON, on PAYPAL, or Venmo at chris-boeskool. Love y’all.