Influential Christian magazine calls for Trump’s removal from office. President tweets it’s a ‘far left’ publication that would rather have ‘a Radical Left nonbeliever.’
By ELANA SCHOR AND JILL COLVIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS |
DEC 20, 2019 | 12:53 PM
| NEW YORK

CHUCK COLSON ONE OF THE NIXON WATERGATE CONSPIRATORS FOUND JESUS IN JAIL AND BECAME A BORN AGAIN AMERICAN EVANGELIST AND JOINED THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF CHRISTIANITY TODAY WHEN HE GOT OUT OF JAIL  [EP]

President Donald Trump listens to evangelist and pastor Paula White 

as she leads a prayer during a dinner for evangelical Christian

 leadership in the State Dining Room of the White House on Aug. 27, 2018.

A major evangelical Christian magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham on Thursday published an editorial titled “Trump Should Be Removed from Office,” calling for President Donald Trump’s ouster from the Oval Office

The editorial in Christianity Today — coming one day after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives made Trump the third president in American history to be impeached — raised some questions about the durability of his support among the conservative evangelicals who have proven to be a critical component of his political base.

The magazine’s editorial, written by editor-in-chief Mark Galli, envisions a message to those evangelical Christians who have remained stalwart Trump backers “in spite of his blackened moral record.”

“Remember who you are and whom you serve,” Galli’s editorial states. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency.”

Galli’s editorial recalls that the magazine was starkly critical of former President Bill Clinton’s moral fiber during the Democrat’s 1998 impeachment proceedings, calling Clinton “morally unable to lead.”

“Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president,” the editorial stated.

Friday morning, Trump fired back, tweeting the magazine is “progressive” and that it would prefer to, “have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.”

“No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close,” Trump tweeted. “You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET [sic] again!”

....have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President. No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2019

Later in the day, Trump assailed the magazine, insulting Joe Biden with the moniker “Sleepy Joe” and saying Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have a “communist bent" and won’t defend religion.

I guess the magazine, “Christianity Today,” is looking for Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or those of the socialist/communist bent, to guard their religion. How about Sleepy Joe? The fact is, no President has ever done what I have done for Evangelicals, or religion itself!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2019

At the core of its indictment of Trump is what Galli described as the “profoundly immoral” act of seeking the assistance of the Ukrainian government in a bid “to harass and discredit” a Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath,” Galli wrote.

The magazine’s editor-in-chief took no position about whether Trump should be removed from office through a Senate conviction or a defeat at the ballot box next year, calling that a matter of “prudential judgment.”

Christianity Today was founded more than six decades ago by Graham, a leader of the modern evangelical movement who counseled multiple past presidents on matters of faith. It has a circulation of about 130,000.

While Trump wrote that the magazine “has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years,” some of his strongest evangelical supporters — including Graham’s son — were rallying to his side and against it. Their pushback underscored the political value of Trump’s hold on the evangelical Christian voting bloc that helped propel him into office and suggested the editorial would likely do little to shake that group’s loyalty.

Rev. Franklin Graham, who now leads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and prayed at Trump’s inauguration, tweeted Friday morning that his late father would be “disappointed” in the magazine. Graham added that he “felt it necessary” following the editorial to share that his father, who died last year after counseling several past presidents, had voted for Trump.

Christianity Today “represents what I would call the leftist elite within the evangelical community. They certainly don’t represent the Bible-believing segment of the evangelical community,” Graham told The Associated Press in an interview.

And Graham is hardly alone among the white evangelicals who have remained loyal to the president amid political tumult. To the contrary, many prominent evangelicals have only intensified their support for Trump as Democrats moved to impeach him — circling the wagons despite Trump’s colored personal history, multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, numerous divorces, deeply divisive policies and profanity-laced comments. A Pew Research Center survey in August found 77% of white evangelical Protestants approving of Trump’s job performance.

Trump takes swipe at House lawmaker’s dead husband, implying he’s in hell during Michigan rally. The White House says the president was ‘just riffing.’ »

At the heart of that stalwart backing is what pro-Trump evangelicals view as the president’s significant record of achievement on their highest priorities, such as his successful installation of more than 150 conservative federal judges and his support for anti-abortion policies.

Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to Trump, tweeted that the editorial is "shameful and constitutionally ignorant." "Pious 'Never Trumpers' who feel morally justified about this #impeachmentcircus are as morally reprehensible as Democrats," Ellis tweeted.

Asked Friday in an interview with CNN about the tweets, Galli said Trump's characterization of the magazine as far left was “far from accurate," but also said he is realistic about the impact of his words.

“I don’t have any imagination that my editorial is going to shift their views on this matter," Galli said of those who support the president. “The fact of the matter is Christianity Today is not read by the people, Christians on the far right, by evangelicals on the far right, so they’re going to be as dismissive of the magazine as President Trump has shown to be.”

Johnnie Moore, a member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, tweeted that during the “hyperventilating” over the “inconsequential” editorial, he was at Vice President Mike Pence’s residence, “where dozens of evangelicals who actually lead MILLIONS were celebrating Christmas undistracted by impeachment & grateful for the (Trump administration’s) policies.”

Adding that Christianity Today “only represents a certain segment of evangelicals,” Moore tweeted that “this is not a game changing moment or hardly a surprise.”

Another Trump evangelical adviser, Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, tweeted that the magazine is “dying” and “going against 99% of evangelical Republicans who oppose impeachment.”

The schism among Christians about whether and how strongly to support Trump dates back to before his election. Prominent Southern Baptist Russell Moore warned that Trump “incites division” in a 2015 op-ed that cited the Bible in asking fellow Christians to “count the cost of following” him, later earning a tweeted lashing from then-candidate Trump.

After Trump defended the organizers of a 2017 white nationalist rally that turned violent in Charlottesville, Va., one member of his evangelical advisory board stepped down, citing “a deepening conflict in values between myself and the administration.”

Chicago Tribune staff contributed

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

|
EDITORIAL

Trump Should Be Removed from Office
It’s time to say what we said 20 years ago when a president’s character was revealed for what it was.
MARK GALLI DECEMBER 19, 2019

Image: Drew Angerer / Staff / Getty Images

In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.

That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.

This concern for the character of our national leader is not new in CT. In 1998, we wrote this:
The President's failure to tell the truth—even when cornered—rips at the fabric of the nation. This is not a private affair. For above all, social intercourse is built on a presumption of trust: trust that the milk your grocer sells you is wholesome and pure; trust that the money you put in your bank can be taken out of the bank; trust that your babysitter, firefighters, clergy, and ambulance drivers will all do their best. And while politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises, while in office they have a fundamental obligation to uphold our trust in them and to live by the law.

And this:
Unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.

Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump. To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.

Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today.

Exclusive: Canada police prepared to shoot Indigenous activists, documents show

'Monstrous': Docs Show Canadian Mounties Wanted Snipers Ready to Shoot Indigenous Land Defenders Blockading Pipeline
In response to the exclusive Guardian report, critics called the actions of Canadian authorities "abhorrent and unconscionable."

Exclusive: Canada police prepared to shoot Indigenous activists, documents show
Canada
Notes from strategy session for raid on Wet’suwet’en nation’s ancestral lands show commanders argued for ‘lethal overwatch’
Jaskiran Dhillon in Wet’suwet’en territory and Will Parrish
Fri 20 Dec 2019 10.30 GMT
 

Sabina Dennis stands her ground as police dismantle the barricade to enforce the injunction filed by Coastal Gaslink pipeline at the Gidimt’en checkpoint near Houston, British Columbia, on 7 January. Photograph: Amber Bracken

Canadian police were prepared to shoot Indigenous land defenders blockading construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern British Columbia, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Notes from a strategy session for a militarized raid on ancestral lands of the Wet’suwet’en nation show that commanders of Canada’s national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), argued that “lethal overwatch is req’d” – a term for deploying snipers.


Canada: 14 arrested at indigenous anti-pipeline protest camp as tensions rise


Read more

The RCMP commanders also instructed officers to “use as much violence toward the gate as you want” ahead of the operation to remove a roadblock which had been erected by Wet’suwet’en people to control access to their territories and stop construction of the proposed 670km (416-mile) Coastal GasLink pipeline (CGL).

In a separate document, an RCMP officer states that arrests would be necessary for “sterilizing the site”.

Wet’suwet’en people and their supporters set up the Gidimt’en checkpoint in December 2018 to block construction of the pipeline through this region of mountains and pine forests 750 miles north of Vancouver.

On 7 January, RCMP officers – dressed in military-green fatigues and armed with assault rifles – descended on the checkpoint, dismantling the gate and arresting 14 people.Q&A
Who are the Wet’suwet’en?Show


The checkpoint lies 22km east of a camp operated by a house group of the Wet’suwet’en called the Unist’ot’en, which has been at the center of the struggle against the pipeline.

The camp is one of several instances where Indigenous people in British Columbia have reinhabited ancestral territory that falls outside of demarcated reservations, in what they refer to as “reoccupation”.

Unist’ot’en spokesperson Freda Huson (Howilhkat) said that the RCMP’s militarized posture during the raid was consistent with a long history of colonial violence.

“In our experience, since first contact, RCMP have been created by the federal government to dispossess Indigenous peoples of their lands,” Huson said. “They have proven [that] through their harassment of my people to support Coastal GasLink in invading our territories.”

Police records seen by the Guardian include transcripts from police strategy sessions, reports filed after the raid and audio and video files.

One document noted that the Wet’suwet’en possessed “firearms for hunting/sustenance” but police intelligence indicated that there was “no single threat indicating that [land defenders] will use firearms”.

An RCMP spokesperson declined to comment on the specific content of the documents, saying they were merely carrying out a December 2018 injunction against people who interfere with the CGL pipeline.

“During the planning for the enforcement of the court-ordered injunction, the RCMP took the remote location of the Morice River Bridge into account and ensured that enough police officers were present in the area to keep the peace,” the spokesperson said. “We also took into consideration the unpredictable nature of what we could face in the remote area, and so we moved additional police resources including members of the tactical and emergency response teams to provide support.”

FacebookTwitterPinterest Camp supporters wait for police at the Gidimt’en blockade near Houston, British Columbia. Photograph: Amber Bracken


The revelations come as the Wet’suwet’en camps brace for a provincial supreme court ruling on an injunction applied for by the pipeline builder TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), which seeks to permanently restrict the Wet’suwet’en from blocking access to pipeline work sites.

The pipeline would run from the Dawson Creek area of northern British Columbia to a facility near Kitimat on the Pacific coast. CGL has begun road-building and clear-cutting on the right-of-way, and the company intends to start construction in early-2020.

Founded in 2009, Unist’ot’en camp was the first among a constellation of Indigenous-led uprisings against fossil fuel pipelines in North America – including Keystone XL, Trans Mountain, Enbridge Line 3, Dakota Access and Bayou Bridge.

Like most Indigenous people in British Columbia, the Wet’suwet’en have never relinquished their land to the Canadian government by treaty, land sale or surrender.

In a 1997 ruling, the supreme court of Canada determined that aboriginal land ownership had never been given up across the Wet’suwet’en’s 22,000 km sq of territory.

Wet’suwet’en leaders say they are defending their right to protect themselves and future generations from irreparable harm. The pipeline would run directly beneath the Morice River, a river system several municipalities rely on.


Pipeline battle puts focus on Canada's disputed right to use indigenous land


Read more

The documents show that ahead of the raid, the RCMP deployed an array of surveillance, including heavily armed police patrols, a jet boat, helicopter, drone technology, heat-sensing cameras and close monitoring of key land defenders’ movements and social media postings.


Police established a “media exclusion zone”, blocking reporters from accessing the area. They took care to hide their carbine rifles on the approach to the roadblock because the “optics” of the weapons were “not good”, according to one of the documents.

The documents also show close collaboration between the RCMP and TC Energy: police officers attended company planning sessions and daily “tailgate” meetings, and were privy to CGL’s legal strategy.

The RCMP were prepared to arrest children and grandparents: “No exception, everyone will be arrested in the injunction area,” a document reads. Another makes reference to possible child apprehension by social services – a troubling disclosure given the violent history of residential schooling in Canada and the disproportionate number of Indigenous children currently in the child welfare system.

“The police are here to support the invasion of Indigenous territories,” said Tlingit land defender Anne Spice. “It is what they’ve always done. Now, they watch us when we travel to pick berries. They ‘patrol’ the roads where we hunt. They harass us and profile us under the guise of ‘public safety’.”

Since the January raid, an RCMP detachment known as the Community Industry Safety Office has maintained a large presence in an effort to forestall any resistance to pipeline construction.

Armed RCMP officers can be seen patrolling the area, and three police trailers are tucked away in the woods alongside the access road. Drones and helicopters often circle overhead. CGL has also retained two private security firms that track Indigenous people’s movements.

According to the RCMP spokesperson, the police detachment will remain in place in Wet’suwet’en lands “as long as deemed necessary”.

FacebookTwitterPinterest Police climb over a barricade to enforce the injunction filed by Coastal Gaslink pipeline at the Gidimt’en checkpoint near Houston, British Columbia, on 7 January. Photograph: Amber Bracken


The RCMP Community Industry Response Group (CIRG) has also recently been deployed to monitor and suppress Indigenous people fighting the proposed Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline, which would pass through a separate area of British Columbia and which officially began construction last month.

One of the Gidimt’en land protectors, Molly Wickham (Sleydo’), from the clan’s Grizzly House, described the CIRG detachment in her people’s territory as a violation of “free, prior and informed consent” between a settler state and Indigenous people -- a principle enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

“What I’ve witnessed over the last year is not only violent oppression by RCMP and the state on 7 January, but the continuing occupation of our territories and surveillance of our people and camp by CIRG,” she said.

The RCMP’s suppression of Indigenous dissent against resource extraction is rooted in its founding as a paramilitary entity 150 years ago.

In the late 1800s, the RCMP (formerly the Northwest Mounted Police) carried out surveillance, violent displacement and relocation of Indigenous peoples onto reserves, and the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families in order to place them in residential schools. Advocates say it was the police force which enabled the Canadian government to seize Indigenous homelands and undermine Native sovereignty.

More recently, the Canadian state has thrown its national security apparatus behind oil and gas development – often directly at Indigenous people’s expense.

The 2015 Anti-Terrorism Act, Bill C-51, sanctions the criminalization of Indigenous environmentalists by enhancing surveillance and legal powers against any potential interference with Canada’s “critical infrastructure” or “territorial integrity”. Land defenders such as Freda Huson have been identified in RCMP intelligence reports as “aboriginal extremists”.

Despite the onset of winter, Wet’suwet’en land defenders remain at the camps to protect their lands and waters. As construction crews dynamite the land in preparation for laying pipe, and RCMP and private security forces patrol the territory, they trap for food and build new cabins.

“We will continue to resist, to insist on respect for our way of life,” said Spice.

Google fires engineer who created browser pop-up message about workers' rights

By BY LEVI SUMAGAYSAY
THE MERCURY NEWS |
DEC 18, 2019 

Another worker is accusing Google of unfair labor practices after being fired for creating a browser pop-up that could be seen by the company's employees. It read: "Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities."

Google, which is already facing charges of anti-union retaliation after it fired four employees before Thanksgiving, is now facing a similar charge brought by Kathryn Spiers, a security engineer who was fired Friday. A filing by the Communications Workers of America with the National Labor Relations Board, which was seen by this news organization, said Spiers' job responsibilities included notifying employees of their rights to protected activity as required by previous NLRB charges against Google.

"This kind of code change happens all the time," Spiers said in a blog post on Medium. "For example, someone changed the default desktop wallpaper during the walkout last year so that the Linux penguin was holding a protest sign. The company has never reacted aggressively in response to a notification such as this in the past."

But in an unusual move by Google which has not confirmed the names of any workers it has fired a company spokeswoman on Tuesday provided a copy of an email by Royal Hansen, vice president of Technical Infrastructure Security & Privacy, saying Spiers acted without authorization.

"She misused a security and privacy tool to create a pop-up that was neither about security nor privacy," Hansen said in the email. "The issue here was not that the messaging at issue had to do with the NLRB notice or workers' rights. Our analysis would have been the same had the pop-up message been on any other subject even a joke."

Other former Googlers, some of whom were fired or forced out, disagree.

Meredith Whittaker, co-founder and co-director of AI Now Institute at New York University and one of the organizers of the Google Walkout who left the company over the summer, also mentioned the Linux penguin and tweeted Tuesday: "This is BS... There's a long tradition of Google (engineers) taking initiative to create features and tools that help surface info and improve workflow. Kathryn was punished for organizing. Full stop."

Whittaker and others said they faced retaliation for organizing last year's walkout, which was a protest by thousands of Googlers around the world over the company's handling of sexual misconduct accusations against its executives. Since then, Google workers have engaged in various protests and actions related to issues ranging from YouTube's handling of LGBTQ harassment to the company's choices of voices for an AI ethics panel to its bidding for a contract with Customs and Border Protection.

The company recently hired IRI Consultants, which is known for its anti-union work, and Spiers said in her blog post that she created the pop-up message to appear when Googlers visited the website of that company, or Google's community guidelines policy.

(c)2019 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Visit The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) at www.mercurynews.com

Oilsands Firms ‘Morally Responsible’ for Deaths and Destruction from Climate Disasters | The Tyee
Greenpeace’s Yeb Saño explains what a Philippines human rights investigation means for the fossil fuel industry in Canada.

Girl, 10, threatened with ARREST over Oz fire protest as PM takes Hawaii holiday
A LITTLE girl in Australia burst into tears when a heavy-handed cop warned that “force may be used” to arrest and remove her from a climate protest. The over-the-top response was caught…
The over-the-top response was caught on video outside the home of Prime Minister Scott Morrison - who has been relaxing on holidays in Hawaii while firefighters die trying to extinguish his blazing country."

\

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=AUSTRALIA

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=WILDFIRES

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BUSHFIRES 

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CLIMATE+CHANGE

WE all can use a little good news today.

National ObserverEXCLUSIVE: Wind farm owner launches court challenge against Ontario government
Exclusive: EDP Renewables has now launched a court challenge to try to overturn the province’s decision, alleging it was fuelled by politics instead of evidence.
Earlier this month, the Ontario government cancelled the half-built Nation Rise Wind Farm, citing concerns about local bats. The company behind the project says that claim isn’t rooted in science.

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Impeachment: If Soldiers Face Death, Senators Can Face Witnesses To Preserve America

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