How Do You Defend the Indefensible?©

 How Do You Defend the Indefensible?© 

This week President Trump, in his undeniable authoritarian manner, crossed a line that even many of his long-time supporters find impossible to defend, because it is indefensible. Six members of Congress, all military veterans or former CIA, published a short video recommending to today’s military that they are oath-bound not to follow or carry out an illegal order.  

The President took to his favorite medium, “Truth Social” to lash out in several posts, the last two of which said this was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH” and a later re-posted comment that Democrats should be hanged.

In the following firestorm, some of his supporters had difficulty defending the indefensible. Mike Johnson said they were not the words he would choose, Lindsey Graham said the remarks were "over the top" and the President’s press secretary, when asked if the President wants to hang members of Congress said, “No,” but immediately, as is her and her boss’s want, went on the attack. But she mis-characterized the video as insubordination to the Commander-in-Chief, just as the Commander-in-Chief himself mis-characterized it. Leavitt intentionally left out the fact that the video stressed “illegal” orders.

Despite the fact that Leavitt said the president didn't want to hang the producers of the video, this is nonetheless a default reaction for the President.  His character when under fire shows us where his mind and heart have been feeding.  He is a pathological and violent man.  His heart is filled with vengeance, anger, hate, and savagery.  Evidence mounts by the day, week, and month of his true authoritarian nature--another indefensible issue.

For this record, I oppose, denounce, and publically speak out against a President who calls for the death of those who oppose him. He is so thin-skinned–and his skin seems to be getting thinner by the day–and so abominably ignorant that he nor his press secretary attack dog, know the difference between the words “legal” and “illegal”--if he is opposed it is automatically illegal--or they choose to ignore the difference, which itself is an ignorant move. But Leavitt is just a loyal attack dog and her ignorance is that she thinks the MAGA base will believe and accept her mis-representation of the video’s message.

The President continues to take things to new levels of low, even when you think he cannot.  THIS IS REALLY DANGEROUS STUFF! We’ve never seen anything like it from a sitting President. And every American should be outraged and reject it and its proponent(s).  Charlie Kirk's assassination and recent threats against Marjorie Taylor Greene and the “thousands” of immediate threats the six contributors to the video received following DJT’s remarks, among other examples, demonstrate the danger. President Trump is well aware of this. He does not rebuke or shun it, he leads the charge, taking it to a new nadir. He likes not only the “fight,” but he likes the violence, cruelty, pain, suffering, hate, and intimidation involved. American’s should be enraged that their leader descends to this brutalism on a daily basis. No American should ever defend this indefensible barbarism.

For me there is hope, not hopelessness. I see signs of a crack in MAGA, and I know Almighty God is in control.  God forgive us for electing a heathen who relishes the barbarity of fascists, Nazis, and dictators.

Let’s think together again, soon.

DJT: King of Fake, King of Lies©

DJT: King of Fake, King of Lies© 

King of “Fake”

On Monday, 10 November 2025, in and interview with Laura Ingraham in reference to polls showing economic pain, President Trump responded: “The polls are fake.  It’s a con job by Democrats.”

Donald Trump is a king, the King of Fake. "Fake" is a default response for him. When he encounters any news or poll that contradicts him, his position, or says something negative about him or his administration, he resorts to the same innane and overworked explanation. It is fake. Common sense and the law of averages suggests that not everything critical of DJT is fake, but the MAGA folks appear to swallow it hook, line, and sinker every time, or more probably true, they ignore it every time. They know it’s not fake, so they don’t defend it as such, but they find other equally silly explanations.

King of Lies

In the same interview, President Trump told Laura Ingraham that the United States enjoys the “greatest economy we’ve ever had.” He claimed that only beef and coffee were too high. University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wofers in an interview with Kaitlan Collins said in response on Tuesday:

“Look, every word the president just said is a lie. Worse with that, it’s such a lie that I worry that there’s literally a break with reality inside the man’s mind. I can tell you that because I’m a statistics nerd, and you can go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they’ve got people in supermarkets all across the country, and almost every category of goods or services sees the prices rising.

There’s not a single way you can interpret a word that the man’s saying right now as being remotely reflective of either what we’re seeing in data from all across the country, or in people’s everyday lives.” 

Lies and calling contrary information "fake,"  the standard fare of the President, are also so transparent that they make him the "king of transparency"--not a real genuine transparency of his administration, but the obviousness of another promise that turned out to be a lie, a fake promise.

This man boasts (he is also the "king of boasts") that he is making America great again, that he is reestablshing our respected position in the world. His self-delusion is impervious to the fact that to the world he, and we because we elected him, are the laughing stock among the nations.

I oppose a fake President, who wants to be king.  I oppose a lying President.  I oppose a self-deluded, arrogant boaster of a President.  I oppose a mean-spirited, vengeful, always-angry President.  I yearn for a President with character, integrity, and some empathy and compassion.

Lets think together again, soon.

Source: 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/economist-stunned-donald-trump-latest-075821174.html

 

The Apostle Paul, Charity, and President Trump©

 The Apostle Paul, Charity, and President Trump©

In October 1975, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley in a conference talk titled “Opposing Evil,” said among other things: “I am one who believes that we should earnestly and sincerely and positively express our convictions .... Let our voices be heard. I hope they will not be shrill voices, but I hope we shall speak with such conviction that those to whom we speak shall know of the strength of our feeling and the sincerity of our effort. I think the Lord would say to us, “Rise, and stand upon thy feet, and speak up for truth and goodness and decency and virtue.” God give us the strength, the wisdom, the faith, the courage as citizens to stand in opposition to these and to let our voices be heard in defense of those virtues which, when practiced in the past, made men and nations strong, and which, when neglected, brought them to decay.”(1)

In that spirit I again speak out as strong as I am able against the evil, total corruption, wickedness, felonies, liability for sexual abuse (rape), mysogny, illegal actions, abuse of power, perversity, petulance, pettiness, hostility, continual anger, monumental hubris, hypocrisy, indecency, vulgarity, hate, vengeance, meanness, rudeness, cruelness, ignorance, and perpetual lying of the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump.  

One can look in vain through the history of the American presidency for a president who has a larger list of former supporters who, after working with him, then reject and oppose him as has President Trump.  We might add the large and growing list of members of the administration who subsequently write books exposing and/or opposing him or warning the public about him. I’ve pondered why this unprecedented avalanche doesn’t disturb the MAGA folk, but I stand totally bewildered by the phemenon.

So I speak out in opposition to the President today, with a simple comparison you may make for yourselves.

In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 the Apostle Paul identifies 15 elements of the Christian attribute of charity, which he portrays as the supreme Christian characteristic–one without which we are “nothing.”  I will list them in order from the King James Version, with several alternatives from modern translations to help with some clarity. (The verse in 1 Cor 13 where they are found is enclosed in parentheses.  They are:

    KJV         NIV                 NET

1.  Is long-suffering (4)         patient          patient

2.  Is kind (4)

3.  Does not envy (4)                not envy           not envious

4.  Vaunteth not itself (4)          boast           brag

5.  Not puffed up (4)    proud           puffed up

6.  Not behave unseemly (5)    dishonor others           rude

7.  Seeks not her own (5)    not self-seeking           self-serving

8,  Not easily provoked (5)    not easily angered          not easily angered 

9.  Thinks no evil(5)     keeps no record          not easily resentful

                    of wrongs

10.  Rejoices not in 

       iniquity (6)               delight in evil    glad about injustice

11.  Rejoices in the truth (6)     rejoices with the

                    truth

12.  Bears all things (7)             protects

13.  Believes all things (7)     trusts

14.  Hopes all things (7)             hopes

15.  Endures all things (7)     preserves

Christian charity is a very high bar indeed.  Paul even says if one understands all mysteries and has all faith sufficient to move mountains, but does not have charity he is “nothing.”  If we give all of our goods to feed the poor, or our bodies as martyrs to the flames, and have not charity “it profiteth me nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:2-3) This kind of Christianity is serious business of the first order.  

Of the 15 elements Paul gives us, how many fit the President’s character? Actually, he is almost the exact opposite of two-thirds of them. There was a day in this country when the public would not brook his kind of behavior, but today apparently millions not only tolerate it, but encourage and applaud it. I find it extremely hard to believe that any decent mother holds him up as an example for her children to follow.

Some argue that his character and personal failings don't matter.  Again, I turn to the word of God and the teachings of living prophets.

Scripture: Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.(2)

David O. McKay:  No nation will become great whose trusted officers will pass legislation for personal gain, who will take advantage of a public office for personal preferment or to gratify vain ambition, or who will, through forgery, chicanery, and fraud, rob the government, or be false in office to a public trust.

Honesty, sincerity of purpose must be the dominant traits of character in leaders of a nation that would be truly great.(3) 

Neal A. Maxwell:  All about us we see hypocrisies as between public and private behavior, as if God had issued two sets of commandments—one for indoors and another for out-of-doors.(4)

Gordon B. Hinckley: It is not wise, or even possible, to divorce private behavior from public leadership–though there are those who have gone to great lengths to suggest that this is the only possible view of “enlightened” individuals.  They are wrong.  They are deceived.  By its very nature, true leadership carries with it the burden of being an example.  Is it asking too much of any public officer, elected by his or her constituents, to stand tall and be a model before the people–not only in the ordinary aspects of leadership but in his or her behavior?  If values, aren’t established and adhered to at the top, behavior down the ranks is seriously jeopardized and undermined.  Indeed, in any organization where such is the case–be it a family, a corporation, a society, or a nation–the values being neglected will in time disappear.(5)

I pray regularly, and invite you to join me, that the Lord will protect the Constitution of the United States with its separation of powers and the freedom and rights it guarantees us, and to preserve our inspired democratic heritage and protect us from Donald Trump's corruption, authoritarian tendencies and apparent desire to be our king.

Let’s think together, soon.

Notes:

 1.  Gordon B. Hinckley, "Opposing Evil," Ensign (November 1975):38-40.

2.  Doctrine and Covenants 98:10.

3.  David O. McKay, Pathways To Happiness, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1957, 3.

4.  Neal A. Maxwell, If Thou Endure it Well, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996, 16.

5.  Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues that Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes, New York: Random House, 2000, 170.