Last week, it was quietly revealed that Trump has hired a new “liaison for Christian policy,” a televangelist named Frank Amedia. Amedia is a relatively unknown character, so Miranda Blue at Right Wing Watch started digging. Unsurprisingly, Amedia turns out to be exactly the sort of hyper-sleazy master manipulator that the mind automatically conjures up when you think of the word “televangelist”.

In on telling incident, Amedia, while on a show hosted by his fellow televangelist Guillermo Maldonado, bragged about how he supposedly can control tsunamis. He starts the story by recall in his wife waking him to alert him to the fact that his daughter was on a Hawaiian island that had a tsunami headed for it, then:

I stood at the edge of my bed and I said, ‘In the name of Jesus, I declare that tsunami to stop now.’ And I specifically said, ‘I declare those waters to recede,’ and I said, ‘Father, that is my child, I am your child, I’m coming to you now and asking you to preserve her.’ Apostle, it was seen by 400 people on a cliff. It was on YouTube, it was actually on the news that that tsunami stopped 200 feet off of shore. Even after having sucked the waters in, it churned and it went on and did devastation in the next island.

Stories of “miracles” where God spared the supposedly worthy but rained down destruction and death on others are a common trope in Christian right circles. (See this popular urban legend of angels who prevent a Christian woman from getting rape, setting the rapists to go rape some other unlucky woman.) It’s a trope that has an ugly, hateful edge to it, as much about conveying the idea that other people are worthy of death as it is to persuade the believers their faith will save them.

But beyond that, think of the narcissism it takes to imagine one can control tsunamis. No wonder Trump loves this guy.

Blue dug up a wonderland of crazy stories about Amedia, who practices “faith healing” over the phone on his call-in show and, in 2001 got immunity for prosecution for admitting in court that he had attempted to bribe a prosecutor in a fraud case.

read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/05/24/trumps_christian_outreach

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has criticised Bill Shorten for labelling the views of US presidential hopeful Donald Trump "barking mad", saying the potential future "leader of the Free World" deserves respect.

It comes after Treasurer Scott Morrison and his Opposition counterpart Chris Bowen clashed over who should be handed control of the nation's purse-strings during the first Treasurers' Debate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-27/election-2016-live-blog-may-27/7449652

The "potential future leader of the free world"?... Boy! Aren't we in trouble... Mind you with Madame Clinton as president, We could be in for some rough times as well... So the USA is about to elect Caligula or Lady Godiva as the leader of a "free" world gone mad, in which the emperor clothes are shredded to smithereens by reality...

... As more and more candidates dropped out of the primary race, Republicans who initially thought Trump unfit to be president faced a quandary: Willfully embracing him would mean recognizing that their decisions about whom to support were opportunistic rather than principled. That's a difficult pill to swallow as no one wants to see themselves as a hypocrite. But everyone does want their team to win.

Luckily for Trump—or, for that matter, any other candidate who might find himself or herself in the same situation—the human mind has a built-in solution for this problem: the whitewash. When faced with the option to either stand on principle or gain advantage, people tend to go with the latter. And if that means rewriting your perceptions, the mind is more than happy to comply while maintaining the illusion that you were doing what was right all along.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/Never-Trump-protesters-vote-Republican-2016

This is where the allied had to maintain the rage against Hitler... But I guess here that our own Rupert also knows the trick and has been practising for yonks. This is why he unofficially supported Trump from the start with subtle text messages: "I think that Trump has the winning strategy" he said in one Twitter... Uncle Rupe knows about demagogy: someone who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power (or/and stay in power). This is Uncle Rupe's bread and butter. As well, in most News Corp publication, this demagogy is supplemented by slanted views — but most importantly diluted to a specific formula with ENTERTAINMENT for the common man: sport and TV. This is why Murdoch wanted to control the NRL (National Rugby League) by buying the clubs and take it to his cable network exclusively. 

News flash: Donald Trump has proven again that he would be a disastrous President who would let our planet fry. Today, he added further insult to existing injury, launching a jaw-dropping energy speech that defies reality.

April 2016 set a record as the hottest April on record since temperatures were first recorded. Unfortunately, this was not a fluke; This has become the “new normal.” April was the 12th consecutive month that broke monthly high-temperature records. In other words, the last twelve months have been the hottest months ever recorded for each respective month.

The Democratic candidates that have run for Party’s nomination have all been on the same page in terms of accepting the scientific consensus that the atmosphere is warming up and that human activity is the biggest cause. But the Republican candidates, a pool that has been whittled down to include only Donald Trump, have consistently declared that climate change is a hoax.

The New York Times explains Donald Trump’s previous comments about climate and energy as follows:

Mr. Trump has said he would undo President Obama’s climate change policies, particularly a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations to curb planet-warming emissions from coal-fired power plants. Of the E.P.A. itself, he has vowed “to get rid of it in almost every form.”

He has said that as president, he would renegotiate the Paris climate accord, a global agreement committing nearly every nation to lowering greenhouse gas pollution. And, while demand for American coal has declined, he declared while campaigning in West Virginia, “We’re going to get those miners back to work.”

Not only could Trump prove to be a climate disaster because of his refusal to accept science, but his complete lack of political experience means that he is completely reliant on his advisors to develop his policy for him.

This is troubling for the United States because Donald Trump has already appointed a climate change denier, Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer from North Dakota, as his top energy advisor.

This week we finally got a peek at what Trump’s energy policy would be if he makes it to the White House when he gave a speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in North Dakota outlining his energy platform. As usual, his policies sounded more like a buzzword salad than actual proposals — key phrases like “energy independence” and “jobs” were thrown out constantly in his attempts to pander to the public.

Here is what we learned this week about what a Donald Trump presidency would look like:

• Increased coal production, as Trump promised to put out-of-work coal miners back to work, blaming the decline on the industry on President Obama rather than a global decrease in demand.
• The Keystone XL Pipeline will become a reality.
• Oil drilling and fracking will be given the go-ahead to increase activities both onshore and off.
• Remove any and all safety regulations that are in place to protect sensitive environmental areas and human health, and possibly dismantling the entire Environmental Protection Agency.
• Repeal bans on selling U.S. oil to overseas countries.
• Increase offshore energy exploitation.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/05/26/donald-trump-lays-out-disastrous-energy-plan

Same rigmarole with the CONservative (liberal) policies here in Australia with a bit more mitigated subtlety to make doubters happy: we give money to CO2 polluters to pollute less, with accounting of emissions not worth a kindergarten's rubbish bins full of nappies. 

The Republican Party’s politically lethal embrace of Donald J. Trump is very nearly complete.

In endorsing Mr. Trump earlier this month, Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, stipulated that while he and Mr. Trump have their differences, “we have more common ground than disagreement.” A President Trump, he argued, will help turn the agenda of the Republican House of Representatives into laws.

In a recent interview, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said that whether or not Mr. Trump believes in limited government, “he’s not going to change the Republican Party,” adding that “he’s not going to change the basic philosophy of the party.”

Both Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell are capable and impressive; Donald Trump is just about the last person they were hoping would be their party’s presidential nominee. But he is, and Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell are expressing the hope of Republicans who have been wary of Mr. Trump: that somehow, deep down, he embraces the principles of the pre-Trump Republican Party. Or that even if he doesn’t, he can be cajoled or pressured into adopting them. Either way, the damage that Mr. Trump threatens to do to the Republican Party can be contained. The argument is that even if you don’t particularly like or trust Mr. Trump, he will not redefine the Republican Party.

But he already has. Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, is waging an open attack on what have long been the party’s core views.

For at least three decades Republican politics have been defined by the centrality of conservatism in the party’s governing philosophy. Modern conservatism has three elements: a commitment to limited government and economic liberty that enables prosperity; moral traditionalism that conserves our capacity for liberty by producing responsible citizens; and a belief that America, confidently and carefully engaged in international affairs, can be a force for good in the world.

Mr. Trump rejects all three.

Over the course of his nearly 70 years, and this primary campaign is no exception, Mr. Trump has shown no real desire to limit the size, cost or reach of the federal government. He has no interest in economic liberty as it has been understood since Adam Smith. He wants an economy in which trade and immigration are tightly restricted and the government makes mercantilist deals on behalf of large domestic producers.

Mr. Trump is the very embodiment of the culture of narcissism and decadence that moral traditionalism exists to counteract. Republicans used to argue that character mattered in our political leaders. But apparently that applied only to Democrats like Bill Clinton. Today, we’re told such considerations are irrelevant, inapposite, quaint. We’re electing a president rather than a pope, after all, so there’s no problem wrapping Republican arms around a moral wreck. At least he’s our moral wreck.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/campaign-stops/the-indelible-stain-of-donald-trump.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0