Louisiana Voice

If I am to lay claim to a shred of credibility, I must be able to admit when I am wrong and boy, was I wrong with the first quote I posted today under Notable Quotables.

Apparently, I’ve been a victim of my own failure to thoroughly vet quotes by Donald Trump. As one who routinely goes to SNOPES.COM for verification, the one time I neglected to do so, it comes back to bite me.

Accordingly, I apologize for and retract the quote attributed to Trump about Republicans being stupid [in fact, that entire quote was a complete urban legend fabrication.] It turns out he never said that. It also turns out that yours truly was the stupid one this time.

I would also be remiss if I did not offer a thank-you to the reader who pointed out my lapse. She knows who she is.

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On April 1, I posted my annual April Fool’s column on LouisianaVoice.

You can review the post HERE, but today I’m writing to say that once again, life imitates art, even when that “art” is published as parody. As has been said by wiser people than I, irony is wasted on some people.

I wrote about a fictional preacher named Rev. Howe Dewey Connem who appeared more motivated by the potential loss of love offerings than in the actual welfare of his parishioners.

It turns out that that had a tad more than a tinge of truth with the real-live travails of the minister of a Baton Rouge-area church who has defied orders by Gov. John Bel Edwards to avoid clusters while we are in the throes of a worldwide pandemic.

Three stories about Rev. Tony Spell, pastor of Central’s Life Tabernacle Church, caught my eye this week, two of them local and one a national story.

First, Spell was arrested on a charge that he nearly ran over a protester with one of the church’s 27 buses used to haul worshipers to services at his mega-church. The near-victim was protesting Spell’s insistence on continuing to hold full-blown worship services at his church in defiance of both the governor and a court order. Spell, of course, denied that he nearly ran over the person.

Then, on Saturday, it was learned that Spell had been placed under HOUSE ARREST after refusing to tell a state judge if he would continue to hold services or not.

One of the conditions of Spell’s release after the bus incident was that he “refrain from any and all criminal conduct, including but not limited to strictly abiding by all emergency ordered” issued by Edwards.

When given a deadline of 5:45 p.m. Saturday to answer the judge about his intentions, he responded instead with a Bible quote: “But and if ye suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye; and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled.”

No mention of any observance of common sense.

Spell posted a video from his home in which he vowed “to continue to do what I do,” adding that “This is not about me. This is about our religious liberties.” Then, as an ankle monitor was being attached by authorities, he said beginning at 12 noon on Sunday, “my voice will silenced for several months. You will not hear from me again.”

No explanation was given for that last statement, but to be sure, this most certainly is about him. It’s always been about him. If you don’t believe that, consider the CNN story was preceded the two stories in the Baton Rouge Advocate.

Last Sunday (April 19, Easter Sunday), Spell was quoted by CNN as asking his congregants to DONATE THEIR FEDERAL STIMULUS CHECKS to the church, prompting one reader to ask if those who do so would receive an anointed prayer cloth.

To Spell’s credit (I suppose), he at least offered the pretense that he was thinking of others (besides his church members who just might need that money). “We are challenging you, if you can, give your stimulus package to evangelists and missionaries who do not get the stimulus package.”

He didn’t mention whether or not he was eligible for stimulus money but he did reveal that his motives for defiance may rooted as much in a desire to keep the money flowing in as in any concern for First Amendment rights, which he continues to tout.

“This is not about me,” he said Saturday. “This is about our religious liberties.”

Louisiana has the 9^th-most confirmed cases of coronavirus and 1,267 people—about the same number who attended his church for Easter services last week—have died in the state. Still, Spell insists that the pandemic is “politically motivated.”

The whole thing reminds me of the John Denver-George Burns movie Oh, God! in which the televangelist in the movie, clad in an electric-blue leisure suit proclaimed to his congregation that when he talked about “LO-uve, (love), I’m talkin’ about the feelin’ you get when you dig DEEP into your pockets to support this min-is-try.”

You have to wonder if Spell has given any thought at all to the plight of his members who have been thrown out of work by the shutdown caused by COVID-19 or if he is even capable of thinking of others’ misfortunes as the Bible teaches us to do.

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“If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”

—Donald J. Trump, People Magazine, 1998.

“I won’t accept written answers from the whistleblower. They must testify in person.”

—Donald Trump.

“I’ve submitted my answers to Mueller in written form because I’m not testifying in person.”

—Donald Trump. [Yes, we know the outcome of the Mueller report and the impeachment, but the double standard here is worth mentioning. Besides, if he testified in person, he’d be under oath and lying under oath is still considered perjury.]

“People are dying who have never died before.”

—Donald Trump, March 18, 2020. [Gee, who knew?]

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“This notion of injecting or ingesting any type of cleansing product into the body is irresponsible, and it’s dangerous. It’s a common method that people utilize when they want to kill themselves.”

–Dr. Van Gupta, a pulmonologist and global health policy expert, on Trump’s idea of injecting disinfectants into the body as a coronavirus cure.

INFOMERCIAL?

“If Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.”

–British writer Michael Stevenson. You may read his entire essay HERE. [With thanks to Earthmother for passing it along.]

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Before the furor had died down over Donald Trump’s demented comments about injecting disinfectants and ultraviolet lights as a means of combating coronavirus [ideas he had to have been pulled from the lower recesses of his anatomy] it was already being predicted that he would attempt to WALK BACK the stupidest thing ever uttered by a leader of any description since Kool-Aid dispenser JIM JONES.

And yes, I’m fully aware that comparing him to Jim Jones will bring out the Trump devotees who will be frothing at the mouth and screaming “Unfair!” So, go ahead, take your best shot but I shall not back down because what the Golden Cheeto has done is no different than Jones who [perhaps unintentionally] gave us the terms “Kool-Aid drinker,” and “Drink the Kool-Aid.”

Suggesting that coronavirus sufferers might find relief by injecting light or disinfectant into their bodies is not only stupid, but irresponsible, dangerous and inexcusable.

And whoever sent out that email photo with the suggestion that he would deny ever saying such a thing wasn’t far off.

By Friday afternoon, Idiot-in-Chief and his White House lackeys were already into damage control.

“I was asking a question SARCASTICALLY to reporters like you just to see what would happen,” he told reporters at an Oval Office bill signing this afternoon.

Sure you were.

“I was asking a sarcastic — and a very sarcastic question — to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside,” Chump continued. “But it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands and that would make things much better. That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to the reporters.”

Sorry, Mr. Golden Hairpiece, I call B.S. YOU LIED.

But here’s the thing. Let’s just, for the sake of argument, say you were just being sarcastic. That begs one question: WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? [Sorry to shout, but damn! You are just so very stupid.]

Just in case you aren’t aware, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and people are dying. Dying, Mr. Frump, DYING! And you’re being sarcastic?!!!!?

Excuse my anger and indigence, Mr. T-Rump, but that was neither the time nor the place for “sarcasm.” Anyone with a modicum of intelligence and common sense—of which you constantly boast but seem to possess such a minute quantity—would know that.

Do us all a favor and just stop with the daily briefings. They don’t help the country and they certainly don’t help you.

On second thought, keep doing them. Biden won’t even have to campaign.

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