53 thoughts on “Remind me, what does the First Amendment say again?

  1. There’s no way I’m touching that link out to Instagram or whatever it is – so in a few words, what is it?

    1. It’s a video of Trump saying this ridiculous claptrap.

      The last refuge of the scoundrel isn’t patriotism, it’s religiosity.

  2. In related news, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

    The Donald is like Big Brother’s ignorant little brother — or, as I heard Sam Harris describe him once, a malign Chauncey Gardiner.

    1. or even human:-(
      Despicable, deplorable, stoooopid. Some of the comments on his tweet were really depressing.

        1. As far as I’m concerned Twitter is a virtual public urinal wall. But if you’re inclined, you can do a search for @realDonaldTrump and it will show you his twitter feed. Below each tweet will be comments from others.

          1. When I do that all I see are his twits. I’m doing something wrong. Don’t think I’ll try it again. Now I feel like I need to take a shower.

          2. Assuming you are viewing the tweets via a web browser, just click on the whitespace of a tweet, then a popup expands showing that tweet and a selection of its replies.. if the original tweet was itself a reply, you will see it within its conversation.

            As a general rule in all websites & applications… mouse over everything to see what happens, left-click anything that seems like it should give you more information or “do something” if you click it… for anything that is left-clickable, also try right-clicking to see what other actions can be done with that thing. (substitute tapping & swiping(in various directions) for left/right clicking on mobile devices).

          3. ah-HAH! That did it. Now I can see the responses and now I really wish I hadn’t.

            I am reminded why I don’t do any social media. My fellow humans are mostly shits. I’d rather not pay attention, remain deluded, and think other people are usually rather nice. It’s better that way.

        2. You have to go to the tweet – just click on it, and the replies will be there underneath. However, I don’t think you can do that without having a Twitter account.

          Joining is an anonymous process. You don’t have to use your real name on the public part of your account like on Facebook, so it won’t necessarily come back to haunt you.

  3. Well in fairness if you had to worship one or the other (you don’t), a god that doesn’t exist seems like a better choice than any institution with Trump leading it.

    1. Yeah i was thinking that.

      Being a staunch atheist, I still think the likelihood of the existence of god is higher than the likelihood of Trump being a sane president.

      So if I’d have to choose only one of these to worship…
      (I don’t, of course)

  4. I wonder who the “we” he is referring to is. Word has it he just about never went to church as an adult until he was the Republican candidate for POTUS….and it looks like his own church (such as he acknowledges it) had some advice for him before that.
    https://www.pcusa.org/news/2015/10/2/clerk-issues-letter-trump-refugees-immigrants/

    As far as the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment goes, i don’t think he could tell you what it says!

  5. He is the most productive president ever in that a day doesn’t go by without him doing or saying something incredibly stupid.

      1. Good one. Some attribute this to Lincoln but I don’t know. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

      2. Trump may not be a 12d chessmater, but his strategy certainly works. The current disaster of a healthcare bill was narrowly voted down yesterday but is scheduled for another round of voting. Trump says and does something dumb to draw public attention his way while Republican Senators do their thing.

        We who allow ourselves to be distracted are the ones making the mistake.

  6. It seems Trump is doing his classic strategy when he’s in trouble, distracting attention by pandering to his base. Is it just coincidence that he’s chosen now to say he won’t have transgender people serve in the military?

    1. Yeah this and the transgender ban (while Mattis was on vacation) had Pence written all over it.

      Mattis is going to be pissed that prez asshat stabbed him in the back.

      1. I don’t know why Mattis will be upset. He recently enacted a six month delay on implementing the Obama plan. He said, more time was needed to make a decision, after consulting senior defense officials.

        1. In general, generals don’t like a President making decisions for the Pentagon without consulting the Pentagon. Mattis’ delay only affects new recruits. Presently, there are thousands of out-transgender soldiers doing important jobs. This undermines military readiness and cohesion. And the excuse that it’s too expensive to care for transgender soldiers is bunk.

          1. An unnecessary delay of six months, for a phony reason like he felt it necessary to conduct a review to determine if allowing transgender individuals to enlist in the armed services will affect the “readiness or lethality” of the force, hardly makes him a big supporter of the former policy. Sounds to me like Mattis will appreciate Trump’s stupidity, since it takes the heat off of him.

          2. Sounds to me like Mattis will appreciate Trump’s stupidity, since it takes the heat off of him.

            That’s a good point.

    2. Yeah, Trump started getting push back from the Far Right over his mean-girl tweets to Jeff Sessions. This (and his transgender stuff) is meant to be balm for his base.

  7. Whenever Trump perceives that he’s starting to get into “trouble” he reflexively falls back on what he does (in his mind, anyway) best: self-promotion. His address to the Boy Scouts that he turned into a political rally the other day is a good example; this Tweet is just an appeal to the “religious right”…..
    He;s lying, of course, here- first of all, his use of the word, “We”: there are a great many Americans who don’t worship the Christian “God”; some worship Satan; some the Flying Spaghetti Monster (blessings be on His noodleyness), many others don’t worship anything at all. The second lie is that Donny would like nothing better than to be “worshiped”, in ANY way, shape, or form: I’m reminded that Hitler had made plans (once the war was won, of course) to dismantle the church in “greater” Germany and replace them with a state religion whose sole object of veneration would be himself.

    1. “His address to the Boy Scouts Trump Youth …”

      Updated to reflect organizational name change.

  8. I do enjoy how he connects emotionally to his minions.

    As Kasparov said;

    “Anyone still supporting Trump, or even abiding him, has made that choice once and for all. You cannot shame the shameless. Focus on action.”

    Like so many other aspects of his intellect, Trump has no idea what god is, just that it is something to help control the masses.

  9. I find it an astonishing statement because, I am convinced, many US citizens have found something to fill an ill-kept God-shaped wound in themselves: government.

  10. Twitter is where Trump lets Trump be Trump.

    This stuff will hurt him, long term. I can believe it helped him as a candidate to set up topics and suck oxygen. But a president doesn’t need that. Trump does not see that. Trump haters should rejoice.

  11. I hate to write it, but isn’t he right this time? His statement sounded to me like “here in Italy, we eat pasta” and it’s completely true. Of course if you dislike pasta, you dislike this tradition, and you disapprove of its proud exclamation — he can still have that opinion, and it is still justified (despite the popularity of, say, pizza).

    America really is the land where they worship God and are eternally suspicious of the government — or the part of government that might actually be useful to normal people (industrial-military-prison complex is totally fine, since this serves the interests of America’s Robber Baron billionaire class, looting the planet).

    And not to rub it in, what he says also doesn’t get even close to conflict with the 1st Ammendment:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    While everyone is offended by whatever gaffe Trump did today, he and his entourage are dismantling everything that in any fashion helps those who aren’t billionaires. And this works. He hides his awfulness in plain sight.

    While in retrospect, everyone remembers various gaffes, the radical revamp of everything else largely goes unnoticed. It might even be worse, that all those distractions might amount to nothing, like the Benghazi-Screams in the opposite direction in previous years.

    After that, I’d worry that the president is still acting as if campaigning, and that now crosses over into propaganda (the state-funded act of spreading falsehoods with emotional appeal for some political gain), also not a trivial matter.

  12. No matter what our president says, in America, we still worship any god we please. Or none. However, how much longer this will be permitted is unknown at this time.

  13. Apparently his word salad and incoherence are indications of the early stages of Alzheimer’s’.As his Father perished from the same disease, it could be his tenure can’t go on much longer.

  14. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this:

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

    IMO, it’s the FIRST amendment for a very good reason. It lays the groundwork for all the others.

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