“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
View all posts by patd
72 thoughts on “Babies Everywhere Beware”
🎶 “Ribbit, ribbit, let freedom sing — ain’t nothin’ so strong as a silly thing!” 🎶
Oct 11, 2025
🎸 The Ballad of the Portland Frog Brigade | Funny Folk-Country Protest Song 🐸🌧️
What happens when a giant frog, a chicken, a bear, and a unicorn take to the rainy streets of Portland?
You get The Frog Brigade — a hilarious, heart-warming, and foot-stompin’ country-folk anthem about standing up (and hopping up) for what’s right, with laughter leading the way!
This original song tells the true-to-life tale of the Portland Frog Protester — a peaceful demonstrator who used humor and a big green inflatable frog suit to bring smiles and sanity to serious times. It’s a story of courage, creativity, and the unstoppable spirit of joy that keeps Portland weird and wonderful.
🎶 “Ribbit, ribbit, let freedom sing — ain’t nothin’ so strong as a silly thing!” 🎶
Kick back, strum along, and share the laugh.
Peaceful. Funny. Real. 100% Portland.
Portland’s moment in the spotlight continues, now with a new take on the classic Kermit the Frog anthem, “Rainbow Connection.”
Monday night, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” debuted a version of the song all about Portland’s now-famous protest frogs.
While both songs feature Kermit the Frog strumming a banjo, the lyrics are … different.
Unlike the original, which starts by posing the question, “Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side?” this new ballad starts, “Why are there so many Trump thugs in ski masks and why do they have to hide?”
And then, it goes on: “You can spray us with pepper, but we won’t surrender. We’ll respond with a naked bike ride.”
You can watch the entire video here:
more musical fun, this time from the late show last night
Legendary singer and actress Bette Midler wrote a little song for her favorite late night host, and it’s pretty special. Stick around for more with Bette Midler and grab tickets to the New York Restoration Project’s annual “Hulaween” benefit here:
on the upcoming fun
Oct 14, 2025 #NoKings #Trump #Protest
Rachel Maddow reports that the number of events planned for the “No Kings” day of protest on Saturday, October 18 already exceeds the previous “No Kings” protests that drew millions of Americans to voice their opposition to Donald Trump’s overreach and attacks on democracy in the United States. Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, joins to discuss the planning and organizing taking place.
speaking of last night’s late night show
President Trump took time out from his Middle East peace victory tour to complain about a magazine cover, Americans are blaming Republicans for the chaotic government shutdown, and you can find information about this Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” protests at https://www.nokings.org.
Vice President JD Vance downplayed the severity of racist texts leaked from a Young Republican group chat, deflecting and attempting to draw attention to a Democrat texting scandal instead.
“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat,” Vance wrote in a social media post made to X on Tuesday night, attaching a screenshot of messages sent by the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general, Jay Jones, in which he discusses wishing death on then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert‘s children. Jones has accepted responsibility for the texts and labeled it a “grave mistake” to The New York Times.
“And the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vance added. “I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”
The Daily Beast has contacted both Vance and Jones for comment.
Vance’s “group chat” comments appeared to be referring to the leaked Telegram chat between Young Republicans, in which they use racist slurs and make light of the Holocaust with casual references to “going to the gas chamber.” One Republican also joked about loving Hitler.
Vance’s post, which downplays the serious nature of the leaked messages, is at odds with the Trump administration’s stated stance against antisemitism, as outlined in an executive order signed by the president shortly after taking office in January.
Other users were quick to criticize Vance’s post, with several referencing the fact that Vance once described Trump as “America’s Hitler,” writing in 2016 that he goes “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
Liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan wrote, “Vance has gone from calling Trump ‘Hitler’ to defending people who say they ‘love Hitler’. Shameful stuff – and so dangerous to those of us who aren’t white, including his own kids.” Vance’s wife Usha is of Indian descent, and their children are Indian-American.
While Vance declined to condemn the content of the messages, other Republicans were quick to, with the board of directors of the National Young Republicans releasing a statement condemning the chat participants.
“We are appalled by the vile and inexcusable language revealed in the Politico article published today. Such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents,” the statement reads.
“Those involved must immediately resign from all positions within their state and local Young Republican organizations. We must hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity, respect, and professionalism.”
Several people identified in Politico’s reporting have apologized for the language used in the chat; Peter Giunta, the former chair of the New York State Young Republicans who was one of the most active participants, apologized while also expressing concern that some of the messages may have been “deceptively doctored.”
Participants have also faced real-world repercussions, including Giunta, who was fired from his role as chief of staff for New York State Assembly member Michael Reilly, and William Hendrix, the Vice Chair of the Kansas Young Republicans who worked as a communications specialist for the Kansas Attorney General’s Office until Thursday, according to Politico.
Poor Donny, everyone is making fun of that Time cover even the Gov of CA
Israel- Gaza ain’t over. Hamas is refusing to disarm ( never agreed to, BTW) Dumbass is threatening that if they won’t disarm “we” will disarm them (who is this “we” you are referring to?) and Netyhoo is working to limit aid to Gaza. This is what a ceasefire on the road to a peace accord looks like? The NPP committee was right to decline to award Dumbass the prize that the warmonger nominated him for.
Yep, and Trump turned up the heat threatening to “disarm” Hamas himself.
Loving the proliferation of frogs. My daughter has been “Froglet” since she was two days old because she would “ribbit” in her sleep.
🚨 LIVE NOW: Watching NATO React to Trump’s Latest Words, But No Action for Urkaine 🎤
👉 Join this chat directly: https://streamyard.com/jp2mwysyxk
Watch on YouTube:
Hegseth and his “Pentagon Access for Dummies” … Does it start with “1. Don’t invite the editor of the Atlantic, your wife, your brother and your personal lawyer to classified Signal chats”? One takeaway on the new rules by the Hill is:
The policy stipulates that when journalists receive and publish unsolicited classified or sensitive information from government sources, they are “generally” protected in doing so by the First Amendment.
But “if you solicit the disclosure of such information or otherwise encourage [Defense Department] personnel to violate laws and policies concerning the disclosure of such information, such conduct may weigh in the consideration of whether you pose a security or safety risk.”
The Pentagon describes solicitation as including calls for tips encouraging military personnel to share nonpublic information, as many reporters do via their publications or personal social media platforms.
To quote a sage of the blue collar comedy tour (Larry the Cable guy), “I don’t care who you are, now that’s funny.”
Hey!
Wanna hear a great joke?
HEGSETH !
I told that one down at the barber shop and man they were all rolling around on the floor laughing their asses off.
today’s meme…
meme #2…
Today’s Hegseth-NATO “talks” are spectacle more than strategy: the U.S. no longer leads from the front — just “offering” to sell arms to Europe, demanding others to pick up the slack in Ukraine. The Trail Mix Brief on dwindling U.S. support for Ukraine lays it bare: Western military aid has dropped ~43 % from Trump’s inauguration to July–August, and America’s share has all but vanished. Hegseth calling for “more talks” is a public preview of American withdrawal — Europe scrambles while Ukraine pays in blood.
Military aid to Ukraine has dropped 43% under Trump — and NATO’s still talking like it hasn’t. The numbers tell a different story. 📊 Details + sources: Trail Mix Briefs
🎥 Watch the short + more in *The Ukraine Files* playlist:
Thanks, Kyle Whitmire, for posting on FB
Dear national media: Instead of using photos of LBJ signing the Voting Rights Act, use this one of its bi-partisan reauthorization. It does more to show how far we’ve regressed in a few short years.
ST. LOUIS—According to sources inside the 2006 Honda Civic, area father Michael Lothan’s drive home Wednesday, which took a shortcut through a nearby wealthy neighborhood, exposed his children to his shortcomings as a provider. “Why are all these houses so big if there’s just one family living in them?” said Lothan’s 7-year-old son, Theo, while his 9-year-old daughter, Riley, sat silently with her forehead pressed against the window, seeing three-car garages, in-ground pools, and manicured lawns on the well-maintained street and beginning to grasp in a real way her father’s numerous inadequacies. “What does that family even do with three satellite dishes, Dad? Do they have more than one TV? And look, those kids are playing on a full basketball court. All these houses have nice circular driveways, too. Why don’t you want us to live in a place like this, Dad?” At press time, Lothan reportedly made a weak attempt to assure his dubious children that “money isn’t everything” as they pulled up to the faded split-level that served as a physical representation of his failure as a man.
Pick a tax or combine them. All the different possibilities. Which are the fairest to benefit the most people?
there really should be a wealth cap
It’s too late though, the ultrarich have more money than nation states individually
if my flower bulbs don’t make it through customs, I am going to clutch my pearls, wait I mean, smash my beer with my fist!
OK, I read some of the young Republicans text messages and yes, that is who young rich white kids are now, can confirm
and y’all are singing Kumbaya and hoping for a brighter future
Ain’t happening
it’s cause the rich white fathers are just awful people and their wives are a different kind of awful
they don’t care about anything but flaunting wealth and making other people feel badly, and the phenomenon is endemic
these are the problems we needed address in a Kamala presidency, electing Trump amplified and baked them in
if the idiots ever understand what they did, they’ll never admit it
if there’s a heaven, they won’t go there because why would God want to hang out with morons, seriously
like forever
sorry, I’m cracking myself up. I’m gonna let you adults make all the good contributions that keep me informed.
🫡
A guaranteed minimum income could eliminate poverty and provide the economic stability for growing the middle class again.
16th Anniversary – Balloon Boy: All for the Show
Suspicions of a hoax soon arose, particularly after an interview with Wolf Blitzer on Larry King Live that same evening. Asked why he was hiding, Falcon said to his father, “You guys said that, um, we did this for the show,” apparently revealing that the Heenes had staged the incident as a publicity stunt. On October 18, 2009, Larimer County sheriff Jim Alderden announced his conclusion that the incident was a hoax and that the parents would likely face several felony charges. On November 13, 2009, Richard Heene pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution, and Mayumi Heene was sentenced to 20 days of weekend jail.
Following the incident, the Heene family has maintained their innocence, claiming that they were pressured into a guilty plea under the threat of Mayumi Heene’s deportation. On December 23, 2020, the Heenes were pardoned by Governor Jared Polis.
Israel has told the United Nations it will only allow 300 aid trucks, half of the originally agreed-upon number, into the Gaza Strip from Wednesday and that no fuel or gas will be allowed into the enclave except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the UN.
COGAT had said on Friday that it expected about 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily during the ceasefire.
The restriction will be enacted due to Hamas’s failure to return the remains of deceased Israeli hostages within the 72-hour window agreed on by Israel and Hamas.
*How are they supposed to find bodies in the rubble? So, Palestinians continue to starve.
if my flower bulbs don’t make it through customs
Anon, my package got here. Took @ 3 weeks. It came from the Netherlands.
he idea of a universal basic income is nothing new. For centuries, philosophers, economists and politicians have dreamt of a society where people could work less while maintaining a decent standard of living. Since the 1970s, small-scale experiments in various forms have been conducted in Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Canada, the U.S. and South Korea. Mein Grundeinkommen wants to add a new chapter to the existing body of research with a rare example of community-led, completely unconditional basic income.
As the Covid-19 pandemic raged, she’d lost most of her employment and was trapped in a harmful relationship. But a lifeline emerged: a pilot program distributing cash to 100 low-income mothers in New York City.
When the first payment arrived in 2021, Gutierrez cried. And the support kept coming: $500 each month, for three years. Bolstered by newfound financial stability, Gutierrez was able to care for her newborn, leave her partner, and eventually find a new job.
“I was able to just go anywhere I wanted to go, and buy whatever food I wanted to get for my kid,” said Gutierrez, now 31, who lives in Central Harlem. “When he was sick, if I needed to get medicine and the insurance didn’t cover it, I could buy it.”
Last month, the New York City Council launched a new version of the initiative, with $1.5 million in city funds. The program, run through The Bridge Project organization, will provide unconditional cash support to 161 pregnant women who are homeless, at risk of losing housing or facing domestic violence. Participants will receive a $2,500 stipend before giving birth, $1,000 per month for 15 months, and $500 per month for the following 21 months.
SATURDAY Oct. 18 | 10am ET
“NO KINGS” LIVE FROM DC and Wherever You Are!
I’ll be livestreaming this Saturday at 10am from the No Kings protest in Washington, D.C. We’ll be on the ground as the crowds gather, and I want to open the stream to anyone joining protests in your city too.
If you’re out there — in the streets, at a rally, or just filming from your front porch — jump into the chat or send footage so we can show how wide this moment really is.
For the past five years, Clark, Grant, Jackson and hundreds of high schoolers in New Orleans have shopped — or saved — as part of a project to explore what happens if you give cash directly to young people, no strings attached.
Kapri Clark used the $50 to help pay for her braces. Lyrik Grant saved half of it, and used the rest for dance classes. Kevin Jackson said he squandered the cash, on wings, ride shares for dates and some DJ equipment he later tossed.
The report shows students who received the cash payments were slightly more likely to attend school than those who didn’t. Academic performance did not differ between the groups. But financially, the extra cash helped students acquire stronger long-term planning skills and familiarity with savings accounts and other financial products. They ended the study, on average, with $300 saved away — a 15 percent savings rate, triple the national average for American adults.
Finding employment, naturally, is what changed everything. But for both women, what kickstarted their escape from the cycle of poverty was something very simple: cold, hard cash. Specifically, $60 a month.
Pooja and Malti received guaranteed income through the Fund A Mom program, started by Los Angeles-based film maker and philanthropist Leigh Blake in 2018.
As a basic income, $60 a month takes care of expenses like food, health care and children’s education. But the most important thing it gives these mothers, Blake notes, is morale: “It helps them lift their head high. It makes them confident. It makes them feel like someone cares about them.”
Fund A Mom’s model is intentionally simple: give poor people money so they can fix their own problems. But it’s a principle that goes completely against the traditional foreign aid model that the majority of the charity sector is built upon, because the accepted belief is that the benefits of cash injections are short-lived, with the cash itself often misappropriated. Yet many places have had success with providing basic income.
Blake sees the traditional model as a colonially imposed way of thinking for a sector that wants to keep itself in business rather than solve problems. And when you’re broke, a situation Blake can relate to from an earlier time in her own life, it’s cash that will buy groceries and pay bills.
“If you’re in the charity sector — I like to call it the charitable industrial complex — it’s not really in your interest to fix things. Because [so many people need to be] paid before the grants go where they’re supposed to go. Generally, there are lots of people almost categorically refusing to put their eye on the prize, which is poverty,” Blake argues.
Stockton, California has gotten a lot of press for its experiment in providing a basic income to its residents, but it wasn’t until a recent study looked at the first year of results that we saw proven evidence of what impacts the experimental program was having.
Besides feeling less pain and anxiety about their lives and their financial situations, a surprising percentage of the program’s recipients got jobs. By the end of the first year of the study (2019, before the pandemic began) full-time employment in the recipient group had risen from 28 percent to 40 percent — double the increase found among folks who didn’t receive the money.
This runs counter to some conventional wisdom, which says that free money disincentivizes work. Rather, the report, along with anecdotal evidence, seems to say the opposite: it is the uncertainty that low-income folks live with that makes it harder for them to find the jobs they desire. Providing this modest monetary cushion allows folks to realize their potential, which benefits the entire community.
Like many nonprofits that help people experiencing homelessness in the US, Path Home in Portland, Oregon provides temporary shelter and meals to those in need. But five years ago, the organization launched a separate program with hopes of making such services unnecessary someday. The Homelessness Prevention Program helps families about to lose their homes by paying back rent and past due utilities in emergency situations.
“It really only takes a few days of missed work to start a snowball effect,” says Samuel Freni-Rothschild, Path Home’s prevention specialist.
The number one reason that Freni-Rothschild hears from clients who need help paying their rent is that an adult missed some work because someone in the family was sick and therefore they lost income.
But with the prevention program, Path was able to keep 93 families in their homes in 2022 — serving a total of 155 kids and 140 adults.
The average spent per family? Just $3,180.
Freni-Rothschild says he often uses the metaphor of preventative health care to explain his job. “The housing program and the shelter program are like acute medical care. It’s like going to the ER when your bone is broken and you need to fix it. What I’m doing is preventative medicine,” he says.
meme #3…
The reason folks don’t have nice things:
1) Greed of those who already have more than they will ever need in 29 lifetimes.
2) Misplaced jealousy (often based on racism) that someone else might get help, even if instead of being grateful that you don’t need help, you are angry that someone else is getting help.
just talk…
Firepower’ coming for Ukraine, Hegseth tells NATO
The defense secretary said NATO commitments to Kyiv “will soon translate into capabilities,” but did not directly mention Tomahawks sought by Ukraine.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has been threatened with legal action by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes over his ongoing failure to swear in her state’s new Democratic congresswoman-elect, Adelita Grijalva.
Grijalva, 54, won a special election in Arizona’s 7th congressional district on September 23, comfortably beating Republican Daniel Butierez by picking up 69 percent of the vote to his 29 percent, and will, eventually, succeed her late father, Raul Grijalva, who passed away in March.
In a letter sent to the speaker on Tuesday, Mayes wrote: “Arizona’s right to a full delegation, and the right of the residents of CD 7 to representation from the person they recently voted for, are not up for debate and may not be delayed or used as leverage in negotiations about unrelated legislation.”
EVERYONE, please call MAGAt Mike’s office & demand he swear in the AZ Rep, extend the ACA subsidies (which Louisiana needs more than many states), and vote on the discharge petition for the EPSTEIN files. None of this is going away. 202-224-3121
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday said his department is working on a partnership with the private sector and other entities that would provide an additional $20 billion in financing for Argentina.
Bessent, speaking with reporters at the Treasury building, said the effort, which they have been exploring for weeks, would be “adjacent” to the $20 billion in financing that the Trump administration has announced it is providing through a currency swap line. – Politico
Trumpco has no problem coming up with funds of $40B for Argentina (If they vote in his mini me) but nothing to provide for healthcare subsidies here in the good old U.S. of A., which would cost $35B per year on average over the next decade.
Well, maybe for as long as there remains no time limit to bigotry…❓
Justice Kavanaugh keeps returning to the question of whether there should be a time limit on race-based remedies.
Around 10 minutes after Taylor’s office emailed the release, the left-leaning Ohio politics blogger D.J. Byrnes posted a photo on X. The photo showed a screenshot from a video call with one of Taylor’s staffers, with a swastika American flag in the background. The person at the desk was Taylor’s legislative correspondent, according to the post.
U.S. Capitol Police were called to investigate a disturbing discovery inside the Capitol Hill office of Representative Dave Taylor (R-OH) on Tuesday afternoon: an American flag altered to feature a swastika.
A spokesperson for Taylor’s office told POLITICO that the Congressman believes the incident may be the result of “foul play or vandalism.” Taylor has stated no further comment will be provided until the investigation is complete.
zero side effects and I got two different shots
What were those MAGA babies whining about
Sojourners
faith in action for social justice
A Christian Plan to Help Billionaires
By Tyler Huckabee
Oct 15, 2025
Are billionaires the reason we can’t have nice things? It’s tempting to think so.
Consider Elon Musk, having been messily ejected from President Donald Trump’s orbit after his Department of Government Efficiency project ended in failure, with little to show for it other than an appalling and growing body count. Or Jeff Bezos, whose reported interference with The Washington Post has helped reduce the one-time standard bearer of ferocious journalism to a husk of its former glory.
And every so often, when people remember that billionaires are taxed less than others, a groundswell of lefty populism springs up and argues that taxing billionaires would pay for universal healthcare, for free college, for trains from New York to Los Angeles—pick your progressive white whale. It’s a nice idea.
But I think this is a bad reason to tax billionaires. The math isn’t mathing, and even if we could enact some sort of meaningful tax on billionaires, it would not deliver on the promise many leftists think it would. There are, however, very good reasons to tax billionaires and at least as far as I as a Christian am concerned, one of them is simple obedience to scripture and love for my neighbors.
First up, let’s talk numbers. In 2021, the Biden administration released a study that found that America’s 400 wealthiest families are paying an average income tax rate of just 8.2%, while the average federal income tax rate sits somewhere around 13%. Over at Liberal Currents, Samantha Hancox-Li has written a good breakdown of what taxing billionaires would and would not accomplish. She notes that Medicare for All would cost something like $41 trillion over 10 years. If you put every American billionaire’s net worth in a big pot, you’d have $6 trillion. You see the problem.
But Hancox-Li is not against taxing billionaires. She argues: “The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”
I agree with her. Our elected leaders are under the sway of an elite group of absurdly wealthy men (and women, but mostly men) who can muscle their policy goals directly from fringe quackery into U.S. law, bypassing any sort of democratic process. Consider Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for instance. His extreme anti-vax views are only shared by a small minority of voters, but what good is public opinion against the vaunted Kennedy fortune? We live at the whims of billionaires, and taxing their wealth would provide some measure of protection from their views.
READ MORE: Taxing the Rich to Help the Poor? Here’s What the Bible Says.
But there is another, more charitable reason I support taxing billionaires: Accumulating obscene amounts of resources is bad for you. It is poisonous to your soul, your mind, and your relationships. We do not need to look hard for examples. We can easily see exorbitant wealth’s adverse impact on the lives of everyone from Elon Musk to J.K. Rowling, once celebrated individuals turned insufferable bullies, but we don’t even need these anecdotes.
Think about billionaires for a moment. Nobody needs a billion dollars. The very idea is ridiculous. Set aside the fact that there are millions of people in need; to be a billionaire is to be sitting on more money than you and your family could possibly hope to spend across all your lifetimes. It’s pitiful. There is no logical reason for people to live like this. We should help them. We should tax them.
To be clear, wealth is not exclusively a threat to billionaires. The Bible’s warnings against riches apply to more than just the uber-rich. As Phil Christman writes in Why Christians Should Be Leftists:
Jesus also, of course, tells us not to lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth. So much for the accumulation of capital. And, even though I would love to lean on the distinction between capital (possessions that we use mainly to generate profit, and thus to hoard power over others) and just regular stuff … well, I suspect Jesus views my beloved record collection with a certain skepticism too. You can’t serve God and mammon, and at least some of the time, mammon comes in the form of a special Japanese red-vinyl reissue with bonus tracks.
So when we talk about the Bible’s warnings against wealth, many of us need to be aware that we’re talking about our own material state. That’s good to remember and, I think, a foundation of any healthy Christian perspective on politics. As author and pastor Malcolm Foley told Sojourners, “The very possession of excess shows you have failed to wisely distribute what the Lord has given to you. We don’t properly ‘earn’ anything. All these things are gifts from God. And [God] wants us to steward and distribute, not hoard for ourselves.
“That’s a different way of thinking about any of the resources that we have, but also one that deeply undercuts the assumptions of neoliberal capitalism,” he continued.
This has profound implications for all of us, but it has very particular implications for the mega-wealthy: a class of people our society views as the ultimate success stories but Jesus seems to see as cautionary tales. Think of Mark 10:23, when Jesus declares to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!”
Sometimes, this is construed to be about the rich’s chances of entering a pain-free afterlife. That’s possible, but when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he’s talking about the here and now: the glorious present that is possible when God’s people follow the counter-cultural call to love one another in grace and humility.
Understood this way, Jesus’ warnings to the rich make a lot of sense. The Christian faith calls us to live in community, sharing our resources and wealth with one another. “Do not be proud,” Romans 12:16 tells us. “But be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.” Do these strike you as easy commands for billionaires to follow? Or does it sound like trying to get through the eye of a needle?
Indeed, Jesus seemed to see wealth as a spiritual corrosive, something toxic to the soul. “Watch out!” he tells his disciples in Luke 12:15. “Be on guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” In fact, wealth is one of the chief villains in the parable of the seed sown among the thorns: The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).
Viewed this way, wealth is not something to be sought or hoarded but shared freely. As José Humphreys III writes, this allows us to start thinking of money “as a gift in God’s economy of generosity rather than a commodity that leads to inequity, anxiety, grasping, and greed.” And if anyone is unlucky enough to fall into billions of dollars, it is a kindness to part them from it so that they can be brought into community. And since I cannot in good conscience recommend any of us go full Robin Hood and rob billionaires, taxing them seems like an effective way to deliver this kindness.
So this is why I maintain that while taxing billionaires might do some limited good for us non-billionaires, it would do very tangible good for billionaires themselves. A billion dollars in the bank account is the spiritual equivalent of radioactive waste in your refrigerator. It is unloving of us to leave them to it, not when we could drag them from the fumes. Taxing billionaires would be a widening of the eye of the needle, a flattening of the obstacles between them and the reign of God. It’s the loving thing to do.
Tyler Huckabee
Tyler Huckabee is the managing editor of sojo.net.
In this story, the discovery of a human skull eight million years older than man, a hole in time and a series of bizarre deaths in the English countryside mark the start of a nerve-racking adventure for the Doctor and Leela.
Full serial, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch’s mom (that’s her in the thumbnail)😮
I’m starting to think I might get to be a companion of the Doctor, the way things are going
(the Doctor gets bored and likes to hang out with Terrans)
Anon- Every cofeve vax I’ve had has taken me down for 24-36 hours. I’ve had 7 of them, so far. With it.
RFKJ’s wife was trying to defend him on The View yesterday, talking about how many billions have been paid out for damage allegedly due to vaccines. They called her on it; multiple vaccines. How could you marry a guy who cheated on his first wife so many times, and mistreated her to the point she killed herself? He’s a lying, grifting, abusive nutcase.
MeidasTouch has learned from several sources that the White House has plans to close major sections of Interstate 5 for this Friday and Saturday.
The Trump administration is apparently finalizing plans for two days of events under the pretext of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps. Sources close to MeidasTouch describe the closure as part of a “vanity parade” that may involve Navy warships shooting live missiles into Camp Pendleton as a “show of force.”
JD Vance is expected to be present and intends to lead the Parade. This show of military force and I-5 closures if the plan is completed will also be taking place during the No Kings Protests which are expected to be very large accross California cities and the rest of the country.
The major road closures coincide with a federal government closure, leaving thousands of Marines and federal employees unpaid even as they are ordered to support the festivities.
Interstate 5, Southern California’s economic backbone, carries more than 80,000 daily travelers and moves $94 million in freight every day between San Diego and Orange Counties.
The very Marines being celebrated may not receive paychecks while their base becomes the backdrop for what one senior defense official called “a taxpayer-funded campaign reel.”
A senior state transportation official told MeidasTouch, “Closing down a critical corridor during a shutdown, for a vanity event, without even consulting state authorities? It’s indefensible.”
As Southern California braces for the fallout, one thing is clear: the Vice President’s “vanity parade” risks turning a patriotic commemoration into a logistical and political fiasco, leaving taxpayers, commuters, and unpaid troops caught in the crossfire.
*No squeaky tank for JD. He’s firing live missiles!
Anon
Baker was my first Doctor. Tenant was my favorite.
In case anyone needs something to do on No Kings 2.0 Eve:
MAGA,INC.
YOU ARE INVITED TO A
CANDLELIGHT DINNER
FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER
President Donald J. Trump
45th and 47th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Friday, October 17, 2025
The Mar-a-Lago Club
Palm Beach, Florida RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first served basis.
space is very limited.
$1,000,000 Per Person
DONALD TRUMP IS APPEARING AT
THIS EVENT ONLY AS A FEATURED SPEAKER AND IS NOT ASKING FOR FUNDS OR DONATIONS
Florida is notorious for sinkholes. Wouldn’t it be something is Mother Earth just opened up right then and there & swallowed up Grifty McGrifter and the million dollar a plate attendees?
can’t say my Doctor or AI will get me
We are dealing with Daleks, again. Young Republicans coming up are Daleks, as is JD Vance who refuses to condemn them. Stephen Miller is a Dalek. They are mostly all Daleks, so how do we defeat them?
🎶 “Ribbit, ribbit, let freedom sing — ain’t nothin’ so strong as a silly thing!” 🎶
Oct 11, 2025
🎸 The Ballad of the Portland Frog Brigade | Funny Folk-Country Protest Song 🐸🌧️
What happens when a giant frog, a chicken, a bear, and a unicorn take to the rainy streets of Portland?
You get The Frog Brigade — a hilarious, heart-warming, and foot-stompin’ country-folk anthem about standing up (and hopping up) for what’s right, with laughter leading the way!
This original song tells the true-to-life tale of the Portland Frog Protester — a peaceful demonstrator who used humor and a big green inflatable frog suit to bring smiles and sanity to serious times. It’s a story of courage, creativity, and the unstoppable spirit of joy that keeps Portland weird and wonderful.
🎶 “Ribbit, ribbit, let freedom sing — ain’t nothin’ so strong as a silly thing!” 🎶
Kick back, strum along, and share the laugh.
Peaceful. Funny. Real. 100% Portland.
https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2025/10/why-are-there-so-many-trump-thugs-in-ski-masks-late-show-creates-portland-version-of-classic-kermit-song.html
more musical fun, this time from the late show last night
Legendary singer and actress Bette Midler wrote a little song for her favorite late night host, and it’s pretty special. Stick around for more with Bette Midler and grab tickets to the New York Restoration Project’s annual “Hulaween” benefit here:
on the upcoming fun
Oct 14, 2025 #NoKings #Trump #Protest
Rachel Maddow reports that the number of events planned for the “No Kings” day of protest on Saturday, October 18 already exceeds the previous “No Kings” protests that drew millions of Americans to voice their opposition to Donald Trump’s overreach and attacks on democracy in the United States. Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, joins to discuss the planning and organizing taking place.
speaking of last night’s late night show
President Trump took time out from his Middle East peace victory tour to complain about a magazine cover, Americans are blaming Republicans for the chaotic government shutdown, and you can find information about this Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” protests at https://www.nokings.org.
in other not-so-funny news yesterday
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jd-vance-hits-out-at-pearl-clutching-over-racist-gop-group-chat/
Poor Donny, everyone is making fun of that Time cover even the Gov of CA
Israel- Gaza ain’t over. Hamas is refusing to disarm ( never agreed to, BTW) Dumbass is threatening that if they won’t disarm “we” will disarm them (who is this “we” you are referring to?) and Netyhoo is working to limit aid to Gaza. This is what a ceasefire on the road to a peace accord looks like? The NPP committee was right to decline to award Dumbass the prize that the warmonger nominated him for.
Yep, and Trump turned up the heat threatening to “disarm” Hamas himself.
Loving the proliferation of frogs. My daughter has been “Froglet” since she was two days old because she would “ribbit” in her sleep.
🚨 LIVE NOW: Watching NATO React to Trump’s Latest Words, But No Action for Urkaine 🎤
👉 Join this chat directly: https://streamyard.com/jp2mwysyxk
Watch on YouTube:
Hegseth and his “Pentagon Access for Dummies” … Does it start with “1. Don’t invite the editor of the Atlantic, your wife, your brother and your personal lawyer to classified Signal chats”? One takeaway on the new rules by the Hill is:
To quote a sage of the blue collar comedy tour (Larry the Cable guy), “I don’t care who you are, now that’s funny.”
Hey!
Wanna hear a great joke?
HEGSETH !
I told that one down at the barber shop and man they were all rolling around on the floor laughing their asses off.
today’s meme…
meme #2…
Today’s Hegseth-NATO “talks” are spectacle more than strategy: the U.S. no longer leads from the front — just “offering” to sell arms to Europe, demanding others to pick up the slack in Ukraine. The Trail Mix Brief on dwindling U.S. support for Ukraine lays it bare: Western military aid has dropped ~43 % from Trump’s inauguration to July–August, and America’s share has all but vanished. Hegseth calling for “more talks” is a public preview of American withdrawal — Europe scrambles while Ukraine pays in blood.
📺 Watch Trail Mix livestream coverage of the Brussels meeting and press conference
🧾 Read the Trail Mix Brief: “Dwindling U.S. Support For Ukraine“
Perhaps. What is their definition of zip-tie❓
Military aid to Ukraine has dropped 43% under Trump — and NATO’s still talking like it hasn’t. The numbers tell a different story. 📊 Details + sources: Trail Mix Briefs
🎥 Watch the short + more in *The Ukraine Files* playlist:
Thanks, Kyle Whitmire, for posting on FB
lol is he sure
income inequality is insane right now, the rich have everything, the working class get a shoebox
Pick a tax or combine them. All the different possibilities. Which are the fairest to benefit the most people?
there really should be a wealth cap
It’s too late though, the ultrarich have more money than nation states individually
if my flower bulbs don’t make it through customs, I am going to clutch my pearls, wait I mean, smash my beer with my fist!
OK, I read some of the young Republicans text messages and yes, that is who young rich white kids are now, can confirm
and y’all are singing Kumbaya and hoping for a brighter future
Ain’t happening
it’s cause the rich white fathers are just awful people and their wives are a different kind of awful
they don’t care about anything but flaunting wealth and making other people feel badly, and the phenomenon is endemic
these are the problems we needed address in a Kamala presidency, electing Trump amplified and baked them in
if the idiots ever understand what they did, they’ll never admit it
if there’s a heaven, they won’t go there because why would God want to hang out with morons, seriously
like forever
sorry, I’m cracking myself up. I’m gonna let you adults make all the good contributions that keep me informed.
🫡
A guaranteed minimum income could eliminate poverty and provide the economic stability for growing the middle class again.
16th Anniversary – Balloon Boy: All for the Show
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_boy_hoax
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-870418
Israel has told the United Nations it will only allow 300 aid trucks, half of the originally agreed-upon number, into the Gaza Strip from Wednesday and that no fuel or gas will be allowed into the enclave except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the UN.
COGAT had said on Friday that it expected about 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily during the ceasefire.
The restriction will be enacted due to Hamas’s failure to return the remains of deceased Israeli hostages within the 72-hour window agreed on by Israel and Hamas.
*How are they supposed to find bodies in the rubble? So, Palestinians continue to starve.
Anon, my package got here. Took @ 3 weeks. It came from the Netherlands.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-surprising-lives-of-germanys-basic-income-raffle-winners/
he idea of a universal basic income is nothing new. For centuries, philosophers, economists and politicians have dreamt of a society where people could work less while maintaining a decent standard of living. Since the 1970s, small-scale experiments in various forms have been conducted in Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Canada, the U.S. and South Korea. Mein Grundeinkommen wants to add a new chapter to the existing body of research with a rare example of community-led, completely unconditional basic income.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/new-york-guaranteed-income-homeless-moms/
As the Covid-19 pandemic raged, she’d lost most of her employment and was trapped in a harmful relationship. But a lifeline emerged: a pilot program distributing cash to 100 low-income mothers in New York City.
When the first payment arrived in 2021, Gutierrez cried. And the support kept coming: $500 each month, for three years. Bolstered by newfound financial stability, Gutierrez was able to care for her newborn, leave her partner, and eventually find a new job.
“I was able to just go anywhere I wanted to go, and buy whatever food I wanted to get for my kid,” said Gutierrez, now 31, who lives in Central Harlem. “When he was sick, if I needed to get medicine and the insurance didn’t cover it, I could buy it.”
Last month, the New York City Council launched a new version of the initiative, with $1.5 million in city funds. The program, run through The Bridge Project organization, will provide unconditional cash support to 161 pregnant women who are homeless, at risk of losing housing or facing domestic violence. Participants will receive a $2,500 stipend before giving birth, $1,000 per month for 15 months, and $500 per month for the following 21 months.
SATURDAY Oct. 18 | 10am ET
“NO KINGS” LIVE FROM DC and Wherever You Are!
I’ll be livestreaming this Saturday at 10am from the No Kings protest in Washington, D.C. We’ll be on the ground as the crowds gather, and I want to open the stream to anyone joining protests in your city too.
If you’re out there — in the streets, at a rally, or just filming from your front porch — jump into the chat or send footage so we can show how wide this moment really is.
Find events near you here:
👉 https://www.nokings.org/
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/50-dollar-study-teens-new-orleans/
For the past five years, Clark, Grant, Jackson and hundreds of high schoolers in New Orleans have shopped — or saved — as part of a project to explore what happens if you give cash directly to young people, no strings attached.
Kapri Clark used the $50 to help pay for her braces. Lyrik Grant saved half of it, and used the rest for dance classes. Kevin Jackson said he squandered the cash, on wings, ride shares for dates and some DJ equipment he later tossed.
The report shows students who received the cash payments were slightly more likely to attend school than those who didn’t. Academic performance did not differ between the groups. But financially, the extra cash helped students acquire stronger long-term planning skills and familiarity with savings accounts and other financial products. They ended the study, on average, with $300 saved away — a 15 percent savings rate, triple the national average for American adults.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/direct-cash-supports-single-moms-india/
Finding employment, naturally, is what changed everything. But for both women, what kickstarted their escape from the cycle of poverty was something very simple: cold, hard cash. Specifically, $60 a month.
Pooja and Malti received guaranteed income through the Fund A Mom program, started by Los Angeles-based film maker and philanthropist Leigh Blake in 2018.
As a basic income, $60 a month takes care of expenses like food, health care and children’s education. But the most important thing it gives these mothers, Blake notes, is morale: “It helps them lift their head high. It makes them confident. It makes them feel like someone cares about them.”
Fund A Mom’s model is intentionally simple: give poor people money so they can fix their own problems. But it’s a principle that goes completely against the traditional foreign aid model that the majority of the charity sector is built upon, because the accepted belief is that the benefits of cash injections are short-lived, with the cash itself often misappropriated. Yet many places have had success with providing basic income.
Blake sees the traditional model as a colonially imposed way of thinking for a sector that wants to keep itself in business rather than solve problems. And when you’re broke, a situation Blake can relate to from an earlier time in her own life, it’s cash that will buy groceries and pay bills.
“If you’re in the charity sector — I like to call it the charitable industrial complex — it’s not really in your interest to fix things. Because [so many people need to be] paid before the grants go where they’re supposed to go. Generally, there are lots of people almost categorically refusing to put their eye on the prize, which is poverty,” Blake argues.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/when-a-city-gave-people-cash-they-went-out-and-got-jobs/
Stockton, California has gotten a lot of press for its experiment in providing a basic income to its residents, but it wasn’t until a recent study looked at the first year of results that we saw proven evidence of what impacts the experimental program was having.
Besides feeling less pain and anxiety about their lives and their financial situations, a surprising percentage of the program’s recipients got jobs. By the end of the first year of the study (2019, before the pandemic began) full-time employment in the recipient group had risen from 28 percent to 40 percent — double the increase found among folks who didn’t receive the money.
This runs counter to some conventional wisdom, which says that free money disincentivizes work. Rather, the report, along with anecdotal evidence, seems to say the opposite: it is the uncertainty that low-income folks live with that makes it harder for them to find the jobs they desire. Providing this modest monetary cushion allows folks to realize their potential, which benefits the entire community.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/portland-path-home-homelessness-prevention/
Like many nonprofits that help people experiencing homelessness in the US, Path Home in Portland, Oregon provides temporary shelter and meals to those in need. But five years ago, the organization launched a separate program with hopes of making such services unnecessary someday. The Homelessness Prevention Program helps families about to lose their homes by paying back rent and past due utilities in emergency situations.
“It really only takes a few days of missed work to start a snowball effect,” says Samuel Freni-Rothschild, Path Home’s prevention specialist.
The number one reason that Freni-Rothschild hears from clients who need help paying their rent is that an adult missed some work because someone in the family was sick and therefore they lost income.
But with the prevention program, Path was able to keep 93 families in their homes in 2022 — serving a total of 155 kids and 140 adults.
The average spent per family? Just $3,180.
Freni-Rothschild says he often uses the metaphor of preventative health care to explain his job. “The housing program and the shelter program are like acute medical care. It’s like going to the ER when your bone is broken and you need to fix it. What I’m doing is preventative medicine,” he says.
meme #3…
The reason folks don’t have nice things:
1) Greed of those who already have more than they will ever need in 29 lifetimes.
2) Misplaced jealousy (often based on racism) that someone else might get help, even if instead of being grateful that you don’t need help, you are angry that someone else is getting help.
just talk…
Firepower’ coming for Ukraine, Hegseth tells NATO
The defense secretary said NATO commitments to Kyiv “will soon translate into capabilities,” but did not directly mention Tomahawks sought by Ukraine.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/ukraine/firepower-coming-ukraine-hegseth-tells-nato-rcna237722
The wild turkeys are back this morning. My protest partners.
Something has been digging up and sampling hot peppers in the deck the past two nights. I protest!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/arizona-legal-threat-mike-johnson-epstein-files-vote-b2846037.html
House Speaker Mike Johnson has been threatened with legal action by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes over his ongoing failure to swear in her state’s new Democratic congresswoman-elect, Adelita Grijalva.
Grijalva, 54, won a special election in Arizona’s 7th congressional district on September 23, comfortably beating Republican Daniel Butierez by picking up 69 percent of the vote to his 29 percent, and will, eventually, succeed her late father, Raul Grijalva, who passed away in March.
In a letter sent to the speaker on Tuesday, Mayes wrote: “Arizona’s right to a full delegation, and the right of the residents of CD 7 to representation from the person they recently voted for, are not up for debate and may not be delayed or used as leverage in negotiations about unrelated legislation.”
EVERYONE, please call MAGAt Mike’s office & demand he swear in the AZ Rep, extend the ACA subsidies (which Louisiana needs more than many states), and vote on the discharge petition for the EPSTEIN files. None of this is going away. 202-224-3121
Will we buy the Falklands for them too❓
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/15/bessent-says-u-s-considers-doubling-aid-to-argentina-by-tapping-outside-funding-00609011
❌❌❌
OK, had my daily rant to Congress. Your turn.
Trumpco has no problem coming up with funds of $40B for Argentina (If they vote in his mini me) but nothing to provide for healthcare subsidies here in the good old U.S. of A., which would cost $35B per year on average over the next decade.
Well, maybe for as long as there remains no time limit to bigotry…❓
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10/15/us/supreme-court-voting-rights?smid=url-share#55187050-888a-59d9-bd42-aa85afa0f781
You are correct Pogo. Extending Obamacare premium subsidies cost about 35 billion a year, so that’s less than our giveaway to Argentina
Argentina First
🇺🇸
Get on the bus to DC for No Kings 10/18! We have a few more seats to fill. Get 𝟱𝟬% 𝗢𝗙𝗙 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗽𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲: 𝗡𝗢𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦𝟭𝟬𝟭𝟴
𝗚𝗘𝗧 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗨𝗦:
https://rally.co/no-kings-washington-dc
ok got my covid shot
May have up to another year to observe the shit show! 🥳
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2025/10/15/dave-taylor-reacts-vile-symbol-office/86709735007/
Around 10 minutes after Taylor’s office emailed the release, the left-leaning Ohio politics blogger D.J. Byrnes posted a photo on X. The photo showed a screenshot from a video call with one of Taylor’s staffers, with a swastika American flag in the background. The person at the desk was Taylor’s legislative correspondent, according to the post.
https://www.tampafp.com/capitol-police-investigate-swastika-found-in-gop-ohio-rep-taylors-office/
U.S. Capitol Police were called to investigate a disturbing discovery inside the Capitol Hill office of Representative Dave Taylor (R-OH) on Tuesday afternoon: an American flag altered to feature a swastika.
A spokesperson for Taylor’s office told POLITICO that the Congressman believes the incident may be the result of “foul play or vandalism.” Taylor has stated no further comment will be provided until the investigation is complete.
zero side effects and I got two different shots
What were those MAGA babies whining about
Sojourners
faith in action for social justice
A Christian Plan to Help Billionaires
By Tyler Huckabee
Oct 15, 2025
Are billionaires the reason we can’t have nice things? It’s tempting to think so.
Consider Elon Musk, having been messily ejected from President Donald Trump’s orbit after his Department of Government Efficiency project ended in failure, with little to show for it other than an appalling and growing body count. Or Jeff Bezos, whose reported interference with The Washington Post has helped reduce the one-time standard bearer of ferocious journalism to a husk of its former glory.
And every so often, when people remember that billionaires are taxed less than others, a groundswell of lefty populism springs up and argues that taxing billionaires would pay for universal healthcare, for free college, for trains from New York to Los Angeles—pick your progressive white whale. It’s a nice idea.
But I think this is a bad reason to tax billionaires. The math isn’t mathing, and even if we could enact some sort of meaningful tax on billionaires, it would not deliver on the promise many leftists think it would. There are, however, very good reasons to tax billionaires and at least as far as I as a Christian am concerned, one of them is simple obedience to scripture and love for my neighbors.
First up, let’s talk numbers. In 2021, the Biden administration released a study that found that America’s 400 wealthiest families are paying an average income tax rate of just 8.2%, while the average federal income tax rate sits somewhere around 13%. Over at Liberal Currents, Samantha Hancox-Li has written a good breakdown of what taxing billionaires would and would not accomplish. She notes that Medicare for All would cost something like $41 trillion over 10 years. If you put every American billionaire’s net worth in a big pot, you’d have $6 trillion. You see the problem.
But Hancox-Li is not against taxing billionaires. She argues: “The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”
I agree with her. Our elected leaders are under the sway of an elite group of absurdly wealthy men (and women, but mostly men) who can muscle their policy goals directly from fringe quackery into U.S. law, bypassing any sort of democratic process. Consider Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for instance. His extreme anti-vax views are only shared by a small minority of voters, but what good is public opinion against the vaunted Kennedy fortune? We live at the whims of billionaires, and taxing their wealth would provide some measure of protection from their views.
READ MORE: Taxing the Rich to Help the Poor? Here’s What the Bible Says.
But there is another, more charitable reason I support taxing billionaires: Accumulating obscene amounts of resources is bad for you. It is poisonous to your soul, your mind, and your relationships. We do not need to look hard for examples. We can easily see exorbitant wealth’s adverse impact on the lives of everyone from Elon Musk to J.K. Rowling, once celebrated individuals turned insufferable bullies, but we don’t even need these anecdotes.
Think about billionaires for a moment. Nobody needs a billion dollars. The very idea is ridiculous. Set aside the fact that there are millions of people in need; to be a billionaire is to be sitting on more money than you and your family could possibly hope to spend across all your lifetimes. It’s pitiful. There is no logical reason for people to live like this. We should help them. We should tax them.
To be clear, wealth is not exclusively a threat to billionaires. The Bible’s warnings against riches apply to more than just the uber-rich. As Phil Christman writes in Why Christians Should Be Leftists:
Jesus also, of course, tells us not to lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth. So much for the accumulation of capital. And, even though I would love to lean on the distinction between capital (possessions that we use mainly to generate profit, and thus to hoard power over others) and just regular stuff … well, I suspect Jesus views my beloved record collection with a certain skepticism too. You can’t serve God and mammon, and at least some of the time, mammon comes in the form of a special Japanese red-vinyl reissue with bonus tracks.
So when we talk about the Bible’s warnings against wealth, many of us need to be aware that we’re talking about our own material state. That’s good to remember and, I think, a foundation of any healthy Christian perspective on politics. As author and pastor Malcolm Foley told Sojourners, “The very possession of excess shows you have failed to wisely distribute what the Lord has given to you. We don’t properly ‘earn’ anything. All these things are gifts from God. And [God] wants us to steward and distribute, not hoard for ourselves.
“That’s a different way of thinking about any of the resources that we have, but also one that deeply undercuts the assumptions of neoliberal capitalism,” he continued.
This has profound implications for all of us, but it has very particular implications for the mega-wealthy: a class of people our society views as the ultimate success stories but Jesus seems to see as cautionary tales. Think of Mark 10:23, when Jesus declares to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!”
Sometimes, this is construed to be about the rich’s chances of entering a pain-free afterlife. That’s possible, but when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he’s talking about the here and now: the glorious present that is possible when God’s people follow the counter-cultural call to love one another in grace and humility.
Understood this way, Jesus’ warnings to the rich make a lot of sense. The Christian faith calls us to live in community, sharing our resources and wealth with one another. “Do not be proud,” Romans 12:16 tells us. “But be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.” Do these strike you as easy commands for billionaires to follow? Or does it sound like trying to get through the eye of a needle?
Indeed, Jesus seemed to see wealth as a spiritual corrosive, something toxic to the soul. “Watch out!” he tells his disciples in Luke 12:15. “Be on guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” In fact, wealth is one of the chief villains in the parable of the seed sown among the thorns: The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).
Viewed this way, wealth is not something to be sought or hoarded but shared freely. As José Humphreys III writes, this allows us to start thinking of money “as a gift in God’s economy of generosity rather than a commodity that leads to inequity, anxiety, grasping, and greed.” And if anyone is unlucky enough to fall into billions of dollars, it is a kindness to part them from it so that they can be brought into community. And since I cannot in good conscience recommend any of us go full Robin Hood and rob billionaires, taxing them seems like an effective way to deliver this kindness.
So this is why I maintain that while taxing billionaires might do some limited good for us non-billionaires, it would do very tangible good for billionaires themselves. A billion dollars in the bank account is the spiritual equivalent of radioactive waste in your refrigerator. It is unloving of us to leave them to it, not when we could drag them from the fumes. Taxing billionaires would be a widening of the eye of the needle, a flattening of the obstacles between them and the reign of God. It’s the loving thing to do.
Tyler Huckabee
Tyler Huckabee is the managing editor of sojo.net.
This is is getting weird
This week’s serial:
Full serial, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch’s mom (that’s her in the thumbnail)😮
I’m starting to think I might get to be a companion of the Doctor, the way things are going
(the Doctor gets bored and likes to hang out with Terrans)
Anon- Every cofeve vax I’ve had has taken me down for 24-36 hours. I’ve had 7 of them, so far. With it.
RFKJ’s wife was trying to defend him on The View yesterday, talking about how many billions have been paid out for damage allegedly due to vaccines. They called her on it; multiple vaccines. How could you marry a guy who cheated on his first wife so many times, and mistreated her to the point she killed herself? He’s a lying, grifting, abusive nutcase.
https://meidasnews.com/news/exclusive-trump-may-launch-missiles-from-warships-into-california-this-friday-and-saturday-as-part-of-vanity-parade-
MeidasTouch has learned from several sources that the White House has plans to close major sections of Interstate 5 for this Friday and Saturday.
The Trump administration is apparently finalizing plans for two days of events under the pretext of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps. Sources close to MeidasTouch describe the closure as part of a “vanity parade” that may involve Navy warships shooting live missiles into Camp Pendleton as a “show of force.”
JD Vance is expected to be present and intends to lead the Parade. This show of military force and I-5 closures if the plan is completed will also be taking place during the No Kings Protests which are expected to be very large accross California cities and the rest of the country.
The major road closures coincide with a federal government closure, leaving thousands of Marines and federal employees unpaid even as they are ordered to support the festivities.
Interstate 5, Southern California’s economic backbone, carries more than 80,000 daily travelers and moves $94 million in freight every day between San Diego and Orange Counties.
The very Marines being celebrated may not receive paychecks while their base becomes the backdrop for what one senior defense official called “a taxpayer-funded campaign reel.”
A senior state transportation official told MeidasTouch, “Closing down a critical corridor during a shutdown, for a vanity event, without even consulting state authorities? It’s indefensible.”
As Southern California braces for the fallout, one thing is clear: the Vice President’s “vanity parade” risks turning a patriotic commemoration into a logistical and political fiasco, leaving taxpayers, commuters, and unpaid troops caught in the crossfire.
*No squeaky tank for JD. He’s firing live missiles!
Anon
Baker was my first Doctor. Tenant was my favorite.
In case anyone needs something to do on No Kings 2.0 Eve:
MAGA,INC.
YOU ARE INVITED TO A
CANDLELIGHT DINNER
FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER
President Donald J. Trump
45th and 47th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Friday, October 17, 2025
The Mar-a-Lago Club
Palm Beach, Florida RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first served basis.
space is very limited.
$1,000,000 Per Person
DONALD TRUMP IS APPEARING AT
THIS EVENT ONLY AS A FEATURED SPEAKER AND IS NOT ASKING FOR FUNDS OR DONATIONS
Florida is notorious for sinkholes. Wouldn’t it be something is Mother Earth just opened up right then and there & swallowed up Grifty McGrifter and the million dollar a plate attendees?
can’t say my Doctor or AI will get me
We are dealing with Daleks, again. Young Republicans coming up are Daleks, as is JD Vance who refuses to condemn them. Stephen Miller is a Dalek. They are mostly all Daleks, so how do we defeat them?
see, that’s the problem with Daleks…
Hmmm.
lol Ace had her own way
NEW THREAD