Donald Trump holds a Bible for a photo outside St John’s Church across Lafayette Park from the White House on Monday, after protesters were cleared from the area. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP
Trump has reached the 'mad emperor' stage, and it's terrifying to behold
He incites violence from the safety of a bunker, then orders peaceful people tear-gassed for the sake of a surreal photo op
www.theguardian.com
Prepare ye the way of the Trump. Make straight paths for him
WASHINGTON — Under normal circumstances, President Trump crossing the street to
hold up a Bible in front of a church would be a cringeworthy photo-op. He didn’t read from it. He didn’t step in the church and pray. He just awkwardly
modeled with a Bible. It was the crudest photo op symbolism imaginable.
TRUMP. BIBLE. CHURCH. (GOT IT?)
In its full context, though, Trump’s trip to St. John's, the church vandalized and partly burned by protesters Sunday night, was worse. He deployed a battalion of law enforcement to
push back peaceful protesters forcibly for the sole purpose of clearing a path for him to make a perfunctory photo op that served no purpose higher than his own politics.
Using the Bible as a prop is profane and sadly common. Deploying fully armed police against peaceful citizens to arrange this photo op is the sort of penny-ante corruption you expect from a debauched city government.
WASHINGTON — Under normal circumstances, President Trump crossing the street to hold up a Bible in front of a church would be a cringeworthy photo-op. He didn’t read from it. He didn’t step in the church and pray. He just awkwardly modeled with a Bible. It was the crudest photo op symbolism...
www.washingtonexaminer.com
Episcopal bishop says Trump’s message is ‘antithetical to the teachings of Jesus’
The rebuke from the Right Rev. Mariann Budde came after the president threatened the use of military force to quash a nationwide wave of racial unrest.
The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington on Tuesday condemned the violent dispersal of peaceful protesters to accommodate President Donald Trump’s visit to a church, calling the photo opportunity a “symbolic gesture” that was “antithetical” to the core tenets of Christianity.
The fierce rebuke from the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, whose diocese oversees the church Trump visited Monday evening, came after the president threatened the use of military force to quash a nationwide wave of racial unrest if state and local officials refused to activate the National Guard.
The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington said the president’s message was “antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.”
www.politico.com
Former Commanders Fault Trump’s Use of Troops Against Protesters
WASHINGTON — Retired senior military leaders condemned their successors in the Trump administration for ordering active-duty units on Monday to rout those peacefully protesting police violence near the White House.
As military helicopters flew low over the nation’s capital and National Guard units moved into many cities, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood beside President Trump as he took the unusual step of pressing the American military into a domestic confrontation.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
wrote on Twitter that “America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy.”
And Gen. Tony Thomas, the former head of the Special Operations Command,
tweeted: “The ‘battle space’ of America??? Not what America needs to hear … ever, unless we are invaded by an adversary or experience a constitutional failure … ie a Civil War.”
After military helicopters carried out a “show of force” mission to discourage protesters, retired senior military leaders condemned their successors for deploying such tactics.
www.nytimes.com
www.vox.com
www.reuters.com
