The Soviet Union and Weimar Germany pledged to remain neutral if either nation got into a war in the next five years.
A Flapper Fanny cartoon for the day:
It was a Saturday.
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
The Soviet Union and Weimar Germany pledged to remain neutral if either nation got into a war in the next five years.
A Flapper Fanny cartoon for the day:
April 8,2026
What MAGA wizard King Donny said at the start of the war:
Only some of the names of the 170 some Iranian girls the U.S. killed during the war are known. Those names, including a few of the names of their teachers, are:
1. Hana Dehqani, eight years old
2. Fatemeh Salari, 34 years old
3. Reza Habashian, seven years old
4. Arya Bahadori, nine years old
5. Ali Asghar Zaeri, eight years old
6. Zahra Bahrami, seven years old
7. Ahmad Soltani, eight years old
8. Hamed Par-ashegh-nezhad, seven years old
9. Fatemeh Yazdan-panah, young girl, age unknown
10. Mahdis Nazari, seven years old
11. Athena Chamani-nezhad, six years old
12. Amirghasem Zaeri, seven years old
13. Fatemeh Dorazehi, 10 years old
14. Arad Ahmadizadeh, eight years old
15. Saman Karimzadeh, seven years old
16. Fatemeh Shahdadi, age unknown
17. Nadia Shahmiri, nine years old
18. Parham Ranjbari, nine years old
19. Mahmoud Gholamyani, 35 years old
20. Fatemeh Rahdar, 10 years old
21. Amir-Hassan Rasouli, eight years old
22. Zahra Behrouzi, eight years old
23. Mohammadhatam Raisi, 10 years old
24. Asna Raisi, 12 years old
25. Benyamin Jangjou, eight years old
26. Mohammad-Sadra Zarei, eight years old
27. Maryam Pazark, 10 years old
28. Liana Mohammadi, seven years old
29. Mandana Salari, 29 years old
30. Sara Shayesteh, five years old
31. Zoha Pasand, eight years old
32. Esra Zakeri, nine years old
33. Salma Zakeri, six years old
34. Fatemeh Taherifard, 29 years old
35. Zahra Ansari, seven years old
36. Fatemeh Fadavi, 10 years old
37. Mahna Zarei, two months old
38. Athareh Zarei, 10 years old
39. Alireza Zarei, nine years old
40. Mohammadreza Shahsavari, eight years old
41. Samira Basarde, 38 years old
42. Ehsan Saleminia, six years old
43. Fatemeh Zahra Karimi, seven years old
44. Zeynab Bahrami, 10 years old
45. Mohammad Shah-dousti, eight years old
46. Reza Barani, seven years old
47. Athena Ahmadzadeh, 10 years old
48. Khadijeh Darvishi, nine years old
49. Roqayyeh Karimi, 42 years old
50. Reza Ranjbar, six years old
51. Marzieh Bashiri-far, 38 years old
52. Mohammad-Mehdi Chegini, 10 years old
53. Mohammadian Bahrami, 17 years old
54. Ali-Akbar Karyani Pak, eight years old
55. Hananeh Mehdikhah, seven years old
56. Fereshteh Sangarzadeh, 44 years old
57. Mohammad-Ali Karyani Pak, seven years old
58. Parsa Mokhtari-nasab, 12 years old
59. Arina Arab-Kish, eight years old
60. Makan Nasiri, 12 years old
61. Esra Farahi-Zadeh, young girl, age unknown
About half of the American lives were due to a mid air accident, but they're just as dead as they would be had they died fighting. All of the Iranian lives lost that are listed are due to a targeting accident.
What the death toll for anybody in Lebanon, which opened up as a theatre of war while this was going on, we don't probably really know.
May the perpetual light shine upon them.
If any question why we died,Tell them, because our fathers lied.
None of these people had a choice in the offering of their lives for Trump's desperate attempt to have a legacy. American voters do have a choice on allowing him to continue to kill in an attempt to gain one, however. They'll have that choice in November, and through their members of Congress, they have a sort of choice now. The second it becomes clear to Republican members of Congress that their phony jobs are in danger by supporting a madman, they'll suddenly have never supported him.
April 9, 2026
Nothing is going through the Straits of Hormuz yet. . . a sign that shippers doubt the ceasefire will hold.
And it hasn't in Lebanon, where Israel continues to conduct operations arguing, logically enough, that it doesn't apply there anyway.
April 13, 2026
Well negotiations are going badly so now King Donny is threatening to blockade Iranian ports.
The world's worst dealmaker screws up the Iran negotiations
Forget the "Art of the Deal” myth.
April 17, 2026
There apparently is an agreement for a ceasefire in Lebanon.
April 18, 2026
A suspicious package caused a lockdown on parts of F. E. Warren yesterday.
Related? I don't know, but then, I don't know.
The Straits of Hormoz were announced open yesterday, and then Iran announced that they are under strict Iranian control today.
April 20, 2026
The United States announced a second round of talks in Pakistan and even discussed the delegation, with Trump claiming the parties were close to a deal.
Iran said nope, it wasn't going to any talks.
April 21, 2026
Some reporters are indicating that the US and Iran were close to a deal to end the war and that it was blown up by Trump's tweeting.
April 22, 2026
Trump was going to rain down destruction if things weren't moving yesterday, yadda yadda, yadda. . .
It's well known that Hegseth has the Secretary of the Army in his sights but hasn't been able to pull that off yet.
Interesting . . .
In other news, Iran is reporting that its Revolutionary Guards seized to vessels. Granted, that's not the Iranian Navy, but it does show that Iranian forces are more resilient than the US claims.
April 24, 2026
Last edition:
April 14, 2026.
The Donald Trump Effect, voters running from candidates endorsed by the deranged octogenarian whose administration is protecting the rapist of teenagers, starting wars, and causing rising inflation, is having a noticeable nationwide, and even international, effect. Voters in special elections all over the US are dumping MAGA candidates and electing Democrats. It's an absolute certainty at this point that, unless something dramatic happens, that the Republicans are going to lose badly at the midterms and retake the House. And now it appears they're likely to take the Senate. The Cook Political Report shifted four Senate races this past week to favor Democratic and pundits are now openly saying the Democrats will take the upper house.
Of course, Democrats have a way of shooting themselves in the foot. Nonetheless the momentum is clear. Trump has lost independents, who he needs in most places for the GOP to remain in office, and he's lost Hispanics. This past week his actions were such that if he has not lost non Hispanic Catholics, its only because those voters value Trump more than the Faith or are engaging in some really self delusional thinking, keeping in mind that you never actually have to vote Democratic and that in the primaries there is usually a Republican willing to run who isn't a slave to Trump.
California Republicans refused to endorse a Governor's candidate in a convention that was just held and snubbed Trump's endorsement of one. They see the handwriting on the wall.
But still you have this.
An article on the topic:
This all follows, of course, this:
The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and Special edition. Attacking the Catholic Church.
If Wyomingites are going to wake up, and that's unlikely, there's be a point, if we are not already at it, where voting for the GOP candidates who associate with themselves with Trump would be a no go. And some of those candidates would already be no gos.
Chuck Gray, who barely won the Secretary of State's office and only did so by lies and screeds about an imaginary pack of left wingers always oppressing him is running on being perpetually pissed off at at the left and being in deep love with Donald Trump. Reid Rasner promises to be Trump's number one fan. Megan Degenfelder has "Endorsed by Donald Trump" on her campaign signs.
All three are Catholic. If they can still stomach Trump at this point, there's literally no value they hold that they actually hold. No Democrat is going to win, so lashing themselves to Trump is either cynical or self delusional. It's inexcusable.
Degenfelder's signs out to read "Endorsed by Blasphemer Donald Trump". Gray and Rasner, who are both young enough, ought to joint the Marines and put their bodies where their mouths are.
Another far right Catholic figure in Wyoming is Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, who is now running for Secretary of State as Rachel Williams. She's never said anything about Trump of which I'm aware, but as a Freedom Caucuser she ought to fell uncomfortable with the company she's been keeping.
It'll also be interesting to see how columnists like Jonathan Lange, a Lutheran minister, approaches what is now too obvious to ignore. . . Trump doesn't care about religion at all and feels free to outright mock it. Granted, he's not Catholic, but for sincere Christians what was depicted is blasphemous irrespective of which branch of Christianity a person might be in.
And then we have this:
There's no excuse for what Gray did.
Even some Republican states are opposing giving voter data to the Federal Government, but Chuck was the first to comply.
We'll see how this plays out, but if he loses, given his position, he ought to get the maximum penalty.
Anyhow, we're in the thick of the election now, but every day, Donald Trump gets weirder and weirder. He's insane. Standing by the insanity is not excusable.
April 15, 2026
Seriously I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this?
I recognize that a lot of young voters don't love the policy we have in the Middle East. Okay. I understand that. Don't get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved. That's how we ultimately take the country back.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom
Matthew, Chapter 24.
When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.
In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;
And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,
Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;
And the bubbling camels beside the load
Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;
And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,
Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;
And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;
And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;
And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk
A savour of camels and carpets and musk,
A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,
To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.
2
The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,
The knives were whetted and—then came I
To Mahbub Ali the muleteer,
Patching his bridles and counting his gear,
Crammed with the gossip of half a year.
But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,
“Better is speech when the belly is fed.”
So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep
In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,
And he who never hath tasted the food,
By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.
We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,
We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.
3
Four things greater than all things are,—
Women and Horses and Power and War.
We spake of them all, but the last the most,
For I sought a word of a Russian post,
Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword
And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.
Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes
In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.
Quoth he: “Of the Russians who can say?
“When the night is gathering all is gray.
“But we look that the gloom of the night shall die
“In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.
“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise
“To warn a King of his enemies?
“We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,
“But no man knoweth the mind of the King.
“That unsought counsel is cursed of God
“Attesteth the story of Wali Dad.
4
“His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,
“His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen;
“And the colt bred close to the vice of each,
“For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.
“Therewith madness—so that he sought
“The favour of kings at the Kabul court;
“And travelled, in hope of honour, far
“To the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.
“There have I journeyed too—but I
“Saw naught, said naught, and—did not die!
“He hearked to rumour, and snatched at a breath
“Of ‘this one knoweth’ and ‘that one saith’,—
“Legends that ran from mouth to mouth
“Of a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.
“These have I also heard—they pass
“With each new spring and the winter grass.
5
“Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,
“Back to the city ran Wali Dad,
“Even to Kabul—in full durbar
“The King held talk with his Chief in War.
“Into the press of the crowd he broke,
“And what he had heard of the coming spoke.
“Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,
“As a mother might on a babbling child;
“But those who would laugh restrained their breath,
“When the face of the King showed dark as death.
“Evil it is in full durbar
“To cry to a ruler of gathering war!
“Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,
“That grew by a cleft of the city wall.
“And he said to the boy: ‘They shall praise thy zeal
“So long as the red spurt follows the steel.
“And the Russ is upon us even now?
“Great is thy prudence—await them, thou.
“Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong,
“Surely thy vigil is not for long.
“The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?
“Surely an hour shall bring their van.
“Shout aloud that my men may hear.’
6
“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise
“To warn a King of his enemies?
“A guard was set that he might not flee—
“A score of bayonets ringed the tree.
“The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,
“When he shook at his death as he looked below.
“By the power of God, who alone is great,
“Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.
“Then madness took him, and men declare
“He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,
“And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,
“And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,
“And sleep the cord of his hands untied,
“And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.
7
“Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise
“To warn a King of his enemies?
“We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,
“But no man knoweth the mind of the King.
“Of the gray-coat coming who can say?
“When the night is gathering all is gray.
“Two things greater than all things are,
“The first is Love, and the second War.
“And since we know not how War may prove,
“Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!”
Rudyard Kipling, Ballad of the King's jest
March 23, 2026.
Pakistan v. Afghanistan
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fighting a border war.
March 28, 2026
Mexican Drug Wars
Self defense militias are forming in the cartel ridden portion of Mexico, armed with military style semi automatic rifles, AKs and ARs, smuggled in from the US.
This actually provides a good example of the utility of something like the 2nd Amendment. Mexican civilians are having to illegally arm themselves, which in the US they would not have to.
Russo Ukrainian War
If we had to be fighting a war, we should have been fighting this one. But then, Donald Trump loves Vlad Putin.
Ukraine Is Starting To Wage Systems Warfare
The US Might Consider Paying Attention
April 6, 2026
Sudanese civil war
April 21, 2026
Russia is losing more men per month in Ukraine than it can recruit.
This war has seemingly been forgotten in the US, but then the US is now an aggressor nation as well.
Last edition:
Dear brothers and sisters,
As Jesus walks the Way of the Cross, we place ourselves behind him, following in his footsteps. As we walk with him, we contemplate his passion for the sake of humanity, his broken heart, and his life as a gift of love.
We turn our gaze to Jesus, who reveals himself as King of Peace, even as war looms around him. He remains steadfast in meekness, while others are stirring up violence. He offers himself to embrace humanity, even as others raise swords and clubs. He is the light of the world, though darkness is about to engulf the earth. He came to bring life, even as plans unfold to condemn him to death.
King of Peace. Jesus’ desire is to bring the world into the Father’s arms, tearing down every barrier that separates us from God and from our neighbor, for “He is our peace” (Eph 2:14).
King of Peace. Jesus enters into Jerusalem not upon a horse, but upon a donkey, fulfilling the ancient prophecy that calls for rejoicing at the arrival of the Messiah: “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations” (Zech 9:9–10).
King of Peace. When one of his disciples drew his sword to defend him and struck the high priest’s servant, Jesus immediately stopped him, saying: “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52).
King of Peace. While he was burdened with our sufferings and pierced for our sins, Jesus “did not open his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent” (Is 53:7). He did not arm himself, or defend himself, or fight any war. He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.
Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15).
our gaze upon him who was crucified for us, we can see a crucified humanity. In his wounds, we see the hurts of so many women and men today. In his last cry to the Father, we hear the weeping of those who are crushed, who have no hope, who are sick and who are alone. Above all, we hear the painful groans of all those who are oppressed by violence and are victims of war.
Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters!
In the words of the Servant of God, Bishop Tonino Bello, I would like to entrust this cry to Mary Most Holy, who stands beneath the cross of her Son and weeps also at the feet of those who are crucified today:
“Holy Mary, woman of the third day, grant us the certainty that, in spite of all, death will no longer hold sway over us; that the injustices of peoples are numbered; that the flashes of war are fading into the twilight; that the sufferings of the poor are breathing their last. And grant, finally, that the tears of all the victims of violence and pain will soon be dried up like frost beneath the spring sun” (Maria, donna dei nostri giorni).
Pope Leo XIV, Palm Sunday homily.
Christians need to hear this. More than that, those who claim to be Christian, like Pete Hegseth, but belong to some diluted form of Christianity, need to hear it. Hegseth has tattooed himself with the symbols of a Faith that would have found him to be abhorrent at the time of their origin, which which recoil from them now.
Wars change everything.
Maybe one thing it will change in the human heart in people who listen to the likes of Franklin Graham and Paula White, when they should be listening to the full deposit of the Faith
III. SAFEGUARDING PEACE
Avoiding war
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Section 2309, Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; . . .
The American war against Iran is not a just war. It's not a legal one, either.
Iran is a world sponsor of terrorism that has sponsored terroristic acts for decades. Most of those acts of terror were against other sovereign states, not the US, but some can logically be argued to be directed at the us. That's almost certainly not what the war is about.
Much more likely, Trump is a pathetic doddering senile fool who has spent a life of utter pointlessness. His wealth is inherited and founded originally on a grandfather who engaged in providing prostitutes to Alaska miners, a gravely evil act. His father did nothing like that, but the family wealth was used to build more wealth, and Trump in his adult years, after not serving his country (a family tradition to some extent) went on to make and lose fortunes doing that.
Real estate development is, from an agrarian and distributism prospective like that I maintain, a fairly dubious occupation in and of itself. Not clearly immoral, but frankly I have real trouble with some of it. Be that as it may, I particularly have trouble with the sort of behavior that Trump exhibited in that questionable occupation. I wouldn't admire the Wharton graduate for that reason alone. But the way he has spent his wealth is abominable. He's a serial polygamist and its getting very difficult to say "there's no evidence" that he didn't sexually fish in the shallow end of the pond.
There's more credible evidence that he's a kiddy diddler, which I'm not affirmatively saying there is, than that he's a Christian. There's not one single outwardly Christian act that I can think of that he's committed. What he is, is a shallow opportunist, and he's used desperate Christians to advance his career.
Knowing that the grave is looming up on him, and with his mind slipping away from him at a rapid rate, Trump has spent much of his second, illegitimate, occupation of the White House trying to build monuments to himself. He wants a ball room as he's a rich product of the 60s and 70s when things like that mattered to somebody. They don't anymore, and it'll either never be built, or ripped down. He wants a triumphal arch, which is simply absurd.
And he wants to be remembered as a great hero, adding to the US landmass, or at least defeating a supposed major enemy.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a scary man in his own right, but not a demented fool, saw that he could play the demented fool in the White House. Netanyahu, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, sees the Trump dotage as a time to "address all family business". Seeing a dolt he could play, like Putin has, he's coaxed Trump into a war for Israel's own purposes. This is, the way Netanyahu sees it, Israel's last best hope to destroy the radical Islamist regime in Tehran. Israel can't do it on its own, and no future US administration will support doing it. Israel is not held in that high of regard in much of the world for a variety of reasons, and never has been. Nobody else is going to play the willing muscled fool for Netanyahu. If Netanyahu is Corleone, Trump is Luca Brasi, a brutish dolt who is willing to act as an enforcer.
Trump entered this war thinking it would be a two or three day exercise. He'd bomb Iran and the Iranian people would give up. Or, maybe, Iranians theocrats would act like American property owners and cut him a deal. Well, say what you like about Shiite theocrats, but they're a lot less shallow than American businessmen. They hold to an existential, and unlike Trump it's not all about money and women.
Oh oh.
So they didn't give up and they aren't going to give up. They've fought back by striking economic targets and U.S. military installations around the Middle East (and now as far away as Diego Garcia). And they've closed the Straits of Hormuz.
By closing the Straits, they've also demonstrated that the US is, in fact, not as powerful as it pretends it is. We can't open them and we've been begging for help. Nobody else is willing to get into an endless war for Israel, and therefore that help isn't coming. In order to open them we will have to engage in a ground invasion.
Trump is trying desperately to avoid that, for a variety of reasons. One thing is that he's probably been told it will be a bloody mess. Body bags will be coming home to "Red" cities all around the country. People already don't support the war and they definitely will not when Johnny or Mary come home to be buried in Riverton Wyoming, or Billings Montana, having died for Bibi Netanyahu.
And then there's this:
Because Trumps don't serve the country, they take from it. That's why.
In his desperation to end the war, Trump is now threatening to bomb Iranian power facilities if they do not open the Straits of Hormuz. He broadcast this on social media, which is idiotic It also won't work. The Allied bombing campaigns against Germany did not work in World War Two. They didn't work, save for the Atomic bomb, against Japan, either. Nor did they work against North Vietnam. They won't work here. Instead, civilians will be killed and whatever support for a new regime replacing this one in Iran exists, will evaporate.
What Trump is doing is criminal. The US is killing people for. . . what?
The whole war is criminal from the first place, from a US prospective. We're using military force to kill people with no declaration of war. And now we propose to engage in a tit for tat campaign of economic retribution against them as we can't beat them. We haven't been able to articulate a single reason for the war, other than Iran cannot be allowed to have the same thing that Israel, the United States, France, Russia, North Korea, the United Kingdom, Indian, Pakistan, and South Africa have. . . an atomic bomb.
There is some logic to that, of course. An Iran with an atomic bomb would be scary, just like North Korea with an atomic bomb is scary. But given our ill thought out military adventure here, we are actually making this situation worse. North Korea, it might be noted, is improving missile capabilities, and why wouldn't they. If North Korea has not determined an absolute need to be able to hit the continental United States due to Donald Trump, it'd be amazing. And if Iran, which has its nuclear material yet, has not concluded that it has an absolute need to complete a nuclear project, that would be amazing.
But it's clear that Trump never thought this out. He went, we're told, with his gut, which is nearly always wrong.
So, here we are in this long winded thread.
And here's to the point. Supporting immorality, is immoral. Everyone engages in "remote cooperation with evil", which you can not do much about. Using illegal drugs is illegal, but paying the pizza guy when you know he's going to use some of that cash for illegal drugs isn't.
Here, we now have an interesting situation.
We are in an illegal war and doing immoral acts. The Republicans in Washington are mostly sitting around on their ass doing nothing about it. They're afraid. They're not paid nor elected to be afriad.
And all over the country the MAGA element of the GOP just lies down like the 13 year old girls at Epstein Island and gives into whatever Trump wants.
It's immoral.
For years and years Christians, particularly those of my faith, voted for Republicans in spite of reluctance because we opposed abortion and the Democratic Party supported it. Even as late as the last election I heard Catholics with severe doubts about Trump say they were voting for him for that reason.
Abortion is a grave moral evil. Engaging in an illegal war and targeting civilian targets is a grave moral evil.
I'm not saying vote for the Democrats without thinking, but I am saying that supporting this Administration and the Republican Party at this point is supporting moral evil. When John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman come around backing the war, they're backing a moral evil. When Chuck Gray declares his undying love for Trump and promises to be the most loyal of his political concubines, he's expressing a love of a moral evil.
Most Germans during the Nazi era did nothing. Most Republicans aren't going to either. In future years, they'll be looked at with utter disgust.
Christians believe that they'll have to account for their sins in the next world. I very much doubt that bothers Donald Trump as he's stupid and ignorant, which is sort of a defense, and I very much question if he has any belief in God at all. For that matter, while I have only the incidents to raise the question, I doubt the beliefs of many in Congress who claim they have one. For those of us who do believe, and frankly a person who doesn't has simply blinded themselves to reality, it's all too easy to believe that our self interest must be moral. Protestant churches have, for instance, by and large completely given up on being concerned about sexual morality for the most part.
God will not be mocked. Christians who declare Trump to be a "Godly Man" are willfully blinding themselves or outright lying. None of us are around here all that long. The "why did you support the murder of my children" question is coming up, and the "well, I supported Trump", or "well, the Iranians were baddies", or "well, the Iranians were Muslims" line is not likely to be a sufficient excuse for being complicit in murder.
Footnotes
*This may seem like a strange point to start in this thread, but wars routinely devolve, even when they fit the just war criteria, into flat out murder and the US has not been exempt from this. Arguably the cleanest war the US ever fought was World War One, with the Korean War being relatively clean. World War Two may be recalled as a uniformly just war, but the bombing campaigns against urban Japan and the use of nuclear weapons was outright not. And the tolerance of what is depicted above, which was very widespread, was not.