This is another sign, other times, an analysis, and a commentary.
President Donald Trump, they say, more than his cautioning of our civic life, failure
to release his tax returns, possible acceptance of foreign influence in our political process,
unraveling of our foreign relationships, and the steadfast value of America's word,
failure to properly staff the executive branch, appointing unqualified and or compromised members
to his cabinet, and cavalier relationship with the truth, in other words, his lies.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of Donald Trump's presidency is his bullying effort
to undermine the rule of law.
His attacks on the Justice Department, military tribunals, the special counsel, attorneys general
and federal prosecutors, smack of strongman tactics that run counter to American tradition.
This should concern all Americans.
Still others say, Donald Trump is fundamentally, psychologically, unsuited for the presidency.
And all these are more signs.
Our system of government was designed with a set of checks and balances to guard against
having too much power concentrated in the hands of any one person, including the President,
but Mr. Trump has run his businesses as a dictator who can never be challenged.
He cannot accept that he is not authorized to turn our government into a dictatorship.
He is jealous of dictators in other countries, Vladimir Putin, whom he admires and longs
to emulate.
He is not capable of accepting limitations on his power.
Why to do so would conflict with his narcissistic need to be seen as all good, all powerful,
always right and impervious to any challenge.
This explains why President Trump routinely tries to bully government agencies in ways
that none of his predecessors would ever have dared.
This is an unmitigated disaster for a country that prides itself on its democratic government.
So then, if you are the President, you now may mock a foreign leader with a demeaning
nickname and threaten his country with nuclear destruction over Twitter.
Call for the firing of SOB athletes who choose to exercise the right to free speech.
Spend the weekend golfing at your private club, while the mayor of an American city
wades through sewage-filled water to help citizens after a catastrophic hurricane.
Then accuse that mayor of poor leadership when she criticizes your administration's
slow response to the storm.
Criticize victims of that hurricane still living without drinking water or electricity
by saying they want everything to be done for them.
During a visit to some of those victims, throw rolls of paper towels at them and tell them
they should be very proud that only 16 people have died so far, unlike in a real catastrophe.
Attack a senator battling terminal illness.
Pick nominees to the federal bench who call a sitting Supreme Court justice a judicial
prostitute and refer to transgender children as part of the devil's plan campaigned hard
for a Senate candidate.
Then when he appears likely to lose, say, I might have made a mistake and later delete
the tweets supporting him.
Refer to the White House as a real dump.
Spend one of every three days as president visiting at least one of your own properties
publicly and privately, immediately, your own attorney general, or accusing himself
of an investigation into your own campaign.
Hide data and don't support your pre-existing policy preferences.
Say nothing when a foreign leader's bodyguards brutally attack peaceful protesters in the
streets of Washington, D.C.
Tweet TIFs of yourself violently attacking the media and your former political opponent.
Encourage police officers not to be too nice when apprehending criminal suspects.
Help draft a misleading statement about the purpose of meeting between your son, other
top campaign aides, and representatives of a rival foreign power intent on interfering
in the election.
Deliver a speech to the Boy Scouts of America that includes mockery of a former president
in winking references to sexual orgies, and then lie by claiming with the head of that
organization called and told you it was the best speech ever delivered in Boy Scout history.
Hang a framed copy of a fake Time Magazine cover celebrating your business acumen and
your golf clubs around the world.
Mock a female television anchor's appearance, saying the anchor was bleeding badly from
a facelift at a holiday gathering at your private resort.
Continue to deny that Russia attempted to influence the presidential election despite
the consensus of the American intelligence community, and yet also blame your predecessor
for not doing anything to stop that interference.
Grant temporary White House press credentials to a website that, among other things, claims
that September 11th was an inside job, but the massacre of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown
Connecticut was a hoax, block people who criticize you on Twitter.
Saying that an investigation into your campaign's possible collusion with a foreign power is
the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.
Pressure multiple intelligence chiefs to state publicly that there is no collusion between
your presidential campaign and the Russian government without consulting anyone at the
Pentagon, announced a new policy, barring transgender soldiers from serving in the military.
Pardon a former sheriff who was convicted of criminal contempt of court for refusing
to obey the law.
Continue to repeat with admiration a false story about an American military general
committing war crimes, mock the mayor of a world city where his careful sober response
to a terrorist attack, run an administration whose ethical standards have, and the words
of the federal government's top ethics enforcer made the United States close to a laughing
stop, admit to trying to intimidate a key witness and a federal investigation, leave
hundreds of executive branch positions unfilled, profit off the presidency, accepting millions
of dollars from foreign government officials, businesses, politicians, and other supporters
who pay a premium to patronize your properties and get access to you by also attempting to
hide the visitor lists as some of those properties from the public.
Once to drain the swamp, then quietly grant ethics waivers to multiple former industry
lobbyists who want to work in your administration.
Tell a lie on average more than five times a day, and who is the father of lies?
Call for criminal investigations of your former political opponent seven months after winning
the election.
Call your family wedding planner to head a federal housing office, shove aside a fellow
head of state and a photo op, and the list goes on and on.
Yes, Donald Trump is the beached.
This too is another sign of the end of times as we know them, transition days, which is
the time of extraordinary changes, happenings, and events, because it's about what kind
of world are we leaving to the future generations, and that should be a very important question
to ask.
Second Peter chapter two, but false prophets also rose among the people, just as there
will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even
denying the master who brought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction, and many
will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed,
and in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell, and committed them
to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept into the judgment.
If he did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness,
for seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, if by turning
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them
an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.
And if he rescued righteous blood, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked,
for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous
soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.
Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under
punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of
defiling passion and despised authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as
they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power,
do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord, but these, like irrational
animals, creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters
of which they are ignorant, who also be destroyed and their destruction, suffering wrong is
the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime,
their blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you. They
have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls, they have
hearts trained in greed, accursed in children, forsaking the right way, they have gone astray.
They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Biyor, who loved gain from wrongdoing,
but was rebuked for his own transgression, a speechless donkey spoke with human voice
and restrained the prophet's madness. These are waterless springs and mist given
by a storm, for then the gloom of uttered darkness has been reserved. For speaking loud
boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping
from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves
of corruption, for whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved, or if, after they
have escaped the defilements of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome. The last state has become
worse for them than the first, for it would have been better for them never to have known
the way of righteousness, and after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment,
delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them, the dog returns to
its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.
Yes, it's time for prophecy to be fulfilled, and all these are more signs.
