Timothy Egan in an NYT opinion article, "After Trump, Republicans are now Trump's Fixers", writes: "It’s been clear, ever since the last of the never-Trumpers were rooted out of the party, that the G.O.P. would be an extension of the grime and grift of Trump’s personal brand. But now the enablers are willing to do what Cohen said he once did for Trump — take a bullet for him."

A copy of Tweet from Bill Kristol on the Republican Party

Bill Kristol @BillKristol

Conservatives have spent over half a century disproving the claim that we are the stupid party. Now, under Trump, conservatism is embracing, indeed reveling in...stupidity. #CPAC2019

Thanks for writing this Arizona. A few years ago we were educated by Veronica (aka Eternal Flame) on the history of the JBS and how it had morphed into the Tea Party. Hated to see her leave the forum. As these various JBS names wear out, it is now the Freedom Caucus. I went to the JBS website and looked at their stand on a litany of issues and about 95 percent of them seem to be a part of the Trump agenda. One of the exceptions is free trade. The JBS does not believe in tariffs of any kind. Of course they are also anti-regulations.

There certainly are many man made factors affecting our planet from chlorofluorocarbons affecting the ozone layer to plastics in the ocean to phosphates in fertilizers polluting our waters to the depletion and contamination of our fresh water aquifers. Scientists have a responsibility to call attention to these potential catastrophic events, and I would rather they overshoot than underestimate. However, many of these have been years in the making and politicians have been reluctant to take action unless they can see visible progress in their tenure in office.

Religion is also the power that some people use to exert control over other people's lives. Taken on a national scale (e.g. Saudi Arabia) it leads to repression and subjugation, the antithesis of what their religion ostensibly subscribes to as their primary ordained mission.

As one who has discussed religion with many people worldwide, for the most part I have been amazed at the 100 percent certitude in their convictions. Indoctrination of religious beliefs begins from the day you are born, and the differences in various denominations of Christianity, Islam and others stem from the inconsistencies in the respective scriptures written by different people over hundreds of years. I try not mock or deride another person's beliefs but rather try understand and find common ground.

However, as certain religious folks try to impose their brand of religion on others through governmental policies, then we must push back using many of their tactics. If, for example, they say God created humans in his own image, then are not the LGBTQ community God's creations also? Or did their God deliberately create some humans with the intent that they would be discriminated against? If so, what kind of God is that?

We do not know the facts yet so much of this is speculation Yes, there are reports that his locator beacon was transmitting meaning he might still have been alive and maybe not if the insurgents took his body a mile away and dumped it. There are other worst case scenarios considering the closed casket. I suspect that considering how long its been since the attack happened, much of the truth is being suppressed. We can expect it will take a long time before the public gets any more knowledge directly from the Pentagon. It's also not fertile grounds for journalists to be wandering around.

Dutch -- I am not suggesting in anyway that racism is an inherited trait. But as humans have evolved from our hunter gatherer days, certain traits became more dominant in some individuals through natural selection. The emotion of fear, for example, is much stronger in some individuals than others. Is it fear of the after life that makes so many individuals succumb to religious doctrine?

For mankind's survival certain physical and biological traits including intelligence evolved. The fact that we had "hate" long before biblical times and that genocide is nothing new in today's worldly conflicts, suggest to me that some people are more susceptible to "fear of the other" than others. In modern civilized cultures we have learned to be tolerant of each other and have passed laws to protect people's rights.

When we were born, we did not hate and we were not racists. Those traits were indeed learned, but some people learned more easily than others.

I should have added the bible references: kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-A.../

And the Neanderthal reference, Why am I a Neanderthal? . genographic.nationalgeographic.com/nean.../

Interesting topic Dutch. Society today largely opposes racism in its many forms, but we also have to acknowledge that we have extremists who fear "the other". If we were to go even much further back in history, we would find many examples of fear of the other in the bible where outright genocidal actions against other ethnic groups were a part of their everyday society. But the bible contradicts itself with many other references that oppose such actions. Different authors at different times with different views. It's why we have so many different denominations of Christianity.
However, we could go even further back in time and speculate why we have traces of Neanderthal DNA in our systems. Did some early humans accept and interbreed with the Neanderthals while others feared them so much that they wiped them out in genocidal actions? Just some far out critical thinking about the origins of our diversity and the way we react to our DNA driven emotions.