David Simmons

I am very pleased to see the live-streaming of the execution of the Fort Hood shooter has been cancelled - it would have simply created recruiting materials for extremists as well as moral harm for children all over the world. However, two questions still remain:

2. Why a firing squad? That’s a soldier’s death. When the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials were sentenced to death, they ASKED for death by firing squad, because it was considered more “honorable” than hanging. They were denied.

I am very pleased to see the live-streaming of the execution of the Fort Hood shooter has been cancelled - it would have simply created recruiting materials for extremists as well as moral harm for children all over the world. However, two questions still remain:

1. Why at all? This is the outcome the shooter wants. He wants to be a martyr and we are giving it to him. This will not serve as a deterrent - it’s the outcome the shooter wished for when he committed the act, and that would be true of any other extremist whom this execution might “inspire.”

The amount of casual Islamophobia I have seen lately from friends on Facebook is truly alarming. Folks, Article VI of the Constitution specifically denies a religious test for office.

Sharia law becoming part of U.S. law is no more a thing than Kosher, Roman Catholic Canon Law, or an Evangelical congregational covenant.

The amount of casual Islamophobia I have seen lately from friends on Facebook is truly alarming. Folks, Article VI of the Constitution specifically denies a religious test for office.

Newly released Homeland Security records, made public last week by defense attorneys in a federal case in Minneapolis, show undercover agents spent months inside community meetings at Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, and Unitarian Universalist churches across the Twin Cities. 🧵 ⚓

We've been here before. The Church Committee documented in 1976 how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI wiretapped the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and mailed him an anonymous letter urging him to take his own life.

Newly released Homeland Security records, made public last week by defense attorneys in a federal case in Minneapolis, show undercover agents spent months inside community meetings at Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, and Unitarian Universalist churches across the Twin Cities. 🧵 ⚓

Here's where it gets more disturbing. In February, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction protecting the American Baptist Churches and others — and cited University Baptist by name as a reason the order was necessary.

Newly released Homeland Security records, made public last week by defense attorneys in a federal case in Minneapolis, show undercover agents spent months inside community meetings at Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, and Unitarian Universalist churches across the Twin Cities. 🧵 ⚓

Christian Friends, if you’re spouting off about “Sharia Law” and 911 right now, you’re encouraging religious hatred and intolerance, period. 🧵 ⚓️

If you would like to criticize someone with a middle eastern name for their policy agenda - by all means. But if you’re going to use broad strokes and misinformation to demagogue the adherents of an entire religion, you are obviously, to quote Jesus, ignoring the log in your own eye.

Christian Friends, if you’re spouting off about “Sharia Law” and 911 right now, you’re encouraging religious hatred and intolerance, period. 🧵 ⚓️

Their religious authorities have officially decried acts of terrorism by extremists every time they have happened (but no one pays attention). They have stood with me at vigils for the Jewish community when antisemitic violence has occurred.

Christian Friends, if you’re spouting off about “Sharia Law” and 911 right now, you’re encouraging religious hatred and intolerance, period. 🧵 ⚓️

We have expended a huge portion of both our offensive and defensive munitions in Iran. These are expensive, hard to build missiles that we can’t ramp up production for quickly. 🧵 youtu.be/vZUJHUkC-3M?...

There’s a famous quote: “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” It is clear that we had not taken logistics into account when we entered into this war of choice.

We have expended a huge portion of both our offensive and defensive munitions in Iran. These are expensive, hard to build missiles that we can’t ramp up production for quickly. 🧵 youtu.be/vZUJHUkC-3M?...

This also assumes that with missiles like the Patriot, we will cancel all foreign contracts, meaning the 18 other countries whom we have convinced to use the system will have no new missles available.

We have expended a huge portion of both our offensive and defensive munitions in Iran. These are expensive, hard to build missiles that we can’t ramp up production for quickly. 🧵 youtu.be/vZUJHUkC-3M?...

Seems like a lot of that unprocessed COVID trauma is coming out right now. For most of us, COVID was life-disrupting, but not deadly. That was due to the difficult and often sacrificial work of the medical and scientific community, whom I continually thank God for. 🧵 ⚓️

Nor will I forget the refrigerator trucks in the hospital parking lot functioning as overflow for the morgue. We dodged a bullet - it could have easily have been as bad as 1914. But it wasn’t due to structures that have largely now been dismantled or disrupted.

Seems like a lot of that unprocessed COVID trauma is coming out right now. For most of us, COVID was life-disrupting, but not deadly. That was due to the difficult and often sacrificial work of the medical and scientific community, whom I continually thank God for. 🧵 ⚓️

Two Baptists — Sen. Warnock and Speaker Mike Johnson — spent 30 minutes arguing over Matthew 25 and left further apart than they started. Johnson says it's about individuals, not nations. But in a democracy, there's no impermeable wall or responsibility between the person and the state. ⚓

Re-watching “Gettysburg.” Struck by Chamberlain’s speech to some mutineers - “We are here for something new… we are an army set to set men free.. no man has to bow. No man born to royalty - here we judge you by what you do not by who your father was…. It’s the idea that we all have value.”

At a time where government officials are making claims that citizenship should only be given to those whose ancestors were here at the time of the civil war, remember that during the war, men like Lawrence were fighting for the rights of enslaved African Americans and hated Irish immigrants.

Re-watching “Gettysburg.” Struck by Chamberlain’s speech to some mutineers - “We are here for something new… we are an army set to set men free.. no man has to bow. No man born to royalty - here we judge you by what you do not by who your father was…. It’s the idea that we all have value.”