Lloyd Lofthouse

Hunting the thin-skinned Orange-tinted Witch

A Washington Post Op-Ed headline said, “Trump is right. This is a witch hunt!”

Dana Milbank wrote the Op-Ed for The Washington Post and said Trump is right about the witch hunt, but what the Op-Ed says is not what Trump’s deplorable supporters want to think.

Professor Thomas J. Rushford, a leading authority on the history of witchcraft is quoted in the Op-Ed.

In an anthropological sense, Trump “is really quintessentially a witch figure,” the professor tells me (Milbank), and if what is happening to Trump is a witch hunt, “it is only in a good sense, that is, this is society policing the boundaries that they believe to be ethically and morally right.”

Milbank writes, “The treatment of Trump by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and other investigators does have characteristics of a witch hunt. This is because Trump has characteristics of a witch.”

“Therefore,” Milbank says, “to dismiss what is happening to Trump as groundless by calling it a witch hunt is unfair — to witch hunts.

Now that we know the Orange-tinted witch is being hunted, does that make his deplorable followers, devil worshipers?

What the Bible says about witches describes Donald Trump. Revelation 21:8 – But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam combat veteran with a BA in journalism and an MFA in writing, who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

Where to Buy

Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

Lloyd Lofthouse

, , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , ,

35 responses to “Hunting the thin-skinned Orange-tinted Witch”

  1. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
    Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

    Interesting premise – very colorful. I agree, BTW.

    But you’re preaching to the choir. And those deplorables are fellow Americans behaving very badly both according to the Constitution and their own, signed by the chief witch, Bibles. They won’t listen, and the choir already made up its mind.

    There is a lot of work to do to reverse the damage from the witches, and I don’t now how much more damage our Nation can survive, but we’ll finding out! And we can’t start until it stops.

    The only good thing coming out of this debacle is that we can’t pretend any more that things are good; we’re going to have to work a lot harder to make cronyism and racism and sexism and greed go away than to just hope.

    Reply
    1. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
      Lloyd Lofthouse

      I think we are on the verge of a Civil War because the conditions and signs are already there.

      “Conditions for a Successful Revolution”

      http://www.citizenshandbook.org/revolutions.html

      The shooting (mass shootings and/or hate crimes that result in shootings) started years ago and has been escalating. So far, most of the shootings have been the extreme right shooting at select ethnic groups and/or religions.

      “Hate Crimes Increase for Third Consecutive Year, F.B.I. Reports.” (And thanks to DT, the FBI is also a target of the psyops campaign – in fact, any government organization that cannot be totally controlled by TD will be the target of the extreme rights’ psyops campaign.

      The warlike psyops campaign to stoke the flames of this Civil War have also been in place for years and are escalating. Normally, psyop propaganda is used to demonize another country and its people when there is a war pending or a war happening but these days psyops are being aimed at individuals and other groups in the United States that are being painted as the enemy and the worst of this is coming from the extreme right.

      Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.”

      What happened to AOC in the last few days because of something Diane said on her Blog about testing is a perfect example. The extreme right twisted what Diane wrote about OAC way out of context and demonized AOC through as part of their hard-wired misleading psyops propaganda campaign that has become relenting.

      https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Psyops

      Reply
      1. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        I hope we can find a way to regain some sense without extremism; there’s a lot of work ahead.

      2. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        Yes, a lot of work ahead. And an important element to make it work is getting out voting … starting in the primaries where the voters actually have some say. If voters don’t vote in the primaries, then it is too late to have a choice in the general elections.

      3. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        A good observation, even though most people think they should wait and see who the front-runners are. Voting in primaries: will remember that and push it.

      4. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        AOC won because of her door-to-door effort to get voters to vote in the primaries and it worked. She unseated the 4th most powerful Democrat in that Party and sent shockwaves (and she is still sending them – one shockwave after another) through both major political parties.

        https://wp.me/pN4pY-4b3

      5. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Fortunately for the nation, younger people have been watching the Republican implosion, and may find to political will to VOTE and choose better lawmakers and polititians.

        DT woke them all up. If he’d been just a ‘regular Republican,’ it would seem like a balance of power to alternate; many got way too complacent to vote.

      6. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        Yes, DT is waking up more people then he is fooling.

        And if the United States survives DT, and he doesn’t win the election in 2020, then all his lies and fraud and corruption might benefit the republic if enough people stay involved, pay attention and vote so another DT doesn’t end up in the White House for a couple of generations or more.

        Whenever I hear or see Agent Orange’s name, I think of Diptheria that is also known as DT. DT like DT is a horrible disease.

      7. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Yes, he is. I hope we only had to be shaken to the core once, as the process is quite painful, and it’s not nice to see how ugly ‘my fellow Americans’ can be – in all senses.

        I used to be proud to be an American; but our flaws have been outlined in such vivid detail lately…

      8. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        America has always been a racist nation. That history has often been brutal for minorities and some religions like the Jews, JWs, and Mormons. But for a brief time, maybe for ten to twenty years between the 70s and 90s, the haters went into the shadows to hide because the majority of people started to think liberal/progressive.

        In fact, polls still show that the majority of Americans support liberal and/or progressive values and issues.

        With the election of DT and most of the GOP’s leadership becoming his puppet minions, a minority of angry people full of hate, mostly older white men, have grabbed the reigns of power and I do not think they will give that power up easily now they are tasting the blood of the majority they detest and despise for not being racists and haters like them.

        But DT is not responsible for this happening. I blame the Koch brothers and the members of ALEC. The Koch brothers have been active since the early 1970s (about the same time the Civil Rights era got going) working hard to subvert the Constitutional Republic and they are not alone., because about 2,000 wealthy, mostly old white men, are members of the Koch brothers ALEC machine. Then there is the WalMart Walton family.

        In fact, most of Trump’s cabinet are members of ALEC and ALEC is a Koch brothers libertarian organization. Trump is too ignorant and stupid to know he is being used by real billionaires that are much smarter than he is.

        The U.S. is currently being led by the Koch brothers libertarian establishment, a very small group with one goal: Destroy the federal government and take over as many state governments as possible.

        There are 511,277 voters (0.46% of the total electorate) registered as Libertarian in the 31 states that report Libertarian registration statistics and Washington, D.C.

      9. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        I know; I worry about the same things: as the percentage of old white men with power and money decreases, they control more and more of the world’s money. They can’t buy immortality, yet, but they pass on their hate and money to their kids, who are doing just fine with it.

        We have a narrow window of time to get the majority involved, at the same time the rest of the world is creating dictators left and right (Kim, AMLO in Mexico, China…) and ceding power to populism with far different intentions than to make like better for the millions who vote them in.

      10. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        I do not think we can call China’s president a dictator. The reason why so many people think China’s leader is a dictator is that the traditional U.S. media keeps saying so. By definition, China is a republic. The CCP has more than 80 million members and they vote for their leaders. In fact, I think the best hope for modern civilization to survive is now in China’s hands.

      11. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        President for life is a dictator by definition. Didn’t he just designate himself that? China scares the heck out of me – they are efficiently implementing 1984 as we speak: people are not going to be able to ever again say what they mean – it goes on their permanent ‘social’ score.

      12. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        No, Xi Jinping did not designate himself president for life and grab power. China’s National People’s Congress with 2980 elected members (the only people in China that can vote in these elections are party members and the CCP has more than 80 million members voted).

        China’s President is elected by the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s highest state body, which also has the power to remove the President and other state officers from office. Elections and removals are decided by a simple majority vote.

        On 17 March 2018, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, was unanimously re-elected as the President of the People’s Republic of China and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Li Zhanshu was elected as the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

        China’s Consitution said (past tense) that their president could only serve two 5-year terms. China’s Constitution was revised soon after Mao died and the Gang of Four was tossed in prison.

        The real power in China is in the hands Politburo Standing Committee, the highest organ of the Communist Party when the Politburo, the Central Committee and the National Congress are not in session.

        Most of China’s major political decisions are made behind closed doors so when they vote in public, the CCP looks like it is unified. What really happened was a majority consensus decided before the public vote and then most if not all of the other members of the National Congress vote accordingly so China doesn’t look like it is divided. The vote to officially make Xi Jinping president for life was 2,958. 3 abstained – 2 voted against and one vote was determined to be invalid.

        I think the reason Xi Jinping had the two 5-year term restrictions lifted is that the Politburo decided there was no one ready that they could trust to lead the country. The last thing the CCP wants is for someone like Donald Trump to rise to power.

        The only way Xi becomes a dictator is if he sidesteps China’s Constitution and pulls a Trump to set himself up as the final authority over all of the CCP. China’s Constitution limits the president’s powers. There are still too many Chinese alive that remember what happened with Mao held that kind of power. That’s why China’s Constitution was revised after Mao died.

      13. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Splitting hairs nicely – you are far more nuanced than I would be. Yes, Xi can be removed (and will be if convenient to the Party). Meanwhile, he’s president for life. He’ll probably abdicate when told to.

      14. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        I think what “president for life” means here is that as long as Xi does his job, he’ll stay in that position. No term limits.

      15. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        That’s not what African dictators thinks it means. You’re probably right.

      16. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        Power corrupts.
        Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

        America’s Founding Fathers avoided the power they had from corrupting them. I mean, I’ve never heard of any of them being destroyed by the power they held.

        Only time will tell if Xi will avoid letting the power go to his head. If he transforms into the 2nd coming of Mao, then China will suffer through another Cultural Revolution.

        But Xi grew up a family that suffered under Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Did he learn how to resist the power and avoid being corrupted by it?

        We know that Donald Trump has been corrupted by the power money buys his entire life. Too late for DT.

      17. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        The Founding Fathers risked their necks, personally. And the republic was not a given in their days – the British tried to recapture.

        They didn’t have Castro’s ability to suppress their own population – their citizen soldiers just wanted to get back to their farms and villages.

        DT apparently got a double whammy: a toxic upbringing on top of the genetic gift – and the external advantages of money but a lack of capability to pull himself out of a paper bag by his own merit. The sad part is that he doesn’t even really belong to ‘the establishment.’

      18. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        I don’t think I’d call the X chromosome gene that produces monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) a gift. I know that it is still controversial that the production of too much MAOA is linked to being a psychopath but DT grew up and turend into a Malignant Narcissist because of his father.

        Trump is clearly a coward, a serial liar, a troll, and a bully.

        The two things this dysfunctional deplorable excuse for a human values the most is causing chaos and getting revenge on anyone and anything that gets in the way of what he wants.

        Combine MAOA with his specific strain of madness to cause chaos and get revenge is why the class he pretends to be part of won’t treat him like one of their own. I think it is very doubtful that DT is a billionaire because of all the debt he owes China and the Deutsche Bank. I’ve read he owed the German bank almost $500 million and the Chinese more than $500 million. And there is no telling how much he owes the Rusian oligarchs that he has been laundering money for … or do they own him because of the temptations they danged in front of him and he bit. I will not be surprised if Putin set up Trump and let him murder some young girl by convincing DT what a thrill it would be if he experienced choking the life out of someone while raping them.

      19. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        He’s not a billionaire; it’s not his money.

        And it’s convenient for way too many people to have a person like him supposedly in charge; except that his unpredictability must be a very sore spot.

        His vocabulary, gestures, clothing, ‘educational’ history – none of it inspire. But they appeal to people who are like him and live vicariously because they have no hope of living in actuality. They like being on the ‘winning’ team.

      20. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        I think many of his deplorable supporters were also fans of his when he was on The Apprentice where he created a fictional character of this tough guy who was an expert, a genius, and super successful at business when in fact, he is not intelligent, devious yes, and certainly a successful con artist, crook, serial liar, and fraud but never successful as an honest businessman considering all the workers/sub-contractors he cheated (some lost their businesses) and his six major bankruptcies that cost banks and investors close to one billion dollars in losses on top of the fact that he was also the recipient of corporate welfare adding up to another billion in tax breaks during his failed venture in Atlantic City that set off his string of bankruptcies.

        During the 2016 presidential debates, he bragged about never having had a bankruptcy and how successful he was as a businessman. Liar, liar, pants-and-skin burned to ash. If he was Pinocchio, his nose would be so long, it would reach across the span of an eight-lane highway and weigh more than him.

      21. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        People WANTED to believe him. Just as people WANTED to believe AMLO in Mexico.

        This means he could identify what they wanted – but is completely incapable of SOLVING their problems. The small, incremental, never-complete solutions of the regular government process were not enough for these people who have decided they are ENTITLED to have jobs, etc.

        They lack the capacity (plus knowing that all the money getting diverted into arms, etc., could have saved their infrastructure, schools, etc.) to evaluate the possibility of improvement. They just somehow think they’re not getting what they SHOULD be getting.

        Meanwhile, the hard-working immigrants who appreciate just being here, and don’t take any handouts because they don’t even qualify, are taking themselves in hand and creating a new life as did Irish, Italian… immigrants (also demonized) before them.

        I don’t know how to fix the deplorables’ situation, but I do know any solution has taken a giant step backward during this ‘administration.’ Those people are also my brothers and sisters, BTW. I ache for them, and I pray for them. But it isn’t easy to do that for haters and domestic terrorists.

      22. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        I do not think there is any way to fix the deplorables’ situation. if there was a solution, it would turn out to be the same as “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make the horse drink.” And in this case, we wouldn’t even be able to lead them to the solution if one existed. They’d refuse to go.

      23. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        That’s too negative for me; but the oligarchs in the pharmacological companies who have created to opioid crises are the real villains. They have their money rolling in – and no accountability.

        The businesses who don’t stay in the States – because it’s cheaper overseas – are adding to the problem: we need an educated population, not people with coal mine and steel plant jobs (highschool, but no higher used to lead to a ‘good job).

        The world has changed at the same time education has been gutted. And the schools are not preparing people to be flexible thinkers they’re teaching (all their time) to a test which was never intended to be anything than a sampling.

        And every tiny school district in the nation has way too much power.

        Etc.

      24. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        The Sackler family is the one responsible for the opioid crises, and we will have to wait to see if the Sacklers earn the punishment they deserve. Here’s the latest news.

        “New York Lawsuit Claims Sackler Family Illegally Profited From Opioid Epidemic”

        “New York State Attorney General is targeting one of America’s richest families. A lawsuit filed Thursday claims the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, profited illegally from the opioid crisis.”

        https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707722556/new-york-lawsuit-claims-sackler-family-illegally-profited-from-opioid-epidemic

        I don’t expect the Sacklers to face the same punishment for a drug dealer on the streets selling crack, cocaine or pot. Billionaires seldom end up with the same verdicts for much worse crimes.

        Federal Drug Trafficking Charges

        The Federal government prohibits any person from manufacturing, distributing, dispensing, or possessing controlled substances. A person found in violation is subject to sentencing based on the quantity of the prohibited substance. The details about prison sentences and fines for controlled substances are found in federal statutes. As an example, here are a few of the applicable penalties:

        10 years to life in prison for 1 kilogram of heroin; 5 kilograms of cocaine; or 1000 kilograms of marijuana;
        5 to 40 years for 100 grams of heroin; or 500 grams of cocaine; or
        Not more than 5 years for 50 kilograms of marijuana

        If found guilty by New York State (and possibly other states and the feds), the Sackler family should be held responsible for more than 200,000 deaths from the drugs they make and sell, but I suspect they will get a couple of years in one of the few Club Med prisons and then end up on parole or community service (of their choice) doing whatever they want.

      25. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Now the government needs to declare insulin a priority, and start manufacturing it at a reasonable price. And epipens. Surely the original patents – if any – on insulin are long over, and they can just produce the easiest generic.

        But then they’d have to have the will to provide healthcare for the population, wouldn’t they?

        Instead, they pay the outrageous prices for those in the military, for example, lining the pockets of the gougers.

        Cozy, the military-industrial partnerships.

      26. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        Eisenhower warned us about that partnership … to turn the planet into a hell on Earth.

      27. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        They’re doing a good job.

      28. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        Yes, a good job at achieving their dystopian agenda and put the entire human species at risk of extinction. The planet doesn’t care if our species dies off. In ten thousand years or more, most of the damage will have healed and mother nature will have evolved. Who knows, rats and cockroaches might end up being the primary species on the planet.

      29. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Rats are already very smart.

      30. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        I suspect that just about every other species on the planet is smarter than the wealthiest and most powerful humans.

      31. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Oh, and yes – we’re racist to the core, even those of us who just enjoy the benefits.

      32. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        The majority of old white men are racist to the core. A significant number of “their” (the old white men’s) women too. I think that is caused mostly by Stockholm Syndrome because women are also victims of the same hate DT’s shortage of brain cells are saturated with.

      33. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Yup about the women – it’s the only explanation. I don’t know that there’s a solution for hate, even though I’m Catholic to the core and I believe there has to be. St. Paul is a great example, but he sure did a lot of damage before his conversion.

        I’m not sure DT has the capacity for hate; with him, it seems more like annoyance that anyone questions his perfection (a narcissist more than a deliberate racist, as EVERYONE is subject to his pique, even though it is convenient right now to focus it on ‘people of color’ – and anyone who says boo to him.

        He’s a typical ‘rich kid’ – and learned his morals from his own father – and passed them on. He would not have been able to start from zero. IMNVHO

Comments are welcome — pro or con. However, comments must focus on the topic of the post, be civil and avoid ad hominem attacks.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.