I hate how the Bible is being used as a nationalist prop. Nationalism was a theme of the old testament and Jesus called his followers to move beyond national identity. But that's how fascism works, it apropariates instead of actually creating something new.
Nationalism was a theme of the old testament and Jesus called his followers to move beyond national identity.
What?
Gotta love when Christians ignore half of their holy book when it's inconvenient for them.
That person is not wrong, what are you referring to? Your left out the other half of your comment that explains anything.
There's a loophole grift for everyone!
A Super PAC for all your greenback "free speech"!
Limited Edition shoes for scalpers and people who like collecting shiny shit!
NFTs to offload your crypto wallets!
Truth Social to legally funnel Wall Street money through holding companies!
Bibles for churches to spend money while saying they are "updating their library".
Come one come all, ye shady source of funding!
There's 2 types of right wingers, dumb ones and disingenuous ones.
Scared, stupid and selfish. The 3S framework of conservatism. You don't have to be all 3 to be conservative, but you're at least one.
Nice, I'd say the first two of those terms apply mostly to the dumb ones.
The disingenuous ones take advantage of the stupidity of the others to induce fear to facilitate manipulation.
Isn't the third type democrats?
No, most non-progressive dems would qualify as being disingenuous. The progressive ones that still call themselves dems aren't right wing, they're naive.
Money laundering via book 'sales' isnt something confined to republicans
All politicians have books.....a single person is free to buy 10,000 copies, book seller gets a cut and politicians get the rest..... 100% legal, clean profit. And the person that bought 10k copies gets access to said politicians
Hadn't considered that angle.
Its def a way around church funding. But a legal one. So the use of laundering weakens the complaint.
The only potential legal question. Is are churches buying the bible or openly encouraging memembers to. And let's be honest. That tax dodge is totally ignored by the IRS for so long. I can see it getting challenged as unequal application of law. Unless the IRS dose some major attack on most churches.
Edit; odd autocorrect. Nuking vs buying.
I would say we start the rumor that his Bible literally doesn't match any others and contains Satanic verses, but that would probably increase sales. I wonder whose Bible he plagiarized.
I wish he would die of sepsis from an infected hemorrhoid already.
Just quote some "woke" passages and claim it's not in the "real" bible and tell them that they should check themselves as that seems to make them believe basically anything.
It isn't plagiarism unless he takes credit for it.
So you might be right.
This is the best book ever written. It's tremendous. All the pastors tell me my writing style is the best. Number one seller of all time!
I wonder whose Bible he plagiarized.
King James, who has been dead for almost 400 years. (Also, it's public domain, so there's that.)
That's uhhhhh not what money laundering is.
In so far as it's being used as described it would be a highly inefficient way to do that so I think the much simpler explanation (Trump just wants money so he put his name on some random garbage for a cut of the profits just like Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Airlines, etc) makes more sense.
Trump desperately needs money to pay off his mounting legal bills.
Religion was probably invented by some starving person telling a story to get some food for free.
..... ya know, this theory feels like it may actually hold water. In an ancient society, it seems very feasible that a starving vagrant would employ stories about an omnipotent being that rewards acts of kindness with eternal heavenly glory.
Is religion possibly the result of a diogenes persuading unemphatic peers into acting selflessly as a means of improving their quality of life?
Not a Diogenes for certain. He was a shit stirrer not a person trying to trick people into being good.
But we do have a fair amount of realistic stories about the founding of one major religion that don’t require miracles to explain: Buddhism. And from the sounds of it Siddhartha Gautama was a member of the familial elite born to a life of luxury who was still not happy, he attempted asceticism as a means to fill the hole in his heart but found it too to be unfulfilling. Then he began developing a philosophical framework and set of techniques which sought to resolve the issue as he came to understand it, and when it helped he spread it. I believe he knowingly used metaphor that would’ve been understood by many of the people of his time and place as well as placing it within the religious framework of the Hindu society in which he lived.
That doesn’t explain the earliest religions but for those I look to animism which just kinda makes a lot of sense to many people. It’s a natural consequence of applying empathy to all things. But Buddhism does explain how religion evolves from a framework with which to understand the world into a framework with which to understand oneself and to tell people how to act. We could also look at early Judaism which seems to be more rules for social harmony and for survival in a less than hospitable location.
I'm pretty sure it was invented as a series of fairytales to get kids (and slaves) to shut up and obey their masters, with the threat that asking too many questions would get them tortured by a spooky ghost.
And then it got WAY out of hand
Successful businessman™
Lol. You may want to look up the definition of money laundering as this ain't how it works.
I do find it funny that any organization thinks he is actually religious. If he is, shit I'm glad I became an atheist.
"Money laundering is a financial transaction where criminals try to hide the source, nature, or proceeds of their illegal activities. This process is also known as converting "dirty money" into "clean money". Money laundering can lead to serious criminal offenses and threaten the integrity of the financial system. "
Idk. It kinda works in this case. The money would be illegally gotten if coming as donations from churches. But because churches have a legitimate reason to want to buy bulk bibles, this "hides" the illegality of the activity. So maybe not true textbook definition, but the spirit is there for sure.
It's not illegal to sell bibles. I'm sure there are loads of churches that will fill their pews with them, but they're not sending money to the campaign, they're sending it to Trump. Why would he make this harder for himself, he can just take the money and put it in his pocket, there's no reason to get the campaign involved.
This makes sense to me. Clearly it can lead to money laundering and it would be hard to prove otherwise.
For real. Trump is an idiot, a grifter, and a piece of shit, but this isn't even sidestepping campaign donation law.
He's not a political candidate getting funds from churches, he's a parasite capitalist selling bibles to his fans, and he's a political candidate -- 2 separate things. The bible money isn't going to his campaign, it's just going to his pocket.
This take assumes that he's selling bibles, funneling the money from their sales to his campaign, then funneling it back out to pay for his disgorgements. This take thinks he's intentionally making is harder for himself, just to make it illegal.
He's just a guy selling shit.
honestly surprised no one has tried this before? or have they?
like for once the man is selling an actual product with sort of mass appeal instead of weird niche stuff with low utility like sneakers or NFTs. and like $60 is expensive, but not orders of magnitude expensive? correct me where i’m wrong
edit: typed 70 instead of 60 🤦♀️
$60 for a public domain bible, public domain constitution, public domain pledge of allegiance, and public domain declaration of independence? Sounds like an infinite order of magnitude expensive to me.
Lol are churches only allowed to buy Bibles or something.
No. But they are prohibited from political action including financial supoort of a governmental candidate. This is just a way for them to overpay on bibles in order to financially support him with some level of plausible deniability.
but the bible isn't copyrighted? right? Is there any other aspect than just the economic abuse of religions trump fans?
This is like buying merch from a YouTuber. It's not about buying a product for what it's worth, it's about donating to a "cause" with something to show off that you did. (Not hating on supporting YouTubers, just a comparison)
He's only scamming the religious. I don't see an issue with it.
That religious money buys a lot of legal LGBTQ+ hate
Armed queers bash back.
What makes you think he's scamming them?
thats not what money launduring is, because the source of the money is legal. Its a loophole so it is legal
