When you combine Trump’s ignorance with his lack of discipline and impulse control link
We are in love with security so much that its blinding us from love. link
So many Christians are captivated by fear.
You’re more likely to be killed by a vending machine than to win the lottery.
Persecution produces maturity. It can be purifying. link
The Christian Media Enterprise prefers celebrity to depth link
Equipping other believers so that they have the tools to engage their neighbors
Donald Trump’s most enduring — and unbefitting — trait
I’ve been covering Donald Trump off and on for more than 25 years, and what has always struck me is his lack of impulse control. It was his biggest problem when I first started dealing with him in the 1980s, and it’s his biggest problem now.
.. He ended up presiding over six — count ’em, six — bankruptcies because he kept making business decisions with his gut rather than with his brain.
.. Whether we’re talking about the Bay of Pigs (when John F. Kennedy resisted the hawkish instincts of his advisers who wanted to escalate) or the bugging of Democratic headquarters (which Richard Nixon could not resist) or the invasion of Iraq (need I say more?), presidents are bombarded with chances to overreact, and their overreactions can have catastrophic consequences for our country and the world.
.. Lack of impulse control has enormously benefited his presidential campaign. It distinguished him among the
17 initial Republican candidates, allowed him to dominate cable TV news and got him massive coverage in other media as well... “The Apprentice” was a pivotal event for Trump. It made him into a truly national figure, and he says the show paid him more than $200 million during its run.
.. The crazier Trump acted on “The Apprentice,” the more he carried on and humiliated people and declared “you’re fired,” the better TV it was. So whatever instincts he might have had to develop self-control were vitiated by “The Apprentice.”
.. But there’s a downside — a huge one — to his behavior, and it’s starting to become apparent now. He’s incredibly reckless. He seems to sometimes license his name to questionable enterprises, without doing much (if any) research into them. He makes enemies he doesn’t have to make because he baits people and institutions that don’t bow down to him, and he reacts badly when organizations such as The Post (which he has banned from his campaign events) challenge him by asking perfectly reasonable questions.
.. I wonder how many middle and lower-middle types had no idea about what Trump U was up to until recently and didn’t know how Trump has stiffed all sorts of contractors over the years, resulting in lots of blue-collar workers losing their jobs. I wonder whether this knowledge will erode the faith of some Trump fans.
.. Section 469 forbids taxpayers from using these losses to offset other income unless more than half their business activities (at least 750 hours a year) involve developing or managing real estate. Not licensing their name to golf courses or making speeches or being on TV reality shows.
We ought to see if Trump has used Section 469 to shelter income in past years. And especially last year, when he was running for president.
.. Hussein amazingly managed to remain in power despite losing the 1991 Gulf War to the United States and its allies, who threw him out of Kuwait and inflicted immense losses on his military. It looked like Hussein was absolutely finished. But he emerged from the Gulf War in control of Iraq, managed to slaughter his internal opponents and ended up presiding over a country that had the world’s fourth-largest army.