The disgraced televangelist built his career on an undeniable talent. His downfall contributed to a major shift in how Americans viewed religious leaders.
THE DEATH THIS WEEK OF JIMMY SWAGGART at the age of 90 brings to an end one of the most controversial and remarkable careers in recent American religious life. For younger Americans, Swaggart’s name might not mean anything; others might recall blurry footage of a weeping preacher confessing, “I have sinned.” And sin he did, but in a time when Americans have become accustomed to seeing headlines about sex scandals involving religious leaders, it’s hard to convey just how consequential his indiscretions seemed when they were first reported.
The story broke in 1988 and caused an immediate media earthquake. The ground shook because Swaggart had fallen from a great height: He was, for a time, one of the most powerful religious voices in America, commanding a global television ministry, shaping conservative politics, and presenting himself as a moral compass to millions.
One of the challenges when it comes to properly evaluating Swaggart as a public figure is that nowadays we are not inclined to imagine a televangelist as a figure inherently worthy of any real respect. But the man’s own scandals are one of the reasons for that. When Swaggart’s resonant voice first started being heard in living rooms across the country, TV preachers occupied a very different place in the American imagination than they do today.
Swaggart emerged from the rural Pentecostal world of midcentury Louisiana, where fervent faith and musical flair often went hand in hand. His family background offered intimations of his later path: His cousins, rock-and-roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley, both had the signature family blend of raw talent and unruly impulse. But while they chased fame across beer-soaked honky-tonk stages, Swaggart was drawn to a different kind of spectacle: revivals.
Free speech is now our most important right. 2A is not going to stop totalitarian mind-control. They already search and seize whatever they want. So far, though, we still have a fundamental right to free speech even if we can be isolated by algorithms. We want and need more but at least we have what we have. Eva has a prominent voice and is using it well. I urge everyone to use your freedom of speech. Say what you think not just online but to your friends and family, your neighbors. Wide-open toleration of strong opinions is the bloodstream of a free society, a real civilization. ABN
Ask just about anybody, and they’ll tell you that new cars are too expensive. In the wake of tariffs shaking the auto industry and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that situation isn’t looking to get better soon, especially for anyone wanting something battery-powered. Changing that overly spendy status quo is going to take something radical, and it’s hard to get more radical than what Slate Auto has planned.
Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. It only seats two yet has a bed big enough to hold a sheet of plywood. It only does 150 miles on a charge, only comes in gray, and the only way to listen to music while driving is if you bring along your phone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car can be, and yet it’s taken three years of development to get to this point.
But this is more than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY purpose, an attempt to not just go cheap but to create a new category of vehicle with a huge focus on personalization. That design also enables a low-cost approach to manufacturing that has caught the eye of major investors, reportedly including Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will be manufactured in America, but is this extreme simplification too much for American consumers?
…There is one key difference between the attempted race riots of 2020 and the protests for Palestine of today: the protests for Palestine are actually threatening to the powers that be.
We marched in a loop across campus. We went from the student union, to the historic district, to the library, and back to the student union. Overall I’d say we covered about a mile of ground. We had supporters. There’s a large Arab population close to campus, and we’d see Arab guys roll down the windows of their cars and cheer for us. It felt nice to have some people on our side. The trouble that showed up took the form of a small group of nasally enhanced individuals wearing sunglasses who joined our march when we reached the historic district. This group was composed of a bunch of creeps wearing dark clothes and ballcaps, who would slink into the crowd and attempt to covertly take photos of the marchers with phone cameras up their sleeve. I asked my lanky comrade about these freaks, and he told me the ADL hires people, usually Hillel students, to monitor student social media related to Palestine. These losers go to all SJP marches, and they try to dox students that go to them. Completely covering my face and body wasn’t overkill at all. They also try to bait people into losing their cool and punching them, catching assault charges. Little digs to try and ruin the lives of anyone standing against them.
…When we got back to the student union, still eyeing the Dodge Charger, the loud blonde girl spoke up. “That’s a cop no doubt!” She said, a little too loud. “Let’s throw bricks at it!” Her behavior was cartoonish. She was acting in a bizarrely scripted fashion, like a parody of an antifa thug. None of her words felt organic or genuine. If anyone was a fed at that march, it was her. I stayed far away. I walked home as discreetly as possible, thinking about what I saw.
I had a few takeaways from this experience. For one, I was shocked by the amount of effort, time, and money being put into ruining the lives of college students by organizations like the ADL and Uncle Sam. If I hadn’t seen for myself groups of shady thugs trying to get photos of and pick fights with students who have the nerve to stand up to the American Empire, I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me. Especially due to the small scale of this protest. We never left campus, and the crowd was small, especially compared to previous marches, which went directly to the state capitol building. But the powers that be decided that this goofy little crowd was a threat. This group of awkward college students and aging boomers is of top priority for the state. Not murderers, not robbers, but a bunch of kids trying to pass calculus. Really makes you think.
This is a good read. It’s about a small, college protest. I doubt it reveals America’s death throes because I don’t think we’re anywhere near dead, but it does reveal a cultural fissure and maybe a significant denouement of Jewish Supremacism, which has always been willfully paranoid and petty; with very dark undertones of very real violence supported by mountains of corrupt cash and noxious infiltration into the federal government. ABN
A porn star who is the great-great granddaughter of former US Secretary of State Henry Clay went from being lauded as the most stunning performer in adult entertainment to spiraling into drugs and prostitution.
Chasey Lain was one of the industry’s biggest names in the ’90s.
A dead ringer for Carmen Electra, she was once dubbed ‘the most beautiful woman in porn.’
At her peak, Lain appeared in mainstream movies and TV shows, raked in six figures a year from her own sex toy line, and even had a hit song written about her.
But by the 2000s, she was allegedly battling drugs and had started turning tricks at Dennis Hof’s infamous BunnyRanch brothel.
It was a sad downfall for the brunette bombshell, whose career at one point was poised to be as big as Jenna Jameson‘s.
Lain had what she described as an average upbringing, growing up in North Carolina and cheerleading in high school.
Her uncle was the chief of police, while her great-great grandfather was former United States Secretary of State and House Speaker Henry Clay.
There is nothing reconcilable about American Liberty when contrast with a looming surveillance state. There is no facet of American values, the essential core of what we define as Americanism, that can exist without true liberty.
While the Declaration of Independence is long regarded as the greatest written declaration of purpose, the latter created Bill of Rights, the first Ten original amendments to the U.S. Constitution, is just as important. The first declared our intent; the second defined how our founders intended to retain the intent during our collective assembly. Together they outline what set the course to make America great.
We have allowed the foundational intent of both sets of documents to be compromised, because, well, simply we were lazy and complacent. Now we are engaged in a time of great consequence that will determine whether or not the purpose of our assembly can continue.
We are, in factual reality, now deep inside a debate carried out in the world of politics. The stakes have never been higher.
In nine days, President Donald J Trump is scheduled to be sworn in as President of the United States. In my non-pretending world, this is likely to be the last time in our lifetime to drag the conversation of how we define liberty into the American psyche. All of my research in the past two decades indicates this likelihood is not hyperbole. We have one shot at this, and our time is now.
Liberty, the fundamental decision to retain it or lose it, is the context for all other contexts that have preceded it. The principles of liberty that we have defined for generations cannot exist in an American surveillance state. Thus, the secretive courts, the unlawful usurpation of the 4th Amendment, the short-sighted ramifications of the Patriot Act, the weaponization of our federal law enforcement and police agencies, all of it, must be reviewed through this fundamental core issue, Liberty.
I have traveled throughout the East and West to gain perspective on what makes us different, and what I can assert with clarity is that if we lose the Liberty argument, then the ideological representatives behind Barack Obama will have succeeded, the fundamental transformation will be irreversible.
This frames the cornerstone of my viewpoints on all of the characters in politics. It is not a matter of debate that on these core issues of Liberty and the stopping of the Surveillance State, everything else is a downstream consequence. The tiered system of constitutional protections for particular categories of personage must be rebuked. On this matter there cannot be compromise, because every outcome that impedes our way of life is a derivative of this value.
I will oppose all interests who refuse to confront the Surveillance State. I will draw bold attention to those who are willingly creating it, and I promise you I will call out every operational interest that is willfully blind to its creation.
American Buddhist Net 