Russian Jehovah's Witness Given 6-Year Prison Sentence for Hosting Small Gathering in 2018

This is what actual religious persecution looks like.

• Sen. Marco Rubio recently flipped out after a prominent Democrat referred to Republicans as "f*ckers.”

  Marco Rubio @marcorubio

  Biden talks about unity and healing, but you want to know what they really think? Read how the person he wants as the next WH deputy chief of staff called Republicans in Congress a bunch of f***ers

  While he clutches his pearls, I remembered a quotation from preacher Tony Campolo, which he once told to a Christian audience: “While you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition... Most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”

• Atheist activist Chaz Stevens has submitted a request to erect a Festivus pole topped with a surgical mask at the Florida State Capitol in honor of COVID victims. Compared to his previous antics — butt-plugged Jesus, penis with a Trump head, etc. — the Festivus pole is by far the least controversial display Stevens has ever proposed.

• After years of court battles, a Texas Catholic priest was finally sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually abusing at least 4 children.

• Is this even about God anymore, or are we just trying to see which narcissist celebrity pastor can get off on his own praise first?

• Florida pastor William Dalton Milam, who is so sanctimonious he was once a vocal opponent of Sunday liquor sales in his county, was arrested Monday on 27 counts of something that’s SO MUCH WORSE than liquor sales.

• “Prophet” Jeremiah Johnson wasn’t going to wait around for sloppy seconds from God. In a land where, judging by the lack of masks and social distancing, COVID doesn’t exist, Johnson ran and jumped into a baptismal pool in order to “receive a fresh touch from God.”

• This is disturbing, but we shouldn’t let white evangelicals and conservative Catholics off the hook for this either.

  Ari Berman @AriBerman

  GOP traded 300,000 American lives for 233 Trump judges

• A Jehovah’s Witness in Russia was sentenced to 6.5 years in a labor camp earlier this year for “conspiracy and financing” of an extremist group because he intended to donate $6 to his church. It’s the result of the Russian Supreme Court declaring the religion an “extremist” group a few years ago.
  
  This week, another JW was handed a six-year sentence for hosting a small religious gathering back in 2018.
  
  Take notice, American Christians— this is what religious persecution actually looks like.

• Even a broken clock…

  Hemant Mehta @hemantmehta

  Uh... I agree.

  

  Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

  I am very disappointed in the United States Supreme Court, and so is our great country!

• Finally tonight, some good advice:

  The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt

  I’d rather a president who surrounds himself with people who drop the F bomb in public than one who surrounds himself with people who use the N word in private.