Serialized Part 2 Discussion of Katherine Stewart's Money Lies and God... Identifying the Funders!

 Part 1 Discussion begins here for those who need reference

"Be Joyful!" The implication that all this hate and violence must be done joyfully as to the Lord...NOT...

Imagine my surprise when, in the next portion of this book, MONEY, that I am reading, was an actual overview of many of those individuals, families, or organizations who actually provide what we now call "dark money." Meaning that "nobody" (i.e., those of us who don't have the technical skills) really can trace where the actual money that is funding political activities is coming from. Except of course from E. Musk who publicly advertises to give away money to buy elections or spending his money loudly and often in other ways... while having no problem firing and taking away money from we who actually need our income to daily live our lives.

Given the number of footnotes by this author, readers will discover that this book has been more than well researched! Can you imagine "following the money" back to the sources of the millions/billions of dollars that seem to be supplied routinely, especially to the MAGA side of our government? For me, losing a year of my life trying to ascertain how/when/where millions of dollars in capital money was spent and who got that money, I can tell you, it is mind-boggling and a major work effort. Thank you Katherine Stewart for this extraordinarily well written book and the effort it has to have taken to search out needed information and then to share it!

Because I was, and I believe also many readers. will be shocked to learn of the "whys" behind wanting to give money away to politics. They can be narrowed down to, in my opinion, wanting recognition, wanting power, and being lied into thinking you are doing something good...for whatever purpose you've accepted...

First, at the end of Part 1, I asked you to think about which group you might fit into... I realized that in reading that might have been a rhetorical question rather than a request... So, let me be clear, if you are NOT part of or support this plan (formally called Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership--and I just did a search! You can download a pdf copy for free if you care to do so), you are not part of the dark money investigation that was undertaken... You can be sure that I'll be referring to passages of Project 2025 in the future! Have you heard the word Mandate thrown around by Trump?! Well this is the mandate he is referring to! NONE of what is being done was the brainchild of the president of the United States... think about that! Further, as we have been finding out, NONE of what is being done by this administration is as reported are priorities for US--the Citizens of This Country! Instead it is a plan that was created by Trump supporters and other far right conservatives who...are...funders and supporters of what is happening right now!

Wallbuilders president (one of the formal groups) Tim Barton creates and provides "bogus" Christian National history to conservatives audiences. He quickly throws out facts and stats so as to imply that this is and has been a legitimate religion which just happens to be made up of MAGA supporters and all in support of Project 2025, including Funders. The intent of Barton is to make the audience believe what he is saying is true since he knows it so well and speaks fluently... Barton blames the decision by the Supreme Court for banning prayer in schools... Now if I remember correctly, at first prayer was not banned, it went to a silent moment of prayer, which would allow those of different faiths to act based upon their personal beliefs. In any event, I was there when the separation of church and state came into existence... After I thought about it, I realized that, while religion might be a part thought about, it was primarily to allow stores to remain open on Sundays (the Christian holy day) so that the millions of people who worked swing shifts could buy groceries, etc., on their days off...You know, those working in hospitals, cleaning staff who were required to work when the business was not open...school staffs at all levels... Many Christians are working in such jobs. And was it not Jesus who said to us put away the rules and simply love your neighbor? Something that never really happened since the Old Testament is still considered by many the Word of God, even though it has been translated from one language to another, edited by individuals who proofread it for content--you get the idea, especially since there have been many inconsistencies already discovered, questioned, and, simply, ignored by some...

The following might not be the song referenced, but it seemed appropriate since Christianity is being used by thousands of different groups who are calling themselves Christian Nationalists with goals of hate, action against non-white or minority people, and...violence...

Issue 1. This is what they have done,” Robert Busch writes to me with weary outrage as he forwards a photograph of a group of nuns, one of them wearing a STOP THE STEAL button, cheerfully joining President Trump’s rally outside the White House on the morning of January 6, 2021.1 Busch, who lives in Redwood City, California, recently formed a study group on economic justice within the Thomas Merton Center, which is affiliated with the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Palo Alto.2 Like most of his fellow study group members, he calls himself a Francis Catholic, in deference to Pope Francis. You could also call him a Nuns on the Bus Catholic, after the progressive Catholic group, which he supports, that advocates for a range of social justice issues. He is as earnest in person as he is passionate in his emails. He usually has at the tip of his tongue or typewriter a citation from any number of writings in the long tradition of Catholic social teachings. He remains personally opposed to abortion but rejects its political use as a wedge issue. Robert Busch reached out to me online just as I was returning from the March for Life, an annual gathering of antiabortion activists and their supporters that takes place every year on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. While the march draws in a religiously diverse crowd, it is heavily Catholic and includes hundreds of busloads of kids from Catholic schools, for many of whom attendance is all but mandatory. But many other Catholics are morally opposed to the politicization of the abortion issue and are horrified by the takeover of the Supreme Court. Busch and members of his study group are among them. They were determined not just to go on record with their opposition but also to do something to get their message and their vision of Catholicism out. Robert Busch works as an administrator in a development office at Stanford University. Edna Jamati, one more of the dozen-odd members of the Thomas Merton study group, is a retired nurse. Another member, Vicky Sullivan, is a grandmother who attends mass several times a week. Shannon Griscom is a retired teacher. Their group represents a cross section of the Catholic laity in their community, says Busch, which is to say that they are mostly middle-class, if rather whiter, older, and more educated than the median resident... 

Editorial note: After the following few lines, I have reached the publishers limit on use within copyright restrictions. I will henceforth depend upon my own writing skills to discuss this book. I hope you will continue with me...and if you'd like any clarifications on what I share, please feel free to leave questions as comments and I will try to clarify sufficiently for you to understand my thoughts and response to the content...

I wanted to leave these few lines because this excerpt is from Chapter 2 of the book. As I said earlier, I was shocked with what I was reading... this was the most shocking for me... I'll explain after the following short excerpt...

Just a few miles up the road, in the bucolic wine country of Napa, is one of the luxury hotels managed by a company whose founder and CEO is a man named Timothy Busch—no relation to Robert. Timothy Busch is also a Californian...

Some of us--maybe many of us--who are protestants have from time to time wondered why there are so many different churched under the umbrella of protestants... Through reading a variety of books, one of which is The Book of Thomas with commentary, which I'll talk about soon... is that I'm discovering what is really meant when Jesus spoke...

But, prior to this time period, other than the ongoing sexual issues that have long been hidden and then began to be addressed within the Catholic Church, I had never thought that the Catholic Church could be "splintered..." Until Project 2025 and Trump and the Funders Group behind dark money... It seems that, now, in that church there is a wide division between those who support Pope Francis' teachings...and all the rest, who are now in the majority... If you want to know more, I urge you to consider buying the book--this is just one shocking issue that I discovered. Very specifically, my reading of this book states that there is now a divide of leadership within the Catholic Church who have chosen wealth and power over the program activities of Pope Francis, who, as you may know, had a recent major hospital stay, but is now back... Thank God...

Issue 2 The Secretary of Education in the former Trump Administration is from an extremely wealthy family and their source of wealth, at least from a professional job standpoint, is running private schools... Here's Project 2025 plans...

Issue 3 This is actually a part, but in my opinion, a very important part of what is happening related to public education. MAGA churches, groups, formerly created "topical" groups are encouraging members to not only run for school boards, but to cause friction and dissent at the meetings by members or just by attending meetings. There are many videos available at YouTube showing specific issues, such as bullying, prejudice against minority students of all kinds, as well as working to change control of curriculum and books to other than professional teachers, librarians and more... Velshi on MSNBC has been covering the banned books issue from the start and is a good place to learn about specific books, sometimes banned purely on the complaint of one or two individuals???  A great example was given on how banning can occur. The writer was visiting a meeting where one woman talked about a book in her local school. She referred to The Diary of Anne Frank. Stewart was surprised and sat thinking when the woman went on to say, I like the book, but it was the homosexuality inclusion that I could not tolerate... Ok, I'm not going to explain the rest of that conversation. But if any of you know the story about the young Jewish girl who had to hide from the Germans during WWII, and you can't remember anything to do with homosexuality...there's a reason to call these people...FAR Right! 

I decided to include just one video where a young girl died because of what was happening in schools!

You are correct that the above video is not necessarily related to this book and actions now underway to destroy public education. However, doesn't that make it even worse? Because, NOW, we have an organized announced movement toward DEI in all manner of issues... including creating schools that will not be available for those with low income.

Issue 4 - Quickly, I want to highlight a son of immigrants who finished university and, during the depression, went into business selling electronics. When personal computers started to surge in sales, there was a concurrent almost insatiable demand for power strips, ultimately resulting in his being able to sell his main company for $1.65 billion dollars. His personal political view was “basic libertarianism.” But then this man was, shall we say, identified as a potential funder, with a capital F... An "adviser" took him under his wing, and then the now multi-billionaire made a $1,6B contribution to a trust controlled by Leonard Leo, the right-wing moneyman best known for stacking the Supreme Court via the Federalist Society. That is, he's the coordinator of all groups related to imposing a Christian Nationalist and right-wing agenda into existence (now happening under the republican administration.

The remaining part of the Money chapters very specifically provides names of donors of dark money, sometimes the why they donate, and people like Leonard Leo and others who work to influence, coordinate, and create false disinformation by which manipulation of former libertarians might be seduced of large chunks of money to give to "good" causes... making a name for themselves and surely going down in history of the time as a group of Funders decided they wanted to destroy democracy, the order of law, any regulations that reduced profits, and people who would prevent them... from... making... more... money... and, of course, to gt more tax breaks for the wealthy!

I don't know what the next section, Lies, will involve, so I thought I'd give you the latest--and catastrophic--set of lies that has come out of the republican administration... Perhaps you've heard of "Signalgate?" Days go by and still people are talking, upset and filing law suits... while lies or alternative news items are pushed, trying to get past the most dangerous security breach that has occurred by a president...

And a little more serious discussions...

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