I was interested to learn, from one of Rich’s posts, below, that Trump has taken swipes at Ted Cruz. He did not compare Ted to child molesters, as he did Ben Carson. But he did bring up Ted’s religious beliefs (as he did Carson’s).
He said, “I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba.”
Huh? I have reported on Cuba — particularly its dissidents — for a long time. A lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba, and a lot of them are in the Castros’ dungeons. I remember interviewing a dissident named René Montes de Oca in 2001. This was an unusual interview in that he was on the lam. He called me between his escape from prison and his recapture. He was a fervent believer, movingly so. He was a Pentecostalist.
Do Trump’s fans care how ignorant or insulting their candidate is? That seems part of his very appeal to them. Which is interesting.
A member of the House of Saud, Alwaleed bin Talal, slammed Trump on Twitter. “You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America. Withdraw from the U.S presidential race as you will never win.”
You know who I’m not prepared to take lectures from — certainly on the subject of graces and disgraces? Members of the House of Saud. Among their political prisoners is Raif Badawi. By the evidence, he is a great man, unlike his jailers and torturers. Badawi was imprisoned in 2012, for the crime of calling for basic human rights in his country. He was publicly caned — hit with 50 blows outside a mosque. A thousand more blows are promised. The prisoner is in miserable physical and mental shape.
Luckily, he was recently awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, by the European Parliament. Maybe this will help to prolong his life.
There is a mosque on virtually every street corner of the democratic West. And the number of churches in Saudi Arabia? Ha ha. The number of synagogues? Ha ha ha ha.
In Saudi Arabia, the penalty for possession of a Bible is expulsion. That’s if you’re a foreigner. The penalty if you’re a citizen is death — by beheading.
Let us have no more lectures from Saudi royals on human rights, civil rights, or any rights at all.
(Am I with Ted? You bet I am. Have been with him for about 15 years. To read my disclosure, penned last summer, go here.)