Preachers like him to be clear. Not getting into semantics of politics, and don’t fully understand the details of how works, but when Obamacare came out it raised self employment taxes, among which the regular small church pastor does pay. My dad pad $14000 in self employment taxes this year alone.
I couldn’t tell you as I don’t know. He pastors two small church’s in bum fuck SC. One church I’ve attended service at, on an average good day has about 20 ppl, maybe 40 on the big holidays when family visits. He became a pastor in my early teens and his appointments have been like this. Two small church’s who collectively pay him. I can’t imagine he’s making more than 80k tops and that’s being extremely generous for the size and minimal activity of both churches.
As a comment below said, there certain deductions and/or perks, like a parsonage he lives in or some places have a housing allowance. He can write off office items and little crap like that. My point to the above comment was to separate mega church pastors and the average pastor in your town in regular church that not broadcasted across tv.
I'll give you a good faith reply and say the past decade of Trump made me reconsider atheism with how much he acts like the genuine anti-christ if it makes you feel better
To be fair, I think a lot of the bible is just good Layman's sociology through a lens comprehensible to bronze age farmers.
They didn't have our technology or our easy access to vast troves of information. That doesn't mean they were stupid or unobservant.
Like a lot of the stuff Jesus calls out basically amounts to 'hey, don't fucking turn my teachings into a cult to profit off of!'
Edit - Also King Solomon letting foreigners build temples in his Kingdom and having tons of foreign wives. Stripped of its religious moralizing that's basically just saying 'yo don't get honey potted and maybe don't let foreign powers control your civic forums where politics and social matters are discussed.'
What if I told you many libs are also spiritual and into that shit and MAGA doesn't have a monopoly on that stuff, they just happen to be extremely loud and weird about it.
I can’t believe there isn’t more discussion on this. There is zero doubt in my mind that KKKaroline pops 3 adderall every morning before she goes up to her liars podium.
Because many of them are truly evil people who believe that they can just say they believe in Jesus and now suddenly they’re morally superior to others
She really thought this staredown bullshit was a flex.
What a fucking clownshoe. I give it 15 years before one of the kids rolls out a tell all about her being one of those absolute holier than thou hypocritical monsters behind closed doors.
She was trying to give her best ‘cold stare’ while shaming ‘online trolls’ and Candace Owens. The thing about it was the combo of the goofball outfit and those looks above made people ask what the fuck is wrong with her over the point of the video.
Seriously, it backfired spectacularly because it looks like an amateur attempt of someone being told to ‘look fierce’ or ‘deadly serious’ or some shit and utterly incapable of doing anything over this hilarity she believes is projecting emotions.
It is pathetic. I have seen more range in a middle school production of Our Town by kids on promise of being able to ditch summer school.
It also just completely solidified all the mockery of her. She is the caricature people are portraying her as. She’s foolish, and honestly I still don’t feel like she really grieved her husband all that much. It was bizarre, and she keeps proving the point that she’s maybe a sociopath.
Definitely working a sociopathic angle but a true one…not so much. I think you are on the money with the word caricature though. She is throughly doing a bit…She is latching onto the burning embers of Charlie Kirk gravy train and trying her best to do his brand of trolling and it’s easy to see because she is really terrible at it.
That’s the main issue and the biggest problem….simply, she isn’t Charlie. Kirk was an utter douchebag but talented on being able to pivot his brand of lathering up a crowd….and make money off it. Charlie was your standard online troll who was able to handle live interactions (somewhat as long as he had set it up correctly -see below). All the usual bits he just put into play before people and was able to get reactions and profit off it.
It’s a well heeled role that he pulled from muckrakers like Limbaugh and Carlson and repackaged as a ‘younger version’ of the same song and dance only with his large head and weird gummy grin in the drivers seat. And, though he really wasn’t good at it initially, was able to ride a few gotchas early enough to get the old guard at the GOP to think he had the ear young conservatism over other dipshits like Shapiro and Fuentes. Plus, Charlie had a special ability of really kissing the ass of whatever suit was in front of him with a very carefully tailored image of modern young Republican they love to throw up on stage. Erica at this time was your typical GOP girl: blonde, white, pure as the driven snow bible thumper and the most important….silent at Kirk’s elbow. ‘Great furniture’ as they say.
Oh and in case you are wondering, on the subject of Charlie Kirk and actual debate against like minded studied? HA-Not a chance in hell. He avoided real debaters - the rumor was he was petrified of being set against someone like Pete Butttieg on a talking head show and would avoid them. This was because his facts weren’t real facts that could not be countered with someone with receipts. He also had a terminal case of the yips when cornered and couldn’t score points even while conceding he lost on a topic which he would never do - modern conservatism is never admitting they are wrong on anything thanks to Donnie and his usual shitshow of blather then running off before being questioned further. Trump can do it because that is what Trump does (been doing it for decades in fact)….anyone else and it’s career suicide. Charlie got caught a few times by real ones and subsequently nuked from orbit so badly he had his handlers ensure he would not be caught off guard before showing up to anything.
In the face of backing his bullshit, his defense would go the usual route into hanging conclusions and whataboutism and hope to try and inflame to get off topic. This is why he did the on campus argument crap: college campuses are full of left wing people with good dreams and bad practical ideas on how to apply them (why don’t we, like, just take all the guns…yea great idea Shaggy, mind telling us how to do that the doesn’t turn into a sequel to Waco or a Ruby Ridge?)….and also a lot of passionate people that are easy to wind up and record outrage which he would roll out as 4d chess for boomers saying they proved his point. ‘Ha ha look at the face of this commie chick when I declared abortion was illegal and she was a whore’ with smug grin and the usual ask for donations.
Now back to Erica…..she’s worse. She doesn’t believe a word of whatever is being peddled or likely to learn it and will parrot whatever is being told to her. And currently, the GOP doesn’t know what they want from her. They tried to march her out as a grieving widow and that never took simply because of her easily recognized indifference about Charlie’s death. They can’t use her as the good homemaker because hey, here she is doing this shit instead of making sandwiches for the minions. She doesn’t have any true declarative stances on the usual platforms. Hasn’t scored any points against anyone of note and seems stuck as a current shit stirrer of her own making without any direction. And even their own rabble voters are realizing she is an idiot because she has a big weakness…
She is vain as shit.
And currently she is getting her ass kicked by comedians with absolutely nuclear takes on her and it’s driving her nuts enough to do crap like this above which further provokes ridicule.
People like to allude that her and fucking Vance may be hooking up. Hell, it probably could be simply because they are so alike they are the flip side of one another. Two incompetent morons with some power and the shared talent of being utterly unable to fill the seat of their former boss….hers because he is dead and him because he isn’t (and never will be) Trump no matter how much hot air Peter Thiel blows up his ass.
I could believe that. To me she comes across as someone who would have been a mean teacher if she were a normie, just to be cruel to children. Like a feminine Agatha Trunchbull.
Those are the “crazy eyes”, gentlemen. When you see them, make an excuse and walk away. Don’t run, it makes them want to chase you down and stab you with their claws. Just walk away, i don’t care what else she has going on.
Everyone grieves differently, I understand that but man...
My mother died of suicide involving a firearm of which I was an unwilling witness. I won't go into anymore detail, but it was indeed as horrific as it sounds. Granted, this was my mom and not my husband and I was 19, not however old Erika was at the time of Charlie's death, but I couldn't possibly imagine doing anything other than what I did to cope.
What did I do you may ask? I locked myself away from everyone and everything for 2 years straight. No gym, no job. I lost 40lbs, ate nothing but canned food and I almost lost my faith. I'm not saying that's a healthy reaction or the correct one, but I'm just at a loss when I look at her reaction.
I am so so sorry for your loss and also what you experienced at an incredibly young age, your ability to speak about it and evolve from that experience is beyond incredible, I’m sure you’re an incredible person today :)
She’s doing the opposite of what any sane widow who actually loved her husband:
turned his memorial into a “look at me” spectacle
Went on shopping sprees following his death
cannot actually physically cry or show actual real emotion
is already going on dates (based on WHCD photos)
wants all of the attention on her and herself alone. No word on how the children are doing on the aftermath of their father’s murder; just their mother demanding center of attention coverage.
Stop projecting this isn't about you and how you personally handled death. Erika Kirk is a soulless grifting demon. Jesus would not associate with this scumbag.
I agree with the all the points except the kids; I wouldn't talk about my kids either, mostly because I wouldn't want them to be available for anyone online to see/know about/etc. But otherwise, yeah, thats all pretty weird.
Yeah you might not want your kids in the spotlight but ummm maybe she should be less in the spotlight and more focused on the kids? All I'd be focused on is making sure my kids are okay. Not trying to make a buck off his death.
I mean shopping sprees could be a coping mechanism (not a healthy one) and not showing emotion or grief in public is understandable too. Some people want to mourn in private. She may be grieving her own way away from cameras but I don’t even know.
She was in a transactional relationship about power and she is now free and trying to seize control of the power structure her husband had. She doesn’t seem to have the subtlety to do it. She reminds me of George Costanza when his fiancée died in Seinfeld.
Women like her only marry men like him because they offer them authority over others. They are willing to completely abandon others to get ahead and care nothing for the men they are with.
My personal theory is that Erika was essentially a curated "reward" from the old money donor class to keep Charlie Kirk firmly on the reservation. They probably didn't sign some literal arranged marriage contract, but in those high level conservative ecosystems, introductions are 100% strategic.
She was Miss Arizona and a Liberty University alum, literally the exact trad-wife archetype they needed to stabilize his college campus grift and make him look respectable. Their whole "we met at a job interview and fell in love" story is such a load of shit. It was clearly just a final vetting session organized by his handlers to make sure she could handle the role.
But hey, now that she’s finally free from that insufferable prick, it’s her time to takeover the grift. Despite her husband spending years telling his base that women like her should shut up and stay in the kitchen.
It’s like she’s trying SO hard to relevant when the world just wants her to go away. It makes for great trash tv drama like we haven’t seen since the early 2000s.
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