“You’re not welcome back.”
That’s the message the manager of Philadelphia cheesesteak joint Max’s Steaks had for Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick, after his campaign held an event outside the restaurant Friday that the eatery was told would be about autism awareness.
Mike Sfida—who agreed to hold the event because his niece and nephew have autism—was alarmed when he saw Donald Trump signs being hung outside the beloved North Philly spot on Friday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. McCormick arrived, gave a campaign stump address, and then handed out free sandwiches.
…
But the disaster didn’t end there.
After showing up at a cheesesteak restaurant to campaign under the auspice of an autism awareness event, McCormick went across the street to East Bethel Baptist Church, which happened to be holding an outdoor fundraiser for its food ministry.
The Rev. Thomas Edwards Jr., who leads the church, told his campaign to leave because he didn’t want the GOP candidate to use photos of his congregation for campaigning purposes.
“You can Photoshop,” he told the Inquirer. “You can make things seem like they aren’t. Maybe they’re going to post we’re eating dogs or eating cats, like in Ohio. Forgive me if I’m wrong. I don’t trust these people.”
Pressed by the newspaper about whether the campaign stop was an autism awareness event, Armstrong claimed “it’s always autism awareness because I’m an education advocate” and said she spoke to those gathered about autism at one point.
I swear to god, these people are straight cancer.
Educate my autism away. Sure. That worked so well in school.
Hey now, at least cancer will continue growing unchecked, sapping resources from healthy tissue, unless there’s serious intervention, and even then it might not go away … no, you’re right.
The fun thing about cancer? Is that if the cancer gets cancer, they can both die. That’s what I’m hoping for with the Maga movement in the Republican party. The second cancer chokes off the bloody supply, letting it die of nutrient deficiency.
Phew! I’m gay, so I’m safe!
That is one of the most disgusting things I’ve heard today.
And I can’t say I’m surprised, which makes it even worse.
Wow. When a church tells the GOP to fark off, that’s gotta be a bad situation. Most churches are deep into the ChristoFascist end of the political spectrum, so McCormick must have pissed off Rev. Edward’s something bad.
Welcome to the divide between mainline and evangelical Christianity.
The latter is where most of the crazies hang out.
Source: raised in the craziness
Source: raised in the craziness
On the one hand, my condolences.
On the other hand, congrats at getting free.
On the gripping hand, you have the ability to pull others, who are still capable of being saved, from that cray-cray. You can leverage what you used yourself to help others.
Not the poster you’re responding to, but I’m a preacher’s kid who made it out.
Man, it’s just about impossible to pull others out. I know the bible backwards and forwards. Can persuasively speak to the origins of tithing vs. what it is now, the confusion in the gospels, and so on. I’ve tried.
Fundamentalist leadership works very hard to innoculate their people against doubting what they’ve been led to believe. Centuries of propaganda techniques. Highly effective.
I had to think myself out of it and it took until I was in my 30’s to free myself. No one could do it for me and I haven’t been successful in pulling anyone else. My small family and I recently moved out of the deep South. It has gotten incredibly bad down there and, at this point, I don’t know what can be done to help someone out of it. Maybe planting seeds of doubt and rationality are all we can do.
It’s sickening what it’s done to my extended family and loved ones. I hate it. It still makes me sad. My parents and relatives would be great people if it weren’t for the bad religion.
I think we should invest in bringing back church on church ideological warfare. No more bitter an enemy than a former friend. Break up the ecumenical alliances! Get those church propaganda presses flowing! The crazies should not be able to rest a day without having to prove they’re not the bat-shit ones
It would be nice, but good luck. More rational churches will support batshit fundamentalist churches before they support dirty baby-eating atheists. Especially when it comes to their tax status.
I went to a lot of churches. I don’t think I ever found the “normal” ones.
So now I embrace the weirdos and the exiles and they’re the best! Weird and full of problems, which is why I fit in so we’ll!
Pardon my Catholicism but aren’t all baptists evangelicals?
Perhaps, but certainly all Protestants are not Baptists.
If you find yourself with 3 hours to kill, this video is fascinating. The whole channel is great.
Oh I’m aware, before beginning my path to atheism and ultimately paganism, I considered some denominations of the Anglican side of the Anglican-Catholic schism, and I’ve long been a fan of the Quakers. In general I mostly oppose the evangelicals, most modern baptists, and any denomination sufficiently close to Calvinism (though that’s partly because I think Calvinism is particularly horrifying theologically) as well as the fascistic side of the Catholic Church (but I’m always happy to stand beside and behind the Catholic workers)
But yeah I bring up the baptists mostly because that’s the denomination of the preacher in the post. I recognize that the baptists weren’t always like they’re largely represented today, but while I know some of their history I mostly just know them as the people who can’t tell the difference between a bishop and a satanist.
Yeah, but not necessarily what you think of when you talk about “evangelical” Christians. Baptist churches are all autonomous, and while they all believe in evangelism on some level, that could mean inviting your neighbor to attend church on Sunday, or it could mean going on TV and blaming trans people for hurricanes.
Ok so they’re evangelical in the sense that even Catholics are, but could take the hint that every American has heard of Jesus snd try to be chill about it unless asked.
I guess the real problems are the religious right, christofascism, Christendom, and all related ideologies that reject the rights of the nonbelievers and those who believe differently to live peacefully among them.
I think it was a black church which, for the most part, hasn’t gone nuts. There’s always a handful of weird ones and/or hustling preachers but the vast, vast majority are about charity and community and service. (Almost like they actually read the Bible and pay attention to what Jesus preached instead of whatever happens at Six Flags over Jesus ass megachurches.)
Not to mention the history of activisim around black churches. That’s where MLK Jr came from.
There are still plenty of churches that haven’t dove off the deep end, so I’m not too surprised.
Churches generally have the same divide as the people who attend them: Urban ones are sane. Rural ones are conservative freaks. And I’m fairly certain this was a Black church. 90% of Black people are Democrats.
McCormick told the crowd. “I’m running to bring leadership to our commonwealth.”
Hey that’s exactly what Anericans need less of. Here’s a revolutionary idea: run to be of service to the community you live in. Find out what they want and need. Do some work and get those things for them.
Leadership. Jfc
Those kind can lead their shit right into the guillotine notch, thankyouverymuch.
As Bloom County advised: “don’t step in the leadership”.
I swear I had to read these headlines like 10 times.
“GOP candidate calls his campaign stop an autism fundraiser, gets banned when venue owner finds out.”
Still doesn’t work in my head…‘GOP candidate tries hijacking Autism even and turns it into campaign fundraiser…gets asked to leave and not return…then tries to do the same thing at a church across the street and gets asked to leave’…
none of that is reflected in that title
Was Four Seasons Landscaping booked this time?
Still my favorite of the 2020 press conferences.
In front of a landscaping business. Next to a strip club and bar.
And a crematorium.
Not just the best press conference of 2020, but one of the most hilarious political fuck-ups of my lifetime. And I’m a Boomer.
Watching America’s Mayor™ sweating away the last remnants of his credibility will always give me a little chuckle.
Trump didn’t even pay him. He sweated that out for free.
Kudos to Rev Edwards and Mike!
If it weren’t for bad faith, they’d have no faith at all.
It’s wild how they just build lying into their platform. Conservatives finally figured out how unpopular their opinions are, so they just decided that they should just tell people they believe differently than they do.
Fuck you McCormick. Stay away from Philly, the place is too good for ya.
Philly threw batteries at Santa, but they have some standards.
Also they thrashed that hitchhiking robot.
I’m a transplant from Texas to Philadelphia. Philly is mostly populated by mutants, but they’re my fucking mutants. I don’t appreciate this kind of horse shit being pulled on my neighbors.
The podcast “16th minute of fame” had an episode on the Philly Chicken Man that made me fall in love with Philly. It is basically a 60 minutes episode expressing what you just said.
With Jamie Loftus? Makes sense considering she wrote a book on competitive hot dog eating.
Yep. That is the podcast. It is really good because she is pretty fabulous. The Mormon influencer episode and the chicken guy episodes are the two that have stuck with me.
That Reverend doesn’t fuck kids, just the GOP. I’m okay with that.
A newAnother low.I can not believe they chose to desecrate the holiest of holies, a Philly cheese steak joint.
I’ll bet there were green peppers on the free steaks.
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Yes, hello?
I’m here but I’m a Canuck so I can’t do diddly squat, sorry
Can someone explain to me what happened here? I read the story and I’m so confused.
Why is a guy with two autistic children upset about an autism awareness event? Why did he give them free sandwiches and simultaneously tell them to fuck off?
It wasn’t an Autism awareness event, it was a campaign rally. They lied to the owner to be able to use the space. The store owner didn’t give out sandwiches, the candidate did. The store owner also didn’t ask them to leave, the pastor across the road did. This was all very clear from the words written.
Where did you read that it wasn’t an autism awareness event? I literally can not find that.
Edit: it literally says they spoke about autism at the event
Pressed by the newspaper about whether the campaign stop was an autism awareness event, Armstrong claimed “it’s always autism awareness because I’m an education advocate” and said she spoke to those gathered about autism at one point.
…but sounds like they were hurried because the dude told them to fuck off
Do your thing. When you’re done, leave. You’re not welcome back.
Republican: Can I show up to your business to host a [thing you care about deeply] event?
Shows up, whole thing is about [ thing you fucking hate ]. Mentions your thing in passing.
I read that as “Armstrong claimed [every event they speak at is about] autism awareness because [they are] an education advocate”. Personally, I can’t see how that makes a lick of sense.
They also claim they spoke about autism “at one point”, but to be real, this appears to have been them lying about what it was to get the space and then it being a campaign event.
Do “autism awareness” events need Trump signs?
It’s also worth noting that you seem to have read the (rubbish, LLM based?) summary and not the article, which lays this all out more clearly:
Sfida told the Inquirer it was a local Republican operative, Sheila Armstrong, who contacted him to schedule the event, which she did on behalf of her nonprofit organization, Cooking4Autism, without mentioning McCormick’s campaign.
Armstrong is a member of the anti-LGBT group Moms for Liberty, which campaigns against school curricula that discusses LGBT rights or race and which the civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as a far-right extremist group.
She was a paid staffer for the failed campaign of Republican Mehmet Oz — who lost to U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) in 2022— but appears to have no official affiliation role on McCormick’s team, the Inquirer reported. She told the newspaper she offered to be a liaison for the GOP candidate in Philadelphia.
Pressed by the newspaper about whether the campaign stop was an autism awareness event, Armstrong claimed “it’s always autism awareness because I’m an education advocate” and said she spoke to those gathered about autism at one point.
The owner was asked if an autism-awareness event could be held at his business. He accepted, in part because he has family members with autism. After the event has gotten rolling, he realizes it’s actually a campaign event for the GOP and tells the guy to fuck off.
Seems like they either deliberately went out of their way to hide what the event really was, or the business owner didn’t really bother to look up who was holding the event and put two-and-two together.
Isn’t it a good thing for a campaign event to host an autism awareness event tho, regardless of which side he’s on?
Especially as someone with autistic children, it seems like that would be something he’d want to support…
THERE WAS NO AUTISM EVENT.
THE REPUBLICAN LIED BECAUSE HE KNEW THE RESTAURANT OWNER WOULD NEVER AGREE TO A CAMPAIGN EVENT.
THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE EMOTIONALLY MANIPULATED THE RESTAURANT OWNER, TRICKING THE OWNER INTO HOSTING A CAMPAIGN EVENT.
I don’t know where you read that. If that were true, why wouldn’t the author clearly state that there was no autism event?
Can you quote where the article says there was no autism event?
“Pressed by the newspaper about whether the campaign stop was an autism awareness event, Armstrong claimed “it’s always autism awareness because I’m an education advocate” and said she spoke to those gathered about autism at one point.” -the article.
So there you have it. It WAS an autism event, because an “education advocate” said so.
You are a rube or a troll, and my time has been wasted. Congrats.
You just proved my point. The article says very clearly that its an autism event
Hey pal, you just blow in from stupid town?
Lol, the article is quoting a Republican’s lies. If the article had quoted someone saying “Bigfoot is real”, does that mean the article said bigfoot is real?
bad things happen in philly stay out
