Broken Communication in America – The Sound of My Voice – Father / Son / Holy Ghost – Limbaugh / Osteen / Maddow (redux*)

This began the other night when my usual source of “Progressive” information MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was presenting a propaganda show that night to tell of airline shootings of the last three or more decades and telling us directly or indirectly (subliminally) that America should not go to war with Russia over Malaysian Flight MH17 shot down over the Ukraine / Russian border by Russian terrorists.

Not satisfied with my own personal questions about this tragic act of Russian State Terrorism, I resorted to what I did in the dark days of George W Bush and sought foreign English Speaking news sites in the UK, Singapore and Australia to try and get a handle on the truth – something not available in America on this specific incident.

I realized that Rachel was doing a favor for the liberal/progressive party in general and maybe even specifically directly for the White House. That Professor Barry was not going to get off his ass and break a sweat over this one – he only will break a sweat doing hoops btw. But that is his style. George W. Bush’s style was similar as he sat in his tub and painted his toes etc.

I had to stand back and reflect on why I had sought Maddow as a news source and realized that I was seeking a comfort zone source and she had inherited that main source title at MSNBC after they hounded Olbermann into obscurity and back to the sports locker room gig – a job he was not best, but better suited for as far as the establishment was concerned.

But Olbermann was a shouter, a preacher and the sound of his voice gave comfort and his words too in most cases. Olbermann was a bit of a diva and they can easily be gotten rid of etc. – don’t you know.

But was it the sound of Olbermann’s voice that I trusted and maybe not all his words? That by default, Maddow’s voice had now become to me the surrogate Olbermann voice I suppose, (the ghost of Olbernmann past?) and or the surrogate voice of comfort available on the cable airwaves for me at least and my POV. And of course, it is a limited elite audience in America that can afford private cable news and or propaganda. I am certainly not your everyday hoi polloi. Yeah right.

I also in the case of comforting voices harkened back to something said by the Catholic theologian Bill Lindsey over at the Bilgrimage blog somewhere about how his assessment of listening to Rush Limbaugh on long car trips in the South put him to mind to analyze why a babbling tub of lard like Limbaugh had such a wide and hardcore group of listeners. The answer Bill had was that people fell in love with Rush’s voice and no matter what he says, no matter how vain, vulgar or stupid, it is the sound of the voice people are listening to and not the string of words that Rush outputs by the ton on a daily radio message day.

The trick to the magic of communicating at least in America was to trust the snake oil salesman or saleswoman and then the snake oil tastes like sugar candy from that point on in time.

And then there is Joel Osteen with his $100,000 perfect plastic teeth smile doing a nihilistic circle jerk of "success" with his Texas congregation – Christian??? - of reaffirming to his middle-class audience in an indirect oblique manner, that it is okay to cheat on your income taxes so long as you tithe to him - Joel - kindasorta religion? 

Of course Joel is not political that I know of, but the Catholic U.S. Supreme Court has okay-ed anonymity in political PACs (Citizens United) these days even if tax exempt preachers, Salt Lake City temples or Russian dictators want to fund any looney these days in the Tea Party and its “I don’t give a shit about my neighbor” Ayn Rand pagan libertarian godless philosophy.

I hear he has something like a hundred million mortgage on the former professional basketball  arena he calls a mega-church down there in sub-minimum wage Texas. When the founding fathers gave tax exemption to churches, meeting houses and synagogues and such, those congregations were in wooden buildings and memberships numbered in the hundreds each. How times have changed.

Funny thing. I heard a story about how the safe in his church got robbed one weekend recently in the News. The thieves got away with over half a million dollars which was supposed to be the weekly take  for his local god business.  So people start to think – wow – that times 52 weeks is like twenty six million a year. 

Wow! That is success. Right?

Well being an old war horse in the mortgage business among other things over the years. The thing is this. Twenty-six million income on a 100 million mortgage represents four times income or so. That is the base bottom line for allowing any mortgage or it used to be until politics and the whoring banks along with politicians ruined the mortgage business in this country.  Four times income.  Joel is barely getting by - treading water. Not much of a success in terms of old mortgage business standards. But those are old standards.

Who am I to question the success that the lord has pissed out onto Joel Osteen standing on his humble solid gold preacher pedestal? lol

But many, many, many may never hear the word Jesus out of his mouth during his hour long success story homilies preaching thing – or understand the words. But he has one hell of a comforting voice. Amen?

* (July 26, 2014 - http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2014/07/broken-communication-in-america-sound.html )

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“Radical Trumpism” is the greatest threat to world peace

“Radical Trumpism” is the greatest threat to world peace since the rise of the Axis Powers of WWII.

Since a PR label talking point on Cable TV is the way to go in modern hip politics. I think that “Radical Trumpism” is also the greatest threat to American Freedom since fat King George III wanted our taxes to remodel his loo in Windsor Castle.

“Radical Trumpism” can be defined as unckecked, no fact-checking, unchallenged unstable erratic businessman’s opinions given freely and free from fee when shown on Cable TV News.

You get what you pay for. Nothing. 

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Woman Hater ‪#‎DonaldTrump‬ trashes ‪#‎MikaBrzezinski‬ ‪#‎MSNBC‬ Bites Hand that Fed Him all that free MediaTime #HeisaPig

Woman Hater ‪#‎DonaldTrump‬ trashes 

‪#‎MikaBrzezinski‬ ‪#‎MSNBC‬ Bites Hand

that Fed Him all that free Media Time

He is a Pig.

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Armed Extremists Mormon Rebellion in Oregon – Government Property Seized - Media's Candy-Assed Treatment of Armed White Thugs

The fuckiing bullshit media PC police are out posting this armed seizure of Government property in Oregon by a bunch of traitorous Joseph Smith wanna-bees, break away Mormon religious extremists as “militiamen” or “Anti-government protesters” (i.e. MSNBC).  

They are grown men with guns who don’t want to sit up in their temples in their Sunday White Underwear outfits but would rather be wearing white sheets in the desert, living in tents and beating up all their wives etc.

No fucking different than ISIS or Al-Qaeda, Sunni, Shia Muslim armed extremists, anarchists who want to tear my world down. Who want to steal my government owned land to sell or rent it to Koch Industries and set themselves up in the the State of Deseret according to their religious book of myths.

The British news media is already over this white male privilege thing. If gangs of unemployed blacks seized four square blocks of Baltimore and demanded to set up their own version of Utopia or Deseret, the national guard would already be bulldozing the dead bullet-ridden insurrectionist bodies out of the war zone.

Tell your media lies elsewhere MSNBC.

Their tiny penises, of these Mormon traitors, like their beliefs, should stay inside their pants and their houses of worship on Sunday in order to earn my respect and or tolerance of their weird private beliefs. That is what the first amendment is all about and not about hitting me over the head with a stick or shooting me in the back with an NRA approved WMD to steal my and or our common American national land held in trust for the ages and generations to come.

Ted Cruz is praying first for the traitors to resolve this peacefully and second that cops don’t get killed. No heart in that Pansy.

Rick Santorum identifies with the Deadbeat Bundy Polygamist Mormons and Company and blood cousins who can’t earn a living out west like their ancestors. Which is why Santorum wants the government to give land to these Domestic Terrorists. Goverment Welfare to his white male cronies. 

Well if there are no jobs in the prairies for your cows to eat free government grass, then you leave and emigrate if you don’t like the USA. Leave! Join your male comrades in the Middle East and kill and steal in the name of your mean false desert gods. 

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Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants reciprocity in refugee exchange - 100,000 Arkansonians for 10,000 Syrians

Images *

One of the victims of the war with ISIS/ISIL/DAESH is not the truth but the media shortage of bodies over at MSNBC since the purge of talking head bodies (Shh! – It is a secret – nobody watches anyway lol)

Well - Yesterday while a few of the more self-important fish are getting a round trip to Paris to personally investigate a bunch of thugs with guns in Europe when they would hesitate to take on a NRA convention of whoopee cushion usin good ‘ole boys in the States. Well, the world is turned upside down these days.

Well yesterday, in desperate need of bodies on the live set at the Capitol Rep. Burgess of Texas wandered into view of the cameras with the unpaid interns in charge of cameras. Congressman Burgess wanted to talk about “boots on the ground in Syria” along with the unicorn problem in Texas, sitting in Dick Armey’s old congressional seat btw, very important Gerrymandered man. That and also he might have mentioned fetuses, Boy fetuses that is – not girl fetuses btw, masturbating in the womb etc. (Cameras cut!)

Today, away from the Camera but on one of those modern telephone things, Governor Asa Hutchinson, mentioning his vast experience with Homeland Security under the safe days of President George W. Bush. “He kept us safe” (except on 911). Asa thought it awful unfair why we would be giving free charity and welfare to Muslims from Syria or such. 

Why should President Assad not have to support these bums and send them to Europe?

It only makes sense to reciprocate and send a bunch of dangerous minds from Arkansas. Get rid of them. People on welfare. Minorities. ‘Da Gays. Etc. (Telephone call - CUT!)  (Geez – unpaid media interns on a learning curve. Lol)

Tomorrow - Senator Tom Cotton and the glories of fighting in the trenches with guys, guys, guys. Share the excitement?

Gee FOX NEWS, keep your animal Kristi-an pundits over there at Roger Ailes ZOO and stop picking on MSNBC. Lock your gates!

(MSNBC Interns – Please no more free bananas to strangers.)

*Photos:

http://thegampr.com/2013/12/13/armenia-shames-europe-in-humanitarian-aid-to-syrian-refugees/

Asa Hutchinson Congressinal Photo Public Domain

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No Rush to Grand Jury Judgment Under Bob McColloch’s Instructions to Incompetent Dream Team Kathi Lynn Alizadeh and Sheila Whirley

McColloch - Wilson - Brown - Ferguson Missouri

They took their time and even quoted obsolete struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court statutes that give cops a license to kill especially if perps are unarmed and fleeing. McColloch’s predicted months long probe ending up even being many hours late when the Grand Jury had supposedly already finished on Monday.

Missouri’s obsolete statute presented to the Grand Jury sounded more like something out of Jim Crow or the pre-Civil War Fugitive Slave laws protecting the property of plantation owners of Missouri – as pointed out by Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC last night.

Blacks at best in Missouri can only get 3/5 entitlement to any law, past or present, on the books there. Less if McColloch & Co. are orchestrating an intentionally mismanaged, botched hack job on protecting Male White Entitlement in this old borderline slave state. 

http://thesouthern.com/news/local/state-and-regional/protesters-gather-again-in-ferguson-and-clayton-as-grand-jury/article_567c30cd-38d9-5655-b89a-df251cd44ccc.html

The steamy evening, with a temperature of 84 and 72 percent humidity at 8 p.m., took its toll on the early energy level. Adding to the discomfort was a heavy thunderstorm passing through.

A pair of protesters supporting Officer Darren Wilson walked along West Florissant shortly before the rain struck. Many in the crowd shouted at them, and police quickly removed them by squad car.

Another protester, Mubarack Sulamann, traveled from Memphis to Ferguson to peddle T-shirts that read “Justice for Mike Brown.” The cost? $10.

The first of two marches in Clayton was held in the morning as the grand jury commenced its work. But County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch warned that it won’t finish its task any time soon, despite numerous calls by protesters and some public officials for speedy action.

“Our target date is, hopefully, by the middle of October,” McCulloch said. “I certainly understand the concern, but we won’t rush it through. In the long run people, at least a majority of people, will appreciate the thoroughness.”

Grand juries work in secret. The grand jury meets in his office behind secure doors in the County Justice Center, across South Central Avenue Carondelet Avenue from the St. Louis County Courthouse. Reporters have no ability to see anyone entering or leaving the grand jury room, or how they get to McCulloch’s office from outside the building.

Handling the case before the grand jury are assistant prosecutors Sheila Whirley, who is black, and Kathi Alizadeh, who is white. Alizadeh, with 27 years experience, is the regular homicide prosecutor. Whirley has the grand jury assignment and 18 years experience.

McCulloch declined to discuss any evidence, but elaborated upon his decision not to rush the investigation.

“Some people say we are rushing to judgment and others say we are dragging it out,” he said. “We will do this as expeditiously as possible, but certainly not in any haphazard manner.”

As for October, he said, “It could be longer than that, or shorter than that. I doubt any sooner than that.”

Outside the Justice Center, about 50 protesters marched and chanted in the 7800 block of Carondelet Avenue. One held a sign saying, “Recuse McCulloch.”

The only tense moment was when Pattie Canter of Clayton walked to the protest area carrying a sign saying, “My family and friends support Officer Wilson and the police.”


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Broken Communication in America – The Sound of My Voice – Father / Son / Holy Ghost – Limbaugh / Osteen / Maddow

This began the other night when my usual source of “Progressive” information MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was presenting a propaganda show that night to tell of airline shootings of the last three or more decades and telling us directly or indirectly (subliminally) that America should not go to war with Russia over Malaysian Flight MH17 shot down over the Ukraine / Russian border by Russian terrorists.

Not satisfied with my own personal questions about this tragic act of Russian State Terrorism, I resorted to what I did in the dark days of George W Bush and sought foreign English Speaking news sites in the UK, Singapore and Australia to try and get a handle on the truth – something not available in America on this specific incident.

I realized that Rachel was doing a favor for the liberal/progressive party in general and maybe even specifically directly for the White House. That Professor Barry was not going to get off his ass and break a sweat over this one – he only will break a sweat doing hoops btw. But that is his style. George W. Bush’s style was similar as he sat in his tub and painted his toes etc.

I had to stand back and reflect on why I had sought Maddow as a news source and realized that I was seeking a comfort zone source and she had inherited that main source title at MSNBC after they hounded Olbermann into obscurity and back to the sports locker room gig – a job he was not best, but better suited for as far as the establishment was concerned.

But Olbermann was a shouter, a preacher and the sound of his voice gave comfort and his words too in most cases. Olbermann was a bit of a diva and they can easily be gotten rid of etc. – don’t you know.

But was it the sound of Olbermann’s voice that I trusted and maybe not all his words? That by default, Maddow’s voice had now become to me the surrogate Olbermann voice I suppose, (the ghost of Olbernmann past?) and or the surrogate voice of comfort available on the cable airwaves for me at least and my POV. And of course, it is a limited elite audience in America that can afford private cable news and or propaganda. I am certainly not your everyday hoi polloi. Yeah right.

I also in the case of comforting voices harkened back to something said by the Catholic theologian Bill Lindsey over at the Bilgrimage blog somewhere about how his assessment of listening to Rush Limbaugh on long car trips in the South put him to mind to analyze why a babbling tub of lard like Limbaugh had such a wide and hardcore group of listeners. The answer Bill had was that people fell in love with Rush’s voice and no matter what he says, no matter how vain, vulgar or stupid, it is the sound of the voice people are listening to and not the string of words that Rush outputs by the ton on a daily radio message day.

The trick to the magic of communicating at least in America was to trust the snake oil salesman or saleswoman and then the snake oil tastes like sugar candy from that point on in time.

And then there is Joel Osteen with his $100,000 perfect plastic teeth smile doing a nihilistic circle jerk of "success" with his Texas congregation – Christian??? - of reaffirming to his middle-class audience in an indirect oblique manner, that it is okay to cheat on your income taxes so long as you tithe to him - Joel - kinda sorta religion? 

Of course Joel is not political that I know of, but the Catholic U.S. Supreme Court has okay-ed anonymity in political PACs (Citizens United) these days even if tax exempt preachers, Salt Lake City temples or Russian dictators want to fund any looney these days in the Tea Party and its “I don’t give a shit about my neighbor” Ayn Rand pagan libertarian godless philosophy.

I hear he has something like a hundred million mortgage on the former professional basketball  arena he calls a mega-church down there in sub-minimum wage Texas. When the founding fathers gave tax exemption to churches, meeting houses and synagogues and such, those congregations were in wooden buildings and memberships numbered in the hundreds each. How times have changed.

Funny thing. I heard a story about how the safe in his church got robbed one weekend recently in the News. The thieves got away with over half a million dollars which was supposed to be the weekly take  for his local god business.  So people start to think – wow – that times 52 weeks is like twenty six million a year. 

Wow! That is success. Right?

Well being an old war horse in the mortgage business among other things over the years. The thing is this. Twenty-six million income on a 100 million mortgage represents four times income or so. That is the base bottom line for allowing any mortgage or it used to be until politics and the whoring banks along with politicians ruined the mortgage business in this country.  Four times income.  Joel is barely getting by - treading water. Not much of a success in terms of old mortgage business standards. But those are old standards.

Who am I to question the success that the lord has pissed out onto Joel Osteen standing on his humble solid gold preacher pedestal? lol

But many, many, many may never hear the word Jesus out of his mouth during his hour long success story homilies preaching thing – or understand the words. But he has one hell of a comforting voice. Amen?

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Dysfunctional Baldwin Family of Long Island Being Mouthed I think through Alec Baldwin’s Latest Rant and Tantrum

Of course Rachel Maddow is full of herself and phony. She has survived as one of the longest people on MSNBC. Baldwin wants to shoot the breeze on a Saturday night talk show with his drinking buddies and he yells “Faggot” again at some ambitious paparazzi taking pictures of him or his new wife and kid and they cancel the show. It was not the first time so called limousine liberal Alec has used the offensive term. He forgot. He sorry. Did not work this time.

And there is this feud with this kid, shitty rich from all the Transformer movies, that Alec cannot stand Shia LaBeouf, yeah that’s his real name. Well over a year ago, the kid who is no actor got tossed from a Broadway show associated with Baldwin before it opened and well Alec only wants professionals in his ranks on stage. Or whatever. This Kid LaBeouf is a slightly older version of Justin Beaverhead, and is in the news recently fighting his way through pubs in Britain and bars in New York to prove his testosterone level if not his acting ability and to prove he is no LaBoof if you know what I mean.

A rivalry perhaps born of jealously by Baldwin of a younger more successful version of himself? Or is it some sort of abstract sibling rivalry with one of his brothers getting abused, verbally and with fists from Pops who did a real fucked up number on all the Baldwin brothers in terms of Alcohol and Drugs etc. later in life. Alec only seems like the one normal Baldwin brother most times or does he have the most cash to hire the best publicists to make ugly rumors go away in the media?

And Alec’s recorded emotional outbursts to his then teenaged daughter on the telephone leaked to the press and no doubt at the behest and angst of the his wife Kim Basinger who probably knows Alec best being married not only to him but his whole brood and band of brothers. They used to have a nest of them down in Tucson once upon a time where they hung out in cheap digs in between acting gigs and in relative anonymity which you can do in a climate sometimes so hot you forget your own name. And it was a great place to smoke the local delicacies right next to the border. (wink, nod)

And his daughter Ireland, walking so without confidence in public with her new stepmom and half-sibling, looks so miserable. It that born of self-doubts common to her young age or just not wanting to be there?

His bothers have their problems in life and Alec seems as the oldest the caring nurturing one of the brood. I remember his perfect quick wedding of recent years. A ceremony in the Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Little Italy/Chinatown and then a reception at nearby NYU in some functional conference Gym like space. All so very chic and New York. I have to imagine that for so many in the RC faith it is part of belonging to family tradition that keeps that branch of Christianity functioning from the gelt from the guilt from the hatch them, hitch them and bury them cash only services. And let’s not forget the rush annulment of his marriage to Kim. Those things coming Fed-Ex from the Vatican cost a pretty penny.

All in all Alec Baldwin wants to leave New York and move to California. I wish him luck and I hope he can salvage the archive of his life’s work in movies. (Aside – He has not made that many really good movies for a so-called star in New York Hollywood.) So far his choice of acting gigs might be blamed on this agent Daffy Duck. But then again he likes to blame everybody else…

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Martin Bashir Becomes a Brown Scalp Trophy on Sarah Palin's Belt

Martin Bashir is brown, south Asian, not black, but he does not live in Britain I suspect where the color of his skin defines his place in the scheme of things more so there than here.

When thoughtless morons like Palin compare things to slavery or Nazis, she doe not have a clue what she speaks of.

A talking dog act? 

And yes he scraped the very edge of anger in response. He was one of the few professional but more than that intelligent is a decent I.Q. sense journalist on cable news. I will miss him. I hope he lands in a good place somewhere.

We instead have to submit to the media whore that the establishment keeps shoving down our throats as somebody who has a valid opinion on anything. Yeah Right.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/bashir-resigns-msnbc-palin-flap-article-1.1537613

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Bitch Fight in Kentucky / MSNBC - The Honorable Rand Paul (TeaBag - Kentucky) Versus The Vivacious Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) - Dueling Over the Evils of Plagiarism

"Yes, there are times when [speeches] have been sloppy or not correct or we've made an error," Paul said. "But the difference is, I take it as an insult and I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting. I have never intentionally done so."

He continued, "And like I say, if, you know, if dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, you know, it would be a duel challenge. But I can't do that, because I can't hold office in Kentucky then."

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Quote of the Day on Affordable Care Act For People – “Jesus Never Asked A Leper For A Co-Pay.” ~~ John Fugelsang

http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/chaplain-tries-justify-taking-health-c#sthash.npLqkUOG.dpbs

Ed Schultz: The Christian faith is very clear, feed the poor, and heal the sick. Is it really Christ-like to take healthcare away from Americans that should have healthcare that could save their lives? …

Chaplain Klingenschmitt: Obamacare takes healthcare away from, a half a billion dollars was taken away from old people, from Medicare to fund basically a slew of people who refuse to get jobs. …

John Fugelsang: You know Jesus never asked a leper for copay. And in Matthew 10:7-8 commands his followers to heal the sick. Now every option of healthcare on the exchange allows for a woman to choose a provider that will only allow abortion in cases of rape or incest. Where the chaplain is being disingenuous is that the only time that this will ever pay for an abortion is in the case of rape or incest or if you believe as the chaplain does that contraception is the same as abortion. So I’d like to ask the chaplain if I could, Jesus never at any point in the gospels condemns abortion even though people were terminating pregnancies at the time. He does however come out quite frequently against killing the sinner through the death penalty. So have you sir ever once protested your tax dollars being taken to fund state sanctioned killing. …

Chaplain Klingenschmitt: Jesus said in Mark 15 that if anyone disobeys or dishonors his mother or father he should be put to death. Jesus said in Luke 17.

John Fugelsang: No sir. He did not say that. He is quoting Leviticus. He is throwing that back in the face of the Pharisees. Some of us know that story sir.

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Mika Brzezinski's Professionalism Trashed by GOP Chairman Reince Priebus on Morning Joe Show – Joe gives Fulsome Praise of Mika’s Abilities at MSNBC

Mika Brzezinski Does Not Match Reince Priebus's GOP Hack Standards

Just watched the unprofessional head (emphasis on Head) Reinse Priebus of the GOP trash Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC cable morning entertainment talk show Morning Joe.  

Morning Joe is where Joe Scarborough, an Upper West Side (Manhattan) limousine liberal "conservative" regularly walks out the RNC/Drudge Daily Talking points. 

Mika is token female / "liberal" tall legged blonde in “fuck me” high heels who gives token “Oh Joe” moans to Scarborough’s endless droning of the RNC talking points for Republican Conservatives who apparently cannot read and need to find out about things on the boob tube.

This asshole Reince Priebus, the GOP Chairman can only have certified ideologues moderate any GOP Primary Debates, Hundreds of them expected in 2015-2016.

Any journalists at NBC or MSNBC, their shit stinks too much for Reince. Mika as part of the cattle call talking head “journalists" at the NBC family need not apply.

FOX NEWS morons only welcome at the GOP “debates”?

DUH! (Drool!)

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Chris Matthews Goes Senile on Hardball – Thinks Ted Cruz is Presidential Timber? LMAO

I just watched a segment on MSNBC, Chris Matthews on Hardball, who wasted the whole segment on the possibility of that Moron NRA bootlicker senator from Texas Ted Cruz is presidential timber.

Hasn’t Chris or his in house experts John Feehery, Joan Walsh or his staff ever read the U.S. Constitution?

I can see a favorite son run of a Canadian Born Senator as Cruz but he ain’t a native born citizen American, a primary absolute requirement for the U.S. Presidency.

Maybe they are forging a new born in Texas birth certificate for Canadian American Ted Cruz of Texas at this very moment. (Better than that printed on shit toilet paper birth certificate filed in Can-a-duh!)

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Chris Hayes Remembers Aaron Swartz – RIP – ( times 1:22 thru 4:57 on tape below )

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/13/the-brilliant-mind-righteous-heart-of-aaron-swartz-will-be-missed/

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Whatever Happened to Stephen Baldwin the Actor?

Only rich white men (Capitalism) can do better charity than through Government – The Reverend Stephen Baldwin

I just watched the worst couple of minutes of dead air time in a long time, watching the Martin Bashir Show on MSNBC watching a literal deadhead in the form of meal ticket evangelist Stephen Baldwin.

He equates the Republicans with God because they are against abortion and are therefore the party of white male entitlement and or “family values”

Morally superior Stephen Baldwin is in Tampa with his hands out for a bigger share of faith based profits to feed him, support him while he preaches his dead cow, eat the cow, form of Christianity.  If he had fed the cow and maintained a steady career path in show business, he would not be begging for charity subcontractor jobs at the GOP convention in Tampa. What a shame.

He was claiming that trickle down charity from billionaire capitalists will get the job done, with him as a middle man, instead of the government as benefactor.

Whatever.

Ross Douthat and his Many Many Heretics in a Diverse American Landscape

Watching Ross Douthat on MSNBC this morning and listening to words procreated from his honorary “George Will” conservative chair at MSNBC on the Chris Hayes Show, I had to wonder how does one inherit such media power?  

It is no secret that Douthat is the Vatican’s man at the New York Times from which to launch the Church’s national campaigns against troubling competing theisms such as “Pantheism” that Ross did with a NYT article attack on the fairytale movie Avatar back when.

But one, little peasant such as myself, should not question media shaping opinion as if it comes from or sounds like it is was shaped at the old Catholic Office of the Inquisition. Though I must admit that Douthat rendering opinion in a roundtable discussion on TV, the only thing missing was a perfumed laced handkerchief for Ross to hold to nose and sniff as he was forced to talk to less than his true true peers in that media setting. 

Mention of Douthat’s latest hack theology book, approved no doubt by both the Vatican and the RNC, was mentioned on this roundtable appearance today.

Before I quote from an excellent review of his book by Randall Balmer, I take exception with the deceiving title of Douthat’s book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics because “Heretic” is a bastardized Catholic word from the Greek, a variation of Heresy.

I have to wonder if the royal (?) “we” in the WE became Heretics is not really a stealth pronouncement (dictum ex cathedra)?  

And to wonder if Douthat is a Pure enough Catholic ready to rout out the many others, less than perfect Douthat Catholics, from His Church?

Heresy (from Greek αἵρεσις, which originally meant "choice", also referred to that process whereby a young person would examine various philosophies to determine how to live one's life) was redefined by the Catholic Church as a belief that conflicted with established Catholic dogma…--Wikipedia 

How Choice and or Option could get twisted into something so negative as Heresy, only a pure uber Catholic would know or understand…

Breaking Faith

The plunge into heresy, Douthat believes, can be traced to theological developments like the revisionist Jesus Seminar and the unlikely trinity of Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman and Dan Brown. Douthat accuses them of discrediting Christian orthodoxy in the interests of remaking Jesus in their own image, often for political ends. Debunking the debunkers, Douthat concludes that “they speak the language of the conspiratorial pamphlet, the paranoid chain e-mail — or the paperback thriller.” The currency of these ideas has given rise to what the author calls the “God Within” movement. “A choose-your-own-Jesus mentality,” Douthat writes, “encourages spiritual seekers to screen out discomfiting parts of the New Testament and focus only on whichever Christ they find most congenial.” 

The “God Within” malady has infected evangelicals as well, as seen in the so-called prosperity gospel. Douthat harvests a lot of low-hanging fruit in this section, and who can blame him? The pablum peddled by Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer and countless others surely represents an adumbration of Christian orthodoxy, but Douthat also criticizes Michael Novak’s defense of capitalism for being a betrayal of traditional Catholic teachings. All of this leaves us sinking into a morass of gluttony and narcissism, which has been inflected into the political arena as American ­exceptionalism. 

Although Douthat’s grasp of American religious history is sometimes tenuous — he misdates the Second Great Awakening, mistakes Puritans for Pilgrims and erroneously traces the disaffection of American Catholics to the Second Vatican Council rather than the papal encyclical “Humanae Vitae” — there is much to commend his argument. 

Yes, the indexes of religious adherence are down, and the quality of religious discourse in America has diminished since the 1950s, in part because of the preference for therapy over theology. Theological illiteracy is appalling; many theologians, like academics generally, prefer to speak to one another rather than engage the public…. 

Like any good jeremiad, “Bad Religion” concludes with what evangelicals would recognize as an altar call. Douthat invites readers to entertain “the possibility that Christianity might be an inheritance rather than a burden,” and he elevates such eclectic phenomena as home schooling, third-world Christianity and the Latin Mass as sources for renewal. 

Religion in the rearview mirror never looked better.

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