Time Magazine stands by its cover, which once again shows the corporate media is more concerned about narrative and emotional manipulation than proper context:
And yet they wonder why more and more Americans find the term “fake news” appropriately descriptive.
In honor of our the current POTUS on Presidents’ Day (and with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan):
I am the very model of a modern U.S. president
I took to Twitter so the leftist media I could circumvent
And take my thoughts directly to the masses of ‘deplorables’
That swamp rats in the Beltway all just seem to think ignorable
I pushed a tax cut, put the hurt on ISIS and bureaucracy
While pointing out some cases of the other side’s hypocrisy
They claim to put the people first but when it comes to policy
It’s clear they have no interest in protection of our sovereignty
On immigration, free trade and security they’re ludicrous
By putting “Dreamers,” China and the UN all ahead of us
It’s time we put our country first and Make America Great Again
Instead of thinking patriotism is something we should disdain
If Congress helps I’ll build the Wall and keep out would-be terrorists
While preventing uninvited guests from stealing our inheritance
It’s sad to think our leaders ever let our country reach this state
Establishment priorities are simply just inadequate
I may be crass and boastful but I’m willing to put up a fight
Despite the fake news, FBI and other forms of hateful spite
I’m doing what I said I would, on that there is no argument
I am the very model of a modern U.S. president
Showtime’s “Homeland” series takes a few swipes at the Trump administration in an interview with ITK, as reported by The Hill. In the process, they show either an inability to connect the dots, or a belief the rubes in the heartland can’t:
Each year, the team behind “Homeland” takes a weeklong research field trip to Washington to prep for the espionage thriller’s upcoming season. But this time around, when Showtime’s crew touched down in D.C. two months after President Trump’s inauguration, the mood was different…
In preparation for production, the “Homeland” team started asking what recourse intelligence officers and National Security Agency workers had if “they see an administration going off the rails.”
Gansa says he found “there was a strange sort of new alliance that was taking place between the intelligence community and the fourth estate, which we found interesting.”
After admitting they wouldn’t be pursuing a storyline about a ‘paranoid president’ had Her Hillariness been installed in 2016, they then backtrack on what they’ve just said:
Asked what Trump might take away from this season, Gansa replies, “I doubt he’d learn one thing. I think he might be amused just to watch an administration convinced that there was something called the ‘deep state’ aligned against her. Clearly that’s a fear that the Trump administration feels every day.”
Well gosh, when the stars of a hit TV series are deliberately pushing the message the President is paranoid, while noting in the real world there’s “a strange sort of new alliance… between the intelligence community and the fourth estate (the media),” I can’t imagine why the Trump administration might be concerned about a Deep State working against him.
Can you?
While the Babylon Bee is a satire site (a very good one, in fact — enough that I’ve added it to the sidebar on the right), this entry strikes a little too close to home how many people approach the Bible these days:
GRAND RAPIDS, MI—In a move designed to help students of the Word carefully impose their own theology and personal experiences onto the text, Zondervan released its all-new Choose Your Own Adventure Bible to widespread public acclaim Wednesday morning.
Boasting over three hundred different endings, the CYOA Bible allows readers to guide and bend the narrative through all its various twists and turns in order to shape the Bible’s theology to suit their own tastes, biases, and prejudices.
I loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid, but their approach hardly makes for sound Biblical exegesis. The Babylon Bee does a great job highlighting/ridiculing current issues in the Church. It’s worth checking out, as is the cartoon site Adam4d. (Note: Adam Ford, the creator of Adam4d, also runs the Babylon Bee.)
This about sums up discourse on the web (or anywhere else) these days:
There’s already plenty of commentary about “comedian” Kathy Griffin’s disgraceful photo shoot with a simulated severed Donald Trump head. What interests me most about this is:
(a) The utter tone deafness such a photo concept conveys in a world where beheadings and general terrorism are becoming ever more commonplace thanks to outfits like ISIS, and
(b) The serious pushback against and rare consequences for a leftist who went too far — to the point Griffin is now complaining that “Trump broke me” and that her career is over. In other words, “it all started when he hit me back.”
Welcome to the political world your leftist friends created, Kathy.
For years, even decades, individuals running afoul of the misnamed “political correctness” have been harassed, demonized, and in more than a few cases, left unemployed or otherwise financially harmed. For instance, a rodeo clown lost his job after performing with an Obama mask. Now to be fair, there were plenty of inappropriate Obama images during his presidency (including suggestions of lynching, assassination and more). Such excesses rarely failed to gain national attention and condemnation.
So why would Griffin think her stupid idea would be any different? Because of the insulated world she and her fellow travelers live in, and the double standards they are
Sadly, this is one of the most insightful ledes I’ve ever read in a story:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Several hundred people, including families with small children, packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational talk and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God.
What would be the point of that, you might ask.
Jones got the first inkling for the idea while leaving a Christmas carol concert six years ago.
“There was so much about it that I loved, but it’s a shame because at the heart of it, it’s something I don’t believe in,” Jones said. “If you think about church, there’s very little that’s bad. It’s singing awesome songs, hearing interesting talks, thinking about improving yourself and helping other people — and doing that in a community with wonderful relationships. What part of that is not to like?” (emphasis added)
OK, so like many people dissatisfied with something, these folks have set out to retain what they like, while removing the offensive features. That’s fine if you’re improving a product.
It’s ludicrous if you are searching for Truth.
This really culminates a long trend by which nominally ‘christian’ congregations have frequently become little more than social clubs, meeting the need of ‘community’ without getting into all that icky stuff about sin and repentance and salvation. What might be the “bad” parts about church these people think they’re eliminating? If it’s the standard charges of hypocrisy, infighting, and what not, I’ve got news for them: that comes with any organization of human beings, regardless how well-intentioned they might be individually. This would be easier to recognize if they were trying to build a fellowship based on observable truths, rather than utopian aspirations. Instead, they are deliberately (provocatively, even) building a community that explicitly denies these foundations:
For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)
At the bottom of it, for most committed unbelievers the ‘bad’ part about church is accountability to something larger than themselves–larger, even, than any human-derived organization. We desire the paradise of Eden, but not the obligation to listen to Eden’s creator about how it was supposed to function.
When I was a young boy spending a couple weeks with my grandfather, he gave me my first chance to fire a shotgun. Naturally excited by this new privilege, I couldn’t wait to try it, and was sure I knew what I was doing… I watched TV, after all. Granddaddy tried to give me a quick tutorial on how to hold the stock against my shoulder, but I was ready to go and not ready to listen.
I still remember how he quickly backed off. “Awright…” You know where this is going, don’t you? Picking my bruised self up off the floor of the clay pit, I wanted nothing to do with that gadget for some time. I hadn’t respected the instructions–or their giver–and I paid the price for it.*
I’ve come to a realization that all of humanity’s tragic history represents God doing the same thing: saying “awright…” to mankind’s determination to do things our own way. He hopes for us to come to our bruised senses, so He can show us the error of our ways and offer us a second chance through His son–who took the worst of the beating for us!
Humanity was wired to desire fellowship–with each other, and with our Creator. Like an old TV set, we have a “vertical hold” and a “horizontal hold” that have to be tuned in appropriately. For any group of human beings missing that ‘vertical hold,’ the frequent tragic outcome is control by a strong human leader–a cult, in other words. The Enemy’s biggest desire is to provide humanity any rally point that does not include God.
We are seeing more open rebellion and hostility toward God than perhaps at any time in the Church Age. If there was any doubt how humanity could be so mislead as to finally unite, but only in hostility toward God, it should be diminishing by the day.
May the Spirit open our eyes and keep them open.
* I recently had the joy of watching the older two Musketeers fire the very same shotgun, which I finally earned from Granddaddy and will one day bequeath to one of them. If there is any consolation in that story, it’s that by having heard it from me, they were more than a little inclined to listen to me as I showed them the ropes. As a result, their first experience was no less memorable, but considerably more pleasant!
So the big news this week is George Lucas got just a smidge over $4 billion to sell the rights to “Star Wars” to Disney. Lots of money, right?
Consider this: the Federal Government *borrows* this amount EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. In other words, the proceeds from selling possibly the best known movie franchise in history would cover Uncle Sam’s credit card for a mere 24 hours.
Scene from the draft script of Global Wars: The China Syndrome (coming to a galaxy near you):
For a government that claims to know what’s best for you, from what you eat to how to spend your money for you, Uncle Sam talks a good game but sets a lousy example:
After saddling the country with as much new debt as the rest of the world combined in one year flat, one would think that Uncle Sam wouldn’t have the cojones to dish out debt advice to others. But one would be wrong. In an unwitting self-parody worthy of Froma Harrop on The Daily Show, the Federal Trade Commission has created a step-by-step web guide for Americans “Knee-Deep in Debt.”
The first step, says the agency, which represents a government that went over 800 days without passing a budget, is: create a budget! Get a “realistic assessment of how much money you take in and how much money you spend,” it lectures those in financial doo-doo, seemingly oblivious of the fact that its own bosses have promised $60 trillion to a $100 trillion more in entitlements than the country has money to pay for.
Politician, heal thyself. Then we’ll talk.
I found this both a thoughtful and an amusing read…
Jesus Christ could not get elected in America in 2012.
My point is that it’s not the character, morals or honesty of any human being that wants to be President that matter. It is all about who will prostitute themselves more than all the other candidates in the quest for the party nomination. It is the race to the bottom, not a race to the top. None of the candidates you’ll see running for President can fix Washington because the establishment in Washington doesn’t want to be fixed, and will fight reforms to the death…even to the death of the Republic. …
Issues-based thoughts about Jesus:
Jesus wouldn’t have to write a book like the other candidates do. There’s already a book about him that’s been a best seller for 1,700 years.
Jesus was pro-life. So all of the people who are pro-abortion would never vote for him. He was so pro-life, he even raised the dead on at least three occasions. The funeral and cemetery businesses in America would be very nervous about a candidate that could make them obsolete.
Jesus turned water into wine. Critics of Jesus in the New Testament called him a “wine-bibber.” So the media and the other candidates’ attack teams would try to paint Jesus as a man with an alcohol problem…
Jesus was known for healing the sick. So why would America need Medicare any more? The medical establishment, doctors, hospitals and bureaucrats would campaign against Jesus, as his healing ministry would threaten their very livelihood…
In the Gospels, Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee. So if he could control the weather, FEMA would not have much to do. The Weather Channel might go out of business.
Jesus said that he was God. Most of those aspiring to be President act like they THINK they’re God, but they never actually claim divinity. That might be somewhat polarizing in a presidential campaign.
The One person in human history that most closely exemplifies all that is good and right and honest and moral could not even get the nomination for President in the United States of America. He would gore too many sacred cows with His very existence. Americans…the ones that believe this is a Christian nation…might all SAY that they’d vote for Jesus, but individually, they would vote for the candidate that protected their individual rice bowl. They would lie to the pollsters and pull the handle for anybody BUT Jesus Christ.
Read the whole thing here.
A True Progressive 