Herman Cain -- Clarence Thomas

The only reason Clarence Thomas now sits on the United States Supreme Court is because he and his defenders ... in the hearing on his confirmation ... came up with the nifty phrase "... a high-tech lynching ...".  Thomas was and is a liar of the first order.  Anita Hill told the complete truth.  The scum-bags in the Congress didn't have the guts to stand up to him when Thomas "played the 'race card'."

Now, here comes Herman Cain to do the same.

Race has no place here.  But if somebody is guilty of sexual harrassment, he/she should not be given a "pass" just because he/she invokes the Thomas-saving-phrase, "... high-tech lynching ...".

If black people are sexual harrassers, they should be treated just like white people who are sexual harrassers.  ENOUGH of THE RACE CARD ! ! !

Are Mormons "Christians" -- conflating two separate issues ...

I always get a large charge out of people who, in trying to oppose a particular position, illogically and very subtly attempt to conflate two separate and distinct issues.  I just saw it happen again in the discussion of Mitt Romney's Mormonism.

At about 4:00 a.m., E.D.T., the Huffington Post had a piece on its website, the "short link" to which was entitled "Mormons Are Not Christians, Pastors Say".  A click on that link took me to an article entitled "Mitt Romney's Mormonism: Pastors Say Mormons Not Christians, But Defend Candidate Against Attacks."  The point of the article is clearly stated in its first paragraphs:

                The debate over whether a largely Protestant nation is uneasy with a potential Mormon president was reignited this week after back-to-back attacks on Republican front-runner Mitt Romney's Mormonism at the high-profile Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C.  After prominent Texas megachurch pastor Rev. Robert Jeffress told audiences on Friday that Mormonism is a "cult" and conservative Christian activist Bryan Fischer took the stage the next day to echo similar views, a new survey released Saturday afternoon says that three out of four pastors agree, at the least, that Mormons are not Christians.

                As part of a larger survey conducted by Nashville-based Lifeway Research a yearago, 1,000 pastors were polled from around the country who represented dozens of denominations. Results, originally scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, were put out early after reporters requested data because of attacks on Romney at the summit, said Ed Stetzer, president of the Southern Baptist-affiliated organization. "The view that Mormons are not Christians is the widely and strongly held view among Protestant pastors. That does not mean they do not respect Mormons as persons, share their values on family and have much in common. Yet, they simply view Mormonism as a distinct religion outside of basic teachings of Christianity. Many of these pastors may know Mormons who consider themselves Christians, but Protestant pastors overwhelmingly do not consider them such," said Stetzer. "I know this is an unpleasant question to many, and one that some will use as a hammer on evangelicals."

                Mormons do not believe in the traditional Christian Trinity of God as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They also have scripture in addition the Bible, such as the Book of Mormon, and believe in prophets such as Joseph Smith, Jr., who founded the Latter Day Saint movement.  (emphasis mine).

               The article then went on to present polling data regarding whether Americans would support a Mormon candidate for President of the United States.

                While the Lifeway survey indicates that a majority of pastors may not support the Mormon religion, surveys on whether Americans would support a Mormon candidate are more mixed. A Pew Research Center survey from the summer said that one in four voters would be less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate and found that 34 percent of white evangelical Protestants held this view. A Gallup poll released in June also that almost 20 percent of Republicans and independents would not vote for a Mormon president, compared to 27 percent of Democrats who said the same.

               The article then presented the comment that is illogically conflated with the main premise of the article -- that Mormons are not considered to be "Christians" by most protestant Pastors.  The article went on:

                After the weekend's controversial statements on Romney's religion, prominent pastors are also coming to his defense. On Saturday, Rev. Myke Crowder, senior pastor of the Christian Life Center in Layton, Utah, and spokesman for the National Clergy Council, released a statement condemning Jeffress, who is a Southern Baptist. "As an evangelical, born-again, Bible-believing Christian, and a pastor with more than 25 years' experience living with and ministering among a majority Mormon population, I find the comments by Pastor Jeffress unhelpful, impolite and out of place," he said. "I've been around long enough to remember when independent Baptists wouldn't pray with Southern Baptists, when fundamentalists called Southern Baptists compromisers and liberals, when Southern Baptists wouldn't keep company with Pentecostals and when Pentecostals wouldn't keep company with Catholics. That wasn't helpful to anyone. Insulting Mitt Romney adds nothing to the conversation about who should be president. We're picking the country's chief executive, not its senior pastor."

                Rev. Crowder asserts that Rev. Jeffress' "comments [were] unhelpful, impolite, and out of place."  Keep in mind that the only "comment" attributed to Jeffress in the article was that Mormonism is a "cult".  Now, I'll readily agree that referring to Mormonism as a "cult" may be impolite and insulting.  But, by far the bulk of the relevant information about the subject -- are "Mormons" also "Christians" -- was contained in comments by Ed Stetzer, President of Lifeway Research, the organization that polled 1,000 protestant pastors representing dozens of denominations about the subject.  And in those comments Mr. Stetzer specifically stated:  "[The fact that these pastors do not believe that Mormons are Christians] does not mean they do not respect Mormons as persons, share their values on family and have much in common." (emphasis mine).

               Now, I'm guessing that Rev. Crowder is a supporter of Mr. Romney.  And, anybody that knows anything about politics knows that the fact that Mr. Romney is a Mormon will be a huge hurdle for him to clear in his presidential campaign.  So, what does Rev. Crowder do?  He illogically conflates the principal point of the article -- that most Protestant pastors do not consider "Mormons" to be "Christians" -- with a flurry of irrelevant uncomplimentary observations about the past behavior of some Southern Baptists, and concludes his own remarks by saying, " Insulting Mitt Romney adds nothing to the conversation about who should be president. We're picking the country's chief executive, not its senior pastor."  (emphasis mine).  The clear inference is that it is insulting to Mitt Romney for Mr. Stetzer to report the results of a poll that shows that the majority of Protestant pastors do not consider "Mormons" to be "Christians".  Nobody wants to be "insulting", and Rev. Crowder obviously doesn't want voters to be focused on the fact that "Mormons" are not "Christians", so Rev. Crowder tries to fuse the "cult" comment with the report on the polling data, so as to make readers feel that it would be "insulting" to Mormons to point out that their theological views are vastly different from the theological views of the vast majority of Protestant Christian denominations in this country.

               MY POINT is this:  It is not insulting to anyone to point out facts about a political candidate.  It is a fact that Mormonism is "a distinct religion outside of basic teachings of Christianity."  Neither Mr. Stetzer nor anyone else should be chastized for bringing that fact to light.  Those of us to whom this fact matters should, in my view, refrain from referring to Mormonism as a "cult."  But, but we have every right to, and we have a civic duty to, make sure that all voters are well informed about the facts.  Mormons are not Christians.  That is a simple fact.  And the fact that many Southern Baptists have behaved badly in the past in their relationships with their fellow Christians does that change that fact.

               DON'T BE FOOLED, my friends, when some slick-talking preacher tries to conflate the issues on you !

               Now that the political season is heating up, I'll probably be back to visit with y'all a little more often.

Lucian

 

I'm sick of what's going on in Washington.  What else is new?  Who isn't?

I think we're about half a generation away from armed revolution in this country.  As Thomas Jefferson said so eloquently ... "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants."

We are past the point of no return.  The RepubliKKKans have cemented themselve into "the Party of 'No'".  There is nothing that any of the rest of us -- Democrats, or Independents, or right-thinking Republicans -- can do about it.  The RepubliKKKans have sworn on to a fight to the death.  You say ... "Why does that mean the ruination of the country?"  The answer is:  because the United States Supreme Court has become nothing but a political tool of the RepubliKKKan party.  When the Supremes unilaterally decided the 2000 election, the die was cast.  This country simply cannot exist, as a constitutional democracy, when the Supreme Court -- appointed for life and with no real means for eviction (impeachment is a joke).

Yes ... armed revolution is the only way back for America.  I certainly would not advocate armed revolution, so I am reconciled to seeing the country that I love disappear, little by little, into the abyss of fascism into which it is now headed.

The only way that this country will ever survive is if the present constitution of the U. S. Supreme Court is radically changed -- and quickly.  Our beloved country, as we know it, cannot survive another 20 years of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito.

How can that happen?

Best to all.
LUCIAN

People who publish blogs shouldn't throw around bad grammar.

One good thing about writing your own blog is that you get to "address" your pet peeves.  One of mine is bad grammar.  I find it nothing short of disgusting that so many people in the paid media don't know how to write a grammatically correct sentence.  Of course, those people ought to be fired by their employers.  Those who write their own blogs without compensation should merely be ashamed of themselves, I guess.  So, one of the things I'm going to do on this site from time to time is to point out those gaffes, naming the "writers" to whom they are at attributed.  Here's the first one.


This is a post on a site called "Busting Brackets" that is dated April 19, 2011 and was written by a guy named Blake Lovell. The post is about basketball at the University of Kentucky and is entitled Doron Lamb Coming Back to Kentucky For Another Season.  Here's the link:

http://bustingbrackets.com/2011/04/19/doron-lamb-coming-back-to-kentucky-for-another-season/

Lovell writes:  "I don’t necessarily think Lamb’s decision to come back with [sic] change the minds of Knight or Jones, as both of those guys are projected to go much higher in the draft than Lamb probably would have went."  Screech that chalk on that blackboard ! ! !  Of course, correctly written the sentence would have read, ". . . much higher in the draft than Lamb probably would have gone."  I repeat:  Screech that chalk on that blackboard ! ! !

I don't know much about websites, but the "Busting Brackets" website has advertising on it.  I guess that may mean that Lovell gets paid to abuse the English language like that.  Whether or not, this -- like the presidency of George W. Bush, the re-election of a Republican majority in the U. S. House of Representatives in 2010, and passage of the idiotic and unconstitutional immigration billed in Arizona refered to as "S.B. 1070" -- is just another illustration of the dumbing down of America.  Alas.

Lucien

President Obama's charitable contributions

Well ... I just read the first thing that I've read in a long time that made me glad that I voted for President Obama.  Here's the link.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/04/obamas-income-17m-tax-bill-453770/1

It talks about the Obamas' personal income tax returns for 2011.  They had adjusted gross income of $1,728,096.  They paid $453,770 (a little over 26%) in total federal taxes.  But here's what I was pleased about:  They made charitable contributions of $245,075 -- about 14% of their adjusted gross income.  If all of the rich people in the country made charitable contributions at that level, all of the fine folks who help the less fortunate would have a whole lot more to work with, and ... IMHO ... our country would be a whole lot better place.

Just MHO, of course.

Lucien

Jimmer Fredette

I agree with all of the commentators who opine that Jimmer is a very ordinary basketball player.  There are 100 players in the country who ... if they took as many shots per game as Jimmer and were given the freedom that Jimmer is given to "fire when ready" ... could average just as many points as Jimmer averages ... and would be much greater contributors to the team, as a whole. Jimmer plays no defense, and ... as far as I can find out, doesn't even pretend to play any defense.  I've got $100 that says that Jimmer isn't on an NBA roster at the beginning of the 2015-16 season.