I think Bam Bam (that’s his real nickname from his boxing days) needs serious help at this point. All you have to do is read the headline from Barber’s latest WorldNetDaily column:
Today’s Baal worshipers Exclusive: Matt Barber cites striking similarities between ‘progressives,’ child sacrificers
Read and keep your jaw off of the table.
Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of “mother earth.”
The natural consequences of such behavior – pregnancy and childbirth – and the associated financial burdens of “unplanned parenthood” were easily offset. One could either choose to engage in homosexual conduct or – with child sacrifice available on demand – could simply take part in another fertility ceremony to “terminate” the unwanted child.
Modern liberalism deviates little from its ancient predecessor. While its macabre rituals have been sanitized with flowery and euphemistic terms of art, its core tenets and practices remain eerily similar. The worship of “fertility” has been replaced with worship of “reproductive freedom” or “choice.” Child sacrifice via burnt offering has been updated, ever so slightly, to become child sacrifice by way of abortion. The ritualistic promotion, practice and celebration of both heterosexual and homosexual immorality and promiscuity have been carefully whitewashed – yet wholeheartedly embraced – by the cults of radical feminism, militant “gay rights” and “comprehensive sex education.” And, the pantheistic worship of “mother earth” has been substituted – in name only – for radical environmentalism.
Bam Bam, former mouthpiece for Concerned Women for America, is now using this bio:
Matt Barber is director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action and associate dean with Liberty University School of Law.
I don’t know if you watched Anderson Cooper last night, but he did some slamming coverage of the Rick Warren debacle on his program. He basically had to referee a heated debate between Hilary Rosen editor-at-large for HuffPost and a CNN contributor, CNN’s Roland Martin and Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic National Committee Member and CNN contributor. Hilary Rosen had the afterburners on last night; she had no patience for the attempt by Roland Martin to give legitimacy to Rick Warren and called it “an outrageous mistake.” Read and watch it. (H/t Towleroad re: the video):
RICK WARREN, PASTOR, SADDLEBACK CHURCH: I’m opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I’m opposed to older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think those are equivalent to gays getting married?
WARREN: I do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It’s comments like that from Pastor Rick Warren that made the Internet and blogosphere light up with outrage today when it was announced that President-elect Obama has asked the popular conservative preacher to give the invocation at the inauguration. Now Warren was a big supporter of Proposition 8 which took away marriage rights from gays and lesbians in California. And late today, an Obama spokeswoman said that while the president-elect disagrees with Rick Warren on gay rights issues, he wants this to be the most inclusive inauguration ever.
Let’s dig deeper with Hilary Rosen, Robert Zimmerman and Roland Martin.
Hilary, Andrew Sullivan wrote today on his blog. He said, “It’s shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now.” Is this a slap in the face to the gay community?
ROSEN: You know, from what I gather, every gay person who paid attention to this today felt like we were kicked in the stomach. This is just kind of outrageous that you would choose such a divisive figure to speak out in a blessed prayerful moment at a day of bringing the country together. I think it’s kind of an outrageous mistake on the part of the Obama campaign.
COOPER: Roland, of all of the pastors to choose from, why choose someone controversial?
MARTIN: How about choosing Reverend Jeremiah Wright who supports the issue of gay marriage? Obama believes in marriage is between a man and woman. Is that controversial?
Not only that, you have two people who are speaking today who are preachers. You have Rick Warren who is against gay marriage, giving the invocation. You have the Reverend Joseph Lowery who is for gay marriage, giving the benediction.
ROSEN: This is not a policy difference. This is not even about gay marriage. That could be a political or policy difference that obviously Barack Obama has with many gay and lesbian people. This is about the way that Pastor Warren has used homosexuality as a weapon, that he uses religion as a weapon to suggest that gay relationships are akin to—and pedophilia and other things.
That’s the problem. It’s not a matter of a policy difference. It’s a matter of using this sort of moral religious authority to divide one group from another.
News & Notes was the only black issues program on National Public Radio, and it’s been axed, along with Day to Day. (NPR):
“It’s a very difficult time for us all, but NPR is not exempt, unfortunately, from the recession that has covered our country in the last several months,” Dennis Haarsager, NPR’s interim president and CEO, said at its corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C. “We simply must react to it in a responsible way — and that’s what we’ve tried to do.”
The two shows will go off the air on March 20, and 22 journalists working for them will lose their jobs, including hosts Madeleine Brand and Farai Chideya. The shows are both based in Culver City, Calif., at NPR West, a major satellite operation.
Day to Day was designed as a midday complement to mainstays Morning Edition and All Things Considered, while News and Notes, a successor to The Tavis Smiley Show, was intended to draw more African-American listeners. Beyond the two shows, another 12 journalists will lose their jobs throughout NPR News.
It’s unfortunate, given we’re about to inaugurate a black president and we lose an outlet on NPR that gave voice to the black community on those stations—intelligent perspectives are sorely needed in the MSM, and News & Notes would have enabled more healthy discussion in the progressive community by reaching those listeners. There is a good article about the history of black programming at NPR here.
I had the pleasure of being on News & Notes only once, this past May, to discuss minority representation among bloggers going to the Democratic National Convention and the inability of the GOP to recruit minority candidates.
News & Notes has been an absolutely wonderful, intelligent and fun outlet to listen to and be a part of. I’ve been on the show over 10 times since the summer of 2007 (and will be on next Wednesday Dec 17th) , and it has certainly contributed to the audience and credibility of Jack & Jill Politics. We’re like family. In fact, the weekly Blogger Roundtable was a truly innovative segment on a show that already had some of the best coverage of black issues of any major media outlet. Because of News & Notes, our own blogroll has expanded, and I’ve had a chance to meet and work with some impressive voices. So many old school media outlets don’t get how to work with technology, social media and the youngins, but News & Notes pulled it off effectively without exploiting or compromising these emerging voices.
...In the grand, new age of Obama, this is happening? This past year, we at Jack and Jill Politics and the broader Afrosphere had to work triple time to try to inject some sanity into the media conversation about race. Suddenly Wolf Blitzer and crew had to say something, anything, about race, and they didn’t know where to start because they lacked the lived experience, empathy or education to say anything useful. With Obama headed for the White House, the supply of ignorant racial media discourse will only grow.
This recession is going to have a huge impact on all organizations living off of corporate support and donations from members, as well as endowments, if they had any (the latter took a big hit at NPR with the stock market crash). NPR is laying off veteran journalists—half of the 64 axed are reporters. News & Notes’s Farai Chideya’s letter to listeners is here.
—whether or not conservatives can be wholly opposed to redistribution or whether they must support some measure of it for a means-tested welfare state.
The problem with the debate is that it’s like arguing over whether a basketball should be round or not. Government cannot exist without some degree of redistribution - from fascism to communism, social democracy to the laissez-faire state, money must be taken from someone, somewhere and used in ways that do not confer benefits exactly equally onto the group from which the money was taken. It’s an asinine differentation that Goldberg and Douthat argue over. Should redistribution be the chief aim of public policy? Redistribution is society. If no societal benefit can ever accrue from some surrendered bit of wealth or value on the part of all involved (or capable), we can never build a society worth the name.
What does a society look like where wealth is never spread? How is a military maintained? When one house burns, how is the neighborhood saved? The nature and scope of the redistribution is always to be debated, but the side that accepts it and attempts to make it as fair and productive as possible is drastically preferable to the one that’s still having the settled debate over whether it’s necessary and only cares about reducing its size as much as possible.
This is huge. Congratulations to Jared Polis, who has won the Dem primary in Colorado’s 2nd district for the U.S. House. Since this is a heavily Democratic district (it includes Boulder), it means Polis is almost a lock to be the first openly gay man elected to Congress as a non-incumbent.
Polis took the stage and said he was about to make history and then introduced his partner. Citing his sexual orientation, he said, “I always worried that that would get in the way (of) giving back and contributing to our society.”
...Polis threw more than $5 million of his own money into the campaign - the most expensive congressional primary in state history - to beat [former state senator Joan] Fitz-Gerald, 60, a rival with a high-profile political history and the backing of unions and many Democratic party loyalists.
“Tonight is just a beginning,” Polis told an screaming crowd. “There are other important races to be won,” he added, referring to Presidential contender Barack Obama and Mark Udall’s Senate race.
What’s significant is that Jared’s sexual orientation was not an issue during the campaign. More below the fold.
Carla Lewis was inside the Tennessee Valley Universalist Unitarian Church when Jim Adkisson opened fire on the members of the congregation, as they attended a children’s production of “Annie.”
Mike Signorilespoke with Ms. Lewis, who is transgender and a local activist, about the horrible event, the political motivations of Adkisson (hatred of liberals and gays), and tragic hero Greg McKendry who leapt in front of the shooter’s gunfire to save his fellow church members. McKendry was also a foster dad to a trans child.
Great interview, Mike. An update on Adkisson’s case indicates—surprise—an insanity defense is likely to be mounted.
[Knox County Public Defender Mark] Stephens noted that it is not merely Adkisson’s mental state that would be at issue should the public defender opt to mount an insanity defense. His actions, both before and after the shooting, will be judged, Stephens said.
...It is against overwhelming odds that Stephens must mount a defense.
Consider what police have reported with little challenge to the validity of the claims: He bought a 12-gauge shotgun from a pawnshop shortly before the shooting and then sawed it to fit a guitar case he purchased solely for the purpose of concealing that weapon to make his way into the church without undue alarm. He detailed his allegedly murderous and suicidal intent in a four-page letter and allegedly proceeded to carry out the plan in full view of throngs of churchgoers gathered on a Sunday morning…
“You have to show the defendant didn’t appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct,” Stephens said. “How coherent were his thought processes?”
The defense has to show that Adkisson “didn’t appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct.”
The shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church by domestic terrorist Jim D. Adkisson brings out the worst in the knuckle-dragging Freepers—after all it was a faux Christian UU church, right? There are quite a few offers of prayers and sympathy, but the hardcore swamp-dwellers focus first on why more parishioners weren’t armed, and then focuses on the fact that it’s a progressive church and thus somehow, it brought the horror onto itself.
Marc and I wandered around Netroots Nation asking people to offer their views on reproductive rights. Much to my delight, my expectation that your average attendee at Netroots Nation has an intelligent, learned opinion on these things proved correct. Thanks to everyone who agreed to be interviewed.
John Kass, columnist for the Chicago Tribune steps in on the Obama flip-flop parade and decides, like many in the media, to speak for the bloggerati:
They’re at the dance now and he’s the one with the keys and he’s the only ride they’ve got. And they don’t like it.
He has flip-flopped again and again, on campaign finance, on government eavesdropping of overseas phone calls, on gun control and even Iraq. Future President Obama now says he’ll listen to his generals about when to withdraw. He didn’t say he’d listen to the commissars of the blogosphere.
This is one of the great functions of a liberal media whose major liberal members spend most of their time proving how liberal they aren’t. The major reporting and/or commentating on the ideological proclivities of a major section of the American public comes largely from people who have no real connection whatsoever to said ideology except, perhaps, an ironic one. The only time we get to read about ourselves is when someone who bought a Che t-shirt in college on a lark tells me that I’m so blisteringly angry or depressed (about something I shouldn’t be, of course) that I’ve starting spraypainting Hummers and browsing porn on public library computers in indolent protest.
Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of “mother earth.”
It’s much easier than, you know,