For many, especially the young, discovering a new meaning in the midst of the fallen world is thrilling. And social-justice ideology does everything a religion should. It offers an account of the whole: that human life and society and any kind of truth must be seen entirely as a function of social power structures, in which various groups have spent all of human existence oppressing other groups. And it provides a set of practices to resist and reverse this interlocking web of oppression — from regulating the workplace and policing the classroom to checking your own sin and even seeking to control language itself. I think of non-PC gaffes as the equivalent of old swear words. Like the puritans who were agape when someone said “goddamn,” the new faithful are scandalized when someone says something “problematic.” Another commonality of the zealot then and now: humorlessness.
And so the young adherents of the Great Awokening exhibit the zeal of the Great Awakening. Like early modern Christians, they punish heresy by banishing sinners from society or coercing them to public demonstrations of shame, and provide an avenue for redemption in the form of a thorough public confession of sin. “Social justice” theory requires the admission of white privilege in ways that are strikingly like the admission of original sin. A Christian is born again; an activist gets woke. To the belief in human progress unfolding through history — itself a remnant of Christian eschatology — it adds the Leninist twist of a cadre of heroes who jump-start the revolution.
The same cultish dynamic can be seen on the right. There, many profess nominal Christianity and yet demonstrate every day that they have left it far behind. Some exist in a world without meaning altogether, and that fate is never pretty. I saw this most vividly when examining the opioid epidemic. People who have lost religion and are coasting along on materialism find they have few interior resources to keep going when crisis hits. They have no place of refuge, no spiritual safe space from which to gain perspective, no God to turn to. Many have responded to the collapse of meaning in dark times by simply and logically numbing themselves to death, extinguishing existential pain through ever-stronger painkillers that ultimately kill the pain of life itself.
Yes, many Evangelicals are among the holiest and most quietly devoted people out there. Some have bravely resisted the cult. But their leaders have turned Christianity into a political and social identity, not a lived faith, and much of their flock — a staggering 81 percent voted for Trump — has signed on. They have tribalized a religion explicitly built by Jesus as anti-tribal. They have turned to idols — including their blasphemous belief in America as God’s chosen country. They have embraced wealth and nationalism as core goods, two ideas utterly anathema to Christ. They are indifferent to the destruction of the creation they say they believe God made. And because their faith is unmoored but their religious impulse is strong, they seek a replacement for religion. This is why they could suddenly rally to a cult called Trump. He may be the least Christian person in America, but his persona met the religious need their own faiths had ceased to provide. The terrible truth of the last three years is that the fresh appeal of a leader-cult has overwhelmed the fading truths of Christianity.
This is why they are so hard to reach or to persuade and why nothing that Trump does or could do changes their minds. You cannot argue logically with a religion — which is why you cannot really argue with social-justice activists either. And what’s interesting is how support for Trump is greater among those who do not regularly attend church than among those who do.
Meet the RIP Bullet: The Deadliest Ammo on Planet Earth?
Found when searching for "planet nine".
Watched Da Nang Dick Blumenthal on television spewing facts almost as accurate as his bravery in Vietnam (which he never saw). As the bullets whizzed by Da Nang Dicks head, as he was saving soldiers....
12,130 replies 8,369 retweets 30,113 likes
Donald J. Trump
Verified account @realDonaldTrump
....left and right, he then woke up from his dream screaming that HE LIED. Next time I go to Vietnam I will ask “the Dick” to travel with me!
10:58 AM - 8 Dec 2018
7,321 Retweets
26,881 Likes
Really, look at what you people elect!
Trump's "Fixer" Michael Cohen is going to prison for the crimes he committed at the direction of "Individual 1."
Who could Indivdual 1 be, I wonder.
On approximately June 16, 2015, Individual-1, for whom Cohen worked at the time, began an ultimately successful campaign for President of the United States.
Federal Prosecutors ‘Concluded that President of the United States Committed a Felony'
But now we’re seeing that in a court filing for the first time, which, as some legal observers have noted with varying emphasis on the fact, means federal prosecutors have concluded that Trump directed someone to commit a crime, which is a crime. Put another way, SDNY prosecutors believe the president directed and coordinated felonies.
And finally, some info about the lies Manafort told that lead to the destruction of his plea deal came out.
Festive Satanic statue added to Illinois statehouse
A satanic group has added its own statue to a series of displays in the government building of the US state of Illinois to mark the festive season.
Placed between a Christmas tree and a menorah, the four-foot sculpture depicts a snake coiled around an outstretched arm holding an apple.
It's the first display sponsored by the Chicago chapter of the Temple of Satan.
The state government said the temple had the same right as other religious groups to have a display.
"Under the Constitution, the First Amendment, people have a right to express their feelings, their thoughts," Dave Druker, spokesman for the Illinois secretary of state, told the State Journal-Register. "This recognises that."
The move has been criticised on social media by Illinois Family Action, an anti-abortion pressure group.
Thank you Satan, very cool.
See also: Netflix and Satanic Temple settle £38m lawsuit over Sabrina remake
The CBC has grabbed a brain and got it moving again!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/cbc-baby-its-cold-reinstate-1.4941087
So the loud minority is starting to be drowned out by the usually silent majority: good for all those who have brains.
Original:
So radio stations are banning "Baby, it's cold outside" because there are too many losers in the world.
My. God., People. Are. Stupid.
It's a really nice Christmas song about a girl wanting to stay with her man for....'cuddles', but she can't because society would call her a 'whore/slut' if she did.
She is wrestling with WANTING to stay but 'having' to leave because society is filled with losers.
Look:
"I really can't stay - Baby it's cold outside
I've got to go away - Baby it's cold outside
This evening has been - Been hoping that you'd drop in
So very nice - I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
My mother will start to worry - Beautiful, what's your hurry
My father will be pacing the floor - Listen to the fireplace roar
So really I'd better scurry - Beautiful, please don't hurry
Well Maybe just a half a drink more - Put some records on while I pour
The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there
Say, what's in this drink - No cabs to be had out there
I wish I knew how - Your eyes are like starlight now
To break this spell - I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell
I ought to say no, no, no, sir - Mind if I move a little closer
At least I'm gonna say that I tried - What's the sense in hurting my pride
I really can't stay - Baby don't hold out
Ahh, but it's cold outside
C'mon baby
I simply must go - Baby, it's cold outside
The answer is no - Ooh baby, it's cold outside
This welcome has been - I'm lucky that you dropped in
So nice and warm -- Look out the window at that storm
My sister will be suspicious - Man, your lips look so delicious
My brother will be there at the door - Waves upon a tropical shore
My maiden aunt's mind is vicious - Gosh your lips look delicious
Well maybe just a cigarette more - Never such a blizzard before
I've got to get home - Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there
Say, lend me your coat - It's up to your knees out there
You've really been grand - Your eyes are like starlight now
But don't you see - How can you do this thing to me
There's bound to be talk tomorrow - Making my life long sorrow
At least there will be plenty implied - If you caught pneumonia and died
I really can't stay - Get over that old out
Ahh, but it's cold outside
Baby it's cold outside"
Read it!
There are no rape drugs in her drink: she's making an excuse for not leaving, just like in the lines:
"But don't you see
There's bound to be talk tomorrow
At least there will be plenty implied
I really can't stay"
She wants to stay, but feels she can't.
Only stupid people could object to this song.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid people.
My. God.
Look what happened to Alex Jones. To Infowars. And to so many beautiful young lives. They call it DEMONETIZED. They call it DEPLATFORMED -- so sad.
When Facebook, Twitter, Apple (otherwise known as the iTunes, also known as Podcast) and YouTube did it to Alex, I said, don't do that, folks. I said, it's very dangerous. That so many Companys are totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. I won’t mention names but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and they’re making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow.
And guess what? Now they're telling me, "You can't post to this page." When I tweet on Soylent News. Can’t do this even if it means we must continue to hear Fake News like CNN, whose ratings have suffered gravely! People have to figure out what is real, and what is not, without censorship!
A second woman has come forward claiming that a Bladen County, N.C., electioneer paid her to collect absentee ballots for last month's midterm elections.
Cheryl Kinlaw told WSOCTV, a local news station in Charlotte, N.C., that Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. paid her $100 to collect ballots in their district, adding that Dowless “has been doing it for years."
Kinlaw said that she never mailed the ballots she collected and that she instead handed them over to Dowless. She said she was unaware that what she was doing was illegal.
Dowless has been named twice in sworn affidavits as someone who worked for Republican candidate Mark Harris's campaign as an independent contractor and has been at the center of an investigation into the results of the election in North Carolina's 9th District.
In November, Democrat Dan McCready conceded to Harris in their House race when he was down by approximately 700 votes.
But the elections board decided not to certify the results, citing “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail voting.”
WSOCTV reported that it has discovered what appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots in Bladen County.
Second woman says she was paid to collect absentee ballots in North Carolina House race
UPDATE:
Politically connected sex offender Jeffrey Epstein settles suit, averting victim testimony
A last-minute settlement has been reached in Florida in a long-running lawsuit involving a politically connected financier accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls.
The deal came Tuesday just before jury selection was to begin, and for now, it means none of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein will be able to testify.
Article text replaced:
A last-minute settlement was reached Tuesday in a long-running Florida lawsuit involving a politically connected financier accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, clearing the way for the victims’ lawyers to try to unravel a once-secret agreement that prevented federal criminal prosecution of the financier.
[...] Epstein could have faced a possible life sentence if federal prosecutors had pursued a draft 57-page indictment that was never filed. Now, Scarola and Edwards say that possibility still exists, and the victims — some of whom were only 13 or 14 when they were molested — may yet get their day in federal court amid a national #metoo movement that seeks to hold sexual harassers and abusers to account.
[...] The settlement reached Tuesday involved a lawsuit Epstein filed against Edwards almost a decade ago. Edwards filed a counterclaim, contending that Epstein sued him maliciously, trying to harm Edwards’ reputation and derail his work with Epstein’s own abuse victims.
Jeffrey Epstein apology deprives accusers of day in court
Until his disgrace, Epstein rubbed shoulders with the likes of former President Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew.
The money manager - the subject of a bombshell Miami Herald investigation last week - was accused of trafficking some 40 teenage girls.
Epstein eventually agreed a plea deal widely seen as extraordinarily lenient. His accusers never got the chance to testify.
The prosecutor criticised for letting Epstein off the hook was Alexander Acosta, who is now labour secretary in the Trump administration.
Lawmakers call for investigation into Labor Secretary Acosta for sex offender plea deal
The lawmakers, which include 10 representatives from Florida, are asking the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General to investigate the "circumstances" surrounding the nonprosecution agreement Acosta entered into with Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy Florida investor who was convicted on two counts of prostitution in 2007.
A new Miami Herald investigation provides details into the deal Acosta and Epstein struck after Epstein was accused of sexually abusing dozens of young girls, many of whom were minors. Epstein was facing a life sentence in federal prison but only served 13 months in county jail as a result of the plea deal with Acosta.