FairAndUNbalanced.com

 

From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

In IFB churches, pastors are often considered God’s bloodhounds. Supposedly, they have a nose for sin — well a nose for every sin but their own. According to Domelle, people distance themselves from the “man of God” because they fear he will discover their sin. Wait a minute, Bruce, I thought people’s sins were between them and God. Maybe, but pastors of IFB churches are the equivalent of the Pope. They are Christ’s representatives on earth, given the duty and responsibility to suss out the sinful behavior of congregants.

The “man of God” oversees the lives of church members, both at church and home. His eyes are ever watching for “sin.” What is “sin” you ask? Why, whatever the man of God says it is. His interpretation of the Bible is the standard by which all things are judged. Interpreting the Bible differently is viewed as rebellion against not only God, but the “man of God.” One pastor I knew well told me, “how can a man of God rule over his church unless he rules over EVERYTHING?” His question reveals the fact that authoritarianism breeds absolutism. The pastor is absolutely right all the time. Why? Because he is the “man of God.” Is it any wonder that some people consider the IFB church movement a cult?

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From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

It seems like the Republicans were indeed blowing smoke when they claimed they had internal polls showing that impeachment was increasing Donald Trump’s popularity. Because the only polls that actually matter are the ones that happen on an election day, like the one yesterday.

On Monday, the day before the election, Trump held a rally in Kentucky in support of the current Republican governor, Matt Bevin. Trump even begged the attendees to vote for Bevin, saying “You can’t let that happen to me!” because it would mean “Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world.” After all, in 2016 Trump won Kentucky by a huge 30 points.

It didn’t work.

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From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

No, this thing is the antithesis of all of it.

This isn’t Christianity—at least, not if we’re going to listen to Jesus.

Where Jesus implored Christians to love and to care for and to show hospitality to their neighbors—this drives people to fear them and have contempt for them and send them back and wall them off.

Where Jesus directed Christians to pray and to give in quiet and secret—this is a shameless, staged photo op to engender applause.

Where Jesus told Christians that they would be defined by the way in which they lavishly love humanity—this is a malicious assault on nearly all of it.

Where Jesus directed Christians to live humbly and take the lowest place—this is arrogance and boasting and self-promotion.

Where Jesus fed multitudes and healed sick without asking for repayment—this is healthcare repeals and canceled school lunch programs and “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps disdain for the needy.

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From The Onion:

“Time and time again, we have seen this radical agitator seeking to curtail the Second Amendment rights of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam by twisting their lawfully purchased firearms into a big bow,” said CEO Wayne LaPierre, telling reporters that the Looney Tunes star’s history of contorting even low-capacity firearms such as shotguns was depriving everyday citizens of their freedoms and earning him the lobby’s lowest rating.

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From nojo:

Stick to sports. Pay no attention to the money behind the curtain. Pay no attention to what that money does to a program, what it does to the people running the program, what it does to the community surrounding it. Wait for a scandal, then confine yourself to the specific people caught up in it. Ignore the money that bred those conditions in the first place.

While you’re there, ignore every city whose taxpayers have been soaked by professional teams whose wealthy owners would rather have someone else pay for new stadiums. Ignore the fact that professional sports is a big business run by raving socialists. Don’t desecrate that taxpayer-funded field with your political gestures. But don’t forget to enjoy the color guards and military flyovers!

Deadspin, a site we rarely read because we have no interest in sports, approached sports with that attitude, sports in society, sports as part of a larger whole, an integrated whole, at least in our culture. You cannot look at sports without seeing the rest. You cannot help seeing how sports affect the rest, and how the rest affects sports. And you cannot help writing about what you see, how you see it. That’s what writers are supposed to do. Writers don’t stick to sports because sports don’t stick to sports. Hey, you hear how the President of the United States got roundly booed at a prominent sports event? Again?

Sports have never stuck to sports.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

The chart to the right shows what Trump has tweeted about. Most of the tweets were attacks on people or organizations that made him mad.

Note the tweets at the bottom of the chart. 16 times he has tweeted that he is everyone’s favorite president. That shows that he lives in his own bubble of alternate reality. No respectable poll has shown at any time since he was sworn in that a majority liked him as a person, thought he was doing a good job, or considered him to be honest and trustworthy.

– See the Chart at jobsanger –
 

 

From Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

It’s pretty clear, in reading articles about how Trump gripes about the press being unfair, that to Trump, being “fair” to him is covering Trump like a slavish toady, an all-in bootlicker.

His definition of fairness is no more evolved than that of a toddler who has just learned the word.

It’s pretty pathetic, really.

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From The Journal of Improbable Research:

Stories that only have six words. Are they truly a ‘Narrative Genre’? David Fishelov, believes that they maybe. He’s a professor of comparative literature. At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. See his essay on the subject. ‘The Poetics of Six-Word Stories’

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From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

But why so much obstruction? For what? Why? What is Trump hiding with all the vehemence he reserves for his net worth and the real story of his vital statistics?

The polls and the boos and the news show that something is changing in how Trump is viewed. But for now, he stays the same: in denial, and thinking he is a beloved leader who can survive his multiple scandals by changing address or brazening them out. I don’t expect a lot from Trump. I expect a lot from us all, in voting, finally saying the best, most brutal kiss-off “Goodbye” to him. The final, most raucous, boos.

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From Andy Borowitz:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a move that raised eyebrows in the nation’s capital, Donald Trump on Saturday secured a note from a podiatrist exempting him from impeachment.

The note, written by Trump’s personal podiatrist, Dr. Harland Dorrinson, said that the strain of undergoing impeachment could “catastrophically inflame” a foot malady that has bedevilled Trump since the nineteen-sixties.

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