The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But
- Thread starter lkwdblds
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Patron Meritorious
Bird deaths
The problem I have with photos of "chem trails" is they behave so much like warm vapor contrails in that they expand or bloom in very still cold air.
Then the other thing is; Even if the US Air force was spraying Phosgene as Chem trails, the dilution factor is enormous! They would have to fly sorties of C130 tankers over us every few hours to have enough concentration to harm us. and also these contrail/chem-trails are usually at high altitudes where the air is cold. Perhaps 40,000 feet over 5 miles high.
One of the ways to neutralize phosgene gas is ammonia. With so many dairies, pig farms and poultry farms across the landmasses it seems like there would be a lot of airborne ammonia from urine.
According to Wikipedia, Phosgene is made naturally by combining Carbon Monoxide, chlorine and UV from sunlight. I don't know but wouldn't there be a lot of phosgene gas made in areas near freeways and chlorinated swimming pools?
Also this seems to me as "hoax-like" and opportunistic for the following reasons: The name bandied around is "operation Black Swan" piggybacking on the PR of a movie coming out of the same name "Black Swan". The effects of Phosgene is pneumonia or bronchial irritation Cold like symptoms. Opportune timing, right in the winter time during cold and flu season between November and February. Anyone showing cold or flu symptoms may become fearful they have been gassed.
snipped from Wikipedia>
Phosgene is an insidious poison as the odor may not be noticed and symptoms may be slow to appear.[13] Phosgene can be detected at 0.4 ppm, which is four times the Threshold Limit Value. Its high toxicity arises by the action of the phosgene on the proteins in the pulmonary alveoli, which are the site of gas exchange: Their damage disrupts the blood-air barrier, causing suffocation. It reacts with the amines of the proteins, causing crosslinking via formation of urea-like linkages, in accord with the reactions discussed above. Phosgene detection badges are worn by those at risk of exposure.[2]
Sodium bicarbonate may be used to neutralize liquid spills of phosgene. Gaseous spills may be mitigated with ammonia.[14]
[edit] References
The problem I have with photos of "chem trails" is they behave so much like warm vapor contrails in that they expand or bloom in very still cold air.
Then the other thing is; Even if the US Air force was spraying Phosgene as Chem trails, the dilution factor is enormous! They would have to fly sorties of C130 tankers over us every few hours to have enough concentration to harm us. and also these contrail/chem-trails are usually at high altitudes where the air is cold. Perhaps 40,000 feet over 5 miles high.
One of the ways to neutralize phosgene gas is ammonia. With so many dairies, pig farms and poultry farms across the landmasses it seems like there would be a lot of airborne ammonia from urine.
According to Wikipedia, Phosgene is made naturally by combining Carbon Monoxide, chlorine and UV from sunlight. I don't know but wouldn't there be a lot of phosgene gas made in areas near freeways and chlorinated swimming pools?
Also this seems to me as "hoax-like" and opportunistic for the following reasons: The name bandied around is "operation Black Swan" piggybacking on the PR of a movie coming out of the same name "Black Swan". The effects of Phosgene is pneumonia or bronchial irritation Cold like symptoms. Opportune timing, right in the winter time during cold and flu season between November and February. Anyone showing cold or flu symptoms may become fearful they have been gassed.
snipped from Wikipedia>
Phosgene is an insidious poison as the odor may not be noticed and symptoms may be slow to appear.[13] Phosgene can be detected at 0.4 ppm, which is four times the Threshold Limit Value. Its high toxicity arises by the action of the phosgene on the proteins in the pulmonary alveoli, which are the site of gas exchange: Their damage disrupts the blood-air barrier, causing suffocation. It reacts with the amines of the proteins, causing crosslinking via formation of urea-like linkages, in accord with the reactions discussed above. Phosgene detection badges are worn by those at risk of exposure.[2]
Sodium bicarbonate may be used to neutralize liquid spills of phosgene. Gaseous spills may be mitigated with ammonia.[14]
[edit] References
Last edited:
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
from Sunday's Washington Post
Five myths about why the South seceded
By James W. Loewen
Sunday, January 9, 2011; 12:00 AM
One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we're still fighting it -- or at least fighting over its history. I've polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States' rights? Tariffs and taxes?
As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war's various battles -- from Fort Sumter to Appomattox -- let's first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.
1. The South seceded over states' rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states' rights -- that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina's secession convention adopted a "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." It noted "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery" and protested that Northern states had failed to "fulfill their constitutional obligations" by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states' rights, birthed the Civil War.
South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed "slavery transit." In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer -- and South Carolina's delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. "Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."
The South's opposition to states' rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in power in Washington always oppose states' rights. Doing so preserves their own.
2. Secession was about tariffs and taxes.
During the nadir of post-civil-war race relations - the terrible years after 1890 when town after town across the North became all-white "sundown towns" and state after state across the South prevented African Americans from voting - "anything but slavery" explanations of the Civil War gained traction. To this day Confederate sympathizers successfully float this false claim, along with their preferred name for the conflict: the War Between the States. At the infamous Secession Ball in South Carolina, hosted in December by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, "the main reasons for secession were portrayed as high tariffs and Northern states using Southern tax money to build their own infrastructure," The Washington Post reported.
These explanations are flatly wrong. High tariffs had prompted the Nullification Crisis in 1831-33, when, after South Carolina demanded the right to nullify federal laws or secede in protest, President Andrew Jackson threatened force. No state joined the movement, and South Carolina backed down. Tariffs were not an issue in 1860, and Southern states said nothing about them. Why would they? Southerners had written the tariff of 1857, under which the nation was functioning. Its rates were lower than at any point since 1816.
3. Most white Southerners didn't own slaves, so they wouldn't secede for slavery.
Indeed, most white Southern families had no slaves. Less than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for example, and that proportion was smaller still in whiter states such as Virginia and Tennessee. It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.
However, two ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy now.
Second and more important, belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: "It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians." Given this belief, most white Southerners -- and many Northerners, too -- could not envision life in black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were in chains. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Henry Benning, trying to persuade the Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not protected. "The consequence will be that our men will be all exterminated or expelled to wander as vagabonds over a hostile earth, and as for our women, their fate will be too horrible to contemplate even in fancy." Thus, secession would maintain not only slavery but the prevailing ideology of white supremacy as well.
4. Abraham Lincoln went to war to end slavery.
Since the Civil War did end slavery, many Americans think abolition was the Union's goal. But the North initially went to war to hold the nation together. Abolition came later.
On Aug. 22, 1862, President Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Tribune that included the following passage: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."
However, Lincoln's own anti-slavery sentiment was widely known at the time. In the same letter, he went on: "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free." A month later, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish in his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
White Northerners' fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862.
Gradually, as Union soldiers found help from black civilians in the South and black recruits impressed white units with their bravery, many soldiers -- and those they wrote home to -- became abolitionists. By 1864, when Maryland voted to end slavery, soldiers' and sailors' votes made the difference.
5. The South couldn't have made it long as a slave society.
Slavery was hardly on its last legs in 1860. That year, the South produced almost 75 percent of all U.S. exports. Slaves were worth more than all the manufacturing companies and railroads in the nation. No elite class in history has ever given up such an immense interest voluntarily. Moreover, Confederates eyed territorial expansion into Mexico and Cuba. Short of war, who would have stopped them - or forced them to abandon slavery?
To claim that slavery would have ended of its own accord by the mid-20th century is impossible to disprove but difficult to accept. In 1860, slavery was growing more entrenched in the South. Unpaid labor makes for big profits, and the Southern elite was growing ever richer. Freeing slaves was becoming more and more difficult for their owners, as was the position of free blacks in the United States, North as well as South. For the foreseeable future, slavery looked secure. Perhaps a civil war was required to end it.
As we commemorate the sesquicentennial of that war, let us take pride this time - as we did not during the centennial - that secession on slavery's behalf failed.
[email protected]
Sociologist James W. Loewen is the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and co-editor, with Edward Sebesta, of "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader."
Five myths about why the South seceded
By James W. Loewen
Sunday, January 9, 2011; 12:00 AM
One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we're still fighting it -- or at least fighting over its history. I've polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States' rights? Tariffs and taxes?
As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war's various battles -- from Fort Sumter to Appomattox -- let's first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.
1. The South seceded over states' rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states' rights -- that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina's secession convention adopted a "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." It noted "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery" and protested that Northern states had failed to "fulfill their constitutional obligations" by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states' rights, birthed the Civil War.
South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed "slavery transit." In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer -- and South Carolina's delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. "Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."
The South's opposition to states' rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in power in Washington always oppose states' rights. Doing so preserves their own.
2. Secession was about tariffs and taxes.
During the nadir of post-civil-war race relations - the terrible years after 1890 when town after town across the North became all-white "sundown towns" and state after state across the South prevented African Americans from voting - "anything but slavery" explanations of the Civil War gained traction. To this day Confederate sympathizers successfully float this false claim, along with their preferred name for the conflict: the War Between the States. At the infamous Secession Ball in South Carolina, hosted in December by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, "the main reasons for secession were portrayed as high tariffs and Northern states using Southern tax money to build their own infrastructure," The Washington Post reported.
These explanations are flatly wrong. High tariffs had prompted the Nullification Crisis in 1831-33, when, after South Carolina demanded the right to nullify federal laws or secede in protest, President Andrew Jackson threatened force. No state joined the movement, and South Carolina backed down. Tariffs were not an issue in 1860, and Southern states said nothing about them. Why would they? Southerners had written the tariff of 1857, under which the nation was functioning. Its rates were lower than at any point since 1816.
3. Most white Southerners didn't own slaves, so they wouldn't secede for slavery.
Indeed, most white Southern families had no slaves. Less than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for example, and that proportion was smaller still in whiter states such as Virginia and Tennessee. It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.
However, two ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy now.
Second and more important, belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: "It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians." Given this belief, most white Southerners -- and many Northerners, too -- could not envision life in black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were in chains. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Henry Benning, trying to persuade the Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not protected. "The consequence will be that our men will be all exterminated or expelled to wander as vagabonds over a hostile earth, and as for our women, their fate will be too horrible to contemplate even in fancy." Thus, secession would maintain not only slavery but the prevailing ideology of white supremacy as well.
4. Abraham Lincoln went to war to end slavery.
Since the Civil War did end slavery, many Americans think abolition was the Union's goal. But the North initially went to war to hold the nation together. Abolition came later.
On Aug. 22, 1862, President Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Tribune that included the following passage: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."
However, Lincoln's own anti-slavery sentiment was widely known at the time. In the same letter, he went on: "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free." A month later, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish in his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
White Northerners' fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862.
Gradually, as Union soldiers found help from black civilians in the South and black recruits impressed white units with their bravery, many soldiers -- and those they wrote home to -- became abolitionists. By 1864, when Maryland voted to end slavery, soldiers' and sailors' votes made the difference.
5. The South couldn't have made it long as a slave society.
Slavery was hardly on its last legs in 1860. That year, the South produced almost 75 percent of all U.S. exports. Slaves were worth more than all the manufacturing companies and railroads in the nation. No elite class in history has ever given up such an immense interest voluntarily. Moreover, Confederates eyed territorial expansion into Mexico and Cuba. Short of war, who would have stopped them - or forced them to abandon slavery?
To claim that slavery would have ended of its own accord by the mid-20th century is impossible to disprove but difficult to accept. In 1860, slavery was growing more entrenched in the South. Unpaid labor makes for big profits, and the Southern elite was growing ever richer. Freeing slaves was becoming more and more difficult for their owners, as was the position of free blacks in the United States, North as well as South. For the foreseeable future, slavery looked secure. Perhaps a civil war was required to end it.
As we commemorate the sesquicentennial of that war, let us take pride this time - as we did not during the centennial - that secession on slavery's behalf failed.
[email protected]
Sociologist James W. Loewen is the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and co-editor, with Edward Sebesta, of "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader."
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Also from the Washington Post
http://finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=5fa343ed-87eb-49b0-82b9-28a9502910f7
Televangelist investigation: What is a church? Who is a minister? Should the tax man decide?
By David Waters
Do you know how your church -- or the megachurch down the street -- spends its tax-exempt money? Do you know how much tax-exempt compensation your pastor receives or how he or she spend their money?
Shouldn't you know? Shouldn't the the government to find out for you?
Those are some of the intriguing and unsettling questions raised by a must-read staff review released last week by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).
The 66-page report, filled with references to nearly every major religious figure in America from Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell to Rick Warren, concludes Grassley's three-year investigation of six media-based, multi-million-dollar "ministries."
The report draws no particular conclusions. And because Grassley's tenure as ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is ending, it's unlikely the report will lead to significant changes.
Nonetheless, it should be required reading for every person who sits in a pew, stands in a pulpit, or pays the tax man.
Two of the controversial moneychangers cooperated with Grassley's investigation: Joyce Meyer Ministries and Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church.
Four did not (without consequences): Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church; Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church/Eddie L. Long Ministries; Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries; and the aptly-named Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International/Creflo Dollar Ministries.
"The number and types of entities, including private airports and aircraft leasing companies, raises concerns about the use of (those organizations') tax-exempt status to avoid taxation," Grassley's staff reported. "However, given the four churches' refusal to provide tax information, we are unable to determine whether and the extent to which they are reporting and paying taxes on income earned in those entities."
Grassley's staff also got distracted by health-care reform and several other more pressing matters. So they didn't nail (nor shame, apparently) any of the "prosperity gospel" moneychangers they went after. Too bad.
But they did address the larger issues.
"While the majority of churches and religious organizations operate with policies and procedures that make them accountable to their members, it is the small minority that don't that are subject to scrutiny by the members and the public, the press," the staff reported.
"These outliers present tax policy issues for consideration."
Those issues should concern everyone.
Two of the most significant:
What is a church?
"Currently, anyone can set up an organization, call the organization a church, solicit tax-deductible contributions, and -- unless the organization voluntarily applies for recognition of tax-exempt status or files annual returns - that organization will be invisible to the IRS and operate virtually without government oversight because no state requires religious organizations to register and file annual financial reports with the state attorney general," the staff reported.
Under current tax law, religious organizations that are not churches are required to file IRS Form 990 and report their sources of income and expendutures annually.
Churches -- and organizations deemed "integrated auxiliaries of the church" -- are not required to do so.
"This lack of governmental, independent or denominational oversight is troubling when considering that churches can reach the size of large taxable corporations, control numerous taxable and non-taxable subsidiaries, and bestow Wall Street-size benefits on their ministers," the staff reported.
The staff report paid particular attention to "Bishop" Eddie L. Long and his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Atlanta's largest congregation with a membership of about 25,000. Its main tax-exempt campus "includes a $50 million, 10,000-seat sanctuary, a Christian school of more than 200 students, bookstore, computer lab, and the fully equipped Samson Fitness Center with racquetball and basketball courts and saunas."
Among its tax-exempt "integrated auxilaries" is LongFellows Youth Academy. Last year, academy alumni filed suit against Long alleging sexual misconduct when they were minors. Long has denied the charges.
Long's "ministry" has found other ways around the tax code, the staff noted. Long dissolved Bishop Eddie L. Long Ministries, Inc. (BELL) in 2002 and transferred BELL's assets to Long's church, the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church -- "so those activities would not be subject to public scrutiny."
Who is a minister?
According to tax law, "ministers of the gospel" are allowed to designate a portion of compensation as a housing allowance and exclude that amount from income.
Megachurch minister Rick Warren, for example, bought a house for $360,000 in 1992. In 1993, the church paid Warren $77,663, and Warren excluded the entire amount from his income as a housing allowance," according to the report.
Other "ministers" claim the excemption on two or three homes. And many "ministers" who claim the excemption are not church pastors, but rather "ministers" for evangelistic organizations or church-affiliated ministries.
"The value of the parsonage and housing allowances is separate from the issue of who is a 'minister' eligible for the exclusion," the staff reported.
"Some of the organizations reviewed by the Committee provide parsonage or housing allowances to family members and employees who may be deemed ministers solely to be eligible for the income tax exclusion. . . "
"Should the parsonage allowance be limited to a single primary residence or to a specific dollar amount?"
As J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine told Grassley's staff, "Some pastors take advantage of a lack of denominational accountability to enrich themselves, churches . . . There are many independent churches out there today that are accountable to no one."
http://finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=5fa343ed-87eb-49b0-82b9-28a9502910f7
Televangelist investigation: What is a church? Who is a minister? Should the tax man decide?
By David Waters
Do you know how your church -- or the megachurch down the street -- spends its tax-exempt money? Do you know how much tax-exempt compensation your pastor receives or how he or she spend their money?
Shouldn't you know? Shouldn't the the government to find out for you?
Those are some of the intriguing and unsettling questions raised by a must-read staff review released last week by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).
The 66-page report, filled with references to nearly every major religious figure in America from Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell to Rick Warren, concludes Grassley's three-year investigation of six media-based, multi-million-dollar "ministries."
The report draws no particular conclusions. And because Grassley's tenure as ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is ending, it's unlikely the report will lead to significant changes.
Nonetheless, it should be required reading for every person who sits in a pew, stands in a pulpit, or pays the tax man.
Two of the controversial moneychangers cooperated with Grassley's investigation: Joyce Meyer Ministries and Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church.
Four did not (without consequences): Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church; Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church/Eddie L. Long Ministries; Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries; and the aptly-named Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International/Creflo Dollar Ministries.
"The number and types of entities, including private airports and aircraft leasing companies, raises concerns about the use of (those organizations') tax-exempt status to avoid taxation," Grassley's staff reported. "However, given the four churches' refusal to provide tax information, we are unable to determine whether and the extent to which they are reporting and paying taxes on income earned in those entities."
Grassley's staff also got distracted by health-care reform and several other more pressing matters. So they didn't nail (nor shame, apparently) any of the "prosperity gospel" moneychangers they went after. Too bad.
But they did address the larger issues.
"While the majority of churches and religious organizations operate with policies and procedures that make them accountable to their members, it is the small minority that don't that are subject to scrutiny by the members and the public, the press," the staff reported.
"These outliers present tax policy issues for consideration."
Those issues should concern everyone.
Two of the most significant:
What is a church?
"Currently, anyone can set up an organization, call the organization a church, solicit tax-deductible contributions, and -- unless the organization voluntarily applies for recognition of tax-exempt status or files annual returns - that organization will be invisible to the IRS and operate virtually without government oversight because no state requires religious organizations to register and file annual financial reports with the state attorney general," the staff reported.
Under current tax law, religious organizations that are not churches are required to file IRS Form 990 and report their sources of income and expendutures annually.
Churches -- and organizations deemed "integrated auxiliaries of the church" -- are not required to do so.
"This lack of governmental, independent or denominational oversight is troubling when considering that churches can reach the size of large taxable corporations, control numerous taxable and non-taxable subsidiaries, and bestow Wall Street-size benefits on their ministers," the staff reported.
The staff report paid particular attention to "Bishop" Eddie L. Long and his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Atlanta's largest congregation with a membership of about 25,000. Its main tax-exempt campus "includes a $50 million, 10,000-seat sanctuary, a Christian school of more than 200 students, bookstore, computer lab, and the fully equipped Samson Fitness Center with racquetball and basketball courts and saunas."
Among its tax-exempt "integrated auxilaries" is LongFellows Youth Academy. Last year, academy alumni filed suit against Long alleging sexual misconduct when they were minors. Long has denied the charges.
Long's "ministry" has found other ways around the tax code, the staff noted. Long dissolved Bishop Eddie L. Long Ministries, Inc. (BELL) in 2002 and transferred BELL's assets to Long's church, the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church -- "so those activities would not be subject to public scrutiny."
Who is a minister?
According to tax law, "ministers of the gospel" are allowed to designate a portion of compensation as a housing allowance and exclude that amount from income.
Megachurch minister Rick Warren, for example, bought a house for $360,000 in 1992. In 1993, the church paid Warren $77,663, and Warren excluded the entire amount from his income as a housing allowance," according to the report.
Other "ministers" claim the excemption on two or three homes. And many "ministers" who claim the excemption are not church pastors, but rather "ministers" for evangelistic organizations or church-affiliated ministries.
"The value of the parsonage and housing allowances is separate from the issue of who is a 'minister' eligible for the exclusion," the staff reported.
"Some of the organizations reviewed by the Committee provide parsonage or housing allowances to family members and employees who may be deemed ministers solely to be eligible for the income tax exclusion. . . "
"Should the parsonage allowance be limited to a single primary residence or to a specific dollar amount?"
As J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine told Grassley's staff, "Some pastors take advantage of a lack of denominational accountability to enrich themselves, churches . . . There are many independent churches out there today that are accountable to no one."
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Steve Jobs to join Murdoch on stage to unveil iPad paper
By Michael Calderone & Joe Pompeo
Rupert Murdoch will unveil News Corp.'s much-anticipated iPad newspaper onstage this month with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, The Cutline has learned.
The two media moguls will appear together at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, according to a source familiar with preparations for the event. The launch date is expected to be Jan. 19, but that may change.
Known as The Daily, Murdoch's iPad publication has been the talk of the media world over the past couple months, and the News Corp. chief has even dubbed it his "No. 1 most exciting project." The hush-hush project has been taking shape at the company's Manhattan headquarters, but it will also have staffers in Los Angeles.
Jesse Angelo left Murdoch's New York Post, where he was second in command, to run The Daily, and former Viacom digital distribution boss Greg Clayman came aboard to run the business side. Murdoch is reportedly willing to sink $30 million into the project.
The cash infusion has spurred The Daily into a high-profile hiring spree over the past couple of months. So far, Angelo and his team have brought in a number of top-notch journalists from media outlets such as the New Yorker, the Daily Beast, Forbes, AOL and Politico.
But while news of the editorial hires has steadily leaked out, The Daily's brass have remained tight-lipped about the launch.
A bit of information about the launch has trickled out, though. Forbes first reported earlier Monday on the Jan. 19 launch date, which is two days later than previously expected. And WWD kicked off speculation that Murdoch and Jobs might roll out the project together, but those plans were never confirmed.
A spokesman for The Daily had no comment at this time. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
By Michael Calderone & Joe Pompeo
Rupert Murdoch will unveil News Corp.'s much-anticipated iPad newspaper onstage this month with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, The Cutline has learned.
The two media moguls will appear together at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, according to a source familiar with preparations for the event. The launch date is expected to be Jan. 19, but that may change.
Known as The Daily, Murdoch's iPad publication has been the talk of the media world over the past couple months, and the News Corp. chief has even dubbed it his "No. 1 most exciting project." The hush-hush project has been taking shape at the company's Manhattan headquarters, but it will also have staffers in Los Angeles.
Jesse Angelo left Murdoch's New York Post, where he was second in command, to run The Daily, and former Viacom digital distribution boss Greg Clayman came aboard to run the business side. Murdoch is reportedly willing to sink $30 million into the project.
The cash infusion has spurred The Daily into a high-profile hiring spree over the past couple of months. So far, Angelo and his team have brought in a number of top-notch journalists from media outlets such as the New Yorker, the Daily Beast, Forbes, AOL and Politico.
But while news of the editorial hires has steadily leaked out, The Daily's brass have remained tight-lipped about the launch.
A bit of information about the launch has trickled out, though. Forbes first reported earlier Monday on the Jan. 19 launch date, which is two days later than previously expected. And WWD kicked off speculation that Murdoch and Jobs might roll out the project together, but those plans were never confirmed.
A spokesman for The Daily had no comment at this time. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Background:
Alan Walter, when he was a lad, when he was in the Co$, and as he was dying, was a polarizing figure.
When he was about 10, some kids in Wales (as I remember) tried to kill him (literally).
I have a friend, who was Class Vl and a good auditor, met Alan in a hallway one day. Nothing was spoken between them. For no discernible reason, Alan gave my friend (who Alan didn't know) a glare that was so evil and malevolent, that my friend could bring it to mind 35 years later. He did not like Alan.
Two months before he died, he had his female assistant, Ceil, call a PC of mine, and tell the PC that I was the sole reason that Knowledgism never gained traction. Fifteen years ago, I had cleaned up a dozen or more Knowledgism Codees, who had gotten bad listing and nulling from Alan's "master processor," Eric Woolery. Some of the cases I didn't clean up included one person who died, others, who spent months being drunk. I told Alan that Eric couldn't audit his way out of a paper bag. Subsequently, Alan stopped promoting the codes, which had been a big money maker. Fifteen years later, he gave Eric the boot.
Alan could be well loved or hated.
My daughter gets very upset with anyone, who would say a bad word about him. He really helped her in her last lifetime. She reconnected with him when she was 15.
I am thinking of a time in 1969 when LRH ordered Phil Spickler and some others declared suppressive. Artie Maren, who was the GO in LA (and a top banana) showed Phil the note from Hubbard.-totally on the QT, and against orders.
I have been posting on the internet against the Co$ since the mid 1990s with my own name. The Co$ knows I'm not on their side. Nevertheless, I can phone friends or visit in person at CLO, OSA, and CC anytime I want. I have an amazing letter from XXXX that goes on for 12 pages how thankful he is to me for getting him into scientology. He has been in the SO for 38 years. The letter meant to be a grateful acknowledgement acted as a total cave in for me. Not everybody buys into the SP disconnect game/ mindset.
I would be guessing that all that i've said above could be said of LRH. I think his deliberate overwhelming devastating and destroying of others, combined with his charm and humor, and help of others formed a black / white personality (valence) in many of those near to him over the years.
I have seen this personality in several people who had close associations with him.
Alan Walter, when he was a lad, when he was in the Co$, and as he was dying, was a polarizing figure.
When he was about 10, some kids in Wales (as I remember) tried to kill him (literally).
I have a friend, who was Class Vl and a good auditor, met Alan in a hallway one day. Nothing was spoken between them. For no discernible reason, Alan gave my friend (who Alan didn't know) a glare that was so evil and malevolent, that my friend could bring it to mind 35 years later. He did not like Alan.
Two months before he died, he had his female assistant, Ceil, call a PC of mine, and tell the PC that I was the sole reason that Knowledgism never gained traction. Fifteen years ago, I had cleaned up a dozen or more Knowledgism Codees, who had gotten bad listing and nulling from Alan's "master processor," Eric Woolery. Some of the cases I didn't clean up included one person who died, others, who spent months being drunk. I told Alan that Eric couldn't audit his way out of a paper bag. Subsequently, Alan stopped promoting the codes, which had been a big money maker. Fifteen years later, he gave Eric the boot.
Alan could be well loved or hated.
My daughter gets very upset with anyone, who would say a bad word about him. He really helped her in her last lifetime. She reconnected with him when she was 15.
I am thinking of a time in 1969 when LRH ordered Phil Spickler and some others declared suppressive. Artie Maren, who was the GO in LA (and a top banana) showed Phil the note from Hubbard.-totally on the QT, and against orders.
I have been posting on the internet against the Co$ since the mid 1990s with my own name. The Co$ knows I'm not on their side. Nevertheless, I can phone friends or visit in person at CLO, OSA, and CC anytime I want. I have an amazing letter from XXXX that goes on for 12 pages how thankful he is to me for getting him into scientology. He has been in the SO for 38 years. The letter meant to be a grateful acknowledgement acted as a total cave in for me. Not everybody buys into the SP disconnect game/ mindset.
I would be guessing that all that i've said above could be said of LRH. I think his deliberate overwhelming devastating and destroying of others, combined with his charm and humor, and help of others formed a black / white personality (valence) in many of those near to him over the years.
I have seen this personality in several people who had close associations with him.
Hatshepsut
Crusader
The Chemtrails thread was originally started by me back in March of 09. I kept looking out my back door and seeing an extraordinary amout of markings in the sky about 4 miles north of Orlando International Airport. It seemed to go on twice a week then once a week and finally ended. On some days it was extremely criss crossed. Dozens of lanes at a 45 and 60 degree angles. Deliberate repetitive marking in the afternoons and early eveinings. Planes don't do that by a commercial airport usually. I had been living there for 8 yrs and had not noticed it before.
I got into it with SchwimmelPuckel and as he is an ex pilot he succeeded in making feel delusional. Ah, but men like to do that to me.
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=10173
This lady in the vid had my rapt attention until she got into the religion angle. However, lately I do believe there is a kind of astral war on regarding souls. And the people who are trying to farm and harness and corral souls would not be you and me. We do not think in those terms...that would be identifying with a somethingness that is made up of some etheric 'energy' . I've been reading up on this concept of a war in heaven for the custodial rights of our duely departed. And if religions have their own group soul for the worshipping collective it must have a lot of energy contained in it. Perhaps there are astral beings vampirizing intense group energies..
Back on topic;
I do think the military has too many secrets.
I saw so many damned briefings going on that were hush hush back in 2005. All Homeland Security stuff. These guys with military rank in their late 30s had their super clique. Talk was about border patrol and arresting criminals who were here illegally and working with the FBI on murders etc. Our one hand brings order and control and the other lets all the good work go down the drain. As the bartender I listened to all the chit chat from guys coming out of the huge conventions and sitting around waiting for a transport to take them to the fanciest of steakhouses. 
I don't trust our govt after eavesdropping on them. The military is an island unto themselves in certain ways. They do not answer to anyone in certain depts. They have NO respect for the masses. We are cattle and will not get in the way of any prime directives when it comes time for marshall law. What I find unbelievable is that some folks think they want to reduce the population or kill off humanity.
Couldn't prove it by me. :wink2: Today in the United States of America we have a 'cult' reverence for our reproductive organs. It gives the valuable final product that just about merits a purple heart in certain societal clusters. Replicating ourselves is respected to the tune of trillions in welfare debt. There is not the slightest hint of curtailing the financial incentives to do this in even the most unwelcoming of situations. NO. We are not trying to reduce our numbers here.I think there has to be critical mass for the final coup to take place. I also might come around to believing that those at the heart of this great liberal movement as she said ...are alien. Maybe the immense auric field created by that many people will be a type of 'food'. And if they're all scared and frightened that just pumps up the juice. Oh, this is making me cranky...
Nope. The absolute coup de grace requires that we are so deeply overhwelmed that we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have been 'invited' into a helplessness. Something is fishy.
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Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
That's a good service fac.
In other words, it takes slavery to make a civilization.
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
The Chemtrails thread was originally started by me back in March of 09. I kept looking out my back door and seeing an extraordinary amout of markings in the sky about 4 miles north of Orlando International Airport. It seemed to go on twice a week then once a week and finally ended. On some days it was extremely criss crossed. Dozens of lanes at a 45 and 60 degree angles. Deliberate repetitive marking in the afternoons and early eveinings. Planes don't do that by a commercial airport usually. I had been living there for 8 yrs and had not noticed it before.
I got into it with SchwimmelPuckel and as he is an ex pilot [1] he succeeded in making feel delusional. Ah, but men like to do that to me.
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=10173
This lady in the vid had my rapt attention until she got into the religion angle. However, lately I do believe there is a kind of astral war on regarding souls. And the people who are trying to farm and harness and corral souls would not be you and me. We do not think in those terms...that would be identifying with a somethingness that is made up of some etheric 'energy' . I've been reading up on this concept of a war in heaven for the custodial rights of our duely departed. And if religions have their own group soul for the worshipping collective it must have a lot of energy contained in it. [2] Perhaps there are astral beings vampirizing intense group energies..
Back on topic;
I do think the military has too many secrets.
What I find unbelievable is that some folks think they want to reduce the population or kill off humanity.
[4] I think there has to be critical mass for the final coup to take place. I also might come around to believing that those at the heart of this great liberal movement as she said ...are alien. Maybe the immense auric field created by that many people will be a type of 'food'. And if they're all scared and frightened that just pumps up the juice. Oh, this is making me cranky...
Nope. The absolute coup de grace requires that we are so deeply overhwelmed that we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have been 'invited' into a helplessness. Something is fishy.
1) If I should ever do that you may call me on it--in public, too. :wink2:
2) Perhaps. Perhaps it is just sociopaths, now grown up, playing King of the Mountain.
3) Ain't that the truth. I do not believe in conspiracy theory because I have never seen a group of human beings able to hold onto their secrets. Someone will always cause a leak. And humans are not that cooperative. There is always someone trying to rise to the top. There are groups dramatizing their personal and group ser facs. Domination, control, survival are significant dramatizations.
4) I agree. Maybe off-worlders, maybe some of us who are so strange as to seem out-of-this-world. I think we implant each other. I believe we don't need to go space opera to see what's going on. But we do need to be able to span attention units over a wide range of subjects and a wide timeframe to give anywhere accurate an evaluation. Then, the eval is one thing, the program to address the conclusions of it is quite something else.
lkwdblds
Crusader
Agreed!
To me, it was always apparent that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Back in Elementary School, around the 5th or 6th grade we studied the Missouri compromise of 1820. Maine was seeking admission to the USA (as a non slave state) while Missouri was also seeking admission. The Southern states had very powerful influence in congress in those days and they insisted that Missouri be admitted as a slave state. It was further agreed that in the future, to maintain the balance between slave and non slave states, states would come into the USA in pairs, one slave and one non slave. The only pair to be admitted before the Civil War was Michigan (free) and Arkansas (slave).
It does not make sense that the war was fought over States' Rights nor over taxes and tariffs. Factions on both sides would not risk tens of thousands of deaths on both sides and destruction of their infrastructures and entire way of life over either of these issues. This is especially apparent regarding State's Rights, as the article points out, the South not being willing to allow new territories to opt of of slavery based solely on states' rights.
The Southern States penchant for slavery was deeply ingrained and after the Civil War ended it continued in the form of Jim Crow laws for another 100 years and even today, vestiges of it still remain, though now, finally, to hold such views is drastically out of step with society. Only such a deep seated and deeply ingrained institution such as slavery had enough clout to cause the North and the South to go to war against one another and to fight against one another with such deep passion.
I have some sort of attraction to the Confederate States of America, even though I detest the concept of slavery. I don't know what it is that attracts me to that culture but here is an immortal musical jingle to remind us of those glory days of early America south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1IQkhia3jM
Lakey
To me, it was always apparent that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Back in Elementary School, around the 5th or 6th grade we studied the Missouri compromise of 1820. Maine was seeking admission to the USA (as a non slave state) while Missouri was also seeking admission. The Southern states had very powerful influence in congress in those days and they insisted that Missouri be admitted as a slave state. It was further agreed that in the future, to maintain the balance between slave and non slave states, states would come into the USA in pairs, one slave and one non slave. The only pair to be admitted before the Civil War was Michigan (free) and Arkansas (slave).
It does not make sense that the war was fought over States' Rights nor over taxes and tariffs. Factions on both sides would not risk tens of thousands of deaths on both sides and destruction of their infrastructures and entire way of life over either of these issues. This is especially apparent regarding State's Rights, as the article points out, the South not being willing to allow new territories to opt of of slavery based solely on states' rights.
The Southern States penchant for slavery was deeply ingrained and after the Civil War ended it continued in the form of Jim Crow laws for another 100 years and even today, vestiges of it still remain, though now, finally, to hold such views is drastically out of step with society. Only such a deep seated and deeply ingrained institution such as slavery had enough clout to cause the North and the South to go to war against one another and to fight against one another with such deep passion.
I have some sort of attraction to the Confederate States of America, even though I detest the concept of slavery. I don't know what it is that attracts me to that culture but here is an immortal musical jingle to remind us of those glory days of early America south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1IQkhia3jM
Lakey
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CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
the Morning Joe guy
I like Morning Joe on MSNBC. This article, while ostensibly on the subject of Republicans and Democrats can serve as an allegory for what goes on most recently here on ESMB. This thread is generally free from the hubbub. Nothing like a little respect used frequently.
Joe Scarborough Wants the Republican Party Back
Howard Kurtz – Mon Jan 10, 11:41 pm ET
NEW YORK – Joe Scarborough has been branded a turncoat by some in the GOP for taking on extremists. But the Giffords shooting shows he was right in calling for calm, the Morning Joe host tells Howard Kurtz.
Joe Scarborough was back in Washington, where he cheerfully admits he was a “bomb-thrower” of a congressman, using his privileges to walk onto the House floor for John Boehner’s swearing-in.
But Scarborough, who has begun to muse about running for office again, has become something of a scold toward his party, preaching like a reformed alcoholic that the Republicans shouldn’t make the mistakes that he and his fellow rebels did when they were savaging Bill Clinton.
“We had contempt for Clinton,” he says moments after wrapping his MSNBC morning show. “We thought he was a has-been. We thought we were going to run him out of town. And we were wrong. We overreached.”
Scarborough’s evolution from fiery Pensacola politician to television personality touting the virtues of civility says a great deal about how polarized both the capital and cable news have grown in the last decade. In taking on the likes of Sarah Palin, Scarborough has been branded a turncoat by some in the GOP. In rejecting the shouting-heads format, he has separated himself from the reigning ethos of his liberal network. And in dominating what has become the breakfast salon of the Beltway elite, he has been accused of sexism toward co-host Mika Brzezinski.
The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people in Tucson left Scarborough shaken—and his wife, Susan, in tears—but added resonance to the message he has been peddling. “Nobody can find a direct link to a Sarah Palin ad or a Michele Bachmann statement or the extreme rants from the left,” he says. “But it serves as a very clear warning to everyone involved in politics that there are unbalanced people out there who may seize on any words they hear and the consequences may be devastating.
“Timothy McVeigh didn’t come to his conclusions about government in a vacuum.” While the case of Arizona gunman Jared Loughner is very different, he says, “we warned for three years that those who are most affected by the harsh language are people who are detached from reality and can hear the ranting on cable or in parts of the blogosphere.”
Scarborough did not return to the Hill last week out of any great love for Boehner; he also attended Nancy Pelosi’s swearing-in four years ago. When he was in Congress, Scarborough recalls, Boehner “was part of the leadership we were going after. He golfed a lot. He was pretty tight with the lobbying community. He was establishment Washington. That’s just not the world we ran in.”
The Giffords shooting “serves as a very clear warning to everyone involved in politics that there are unbalanced people out there who may seize on any words they hear and the consequences may be devastating.”
The host of Morning Joe portrays himself as unchanged since he was elected with the Class of 1994—except in stylistic terms. “People on the hard right think I’m a sellout,” he says, clad in his TV uniform of navy blazer, white shirt, and red tie, “and yet they can’t name one issue where I’ve changed ideologically. Deals don’t get done if you’re constantly insulting the other side. I’ve told them it’s counterproductive to call Obama a Marxist. I caught so much flak by calling out Republicans when a few of them, like Sarah Palin, made things up like death panels, or obsessing over his birth certificate.”
Other Republicans have declined to take on Palin, says Scarborough, because “they’re just scared. They want her voters.”
Oddly enough, Scarborough refuses to acknowledge that the GOP center of gravity has moved to the right, which seems beyond dispute. Perhaps he views the Tea Party movement as an echo of his renegade brand of politics in the Gingrich House. But his gang eventually compromised with Clinton on a balanced budget and welfare reform, and Scarborough says he’s since had “several great talks” with the former president, who invariably thanks him for being fair to Hillary in 2008.
Despite dropping hints about a future campaign, possibly a presidential one, “I’m not crazy about the idea right now,” Scarborough says. “I’m going to give my party one more chance and see if they’re really serious about balancing the budget. I’m influencing the debate more now than by being the 100th-ranking senator.”
The tension between perpetual outrage and thoughtful debate has played out in his cable career as well. Scarborough quit Congress in 2001 when, after a divorce, one of his teenage sons was having problems, and two years later he launched the prime-time show Scarborough Country. His new bosses, he says, wanted him “to be MSNBC’s version of Bill O’Reilly. They kept pushing. After a year I realized it just wasn’t in me.” Scarborough recalls an incident in which a network executive “yelled” at him for being polite to a female ambassador on the program. His response? “I’m sorry, I’m from the South. I don’t scream and insult women.”
He had to deal with a different kind of woman when he pushed Brzezinski, a longtime CBS News correspondent, for the morning program he launched in 2007. “NBC didn’t want her on the show,” Scarborough says, deeming it a bad fit.
Once he got his way, the duo had to work out an on-air relationship. “He definitely realized it’s not productive to be yelling at each other,” says Brzezinski, sitting next to Scarborough but waiting until this moment to jump in. “We’re not perfect. It’s hard to strike a civil, balanced tone when you feel strongly about things.”
Scarborough says they have gotten into heated arguments twice—over the Bush administration’s interrogation of terror suspects and a Michelle Obama campaign speech—continuing the debate off the air.
“Debate’s a nice way to put it,” she says.
“We’re not Zen about this stuff,” he says.
“It’s easier to scream, actually,” she says.
They have also fought MSNBC management, which “wanted us to be a bit lighter and not do heavy news for three hours,” says Scarborough, who is not averse to wandering into the weeds of health-care policy. “They wanted us to do trench collapses and Paris Hilton. We just kept saying no.”
Scarborough, who occasionally slips into rants, basically drives the televised conversation and interrogates the guests, needling Brzezinski and sometimes trampling her in the process. A recent New Republic article titled “The Sexism of Morning Joe” complained that “Brzezinski seems to have settled into a deferential role,” her dissents reduced to little more than “eye-rolling.” Brzezinski isn’t reticent about responding.
“It’s called Morning Joe, not Scarborough-Brzezinski,” she says. “My role is different. Sometimes I don’t do as well as I’d like, and I take responsibility. It’s not Joe, it’s me needing to bring it to the table.”
Scarborough says his partner, as a career journalist, is less comfortable in the opinion arena. “I said, ‘You’re going to have to get out there a lot more. You’re going to make me look like a bully.’”
When her conservative co-host is tangling with five liberal guests on the set—not an uncommon occurrence, if Pat Buchanan isn’t around—Brzezinski sees no need to jump in. “I’m comfortable,” she says. The critics “are acting as if I’m some kind of victim. It’s a made-up story.”
Brzezinski views the show as an “island” amid the cable craziness, and Scarborough admits that cable contributes to the hyperpartisan talk he decries—but declines to discuss specifics or whether his network is a prime offender. There are, apparently, limits to his candor.
Morning Joe beat CNN’s American Morning for the first time in 2010, 387,000 viewers to 310,000, though both are far behind Fox & Friends and its more than 1 million viewers. The show has become a regular stop for administration officials, members of Congress, and such journalists as Mark Halperin, Jon Meacham, Peggy Noonan, and Bob Woodward (and Daily Beast Editor in Chief Tina Brown). So why would Scarborough flirt with the idea of giving up such a platform?
“I love what I’m doing,” he says. “But I’ve always said the greatest job I ever had was when I represented Florida’s 1st District in Congress.”
That, however, was a decade ago. Scarborough, who rails against the likes of Glenn Beck and occasionally says nice things about President Obama, could find himself out of step with today’s GOP culture if he ventures back into the arena.
“If my Republican Party really thinks Sarah Palin is the best Republican candidate in 2012, or believes a talk-show host should be calling the president a racist”—he pauses here—“that’s not my party.”
Howard Kurtz is The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief. He also hosts CNN's weekly media program Reliable Sources on Sundays at 11 a.m. ET. The longtime media reporter and columnist for The Washington Post, Kurtz is the author of five books.
I like Morning Joe on MSNBC. This article, while ostensibly on the subject of Republicans and Democrats can serve as an allegory for what goes on most recently here on ESMB. This thread is generally free from the hubbub. Nothing like a little respect used frequently.
Joe Scarborough Wants the Republican Party Back
Howard Kurtz – Mon Jan 10, 11:41 pm ET
NEW YORK – Joe Scarborough has been branded a turncoat by some in the GOP for taking on extremists. But the Giffords shooting shows he was right in calling for calm, the Morning Joe host tells Howard Kurtz.
Joe Scarborough was back in Washington, where he cheerfully admits he was a “bomb-thrower” of a congressman, using his privileges to walk onto the House floor for John Boehner’s swearing-in.
But Scarborough, who has begun to muse about running for office again, has become something of a scold toward his party, preaching like a reformed alcoholic that the Republicans shouldn’t make the mistakes that he and his fellow rebels did when they were savaging Bill Clinton.
“We had contempt for Clinton,” he says moments after wrapping his MSNBC morning show. “We thought he was a has-been. We thought we were going to run him out of town. And we were wrong. We overreached.”
Scarborough’s evolution from fiery Pensacola politician to television personality touting the virtues of civility says a great deal about how polarized both the capital and cable news have grown in the last decade. In taking on the likes of Sarah Palin, Scarborough has been branded a turncoat by some in the GOP. In rejecting the shouting-heads format, he has separated himself from the reigning ethos of his liberal network. And in dominating what has become the breakfast salon of the Beltway elite, he has been accused of sexism toward co-host Mika Brzezinski.
The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people in Tucson left Scarborough shaken—and his wife, Susan, in tears—but added resonance to the message he has been peddling. “Nobody can find a direct link to a Sarah Palin ad or a Michele Bachmann statement or the extreme rants from the left,” he says. “But it serves as a very clear warning to everyone involved in politics that there are unbalanced people out there who may seize on any words they hear and the consequences may be devastating.
“Timothy McVeigh didn’t come to his conclusions about government in a vacuum.” While the case of Arizona gunman Jared Loughner is very different, he says, “we warned for three years that those who are most affected by the harsh language are people who are detached from reality and can hear the ranting on cable or in parts of the blogosphere.”
Scarborough did not return to the Hill last week out of any great love for Boehner; he also attended Nancy Pelosi’s swearing-in four years ago. When he was in Congress, Scarborough recalls, Boehner “was part of the leadership we were going after. He golfed a lot. He was pretty tight with the lobbying community. He was establishment Washington. That’s just not the world we ran in.”
The Giffords shooting “serves as a very clear warning to everyone involved in politics that there are unbalanced people out there who may seize on any words they hear and the consequences may be devastating.”
The host of Morning Joe portrays himself as unchanged since he was elected with the Class of 1994—except in stylistic terms. “People on the hard right think I’m a sellout,” he says, clad in his TV uniform of navy blazer, white shirt, and red tie, “and yet they can’t name one issue where I’ve changed ideologically. Deals don’t get done if you’re constantly insulting the other side. I’ve told them it’s counterproductive to call Obama a Marxist. I caught so much flak by calling out Republicans when a few of them, like Sarah Palin, made things up like death panels, or obsessing over his birth certificate.”
Other Republicans have declined to take on Palin, says Scarborough, because “they’re just scared. They want her voters.”
Oddly enough, Scarborough refuses to acknowledge that the GOP center of gravity has moved to the right, which seems beyond dispute. Perhaps he views the Tea Party movement as an echo of his renegade brand of politics in the Gingrich House. But his gang eventually compromised with Clinton on a balanced budget and welfare reform, and Scarborough says he’s since had “several great talks” with the former president, who invariably thanks him for being fair to Hillary in 2008.
Despite dropping hints about a future campaign, possibly a presidential one, “I’m not crazy about the idea right now,” Scarborough says. “I’m going to give my party one more chance and see if they’re really serious about balancing the budget. I’m influencing the debate more now than by being the 100th-ranking senator.”
The tension between perpetual outrage and thoughtful debate has played out in his cable career as well. Scarborough quit Congress in 2001 when, after a divorce, one of his teenage sons was having problems, and two years later he launched the prime-time show Scarborough Country. His new bosses, he says, wanted him “to be MSNBC’s version of Bill O’Reilly. They kept pushing. After a year I realized it just wasn’t in me.” Scarborough recalls an incident in which a network executive “yelled” at him for being polite to a female ambassador on the program. His response? “I’m sorry, I’m from the South. I don’t scream and insult women.”
He had to deal with a different kind of woman when he pushed Brzezinski, a longtime CBS News correspondent, for the morning program he launched in 2007. “NBC didn’t want her on the show,” Scarborough says, deeming it a bad fit.
Once he got his way, the duo had to work out an on-air relationship. “He definitely realized it’s not productive to be yelling at each other,” says Brzezinski, sitting next to Scarborough but waiting until this moment to jump in. “We’re not perfect. It’s hard to strike a civil, balanced tone when you feel strongly about things.”
Scarborough says they have gotten into heated arguments twice—over the Bush administration’s interrogation of terror suspects and a Michelle Obama campaign speech—continuing the debate off the air.
“Debate’s a nice way to put it,” she says.
“We’re not Zen about this stuff,” he says.
“It’s easier to scream, actually,” she says.
They have also fought MSNBC management, which “wanted us to be a bit lighter and not do heavy news for three hours,” says Scarborough, who is not averse to wandering into the weeds of health-care policy. “They wanted us to do trench collapses and Paris Hilton. We just kept saying no.”
Scarborough, who occasionally slips into rants, basically drives the televised conversation and interrogates the guests, needling Brzezinski and sometimes trampling her in the process. A recent New Republic article titled “The Sexism of Morning Joe” complained that “Brzezinski seems to have settled into a deferential role,” her dissents reduced to little more than “eye-rolling.” Brzezinski isn’t reticent about responding.
“It’s called Morning Joe, not Scarborough-Brzezinski,” she says. “My role is different. Sometimes I don’t do as well as I’d like, and I take responsibility. It’s not Joe, it’s me needing to bring it to the table.”
Scarborough says his partner, as a career journalist, is less comfortable in the opinion arena. “I said, ‘You’re going to have to get out there a lot more. You’re going to make me look like a bully.’”
When her conservative co-host is tangling with five liberal guests on the set—not an uncommon occurrence, if Pat Buchanan isn’t around—Brzezinski sees no need to jump in. “I’m comfortable,” she says. The critics “are acting as if I’m some kind of victim. It’s a made-up story.”
Brzezinski views the show as an “island” amid the cable craziness, and Scarborough admits that cable contributes to the hyperpartisan talk he decries—but declines to discuss specifics or whether his network is a prime offender. There are, apparently, limits to his candor.
Morning Joe beat CNN’s American Morning for the first time in 2010, 387,000 viewers to 310,000, though both are far behind Fox & Friends and its more than 1 million viewers. The show has become a regular stop for administration officials, members of Congress, and such journalists as Mark Halperin, Jon Meacham, Peggy Noonan, and Bob Woodward (and Daily Beast Editor in Chief Tina Brown). So why would Scarborough flirt with the idea of giving up such a platform?
“I love what I’m doing,” he says. “But I’ve always said the greatest job I ever had was when I represented Florida’s 1st District in Congress.”
That, however, was a decade ago. Scarborough, who rails against the likes of Glenn Beck and occasionally says nice things about President Obama, could find himself out of step with today’s GOP culture if he ventures back into the arena.
“If my Republican Party really thinks Sarah Palin is the best Republican candidate in 2012, or believes a talk-show host should be calling the president a racist”—he pauses here—“that’s not my party.”
Howard Kurtz is The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief. He also hosts CNN's weekly media program Reliable Sources on Sundays at 11 a.m. ET. The longtime media reporter and columnist for The Washington Post, Kurtz is the author of five books.
FoTi
Crusader
Clearly, this is where the money is at. I should activate the Church of Ted.
Yeh...you could have Saturday night services for the lonely. A collection plate at the door with a fixed donation to help to pay for the place where the services are held. And you could have wine (for communion, of course) with a fixed donation for each glass of wine and bottled holy water (at a fixed donation rate, of course) for those who don't drink. You could have dancing to cleanse the soul and a band for spiritually uplifing music. And no taxes. This could catch on and become a world wide religion. You could expand and have churches all over the world! The Church of Ted where one can uplift their spirits on a Saturday night. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Amen.
Or maybe you have a better idea?
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
It seems to me that the only people talking of Sarah Palin doing a 2012 run for POTUS are foremost noisy Democrats. (What are they afraid of if she is the bad choice they claim she is?) Also include emotional voters who like her for reasons known only to themselves. Not included is Sarah Palin herself. She has not said anything to my knowledge that she is in the running. What she did say is that she is supporting the candidates she feels are best for the country. I can't argue with that whether they be Democrat, Republican, or Independent.
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
Yeh...you could have Saturday night services for the lonely. A collection plate at the door with a fixed donation to help to pay for the place where the services are held. And you could have wine (for communion, of course) with a fixed donation for each glass of wine and bottled holy water (at a fixed donation rate, of course) for those who don't drink. You could have dancing to cleanse the soul and a band for spiritually uplifing music. And no taxes. This could catch on and become a world wide religion. You could expand and have churches all over the world! The Church of Ted where one can uplift their spirits on a Saturday night. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Amen.
Or maybe you have a better idea?
Sounds a lot like my Mission only we did do some training and auditing now and again. That paid for the parties. At the time I was calling it the Church of Bob. But having since realized my true Sourcefulness I will call it the Church of Ted where there are no barriers to everyone going totally free!
purple haze
Patron with Honors
Sorry Dex, not knowing you at all, in person only briefly met...
No harm intended Dex and Emma - I resist any communication Fear Based = mayhaps I mis-duplicated...
Sure would be NICE if we all out here in the GREAT BEYOND could clean up our comm lines with each other, out in the open and not GANG UP on each other and stab each other in the back. a beautiful little bird sang her sweet but sad song in my ear last week, and it truly hurt my heart to see such a lovely creature in pain.
It's not my fight; I extricated myself in 1970 from that crazy game with the full knowledge and ack and best wishes from the Old Man himself.
A little sad to see everyone OUT still running the same game
on each other.
Guess I could run interference but I'd rather set you all down, for a minor exchange, and help you all work it out yourselves to EP.
I'm just the FAIR WITNESS in the book Stranger In a Strange Land.
I call it Third Dynamic Tech, which I've developed since 1970. I've developed the TECH to CLEAR out the SECOND and THIRD DYNAMIC BANKS ...and welcome with open arms, everyone's comments and willingness to experience, etc, etc.
We're all in this sinking ship together = who's gonna man up and grab an oar? or are you all expecting the blame game will right the wrongs? :confused2:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
let's get with it and out-create and end what obviously doesn't work as an organized religion, in the real game most of us thought we were involving ourselves in so long ago, in producing happiness and health [sure, any snake oil salesman can sell the pants off some poor fool wanting to be helped, and make heaps of money] but you can't take the riches with you when you die..
EY? Enough said. you've heard it all before. From Florence Nightingale to Martin; the actions surely speak louder than all the words, don't they?
Peace Out!
Namaste!
ALOHA!
No harm intended Dex and Emma - I resist any communication Fear Based = mayhaps I mis-duplicated...
Sure would be NICE if we all out here in the GREAT BEYOND could clean up our comm lines with each other, out in the open and not GANG UP on each other and stab each other in the back.
a beautiful little bird sang her sweet but sad song in my ear last week, and it truly hurt my heart to see such a lovely creature in pain.It's not my fight; I extricated myself in 1970 from that crazy game with the full knowledge and ack and best wishes from the Old Man himself.
A little sad to see everyone OUT still running the same game
on each other.Guess I could run interference but I'd rather set you all down, for a minor exchange, and help you all work it out yourselves to EP.
I'm just the FAIR WITNESS in the book Stranger In a Strange Land.
I call it Third Dynamic Tech, which I've developed since 1970. I've developed the TECH to CLEAR out the SECOND and THIRD DYNAMIC BANKS ...and welcome with open arms, everyone's comments and willingness to experience, etc, etc.
We're all in this sinking ship together = who's gonna man up and grab an oar? or are you all expecting the blame game will right the wrongs? :confused2:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
let's get with it and out-create and end what obviously doesn't work as an organized religion, in the real game most of us thought we were involving ourselves in so long ago, in producing happiness and health [sure, any snake oil salesman can sell the pants off some poor fool wanting to be helped, and make heaps of money] but you can't take the riches with you when you die..
EY? Enough said. you've heard it all before. From Florence Nightingale to Martin; the actions surely speak louder than all the words, don't they?
Peace Out!
Namaste!
ALOHA!
anyone want to fill me in on this? where do we stand now on ESMB?
"Stand by for" how long is "now"?
possibly a disconnection tool to get folks to STOP their free flow of communication?
from Facebook this morning:
Dexter Gelfand
Those of you who post on ESMB, I want to advise you to send no private messages to anyone, and reveal nothing about yourself. The site appears to have been usurped by the moment, accounting for an otherwise inexplicable change of direction and series of actions not in keeping with Emma's ways. Stand by for now.
purple haze
Patron with Honors
Tuesday 1/11/11
Rude awakening for me this morning:
Over my cuppa tea this morning, I realized I have been LIVING my CASE HISTORY rather than CREATING my STORY as I make my way through LIFE.
I decided a year ago, no matter how wonderful the PRESENT seemed [since I could never seem to find someone to do with me, what I am a MASTERFULLY able to do with another and others since the age of 19] that I would live my DAILY LIFE in session.
Most of my NEW friends and some OLD, have felt unsettled recently, watching me dip and sway to the MUSIC only I could hear.
Since the sudden unexpected DEATHS of 3 PHENOMENAL FRIENDS earlier last year, I felt and experienced the EARTHQUAKES each CHANGE caused in my consciousness. I have barely survived as the rugs were torn asunder, out from under me.
Could I possibly experience more?
BRING IT ON, I said. And started swimming rather than drowning.
AS A SURFER SINCE THE AGE OF TEN, during my parents’ divorce, I found the ocean my only true friend.
With a TUMULTUOUS AND TERRIBLE CHILDHOOD, I began to ride the waves of life. When WIPE OUTS came, as they often do to the unexperienced, I always seemed to innately know which way was up, and would swim with all my might for the top, gasping for that final breath which would save my life; breaking surface just as the next set of waves would take me down and out and under…learning to breath water…relaxing…
Now in 2011 I have been getting stronger, more open and more trusting with strangers than ever before. I am giving my best auditing sessions and am living life to its fullest.
For me, my heart is opening wider and wider beyond any stretch I could ever imagine: two blessing upon this earth: my two new beautiful grandsons. How could I have ever thought I was living before this? I was only struggling to SURVIVE and MAINTAIN.
And NOW, in the blissful reverie of God’s Grace, enjoying the great circle of life from a far distance, I find myself at 64, no longer battered by the waves of sorrow, but dance like there’s no tomorrow at Trader Joe’s or outside the Coffee Bean and Tea. With my smile and twinkling eyes, people of all ages join me in my DANCE. We laugh gaily…
Can it really get better than this? Have I arrived in HEAVEN? Am I Heaven-sent to bring JOY to this planet in turmoil? Can helping only one person at a time find their inner peace really make a difference for the rest? Should I speak out and shine again?
I am only dancing, spreading joy where there is sorrow. Helping bring clarity to minds clouded and depressed and struggling to find the meaning to all their unhappyness, I only listen as best I can, seeing what they see, and breathe. I help them open their door, the rest is up to them…I can only help them walk through it, help them take off their heavy overcoat once they feel safe and warm inside. I can laugh with them when they find their eternal bliss, dancing to their own music, enjoying my company but for a moment.
Next?
Eternally grateful.
Rude awakening for me this morning:
Over my cuppa tea this morning, I realized I have been LIVING my CASE HISTORY rather than CREATING my STORY as I make my way through LIFE.
I decided a year ago, no matter how wonderful the PRESENT seemed [since I could never seem to find someone to do with me, what I am a MASTERFULLY able to do with another and others since the age of 19] that I would live my DAILY LIFE in session.
Most of my NEW friends and some OLD, have felt unsettled recently, watching me dip and sway to the MUSIC only I could hear.
Since the sudden unexpected DEATHS of 3 PHENOMENAL FRIENDS earlier last year, I felt and experienced the EARTHQUAKES each CHANGE caused in my consciousness. I have barely survived as the rugs were torn asunder, out from under me.
Could I possibly experience more?
BRING IT ON, I said. And started swimming rather than drowning.
AS A SURFER SINCE THE AGE OF TEN, during my parents’ divorce, I found the ocean my only true friend.
With a TUMULTUOUS AND TERRIBLE CHILDHOOD, I began to ride the waves of life. When WIPE OUTS came, as they often do to the unexperienced, I always seemed to innately know which way was up, and would swim with all my might for the top, gasping for that final breath which would save my life; breaking surface just as the next set of waves would take me down and out and under…learning to breath water…relaxing…
Now in 2011 I have been getting stronger, more open and more trusting with strangers than ever before. I am giving my best auditing sessions and am living life to its fullest.
For me, my heart is opening wider and wider beyond any stretch I could ever imagine: two blessing upon this earth: my two new beautiful grandsons. How could I have ever thought I was living before this? I was only struggling to SURVIVE and MAINTAIN.
And NOW, in the blissful reverie of God’s Grace, enjoying the great circle of life from a far distance, I find myself at 64, no longer battered by the waves of sorrow, but dance like there’s no tomorrow at Trader Joe’s or outside the Coffee Bean and Tea. With my smile and twinkling eyes, people of all ages join me in my DANCE. We laugh gaily…
Can it really get better than this? Have I arrived in HEAVEN? Am I Heaven-sent to bring JOY to this planet in turmoil? Can helping only one person at a time find their inner peace really make a difference for the rest? Should I speak out and shine again?
I am only dancing, spreading joy where there is sorrow. Helping bring clarity to minds clouded and depressed and struggling to find the meaning to all their unhappyness, I only listen as best I can, seeing what they see, and breathe. I help them open their door, the rest is up to them…I can only help them walk through it, help them take off their heavy overcoat once they feel safe and warm inside. I can laugh with them when they find their eternal bliss, dancing to their own music, enjoying my company but for a moment.
Next?
Eternally grateful.
FoTi
Crusader
Lovely post. You sound currently quite fortunate.
I wish I wasn't so far away..... I would love to participate in your gatherings.
- Status