tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91609474322812303452024-02-06T23:20:15.594-05:00PAT ROBERTSON'S VAULT<center><big><b>Skewering Pat Robertson and <i>The 700 Club</i>, Past and Present</b><br>Jeremy Parker, Blogmaster</big><br><br>Why is this blog featuring years-old clips from the 1990s? <a href="http://patrobertsonsvault.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-introductory-post-or-why-are-so.html">Read the introductory page</a>. <br><small><i>Not at all affiliated with Marion G. ("Pat") Robertson, The 700 Club, or the Christian Broadcasting Network.</i></small></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-12329660122906434142015-11-08T18:32:00.000-05:002015-11-08T18:34:10.742-05:00Ben Carson Tells How He Went From a Failure to an A-Student, Omits a Few Key Details (ca. 1996-97)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This blog's been dormant for close to 20 months now, but I had something I thought was worth sharing, so here we are again. Whether or not I continue on with this blog remains to be seen.</i><br />
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<i>Note: The featured video clip aired on</i> The 700 Club<i>—without my annotated text, of course—on February 12, 1997. However, I get the distinct impression that this was not the first time </i>The 700 Club<i> aired this segment, which is why I source it as “circa 1996-97” in the headline, and in the video as “in or around 1996.” (It may have been rebroadcast to coincide with Black History Month.)</i><br />
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For the past couple of weeks, press coverage of the Republican presidential primaries have called into question several of Ben Carson's Selective Memory Stories™ where the details keep changing or conveniently can't be confirmed—<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-stabbing_563c1115e4b0b24aee49cb2f" target="_blank"><b>the friend/relative he tried to stab in the belt buckle</b></a>, <b><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/08/was-ben-carson-really-held-at-gunpoint.html" target="_blank">the Popeye's Chicken gunman</a></b> he redirected towards the cashier, <b><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/ben-carson-west-point-215598" target="_blank">the West Point “scholarship”</a></b> he was supposedly offered, and the possible mischaracterization of <b><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/ben-carsons-psychology-test-story-gets-even-weirder" target="_blank">a hoax that led him to re-take a final exam</a></b> at Yale seemingly altered to—surprise!—make him look good. [Details of the Yale hoax story as it actually happened were still coming to light at the time this blog post was published.]<br />
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In the wake of these Selective Memory Stories™, I thought I'd post this video <i>The 700 Club</i> aired in the mid-1990s where Dr. Carson relates his story of how he went from the worst student in his class to the top student, as he told it in his autobiography, <i>Gifted Hands</i>. Well, <i>sort of</i> how he told it in <i>Gifted Hands</i>. In this re-telling for <i>700 Club</i> viewers, certain salient details are omitted. Like how an eye examination provided by his public school in fifth grade led to the discovery that severe myopia was at the root of his poor academic performance, and how the road to his improvement began with eyeglasses—also supplied for free by his public school:<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">Gifted Hands</span></i></div>
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Or how the year prior to that, Carson had been enrolled in a private religious school that turned out to be <i>inferior</i> to the public school system:<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">Gifted Hands</span></i></div>
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If Carson had stayed enrolled in that private church school, would he have gotten an eye exam and had his glasses provided for, and ultimately found the same path to academic success and medical achievement that he did after re-enrolling in public school? We may never know. But I guess it doesn't matter since, as told to and dramatized by <i>The 700 Club</i>, all this business about public schools and free eyeglasses is glossed over—right down to an anachronistically bespectacled young Ben Carson completely washing out on his math test—in favor of the preferred narrative: the roots of Carson's success are attributable entirely to his mother's love and guidance, inspired by divine wisdom. (That wisdom? Turn off the television and make your sons do schoolwork.)<br />
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I want to be clear about something: unlike the recent news developments and media scrutiny cited at the beginning of this post, I am not poking holes in Ben Carson's <i>Gifted Hands</i> story. In fact, I'm <i>relying</i> on that published autobiography. What I <i>am</i> demonstrating is Carson's penchant for tailoring his personal story to suit his audience and/or that preferred narrative. Take the story about his nearly stabbing a friend (or relative), which he's retold for years as the moment he recognized the depths of his sins and when he turned his life over to Jesus. But <b><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/27/carson-stabbing-story-full-of-holes.html" target="_blank">as the Daily Beast documents</a></b>, the details of this life-altering story seem to change over the course of several published accounts, aimed at different readerships in different contexts.<br />
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Or <b><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/ben-carson-and-tale-redemption" target="_blank">as Kevin Drum wrote for <i>Mother Jones</i></a></b> on Saturday after the Yale psychology-course exam hoax story first broke:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“He needs to exaggerate how violent he was when he was young. And after he finds God, he needs to exaggerate how great everything turned out. This culminates in the absurd story about his psychology class. No one who's not an evangelical Christian would believe it for a second. But evangelicals hear testimonies like this all the time. They <i>expect</i> testimonies like this, and the more improbable the better. So Carson gives them one. It's clumsy because he's not very good at inventing this kind of thing, but that doesn't matter much.”</blockquote>
And the target audience for our featured video are those same evangelical Christians—in this case, the viewership of a politically conservative Christian TV show that lives to promulgate stories of personal redemption inspired by divine intercedence—and <i>without</i> support from the state. Carson even goes so far in the video as to insinuate that his mother never went on welfare (“She worked very hard—two, three jobs at a time—in an attempt to stay off of the public assistance rolls”), even though <i>Gifted Hands</i> specifies that she did:<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">Gifted Hands</span></i></div>
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(As far as I can tell, Dr. Carson hasn't elaborated much on his family's dependence on public assistance beyond this account—<a href="http://www.snopes.com/ben-carson-welfare-meme/" target="_blank"><b>Snopes.com has a good rundown on this angle</b></a>—but when he says “by the time I went into ninth grade, Mother had made such strides that she received nothing except food stamps,” it's fair to infer from that wording that <i>prior</i> to that time, Carson's mother was receiving <i>more</i> than just food stamps. Most fact-checking sites, like Snopes and <b><a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/may/11/occupy-democrats/does-ben-carson-want-eliminate-dependency-governme/" target="_blank">Politifact</a></b>, overlook this implication.)<br />
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Some choose to ask: Does any of this matter? Dr. Carson has already begun <b><a href="https://youtu.be/GRXJOFfN7pM" target="_blank">bitching to the media</a></b> that this scrutiny of his biographical accounts is a “distraction” from the issues. But Carson's entire candidacy is built around his character and his personal story. As he put it <b><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/ben-carson-says-honesty-more-important-political-experience-west-point" target="_blank">in a recent fundraising email</a></b>:<br />
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“I believe that traditional ‘political experience’ is much less important than faith, honesty, courage, and an unshakable belief in the principles that made America the greatest nation in the world.”</blockquote>
If character is more important than political experience, then it's completely fair for the media to investigate aspects of his foundational life story that he has used to define and illustrate his character. When Carson complains that that scrutiny “distracts from the issues,” it's clear he wants to have it both ways: <i>Voters—judge me by my character, my faith, my up-from-poverty-through-sheer-will story! Media—stop looking into my accounts of my life, and focus on the issues voters care about!</i><br />
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Well, Dr. Carson, you can't have it both ways. And shading the truth to fit your personal story for a tailored moral message isn't honesty.<br />
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_____________________</div>
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As I explained in <a href="http://patrobertsonsvault.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-introductory-post-or-why-are-so.html" target="_blank">my introductory post</a> way back when, this blog was originally built to showcase outrageous, insightful, and/or damaging <i>700 Club</i> video clips that I collected in the mid-1990s for a project I eventually aborted. When I mothballed the blog in March 2014, I had only reviewed about a third of my videotapes from that time. Dr. Carson's been a frequent guest on <i>The 700 Club</i> over the years, and it's entirely possible that I have other appearances of his on my tapes. So I just might revisit those tapes in the coming months to see if I have any other Ben Carson clips (or anything else of current relevance) worth sharing.<br />
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Those of you interested in any possible updates can follow this blog's Twitter account, <a href="https://twitter.com/robertsonsvault" target="_blank">@robertsonsvault</a>, or my personal Twitter account, <a href="https://twitter.com/astutepanther" target="_blank">@astutepanther</a>.<span id="goog_732586640"></span><span id="goog_732586641"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-60071026156817305212014-03-17T14:35:00.000-04:002014-03-17T14:35:24.107-04:00Going On Indefinite HiatusDue to lack of reader interest, Pat Robertson's Vault is going on indefinite hiatus.<br />
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My thanks to everyone who's been reading, and especially to everyone who's used social media to apprise others of my work.<br />
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I will be glancing over at my Twitter notifications (<a href="http://twitter.com/robertsonsvault" target="_blank">@robertsonsvault</a>) periodically, but for now it would be better to direct any further inquiries to my personal Twitter account, <a href="http://twitter.com/astutepanther" target="_blank">@astutepanther</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-70739468902114353762014-03-14T09:51:00.000-04:002014-03-14T09:51:55.001-04:00"The Princeton Review Says My Bible Law School Faculty Is In the Nation's Top Ten!" Mostly False.Pat Robertson <b><a href="http://patrobertsonsvault.blogspot.com/2014/03/watch-pat-robertson-act-totally.html" target="_blank">may have gone all ADD</a></b> on Wednesday's broadcast of <i>The 700 Club</i>, but he was able to keep it together long enough to give us this whopper:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I want to give a plug to Regent University. According to The Princeton Review, we have the top 10 law faculty in the nation.“ </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Wow!“ – co-host Wendy Griffith</span></blockquote>
Just one little quibbling detail though:<br />
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<i>Student questionnaires.</i> Not academic credentials or peer reputation or legal-community assessment or any other metric used by <i>legitimate</i> law school rankings. Regent University School of Law <b><a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/10/princeton-reviewss-.html" target="_blank">came in 10th</a></b> in the "Students Like Our Professors Best!" competition. Which might not be too surprising when you consider we're talking about 300 evangelical Christian students in an evangelical Christian school with evangelical Christian professors. Everyone's already drunk the Kool-Aid.<br />
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The best thing about all this? The <b><a href="http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-rankings" target="_blank">2015 <i>U.S. News</i> Best Law Schools</a></b> list—a REAL ranking—<i>also</i> came out this week, and guess where Regent finished? Come on, guess. Actually, you can't: <i>U.S. News</i> stopped ranking the schools after the top 147 (out of 194) and Regent didn't make that cut. Then they just listed the rest alphabetically, as if to say, "These remaining 47 suck so hard it's not worth our time or yours to differentiate between them."<br />
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But my favorite part has to be the peer reputation rankings, as posted by <a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/03/2015-us-news-.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">TaxProfBlog</a>:<br />
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That's the bottom of the list. Regent is tied for next-to-last. Liberty University School of Law? That's the late Jerry Falwell's outfit. You just <i>know</i> it chapped Pat Robertson's ass that no one thinks his law school is any better than Falwell's.<br />
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So no wonder Pat talked up the <strike>bullshi</strike> Princeton Review list. He's got to buck up his troops, who just got kicked in the teeth in a nationwide ranking.<br />
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"Everyone else says we suck, but our students like us more than most everyone else's students like them! Yay!"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-12519262981395633692014-03-13T11:14:00.000-04:002014-03-13T11:42:07.539-04:00Pat Robertson Spent the Entire Show Acting Like a Distracted Child (March 12, 2014)Just yesterday morning I wrote how Pat Robertson forgot that <b><a href="http://patrobertsonsvault.blogspot.com/2014/03/pat-robertson-was-exorcist-on-that.html" target="_blank">he himself performed the exorcism</a></b> he said he had "heard about" someone else performing. Then I dismissed the possibility of Alzheimer's Disease because you'd imagine that sort of occasional mind-wipe would be obvious on live-to-tape television.*<br />
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But after yesterday's broadcast, I'm not so sure. Okay, it might not be <i>Alzheimer's</i>, but clearly there's something not right with Pat's brain—I mean beyond the usual things not right with his brain (like his worldview and his ideology and his extremism)—because Pat was losing focus more often than a non-union film projectionist.<br />
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Here's the rundown:<br />
<ul>
<li>Did Someone Use a Satellite to Take Control of the Missing Malaysian Airliner Like a Bond Villain? Eh, Let's Talk About Something Else.</li>
<li>The Republicans Won a Special-Election That Was a Referendum on Obamacare! Oh Wait, No It Wasn't.</li>
<li>And Now for No Immediate Reason, Here's Some Chocolate</li>
<li>Yea, Christian Movies! Awww, I Miss Mel Gibson, Can't We Get Him Back?</li>
<li>People Just Don't Want to Believe Because Evolution and the Scientific Method</li>
</ul>
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<b>Did Someone Use a Satellite to Take Control of the Missing Malaysian Airliner Like a Bond Villain? Eh, Let's Talk About Something Else.</b><br />
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This is how Pat opened the show:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Welcome to <i>The 700 Club</i>. Was there a mysterious force that took control of the airplane of Malaysian Air, and took it way off course into the Straits of Malacca? We're still looking at that, but it's a possibility: could somebody in space—a satellite or something of that nature—take control of an airplane, their controls, and direct it where it was intended to go? That's something out of science fiction, but it's possible.”</span></blockquote>
So first of all, Pat took the early reports of an ambiguous new wrinkle about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-370.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Malaysian Airlines 370's possibly veering off-course</a> and turned it into that stunt Jonathan Pryce pulled in <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> when he creates a international incident by making a British warship enter Chinese waters by manipulating their GPS. At least it's a little less ludicrous to believe than thinking <b><a href="http://story.com/rs/2014/03/11/pat-robertson-demons-get-permission-to-wreck-your-car-from-x-rated-movies/" target="_blank"><i>The Ring</i> was a documentary</a></b>.<br />
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But that's exactly where Pat, and the whole show, left it. No follow-up, no further explanation of what he was talking about, no <i>actual news story</i> covering the latest developments surrounding Flight 370. He opens the show with some sinister James Bond plot, then just drops it on the ground and walks away.<br />
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(I'll bet that, for a split second, you thought that "somebody in space" comment meant he might be blaming the downed airline on aliens. Turns out that's doubly hilarious once you know that he actually does talk about aliens later on in the show.)<br />
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<b>The Republicans Won a Special-Election That Was a Referendum on Obamacare! Oh Wait, No It Wasn't.</b><br />
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On Tuesday, Republican David Jolly won a special election for the Florida Congressional seat that was vacated by the death of Rep. Bill Young (R) last year. Everyone's been treating it as the first electoral referendum on Obamacare since the botched rollout, so I can't really fault Pat Robertson and CBN for doing likewise. Provided Pat sticks to the script:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“In what may be a sign of things to come, the Republicans have won a major victory in a closely watched and <i>very</i> expensive special election in Florida. And the key issue in that race—guess what? <i>Obamacare</i>.”</span></blockquote>
So far, so good. This led into a CBN News segment that weaved together the special-election story with the latest round of negative Obamacare stories that CBN loves to cherry-pick, all wrapped up in a package designed to make viewers think <i>the Republicans won yesterday because everyone hates Obamacare!</i><br />
<br />
And then Pat took a dump on that whole enterprise, including his very own intro just three minutes earlier:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I don't think we ought to read too much into that Florida election. That particular district has a majority of people who are registered Republicans… There wasn't a great turnout… I think it's very unwise to read too much into one election. And it's not clear whether or not it was on Obamacare, because the Democrat in that particular race was not around to vote for it one way or the other.”</span></blockquote>
<i>Oh, never mind</i>.<br />
<br />
(By the way, Jolly beat his Democratic challenger, Alex Sink, by fewer than 2 percentage points: 48.5% to 46.7%. (There was a third-party candidate, too.) The Florida 13th Congressional District went for Obama over Romney, but only 50.1% to 48.6%. That's just a 3.3-point swing between the two elections. In a borderline midterm election where Republican turnout is supposed to be disproportionately motivated by Obamacare's unpopularity. Not exactly great news for the GOP here.)<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And Now for No Immediate Reason, Here's Some Chocolate</b><br />
<br />
Later in the news block, a short segment on the potential vulnerability of the electrical grid to sabotage sent Pat on yet another monologue, except he didn't really add anything to the story other than to keep saying <i>We're all so utterly dependent on power</i>. (The news segment cited the <i><b><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/the-most-self-discrediting-partisan-attack-of-2012/255781/" target="_blank">Washington Free Beacon</a></b></i> as its source, so I'm already suspicious. I looked into it a little and it seems overblown, but let's leave it alone for now.)<br />
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And when he was done, he looked down and got all excited because someone put a chocolate bar there for him!<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">If you want to avoid the power-grid portion, skip to 1:35 into the video.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“We've got something coming up, I just asked for this. [<i>Turns to his co-host.</i>] Wendy, you're going to do something [later in the show] about <i>chocolate</i>.”</span></blockquote>
And suddenly we're getting 90 seconds of happy talk on <i>chocolate</i>. Yes, on its own, this is hardly unusual: a TV morning show teasing a segment coming up later in the broadcast. But the thing is, <i>The 700 Club</i>'s news block wasn't over yet. They still had a good five more minutes of news to come. And stopping in the middle of the news block for absolutely no reason to promote some softer-than-soft-news diet segment that's running at the end of the show? This never happens on <i>The 700 Club</i>. Never. Happens. If there's still more news once Pat's done with his rant, he tosses it back to the news anchor.. But oh look! <i>I have chocolate</i>! Let's talk about this chocolate! Mmmm!<br />
<br />
And of course they saw <i>cacao</i> and said "cocoa." Of course they did.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Yea, Christian Movies! Awww, I Miss Mel Gibson, Can't We Get Him Back?</b><br />
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<i>The 700 Club</i> finally completed its long strange trip through the news with an unduly lengthy piece on the summer Christian movie <i>Persecuted</i>, which looks about as awful as all the other Christian movies you hear about but haven't actually seen because they're so awful. And the undue length of the piece probably has something to do with the fact that CBN News anchor and sometime <i>700 Club</i> co-host Wendy Griffith apparently has a blink-and-you'll miss it cameo in the movie. This of course gets Pat and Wendy making even more happy talk now about her acting role, because <i>Wheee! One of our own is in a movie!</i> And then they talk about how that <i>Son of God</i> movie is doing. And then out of nowhere, literally free-associating on the air…<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I read an article that they say it's time to get Mel Gibson back in the good graces of Hollywood. His <i>Passion of the Christ</i> grossed over $600 million. It was an <i>extraordinary</i> effort. Mel is so creative. So, we hope that those outbursts that came about, and he's got a problem with alcohol, I guess, but he's basically a good guy… He's been shunned by Hollywood…”</span></blockquote>
Oh, if only Mel hadn't made those outbursts. Those unfortunate, unfortunate outbursts. Just because Mel said the Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world, he can't make another movie? Just because Mel yelled at his girlfriend that he hoped she got raped by a pack of n-words? Just because <b><a href="http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/joe-eszterhas-letter-mel-gibson-36949#412sf" target="_blank">Mel terrorized screenwriter Joe Ezsterhas with his Holocaust-denying anti-Semitism</a></b> when Hollywood was <i>actually giving him a chance to make another movie</i>? Ohhh. So unfortunate that these petty little things are keeping Hollywood from letting him make a movie again. So, so unfortunate. If you look past his hateful rants, he's really a good guy!<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>People Just Don't Want to Believe Because Evolution and the Scientific Method</b><br />
<br />
We're coming up to the end now, but you just know the ride has to include a stop at the viewer-question segment, because that's the bread-and-butter of the Pat Robertson Said This! industry.<br />
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This time, a viewer writes in to ask Pat to tell his critics that <i>The 700 Club</i> is not in fact the scam they say it is. (In baseball, I think they call this a fat pitch.) And Pat says ask the naysayers if they know any other outfit that's given over $1.2 billion to the poor over the years, witnessed over 700 million conversions to Christ, runs a major university, a public-interest law group, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.<br />
<br />
And he could have stopped there and I would have left this alone. Sure, there have been a few scammy incidents surrounding CBN's Operation Blessing charity: the sharp increase in aid to struggling Iowa farmers in 1987 while Robertson was running for president (Iowa having the first caucus elections), the "humanitarian" aid sent to the Nicaraguan <i>contra</i> rebels in the 1980s, the entire <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson_controversies#Operation_Blessing" target="_blank"><i>Mission Congo</i> exposé</a></b> (in which <b><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/dec/12/corrections-and-clarifications" target="_blank"><i>The Guardian</i> has poked a few holes</a></b>, possibly calling that documentary's credibility into question**). But three incidents over the 35-year history of Operation Blessing does not make the whole enterprise one giant, ongoing scam. I'm not defending "OB" (yeah, like the tampon) by any stretch of the imagination—I can criticize it on other fronts—but I'd need more to go on before I'd slap a "complete scam" label on it.<br />
<br />
<i>Anyway</i>, after Pat laid out all the things CBN does with its viewers' money, co-host Wendy Griffith added, "There's always going to be people who just don't believe." And she meant, <i>who just don't believe it's not a scam</i>. But Pat heard "believe" and he was off to the races about faith in God:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Well, of course. They don't want to believe. I mean, the truth is, <i>people don't want to believe in God.</i> And so they'll find <i>any reason</i>—that's the whole concept of evolution, the whole concept of the scientific method, the whole concept of anything that they can do to prove that there's no God. Including whole programs that claim that the wisdom we have came from aliens!”</span></blockquote>
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Aliens! Evil villains! Chocolate! Movies! Self-contradiction! Free-association! Can someone make Pat a cup of calming tea?<br />
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*They don't air <i>The 700 Club</i> live, but from what I gather, they don't edit the show before it's first broadcast. I think they tape at 8 AM, and the initial broadcasts on local stations are at 9 AM—which would be just as soon as taping ends if my surmise is correct.<br />
<br />
**I've seen <i>Mission Congo</i>, and even if some aspects of the central charge against Robertson are wrong or at least overblown, many more aspects of the documentary's accusation thesis still stand up regardless. I've been waiting for the movie's commercial release to write something about all this, but it's still on the festival circuit. It's exhibiting next month at the Florida Film Festival Orlando, and if that screening reignites the controversy, perhaps I'll visit the issue then.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-25391196405516257772014-03-12T09:00:00.000-04:002014-03-12T09:00:35.360-04:00Pat Robertson Was the Exorcist on That Demon-Possessed Girl He Mentioned YesterdayOnce again, a viewer question to Pat Robertson yesterday gave the world another opportunity to point and laugh at him and/or shake our heads in disgust at him. This time, a woman asked Pat if <b><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/11/pat-robertson-demons-get-permission-to-wreck-your-car-from-x-rated-movies/" target="_blank">the horror movie she saw one night caused demons to crash her car</a></b> the next day at church. And of course Pat said that <i>could</i> be the case because don't you know demons are real?<br />
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The beginning of Pat's reply isn't the meat of his answer, but I need to highlight it for my purposes here:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“A few years ago, I heard about a teenage girl who was demon-possessed. And people began to deal with the demon and try to cast it out. And you know what the demon said? <i>‘I had permission</i>.‘ And the permission was granted when this child had gone to some XX-rated movie, or whatever it was, and had allowed this thing to come into her.”</span></blockquote>
<i>A few years ago, I HEARD ABOUT a teenage girl.</i><br />
<br />
I think Pat's being modest, because here he is in 1997 (a few years ago?) telling pretty much the same story, except <b>HE WAS THE EXORCIST</b> on that poor demon-possessed girl:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I personally have been involved in casting those things out of people. One young girl in particular. And I had the thing talk to me and say, ‘<i>You can't have her, she's mine</i>.’ And I said, ‘Oh no, you don't understand—Jesus is going to have her and you're going to let her go!’ But the little girl—<i>tiny</i> little girl; I mean, she was 17 but just tiny—said, ‘<i>You can't have her, she's mine</i>.’ Well, that's Satan talking.”</span> </blockquote>
Okay, so the 1997 version doesn't have the dirty-movie part, and <i>You can't have her, she's mine</i> isn't quite the same as <i>I had permission</i>. But I can pretty much guarantee you that Pat Robertson has told versions of this exorcism story many, many times over the years, and people often tend to embellish certain details in repeating their stories. And <i>I had permission</i> definitely sounds more badass, which is what you want for something coming from, y'know, SATAN. Besides, why would anyone swap out their very own <i>bona fide</i> exorcism story with one they "heard" someone <i>else</i> did?<br />
<br />
Maybe he legitimately forgot that that was his own story and instead remembers it as happening to someone else. I know that sounds a little like Alzheimer's, but I know that's not the case with Pat—when he's hosting a TV show for an hour, that level of dementia would be patently obvious, especially if he's answering viewer questions completely off the cuff, oftentimes supplying the same answer that he has for years and years. But the man <i>is</i> 83, and he's definitely not as sharp as he once was.<br />
<br />
The only conclusion that makes any sense is that the exorcism story is all one big invention. I don't believe for one second that some girl was actually possessed by Satan and went all Regan MacNeil on anyone, and I'm guessing if you're reading this, neither do you. Pat Robertson lied in 1997 about actually performing a real-live exorcism on someone, and he forgot about that part when he re-told the story yesterday—because when you lie, you sometimes forget the lies you told when you came up with the lie. Remember where I wrote two paragraphs back that people tend to add embellishments to their stories the more they tell them? That's especially the case <i>when the story isn't true to begin with</i>. Any police detective will tell you that criminals under interrogation get caught in their lies when they contradict themselves on the details, because you can never keep track of the elaborations of the lie you're concocting better than remember the truth that really happened.<br />
<br />
So maybe Pat <i>wasn't</i> any kind of exorcist on any demon-possessed girl. But you'll still have to pry that "Pat Robertson Was the Exorcist" headline of mine from my cold, dead hand.<br />
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<br />
By the way, that video I posted of "Pat Robertson, Exorcist" has so much more after the portion I focused on: an earlier iteration of "<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-simple-foreigners-more-likely-experience-miracles-sophisticated-americans" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">miracles don't happen in America because we're too sophisticated</a>," a brief disquisition on heavy metal lyrics, the demon <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaddon" target="_blank"><b>Abaddon the Destroyer</b></a> (who is, remember, totally real and not something out of <i>Ghostbusters</i>)—even a Bob Dylan quote! (Granted, from one of the Christian albums.) All leading up to his prayer with the audience to cast Satan out, a piece of work that tracks like it's a version in miniature of his supposed exorcism. Enjoy. Or facepalm or headdesk or vomit, your choice.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-46846859209232978022014-02-28T12:56:00.000-05:002014-02-28T13:22:13.069-05:00If Your Grandparent Was a Fortune-Teller, You're Probably Cursed (And Other Pat Robertson Tales)Pat Robertson has said something noteworthily extremist every day of his four-day workweek—<i><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-us-should-have-taken-my-advice-about-killing-hugo-chavez" target="_blank"><b>I was right to want Hugo Chávez assassinated</b></a>! <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-un-american-oppose-anti-gay-segregation-bills" target="_blank">It's un-American to force a business to serve gay people if they don't want to</a></b>! <b><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/26/pat-robertson-eric-holder-elevated-sodomy-over-the-constitution-so-impeach-him/" target="_blank">Impeach Eric Holder</a></b>!</i>—but the more influential Robertson monitors, Right Wing Watch and The Raw Story, must have gotten tired of covering his shenanigans because they left all of Thursday's ridiculousness on the table. So allow me to fill in for them.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Doesn't Exist, Apparently</span></b><br />
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Thursday's top story was Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's veto of Senate Bill 1062, which would have allowed business owners to deny services to whomever their religion tells them they shouldn't have to serve. But really we're just talking about gays and lesbians and gay/lesbian marriages, because that's still "acceptable" discrimination in some quarters. So here's how Pat Robertson kicked off the show:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“If you're in New York and you're a homosexual and you're a bartender, you can refuse service to a Republican or a born-again Christian, or somebody you don't like, with impunity! No problem. If you happen to live in California, and you run a bakery, and you happen to be a born-again Christian, and you say, 'I don't want to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding,' you can go to jail.”</span></blockquote>
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. You know, the law that says,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services…and accommodations of any place of public accommodation…without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, <b>religion</b>, or national origin.</i></blockquote>
So, no, that gay bartender in gay New York <i>can not</i> refuse service to a born-again Christian with impunity. (Republicans? They're fair game, I guess.) Also, no one goes to jail for discrimination. It's a civil violation. That's Pat Robertson, Yale Law School graduate, everybody!<br />
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This tale also includes the Fall of America:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Well…what's happening in America is we have changed the fundamental way we view morality. We've gone away from a Biblically based standard to a standard based on what Hollywood has to say or Madison Avenue or whoever. And it looks like there was <i>overwhelming</i> opposition to gay marriage, and that has now shifted, so probably a majority of Americans say, ‘It's okay if gays want to get married, that's their business.’ ”</span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">If Your Grandparent Was a Witch or Fortune-Teller, You're Probably Cursed</span></b><br />
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A viewer asks Pat if he believes in generational curses, like how families have histories of cancer and diabetes. <i>Well, </i>Pat responds, <i>cancer and diabetes, that's probably more genetic than spiritual</i>. (<i>Probably.</i>) <i>But <u>spiritual</u> generational curses are real</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I do believe that there are such things as generational curses. If some grandparent was a witch or a fortune-teller, or engaged in the black arts, the chances are that curse will come down</span><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"> the family. And it needs to be broken by specific prayer.”</span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">God Can Grow Back a Limb—A Preacher I Knew Said It Happened!</span></b><br />
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In response to another viewer born without a right hand, Pat says <i>That's okay, you're already spiritually whole, and people can live fulfilling lives with disabilities like yours. But if you want a new hand, God can give you one:</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Can God grow you a hand? That's a creative miracle, and it happens. I remember T. L. Osborn was talking about a meeting he had in Ghana. A man at the edge of the meeting didn't have a whole leg, the leg was cut off at the knee: whole leg grew out, foot grew out, toes grew out, toenails grew, the whole thing. Right there, while he was preaching about Jesus.”</span></blockquote>
(Why do these "miracles" only happen in faraway places like Ghana and not here in the good ol' U.S. of A.? Because <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-simple-foreigners-more-likely-experience-miracles-sophisticated-americans" target="_blank">only simple people are open to miracles</a></b>. Westerners are too educated and sophisticated to accept them.)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Antichrist Might Be a Jew—But He <i>Could</i> Be a Muslim! Or Even <i>European</i>!</span></b><br />
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<i>Dear Pat, I've been looking into End Times prophecy and it seems to me that the antichrist is going to be a Jew… Do you think that makes sense?</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I think it may make some sense… I think there are antichrist figures, there's an antichrist spirit, and it's a spirit of rebellion against God, and who knows. I certainly think the modern-day Islamic people, the people from Islam of the early days at least, had an antichrist spirit—they speak against Christ! And there are others who do the same thing. So: is he Jewish, is he Arab, is he North African, is he from Europe? Where is he? I don't think we know. But what you said can make plenty of sense. But I wouldn't spend a lot of time meditating on it.”</span></blockquote>
Yeah, it's probably a Jew that will bring about the End Times. But don't <i>worry</i> about it.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-8867011992443010942014-02-21T14:49:00.000-05:002014-02-25T03:23:48.335-05:00Maybe the Bible Is Why People Still Think the Sun Revolves Around the Earth, Pat Robertson? Naahhh, Can't Be.On Tuesday, I posted a blow-by-blow account of all the wingnut asshattery in that day's <i>700 Club</i>. Turns out I probably could have done the same with Monday's broadcast had I not slept in—hey, it was a holiday!—because there was a load of stuff being shoveled that day, too. You probably heard about a couple of the juicier items:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Because this winter has been a little harsh (climate change means severer weather at <i>all</i> of the extremes), Pat Robertson went on <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-idiocy-believe-climate-change-it-cold-winter" target="_blank">a semi-focused rant about global warming</a></b> that touched on "Obama's third term" (???), John Kerry, SUVs on Mars (not Jupiter this time)—ultimately landing on a kinda comprehensible although still lunatic argument that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by socialists who are making up "climate change" so they can take control of the energy industry (just like Obama wants to take over the healthcare industry!). If you're keeping score, "socialist hoax" is now at least Pat's fourth attempt at discrediting global warming, after "<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Av_DAeTP6r4" target="_blank">it's actually global cooling</a></b>," "<b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-climate-change-myth-created-money-hungry-scientists" target="_blank">it's a scam by money-hungry scientists</a></b>," and "<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1paplKD2izI" target="_blank">it's a myth by occultist environmentalists who worship the Earth</a></b>." (Curiously, he's completely forgotten the time when he filmed <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhmpsUMdTH8" target="_blank">a commercial for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection</a></b> in 2008.)</li>
<li>During the "Bring It On" segment (i.e., "Ask Pat"), Robertson said in response to a viewer email that a Wiccan parent was<a href="http://www.forwardprogressives.com/pat-robertson-compares-wiccans-child-traffickers-drug-dealers/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> the equivalent of a mother who makes her child deal drugs, or who sells her into prostitution</a>, and the viewer was free to ignore the Fifth Commandment and not honor her mother.</li>
<li>Also during the "Bring It On" segment (this part of the program is so frequently a source of our ire/entertainment, because it catches Pat at his unscripted best), a viewer asked if he should tell his wife about an old girlfriend who revealed to him that she was a transsexual, and Pat's initial response was "Keep your mouth shut." Actually, if you look at <b><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/17/pat-robertson-keep-your-mouth-shut-after-having-sex-with-transsexuals/" target="_blank">the full transcript of Pat's reply</a></b>, it seems like he's only saying, "There's no reason to complicate your marriage by talking about whatever potentially awkward relationships you had before you met your wife," which perhaps isn't such an unreasonable outlook. However, the rest of the Internet wants to believe he said it like, "Don't ever, ever talk about your shameful, sinful deed," so I'll play along.</li>
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But let me not bury my lede any further. In the middle of his latest global-warming conniption, and lost in the shuffle of all the coverage given it, Pat brought up this seemingly irrelevant news story—the National Science Foundation conducted a survey finding that <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">a quarter of Americans didn't know the Earth revolves around the Sun</a>.</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“One-third of the American people do not realize that the Earth revolves around the Sun. They think the Sun revolves around the Earth, 'cause they see the Sun come up in the morning and go down at night… It's kind of like the Middle Ages. You got excommunicated if you <i>suggested</i> that the Earth was round, and you suggested that the Earth revolves around the Sun. That was heresy.” [<i>Pat later corrected the part where it was actually one-quarter of respondents.</i>]</span></blockquote>
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Why did Pat bring this up? He never specifically explains why, but coming as it did amidst his Obama-Kerry-Mars-socialist-hoax-deep-ecology global warming arglebargle, it looks like Pat was attempting to show that there's still a fair amount of scientific illiteracy in this country—<i>and that's why</i> so many people think that climate change is real.<br />
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But why oh why would so many citizens of this good upstanding Christian nation still believe the Sun revolves around the Earth? Might it have something to do with this?:</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">Joshua 10:13, The Bible</span></i></div>
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THE SUN STOPPED. That's how the Bible puts it. In a country with a considerable evangelical population whose religious leaders promulgate the Bible as the <i>literal </i>truth, is it any wonder that so many might at least mistakenly believe (if not firmly believe) that if "the Sun stopped," then it's the Sun that moves?<br />
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And incredibly, Pat brought up the Church's history of excommunicating people for denying the geocentric model—<i>when the Church said the Bible established that the Sun revolves around the Earth</i>. I truly believe Pat was about to compare that handful of scientists who deny climate change to Galileo, when he realized that <i>These stupid people who believe the Sun revolves around the Earth!</i> was about to become <i>That stupid Church which used to believe what the Bible says! </i>Which is why he immediately dropped this angle right after uttering the word "heresy" and moved on to "socialist hoax."<br />
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What it comes down to, ultimately, is that Pat Robertson will grasp at any conceivable straw to attack climate change, embrace any argument that comes down the pike or which pops into his brain at the moment, and ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence for global warming. And I've just come to realize why: <i>accepting the truth of global warming means that God is not watching over us and protecting us</i>.<br />
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But he can't bring himself to say that, because if he were to completely deny all the scientific evidence and rely only on what his Book tells him to think, he would risk <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/even-pat-robertson-thinks-young-earth-creationism-joke" target="_blank">making a joke of himself</a></b>.<br />
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(By the way, some on the Right are chortling over the fact that a <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2395697" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">breakdown of the NSF survey by party and political affiliation</a> [<i>download the PDF file at this site and go to page 7</i>] shows Republicans did better than Democrats on the "does the Earth revolve around the sun" survey—bootstrapping that into arguing that their side is smarter and that religion has nothing to do with any of this. (<a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/02/earth-revolves-around-liberal-democrats/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click this link at your own risk</a>.) But the breakdown <i>also</i> shows that once you put party affiliation aside, liberals outclassed conservatives. The telling distinction is that the worst-performing cohort by far was conservative Democrats—essentially, Southern (and therefore presumably more evangelical) Democrats who've maintained their party affiliation even as they've voted more Republican in national elections. Going by <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states" target="_blank">Wikipedia's numbers</a></b>, registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans in several solid red states firmly in the Bible Belt, and even in Southern states with fewer Democrats, the voter results of the last few presidential elections have gone Republican beyond the registration differentials.)<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-84709808075324377062014-02-19T14:51:00.000-05:002014-02-19T14:51:48.145-05:00The 700 Club Celebrated Black History Month By Recognizing the Inventor of the Mop (Feb. 18, 1997)We're two-thirds of the way into Black History Month ("The Man gives us <i>February</i> because it's the shortest month of the year!" – <b><a href="http://snltranscripts.jt.org/90/90lnatx.phtml" target="_blank">Nat X</a></b>), and so far the only recognition <i>The 700 Club</i> has given it was to re-run a year-old story this morning on <b><a href="http://www.cbn.com/tv/2177058727001" target="_blank">Arthur Davis Shores</a></b>, a relatively unsung civil rights attorney during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. (They never specifically mentioned Black History Month, but I can't imagine any other reason for re-running a year-old segment that was apparently produced specifically for Black History Month last year.)<br />
<br />
As a white man, it's probably not my place to complain about whatever coverage <i>The 700 Club</i> gives Black History Month. But at least there used to be a time when they were more explicit about it. Like the time in 1997 when they highlighted some of the inventions African-Americans have given us over the years. Especially the mop:<br />
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Special props to co-host Lee Webb for pointing out that despite the plethora of 19th-century devices laid out on that table, African-Americans have given us many <i>modern</i>-day inventions, too. Amazing—black people are <i>still</i> inventing things! Give them a hand!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-60970483007495044292014-02-19T11:03:00.001-05:002014-02-19T11:05:24.695-05:00Reuters Thinks Pat Robertson Is Catholic, Possibly Thinks He Speaks for American CatholicsLast week, Belgium's parliament passed a bill extending its 2002 euthanasia law, allowing terminally ill adults the right to have their lives ended mercifully, <b><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26181615" target="_blank">to cover terminally ill children as well</a></b>. Under the law, the child must request the decision herself—repeatedly—and must be in great pain for which there is no available palliative treatment; her parents must consent to the procedure; and a team of doctors and psychiatrists must give their approval. An "extremely small number" of children, mostly in their teens, is expected to take advantage of the new law.<br />
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As you might expect, most of the native opposition came from the Catholic Church, and although Belgium is predominantly Roman Catholic, polls show that two-thirds of Belgians support this extension, and the bill passed in Parliament by about the same proportion: 86 to 44.<br />
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When Reuters was moved to print an article about the "<a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/02/14/us-belgium-euthanasia-idINBREA1C0UF20140214" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">international euthanasia backlash</a>," Pat Robertson was quoted as an example of American conservative critics. Robertson had commented on the euthanasia measure following an October 21, 2013 <i>700 Club</i> news segment on the matter. It's possible that Reuters chose Robertson because he's been one of the few American public figures to make <i>any</i> statements on Belgium's euthanasia law, and Belgium's flattered by the attention from a country that's notoriously ill-attentive to world affairs.<br />
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Or maybe they have a fundamental misunderstanding of Robertson's religion:<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">from Reuters, "Belgium Surprised at International Euthanasia Backlash"</span></i></div>
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Yyyyeeeeaaaahhh. Um. "Catholic Broadcast Network."<br />
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Okay, if anyone from Belgium and/or Reuters is reading this, let me lay a few things down for you:<br />
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<b>Pat Robertson is not Catholic.</b> Robertson is an evangelical Protestant—specifically, a Southern Baptist with charismatic tendencies. ("Charismatic tendencies" means he believes in "signs and wonders" like faith healing and speaking in tongues. "Southern Baptist" means he belongs to a denomination that was formed in the 19th century to defend American slavery. Yup.) Robertson and his ministry, the <i>Christian</i> Broadcasting Network, have <b><a href="http://patrobertsonsvault.blogspot.com/2013/10/pat-robertson-admires-justice.html" target="_blank">a checkered history with the Catholic Church</a></b>, ranging from intolerant antipathy to grudging acceptance of the Catholic Church as a political ally, at least when it comes to issues like euthanasia, abortion, contraception, and homosexuality. (When it comes to issues like the death penalty, the excesses of capitalism, and government assistance to the poor, not so much.)<br />
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<b>Only a small proportion of Americans listen to Pat Robertson.</b> Robertson's television program, <i>The 700 Club</i>, airs three times a day, five days a week on the ABC Family cable channel—not because that channel <i>wants</i> to air <i>The 700 Club</i>, but because Robertson founded the original Family Channel, and when he sold it, he stipulated that the channel had to continue to air <i>The 700 Club</i>, three times a day, for as long as it continued to be produced by CBN. <i>The 700 Club</i> also airs once each weekday on the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network, a relatively minor cable channel. In addition, CBN buys hourlong blocks of time every weekday on terrestrial broadcast stations around the country to reach audiences without cable.<br />
<br />
Adding up all the viewership numbers is fuzzy, but the numbers I've seen say that between 500,000 and 1 million people watch at least one broadcast of <i>The 700 Club</i> in a month's period. One million viewers is a lot—even if it's spread out among dozens of broadcasts per month—but keep in mind that there are 240 million adults in the United States who <i>aren't</i> watching <i>The 700 Club</i>. Which brings us to…<br />
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<b>The overwhelming majority of Americans treat Pat Robertson as an object of ridicule or scorn</b>. When Pat Robertson makes headlines, nine times out of ten it's for making offensive or stupid comments on his TV show, like the time he said the 2010 Haitian earthquake was a consequence of <b><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/" target="_blank">that country's pact with the devil</a></b>, or how God told him <b><a href="http://www.alternet.org/pat-robertson-admits-he-blew-election-prediction-he-got-god" target="_blank">Mitt Romney would be elected president</a></b>, or that <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-gay-people-deliberately-spread-hivaids-cutting-people-special-rings" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">gay men wear special rings that spread AIDS</a>. (That last comment was so egregious that <i>The 700 Club</i>'s producers edited it out of subsequent rebroadcasts and the online version of the broadcast.) When Robertson monitors like <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/pat-robertson" target="_blank">Right Wing Watch</a></b> or <b><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/tag/pat-robertson/" target="_blank">The Raw Story</a></b> publish these comments, the mockery spreads like wildfire with few (if any) coming to his defense. Meanwhile, when Robertson makes news for sounding reasonable—as he did two weeks ago when he <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/even-pat-robertson-thinks-young-earth-creationism-joke" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">criticized his co-religionists' belief in a 6000-year-old Earth</a>—the comments are not met with an embrace so much as surprise, and often used as a bellwether to denote "<a href="http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/10-right-wing-psychopaths-vitriol-week-somehow-made-pat-robertson-look" target="_blank">people who said crazier things than Pat Robertson</a>." (At the same time, some of those "reasonable" comments, like the one about evolution, are criticized by his fellow evangelical Christians and cause disaffection in his own ranks.)<br />
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Robertson retains a patina of influence and respectability from when he commanded a larger viewership and political following some 25 years ago, a time when <i>The 700 Club</i> was perhaps American conservatives' lone television outlet. But younger generations have not replaced the ranks of Robertson supporters who've died off, and the explosion of right-wing media in America—particularly Fox News—has eclipsed Robertson's standing and drawn viewers away from his television show. CBN and <i>The 700 Club</i> can still command the occasional high-profile conservative guest, as it has recently with Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin—hey, a million viewers is nothing to sneeze at—but Robertson's political endorsement is rarely sought anymore.<br />
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<b>Belgium, Pat Robertson thinks your euthanasia law makes you just like the Nazis now.</b> Reuters decided to highlight Robertson's comments about Belgium's colonial inhumanity under King Leopold II over a century ago. (As if America doesn't have its own shameful history with the Native American people and slavery.) Curiously, they decided to skip Robertson's more inflammatory remarks comparing compassionate euthanasia to the Nazis' killing the mentally ill. And also the Jews:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“The Nazis called them ‘useless eaters.’ People who were mentally defective, people who were crippled, people who were somehow less than whole in their bodies or their minds—the Nazis had no compunction about putting to death millions of Jews, millions of East Europeans, millions of people from the Gypsies or whoever. And also people who were mentally defective. They wouldn't mind going into a mental institution and just killing everybody. It was terrible what happened.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Could that spirit of death still be extant in Europe? Well, the answer regrettably is yes. And from abortion to euthanasia, some have called it a culture of death. Now children in the nation of Belgium under the age of 18 could have themselves </span><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><i>put to death</i></span><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><i>!</i>…”</span></blockquote>
And Belgium, if you're offended at being compared to the occupiers who subjugated your country for four years, you might not want to know about the time CBN referred to you as "<b><a href="http://www.cbn.com/tv/1509282970001" target="_blank">Belgistan</a></b>" because they think you're about to adopt Sharia law.<br />
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<i>Merci pour lire – Bedankt voor het lezen</i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-79918482614388488302014-02-18T17:04:00.000-05:002014-02-20T02:52:12.961-05:00Pat Robertson Had Quite a Show TodayThere was so much Pat Robertson crazy on <b><a href="http://www.cbn.com/tv/3221341796001" target="_blank">today's broadcast of <i>The 700 Club</i></a></b>, I don't even know where to begin. At the start of the show, I guess.<br />
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1. The opening news story: the United Nations Human Rights Council is considering referring Kim Jong-un and other North Korean officials to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Robertson follows up the story:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Why do we have this? Keep in mind the policy decisions of the United States have enormous consequences and they last for decades. We had the opportunity—and I was in the Marine Corps in Korea, I know whereof I speak—we had the opportunity in that peninsula to close it off and win a military victory. General MacArthur was going on the way to the Yalu River, he was going to set up a defense line across that boundary, and then he was going to mop up what was there, and we would have installed a democratic government in Korea. Instead of that, the politicians were scared of what the Russians might think or the Chinese might think, and they took MacArthur home in seeming disgrace, he was cashiered by Truman.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“And we made a line on the 38th Parallel, and we allowed Kim's grandfather…to set up a dictatorship, and have had that country on the watch list. Now they have developed nuclear weapons, who knows if they have chemical weapons, and they have tormented their people. And at the same time we send delegations over there to make peace with them—there's no peace with a group like that. They should be arrested and executed…”</span></blockquote>
In actuality, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was relieved of his command <i>after</i> his efforts to push the war up to the Yalu River resulted in China's joining the war on the North Korean side and flooding the Korean peninsula with 180,000 troops—despite having assured President Truman that China would not do so, and severely underestimating how many Chinese troops could cross the Yalu into North Korea if they did. The unexpected Chinese offensive severely drove back United Nations forces; for two months, Seoul was under North Korean control. Pat Robertson's "scared politicians"were the Truman Administration with their order to establish a cease-fire, an order which MacArthur directly contravened—a clear act of insubordination warranting his removal.<br />
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At least that's what the history books say. But Pat knows whereof he speaks, as he was in Korea—in the rear echelon, to be exact, where his father, a U.S. Senator, secured him <b><a href="http://www.schlatter.org/liquor_officer.htm" target="_blank">a cushy position as a "liquor officer"</a></b> responsible for maintaining the soldiers' supplies of alcohol. (Actually, Pat's father wanted him kept in Japan and out of Korea entirely.) Pat calls himself a combat Marine, but he never saw combat or came anywhere near it.<br />
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2. A former Planned Parenthood nurse (who admits she wasn't really pro-choice to begin with) is calling the organization "<b><a href="http://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2014/02-14/nurse.html" target="_blank">a money-grubbing, evil</a></b>" place because some staffers liked to chant "Abortion all the time!" (Also, receptionists got yelled at if they let the phone ring more than three times. Evil!) Well, Pat Robertson needs only the barest of excuses to go off on Planned Parenthood, and here it is:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">”The American Center for Law & Justice—of which I'm the head—is suing Planned Parenthood in California… </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“We have discovered that Planned Parenthood is <i>enormously</i> rich, and some of these individual chapters may have as much as a billion dollars in cash on hand. They are getting right now from the Federal government—it's in the budget—$550 million a year, taxpayer money, to go into that abortion mill.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“And when you read the writings of Margaret Sanger, who was the founder of this organization, it is the most shocking thing that you can simply imagine. She was slightly crazy. But the wealthy people decided that rather than having a flood of poor people—especially other races—born in our cities, that the best thing to do was <i>mass</i> abortion. And that's what's been going on with Planned Parenthood using United States government money…</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">”It is an abortion mill, and anything beyond that—all these fancy phrases with Faye Wattleton, people like that who are in charge of it, is just nonsense. It is a massive, massive moneymaking abortion mill…”</span></blockquote>
<b><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/18/pat-robertson-some-planned-parenthood-abortion-mills-have-a-billion-dollars-in-cash/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29" target="_blank">The Raw Story</a></b> posted their article as I was writing this, so my thanks to them for helping me complete a few of these points:<br />
<ul>
<li>Some chapters have a billion dollars on hand? Yyyyeaaaahhh, no. Planned Parenthood's <a href="http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/AR-FY13_111213_vF_rev3_ISSUU.pdf" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">most recent annual report</a> [PDF file] shows that the national office and all of the chapters combined have $1.6 billion in total assets—and about $400 million of that is net property and equipment valuation. There's also about $300 million in liabilities. (There might be some overlap between the liabilities and the net valuation. This is a very thin balance sheet they're providing—although I probably wouldn't understand a detailed one, anyway.) Ultimately, the whole damn outfit doesn't have $1 billion in unrestricted, ready cash, let alone a single chapter.</li>
<li>Once you factor in Planned Parenthood's contraception services (including vasectomies and tubal ligations), sexually transmitted infection testing/treatment, cancer prevention and screenings, pregnancy tests, prenatal care, primary care, urology services, and adoption referrals—whew!—abortion comprises less than 3% of what they do. Planned Parenthood is not using that $550 million in taxpayer money for that 3%, because it's prohibited from doing so. It uses taxpayer money for most or all of that other 97%—you know, standard medical assistance.</li>
<li>Oh, jeez, the Margaret Sanger smears. Give it a rest. Here's <a href="http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2011/apr/08/herman-cain/cain-claims-planned-parenthood-founded-planned-gen/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Politifact's debunking</a> and here's Planned Parenthood's (admittedly self-interested) <b><a href="http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/OppositionClaimsAboutMargaretSanger.pdf" target="_blank">response</a></b> [another PDF file]. And <i>even</i> <i>if</i> Margaret Sanger was not such a nice person with some extreme ideas 100 years ago, how does that implicitly discredit Planned Parenthood's work today? The Southern Baptists broke off from the national Baptist church 170 years ago because they still wanted to own slaves. Does that mean all of today's Southern Baptists—like Pat Robertson—are complicit in their founders' love of slavery? You know what, maybe let's promulgate that comparison.</li>
<li>Lastly, Faye Wattleton was the president of Planned Parenthood from 1978 to 1992. Way to keep current, Pat! (Cecile Richards has been president since 2006.)</li>
</ul>
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3. After an update on the Iranian nuclear program talks in Vienna (and Israel's opposition to the negotiations as giving in to Iran), Pat warns his viewers that the Iranians are lying and they're laughing at us and they're going to attack us:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“There's an intercontinental ballistic missile…and it means it'll go from one continent to another. What continent? Out there in the Middle East over to <i>our</i> continent… Even if it's a small bomb, it'll be enough to destroy one of our cities. Imagine we're sitting there, and all of a sudden one of the head mullahs in Iran says, 'We don't like your policy in relation to trade sanctions,' or whatever, 'and if you don't lift them, we're going to pulverize Washington or New York or Philadelphia or Baltimore. That's what they're looking at! And then suddenly, an American president is going to be faced with putting one of his cities on the table in front of a group of crazies…”</span></blockquote>
Okay, mistrust of Iran isn't beyond the pale, but "they'll nuke us over trade policy"? Didn't we spend 40 years saying the Soviet Union would nuke us over any disagreement? Of course, that never happened because we would have nuked them right back. And before you reply, "Ah, but these Iranian Muslim crazies have no respect for human life, they'll die for their cause," let me remind you that that's also <i>exactly</i> what we said about those commie atheist Russkies for 40 years.<br />
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But you know what? I don't have to play the Mutually Assured Destruction card. I already know that we won't be destroyed by a nuclear attack. How do I know? <b style="font-style: italic;">Pat Robertson told me</b>:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“There's something else the Lord said [to me], and I think this is very important… He said, 'I am not going to let men destroy the world with nuclear bombs. And I think <i>that</i> is important. We worry about North Korea, we worry about Iran, and so forth—the Lord is <i>not</i> going to let that happen. <b>So I think we can take that one off the table</b>.” – Pat Robertson's New Year's Message from God, January 3, 2011</span></blockquote>
When did he forget all about that? Why is he ignoring what God told him?<br />
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Apparently there was an asteroid fly-by last night, and <i>The 700 Club</i> always covers asteroid stories because Pat loves to bring up his godawful novel <i>The End of the Age</i>—I'm reading it, and it's perhaps the worst-written book I've ever read—where God ushers in the end-times with an asteroid crashing into the Earth, because "the only thing that will make the moon turn to blood and the sun obscured" and blah blah Revelation blah is an asteroid hit. But here's why I mention this:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“There's billions of those things floating around in space… It's a cosmic shooting gallery out there. Fortunately, God in his infinite wisdom placed a great big planet named Jupiter near to us, and that can attract some of these big things, and pull them away from us and over to Jupiter.”</span></blockquote>
Wouldn't it have made sense for God to put Jupiter closer to us? Maybe given us more than one moon to run interference with those asteroids? Whatever. God knows best.<br />
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5. Today's <i>700 Club</i> feature story took a hard look at how American immigration policy breaks up families—specifically, how children can face life alone if they lose their undocumented parents to deportation, after infractions as minor as a traffic violation. If that sounds like a compassionate, not-so-conservative slant on immigration, you are correct—"behind the scenes of that immigration debate are the faces of real people," Pat pointed out. "They're <i>human beings</i>." I don't recall ever seeing Robertson beat the xenophobia drum (although maybe he has and I missed it in his almost 50 years of broadcasting).<br />
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But Pat couldn't resist turning the story into a swipe at President Obama, because he can't help himself:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“But we need perhaps to secure the border, and Congress, Speaker Boehner said we can't trust the Obama administration to keep the law. 'If we pass a law, they won't keep it,' and he's right. They ignore the laws, they abide by whichever law they feel convenient, and the rest of them, they ignore.”</span></blockquote>
It's becoming more and more apparent that this whole "King Obama is a dictator who ignores the law at his choosing" is a carefully devised gambit by the Republicans to justify not passing legislation the Republicans know we need but are too afraid of the Tea Party to pass (e.g., immigration): "We <i>want</i> to pass this law…but we just don't trust Obama!" And Pat's more than willing to propagate these and other conservative talking points you hear about on Fox News—<i>The 700 Club</i>, almost 50 years old, was doing what Fox News does before there was a Fox News—because ultimately Pat cares at least as much about propagating Republican politics as he does about spreading the Gospel. Or maybe they're the same thing to him.<br />
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6. A viewer emails Pat Robertson, "Why is it a sin to be gay? Why would a loving God condemn a good-hearted person just for loving the same gender?"<br />
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Oh, semi-anonymous viewer. You think Pat Robertson will give you a satisfactory answer. That's so cute.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“A tendency is not sin. A <i>tendency</i>. Heterosexuals have a <i>tendency</i> to have sex with the opposite sex. That is not sinful. It is sinful if they exercise that tendency and begin to have sex with multiple men or women, not their husband. Sex is for <i>marriage</i>. Now, God said, 'For this cause shall a man leave his mother and father, cleave to his wife, the twain shall be one flesh.' So, God established marriage between a man and a woman.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Now, what happens to homosexuals? You can have a tendency. That's no sin. You have a <i>tendency</i>. You can be attracted to the same sex—no problem. But when you start having <i>sex</i> with that person, you go into the…I don't want to get <i>graphic—</i>that guy on 'Duck Dynasty' got graphic, and it got a little disgusting—but when you see what they <i>do</i>, it's not very pretty.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“And I want to say this, too: Nobody can ever produce a child through homosexual sex—or lesbian sex. You can not do it. This is for <i>procreation</i>, and God has said that those who violate it, the land will vomit them out. Now, it isn't for us to tell God what's fair and what isn't fair. He set it up this way, and that's the way he wants it. He holds all the cards. He's the one who decides who goes and who doesn't. And so don't say he's unfair. And these people are nice, and they go to church…but they're out they're doing something that God says is wrong. It's wrong! And so when he says it's wrong, it's wrong! Period. End of story.”</span></blockquote>
You know, the usual.<br />
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Anyway…did you notice the differentiation between "homosexual" and "lesbian" up there? As if lesbians aren't homosexuals? Pat's been saying "homosexuals and lesbians" forever, and I know he's not alone among the Christian Right in terming it that way. I'm not sure why; maybe there's some Biblical distinction, or maybe they just don't like saying the word "gay." I don't know. What I <i>do</i> know is that lesbian sex can be pretty. <i>Very</i> pretty. Did you see that movie <i>Blue Is the Warmest Color</i>? So pretty, their lesbian sex. I don't know about <i>homosexual</i> sex…but lesbian sex can be very pretty.<br />
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So that's…six different variations of crazy conservative-Republican-thumping-your-Bible-on-peoples-heads fun times! Wow, Pat Robertson, you had a busy show today! Now you go get some rest, you old coot. You have another abortion rant on deck for tomorrow, I know.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-56199669174423570612014-02-06T13:50:00.000-05:002014-02-06T14:06:04.447-05:00Pat Robertson's CBN Is Still Promoting Ken Ham's Young Earth Creationism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the wake of the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/04/271648691/watch-the-creationism-vs-evolution-debate-bill-nye-and-ken-ham" target="_blank"><b>Creationism vs. Evolution debate</b></a> on Tuesday night between Creation Museum founder Ken Ham and Bill Nye the Science Guy, Pat Robertson made news (well, <i>Internet</i> news) <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/even-pat-robertson-thinks-young-earth-creationism-joke" target="_blank">by slapping down Ham</a></b> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism" target="_blank">Young Earth creationism</a> in general:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“To say that [the Earth] all came about in 6,000 years is just nonsense and I think it's time we came off of that stuff and say this isn't possible… Let's be real, let's not make a joke of ourselves.”</span></blockquote>
As I've posted before, <a href="http://patrobertsonsvault.blogspot.com/2013/11/no-it-is-not-news-that-pat-robertson.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">it's not news that Pat Robertson acknowledges that the Earth is billions of years old</a>, but I get that most people assume otherwise, because it's not worth their time to differentiate between the gradations of absurdity that populate the Christian Right.<br />
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Then again, it's hard to make those distinctions when Robertson's own Christian Broadcasting Network still promotes Ham favorably on its website:<br />
<ul>
<li>An undated article entitled "<a href="http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/ChurchAndMinistry/Evangelism/Evolution_The_Ultimate_Compromise.aspx" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Evolution – The Ultimate Compromise</a>," reprinted from the now-defunct scienceministries.org, promotes Young Earth creationism and directs readers to Ken Ham's <i>The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved</i> (as screencapped above).</li>
<li>Another undated article, "<b><a href="http://www.cbn.com/family/youth/Stoelting_BigBang.aspx" target="_blank">'Big Bang' A Big Deal?</a></b>" by a guest columnist, scoffs at the Big Bang Theory that even Robertson accepts (although he maintains God initiated it), and cites "Dr. Ken Ham" as the primary "resource [to] promote the truth of Creation." (Note: Ken Ham's doctorates are all honorary.)</li>
<li><b><a href="http://shop.cbn.com/product.asp?sku=9780012625514" target="_blank">ShopCBN</a></b> sells Ken Ham's 2011 creationist DVD <i>Foundations: In Six Days</i>.</li>
</ul>
CBN News and <i>The 700 Club</i> have also positively featured Ken Ham's Creation Museum on several occasions, including this favorable interview with Ham himself in May 2007:<br />
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I uploaded that video, but it's <b><a href="http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2007/May/Creation-Museum-Opens-with-Big-Bang/" target="_blank">also available on CBN's website</a> </b>(Windows Media Player plug-in required to watch the video), with an accompanying article that devotes 18 paragraphs to promoting the Creation Museum, while giving an anthropologist a two-sentence rebuttal to say dinosaurs and man did not co-exist.<br />
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You can also watch CBN News reporter Paul Strand's <b><a href="http://www.cbn.com/tv/1377591565001" target="_blank">return to the Creation Museum</a></b> in 2009 (<i>sorry, CBN's video-embed code does not work on Blogger; I don't know who to blame</i>), where he pumped the Young Earth gospel at length—and without <i>any</i> rebuttal by an evolutionary scientist—in a segment titled "Creation Museum Bolsters Kids' Faith":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“For evolution to be true, the Earth must be billions of years old, with life forms on it evolving slowly over hundreds of millions of years. That seems to contradict the biblical version of creation, with God making the earth an its many life-forms rapidly—and probably not all that long ago.”</span></blockquote>
And summing up (after a stopover to Mount St. Helens "proves" that fossilized layers can be laid down in a matter of minutes by a volcano explosion):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“With resources like the Creation Museum in Kentucky available, Christian kids can head back into the public schools with their heads held high, knowing that what's in their Bible and what science says don't have to contradict each other.”</span></blockquote>
The very same day this aired (May 22, 2009), CBN ran <b><a href="http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2009/May/Scientists-Call-Fossil-the-Missing-Link-in-Evolution/" target="_blank">an additional piece on a German fossil</a></b> being touted as the missing link. The expert CBN brought aboard to debunk that fossil? Ken Ham.<br />
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You can find more examples of favorable if cursory CBN coverage of the Creation Museum <a href="http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2009/June/Creation-Museum-Draws-Crowds-in-Kentucky/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2010/April/Creation-Museum-Celebrates-One-Million-Visitors/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Pat Robertson may not have started this "joke" that started the whole world laughing—but oh, if he'd only see, that the joke was on him, too.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><span style="font-size: large;">♪♫</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"> </span><i>I-I-I-I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes…</i> <span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;"><span style="font-size: large;">♪♫</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-1176210263868511632014-02-05T13:35:00.000-05:002014-02-05T13:55:19.169-05:00Pat Robertson Doesn't Really Want to Pray for the President, Even Though the Bible Commands Him To<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
One of the mainstays of Christianity is that adherents should pray for their nation's leaders, especially the President (or Queen or whoever). No matter who he is (or she, right? this will extend to female presidents, right guys?), no matter what his policies are, we're supposed to pray for the President. Because it's in the Bible:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and for all who are in high positions…</i> (1 Timothy 2:1-2) </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.</i> (Romans 13:1)</blockquote>
But Pat Robertson must not care what the Bible says anymore, because he's not going to pray for <i>this</i> president. Pat's been peddling the standard conservative Republican line that President Obama's a socialist and a dictator and all that jazz, but he must honestly believe all that because here he is after last week's State of the Union scoffing at co-host Wendy Griffith's reminder to pray for him (I included Pat's whole post-SOTU rant, but you can<b> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idxD9Og9jZg&feature=youtu.be&t=1m36s" target="_blank">skip to Wendy's reminder</a></b> at 1:36 into the video):<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">WENDY GRIFFITH: "But he's our President, and we're praying for him and we wish him well, and we pray God's wisdom for him." </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">PAT ROBERTSON: [<i>audible hissing sigh of exasperation</i>] "Wendy, that is a beautiful sentiment."</span></blockquote>
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You know who used to remind us that we're supposed to pray for our leaders, even when we don't endorse what our leaders stand for? <i>Pat Robertson</i>. Here he is the day after Bill Clinton's election, reminding viewers that we're commanded to pray for our president. <i>BILL CLINTON</i>. Whitewatering, wannabe healthcare-mandating, Travelgating, draft-dodging, dope-smoking, Chinese money-taking, Gennifer Flowers-diddling, Paula Jones-harassing, Vince Foster-killing (yup, Pat was on that bandwagon) <i>Bill Clinton</i> was not as bad as Barack Obama:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">TERRY MEEUWSEN: This is the conclusion of [the 1996] election, and there are those who do not endorse, uh, some of the leaders who were elected. How do we interpret and obey this commandment in Romans 13:1? </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">PAT ROBERTSON: I think what we do is to pray for them, because God wants us to live a quiet and peaceful life, that we might have peace. And that was said under the despotic emperors of Rome, who were corrupt, venal—you couldn't get much worse than Nero! Whatever is bad in Washington can't hold a candle to the debauched despots of the Roman Empire! And yet Paul said, you obey these authorities, you pray for them so we can live a peaceful, godly life so that the Gospel can go forth…</span></blockquote>
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You couldn't get much worse than Nero! Except for Obama, apparently. That's the only logical conclusion you can draw from this now: OBAMA IS WORSE THAN NERO. And we're talking about a guy who literally had his own mother killed. (Nero, I mean. Not Obama.)<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source: The 700 Club</span></i></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-90139613866931133072014-02-05T11:55:00.000-05:002014-02-05T12:58:17.087-05:00Victoria Jackson Used to Shill for The 700 Club in "Comedy" Bits (1996-97)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNZfhrEGCPbx2U84PSMsRkjM_z7jes-DnKfRl9tXEBxteYrAA3ATML23LLJ5UDrWl72NCr_lgcGHH4YS6KlloTRs-Z1BWA1RSBTFZ8joB73CwmTCJxdqrORmd1hdRi9jfsaJC1AovMBnTc/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-04+at+7.39.22+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNZfhrEGCPbx2U84PSMsRkjM_z7jes-DnKfRl9tXEBxteYrAA3ATML23LLJ5UDrWl72NCr_lgcGHH4YS6KlloTRs-Z1BWA1RSBTFZ8joB73CwmTCJxdqrORmd1hdRi9jfsaJC1AovMBnTc/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-04+at+7.39.22+PM.png" height="498" width="640" /></a></div>
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Yesterday, celebrity Tea Partier and former <i>Saturday Night Live</i> comedian Victoria Jackson<b><a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/snl_alum_victoria_jackson_files_tennessee_county_seat?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+tpm-news+(TPMNews)" target="_blank"> filed to run for county commission in Tennessee</a></b>. This morning, <i>The 700 Club</i> interviewed celebrity Tea Partier and former star of <i>Cheers</i> John Ratzenberger, ostensibly to discuss how faith has influenced his career, although he ended up talking more about being a carpenter who helped build the stage at Woodstock, and how much he loves <i>The Godfather</i>. (Yeah, <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P_NJ2eeESQ" target="_blank">the whole interview</a></b> was just shy of a train wreck. <strike>I can't even link to the interview because <i>The 700 Club</i> is so ashamed of it, they haven't uploaded it yet.</strike> <b>UPDATE</b>: Link added. They finally posted it at 12: 45 pm.)<br />
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So this is as good a time as any for me to upload some of the times Victoria Jackson made recurring appearances on <i>The 700 Club</i> in the mid-1990s. It's pretty harmless—and dumb—but it's good to remember that before she was the whackadoo celebrity queen of the Tea Party, she was a whackadoo hawker for Pat Robertson.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-86293412659776759382014-01-30T11:08:00.000-05:002014-02-20T02:56:06.364-05:00PETA, Maybe Look Into This? Pat Robertson's Swans Are Freezing (UPDATED)Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network campus in Virginia Beach has a pair of swans on its lake because swans mate for life, making them an enduring and inspiring symbol of the Christian values of monogamy and fidelity.<br />
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Okay, I just made that up. I'm pretty sure they're there because somebody at CBN thought swans are fancy.<br />
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Anyway, it's so cold in Virginia that the lake is frozen over. <i>Won't anyone think of the poor swans?</i> Oh thank you, Wendy Griffith:<br />
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Swans sitting by a heating vent. Nature!<br />
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PETA?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVe4ypknMWm2imQuiHDXyQIevc7CFiEiMOu7V0Fi_bj52kSy4kxCI8thQ-8rEBnYL7VCrzdGGzXZpupaPJOI7nTfbhTq8CZYjz2WlgOoMyGWAfDQIjm1R_qJJw9dtmUIV46fcd33C_Yarp/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-01-30+at+10.59.46+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVe4ypknMWm2imQuiHDXyQIevc7CFiEiMOu7V0Fi_bj52kSy4kxCI8thQ-8rEBnYL7VCrzdGGzXZpupaPJOI7nTfbhTq8CZYjz2WlgOoMyGWAfDQIjm1R_qJJw9dtmUIV46fcd33C_Yarp/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-01-30+at+10.59.46+AM.png" height="205" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>UPDATE</b>: PETA's response:</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
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<a href="https://twitter.com/robertsonsvault">@robertsonsvault</a> If you suspect an animal in need, please report it.</div>
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— PETA (@peta) <a href="https://twitter.com/peta/statuses/429003998318698496">January 30, 2014</a></div>
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Um, I thought I just did?<br />
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-39047845557187439832014-01-28T12:00:00.000-05:002014-01-28T12:00:34.659-05:00Is Pat Robertson Softening on Pornography?<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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(<i>Game of Thrones</i>. I just <u>know</u> it's <i>Game of Thrones</i>.)<br />
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It was a little over three years ago that Pat Robertson made headlines for <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/pat-robertson-criminalizing-marijuana-is-ruining-young-people/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">suggesting that marijuana be decriminalized</a>. Even though a CBN spokesperson felt the need to walk Pat's comments back—"he was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws blah blah blah"—it was rightly considered a softening of a decades-long hard-line antidrug stance that Pat shared with pretty much everyone else on the Right. (See, for example, <b><a href="http://youtu.be/Mqxr-DhRCKU" target="_blank">this alarmist story</a></b> <i>The 700 Club</i> ran when California and Arizona passed medical marijuana referenda in 1996, complete with Pat's unsupportive follow-up comments.)<br />
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So maybe Pat's mellowing with age, because today a viewer asked Pat if she should be concerned that her pastor watches a cable show with nudity in it, and instead of blasting the moral cesspool of popular culture and the easy availability of pornography, his answer was surprisingly reasonable:<br />
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<blockquote>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“The human body is not essentially nasty. I mean, God made us without clothes. You look at that famous statue of David that's considered one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance, and…he doesn't have any clothes on at all. The Venus de Milo and some of those others…the Sistine Chapel, Adam has got no clothes on… The body is not essentially pornographic. I think to make it so is a mistake. It's what's in your mind.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I don't know what your pastor's watching, what show it is. Maybe it's got some redeeming qualities. But I sure wouldn't turn him off because he's watching a few clips of nudity on TV. I don't know what show you're talking about, some of them are real nasty…</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“<b>The human form <i>per se</i> isn't necessarily dirty. It's what our minds make it.</b>”</span></blockquote>
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Keep in mind that this is the same Pat Robertson who used to warn his audience that<b> <a href="http://youtu.be/B7e5JUgPe8I" target="_blank">just a glimpse of pornography can send you spiraling into a full-blown addiction</a></b>.<br />
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Well, you read it here first: Pat Robertson's okay with nudity on television now. And apparently, drugs and violence, too: 20 minutes earlier, <i>The 700 Club</i> featured the story of a meth dealer who found God, and he introduced it with, "You probably saw the blockbuster cable series <i>Breaking Bad</i>." Yup. Pat expects the good Christians who tune into him every day to have also watched <i>Breaking Bad</i>.<br />
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So…after more than 50 years of inveighing against the depravity of our popular culture and telling his audience to tune it out, Pat Robertson's pretty much acknowledging that even the people who watch him aren't really listening to him.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-14319500023835358642014-01-22T10:09:00.000-05:002014-01-26T07:02:49.992-05:00Pat Robertson Says His Protégé, Now-Indicted Former Governor Bob McDonnell, Is Innocent<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday, former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen were <b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/former-virginia-governor-and-his-wife-are-indicted.html" target="_blank">indicted for soliciting and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans and gifts</a></b> from the chief executive officer of the Star Scientific dietary-supplement company, in return for having McDonnell promote Star's products. According to <b><a href="http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae/news/2014/01/20140121mcdonnellnr.html" target="_blank">the indictment</a></b> and various other news sources (primarily the <i><b><a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/timeline-mcdonnells-involvement-with-star-scientific/307/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a></b></i>):<br />
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<ul>
<li>Gov. McDonnell set up meetings with state officials for Star Scientific CEO Jonnie R. Williams to promote his products.</li>
<li>Gov. McDonnell personally promoted Star Scientific's Anatabloc, a purported anti-inflammatory supplement, with state officials during meetings to discuss the state employee health plan (under which Star wanted Anatabloc and other products listed as covered medications).</li>
<li>Gov. McDonnell tried to persuade state university researchers to design studies into the health benefits of Star's products, and sought to have those studies paid for by the State Tobacco Commission. (Anatabloc uses an alkaloid found in tobacco.)</li>
<li>At Star Scientific's expense, Mrs. McDonnell flew to a Florida seminar for scientists and investors where she promoted Anatabloc and specifically touted its potential to lower health-care costs in Virginia. (The McDonnells' public support for Anatabloc would be cited by financial analysts boosting Star Scientific stock.)</li>
<li>Mrs. McDonnell hosted the launch party for Anatabloc at an Executive Mansion luncheon where Star gave out start-up research grants to two state universities. A Star Scientific press release promoting the Anatabloc launch specifically cited interest by Virginia state medical institutions in researching the product's potentials. It was at the Florida seminar where Mrs. McDonnell first offered, publicly, to host the luncheon at the mansion; that same day, she bought $30,000 in Star Scientific stock—from $50,000 Williams had given her a week earlier.</li>
<li>The McDonnells endeavored to hide the extent of the gifts and loans by channeling them through family members or shell corporations to avoid state disclosure requirements.</li>
<li>The McDonnells omitted mention of Williams' private loans on applications with two separate lending institutions.</li>
<li>Mrs. McDonnell lied to government investigators who questioned her about their relationship with Williams.</li>
<li>The gifts (or loans) included: a total of $135,000 in cash, $7,500 in golf rounds for the McDonnell family and staff, a $6,500 silver Rolex watch specially engraved for the governor (which Mrs. McDonnell specifically asked Williams to buy for him), a $20,000 New York City shopping spree at such tony outfits as Bergdorf Goodman and Louis Vuitton, and $15,000 in catering for daughter Cailin McDonnell's wedding reception.</li>
<li>Last summer, McDonnell said he was returning all "tangible" gifts and repaying the loans, although the indictment lists <b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/mcdonnell-indictment-from-shoes-to-golf-shirts-the-items-subject-to-forfeiture/2014/01/21/5abdacda-82e9-11e3-8099-9181471f7aaf_story.html" target="_blank">property for potential forfeiture</a></b> that suggests otherwise. (Can't return the rounds of golf or the catering, though.)</li>
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Pat Robertson and Bob McDonnell go back at least 15 years, when McDonnell began serving on the Board of Trustees of Robertson's Regent University; and really, almost 30 years, when McDonnell enrolled in the inaugural class of Regent's School of Law in 1986 after matriculating at the university's Robertson School of Government in the previous year. (According to the <b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402345.html" target="_blank">Washington Post</a></b>, McDonnell claims that "he and Robertson did not become well acquainted until years after he was first elected to office" in 1991.)<br />
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So what does Pat have to say about his friend's indictment? <br />
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<a name='more'></a>Well, Pat wasn't on the air today, and hasn't been for two weeks. <i>The 700 Club</i> is currently running one of its periodic telethons, and I guess Pat's too old now to take part in that, or something. (Today's broadcast of <i>The 700 Club</i> omitted any mention of the McDonnells' indictment in the five minutes it devoted to news at the top of the program. Online, <a href="http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2014/January/Fmr-Va-Gov-McDonnell-Indicted-on-Corruption-Charges/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">CBN News' coverage of the McDonnell indictment</a> spends more time quoting McDonnell's side than it does on the indictment itself.)<br />
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But no matter. Pat already weighed in on McDonnell's pending indictment <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGvnem9WJUw" target="_blank">last month</a></b>:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Bob McDonnell's been one of the best governors Virginia's had in recent memory. He's been a superb governor, he's been <i>scrupulously</i> honest—he has, in my opinion, done absolutely nothing wrong. He has a wife who is trying to promote a vitamin company that makes vitamins in Virginia. So the vitamin company owner was very generous with her, but…they really haven't found any evidence that he did anything wrong, that Bob McDonnell, the governor, did anything wrong.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“But you know they say you can indict a ham sandwich if you wanted to… We are litigation-happy, we are indictment-happy, we've got a culture where if you don't like somebody, well, get 'em indicted… I don't think the U.S. Attorney is going to try to push this… I think without question, Bob McDonnell would win, but what an awful expensive thing it would cost, at least a million dollars or more to defend it…</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“This thing came up <b>because his wife just really doesn't understand certain of the niceties</b> that go along with that high office, and what you can do in terms of your friends, and people tried to take advantage of her.”</span></blockquote>
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See? Bob McDonnell didn't do anything wrong! He's only in trouble because his silly little wife didn't know she couldn't accept gifts—and you know how women are. Their tiny little minds don't understand politics. They should just stick to the housework. And not have the vote.<br />
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After co-host Terry Meeuwsen claims McDonnell's a victim of his political enemies looking for things that could be "exploded in the media," Pat goes on:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“The law is, [if] somebody gives you money and then you give them a state benefit in exchange for it. As far as it can be determined, there was <i>no</i> benefit given to anybody for anything. He got some gifts, his wife did, and daughter. But as far as we can tell, he didn't do anything for the state. They had a reception in the mansion, but that was a private affair paid for by somebody else…”</span></blockquote>
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Keep in mind that most of the facts surrounding the indictment had been disclosed and documented for months before Robertson made these comments. (See, for example, <b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/va-gov-mcdonnell-in-close-relationship-with-owner-of-struggling-company/2013/03/30/43f34fb8-97ea-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html" target="_blank">this <i>Washington Post </i>article from March</a></b>, or <b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/mcdonnells-corporation-wife-benefited-from-120000-more-from-donor-sources-say/2013/07/09/79b29880-e5b4-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html?hpid=z1" target="_blank">this one from July</a></b>.) Pitching your benefactor's products, providing privileged access to state officials, pushing for state funding for promotional studies, using your office to pump up your benefactor's stock (in which you own shares), lying about it all to investigators—none of that is "wrong"? That's some morality you're preaching there, Pat. "No benefit given"? Access is a benefit. Influence is a benefit. True, Star Scientific might not have ultimately gotten <i>tangible</i> results from the McDonnells' efforts—its products were never covered by the state employee health plan, no studies seem to have been funded, its stock price never made any long-term gains—but that doesn't change the fact that the McDonnells made those efforts in the first place. They tried, and they were paid handsomely for it.<br />
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And those million-dollar legal bills Pat was insinuating? He failed to mention <b><a href="http://hamptonroads.com/2013/07/va-beach-group-sets-mcdonnell-defense-fund" target="_blank">the legal defense fund McDonnell's supporters set up</a></b> back in July, five months before this aired. The attorney who chairs the fund, Stanley Baldwin, is the Executive Vice President of Amerigroup, a health insurance company whose headquarters in Virginia Beach is <a href="http://ellisgibson.com/amerigroup2.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">the anchor tenant of a CBN-owned office park</a> literally across the street from Pat Robertson's CBN headquarters where <i>The 700 Club</i> is produced. One of the fund's other two board members is <b><a href="https://www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bios/Tom_Knox_012913.aspx" target="_blank">Tom Knox, former vice president of marketing for CBN</a></b>. Given these associations and Robertson's historical involvement in Virginia politics—including <b><a href="http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/index/10715?start_year=1993&end_year=2013&lookup_type=year&filing_period=all" target="_blank">$738,000</a></b> in Republican party and campaign contributions over the last 20 years—it's impossible to believe that Robertson <i>wasn't</i> familiar with McDonnell's legal defense fund when he pitched McConnell's tale of woe. Hell, it's hard to believe that Robertson hasn't contributed, or even been approached to do so. (The fund has yet to release the names of any donors, despite Baldwin's promise to make such disclosures "on a regular basis" when it was launched.)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: larger;">Bob McDonnell and Pat Robertson: A History</span></b></div>
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In 1985, McDonnell enrolled at the Robertson School of Government at what was then called Christian Broadcasting Network University (now Regent University, because "Christian Broadcasting Network University" was always a dumb name); the following year, he enrolled in CBN U.'s then-unaccredited law school, and graduated in 1989 with both an M.A. in Public Policy and a J.D. in Law. McDonnell would go on to serve on Regent's Board of Trustees from 1998 through 2005, and delivered the commencement speech at the School of Law's graduation ceremonies in 2008. In 2010, four months after being elected governor, <b><a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/05/regent_names_mcdonnell_alumnus.html" target="_blank">Regent named McDonnell its "Alumnus of the Year."</a></b><br />
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In May 2006, four months into his term as Attorney General of Virginia, Pat Robertson interviewed McDonnell on <i>The 700 Club</i>, where Pat called him his "dear friend" as they talked about keeping marriage from the gays, and also his time at Regent University:<br />
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In the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial race, Pat Robertson <b><a href="http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/money_out_details/10715?committee_id=1581&end_year=2013&filing_period=all&lookup_type=year&start_year=1993" target="_blank">contributed $35,000 to McDonnell's campaign</a></b>; his son Timothy gave McDonnell $24,000 in monetary contributions and in-kind donations, and Timothy's wife Lisa (listed occupation: "Homemaker/Non-Wage Earner") kicked in an additional $10,000 the day before the election. And that's not counting the <a href="http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/money_out_details/10715?committee_id=1765&end_year=2013&filing_period=all&lookup_type=year&start_year=1993" target="_blank"><b>$66,000 Pat gave to McDonnell for Attorney General</b></a> between 2003 and 2007—$20,000 of that going into McDonnell's campaign coffers <i>after</i> he had been elected to his only term as A.G.—or the $5,000 he gave to McDonnell for Delegate in 1999 (when McDonnell ran unopposed), or the $5,000 he gave to McDonnell's 2010 inauguration committee, or the additional $15,000 Timothy Robertson similarly gave for McDonnell's previous races. All told, the Robertson family has given McDonnell over <b>$160,000</b> in campaign contributions over the years. [<i>Source for all figures: <b><a href="http://vpap.org/index" target="_blank">Virginia Public Access Project</a></b>.</i>] When McDonnell was elected Governor on November 3, 2009, Pat Robertson<b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402345.html" target="_blank"> joined McDonnell in his hotel suite to watch the election returns</a></b>. "Our motto at Regent is 'Christian Leadership to Change the World,' and this is the way we do it," Robertson said that night in an <a href="http://www.regent.edu/news_events/?article_id=551&view=full_article" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">interview with Regent University's law school blog</a>.<br />
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Last fall, in the waning months of McDonnell's term as governor, speculation arose that he might be named the new president of Regent University. As Regent and McDonnell denied the rumor, <b><a href="http://www.wavy.com/news/local/va-beach/rumors-envision-mcdonnell-at-regent-university" target="_blank">a former Regent professor told Virginia's WAVY-TV</a></b>, "Pat Robertson and Bob McDonnell have a long-standing and trusting relationship."<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-73286364093484248792014-01-10T11:49:00.000-05:002014-01-10T11:49:19.561-05:00Pat Robertson Now Says Three-Strikes Laws Are Bad for Society, and It's All Bill Clinton's FaultYesterday, Pat Robertson <b><a href="http://youtu.be/yEBP0Y9CNE8" target="_blank">railed against the "growing criminalization of people in America" and the "tough-on-crime politicians"</a></b> who passed the Three Strikes, You're Out laws in the 1990s. Which was refreshing, but also curious: back in those days, Robertson gave the remarkable impression that he was on the <i>crime! crime! crime! </i>bandwagon, too:<br />
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Anyway, is it your recollection that it was Republican politicians, like California governor Pete Wilson (1991-1999), who led the drive to enact Three Strikes? Mine too! You know who else's? This <a href="http://www.pbs.org/pov/thelegacy/archive/thelegacy/timeline.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Three Strikes timeline</a>'s, which lists Pete Wilson as the first governor to sign a Three Strikes bill into law.<br />
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Yet look who Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7jvYPBDU30" target="_blank">places the blame on</a></b>:<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">(This is an image, not a video. If you want to see the YouTube video, click on the link directly above this image.)</span></i></div>
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Of course. It happened in the '90s, so it must be Clinton's fault! That's how it works! Just like everything going on today is entirely Obama's fault! Oh, but the years in between Clinton and Obama? That was 9/11. 9/11 was our president for those eight years.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-85123288403555248822014-01-09T12:00:00.001-05:002014-01-09T12:01:19.790-05:00God Is Working on People's Intestines and Colons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Pat Robertson has been claiming to heal people over the television airwaves for 40 years or so with something he invented called the "Word of Knowledge." See, God sends him a "word" that someone watching him on the TV is—oh screw it, it's faith healing. We're talking about faith healing. Pat Robertson has the power to hear God telling him who in his audience is suffering—and miraculously, everyone who has ever co-hosted <i>The 700 Club</i> with Pat has been imbued with the same power.</div>
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Apparently, someone over at <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/08/christian-broadcasting-network-pat-robertson-can-pray-viewers-toothaches-away-over-the-tv" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">The Raw Story</a> only just discovered this, because he thought <a href="http://www.cbn.com/tv/3026395158001" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">this video of Pat supposedly healing a man's infected jaw</a> was something new and hilarious enough to highlight.</div>
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Well, shit. Practically every day Pat Robertson and <i>The 700 Club</i> claim that they've healed someone in their viewing audience. And I was reluctant to say "shit" back there, but it's actually kind of literal:</div>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“A bowel obstruction is being healed right now, that is being taken care of. Somebody else with colitis is being healed, and somebody else with diverticulitis. God is working on people's intestines and colons. There are a number of people with ulcerated colitis and various nervousness… God is giving you peace, just deep settled peace, it'll come all over you…”</span></blockquote>
And other stuff.<br />
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Want more? Here's a heretofore infertile woman who Pat impregnated over the air with his healing. Or something like that:<br />
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Even Pat's own people know this whole thing is a scam. As former CBN producer Gerald Straub wrote in his behind-the-scenes tell-all <i>Salvation for Sale</i>:</div>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I used to muse that if this healing and 'word of knowledge' was really happening, why was it relegated to the last few minutes of the show?… Beyond that, if this activity was legitimate, I would think we'd want to fill the entire show with it, but instead we chattered about politics, the economy, or the Supreme Court for most of the show and let God do his healing during the last few minutes.… I just assumed that someday I would understand. I was wrong. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“There was nothing 'mystical' to understand; it was simply 'statistical.' Robertson's little faith-healing procedure is a charade—he simply 'calls out' an illness and predicts its cure, and with millions of viewers the statistical probabilities are that <i>someone</i> will have the disease named and that they will naturally recover.”</span></blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-22621016717947539392014-01-08T10:58:00.000-05:002014-01-08T10:58:59.203-05:00Unemployment Insurance Is Just Obama's Socialism, Get Rid of It and the Poor Will Find Jobs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Submitted for your disapproval:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“[Unemployment benefits] don't create jobs, they just prolong joblessness for those who are on the dole. But the president seems to think that if people sign up for some government program, that they have therefore gotten off the rolls and into a good place. But the good place isn't government subsidy, and that's what he wants, he wants people under the control of government. And therefore, the more people under the control of government, the better the socialist agenda turns out.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><b>But statistics seem to show that when you cut unemployment benefits, and people really, honest-to-goodness are faced with the stark reality of getting a job, that they find ways of getting employment in the private sector.</b></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">It isn't being cold-hearted to say the government cannot afford to continue, month after month, year after year, keeping people on the dole of unemployment. You can't do that. Sooner or later, you have to say we rely on the private sector. Then we have to create a climate in this country where people can be employed, where business is booming, where regulations are cut down, and taxes are cut and people can go to work. That's what we need to do, but the president doesn't see it that way.”</span></blockquote>
Remember—this is coming from a man whose best advice he could muster for an unemployed viewer was, <b><a href="http://patrobertsonsvault.blogspot.com/2013/10/pat-robertsons-advice-to-unemployed-ask.html" target="_blank">"Ask God, or consider telemarketing."</a></b><br />
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As for that last part, where we need to get the economy moving again? Turns out extending unemployment benefits is the second-best way to stimulate the economy, right behind increasing food stamps, according to <b><a href="https://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/assissing-the-impact-of-the-fiscal-stimulus.pdf" target="_blank">Moody's</a></b>:<br />
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But then again, that Moody's is just another socialist outfit on Wall Street, what do they know.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-26626866999745958142014-01-07T13:42:00.000-05:002014-01-22T02:15:16.702-05:00CBN News Reverse-Engineers an Attack on a Climate-Change Scientist to Smear Global-Warming Proponents<div style="text-align: center;">
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Today's broadcast of <i>The 700 Club</i> featured a segment by Pat Robertson's own CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) News on "global cooling," an extreme-minority belief (of course) that not only is global warming false, but that the Earth is actually getting colder. I'm not going to pretend to have the scientific <i>bona fides</i> to thoroughly debunk this theory, so I'll just direct you to <b><a href="http://desmogblog.com/">desmogblog.com</a></b> and their collection of <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/1916" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">articles on global cooling</a> instead.</div>
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But it wasn't enough for Robertson's band of merry right-wing Christian <strike>journalists</strike> reporters to flog the latest line of b.s. from the anti-warming crowd. CBN actually took a right-wing slur against a climate-change scientist, flipped it, <i>and claimed it was global-warming proponents making the accusation</i>.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Climate-change skeptics have been…compared to Holocaust deniers, <i>and even child molesters.</i>”</span></blockquote>
I've heard the first charge before, and yes, <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial#Meanings_of_the_term" target="_blank">a couple of newspaper columnists </a></b>made that comparison to drive home the point that the anti-warming crowd is denying the truth in the face of clear and overwhelming evidence. (Let me say that as a Jew, I take no offense at this comparison.)<br />
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But <i>child molester</i>? Apparently, someone said that too, about Professor Michael E. Mann of Pennsylvania State University:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">”Mann could be said to be <b>the</b> <b>Jerry Sandusky of climate science</b>, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science.”</span></blockquote>
EXCEPT: Michael Mann is a global-warming <i>advocate</i>. The child-molester comparison was not made <i>against</i> a climate-change skeptic, but BY a climate-change skeptic—<b><a href="http://www.openmarket.org/2012/07/13/the-other-scandal-in-unhappy-valley/" target="_blank">Rand Simberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute</a></b>, a libertarian think-tank that refutes global warming. The ultraconservative <i>National Review</i> liked the child-molester comparison so much that <b><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309442/football-and-hockey-mark-steyn" target="_blank">they devoted an article to it on their blog</a></b>. (Simberg has since wiped the quote cited above from the post on CEI's blog, but the <i>National Review</i> article retains the citation. Dr. Mann is currently suing both CEI and <i>National Review</i> for defamation.)<br />
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Did CBN deliberately flip the attack on a global-warming advocate into persecution against climate-change deniers, or just misread it? Who knows. Maybe a CBN reporter saw someone say something beyond the pale—and assumed it <i>had</i> to come from the left. <i>They're</i> the ones who make such comments. <i>Not us on the right! We don't say such things! WE'RE THE ONES WHO ARE PERSECUTED.</i><br />
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Or maybe they just lied in the hopes that no one would notice. (There's not much critical analysis of CBN, Pat Robertson, and <i>The 700 Club</i> that doesn't originate from <b><a href="http://rightwingwatch.org/" target="_blank">Right Wing Watch</a></b> or this blog no one's reading yet.)<br />
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I did also like the part of the "global cooling" story that suggested the Earth <i>was</i> in fact warming up through 1998, implying that global warming <i>used to be</i> valid. Which was the position CBN took back then, right? Of course not:<br />
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(Note that the person interviewed in that segment right after "science seems to indicate otherwise" is Fred L. Smith, another Competitive Enterprise Institute figure—the founder, in fact—who holds degrees in theoretical mathematics and political science. Curious how they couldn't find, you know, <i>an actual climate scientist</i> to make those points.)<br />
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Finally, I like how CBN still calls them "climate-change skeptics" even though they believe the Earth is getting <i>colder</i> now. Keeping that terminology just proves that they're grabbing hold of any anti-warming theory that comes down the pike.<br />
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<b>See Also—<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-climate-change-myth-created-money-hungry-scientists" target="_blank">Robertson: Climate Change Is a Myth Created by Money-Hungry Scientists</a> (Right Wing Watch)</b><br />
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<a href="http://desmog.ca/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Powell-Science-Pie-Chart_0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://desmog.ca/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Powell-Science-Pie-Chart_0.png" height="320" width="267" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Graphic Credit: desmogblog.com</span></i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-52072660171919512582013-12-20T10:24:00.000-05:002014-02-18T15:54:53.216-05:00Totally Not Prejudiced Pat Robertson Said Japanese People Are Prejudiced<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A regular feature of <i>The 700 Club</i> is "Bring it On-Line," where Pat Robertson answers viewer questions because apparently there are still hundreds of thousands of people out there who think Pat's a fount of wisdom. It's the most unscripted part of the show—I don't think Pat even knows in advance what the questions will be—and it's been the source of most of the WTF moments he's treated us to in the past year: <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-gay-people-deliberately-spread-hivaids-cutting-people-special-rings" target="_blank">the AIDS-spreading rings gay people wear</a></b>, the <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-ask-your-gay-son-if-his-coach-molested-him" target="_blank">is-your-son-gay-because-his-coach-molested-him comment,</a></b> and <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/pat-robertson" target="_blank">many others</a> </b>that weren't always about gay people.<br />
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On yesterday's show, Pat fielded the question shown above from a white guy who's attracted to African-American women. And of course the answer got awkward, because old white Southern men aren't all that capable of talking about race without putting their feet in their mouths.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“From a scriptural standpoint, the only problem is, ‘Do not be equally yoked together with unbelievers.’ That's what the Bible says.”</span></div>
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Okay, so far so inoffensive. And coherent. But then:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“The skin color. Asian—they call 'em the yellow race, but they're a little bit off-white. Black people, a little bit different shade of pigmentation. Indian—they call 'em the red men, we've got names for all this stuff. But I think, according to your preference and your love, I would just say in certain cultures, there is a definite prejudice against interracial marriages, and whether it has to do with Indian, or it has to do with Chinese, or it has to do with something else, you'll find a prejudice. Japanese, particularly. Prejudiced. So you're asking yourself to get into a situation of prejudice…”</span></blockquote>
I've read that five times, and I still don't understand most of that. But the part about how prejudiced the Japanese are comes out loud and clear. Not to mention the irony of judging a whole ethnic population and calling <i>them</i> prejudiced. Anyway, I wonder what my Jewish cousin and his Japanese wife would think of all this.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-27334505988048046402013-12-19T14:57:00.000-05:002013-12-20T12:29:13.007-05:00Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson Didn't Want to Do the Show If He Couldn't Thump His Bible<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You all know about this thing where Phil Robertson, <b><a href="http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson" target="_blank">the head hillbilly on "Duck Dynasty" said homosexuality is a sin</a></b> and now <b><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/phil-robertson-duck-dynasty_n_4469887.html" target="_blank">A&E Networks is "suspending" him from future episodes of the show</a></b>? I don't have to lay it out for you all over again, right? Good. (Note: Despite numerous jokes to the contrary, Pat Robertson is not related to Duck Dynasty's Robertson clan. Also, I don't watch "Duck Dynasty," so I only have vague conceptions of what the show is like.)<br />
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As <a href="http://thedailybanter.com/2013/12/duck-cover-aes-response-to-the-duck-dynasty-homophobia-scandal-is-such-b-s/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">The Daily Banter</a> points out, after four seasons and hundreds of hours of raw footage, "there’s <i>no way</i> the network didn't know his true thoughts and feelings. He could barely keep them to himself most of the time anyway; someone almost certainly had to work around his commentary that wouldn’t be appropriate for air."<br />
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In fact, Phil Robertson's religious beliefs were part of the show from the very beginning. Just last month, Alan Robertson, Phil's son and a former pastor, <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Riiqan1eX3c" target="_blank">joined Gordon Robertson (Pat's son) on his warm-up show, <i>700 Club Interactive</i></a></b>, and said that papa Phil told the Duck Dynasty producers up front that he wouldn't do the show if he couldn't preach along the way:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“When the production company came in for the very first time…and they're telling him about the ideas [for the show]…he held his Bible up, and he said, ‘Is this going to be in?’ and the producers said, ‘Phil, that's a part of your life, whatever's part of your life is going to be on this show.’ He said, ‘If this isn't in, I don't want to do this.’ ”</span></blockquote>
A colorful backwoods redneck wants to tote his Bible on national television? Surely he won't say anything that will <i>offend</i> anyone! Okay, at least not on the show, because TV producers know enough to cut those parts out. It's when he becomes famous enough to talk on the record <i>outside</i> the show that he poses a problem. A&E surely had to know he was a loaded gun waiting to go off.<br />
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Or maybe they were prepared for this eventuality. <b><a href="http://www.thesuperficial.com/phil-robertson-suspended-duck-dynasty-a-e-freedom-of-speech-12-2013" target="_blank">The Superficial</a></b> puts forward the plausible theory that this is all <b><a href="http://www.thesuperficial.com/phil-robertson-suspended-duck-dynasty-a-e-freedom-of-speech-12-2013" target="_blank">one big ratings gambit</a></b>: making Phil Robertson a martyr on the altar of liberal political correctness is just the latest riling up of America's right-wing, and ultimately serves to increase the show's exposure and viewership. <strike>Of particular note is the fact that the rest of the Duck Dynasty family <i>doesn't seem to mind continuing the show without their patriarch</i>, so even they know this is just for show.</strike> [<b><a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/duck-dynasty-family-in-discussions-with-a-e-about-future-of-show" target="_blank">Update</a></b> on this point.]<br />
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As I pointed out on <b><a href="https://twitter.com/astutepanther/status/413505669250052096" target="_blank">my personal Twitter account</a></b>, A&E subjected Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman to the same "suspension" in November 2007 for using the N-word—but production eventually resumed, new episodes aired the following July, and the show ran successfully for four more seasons as if the whole incident never happened. So much for any corporate values or standards that A&E might profess.<br />
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And in case you were wondering—which I know you weren't—<i>Pat</i> Robertson fully supports Phil Robertson's homophobia.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I'm one of his supporters, I think he's a terrific guy… What he said is fundamental Christian truth: homosexuality is a sin! Adultery is a sin!… The Bible makes it very clear that certain things are such that ‘the land will vomit them out’! Read Leviticus, it's in there very clearly.”</span></blockquote>
But if you want to laugh, keep that video going and check out how Pat's co-host Terry Meeuwsen thinks that Duck Dynasty's popularity stems from the family's conservative moral values. Yes, <i>that's</i> why people watch the show, not because they want to gawk at hillbillies. Just like America craved the good wholesome values on "Jersey Shore" a whole two years ago.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-8826813069709520732013-12-19T10:57:00.000-05:002013-12-19T10:58:56.106-05:00Pat Robertson Will Still Be On Your TV Even If They Change the Cable Laws<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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From <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/technology/is-congress-turning-off-your-televangelist-20131217" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">National Journal</a>:<br />
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<i>It may be more difficult to find televangelist Pat Robertson on your TV dial under a new measure that has been introduced in the House.</i><br />
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Under [the proposed] bill, if DISH Network decides another channel can bring in more money than local Christian network affiliates, it's under no obligation to keep bringing viewers their daily dose of Pat Robertson.</i><br />
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Uh…no, National Journal. Try again.<br />
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There's a bill afoot in Congress to eliminate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must-carry" target="_blank">the "must-carry" law</a> that requires cable systems to provide channel space for all the licensed local broadcast stations in your area. Because who cares about maintaining diversity or a sense of community when cable systems can make more money with yet another channel filled with reality-TV series about hillbilly duck hunters and tow-truck operators? Anyway, the stations the "must-carry" law was designed to protect aren't your major network affiliates but those small UHF stations that might carry public broadcasting—or religious programming. So the association of <b><a href="http://nrb.org/news_room/articles/nrb-speaks-up-for-must-carry/" target="_blank">National Religious Broadcasters is worried</a></b> that if this bill passes, it will cut millions off from their local Christian TV stations and its programming. Which is true, <i>if</i> the bill passes, although few think it will.<br />
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But the respected Washington publication <b><a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/technology/is-congress-turning-off-your-televangelist-20131217" target="_blank">National Journal thinks this will apply to Pat Robertson</a></b> and his <i>700 Club</i> show, probably because he's the only televangelist they know. EXCEPT: <i>The 700 Club</i> is broadcast primarily on the <b>cable channel</b> ABC Family. When Robertson sold the Family Channel to Fox in 1997 (to become what was briefly the Fox Family Channel), it included a stipulation that the channel's owner must continue to run <i>The 700 Club</i> as long as Robertson's ministry produced the show. Many local religious TV stations rebroadcast <i>The 700 Club</i> on their own channels, but that is chiefly to reach viewers who don't have cable in the first place.<br />
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Must-carry is not what's keeping Pat Robertson on the air. It's ABC Family that's obligated to bring viewers their daily dose of Pat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-13121394878589694622013-12-11T12:29:00.000-05:002013-12-19T11:10:54.347-05:00Hahahahaha! A Chinese Man Committed Suicide! Hahahahaha!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So maybe you caught this story yesterday about <b><a href="http://gawker.com/man-commits-suicide-in-mall-after-girlfriend-refuses-to-1479660064" target="_blank">a Chinese man who leapt seven stories to his death in a shoe-store mall</a></b> after his girlfriend dragged him around the mall for five hours and didn't want to stop shopping yet. Pat Robertson heard the story, but his co-host Wendy Griffith apparently hadn't, because when he starts telling it to her this morning, she starts laughing as if it's some funny shopping story. Of course, that's how Pat set up this story, starting with talk about <strike>Xmas</strike> <i>Christmas</i> shopping and how his wife singlehandedly keeps the catalogs in business, so Wendy's not really at fault for thinking this is funny. <i>Wendy's</i> not at fault, anyway.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I was reading yesterday about China. They make a big deal about Christmas… So this young couple goes out, and the girl <i>really</i> digs shopping. So she carried her fiancé along with her for <i>five agonizing hours</i> of shopping. And he says, 'I just can't do this anymore.' ”</span></blockquote>
And Wendy laughs, and it's all still funny so far because women loooooove them their shopping and men hate it, amirite people? Can I get a what whaaaat?<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“…So what does he do? He jumps off the ledge of this three- or four-story department store [sic] and kills himself, he commits suicide!”</span></blockquote>
You can see that Wendy's genuinely shocked by how this "funny shopping story" turned out—the open mouth agape, the burying her face in embarrassment—yet <i>she's still laughing</i>. But can you blame her? Pat's a funny guy:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“You've heard of 'shop 'til I drop'? Well, they did it.”</span></blockquote>
<i>Soooo</i> Christian. Suicide is funny when it's shopping! Or maybe just when it's in China? I mean, they got a billion more to spare, amirite? And they all look alike?<br />
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<i>*crickets*</i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9160947432281230345.post-44898440338728092662013-11-13T14:08:00.000-05:002013-11-13T14:08:01.410-05:00Pat Robertson Wants to Take Rand Paul's Doughnuts Away From Him<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo Credit: Spiegel Online</span></i></div>
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Yesterday, Pat Robertson lit up a corner of the Internet when a parent wrote in to ask what she should do about her 16-year-old son who just came out as gay, and <b><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-ask-your-gay-son-if-his-coach-molested-him" target="_blank">Pat wondered if maybe her kid is gay because a coach molested him</a></b>:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“Is there really a biological thing going on, or has he been influenced? Has a coach molested him?… These kids are in a formative state, and sure, they may have some attractions to people of the same sex—they don't know what they're doing, they're teenagers…”</span></blockquote>
Disturbing and repugnant to be sure, but is anyone really all that surprised that Pat Robertson resorted to digging up a chestnut about gays having to "recruit" teens into homosexuality?<br />
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Meanwhile, over in another corner of the Internet, Tea Party star Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) just launched a new front in his War on Government Protecting Us From Bad Things by claiming that the Food & Drug Administration's decision last week to ban trans fats means <b><a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/theyre-coming-after-your-doughnuts-warns-rand-paul/article/2538917" target="_blank">the Feds are coming after your doughnuts</a></b>. Except, or course, it turns out that <b><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/11/rand-paul-fights-imaginary-doughnut-ban.html" target="_blank">most doughnut companies already stopped using trans fats and no one noticed the difference</a></b>—and we should have all realized that our doughnuts aren't really being threatened because if they were, Chris Christie would be the one sounding the alarm, not Rand Paul. (No, that was not a "Chris Christie is fat" joke. It was a "Chris Christie likes to eat" joke. There's a subtle difference.)<br />
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How are these two stories connected? While everyone was pointing out Robertson's "ask your gay son if he was molested" comment, no one noticed his remarks on the same broadcast supporting the ban on <strike>doughnuts</strike> trans fats:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">“I'm not a great fan of the FDA, I think they make some errors, but in this case, they need to get active and I'm for <i>activism</i>. I'm sure Mayor Bloomberg will be thrilled—he's getting criticized because of the ‘nanny state,’ but that's a good thing to do.”</span></blockquote>
Now, some of you may be wondering, <i>Wait a minute, I thought conservatives <b>opposed</b> "nanny-state" Big Government!</i> Actually, like most religious conservatives, Robertson's all for Big Government—provided that the government imposes what HE wants on everyone's lifestyles. And not just forcing God and Jesus back onto public schoolchildren (like the good old days when Jews were ostracized and no one cared about Muslims and Buddhists because there were hardly any of them around back then anyway), and keeping you from using contraception because sex is just for procreation, don't'cha know. No, Robertson also wants to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZnnT7iuPHA" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">ban porn from the Internet</a>, as it's not, he insists, free speech; <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUuFm_ELnng" target="_blank">prohibit tobacco</a></b> (because prohibition worked so well with alcohol); and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqao3JuM9V8" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">force food-stamp recipients to eat more healthfully</a>, to cite just a few examples. The Religious Right is completely on board with a "nanny state"—so long as <i>they're</i> the ones playing nanny.<br />
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Okay, I don't really think that the American right wing is about to be torn asunder over trans fats and fictional doughnut bans. But as the Religious Right tries to make common cause with the libertarian wing of the Republican Party—for instance, <a href="https://aclj.org/free-speech-2/aclj-expands-federal-lawsuit-against-irs" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Pat Robertson's own Christian public-interest law firm is representing over 40 Tea Party groups in a lawsuit against the IRS</a>—the differing approaches to the trans fat ban serves as a reminder that these two factions have philosophies that are fundamentally incompatible in many areas. And while libertarian Rand Paul might be fighting over the future of the Republican Party with moderate-conservative Chris Christie right now, in two years' time he may find himself outflanked on the right by an evangelical candidate like Rick Santorum.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0