Stephanie Miller - Back In My Good Graces

I had Stephanie Miller on before and after breakfast.  It was actually a good program this morning.  It helped solidify my feelings about Donald Trump’s performance in the debates Saturday night.  Trump had a liberal melt down and many progressives agree with the things he was saying, including me.  They say that Bernie Sanders got more votes in the New Hampshire primary ever for an NH primary- from either party.  This new enthusiasm will help to bring out voters for democrats in the fall.  I think we democrats need to saver the good feelings we have had given news of the past few days, about being Democrats and draw energy from those feelings.  There was a lot of blood on the floor after the Republican’s knock-down drag out bar fight last Saturday.  People are saying that despite how much Donald Trump got booed that the people will still turn out to vote for him.  Thom Hartman states that both Trump and Sanders’ presence and popularity on the political scene are symptomatic of a political revolution already taking place in this country.  The Rude Pundit was on along with Dean Obadala later, who is a Muslim.  Muslims as a people are becoming objects of persecution.  The Rude Pundit had some rather obscene remarks to make about Justice Scelia’s cold, dead, body.  I think you have to do a little dancing on the graves of people you hate just to get it out of your system.  I got bored with the program later and looked all around to C-Span and things.  I finally visited the C-Net site, which I haven’t visited in a long time.

Justice Scelia is known for some really stupid lines.  He says that insisting that Black voting rights be enforced by law is symptomatic of “Minority entitlement” and once Minority entitlement gets established it’s hard to get out of that situation.  Scelia was a judicial activist.  When he believed in judicial restraint I agreed with his rulings.  Now that he’s become a nakedly political activist, I can’t agree with his rulings because they have caused a lot of harm.  Some would say “More harm to society than a serial murderer”.   When you stop and think about it it’s silly to think that President Obama wasn’t elected for four years, but somehow only three years, and that certain constitutional prerogatives are denied him the past year.  No.  If there were some sort of wartime emergency declared- - President Obama would be within his rights here.  It’s almost as if they are carrying the black thing a little too far with “three-fifths of a term”.  

I watched “Face the Nation”.  I had political commentary on and then there were the Rubio and Trump and Sanders interviews, each with an accompanying bagged photograph.  Then I had the Fullbright hearings on from February 8^th 1966 on.  This was just about the time I personally turned against the Viet Nam war.  They had some retired General Gavvins up there with a philosophical history of man and war and they talked about 1954 a little and our decision then not to get involved in Viet Nam attacking the Hanoi delta.  Also there were things against “urban bombing”.  Senator Fullbright liked the guy’s message.   In Google News, President Obama will take the “Time and rigor required” to make a court nomination.  The nomination will still arrive D O A. 

There is a line from an old movie that said the world would end on Valentines Day 2016, which was yesterday- and we're still here.  In the Bible in those portions of the Gospels not taken up with healongs or exorcism of demons, or confrontations with pharicees, are taken up with Parables of the Kingdom.  A really large percentage of these NT parables are about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.  I believe these parables were the teachings originally of John the Baptist.  The only way to prove it is to check with disciples of John the Baptist.  John saw himself as a herald, a forerunner of the Son of Man, who then would inaugurate the Kingdom.  Let's look at these parables.  'Ye shall know them by their fruits'.   There is the parables of the Wheat and the Tares, referred to in my prophecy book as darnel grass.  They both start out as green sprouts but one of them turns white and the other turns black, where they are then very easy to tell apart.  Or think of a pearl of great price that you sell everything you have to obtain.  If this sounds extreme remember that Baptism itself was a symbolic total emersion of death and resurrection to new life where the water (not Jesus' blood) washed your sin away.   The Kingdom is like collecting fish and accepting the good ones and throwing away the skinny, scrawny ones.  The kindgom is like a wedding party where ten virgins wait for the bridegroom who arrives at Midnight.  It's known as the parable of the five wise virgins and five foolish virgins, who forgot to bring oil for their lamps.  The Kingdom of heaven is like a wedding feast held by a King where if you didn't have a wedding garment, you'd be thrown out.  The Kingdom is like two debtors where one owed the Master a whole lot, and another servant owed the first servant some small change.  The Master forgave the first servant but this servant didn't forgive his neighbor.  We are told to be watchful.  The master will return at an hour when you do not expect him.  What if the servant in charge is drunk and mistreating his subordenate servants.  The Kingdom is like workers in a Vineyard.  It doesn't matter what hour you "hear the calling" but just to give it your all from that moment on.  According to Bones the reward in all cases is not money but Eternal Life, which is the same for all of us.  Those servants who were blessed to be "called" early had the advantages of being Born Again throughout our lives.  But the ones called late probably worked the hardest because they most feared they weren't good enough.  Also the kingdom could be likened to not workers but tennants in a vinyard.  The Master comes at the end of the season to take his cut of the crops.  First he sends one servant and then another.  Finally the Master sends his own son to collect the debt.  Those wicked squaters kill the Son thinking that they will gain the whole field is the son is dead.  Finally the Kingdom of heaven could be likened to separating the sheep from the Goats in a passage in Matthew 25 Thom Hartman likes to quote.  The sheep are the ones who do ministering to our brothers, our fellow comrad Christians- - and serve them as we would serve the Master.  Those who do this and give food and drink and clothing and shelter and visit the sick and imprisoned- - these are the Sheep will go on into the kingdom.  The ones who fail to do this are the Goats who will be cast into outer darkness.  I don't know where "Outer darkness" is exactly but it's a place we don't want to go.  It's referred to quite a lot in the gospels.  John the Baptist also preached against adultry.  And it can be inferred that John was particularly against "trading your wife in for a newer, younger model.  There is a lot of that in Politics, but these politicians and celebreties don't like the idea of being called out on it.   I think if there was a church of John the Baptist I'd join it.  Most likely it was John who also referred to the pharicees and scribes and such as a den of vipers and whitewashed graves and all of that.  So you clergy could keep that in mind, too.