The Rose Garden and White House happenings: Listening to voters’ concerns

I hope and pray they nominate Trump for 2024, if he’s not a convicted felon by then.  Then he will lose by 20 million votes. It will be worse than 2020 for these republicans. 

Jaytee said:

I hope and pray they nominate Trump for 2024, if he’s not a convicted felon by then.  Then he will lose by 20 million votes. It will be worse than 2020 for these republicans. 

I agree, Trump hi-jacking the GOP is probably the best thing that could happen to the Democratic party

Jaytee said:

I hope and pray they nominate Trump for 2024, if he’s not a convicted felon by then.  Then he will lose by 20 million votes. It will be worse than 2020 for these republicans. 

 Careful what you pray for...

mtierney said:

 Careful what you pray for...

 I also hope and pray that someday before you leave this earthly existence, you would have some sort of “religious awakening”, so you can answer to the higher authority ....

Repent

mtierney said:

 Careful what you pray for...

It's not like anyone's listening, so why not?

I was so sad to see your question, Ridski. 

“A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief's request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer:

'I promise thee, this day thou shalt be
With Me in Paradise'
(Luke 23:43)

It was the thief's last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

From a  child’s prayer,

“That night Anne knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood might desire.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Funny thing about that pre apotheotic investigation of Fulton Sheen.  While it was supposed to be mostly a formality, it has ended up dragging on for a couple of years.

One wonders at the Church's reluctance to issue a final report.  

mtierney said:

I was so to see your question, Ridski. 

 I've said it many times before. If both teams pray to a higher power for a blessing on their team to win a game, what did the losing team do wrong?

ridski said:

mtierney said:

I was so to see your question, Ridski. 

 I've said it many times before. If both teams pray to a higher power for a blessing on their team to win a game, what did the losing team do wrong?

 An alternative view that elides much of the problem is to say that prayer is more about the person praying. That lets prayer become something useful and makes the question about if "anyone" is listening mostly irrelevant, so it becomes a much more ecumenical activity...

To pray would, one hopes, encourage a spirit of gratefulness and humility. Though, looking at the wreckage of the last four years wrought by those who have most vocally and loudly made a show of prayer, I incline to the belief that there's a good deal of wisdom in the idea that prayer should generally be private, and we should be suspicious of those who "love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others."

--

ETA -- for context, the last line is a quote from the book of Matthew, in case anyone was unfamiliar and thrown by the reference to synagogues.

Some Catholic leaders in the U.S. are coming out against the J&J vaccine because blah blah derived from abortion cell lines blah blah blah.

The cell lines derive from a 1977 abortion.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/02/new-orleans-archdiocese-catholics-avoid-johnson-johnson-vaccine

This is, btw, in defiance of the Pope's advice.

So much for infallibility.

ridski said:

mtierney said:

I was so to see your question, Ridski. 

 I've said it many times before. If both teams pray to a higher power for a blessing on their team to win a game, what did the losing team do wrong?

Basic rules of theology:

1. If more than one person pray to their God for opposing purposes, whoever prays to the true God wins
2. If more than one person pray to the true God for opposing purposes, whoever prayed first wins
3. If more than one person pray to the true God at the exact same time for opposing purposes, penalty kicks

ridski said:

 I've said it many times before. If both teams pray to a higher power for a blessing on their team to win a game, what did the losing team do wrong?

 Maybe not practice enough, or have a good strategy for the game - especially if they were just relying on someone's juvenile concept of what prayer is.

drummerboy said:

This is, btw, in defiance of the Pope's advice.

So much for infallibility.

I don't think that word means what you think it means. 

drummerboy said:

This is, btw, in defiance of the Pope's advice.

So much for infallibility.

Advice that isn't ex cathedra doesn't claim infallibility, does it? 

ETA: Duplicate post.

DaveSchmidt said:

Advice that isn't ex cathedra doesn't claim infallibility, does it? 

ETA: Duplicate post.

 Exactly.  He was probably standing, any way.

nohero said:

drummerboy said:

This is, btw, in defiance of the Pope's advice.

So much for infallibility.

I don't think that word means what you think it means. 

 meh. I'm not much of a Catholic.

ridski said:

 I've said it many times before. If both teams pray to a higher power for a blessing on their team to win a game, what did the losing team do wrong?

 one would think the winning team prayed better

mtierney said:

one would think the winning team prayed better

That's a marvelous answer. I just wonder why God thinks only football teams sometimes pray equally well.

mtierney said:

 one would think the winning team prayed better

 That’s what I thought. It explains the times when the Christians beat the Jews in Germany, and Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia. Same god. Guess they just didn’t pray better.

Still trying to determine who prayed better during the Crusades, I imagine.

Though we all know who prayed better during the inquisition.

nohero said:

  someone's juvenile concept of what prayer is.

 Hmm...

ridski said:

nohero said:

  someone's juvenile concept of what prayer is.

 Hmm...

Out of the mouths of babes..... 

Cancel culture has gone a step too far!

mtierney said:

Cancel culture has gone a step too far!

 You'll have to explain this one to me. Seuss enterprises, the organization that owns the rights to Seuss's books has decided not to continue publishing six of them -- most of which, to be honest, I'd never even heard of. Their reason not to continue publishing these books was because of racist caricatures and stereotypes.

These books aren't being destroyed or recalled or anything, just no longer being published. If you really want to read them you can still find them and read them. So these books aren't being "cancelled" in any sense. But you want to, I guess, force Seuss enterprises to publish these anyway? Because actively distributing racist imagery is important to you? Or something?

mtierney said:

Cancel culture has gone a step too far!

Honestly, I’m not that worried that Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which controls the book rights and made the decision on its own, will one day cancel me.

ETA: Cross-posted, which is getting to be a habit.

mtierney said:

Cancel culture has gone a step too far!

 This is an example of why conservatives are mocked.

Nobody "cancelled" Dr. Seuss.  Read an article from an actual news source, and you'll find out the real story.

His estate decided that certain older books had images and text that Dr. Seuss himself, in his later years, realized that he should probably not have included.  He actually did modify some text during his lifetime.

Meanwhile, to "own the libs", conservatives are buying up other Dr. Seuss books and making them bestsellers, like The Lorax (about environmentalism), The Butter Battle Book (anti-war), The Sneetches (about racism and exploitative capitalism), among others.

It's like it was a plan.

Junior thought what happened with The Muppets was cancel culture also.  This is Trumpism as it's finest.  The real question is - Is junior smarter or dumber than his dad.  That's a tough question.  I feel it's pretty close.  His dad conned him pretty good.  Or is he aware with this and is complicit with stoking the base with the current set of lies.  Lying is truly a family way of life.  It's pretty much the only way to keep the family business afloat.

mtierney said:

Cancel culture has gone a step too far!

The party of "Freedom Fries" would like you to know that "cancel culture" is a very serious problem.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 4, 2021

Gee, quoting Mrs Clinton is so off the charts. I wouldn’t believe her if she said the world was round.

Every time a sex scandal hits the news, she must continue to defend Bill as a victim of lying women. It must get harder to do so over the decades.

The media has its work cut out in 2021.