GOD BLESS YOU & THANK YOU. PRAY FOR ALL U.S. TROOPS EVERYWHERE. PRAY FOR THE FAMILY OF LANE GRAVES.
~ "My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me." — college basketball coach Jim Valvano
~ "My father used to say that it's never too late to do anything you wanted to do. And he said, 'You never know what you can accomplish until you try.'" — Michael Jordan
Ephesians 6:1-4
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise:
“that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord."
I HOPE HIS COLOR & RACE DOESN'T MATTER TO YOU EITHER.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
"For unto us a Child is Born, unto us a Son is given." Isaiah 9:6
On today December 25th we celebrate the Birth of JESUS CHRIST.
Even though JESUS was actually born in the month of SEPTEMBER, due to the Judeo-Christian calendar we celebrate his Birthday on December 25.
We all know JESUS was a real Human Being, born in the Middle East to JEWISH parents.
As a curious Christian, I used to be caught up in Foolish arguments about JESUS' race, his Skin color, Eye color and Hair texture.
But no more!
I no longer care what Color JESUS was because such arguments keep Human Beings divided and at odds about Race Relations.
I now only care about the Truth of JESUS' Birth, his Ministry on Earth, his Crucifixion, his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven where he now sits beside his Heavenly Father GOD Almighty.
In trying to police his depiction, Megyn Kelly is wrong on both the facts and the essential universality of the Christian message.
Fox News television host Megyn Kelly told viewers on her December 11 broadcast that Jesus and Santa are both white men.
"Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change," Kelly said. "Jesus was a white man, too. It's like we have, he's a historical figure that's a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?"
Setting aside the ridiculousness of creating rigidly racial depictions of a fictitious character that does not actually exist—sorry, kids—like Santa, Kelly has made a more serious error about Jesus.
The scholarly consensus is actually that Jesus was, like most first-century Jews, probably a dark-skinned man. If he were taking the red-eye flight from San Francisco to New York today, Jesus might be profiled for additional security screening by TSA.
The myth of a white Jesus is one with deep roots throughout Christian history. As early as the Middle Ages and particularly during the Renaissance, popular Western artists depicted Jesus as a white man, often with blue eyes and blondish hair.
Perhaps fueled by some Biblical verses correlating lightness with purity and righteousness and darkness with sin and evil, these images sought to craft a sterile Son of God.
The only problem was that the representations were historically inaccurate.
Modern Western Christians have carried these images over into their own depictions of Jesus. Pick up a one of those bright blue “Bible Story” books in a Sunday School classroom and you’ll find white Jesus waiting for you, rosy cheeks and all. Or you could survey the light-skinned Jesus in any number of modern TV or film portrayals, including History Channel’s hit series The Bible.
Interestingly, the Bible is far less descriptive on the matter of Jesus’ skin color than we are. Christian scriptures say very little about Jesus’ physical appearance. They do not comment on his nose, eye color, skin pigmentation, or hair.
The glaring exception is Isaiah 53:2, which prophesies that the messiah won’t be much to look at, another fact that places the Bible at odds with the “well-groomed surfer-dude Jesus” who's often put forth.
If the Bible is silent on the matter of Jesus’ skin color, does it really matter that Megyn Kelly says Jesus is white?
Yes, actually.
As some historians and theologians have posited, the silence of the Scriptures on the issue of Jesus’ skin color is critical to Christianity’s broad appeal with people of various ethnicities. In a world where race often divides communities and even churches, the Biblical depictions of God’s son positions him as one who can bridge those divides.
For this reason, one American Presbyterian minister in the 1880s warned his flock not to trust popular images of Christ:
If He were particularised and localised—if, for example, He were made a man with a pale face—then the man of the ebony face would feel that there was a greater distance between Christ and him than between Christ and his white brother.’ Instead, because the Bible refused to describe Jesus in terms of racial features, his gospel could appeal to all.
Only in this way could the Church be a place where the ‘Caucasian and Mongolian and African sit together at the Lord’s table, and we all think alike of Jesus, and we all feel that He is alike our brother’.
In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Advice for Living” column for Ebony in 1957, the civil-rights leader was asked, “Why did God make Jesus white, when the majority of peoples in the world are non-white?” King replied, “The color of Jesus’ skin is of little or no consequence” because what made Jesus exceptional “His willingness to surrender His will to God’s will.”
His point, as historian Edward Blum has noted, is that Jesus transcends race.
Those warnings hold just as true for believers today. Within the church, eschewing a Jesus who looks more like a Scandinavian supermodel than the sinless Son of God in the scriptures is critical to maintaining a faith in which all can give praise to one who became like them in an effort to save them from sins like racism and prejudice.
It's important for Christians who want to expand the church, too, in allowing the creation of communities that are able to worship a Jesus who builds bridges rather than barriers.
And it is essential to enabling those who bear the name of Christ to look forward to that day when, according to the book of Revelation, those “from every nation, tribe, people, and language” can worship God together.
Until that day arrives, though, can someone please tell Megyn Kelly that Jesus is not white?
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
**ENJOY A BLESSED, PEACEFUL, SAFE THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY**
PSALM 107:1
"Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever."
~~~Note:
After the Thanksgiving holiday, I will share with you why the BLACK Churches in FERGUSON and the Community's Older BLACK Leaders are More to blame for the RACE RIOTS and OPPRESSION in that region than DARREN WILSON & BOB MCCULLOCH.~
This year I Challenge All of my Facebook Family, Fellow Bloggers and Target Audience, to either Volunteer for 2 to 4 Hours in a Homeless Shelter or Children’s Group Home on Thanksgiving Eve or Thanksgiving Day.
Or……………
Deliver a Decorated a Thanksgiving Dinner Basket/ Box with all of the Fixings for a full Thanksgiving Dinner to a local Homeless Shelter or Children’s Group Home.
GIVING BACK to others is always the best way to GIVE THANKS for our own individual Blessings!
President Obama began his Independence Day celebrations by hosting a naturalization ceremony for active duty service members in the East Room of the White House.
It was the third time the President has hosted this kind of service, and he told the audience, which included the families of the service members who were taking the oath of citizenship, that it is one of his favorite things to do.
"It brings me great joy and inspiration because it reminds us that we are a country that is bound together not simply by ethnicity or bloodlines, but by fidelity to a set of ideas."
Before the President gave his remarks, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas presented the countries of the candidates for naturalization and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano delivered the oath of allegiance.
President Obama told the new citizens that is was an honor to serve as their Commander in Chief, and to be the first to greet them as "my fellow Americans."
With this ceremony today -- and ceremonies like it across our country -- we affirm another truth: Our American journey, our success, would simply not be possible without the generations of immigrants who have come to our shores from every corner of the globe.
We say it so often, we sometimes forget what it means -- we are a nation of immigrants.
Unless you are one of the first Americans, a Native American, we are all descended from folks who came from someplace else -- whether they arrived on the Mayflower or on a slave ship, whether they came through Ellis Island or crossed the Rio Grande.
Immigrants signed their names to our Declaration and helped win our independence. Immigrants helped lay the railroads and build our cities, calloused hand by calloused hand.
Immigrants took up arms to preserve our union, to defeat fascism, and to win a Cold War.
Immigrants and their descendants helped pioneer new industries and fuel our Information Age, from Google to the iPhone.
So the story of immigrants in America isn’t a story of "them," it’s a story of "us." It’s who we are. And now, all of you get to write the next chapter.
Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So, boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps. 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now— For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
Exodus 20:12 12) Honour thy Father and thy Mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Proverbs 31 ".....28) Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."
2 Timothy 1:5 "5) When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also."
Isaiah 49 14-16 "14) But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. 15) Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. 16) Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. "
Proverbs 22:6 "6) Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
Titus 2:3-5 "3) The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; 4) That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5) To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. "
Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, released a Mother’s Day video online Thursday night asking for supporters to voice their opposition to Florida’s controversial stand-your-ground law, and others like it.
The video was posted on YouTube, as well as GlobalGrind.com. In it, Fulton says "this will be my first Mother’s Day without my son Trayvon."
"I know it will be hard, but my faith, family and friends will pull me through," she says. "On Sunday I’m going to say a prayer for other mothers across America who share this unbearable pain.”
The video concludes with Fulton asking viewers to ask their governor to "re-examine" stand your ground and similar laws. Supporters of the teenager’s family have been critical of the law, which allows the use of deadly force in response to a reasonable fear that death or serious injury is imminent.
Amid the controversy, Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced a task force to review the law, which met for the first time this month and resolved to kick off a statewide round of public hearings June 12 in Sanford.
The man charged in the teen’s shooting death, George Zimmerman, says he fired in self defense after he was attacked and beaten by the teen.
Fulton’s video is also posted on the website for a foundation started by the family. Michael Hall, one of four directors listed for The Justice for Trayvon Martin Foundation in incorporation documents, said it has been online more than a month.
State business documents also list Fulton and Trayvon’s brother, Jahvarius Martin, as directors.
The family established the foundation through the non-profit Miami Foundation, a "private foundation alternative" that offers logistical and accounting support to fledgling charitable organizations, said Vice President Nancy Jones.
"They’re looking to advocate for social justice issues," she said of the Martin family. She said the money collected by the fund does not go to the family’s legal fees or travel expenses.
"We’ve had a lot of interest in it," Jones said. "I talk to people almost daily about it."
The site says the Martin foundation’s goal is to be "a worldwide Internet hub that will remove judgment of youth through awareness campaigns" to "mobilize pro-justice advocates" and collaborate with organizations "whose missions are to organize, uplift and advocate for the advancement of young people around the world who, for whatever reason, are judged to be ’different,’ and thus a ’threat’ to other people."
The family has also created Facebook and Twitter accounts, distributing news about the case and others like it.
Social media has been central to the shooting controversy since it began, and both Trayvon’s family and Zimmerman’s defense have entered the online debate. Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, created a blog, along with Twitter and Facebook accounts, and has begun distributing statements about the case online.
O’Mara has also established a legal defense fund for Zimmerman at his site, GZLegalCase.com. The Martin family’s foundation is online at JusticeTM.org.
Senators and representatives crammed in their July 4 parades and other festivities Monday as Congress prepared to cut short its Independence Day break and resume talks over the need to raise the federal government's debt ceiling.
The Senate is set to return to work on Tuesday; House members follow suit on Wednesday.
Congressional leaders remain at sharp odds over what sort of conditions should be attached to a hike in the current $14.3 trillion ceiling. Republicans are refusing to go along with any increase unless it includes deep spending cuts and avoids any tax increases. Democrats are trying to minimize the impact of cuts to social services and are calling for the elimination of certain tax breaks and loopholes benefiting wealthier Americans.
Treasury Department officials and leading economists have warned of potentially catastrophic consequences if the ceiling is not raised by August 2, at which point the country could default on its debt obligations. Among other things, the country could face skyrocketing interest rates and a plummeting dollar.
Increasing the debt ceiling will allow the government to borrow more money in order to pay for spending already accrued.
Given the short time frame, Congress and the White House may be forced to agree to a relatively small increase in the debt ceiling covering only a few months. Such a compromise -- including cuts already agreed to on both sides of the aisle -- would give leaders more time to negotiate serious budget reforms, including possible changes to popular entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Over the weekend, however, top Democrats and Republicans gave no public indications that a potential compromise is in the offing. Talks spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden recently collapsed over the tax dispute.
"The principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November and the results of the election was the American people don't want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending," Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "They don't want compromise."
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that Republicans want to look at tax reform, but only in a comprehensive way that lowers rates while eliminating loopholes and subsidies in such a way that the end result brings no increase or decrease in revenue.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, a Tea Party favorite, said on C-SPAN that he'd be willing to support an increase in the debt ceiling in exchange for congressional approval of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.
Both the House and Senate are planning votes on a balanced budget amendment in coming weeks. However, with such an amendment requiring approval from a two-thirds majority in both chambers, and then ratification by at least 38 states, eventual approval is unclear in a process that can take years.
For his part, President Barack Obama has chided congressional Republicans for refusing to make "tough decisions" at odds with their conservative base.
The president has called for what he characterizes as a balanced approach to deficit reduction that includes more revenue for education, infrastructure, and clean energy -- areas he considers critical to long-term economic growth.
Former President Bill Clinton -- widely considered to have won a budget showdown with Republicans in 1995 -- told an audience in Aspen, Colorado, Saturday that he hopes the Democrats don't back down in the face of the GOP opposition to increased tax revenue.
Clinton advised his fellow Democrats to accept previously agreed-upon spending cuts as part of a deal allowing the government to stave off default for another six to eight months. He then pushed for more sweeping budget reform talks over the remainder of the year.
At the heart of the GOP resistance on the revenue issue is a bedrock principle pushed by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist against any kind of tax increase at all. A pledge pushed by Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform, has been signed by more than 230 House members and 40 senators, almost all Republicans.
Norquist and his supporters want to shrink the federal government and believe any new revenue would enable continued government growth.
However, some Republicans, including conservative Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have expressed support for increased tax revenue as part of a deficit reduction deal, and the Senate recently supported ending ethanol subsidies -- which would increase revenue.
Tax loopholes targeted by Democrats include oil and gas subsidies, as well as some write-offs for people earning more than $500,000 a year.
As Democratic and Republican leaders continue to debate, the public appears to have soured on both parties' approach to the deficit.
Only 30% of adults nationwide approve of congressional Democrats' handling of the issue, according to a June 16-20 AP/GfK poll. But only 28% approve of the way congressional Republicans are dealing with it.
A majority of Americans -- 53% -- say it is extremely or very likely that the country will face a major economic crisis if the debt ceiling is not raised.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, told the CBS program "Face the Nation" on Sunday that he thinks "Washington has its head in the sand."
"Democrats won't address entitlements, Medicare and Social Security, and Republicans don't want to talk about revenues or defense spending. And the fact is we've got to do all of that," he said.
"You can't avoid your responsibility of balancing the budget. And in this case, they ought to submit their resignations, frankly, if they put us in a situation where we're in default."
Welcome to the BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ Blog. (Established 2008)
My name is Laurel. (Author & Publisher)
I Blog with a focus on POLITICS, Business, and occasionally Entertainment.
FACTS ABOUT LAUREL:
Wife,
Mother of a U.S. Soldier,
Sister,
Woman of GOD,
Loyal Friend,
Creative,
Blood-related to a nationally known Charlotte Politician.
Black Female, Intelligent,
Married,
Love to Travel,
Credentialed by the RNC and DNC.
Political Blogger/ Commentator
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PROFESSIONAL STATUS:
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Original Native of BROOKLYN, NY
Currently reside in CHARLOTTE, NC
I’m Nice but don’t get it twisted because my Mind is Sharp!
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Per the Landmark U.S. Supreme Court Case: 1964 case of New York Times v. Sullivan………
The Public has a Right to Criticize the People who Govern them, so the least Protection from Defamation is given to Public Officials. When officials are accused of something that involves their behavior in office, they have to prove all of the above elements of defamation and they must also prove that the defendant acted with “actual malice.” (For a definition of actual malice, see the “History of Defamation and the First Amendment, below.”)
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