First Amendment be damned . . . If Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had his way, any journalist who called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator would quickly find himself behind bars.
Penn, appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, defended Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.
“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it” said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. “And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”
It was just the beginning of a busy weekend for Penn. When asked on CBS’ “Sunday Morning” about those who question his motives for his humanitarian work in Haiti, he said:
“Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah. You know, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on it.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News’ senior judicial analyst, said the same constitutional protection that applies to journalists also applies to Penn, who can say pretty much anything he wants in the “political arena” — aside from an immediate incitement of violence
Friday’s Joy Behar Show on CNN Headline News showed a pre-recorded interview with Roseanne Barr in which Barr opined that, although Sarah Palin is “likable,” the “stuff she says is half nuts,” and she’s “half crazy and out of her mind.” Barr — who herself has a recent history of doing such bizarre things as appearing in Heeb magazine dressed as Adolf Hitler removing Jewish gingerbread cookies from an oven — went on to declare that Palin is “like a slave to these, you know, right-wing men. That’s like the only way a right-wing woman can make it.”
Barr soon added: “The only way a woman can make it in the right wing, or the conservative, whatever the hell you want to call it, Republican, is to be against all other women. And that is what she does.”
Ironically, just moments later as she and Behar expressed disapproval at the man who recently threw tomatoes at Palin, Barr was critical of liberals who have treated the former Alaska governor “badly because she’s female,” calling it “disgusting.” Barr: “I don’t like where she is treated like badly because she’s female. I think that’s so wrong, and I think the left and the liberals are disgusting to do that.”
On the Sunday, December 13, syndicated Chris Matthews Show, as he ended the show with words of praise for Morgan Freeman’s latest film, Invictus, and its depiction of Nelson Mandela uniting blacks and whites in South Africa in the 1990s, host Matthews referred to “white tribalism” having been stirred up in America, and showed clips of anti-Obama protesters.
Matthews: “In this world of ours today, it seems that any idiot – almost any idiot can rally the forces of tribalism, including white tribalism in this country. You can do it with a frown or a smile – easiest thing in the world to rile people back to their roots, get them thinking with all the rage of their grandparents.”
While one of the three clips of protesters did show someone holding a sign with an image of President Obama with the words “undocumented worker” on it — reminiscent of the fringe conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in America — another clip showed protesters displaying generic anti-liberal and anti-socialism messages, while the third clip showed a sign with the words, “You lie!” invoking South Carolina Republican Congresssman Joe Wilson’s outburst from the last State of the Union Address.
In an address to a gathering sponsored by the World Parliament of Religions (PWR) last Friday, former US President Jimmy Carter has once again blamed traditional religion, particularly Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics, for “creating an environment where violations against women are justified.”
It is a theme that Carter has successfully used to garner media attention for several years.
Although in a July column in The Observer Carter admits to “not having training in religion or theology,” in his address to the PWR Carter appeals to his authority as someone who has “taught Bible lessons for more than 65 years.”
In opposition to the vast majority of authentic scholars and historians, Carter asserted: “It’s clear that during the early Christian era women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets.” He added: “It wasn’t until the 4th century or the 3rd at the earliest that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant position within the religious hierarchy.”
Contrary to the theorizing of Carter, Pope John Paul II taught, “The Lord Jesus chose men to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry.” He added: “the Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church; 1577)
Carter singled out the Southern Baptist Convention and Roman Catholic Church, claiming that they “view that the Almighty considers women to be inferior to men.” However, both Christian faiths hold to the Scriptural truth that God created men and women equal.
Carter suggests that only in permitting women to become priests and pastors could male religious leaders choose to interpret teachings to exalt rather than subjugate women. “They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter, subjugation,” he said.
CBS has long demonstrated that they have no standards in news or entertainment to speak of, but this is so far over the line I am (almost) speechless! A revered childhood “trust” figure shares his porn collection with children, boasts about his sexual perversions with his arms around their shoulders and… well, you watch it and decide…
Someone bring me the Tar and Feathers and line up the CBS executives, stockholders and advertisers. Wait, will there be enough tar to get around to the NBC empire also? What about…No, shaking my head. I am so disgusted I am retreating back to my initial speechless position.
