James L. Paris's Blog, page 64

Nation of Islam Leader Farrakhan Raises Eyebrows, Says Jesus Is His Redeemer

Well, here���s something.

As reported by The Christian Post, Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis was recently caught on video saying that Jesus is the reason he will not be afflicted by death, in spite of the fact that perhaps the most central belief of NOI is that there is no God but Allah.

It appears Farrakhan may have been given to his public declaration after visiting with the hospitalized Bishop Larry Trotter, pastor of Sweet Holy Spirit Church in Chicago, who fell ill after a 10-day mission trip to Israel. While the exact nature of his ailment remains undisclosed, doctors have reportedly said that it has nothing to do with the cancer diagnosis he was handed three years ago.

Whether that ultimately proves to be true or not, it seems clear that encountering Bishop in his present condition is the reason behind Farrakhan���s surprising revelation.

���I thank God for guiding me for 40 years absent my teacher (Elijah Muhammad),��� Farrakhan is heard saying on the video. ���So my next journey will have to answer the question. I'm gonna say it. I know that my redeemer liveth."

"I know. I'm not guessing that my Jesus is alive. I know that my redeemer liveth and because he lives I know that I, too, will pass through the portal of death yet death will not afflict me," he added.

At one point, Farrakhan even appears regretful over some of what he has taught over the years.

���So I say to the devil. I know I gotta pay a price for what I���ve been teaching all these years. You can have the money, you can have the clothes, you can have the suit, you can have the house but me, you can't have," he proclaimed.

Hmmm���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Harvey Victims: Don���t Fall Prey to ���Storm Chaser��� Fraud

You know the scammers��� motto ��� never let a perfectly good natural disaster go to waste.

And in the wake of the terribly-destructive Hurricane Harvey, you can bet that plenty of those nefarious folks will be plenty mindful of that ���industry proverb��� as countless numbers of people look desperately for help in any form to rebuild their lives.

On that note, a timely article over at CNN Money is alerting Harvey victims to the threat of so-called ���storm chasers���: unscrupulous people who swarm over a region affected by a natural disaster, looking to capitalize on the misery at hand through the most egregiously dishonest of business practices.

In truth, you cannot refer to what storm chasers do as being anything that resembles actual ���business practices.��� These people are the worst of the worst.

Very often, the fraudsters, posing as legitimate contractors, agree to repair homes that have been significantly damaged by the effects of the given weather event. However, unlike legitimate contractors, they insist on payment up front for the work. Once they have your dough���and the cash of other, unwitting victims���they either skip town, or actually do some limited version of actual work that is extremely shoddy.

Addressing ���storm chaser��� scams in his capacity as spokesman for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, Frank Scafidi said, ���We���ve seen it after every significant disaster, and we don���t expect anything different once the Harvey-induced floods recede."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton���s office has already issued a warning to state residents about Harvey-related fraud, and CNN Money reveals that a hotline set up by the Texas AG for reporting suspected storm fraud has already received well over 500 complaints.

And it���s still early.

The best way to protect yourself is not with hotlines, however, but with extra vigilance as you seeking out repair work.

For starters, if any ���contractor��� is clearly pressuring you to retain their services, it���s time to move on; beyond the fact that it���s discourteous, it���s not the kind of behavior practiced by legitimate tradespeople. Also, if you���re asked to fully, or even mostly, pay for a repair service up front, that���s another cue you should run like the wind. It���s not unusual for a contractor to ask for a modest down payment to get started, and they will often do so to help defray the cost of materials, but that should be the extent of it; ideally, you won���t be asked for any money at all until the job is finished.

The best way to find a contractor is in the form of a reference from someone you know and trust. If that���s not an option, look to those businesses that have an established track record of success in your local community. Also, check to be sure that a contractor is appropriately licensed and insured. The Better Business Bureau can help with the licensing verification, and as for insurance, any legitimate contractor should be completely prepared to provide proof of their coverage.

Lastly, before you agree to any repairs, be sure you���ve secured multiple bids. While it���s not unusual for quotes to be a little on the high side in an environment of distressed conditions, you want to be sure you���re not significantly overpaying for a job to be done.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

My Final Word On The Joel Osteen Controversy

U.S. Senator: Government Has ���No Business��� Deporting Immigrants Who���ve Been in Country for Years

They���re everywhere.

Elected representatives of the American people who have no reluctance whatsoever about assuming an adversarial posture against the nation���s immigration laws.

As noted by The Hill, just this past Sunday, no less a figure than Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) did that very thing during an appearance on NBC���s Meet the Press.

In criticizing the immigration policies of the present administration, Brown actually said, ���It���s terrible when we are taking immigrants who have been here 10 or 15 years and working hard, paying their taxes, active in their church, active in communities, parents and we throw them out of this country.���

Continuing, Brown added, ���We have no business doing that. That inhumane policy coming from the administration is just part and parcel of what he���s been for the last seven months.���

���What he���s been?��� You mean, like the safeguard of America���s interests?

Unsurprisingly, Brown disingenuously referred to the undocumented citizens simply as ���immigrants,��� in what was clearly an effort to establish a moral equivalency between those persons who are here illegally, and immigrants who���ve become naturalized citizens through the legal process.

Next year, Brown is facing reelection in a state won handily by Trump in 2016. It is unclear how his stance against Trump���s position on immigration will affect his bid.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Ratings for MTV���s Once-Popular Video Music Awards Show Sink as Network Goes Full Leftist

No one is ever going to mistake MTV for Fox News. But a look at just how far its ratings have sunk as it becomes even more deeply entrenched in leftist politics is a good indicator that even those with more moderate ideologies have had enough of the lunacy.

As reported by The Daily Wire, the numbers are in on this year���s VMAs, and they���re just abysmal. The once-monstrously-popular event was able to muster only 5.3 million viewers.

For some context, remember that America, overall, has about 330 million people living here. And about 42 million of those are ages 10 to 19, considered by many to be the ideal demographic for MTV. And against the backdrop of those numbers, the VMAs managed just a little over five million sets of eyeballs.

To put this year���s viewership number in additional, stark context, the VMAs had 10.3 million viewers as recently as 2014. This means that in a span of just three years, the broadcast has lost roughly half of its viewers.

So what���s going on? Is the shift toward overtly radical politics really to blame?

Some, like Roger Friedman of Showbiz 911, suggest that the Sunday night season finale of the wildly-popular HBO series Game of Thrones snatched up viewers that might have otherwise tuned in to the VMAs. That may be true. But that notion does nothing to explain why the viewer numbers for the VMAs have been sinking like a stone for years now. Indeed, Friedman also ponders if ���disposable music��� and ���horrible performers��� are partly to blame.

No arguing with that.

There���s something else eating away at the viewer numbers, though, something much more profound.

Here���s a hint: During the broadcast, the awards show actually played ���F--- Donald Trump��� by the ���artist��� YG during a commercial break. Here���s another: The producers included a segment where a descendant of Confederate general Robert E. Lee was brought out to speak and say, among other things, that ���we can find inspiration in the Black Lives Matter movement.���

The Daily Wire piece, making note of these moments at the VMAs, believes the real problem with viewership is ���MTV's insistence on deliberately alienating half the country.���

Now that makes sense.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Memphis Theatre Ends Decades-Long Presentations of ���Gone with the Wind��� over Charges of Racism

And just like that, ���Gone with the Wind��� is gone with the wind in Memphis, Tennessee.

And the culprit? Oh, you know ��� racism.

According to the Commercial Appeal, the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis says it will no longer screen the 1939 Oscar-winning film after receiving ���numerous comments��� from the community that referred to the American classic as ���insensitive��� and ���racist.���

A statement from the Orpheum Theatre Group reads:

���While title selections for the series are typically made in the spring of each year, the Orpheum has made this determination early in response to specific inquiries from patrons. The Orpheum appreciates feedback on its programming from all members of the mid-south community. The recent screening of Gone With the Wind at the Orpheum on Friday, August 11, 2017, generated numerous comments. The Orpheum carefully reviewed all of them.���

���As an organization whose stated mission is to ���entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves,��� the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population.���
���Gone with the Wind��� had been screened by the Orpheum for the last 34 years, and had proven to be a big part of its Summer Movie Series.

Many who���ve been critical of the Orpheum���s decision point out the irony that in an effort to be more racially sensitive, the theatre has chosen to stop showing the first film in which an African-American won an Academy Award; Hattie McDaniel received the honor for her portrayal of house servant ���Mammy.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Ford Looks to Alternative Criteria for Granting Credit to Vehicle Buyers

There have been rumblings of late that major grantors of credit are looking at alternative methods by which to evaluate the creditworthiness of applicants.

Well, one of those grantors is moving past the ���looking at��� stage, and marching forward with its plans to expand the criteria they will consider when deciding if they���ll let consumers borrow.
According to a piece over at Fox Business, Ford Motor Credit is preparing to unveil its new approach to the loan approval process as soon as this Friday.

The move is being made to help shore up the sales of Ford vehicles, which have been anemic of late. While sales of new cars in the U.S. are down 2.8% from where they were this time last year, Ford���s numbers are noticeably worse ��� Ford���s domestic sales are off 4.3% compared to the same time a year ago.

As for just how Ford will be augmenting its criteria, it is believed the company will start looking at very specific pieces of information that it sees as being good indicators of borrower stability. For example, it���s expected that Ford will begin placing a great deal of weight on whether someone has used the same cell phone number for a lengthy period of time. In a joint study conducted with ZestFinance on borrower behavior, Ford learned that ���if the person uses the same cell phone number over and over and over, that helps indicate a level of stability. Stability is usually a very positive indicator for someone to continue to pay on any obligation they have.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

First Grader Is Sent to Principal���s Office Because She ���Misgendered��� Another Student

Did you think this stuff wasn���t really happening?

According to a Fox News report, a first-grade girl in California was sent to the principal���s office at her school for allegedly ���misgendering��� a transgender student���who is also in the first grade.

The girl reportedly encountered the classmate on the playground, and committed the crime of referring to the biologically male youngster by his given name.

Unfortunately for the offender, she was unaware that the young person now identified as a girl, but too bad; it was off to the principal���s office with her.

Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute, a California group that advocates for family values positions, said, ���This innocent little first grader sees a classmate, calls him by the name she knew him last year and the boy reports it to a teacher. The little girl gets in trouble on the playground and then gets called out of class to the principal���s office.���

Fox News reveals that the little girl was ���investigated��� to see ���whether or not she had bullied the transgender child by calling him by his original name.���

Once it was determined that she had made an innocent mistake, punishment was withheld, and she was released from the principal���s office.

As you can imagine, the girl���s mother complained to the school about the treatment of her daughter, and was reportedly ���told that whenever there is a pronoun mishap with this biological boy who now claims to be a girl ��� the school must investigate.���

Well, of course it must ��� it���s 2017, after all.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

NYC Mayor De Blasio Eyes Statue of Columbus for Removal

Apparently, America is bent on tearing down all of its statues of historical figures.

Seems surreal, doesn���t it?

Except it is, unfortunately, all too real, and it looks like next to go will be statues of the man lionized in popular culture as the discoverer of America, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

As you surely could have guessed, Bill de Blasio, the ultra-liberal mayor of New York City, is now caught up in the wave of enthusiasm toward removing so many memorials to the various ���architects��� of the country known now as the United States of America.

According to the Observer, de Blasio has ordered a 90-day review of the city���s statues and other monuments. The specific purpose of the review is to vet each display to see if they pass some sort of purity test on the basis of whatever historical links they have.

In a statement emailed to the Observer, de Blasio spokesman Ben Sarle said, ���The Columbus statue is obviously one that will get very immediate attention because there���s been tremendous concern raised about it. When the guidelines/criteria for review are set by the commission, we will make sure they are available to the public.���

Needless to say, news of this ���review��� is not sitting well with everyone in ethnically-diverse New York. Staten Island Councilman Joe Borelli (R) fired off a letter to the mayor, insisting that his office needs to create a ���clear and concise document��� outlining the criteria that will be used to determine if a statue or other monument is to be removed from public.

���Although your intentions may be well placed, I fear that an examination into these particular statues, as well as the many others the city hopes to ���review,��� will present complex and cloudy historical interpretations that will only serve to deepen gaps between people of New York with different backgrounds and historical worldviews,��� Borelli. ���I will also bluntly remind you that it will not change the history of those they commemorate, controversial or otherwise.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

How To Buy Bitcoin, Get A Free Home Phone, Start An Online Business, and More

On this episode Jim shares strategies from his latest workshop series, including - how to buy Bitcoin, start an Amazon business, get a free home phone, drop cable TV, create income from affiliate marketing and drop shipping, earn money as a mystery shopper and building websites and apps.