CPT Twit - To the News Media and Politicians who Live in the Shadows and Care only for their Own Special Interest

Your time is coming to an end!!!

This was a really big week for news – but few seemed to show up at the party!

Where did all the people go?

In the most tumultuous week of the Trump presidency as two former associates were in court, both were convicted of an array of charges having nothing to do with Trump in the case of Manafort, and very little to do with Trump in the case of Cohen and his plea bargain, all media guns were trained on bringing about the demise of Trump through impeachment.

With that kind of action, one might have expected the largest TV audiences and ratings of the Trump presidency.  Well, if you add the network prime time numbers with the cable average viewing numbers for all the stations making the Nielsen weekly report press release, a total of 28.8 million viewers had their globes glued to the screen on average each day.

So, Nielsen also says there are 304 million potential viewers over two years of age, which seems about the right starting age for the quality of television viewing content.  That means, hummm, barely NINE PERCENT of the potential American viewers watched the network and cable telly each day.

I am not sure but that could be about the fewest TV viewers since 1953 (sixty-five years ago) when there were about twenty-seven million TVs in use.  Wake up media, because the good news is very bad for you.  The good news is 275 million Americans have better things to do than watch television.  Perhaps this is the clearest sign yet that Americans are fed up with television news content and television show content.

I, for one, am quite pleased with the American boycott of non-essential news and generally stupid programming, not to mention the saturation of advertisements, served up by the broadcast media.  One can only hope the aversion of Americans to advertising saturation will slow down the spiraling increase in the digital addiction of our younger generations.

    

Facts:

According to Nielsen's National Television Household Universe Estimates, there are 119.6 million TV homes in the U.S. for the 2017-18 TV season. The number of persons age 2 and older in U.S. TV Households is estimated to be 304.5 million, which represents a 0.9% increase from last year.  Aug 25, 2017.

Here are the latest Nielsen ratings.

By David Bauder - Associated Press - Tuesday, August 28, 2018

NEW YORK — If it’s a lousy week for President Donald Trump, it’s usually a good week for Rachel Maddow.

MSNBC’s marquee personality took advantage of a busy week of bad news for the president, led by former lawyer Michael Cohen’s plea deal and former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s conviction on corruption charges.

She had the top-rated show on cable television on Tuesday with 3.89 million viewers. Maddow beat the usual cable ratings leader, Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, for the week.

Fox News Channel led the cable networks with an average of 2.26 million viewers, taking advantage of its weekend strength. MSNBC had 2.12 million, USA had 1.42 million, HGTV had 1.39 million and CNN had 1.27 million.

Behind its summer juggernaut “America’s Got Talent,” now being shown on two nights, NBC won the week in prime-time with an average of 4.9 million viewers. CBS had 4 million viewers, ABC had 3.6 million, Fox had 2.6 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Univision and Telemundo were tied with 1.21 million and the CW had 770,000.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8 million viewers. The “NBC Nightly News” had 7.4 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.7 million.

For the week of Aug. 20-26, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewership:

1. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 11.21 million;
2. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 9.7 million;
3. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.38 million;
4. NFL Exhibition Game: Arizona at Dallas, NBC, 7.17 million;
5. NFL Exhibition Game: Philadelphia at Cleveland,” Fox, 6.5 million;
6. “Celebrity Family Feud,” ABC, 6.31 million;
7. “NFL Pre-Game Show,” NBC, 6.12 million;
8. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 5.83 million;
9. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 5.72 million;
10. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 5.67 million.

A Message to Distressed Roman Catholics and People of all Faiths

What to do about the crisis in the 
Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination in the world with over 1.5 billion members.  Never in the history of the Church since the time of Jesus over 2000 years ago has the plague of scandal from within threatened the very existence of the Catholic Church.

Ever since the recent revelations regarding sexual abuse within the Church the news media, many of whom have consistently demonstrated a bias against God, Jesus, the Catholic Church, and Christianity in general, have been feasting on the controversy.

In fact, after two years of incessant bashing of candidate for president, then President Trump, the media have honed their skills at fanning the fires of fear, hatred and bigotry.  Sad to say they have grown quite proficient at it.

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report is a perfect example.  St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican was rocked to the foundations with the revelations currently in the news.  It only took a couple of days for former Vatican officials and ambassadors to be discovered by the media who started demanding the current Pope Francis resign.

Almost lost in the media feeding frenzy was the fact there have been no instances of abuse since 2002, sixteen years by my count.  Add to that many of the breaking news cases were identified long ago, and some dated back from eighteen to seventy years ago.

Make no mistake, the nature of the abuse is sick, evil and intolerable.  Even Pope Francis says those guilty of the deeds or guilty of covering up the deeds should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and guilty parties must face the most severe punishment possible.

What most news stories fail to mention is that the State of Pennsylvania criminal code has a statute of limitations extending twelve years and all recent cases discussed are way beyond the statute.  In other words, nothing can be done in either criminal or civil courts to punish the offenders who have ruined so many young lives.  The statute of limitations has expired.

Simply stated, it was never the intent of the news blitz to prosecute criminals, it was an attempt to discredit the institution of Christianity in general, a nefarious movement that has been underway for decades.

So, what can the Catholics do who are absorbing the shame and fear of the media campaign against all religions?

Well, perhaps they should listen to the words of the founder of Christianity, Jesus.  Whenever one has a crisis of faith, they have already ignored the sacred teachings of Jesus.  Faith, first and foremost, is the goodness of the Father and the teaching of His Son Jesus.

Faith that the miraculous creation of Father Creator, meaning our world, our Sun and Moon, our galaxy, our cosmos and even ourselves and our souls reflect the perfect love of the Father for all his Creations, including us, all of us.

As for organized or institutionalized religion, that was never part of the world Jesus described.  There was no hierarchy of religious leaders, no pecking order as to who was closest to God.  There was never any discussion of the church and the representatives of the church acquiring property, wealth, power or status within the institutional religion.

Quite the contrary, Jesus encouraged everyone of any or no faith to speak directly to the Father, to acknowledge the perfect love of the Father in creating us, and to recognize Jesus came to give us a path to eternal salvation.

That path would lead to the Holy Spirit coming to help us as happened to the Apostles and Magdalene at the Ascension of Jesus.  If we recognized the love of the Father, and followed the path Jesus showed us in order to live the will of the Father, we would once again become One with the Creator.

The “priests” Jesus recruited were married and single.  His disciples were men and women.  No massive cathedrals or monasteries were needed to find God and no religious hierarchy stood between you and the Father.

Now, do you really think God would create all that is to us, including you and me, then give us a free will and soul, and billions of years later turn his back on us?  I mean, he even sacrificed His Son for us to help awaken us to remember the path to redemption and salvation.

Maybe if we were not so busy trying to play God in our everyday lives and cultures and even in our religions, things might be quite different.

Maybe if we demonstrated our Faith in the Father and Son by living a life of love, joy and compassion as Jesus advised, perhaps the Dark Side might not have so easily confused us and been able to snatch control of our souls and make humans carry out the sordid acts of the Dark Side.

Make no mistake, evil is running rampant because we are losing the anchor of Faith in the “Father’s Will.”  Our fear empowers the Dark Side.  Only by taking back that power can we defeat the Darkness we manifested in the first place.  That is through Faith.

Finally, do you think an all-powerful, all-loving God would abandon you in your hour of need?

Jesus said to pray to the Father, or pray to the Father through him.  The Holy Mother Mary said pray to God through the Rosary for the good of all God’s creation.  The Magdalene and Apostles spread the same message after receiving the Holy Spirit at the Ascension of Jesus.

To find Grace you must have Faith.

When you regain the Faith you have lost, as the potential is always within you, you will remember and know.  At any moment the Father can act through miracles or whatever else it might take, Divine power and intervention, to fix the mistakes of mankind and our misuse of free will.

Pray for divine intervention to heal the earth and the people.  Pray that our world leaders will help fix the problems of the world.  Pray that those who lost their souls to the Dark Side and spread hatred and fear can escape the clutches of the Dark Side.

Pray thanks to the Father for the opportunity to live his Will --- then live with joy, forgive with compassion, and always remember, this lifetime is but another test and step toward eternal salvation.