2024 Election Eve Thoughts

We are now down to the final day of the 2024 election cycle.  I believe we are also hearing the dying gasps of the failed Harris-Walz candidacy - the most radically leftist ticket this country has ever seen.  Having neither a proven track-record of achievement, nor past positions they are willing to defend, or even discernible issues to run on (unless you count expanding the gruesome torture and slaughter of innocent unborn children at the hands of an abortionist).  Instead, they are forced to resort to desperate slander and dishonest attack ads funded by the globalist corporatist interests that find their home with Democrats these day

But the truth will prevail - Past, Present, and Future.  We saw Donald Trump's past record of peace, prosperity, and safety during his term.  We see what Harris and Joe Biden has been doing to this country in the past 4 years - inflation, war, and lawlessness.  And we know what a future of a Harris-Walz administration will continue to do to this country, if given another 4 years to extend the decline, misery, and malaise.  Their path to victory, if you can call it that, is predicated on ignorance.  It is based largely on convincing you not to believe your own eyes, forgetting how good we had it during the Trump presidency, or not noticing the shrinking buying power of your paycheck.

 

Thus, it is not to say there is no message there.  There is a clear overarching message - summarized in one word: IGNORE.

- Ignore her long history of Marxist economics and promised price controls learned from her Stanford economist father and her own studies at Howard University

- Ignore her unremarkable record of public service in CA, and how her career was only launched because of her adulterous relationship with Willie Brown - the most powerful man in California at the time

- Ignore her past hard left public stands on the issues and unwillingness to defend them

- Ignore her record in the Senate where she was ranked to the left of even the radical Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders

- Ignore her failed record as a Vice President, President of the Senate, and Border Czar

- Ignore her almost complete lack of positive accomplishments in all those years in government

- Ignore her wholehearted insistence that "the border is secure" and "Bidenomics is working"

- and ignore the fact that you can barely afford a gallon of orange juice, a 12-pack of Pepsi, a couple dozen eggs, or even a Big Mac.

Ignore all of this and vote for four more years of it, because of the man they want you to hate.  

First they tried to convince voters Donald Trump was a threat to democracy (despite the fact that we have a Representative Republic, not a democracy).  When that didn't work, it was that Donald Trump is a Fascist.  And when they still couldn't get traction for their failing campaign, it became Donald Trump is Hitler incarnate and his followers are Third Reich throwbacks and human garbage.

Frankly, this is as clear an example of psychological projection as you can find.  As cynical, as hysterical, and yes, as diabolical as the Democrats themselves are, anyone who actually understands the absolute horrors wrought by fascism in the 1930s and 1940s, would still hesitate to call them fascists.  And that is despite the fact that one can rather safely say that they exhibit similar lawless, heavy-handed and tyrannical tendencies. 

But since they are the ones so freely throwing around the words Nazi and Fascist, it is worth the effort to examine more deeply the basis of their disingenuous exercise in projection...

As you know, it was the Biden Harris regime - not Donald Trump - who actually weaponized the judicial system to persecute those who opposed them, be it parents at school board meetings, grandmothers peacefully protesting outside abortion clinics, Republican political opponents, and ultimately, targeting and attempting to imprison their chief political rival.  So, who is it that is effectively utilizing fascist tactics? 

You see, it was their corrupt DOJ, under the leadership of Attorney General Merrrick Garland which colluded with corrupt, partisan local and state prosecutors from hostile venues to bring multiple expired, frivolous, and unprecedented felony charges against the other political party's presidential nominee.  So who's actually employing fascist methodology?

It was her Orwellian-sounding Dept. of Homeland Security, under Alejandro Mayorkas, that perjured himself, violated his oath of office, and blatantly ignored the department's mandate by turning the border patrol into a welcome wagon for tens of millions of illegal aliens, including criminals, drug smugglers, human traffickers, and even would-be terrorists who were invited across the porous southern border.  Who are the lawless fascists?

They attempted to remove their political opposition - actually their opposition from both parties,  (Trump and Kennedy) from the primary and general election ballots. That certainly sounds fascist-like, doesn't it?

And it was she who was nominated - or more accurately coronated - by party insiders to head her political party's ticket, without appearing on any state ballot or the benefit of winning a single primary.  So who exactly is the Fascist?

They are opposed to voter ID laws and ballot drop box surveillance. Her administration has fought at every turn those states which attempted to clean up voter rolls and remove non-residents, illegal aliens, and even the dead.  Who's the fascist?

They also have a callous disregard for the Constitution.  For nearly 4 years, Kamala and Joe's lawless regime waged relentless attacks against the First amendment, the Second amendment, the Fourth amendment, the Fifth amendment, and the Tenth amendment.  That is a direct threat to our democratic republic.  So who's really the Fascist?

It was her Biden-Harris administration which strong-armed tech companies in an effort to censor important information about COVID from the public?  In addition, it was Tim Walz's administration which opened liquor stores and candy stores but closed churches in Minnesota.  Who are the Fascists?

On top of that, they also want to add two along states with four additional Senators, remove the filibuster, and pack the Supreme Court with judicial activists to ram through their agenda.  All of which sounds a lot like fascist tactics to me.

So when Democrats cynically say " 'Democracy' is at stake in this election," take it with a grain of salt.   Truly, our Representative Republic is at stake, but only if she wins.  It is true that they want the purest form of Democracy - mob rule - when it benefits them, as it did during the summer of 2020 or when Antifa was terrorizing Supreme Court justices.  But when popular sentiment is against them, they are not above ruling against the will of the people, subverting the law, and imposing their will by any method they can get by with.

So my advice on election day is to ignore the angry epitaphs these people are hurling about, things such as:  Donald Trump is Hitler, those who don't support Harris are misogynistic and racist, and patriotic Americans who don't support their unqualified puppet candidate are deplorables, garbage, and fascists.

 

These are the accusations of a power-hungry, wannabe tyrant.

Despising of our system of government, persecuting political opponents, and upending the Constitution are not things to fear from Trump, should he be elected.  Rather, they are the simple reality of the past four years of Democrat control that Kamala and Tim will double down on if they are given power.

Much is at stake on Tuesday, November 5th.  Choose wisely.

Who is this Tim Walz guy?

As difficult as it was, I forced myself to listen to a half hour of that Satanic Circus frequently referred to as the Democratic National Convention last Wednesday night (08/21).

I must admit that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz gave a well-constructed, and even engaging, speech.  Unfortunately, while it was long on style, it fell short on substance, and was almost completely devoid of truth. That comes as no surprise to those of us out here in 'Rocks and Cows' country - as the old bull, Tim Walz, derisively refers to rural Minnesota - the place where many of us live who have suffered under the Walz administration's reign of terror for the past 5 or 6 years.

 

Yes indeed, Walz certainly talks a good game - projecting himself as either grandpa, coach, socialist neighbor, Robin Hood or Santa Claus, depending on the situation.  But what he actually delivers... well that ranges anywhere from a steaming pile of bovine scatology to despotic tyranny.

As has become all too typical with the political party of the far left, the speech itself was a barrage of unsupported accusations, aspersion casting, psychological projection, and just outright lies - commonplace diversion tactics in the critical attempt to hide their radical views from the voting public. Truly, his speech was all that.  But he didn't stop there.

For starters, he claimed - actually implored us to "trust me on this" - that Trump and Vance have a playbook. I agree that they do - and making this possibly one of the very few times he actually told the truth last night.  Although they didn't write it, their playbook is most commonly referred to by patriotic Americans as the Constitution of the United States of America.  And as such, you can be sure it is utterly incomprehensible to either Kamala Harris or Tim Walz.

Truth be told, the Harris and Walz ticket also have a playbook.  No, they didn't write theirs either - that would assume a level of seriousness that neither of them possess.  But in their case, they didn't need to.  

 

Karl Marx already wrote their playbook (as updated by Gramsci) in 1848. According to Antonio Gramsci, no cultural revolutionary worth his salt is without his long march through the institutions and history.  Walz is no exception.

Walz may be a former high school social studies teacher, but he is first and foremost a prevaricating politician. As such, his attempts at historical revisionism are pathetic, but expected - believable only by sycophantic party members and the brainwashed masses in attendance.  One such example was when he straight-facedly said:  "We know what they'll do if they get back in the White House. They'll jack up costs on middle-class families."  A charge that is laughable on its face.

To make such a charge against his opponents, willfully ignores the indisputable fact that in their 3 1/2 years, the Biden/Harris regime ushered in the highest inflation rates this country has seen since Jimmy Carter.  Yet Walz had the temerity to accuse the Republican ticket of planning to raise costs on families - consumer costs that have risen steadily since Harris and Biden assumed office and implemented their inflationary economic policy.  Inflation, more precisely, that was fueled by the cynically-named Inflation Reduction Act and which was only enacted by means of Ms. Harris' tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

Given that inflation is widely considered by economists to be the cruelest tax of all - hitting hardest those with the least means - this nonsensical claim was both a show of his utter lack of factual integrity and a clear appeal to ignorance within the Democrat base.

 

His economic illiteracy is illustrated further, given that only days prior, his running mate had announced her economic plan - or more accurately her plan to institute an obtrusive centrally planned economy.  A key component of which was wage and price controls to combat, in her words, "price gauging."  We can only speculate, but their plan will likely include asking Congress to repeal the law of supply and demand. 

As an aside, he also accused his opponents of wanting to repeal Obamacare.  Which ironically, is an action that, if passed through Congress would most certainly reduce health insurance prices to working Americans.

He also attempted to stir patriotism by appealing to his dubious military service claims (a topic for another time and another person) and by declaring that freedom was a big part of "what this election is about."  That, in some strange way, may be one of the few statements he made that Republicans might possibly agree with.  But any illusory point of agreement ends upon further examination of what he means.

Again, this truth-shifting sophist leveled the ironic charge that it is actually Republicans - not Democrats - who would be the threat to our freedom.  Such a fantastical claim can only be understood when you realize that his definition of freedom has little to do with the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 10th amendments, parts of the Bill of Rights which he has big disagreements with, but primarily the so-called 'freedom' to kill babies - unborn and even newborn - via surgical and chemical abortions, for any or no reason, and by any method, however gruesome.

More interestingly, the freedom charge is rife with hypocrisy coming from a man who reigned as a little dictator during COVID - someone who shut down his state, who set up a snitch hotline for neighbors to turn against neighbors, who sent armed police forces to shoot paintballs at citizens who were sitting on their front porches, who fined and jailed small business owners for remaining open, ordered COVID-infected patients into nursing homes, and who shut down churches while opening up candy stores, liquor stores, and strip clubs, while continuing his unchecked Emergency Powers months after COVID was no longer a threat.  This is the charlatan accusing Republicans of being a threat to freedom.

 

Indeed, quite a strange notion of freedom, these Democrats.

Despite all that, it would be a huge mistake to presume that Walz is a low IQ individual on par with his presumptive boss, Kamala Harris. Quite the contrary, he's probably better described as a diabolical genius, a master propagandistic rhetorician, and an opportunistic wannabe dictator.  In this writer's opinion, that's not 'Minnesota nice'.

 

 

 

 

A Costly 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card

There are two things I can say with near certainty about Joe Biden:

• Joe Biden is a crook
• Joe Biden will not be held accountable for any of his crimes

Most of us have seen the now-famous picture of a 60's era Corvette parked in the driveway, in front of an open garage.  Inside the disheveled-looking garage, are beat up boxes of papers - sitting there right out in the open on the floor in front of the open garage door.

Today we learned that the owner of that garage and the man who previously claimed that he was "surprised" when boxes of illegal classified documents were found in his house and garage, (while feigning outrage that Donald Trump had retained classified documents among his personal papers)  1  - has admitted under questioning by Special Counsel Robert Hur and his deputies, to knowing that he illegally held classified documents in his possession.

Hur's findings, outlined in a report which came out on Thursday, February 8, established that Biden, "willingly retained and disclosed classified materials," including "military, foreign policy, and sensitive national security secrets."  Additionally, Biden "knew he kept classified information in notebooks stored in his house and he knew he was not allowed to do so."  

Proving yet again how this corrupt Justice Department maintains a two-tiered justice system, Biden will not be charged (much less, impeached by the House of Representatives) for his illegal activities. In fact, Mr. Hur refuses even to prosecute the theft of classified documents from a secure SCIF while Biden was a U.S.Senator.  Meanwhile Merrick Garland moves forward with the Trump indictment for far less serious circumstances.

Nope.  Instead, doing his best impersonation of Jim Comey protecting Hillary Clinton, Special Counsel Hur declined to prosecute, even after authoring a 388 page report laying out the legal grounds for such a prosecution.

The Special Counsel did, however, throw at least one bone to Biden's conservative critics.  Hur laid bare Biden's drastic and severe cognitive decline when he revealed that Biden's memory had "significant limitations" and that he failed to recall such significant milestones as the time of his Vice Presidency or the date of his older son's death.  The report says, "Mr. Biden's memory also appeared to have significant limitations."

In fact, one excuse given for not charging Biden with these felonies was that after his presidency ends, Biden's legal team would likely present him at his trial as "a sympathetic, (I would say 'pathetic') well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."  Funny, but that sounds to me more like a consideration to be left for the sentencing phase of a trial, instead of the legal basis for blanket prosecutorial immunity from serious crimes.

Not that logic and reason count for much with this bunch, but, it certainly does put Biden and his handlers in a rather difficult logical conundrum.  As Victor Davis Hanson points out, how exactly does he argue against the report?  No, I'm not cognitively challenged and therefore should be indicted after my terms ends - or - He's right to not prosecute because I am in cognitive decline and therefore no longer qualify under the 25th amendment to be president. 2

In the final analysis, however, if we desire to protect our country from another four years of this tyrannical and lawless regime, if we wish to spare the country from increasing international embarrassment, disrespect, and scorn, and if we hope to save the United States from this mentally diminished, bumbling Mr. Magoo-like character in the oval office, we can't count on the news media, the 25th amendment, or the courts.  To do that, patriotic citizens like you and I will have to vote him out of office.

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1. When asked for his thoughts upon hearing that President Trump had kept classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, President Biden replied, "How that could possibly happen?  How could anyone be that irresponsible?" (60 Minutes interview, 09/18/2022)

2. U.S. Constitution.  Amendment 25. Section 4 - "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President..."

 

 

Like Sodom and Gomorrah - but with Lakes, Rocks, and Cows

With that soothing baritone voice of his and a Santa Claus-like physique, one could easily assume Minnesota DFL Governor Tim Walz was harmless.  And you'd be very wrong.

In an age of hyperbole, even by 'Minnesota nice' standards, it is hardly understatement to say he is a dangerous, tyrannical extremist.  Walz came on the scene in 2018 with a campaign giving lip service to a slogan "One Minnesota", but it didn't take him - or voters - long to realize his radical policies were extremely unpopular in outstate Minnesota and that his base of support was a handful of Democrat stronghold urban counties in the Twin Cities metro, plus Duluth and Rochester. For the most part, suburban and rural areas - the land of "mostly rocks and cows" as he so famously dismissed them - rejected his divisive talk and disastrous policy prescriptions.

Not satisfied with the typical Democrat favorite pet projects, such as expanding the already bloated welfare state, funding pork-barrel spending construction projects, and dumbing down the education system, Walz had his sights set on much more far reaching structural changes, but was held back, by a legislature that his party didn't fully control.  At least until COVID, where we got our first true glimpse of a man acquiring a taste for tyrannical power - a man who would come to be affectionately known to some as 'Timmy the Tyrant'.  Using ambiguous and arcane emergency rules, Walz assumed near marshal law status, by continuing to extend his peacetime emergency powers for well over a year beyond when any true COVID emergency may have possibly existed.

Then came the unthinkable.

Rather than being punished by voters for his divisive, erratic, and downright ineffective leadership during the George Floyd riots, Feeding Our Future scandal, and COVID, Walz was inexplicably swept back into office and given a Democrat majority in both chambers of the legislature to back him.  They quickly conspired to seize on the opportunity for action to turn our charming land of 10,000 lakes into a diabolical landscape of 10,000 boiling cauldrons of corrosive far-left politics.

In a flurry of activity, all hell literally broke loose as the 2023 legislative session began.  Without any effective checks and balances.  Walz and his party wasted no time enacting an agenda that seemed to many of us "rocks and cows" types, too extreme for even Satan himself.

Revealing their top priority - death and destruction - the first bill from both chambers (HF1/SF1) removed virtually all abortion safeguards or restrictions and guaranteed gruesome child-killing for any or no particular reason, up until the moment of birth. Walz only too happily signed it into law.  Keep in mind that was despite denying a charge from his campaign opponent that he supported abortion up to the moment of birth and claiming that he supported maintaining current abortion laws. 1  (The bill followed nicely in the footsteps of his 2022 executive order which gave state sanction to 'abortion tourism' by refusing to cooperate with neighboring states which don't allow the grisly procedures. 2 )

Although I'm not going to take time to outline all the bad and outright evil policies and laws inflicted upon Minnesotans by Governor Walz (expensive carbon-free electricity, felon voting, and illegal alien driver's licenses immediately come to mind), we must mention his most egregious action of all, at least to this point:  Walz's 'Gender Transition' executive order.

Executive order 23-03, signed on Wednesday, March 8, leapfrogs the legislature and effectively transforms Minnesota into a sanctuary state for so-called gender transitions. The order guarantees access - and punishes denial of services - to what they euphemistically call "gender affirming healthcare services." 3  (A writer for Hot Air points out that it even goes to the lengths of protecting non-custodial parents from consequences for kidnapping a child and bringing them to Minnesota for the purposes of receiving such 'services.' 4)

Their deliberately vague and obfuscatory language deserves to be unpacked.  Completely unheard of a decade ago, the term "gender affirming healthcare services", encompasses a range of horrific practices and procedures, of which I hesitate to even mention, such as the administration of cross-sex hormones, powerful and still not fully tested puberty blocking drugs, genital mutilation surgeries, breast removals, and castration of children.  Indeed Dr. Mengele would be proud of this governor and his administration!

A boy insists he is a girl so he can shower with the cheerleaders?  Great!  A girl wants to be a boy, because the other girls in her class are mean to her?  We can make that happen!  Your 2nd grade son says he wants to be a pirate, so they surgically remove an eye from it's socket and give him a patch and amputate half his leg to fit him with a pegleg.  That is doable!  Your kindergarten daughter says she wishes she were a purple polka-dotted unicorn... well you see where this foray into fantasy land goes.

And so, we have Walz's Lt. Governor, Peggy Flanigan, out there publicly insisting that she knows "what it means to be a good parent," emphatically claiming "it is our job as grown-ups to listen and believe" whatever a child may say about who or what they are. 5   For the extremists in charge, it has nothing to do with providing wise guidance and religious direction to children through times of trouble and confusion.  Instead, she insists logic, reason, genetic science, and all that is true must be tossed aside in a dogged pursuit of the lunatic left's cause du jour.

The intent of these things is not to affirm genetic science, X and Y chromosomes, or a reality-based concept of male and female, but rather to obscure them.  This done, not in the name of truth, but in the name of politically motivated theories revolving around gender fluidity - a cause celebre of the far left LGBTQ+ABCXYZ sexual deviancy movement.

Having received both public recognition and government sanction to their unholy unions, and left unsatisfied even by the continuous positive publicity being puffed in the legacy media and pop culture, the sexual deviancy movement continues to progress into evermore sinister areas of depravity such as indoctrination, recruitment, molestation, and even mutilation of children.  In the case of minors, the innocent-sounding term, "gender-affirming care" actually cares nothing about the actual havoc raised in the lives of it's young, confused, or mentally ill victims.  There is a profitable and sexually-charged political agenda to be advanced at their expense.    

In actuality, the result is little more than the official enabling and even celebrating of an untreated mental disorder - in this case, one called gender dysphoria. 

While it may be hard to even fathom this depth of evil by those of us in the land of rocks and cows, it has been adopted wholesale from a political party and it's leader in St. Paul that has a central vision of sexual confusion, immorality, and mutilation.  Sadly, it's portends a legacy of broken lives, destruction, and death that targets children, who will bear the imprint for decades hereafter.

 

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1 - https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/gov-tim-walz-does-not-support-abortion-up-to-the-moment-of-birth-contrary-to-jensen-claim/

2 - https://m.startribune.com/small-devoted-group-at-state-capitol-shares-in-gratitude-for-roe-being-overturned/600185247/

3 - https://alphanews.org/gov-walz-signs-order-making-state-a-sanctuary-for-gender-transitions/

4 - https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/03/09/minnesota-about-to-become-a-kidnapping-sanctuary-state-n535743 

5 - https://alphanews.org/flanagan-good-parents-believe-kids-when-they-tell-us-who-they-are/

The Biden Referendum: Tuesday, November 8

Joe Biden is a really bad President.

That's not just a statement from an admittedly partisan blogger, but it is empirically confirmed by the citizens and voters across the country.  There can be no question that, despite the advantages provided by a fawning and shilling news media, Joe Biden - with his 38% favorable rating - is one of the least popular U.S. presidents since such statistics have been tracked. (1)  However, that's not to say he hasn't been effective.  The trio of executive orders, selective non-enforcement of existing law, Congressional legislation, combined with a constant stream of propaganda from the presidential teleprompter have been very effective in dividing us along political and racial lines, undermining the shared social fabric, and destroying the country's economy.  Effective yes, very much so.  But popular, absolutely not.

As such, tomorrow's election - despite the President's objections - has turned into a referendum on the dangerous and destructive policies being imposed on us by the unpopular Biden Regime.  Many of us have come to the conclusion that the best way to stop or at least slow the consequences of those policies - at least in the short term - is to deny his political party the Congressional and state majorities which exist to enable his lawless regime and its policies

With this in mind, I have been compiling a list of a few of the most obvious reasons to vote against Democrats at all levels in Tuesday's election.  Below, I offer you my Top Ten Reasons to vote GOP on November 8:

 
Reason #1 to vote GOP on November 8: 
Intentional human Chaos created on the southern border - For fiscal year 2022, we had an all-time record number of criminal and illegal aliens flooding across the border.  Under the intentionally chaotic misrule of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, we have suffered through:
- 2,378,944 illegal alien 'encounters' in 2022 - the worst on record.  Most of these unscreened, undocumented, unvaccinated, uneducated, and acculturated aliens were ushered into the country posthaste by the Biden regime.
- Another 600,000 illegal alien known 'got-aways'
- 856 reported deaths at the southern border, another record - not including the deaths south of the border
- 98 known or suspected terrorists apprehended - 4x more than the previous 5 years combined (for reference, only 19 terrorists were involved in the Sept 11 attacks)
In an attempt to conceal the bad border news which reporting requirements forced them to publicly reveal, Homeland Security dumped the Sept. and fiscal year end data at 11:30 pm Friday (10/21) night. (2)

Reason #2 to vote GOP on November 8:
Intentional drug Chaos on the southern border - During his first two years in office, Biden oversaw record drug overdose numbers, much of which was fentanyl-related.  As a consequence of Biden's lawless border policies, enough fentanyl was seized while being smuggled in fiscal year 2021 to kill every US citizen 7 times, which begs the question how much of the deadly drug wasn't intercepted at the porous and virtually undefended southern border.  If the Biden regime isn't deliberately cooperating, hand-in-glove, with the Mexican drug cartels which are flooding our country with illegal drugs, it is hard to fathom what more they could be doing to assist the effort.

Reason #3 to vote GOP on November 8:
National security - A Surrender in the fight against Terrorism.  After the ill-planned and hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, literally billions in armaments were gifted by Biden to the Taliban.  This included vehicles, planes, night vision equipment, small arms, and parts.  Even the lowest estimates of the value ($7-8 billion) of what he left behind is 2 to 3 times the amount the Biden regime requested for Israeli defense in fy2022 - in other words, Biden's policies provide more support for Taliban terrorists than our best middle eastern ally.

It's no better on the home front, where his inexplicably stubborn refusal to enforce the law, finish the border wall, or beef up the U.S Border Patrol, means that would-be terrorists are literally pouring across the southern border (98 of whom were stopped in fiscal year 2022 alone, according to DHS statistics, which do not speculate how many terrorists made it through)

Reason #4 to vote GOP on November 8: 
National security - Projecting Military weakness.  Undermining our military strength has been a hallmark of Biden's defense policy.  Not only did his unceremonious and haphazard surrender in Afghanistan signal weakness to our global enemies - and thereby greenlighting Putin's invasion of Ukraine - but by not consulting with our allies before his pullout there, he jeopardized their future cooperation.

He has further undermined our military by:
- Draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve needed to defend the country in wartime
- Injecting woke, politically correct, and divisive racial theories into the officer corps and enlisted ranks
- Implementing politicized COVID and speech policies to thin the ranks and deter recruitment.  (For instance, the army has fallen 25% below its recruiting goal in 2022). (3)

Reason #5 to vote GOP on November 8: 
Fuel prices - Biden's war on the energy industry.  While our Commander-in-Chief has generally favored the funding of - rather than fighting against - terrorism, Biden was quite quick to declare war on our domestic energy industry, and by proxy, the American people.  On his first day in office, he revoked the existing permit for the new pipeline bringing oil in from Canada, enacted a moratorium on oil and gas leases on Federal lands, and placed our entire economy hostage to the whims of Obama's unratified treaty known as the Paris Climate Accords.

In addition, he reinstated restrictive permitting & drilling rules while cancelling leases & lease auctions.  Among the most debilitating effects of all these America-punishing efforts included doubling and even tripling, the cost of heating oil, gasoline, and diesel.  This, in turn, led him to order the draining of the strategic petroleum reserve prior to the 2022 midterms, in an attempt to ameliorate the electoral impact of his misguided energy policy.

Reason #6 to vote GOP on November 8:
The lawless Justice Department. - Since his confirmation as Attorney General, Merrick Garland's partisan conduct has only proved that he was rightfully spurned as a Supreme Court justice nominee.  During his short time as A.G., the FBI has lost what was left of it's tattered credibility, while being remade into a bludgeon of political persecution. He has turned the Justice Department as a whole into little more than a partisan tool of the far left to target the Biden regime's ideological opponents.  At his direction,we saw:

- Targeting school board attendees by raising the specter of FBI investigations of parents interested in debating school board policies
- Refusing to enforce federal law against those engaged in intimidation of Supreme Court justices
- Personally approving an unprecedented armed Raid on a former President's residence over a document storage dispute
- Charging pro-life protestors with Federal crimes under a spurious interpretation of the FACE Act (while still ignoring BLM/Marxist/Antifa rioters who burned down entire city blocks and government buildings)

Reason #7 to vote GOP on November 8:
Stop a Lawless administration - Insomuch as he is actually capable of being in charge, Biden presides over a profoundly lawless and corrupt administration.  We had previously discussed the Dept. of Homeland Security and the Justice Department:
- Under Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security is blatantly ignoring it's mandate and allowing literally millions of would-be terrorists, drug smugglers, human traffickers, and illegal aliens to stream across the porous southern border.
- Under Merrick Garland, we have seen the continuing radical politicization of the Justice Dept. and the FBI - including targeting of parents attending school board meetings and peaceful pro-life picketers, armed predawn raids and arrests of political opponents, and a refusal to prosecute Democratic political allies.
The only way such lawless public officials can be impeached and removed from office is when the Democrats who protect them don't control Congress or block Congressional inquiries.

While those examples are truly bad, there is much more dereliction of duty and outright corruption that requires probing by the Congressional oversight committees that Democrats currently control, including:
- The self-inflicted war on domestic energy production, that enrich our enemies (such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela), spurred by his adoption of the radical Green New Deal policies
- The reckless draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a pre-election attempt to temporarily lower fuel costs caused by his energy policies
- The leaving of Billions - if not tens of Billions - of armaments and the renovated Bagram airbase to Taliban terrorists during his hasty surrender in Afghanistan
- An IRS which is literally arming up its agents and requiring them be prepared to use deadly force against taxpayers, while at the same time filling 87,000 new positions
- An attempted politicization and demoralization of our armed forces
- The Unconstitutional spending of $500,000,000 in unappropriated funds to forgive and transfer the college debt of potential wealthy supporters in a bold attempt to buy votes before the election. (The Brookings Institution says one-third of student debt is held by the wealthiest 20% of households.  By comparison, only 8% is owed by the bottom 20%)

Reason #8 to vote GOP on November 8:
Economy and Inflation - Biden's 8.2% inflation.  The Biden team's level of economic incompetence seems to be only rivaled by that of Jimmy Carter, and chasing hat of Weimar Germany.

Plainly put, Democrat policies have pushed our economy into a recession.  Despite the left's desperate attempts to rewrite the classic definition of recession or blame everything bad on Putin, a recession is defined as "two consecutive quarters of negative growth."  Biden delivered negative economic growth for both the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2022, and it is expected to go negative again for Q4.  Despite labor market shortages, inflation has now outpaced wages for 18 consecutive months.(4)  Fuel prices have doubled, and even tripled.  Pinching you even more, home mortgage rates have went from under 3% to over 7.5% under Biden's watch.

Although Biden had promised not to raise taxes on the middle class, keep in mind that this inflation itself is a cruel 8.2% tax - in fact, it is a flat tax - one that both erodes the value of our savings and increases the cost of goods and services we need to survive.

Reason #9 to vote GOP on November 8:
COVID-19 Policy - While COVID-19 was clearly a serious threat, in retrospect, one has to wonder if the threat to individual liberty was by far the greater peril.

The Wuhan/COVID virus quickly became an excuse for all sorts of mischief by those (almost exclusively Democrats) with totalitarian instincts, such as:  inflexible vaccine mandates, travel bans, lockdowns, vaccine work requirements, shutting down schools, locking in seniors, eviction moratoriums, banning church services, emptying prisons, student loan interest forgiveness, student loan debt cancellation and reassignment, the abrogation of election laws, unmonitored ballot drop boxes, etc. - and don't forget those economic stimulus checks they paid to inmates - all of which empowered the bureaucracy and endangered individual liberty.

Reason #10 to vote GOP on November 8:
Abortion - While it is probably unfair to characterize Democrats as godless, it is fair to ask the question - exactly which god it is that they worship?  Especially so as almost every other ad they've run during this campaign cycle is in support of unfettered, unrestricted abortion.  It does seem to me that this spectacularly cruel form of child sacrifice has become the most important sacrament required in the worship of their diabolical gods.

Indeed, their leader has pledged to turn bad Constitutional law (which was overturned by the Dobbs vs. Jackson ruling) into bad Congressional action.  Joe Biden has already promised that the first bill he sends to Congress next year will be one that legally codifies - and likely exceeds - the Roe vs. Wade decision, in the unlikely event that Democrats somehow control enough seats in Congress to pass it.  This threatened violation of everything good and holy in itself, seems to me to be the only reason one needs to justify denying them a ruling majority.


That's the ten, but there's still so many more, which I will lump under the title:
Return to sanity - I recently heard a GOP congressional candidate say something to the effect that this election "wasn't about Democrat versus Republican, but crazy versus normal."  I think he was on to something.

Consider the following "crazy" ideas being promoted by the left:
- Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools
- Drag queen story hours and pornographic literature for small children
- Mutilating minors with so-called 'transition' surgeries
- Girls/women forced to compete against boys/men in sports.
- Criminalizing political dissent
- Decriminalizing drug crimes
- Defunding the police
- No cash bail for repeat offenders
- Millions of criminals crossing southern border
- 401k plan-destroying inflation
- DEI and ESG
- Promises from a figure-head president to shut down power plants and "no more drilling"

A return to a Republican Congress, your statehouse, and legislature is the best check on their "crazy" brand - the crazy, leftist policies of Biden and his Democratic enablers, led by Pelosi and Schumer.  It could even open a path to impeachment proceedings against their worst offenders - including Garland, Myorkas, and Biden.

Meanwhile, we keep in mind their sneering arrogance and refuse to forget the utter contempt these people have for us.  Obama called us 'bitter clingers', Hillary called us "the deplorables", CNN's Rick Wilson sneers that we are the ignorant "boomer rube demo", Biden thinks he insults us by saying we are "ultra MAGA", and more recently, the View's Sonny Hostin accuses us of being cockroaches.  But considering the source of the insults, those of us patriots who are their targets either laugh or perhaps take it as a compliment, while we vote them out of office at the polls on Tuesday!

But above all, remember to fight, finish, and keep the faith.  As goes the encouragement the Apostle Paul gave to his understudy, Timothy, while speaking to his fortitude and personal conduct:  " I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (5)

 

 

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1 - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/10/20/bidens-job-rating-is-similar-to-trumps-but-lower-than-that-of-other-recent-presidents/ 

2 - https://nypost.com/2022/10/22/record-856-migrants-die-at-southern-border-in-fiscal-year-2022-cbp/

3 - https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/

4 - https://www.statista.com/chart/27610/inflation-and-wage-growth-in-the-united-states/

5- II Timothy 4:7

Post Inaugural Musings

Just this past week, the DC establishment deployed literally tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of miles of concertina wire to defend their presidential inauguration against a reportedly grave security threat. This impressive mobilization of more than 25,000 National Guardsmen and women, plus an untold number of active duty service members, were all there to defend Washingtonian elites from a motley band of smelly buffalo-horned and coonskin cap-wearing malcontents, mixed in with a handful of mask-less confederate flag-waving buffoons and Antifa agitators. Before you chastise me for downplaying the threat, consider this. For comparison purposes, that's 3 or 4 thousand more troops than President Lincoln required to defend the city against the very real threat of a military siege at it's peak in 1863 by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. (1)

Homeland Security's Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli even revealed that Speaker Pelosi wanted to further play up the police state imagery by requesting the deployment of machine guns in the Capitol. Apparently in this bold new age of one-party rule, Democrats are of the opinion that nothing says national unity quite like belt-fed M2 .50 caliber machine gun nests on every street corner.

Does it really take more than two divisions of armed National Guard-members, being transported at great expense to Washington to sufficiently enforce Biden's inaugural themes of and 'healing' and 'unity'?  Or did they leave jobs, communities, and families behind, only to serve as expensive pawns in a dystopian photo op designed to stigmatize the previous administration?

It has been widely reported that a military presence was needed for security... perhaps so.  Please don't misunderstand me.  The events of January 6 were abhorrent.  I'm all for maintaining law and order.  It is a sad reality that given the current state of cultural decline, there was and will be an ever-increasing need for enhanced security - and in the current political divisiveness, that need shows no signs of lessening.  So in a practical sense, some measure of military presence certainly served a deterrence purpose. (2)

This sudden and newfound repudiation of political violence by elected Democrats is refreshing - albeit 8 or 9 months too late. (As was their confession that fences and walls really do work.) But for whatever was accomplished to deter a real or potential security threat, I humbly suggest that deploying the equivalent of more than two military divisions of armed troops may have been a bit of overkill to subdue a rather pitiful mob of unruly thugs.

And yet, evoking images of Cold War-era Leningrad or current-day Pyongyang during our national day of ceremony did serve other purposes, albeit ones that are at odds with the stated goal of American Unity. Far more insidious ones, I fear.

For one, the dark militaristic theme served very nicely to advance their disingenuous narrative that the 75,000,000 Trump voters are to be feared. Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, advocates of free markets, and the Midwestern working class people are “dangerous”, “enemies of the state”, “fascists”, and “insurrectionists”. Every sort of ad-hominem label has already been applied to Trump, his appointees, and his devotees going on four years now, so the obvious next step is guilt by association: Trump is evil, those several hundred insurrectionists are evil, therefore you people who supported Trump are evil, capable of anything, and can't be trusted. So we had to call in the troops.

Mark my words, those images of Capitol Hill ringed by armed troops and surrounded with razor-wire topped fences will be used by Democrats to smear their opponents in election ads for years to come.

Of course, it also sets the stage for their bogus impeachment and subsequent Senate trial proceedings. Look there, Trump and his devotees are so dangerous to the Republic that we now have more troops defending Washington D.C. than we did during the Civil War.  Of course, this sort of political theater on the Democrats part also reinforces the view of National Guardsmen serving as mere political props in their perverse melodrama.

Perhaps worse, the over-the-top reaction is just another intimidation tactic clearly intended to send a signal to their political opponents. It can't be properly viewed without considering the history of FISA abuse by the Obama administration against their political enemies, the self-censoring of news damaging to Democrats by the institutional news media, and the current talk by the political left of unleashing the mechanisms of the state against its own citizens with amped up domestic spying operations.  And it all combines to create a rather chilling effect against political speech.

All the more so, given the present context of the throttling and deplatforming of conservative voices and media-sponsored news censoring during and after the 2020 campaign, along with all the post-election talk of a need for the 'deprogramming' of Trump supporters, this extraordinary show of force was a subtle warning to any who don't want to unify under the boot of Biden's “very dark winter” agenda:   that of oppressive regulation, job-killing environmental extremism, and unchecked hordes of illegal aliens streaming into our country.

It was an in-your-face proclamation, saying, "We are in charge now!"

If you don't join them and forsake your support for the policies of the past four years, you will be shamed, demonized, doxxed, silenced, deplatformed, unfunded, and perhaps even fired. You better watch yourself. It's Unify... or else.

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1. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/washingtons-civil-war-defenses-and-battle-fort-stevens

2. Tangentially, it also significantly boosted attendance far above the usual dozen or so attendees we had become accustomed to see at Biden's campaign events.

3. Katie Couric on Real Time with Bill Maher, January 15, 2021. Steve Hassan on CNN January 19, 2021. Eugene Robinson and Nikole Hannah-Jones on Morning Joe - on MSNBC January 12, 2021.  https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/12/washington-post-columnist-donald-eugene-robinson-trump-supporters-cult-deprogrammed/

Supreme Vindication

The importance of the 2020 election cannot be understood apart from an understanding of the dueling visions for the role of the Supreme Court.  Visions that pit the preservation of our liberty against the erosion of freedom and an insidious and ever-growing tyranny.

In that context, it can hardly be overstated how huge the swearing in of Amy Coney Barrett last week was. Absolutely huge. Absolutely, incredibly huge.

Associate Justice Barrett was the third Supreme Court justice appointed by President Trump and confirmed by the Republican Senate in the past four years. As part of an historic remaking of the Federal judiciary, the president has also appointed more than 200 Federal judges - most of whom are Constitutional originalists. As we have seen time and time again, there are never any guarantees about how a judge will rule once seated. Chief Justice Roberts is but the most recent and disappointing example of that. But if our justices don't at least begin from a place of deep respect for the text of the Constitution - and equally important - understand their own role in protecting it, our country's existence would be all but doomed.

 

And we were very close.

Back in 2016, many of us were unsure about exactly what kind of a president Donald Trump Jr. might be. Was he a man of his word - did he mean what he said about draining the swamp and building border walls and getting us out of endless middle eastern wars - or was he just another huckster politician? Could a braggadocios, pugnacious, and sometimes crude New Yorker be trusted to govern with what sounded a lot like mid-western values? Did he truly have a change of heart on the issue of abortion and would it affect his public policy? And above all, would he really keep his eyes on the prize by keeping his promise to appoint only Originalist, Textualist, Constitutionalist judges?

We all had to seriously ask ourselves one very fundamental question: Did the character flaws on public display and being widely and gleefully exaggerated in the predominant news media disqualify Donald Trump from receiving our support? And truly, both candidates were morally flawed. But conservatives and Evangelicals had been burned many times before when going to the dance with Republican candidates.

Many Evangelicals, Catholics, and other people of faith made the prayerful decision to take the chance, trust their gut, and go with the candidate who was right on the issues. Thankfully, many of us - whether joyfully or while holding our noses - cast our vote for Trump and trusted that God would ultimately use him to accomplish His purposes in the same way He has used and still uses flawed individuals today.

Many of us believed back in 2016 - and most still maintain - that the most important issue was Judicial appointments. (Imagine if Merrick Garland had been confirmed in the waning days of the Obama administration to replace Antonin Scalia. And then a President Hillary Clinton had appointed two radical justicial activists to the court.) While we know that court appointees sometimes stray from sound judicial philosophy and we will at times be disappointed in their rulings, still, President Trump's many originalist judicial appointments have gone a long ways toward the restoration of the Constitution as our guiding document, while largely vindicating the value voters' support for the President.

What was it about the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett - this mild-mannered, devout Christian and mother of 7 children, that scares the Democrat party?  Why does a soft-spoken and respectful legal genius, a careful law professor and jurist so rile Senate Democrats?  What is it about the confirmation vote on this thoughtful jurist who promised to faithfully interpret the Constitution sent Chuck Schumer into an apoplectic rage?

I can tell you that it is not because they think she isn't up to the task - she is smarter than any of them and twice as smart as some of them. It is not because she doesn't respect the Constitution - she knows it better and holds it in higher regard than they do or ever did. And it is definitely not that they are politically rudderless partisans - while they may be quintessential partisans, they are anything but directionless.

No, the problem truly isn't that they are without direction, instead it's that their direction is hard left. The Democrat political tantrum we've witnessed over the past four years has shown us how little the average citizen actually has in common with the political party of AOC, Sol Alinsky, Jim Crow, and Karl Marx. They have discovered, to their dismay, that their leftist agenda is too unacceptably radical for the American people and impossible to enact legislatively within the present rules.

For them the court has become far more than just the third of three coequal branches of government - it has become the last chance to enact their unpopular platform. They want to place judicial activists on the court in an attempt to turn it into an unaccountable, un-elected, uber-legislature. Justices such as Barrett, who respect the text of the Constitution, who honor the original intent, and who believe it means what it says are a threat to their radical agenda. That is why Chuck Schumer said of the confirmation of Justice Barrett: 

"It will go down as one of the darkest days in the 231-year history of the United States Senate." (1)

It also explains why he didn't bother, in his mad quest for power, to veil his threats about breaking or changing all the rules the next time he gets control of the Senate.  They threatened to abolish the filibuster, add D.C. and Puerto Rico to the union to inflate their numbers in the Senate, and promised a Supreme Court packing power grab.  Adding insult to injury, they want to disenfranchise the entire midsouth, midwest, and most of the western states by eliminating the Electoral College.  Essentially, there is no rule they will not break, lie they will not tell, or depth to which they will not sink to keep from losing their grip on power.

They would have us, as someone wise has said, abandon the Constitution that has served us so well for over two centuries, and enter into, what Constitutional scholar Mark Levin calls a tyrannical "Post-Constitutional America."

Of course, in their wisdom, the founders provided a Constitutional remedy to their concerns.  Simply enact laws which pass Constitutional muster - or - cultivate the necessary support to amend the Constitution.  Of course those things are hard to do, especially when your platform is neither popular nor tenable.

There is another remedy - a much easier one - and one much preferred for those of us who cherish our liberty and freedom, who value the maintenance of our God-given rights, who want to continue to live in a country ruled by laws and not by men, and who want to continue to live in a Republic not subject to the tyranny of the majority.  That twofold remedy is simple:  It involves NOT rewarding the party that gave us a four year political temper tantrum while at the same time voting for President Donald Trump.

 

Return the Trump-Pence ticket to the White House for 4 more years and keep America great.

 

-- footnotes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 - Axios - Monday, October 26, 2020 - Dualing views:  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday "will go down as one of the darkest days" in Senate history, moments before the chamber voted 52-48 to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

 

"...the next time the American people give Democrats a majority in this chamber, you will have forfeited the right to tell us how to run that majority. You may win this vote, but in the process, you will speed the precipitous decline of faith in our institution, our politics, the Senate and the Supreme Court."

"My colleagues may regret this for a lot longer than they think. Here at this late hour, at the end of this sordid chapter in the history of the Senate, the history of the Supreme Court, my deepest and greatest sadness is for the American people," Schumer said. 

"It will go down as one of the darkest days in the 231-year history of the United States Senate."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats oppose the nomination because "they don't like the outcome."

"What this administration and this Republican Senate has done is exercise the power that was given to us by the American people in a manner that is entirely within the rules of the Senate and the Constitution of the United States," McConnell said.

"Elections come and go. Political power is never permanent, but the consequences could be cataclysmic if our colleagues across the aisle let partisan passions boil over and scorch the ground rules of our government." 

2016 Election eve thoughts - What is a follower of Christ to do?

It was just over a year ago in this very forum that we discussed the unique national mood we faced this election cycle and how we were in the midst of an historic political revolt against the establishment – the best hope in decades for an refreshingly conservative, anti-establishment candidate to assume the presidency.

As I lightheartedly noted at the time, the Democrat’s options were limited to a choice between a communist outsider (Sanders) and a criminal insider (Clinton).  Whether the nomination was honestly obtained or not – as we would come to question thanks to Wikileaks – the Clinton machine ultimately prevailed, Sanders and his supporters dropped their opposition and capitulated, and Democrats proceeded in lockstep to circle their wagons around one of the most dishonest and unprincipled presidential candidates of modern times.

Republicans would not be so easily herded… starting with far more choices from both the establishment and anti-establishment wings of the party.  However, the field eventually narrowed down to just three choices:   Cruz, Kasich, and Trump.  In a tricky anti-establishment year, the flamboyant and controversial Donald Trump was left the last man standing.  While perhaps not a true conservative, nonetheless, Trump’s positions on border security and immigration (illegal and otherwise), the economy, and his approach to international aid, trade and treaties resonated with a constituency that had long been dismissed, if not ignored, by the party.  Those who identify with the Republicans found themselves with the maverick Donald Trump, a highly unconventional candidate, as their standard bearer.

The establishment itself split in their support of Trump, with some of the most duplicitous of them (Mitt Romney comes immediately to mind) publicly refusing to do what they had always told the dutiful conservative voters to do – put our differences behind us and unite behind the eventual nominee.  Their disdain for the rank and file in the party was apparently so great, their elitist sensibilities so offended, their lust for power so threatened by this party outsider, that they preferred a Hillary Clinton presidency over the  anti-establishmentarian, drain the Washington D.C. swamp, Donald Trump.

For the rest of us, this is one of those years where a lot of people will ultimately hold their nose and cast their vote.  Both candidates are flawed, seriously so.  Trump has already been confronted with various inappropriate and explicit comments he had made over the years.   Then late in the campaign, he faced accusations and possible civil suits from several women relating to alleged disgusting sexual misconduct. 

For her part, Clinton has a 30 year history of scandal, including the more recent suspicious non-prosecution of her 109 felony violations of the Foreign Espionage Act for recklessly storing classified documents on an unprotected private server.  In addition, there is the bribery and corruption charges relating to using donations made to The Clinton Family Foundation to buy access and favors from the State Department.  Even if these somehow go away, you can bet that these will not be the last legal issues she will face if elected.  It is highly likely that the historic nature of a Hillary Clinton Presidency would not be that she would be the first woman so elected, but rather that she be the first President facing felony charges while serving in office.

For these and other issues, many Evangelicals have been tempted to sit this one out, to somehow keep themselves unsullied by all this sleaze.  Some cite their conscience, saying they could not possibly vote for anyone with such low morals.  Others want to send some kind of political message to the party, to the government, to the supposed ruling class that we need better candidates.  I will say that these “excuses”, for lack of a better term, all fall short under scrutiny, but for now, I will save the arguing against these specific positions for another time.

The problem is, we are uniquely a self-governing people who have a 200+ year tradition and privilege of selecting our own leaders from among us.  Almost exactly 200 years ago, founding father and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, wrote “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers.”   He continued that, “it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” (Letter to John Murray (12 October 1816) as published in The Life of John Jay (1833) by William Jay, Vol. 2, p. 376) Unfortunately for us, the candidates who were the most outspoken in their Christian faith did not prevail through the primary process and quite honestly, it is often exceedingly difficult to see much in the way of Christ-likeness in either party’s candidate.  Yet the yoke of such duty remains upon us.

Even though the system has been distorted and abused over time, we still have a long history of free and (for the most part) fair elections.  Although many see the future of Christian’s public participation in society increasingly at risk, we still have the privilege and responsibility to participate in the process.  If we as Christians take a pass on this important election, we engage in dereliction of duty and basically embark in unilateral disarmament allowing those whose ethics and worldview are not informed by Scriptures to determine the direction of our country.

But now, we are down to just two choices – only two candidates have any chance of becoming the next president of the United States. 

So what are we, as Christians who are called to a higher standard, to be in, but not of the world, supposed to do when our choice is essentially limited to two candidates, both morally flawed.  Since we may not personally like either of the choices presented to us, what do we base our decision on?  How are we then to decide?

In one word:  Issues.

Make no mistake, the differences between the two candidates on the issues is absolutely monumental.  And only one of them will lead us and shape the course of the debate.  Only one of two very different views about the proper scope of government and vision for the country’s future ill prevail for the next 4 or possibly 8 years.  One of the two – Trump or Clinton – will be setting the national agenda.

As Bible translator, Theologian, and Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies, Wayne Grudem, recently wrote:

This election is more than a choice between two candidates. Americans are making a choice between two very different political parties, two very different views of government, two very different Supreme Courts, and two very different futures for our country. One of them is much more consistent with biblical teachings than the other.

There are enormous differences between the candidates and the two parties, differences that I still think have great significance. The differences concern not only the Supreme Court but also religious freedom, abortion, gender identity regulations, rebuilding our military, protecting us from radical Islamic terrorism, securing our borders, supporting Israel, reducing taxes and regulations so the economy will grow and create jobs, increasing school choice, reforming health care, allowing wise use of all forms of energy, reducing racial animosities and many other issues. These differences will determine the kind of nation we leave for our children and grandchildren.

This is a link containing Dr. Grudem’s initial comments:  http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/10/09/trumps-moral-character-and-the-election-n2229846

I especially appreciate Grudem’s perspective, since he clearly struggled with his response(s) toward this election over the course of three articles written for TownHall.com.   It is quite evident that he wrestled over this 'issues versus character' argument.  For the entire article, as well as links to his follow-up thinking by Grudem, click here:  http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564

There is simply too much at stake to take a pass or register a meaningless protest vote for a candidate equally flawed, but not facing the level of scrutiny applied to the major candidates.  If we refuse to do our part as citizens, to weigh in on the direction of our country, we risk cutting off our nose to spite our face.  We risk losing the freedom to meaningfully speak out in the future.

Grudem continues far more eloquently than do I, writing “If all the Christians in the country decide not to vote for either candidate, our rulers will then be chosen entirely by non-Christians, many of whom will increasingly use the immense power of government to promote evil, silence Christians, and oppose Christian values in every area of life. This is the opposite of what Paul told us to pray for in 1 Timothy 2:2.”

“I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Tim. 2:1-3).

No single factor affecting the issues we face in the coming years so heavily swings the scales in favor of voting for Donald Trump than the Supreme Court.  The High Court has been systematically expanding its own role in our system of government since the 1930’s and with few exceptions, has been expanding the role of the Federal government at the expense of individual and state’s rights.  With the death of the brilliant originalist Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year, the Supreme Court, and therefore the future of our country hangs in the balance by the appointment of his replacement in the next president’s term.

In fact, given the age and relative health of most of the current justices, many believe the next president will very likely pick 3 or 4 Justices to the High Court.  Those picks will undoubtedly affect the balance of the current court which is at present comprised of 4 liberal judicial activists and 4 moderately conservative and/or originalists justices.  The judges so appointed to the court will likely serve 30 to 40 years and not step down until our grandchildren and great grandchildren are of voting age.

In a follow-up to his original article, after noting the danger of a Clinton appointee replacing Justice Scalia, Grudem confirms my view, noting the far-reaching judicial consequences of having still another Clinton in the White House:

A President Clinton could possibly nominate three or four justices to the Supreme Court, locking in a far left activist judiciary for perhaps 30 or more years. She could also add dozens of activist judges to federal district courts and courts of appeals, the courts where 99% of federal lawsuits are decided. Judicial tyranny of the type we have seen when abortion rights and same-sex marriage were forced on the nation would gain a permanent triumph.

The nation would no longer be ruled by the people and their elected representatives, but by unelected, unaccountable, activist judges who would dictate from the bench about whatever they were pleased to decree. And there would be nothing in our system of government that anyone could do to stop them.

For the entirety of Grudem’s most recent comments, click here:  http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/10/19/if-you-dont-like-either-candidate-then-vote-for-trumps-policies-n2234187

Grudem continues:

If Trump would appoint a replacement for Scalia from his list of 11, and probably one or two other Supreme Court justices, then we could see a 5-4 or even 6-3 majority of conservative justices on the Supreme Court. The results for the nation would be overwhelmingly good.  Such a Supreme Court would finally return control of the nation to the people and their elected representatives, removing it from dictatorial judges who repeatedly make law from the bench.

Both candidates have told us what kind of judges they would appoint to the courts.  We must seriously ask ourselves, “Would the Constitution, and therefore our country, be best served if Hillary Clinton’s secular left worldview prevails on the Supreme Court, or if Donald Trump’s list of conservative, originalist judges are picked to serve on the Supreme Court?”  “Will the cause of Christ, or even just this nation, best flourish with judges dedicated to studying and discerning the original intent of the text of the Constitution, or by those who hold the Constitutional text in contempt and view the court as but a means to promote secular humanism and socialism by imposing leftist political agendas on an otherwise unwilling population?”

I understand this is not an easy election cycle.

God has in the past and can in the future use flawed, even fatally so, leaders to achieve His ultimate purposes, but according to His grace, we in this country as self-governing citizens, also have a part to play.  But if we refuse to do our part, we must consider carefully if we are we cooperating with or opposing those purposes.

Some of you may agree, others disagree with my conclusion.  Nonetheless, what is at stake is very clear.  Either way, please leave your comments below.

The Big Tent

Ever since the Haley Barbour days of the Republican Party of the 90’s, the conservative voters within the party have been told we needed to support a ‘Big Tent’ philosophy.  This Big Tent philosophy can be summarized as follows:  In order to grow the party, no one should be excluded, everyone welcomed, and that the Republican Party needs to be inclusive and welcoming to everyone.  Of course this all sounded nice in theory, but in practice the ‘Big Tent’ seemed mostly used as a ‘Big Stick’ to beat up on those who questioned the GOP’s commitment to it’s own conservative-leaning party platform and to attempt to keep them faithfully towing the establishment’s party line.


Such Big Tent Republicanism gave us a host of moderate, milquetoast – and I might add, losing – presidential candidates such as Bob Dole, John McCain, and most recently, Mit Romney.  Candidates all, who had trouble articulating and sometimes – in the case of McCain – barely containing their disdain for the conservative message.


After conservatism reached its ascendency in the Reagan years, it was quickly co-opted.  Every Republican (except perhaps those from New York and Maine) suddenly called him or herself a ‘conservative’... at least while they were campaigning for the conservative voter’s support.  But when they got into office, it was same old, same old.  The term "conservative" was soon rendered nearly meaningless.


More recently, when the Tea Party movement rose to prominence, the establishment for the most part once again gave the appearance of having jumped on the bandwagon.  They held their nose and tolerated the unpolished, but popular, Sarah Palin who breathed new life into the anemic McCain campaign.  Based on the pleas from Republican leadership, newly invigorated Tea Party voters gave Republicans majorities in both the House and Senate - rightfully expecting that great things were about to be accomplished.  But the Boehner-McConnell leadership team in Congress predictably sold us out, caving time and time and time again to the Democrats on budget issues that were of interest to the tea party electorate.  Instead of organizing a fight for conservative fiscal principles, they opted to undermine their new conservative delegations and negotiate secret deals behind the scenes with liberal Democrats – deals which gave away virtually everything Obama and the Democrats asked for  – and left conservatives feeling used and betrayed yet again. 


With that background, is it any wonder that we saw in this election the ascendency of the Republican anti-establishment candidates?  From the brain surgeon Dr. Ben Carson, 1st generation Indian-American Bobby Jindal, HP CEO Carly Fiorina, the maverick Senator Ted Cruz, and entrepreneur/entertainer Donald Trump; all offered disaffected Republicans and independents a breath of fresh air, as clear anti-establishment choices, albeit bringing different strengths to the table.  More importantly, all these candidates brought newly re-energized conservative and independent voters into the process.  In Trump’s case, he even brought disaffected Democrat voters to the table.


But where was the establishment now?  Where were their calls for a big tent?  Where was the effort to fold in the newcomers?  Instead, when this new form of ‘Big Tentism’ proved inconvenient to them, it was tossed aside like a dirty diaper.  The Establishment went into panic mode when their annointed and well-funded candidate, Jeb Bush, couldn’t rise beyond single digits in the polls.  To make matters worse for them, voters found their Plan B (Christie) Plan C (Rubio) and Plan D (Kasich) options equally uninspiring. 


The last straw was calling in the establishment’s previous election choice and a failed candidate, Mit Romney, who took to promoting either Rubio or Kasich depending on which state he was asked to manipulate.  Rubio, seeming less and less relevant when it appeared he could not even win his home state of Florida, actually resorted to telling voters in Ohio to support Kasich rather than making the case for himself, presumably in hopes of gumming up the works for the others.  And tired, old John Kasich clung to the hope that winning his own state of Ohio might be enough to allow him to limp into the convention and trust that the power-brokers might foment some sort of convention-time coup on his behalf.   They seemed to be doing anything to keep either the wildcard Trump or the principled conservative Cruz from securing enough delegates to secure the nomination prior to the convention.  They literally spent more energy opposing Donald Trump than they did the Democratic candidates, seemingly oblivious to the fact that all this activity only added to the resolve of the anti-establishment voters.


I’m far from a committed Trump supporter.  Personally, I prefer Senator Cruz.  The prospect of Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton was not and is not my first choice.  Nonetheless, it is still preferable to yet another uninspiring and dishonest establishment candidate as our standard bearer in the fall.  


I recount all this, not to glory in the fact that we may now be left with Donald Trump as our nominee – or worse that the establishment powers-that-be manipulate the process and give us John Kasich as a ‘unity candidate’.  What they still don’t realize is that the Trump phenomenon is almost entirely a monster of their own creation.  It was born as a result of lying to and taking their own base for granted far too many times.  I completely find humorous that the voters are poking a stick in the eye of the Republican establishment - hopefully in preparation for a thorough house cleaning.


So this is what we are left with:  The far left still has it’s home in the Democrat party, whose current two presidential candidates are attempting to outdo each other in their race toward socialism.  To make the party (pun intended) complete, about the only ‘free’ – that is, government-provided – thing they haven’t yet proposed is beer and cigarettes for those who vote for them.  Squishy moderates, statists, and greedy corporatists have their own ‘tent’, in the Preibus-Rove-Boehner-McConnell-Romney led Republicans.  It’s just too bad that those of us who call ourselves conservatives don’t seem to have a tent these days.


Up and against this phony version of the big tent, Ronald Reagan showed the way to building a true Big Tent Republican party – by going around the establishment by inviting and uniting middle-class Republicans and Democrats and values-voting Republicans and Democrats around a common love for their country and traditional values - and doing so with a winsome and optimistic tone.  But doing the right thing risks taking some unpopular stands – something career politicians rarely have the stomach for.