Division in Our Nation

When faced with the division so apparent in our nation between the left and the right, it is important to define the conflict in order to seek a remedy.  
Is the conflict between Democrats and Republicans, between liberals and conservatives, between left and right a result of a difference of opinion that can be sorted out or solved by debate and by compromise?
Or is the conflict so fundamental and central that we have reached the point of war, for which very different tactics must be used?  And, if so, who initiated the war, and is peace even possible?

Conservatives Trying to Understand

When faced with someone’s actions that mystify you, the best policy is to assume the best about them (practice forbearance), to try to put yourself into the other’s shoes (show empathy), and to search for rational explanations and good motivations that might possibly lead a person to do what you find so perplexing.
These are the fundamentals of decent Judeo-Christian behavior which I was taught by my parents and by the Sisters of Saint Joseph (who educated me in New York City at St. Benny’s Catholic School in Richmond Hill) during my elementary years.

This is generally the best way to approach life, and it’s what those of us who try not to be curmudgeons strive for most of the time. 

Even when people do that which for us conservatives is unthinkable, like killing their own babies in the womb, we try to drum up explanations explaining their choices and softening their intent.  They could not afford a baby.  They felt social stigma.  They assumed the child would have a miserable life. They wanted to avoid inconvenience and had no idea how serious their choice actually was. They fell for secular propaganda without thinking.

This works for explaining the motivations of many nice people who are liberals, particularly those who have not devoted much thought to the issues at hand, and who themselves innocently try to fit in with the new and sometimes shocking “social values” that are presented to them (and most recently demanded of them) by our “culture.”
 
That “culture” is now predominantly defined and then controlled by the left. 
With the help of the now primarily leftist media,  the left projects the “everybody thinks this way” image very successfully, whether that is accurate or not.  Their message actually goes beyond “everybody thinks this way,”  and is rather more like “you are scum (racist, …etc.ist) if you don’t think our way.” So, wanting to fit in and not make waves, nice liberal people buckle easily under pressure from the extreme left, and become increasingly more liberal, not realizing the trouble for which they are headed.   

No Longer Liberal

In this way, the previously nice liberals in our midst have slowly been replaced by a very forceful element of the radical far left, to whom the word “liberal” no longer applies. 
They are no longer “liberal” or “easy” or “permissive” about anything. They are now quite angry, dictatorial, and inflexible, and, despite their free use of the word “tolerance,” are not very tolerant about anything with which they themselves disagree.  In fact, they even no longer refer to themselves as “liberals,” but now prefer the word “progressives.”  They try to dictate to all of us where our culture and our values must “progress,” they intolerantly label us with hateful names when we don’t comply, and they use increasingly violent and even illegal tactics on anyone who dares to disobey their agenda or to resist. Examples of the weapons used are:

Enough is Enough

When it comes to the leaders who are steering the new very radical and apparently very hateful left, our Christian attempts at understanding and overcoming disagreement, by practicing good will and forbearance, now fall short.

When faced with Antifa-like attacks, no amount of good will or forbearance will help.
You don’t approach Antifa-(oops, Attila)-the-Hun with good will and forbearance.
Efforts at logic, reason and debate simply enrage the radicals further.   

Their radical demands keep shifting to the extreme, demanding more and more”rights” which now routinely trample the real rights of the majority.  For instance:

• Democrats now demand the “right” to kill an unwanted baby after “accidental” birth.
• Democrats demand that America’s borders be simply removed, and that anyone from anywhere who walks into our country must be openly accepted and given all “rights” that previously had to be earned through comprehensive citizenship scrutiny and eligibility.
• Regarding support for declining moral standards, Democrats demand the “right” of AIDS patients to engage in promiscuous behavior without warning the other party, thus infecting others. (Half a million young men died unnecessarily during the AIDs crisis because facts about the transmission of AIDs were concealed.)
• And Democrats demand the “right” to change modesty standards in restrooms for the entire nation. 
• In attempts to garner control of the country, Democrats even advocate eradication of the Constitution’s Electoral College in favor of a popular vote, thus disenfranchising rural America.  Rural America is then expected to feed and support left-wing urban America, while the urban left gets to control government and law and free-load off rural areas. 
• And the list goes on…..

When a squeaky wheel begins to demand too much, and tramples the rights of others with their excessive demands, the time comes for reasonable people to declare that “enough is enough.”
The left now demands such a fundamental compromise of core values that no reasonable Christian could or should agree to compromise any longer.  

Even the Left Jumps Ship

The left has become too radical even for the left.
 
David Horowitz is one example of a devoted left wing activist of the 1960’s, who realized by the 1980’s that the left had migrated too far in its “ends justify the means” philosophy– in his case, going too far meant the murder of Horowitz’s friend by left wing activists.   
David Horowitz then abandoned the left, and for the next 30 years applied his intellect and talent  to opposing the left. 
David Horowitz has now been a leading conservative thinker and writer for several decades, until his death in early 2019.   

According to David Horowitz, progressive leaders of the left have declared war on America and its constitutional system, and are even willing to collaborate with America’s enemies abroad, and with criminals at home, to bring America down. He does not portray them as people who can be reasoned with, or people who are capable of compromise.  He does not even believe that they want the best for our nation — something that I had assumed all along.  In my naïveté, I have always assumed that the left wants the best for our country, but disagrees with me on the best route by which to achieve it.
 
Horowitz’s contention that the radical left hates America and the principles upon which it was built, and wants to destroy all that our nation stands for, is a game changing concept.  We can no longer hope to reason with and “convert” the left; instead we must expect escalating attacks and learn how to protect ourselves from them.       

Surely, This is Paranoia?

I would never have believed until very recently that leaders of the left (Pelosi, Biden, Hillary, Barack…) had direct intentions to damage America, as Horowitz suggests.

 
But extreme events have come to light during the past three years.  It has been reported that certain members of the leadership in the previously trusted and respected FBI, DOJ, CIA, FISA court and DNC, have colluded with Fusion GPS, Yahoo news and other main stream media, to produce false accusations against President Trump, in an effort to depose him, effectively initiating a coup.  The extent and lawlessness of this apparent subversive “deep state,” coordinating secret lies and violating laws to reverse an American election, have convinced me that there is, indeed, a conspiracy on the part of the left in our country. 

That conspiracy sought to unseat President Trump unjustly.  It is now widely known that:

• Numerous leftist government officials prioritized unseating a sitting President over the welfare of the nation. 
• In setting up their open “resistance movement,” numerous Democrat leaders refuse to support projects under President Trump which they previously supported under President Obama (such as building of a wall, or restrictions on immigration).  
• Democrats oppose work needed for the safety of the American people by our law enforcement officers just to “resist” President Trump.
• Many left-leaning politicians, also supported by the hostile press, place priority on damaging the President over protecting our citizenry and over maintaining our nation’s credibility abroad.  

For 3 years now, the Democrats have behaved like a child who rips the head off the favorite doll of a sibling rather than see that sibling enjoy (and possibly share) the precious doll.
  
The spitefulness of the left has now risen to the level that they side with Iran and with sadistic mastermind Qassem Soleimani, rather than acknowledge the accomplishments of President Trump in stemming terror directed at the US.
 
And their spitefulness has most recently risen to the level that they tried to convict the President of false manufactured accusations and “Impeachment” without allowing him due process or defense.  

Vast Left Wing Conspiracy?

So yes, now it seems we have to to acknowledge the existence of a vast left wing conspiracy aimed at bringing down America and the (Christian-based) constitutional government that supports our success.
David Horowitz, who suggests this, is probably right, and his view and his warnings should not be dismissed.  
He knows our opponents, he used to be one of them. 

When Hillary Clinton was accusing us of a “vast right wing conspiracy” over 20 years ago in 1998, we thought she was crazy.  But knowing what we know now, her accusations were probably based on a projection of her own plans, an assumption that we on the right are doing what the she and the left were already engaged in back then — their own “vast left wing conspiracy.”  

Accusations Backfire

Now, after the left has repeatedly attacked President Trump with falsehoods which actually turn out to be reflections of their own behavior, we are beginning to learn:

• President Trump was accused in the Mueller investigation of colluding with Russia, but in actual fact it was found that it was the FBI and Hillary Clinton who were colluding with Russia, trying to obtain false dossiers with which to undermine President Trump’s election.
•  President Trump was accused of bribing the Ukraine in a phone call with “quid pro quo” demands, when actually it was Vice President Biden who was bribing the Ukraine with a  billion dollar “quid pro quo.”
•  President Trump was subjected to over 3 years of investigation trying to unearth election manipulation by President Trump, followed by a failed impeachment effort to prevent his reelection in 2020.  In actual fact, the impeachment plan, which started on the day of the President’s inauguration, and involved a fruitless 3 year search for a crime, was the ultimate election manipulation effort by the left, attempting to overturn the 2016 election and to damage the President’s chances in the 2020 election.  100% of the election manipulation was on the Democrat side, not on President Trump’s.

The Mueller investigation backfired,  accusations of “quid pro quo” backfired, and the impeachment attempt backfired. 

How Much Damage Has Been Done?

Now, following impeachment, a Rasmussen poll finds that 55% of voters say impeachment made President Trump stronger politically, while only 16% say that it weakened him.   

So, the efforts of the left to unseat our President have not only backfired, but have actually strengthened President Trump.
Americans seem to be well aware of the war that is being waged against them and their values.   
What does not kill you makes you stronger.  

What Have We Learned?

So now we have learned:  if the Left accuses the Right of some shocking behavior, that behavior will actually be found on the Left, and not on the Right. 
 
Why should that be surprising?
The left has been using Alinsky tactics now for decades— tactics described in a book by Saul Alinsky, a book dedicated to Lucifer, the Father of Lies. 

So we have learned that the Left lies, attacks, and distracts.  But most importantly, the Left HATES, and the Left is out to destroy – destroy conservatives, destroy the constitution, and destroy religion, on which all of this is based.
 
The Left does not plan to play by the rules, to use the legal tools our Constitution has made available to us.
Yet Conservatives are expected to stick to the rules to preserve all we believe in. 
For millenia, such battles against evil have been faced by good men who rolled up their sleeves, risked their necks, prayed to God, and took great courageous risks to protect all they believe in.  They even left their homelands, and founded new lands, including America, to escape injustice.
These men were tough, they were courageous, and they were unafraid to call out and face the enemy. 
Enter Donald Trump. 

Enter Donald Trump

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Donald Trump has identified our problems, called out our enemies foreign and domestic, does not shrink from confrontation, and can play global poker brutally and successfully.  
He manages to remain devoted to America, the constitution, our history, our flag, our Christian roots, and our babies.  
He has taken on the Alinsky left, the European Union, China, ISIS, false attacks and counterfeit impeachments without flinching, all the while fixing our economy, returning jobs to America, repairing our government through the appointment of just judges, defending our unborn future citizens, and inspiring everyday Americans to join him in the hard work of restoring the America most of us believe in — a united America where all groups are included, and no group is played politically or excluded from the prosperity.  

Toxic Masculinity

What is the Trump Haters’ biggest complaint against President Trump?

The gripes vary around various aspects of the President’s behavior– his twitter lashings in response to attacks, his outside-the-box responses to attacks on his policy, his humor which takes the form of theatrical grandstanding, and some decade old locker room talk he was caught using.  Oh, yes, and he does not hold back when his attacker is a minority, like a woman.  This President can be very equal opportunity with dishing back to those who attack him.  

In short, the aggressiveness and unpredictability of President Trump’s (primarily Twitter) behavior offends the left, and even offends some in his own party.  The New  York Times calls this “toxic masculinity,” which they define as including bullying, catcalling, suppressing emotions and masking distress, maintaining an appearance of hardness, and “tough-guy” behavior.
 
According to the New York Times, “Toxic masculinity is what can come of teaching boys that they can’t express emotion openly; that they have to be “tough all the time”; that anything other than that makes them “feminine” or weak.”
The left actually has psychologists working with boys and men who “have been socialized to conform to traditional masculinity ideology.”

 When a President faces serious global and domestic opponents, then aggressiveness, cunning strategy, brutal honesty, willingness to take intelligently calculated risks, and in general, many qualities defined by the New York Times and by the left as “toxic masculinity,” not only become useful, but become essential. 

Is This a Debate or Are We at War?
And What Are the Stakes? 

Once we realize that we are engaging in a war with the left, not a debate, it becomes clear that all the qualities President Trump is displaying are most useful and essential.

In war, you cannot broadcast your plans openly to everyone, you must be aware of potential spies, you must use red herrings and diversionary tactics,  smoke screening, infiltration, information warfare, and covert operations. 
These are masculine military tactics, and President Trump attended a military academy, where he excelled. 
Incidentally, the left has been using these tactics clandestinely for years, way before President Trump’s election and the left’s official declaration of “Resistance.”

It’s time we face reality and stand behind this President.
 
And the stakes?
Unborn children and our nations’ future. 

What President Trump Does

President Trump identifies threats, prioritizes wisely, tackles problems simultaneously on many fronts, rallies the troops, creates diversions and never foolishly shows his cards to the enemy. 
President Trump is a warrior and Commander in Chief on a par with any of our greatest Presidents and generals of the past. 
We should make no mistake about the seriousness of the threats our nation is facing today, whether they are internal or global. 

And do not be distracted by his Twitter rants.  Through them he broadcasts the truth, which the media will not do, and he throws many red herrings to the enemy.  He always has a plan!

President Trump has the courage to face enemies like China, Russia, North Vietnam, ISIS, and our domestic radical left, while still having the heart to defend unborn babies, worry about prisoners who were unjustly sentenced, and work hard for the welfare of everyday Americans.

And President Trump has the moral fortitude and intelligence to negotiate all this within the confines of the law, unlike his enemies, who do not limit themselves to lawful combat, but who flagrantly trample the laws of decency.
 
Following more than three years of investigation by his unprincipled opponents in the “swamp,” President Trump still remains guiltless and righteous.      

Back to David Horowitz

David Horowitz was a prolific author, and has much to teach us about the left. 
His latest book, published just after his death, Dark Agenda- The War to Destroy Christian America, outlines many of the tactics and goals adopted by the left. 

Horowitz claims that Radical infiltrators have been quietly transforming America’s societal, cultural, and political institutions for more than a generation. Now, backed by Billionaire George Soros, they are ready to make their move. These “progressive” extremists have gained control over a once-respectable but now desperate and dangerous political party. From their perches in the Democratic hierarchy, they seek to undermine the war on terror, destabilize the nation, and effect radical “regime change” in America, all in an attempt to usurp power for themselves.

Horowitz claims that progressives are “self-appointed social redeemers,” whose every tactic, particularly their “community organizing,” is designed to gain power.  Their weapons include provoking the public to anger, which generates publicity, and makes people more prone to tolerate the adoption of totalitarian tactics by government under the guise of protecting the public. Progressives claim to be dissatisfied with the status quo, but offer no concrete suggestions on how to effect change and improvement in our society.   

Horowitz claims that numerous groups and programs have been hijacked by the left as ways of recruiting bodies for their revolution.  If you can claim to offer any discontented group promises or sympathy, you will have their votes.  If citizens are not discontent, progressives invent ways to convince them to be discontented. Once they have their votes, progressives forget about these poor slobs, they only needed them to acquire power, so now they don’t have to deliver.  

The Progressive Umbrella of Discontent

.A partial list of activities and issues that now fall under the progressive umbrella of discontent, and are used and controlled by progressives to get votes, but are never solved or overcome, include: 
(Organizations taken from David Horowitz’s very comprehensive Freedom Center Discover the (Leftist) Networks Website): 

Affirmative Action Animal Rights Anti-Americanism Climate Change Communism Globalization Decline of Democrat-Run Cities & States Environmentalism Feminism Health Care Hollywood Immigration Islam Social Justice Treason Victims of the Left—Black Americans, AIDS deaths, Democrat cities

According to one Students for Democratic Society (SDS) radical, for progressives, “the issue is never the issue.  The issue is always the revolution.”  No solutions are ever offered.
Many of the issues, like Global Warming aka Climate Change, are manufactured (another blog article coming soon), and probably do not even exist.

Many of these issues are items all decent people are concerned with, like environmentalism, immigration and social justice.  Progressives do not acknowledge that conservatives, including President Trump, have always worked on and care about justice and decency, have accomplished more in these areas than has the left, and should not be villainized by the progressives.   
 

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Now that we have had 3 years of a President who pushes back on the progressive agenda of the left, and who has actually made some progress on some of these issues without divisive tactics, we can appreciate better how groups of Americans had been splintered and pitted against each other in the past, paralyzing our nation and impeding accomplishment, progress, and prosperity.  

If David Horowitz is correct, and we are indeed in a war with the Left, we must realize this now.  We urgently need to abandon our “Marquis of Queensbury” rules, join in the battle, and become great supporters of President Trump’s fight against the warriors on the Left.  No room for criticism, even for the President’s tweets, which represent his brilliant circumvention of the media that has been corrupted by the left, and which show his transparency and accountability to the people who elected him. 

The Left is Particularly Vulnerable Right Now

One of the unintended consequences of the progressive strategy of collecting the votes of numerous malcontent groups and sowing division, is that one of those malcontent groups just might gain enough momentum to hijack the Democrat Party which pretended to care about them. 

At this very moment, Democrats are panicking about just such a crisis takeover by the angry old socialist Bernie Sanders.  Bernie’s grumbling agenda is gaining momentum with its promises of handouts which only someone who is mathematics-impaired could possibly believe, and the Democrat Party is in danger of being taken over by this socialist.   His supporters include many of our young people who have recently graduated from the politically altered, arithmetic-sparse and history-sparse curriculum imposed by the left in our schools.

Desperate Democrat attempts to regain control of their own party include not only misappropriating their limited energies into continuous yet unproductive attacks on President Trump, which leave their own list of accomplishments anemic, but now also include an attempt to purchase leadership of the party by Michael Bloomberg, the very type of aging white billionaire male, and previous Republican to boot, that Democrats have publicly consumed themselves with hatred for in the past. 

Needless to say, the left is in very poor condition at the moment to pose any threat to the focused, organized, and accomplished administration that President Trump heads.    

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What Are Our Options?

This is not the first time our nation has suffered internal conflict and division, and it will not be the last.  
We are not limited to the unattractive option of digging in and  “fighting it out to the death” with our brother and sister progressives;  we can use our brains and our brotherly love to find alternate solutions. 

As with any human dispute, sometimes a good “deal” or compromise can be found. 

First of all, we need to ascertain just how many of our citizens are on board with the radical agenda– is it truly half, as the press would have us think, or has the left conned us all into thinking that more Americans are behind them than actually are?
  
The coming 2020 election should help us to find out.  We need every single vote, so let’s make sure we don’t slack!
  
As we come to realize (and defuse) some of the radical left tactics used in the past, such as voter fraud and media manipulation, a better assessment can be made of where Americans actually stand with reduced Alinsky rigging of elections. 

The Best Solution

Then, one general solution to issues on which we Americans have sharp division, is deregulation and decentralization of control over issues on which Americans disagree.  The concept of Federalism, on which our nation was founded, allows the combining of a central “federal” government with regional state and city governments in a single political system.  Most major areas of disagreement can be delegated to the States for more local resolution.  This can ease many of the national tensions that arise when the people of one region disagree strongly with those of another.

Just as family disputes can be eased by allowing family members more freedom and space in their own rooms, so also national disputes can be eased by getting rid of those regulations that Americans disagree on (see the list above, in the areas of Affirmative Action, Animal Rights, Anti-Americanism, Climate Change, Communism, Globalization…….) and allowing States to pass whatever regulations their majorities wish to pass on these contentious issues.  Fundamentally, we all back off of imposing our will on the fellow citizens who disagree with us. Then those who are discontent can find a State to live in that suits their desired lifestyle better.  

Guess What?

The previous section on What Are Our Options?, which concluded that deregulation and decentralization can provide some solutions, is precisely what President Trump has already been doing. 
President Trump is WAY ahead of the game.
And as he lifts regulations that have been crippling our economy, lifts health care requirements for the Little Sisters of the Poor so they do not have to pay for contraception, and reclaims our ability to say “Merry Christmas,” our nation is beginning to prosper.  

Why We Need President Trump

President Trump is a far sighted leader who has been able to identify many of our enemies and problems, and has energetically pursued finding solutions against great odds. He has a wonderful ability to discern what Americans want and need, as opposed to what career politicians want and need.  
Almost miraculously (assisted by the prayer of millions of Americans), President Trump has managed to rise above the assaults he has suffered, and continues to look for win-win solutions for all Americans.
President Trump is the “deal-maker” of the century, and he will be able to continue finding us win-win deals that solve our nation’s problems with fairness and justice. 
As a previously reluctant Trumper, I am now completely on board with our President, and so should you be.

Negotiating Wonderland

OR

TRUMP: To Dump or Not to Dump?

TOPSY-TURVY

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Note 4-9-18: For “To Dump or Not to Dump,” scroll to end of article

Negotiating Wonderland

“Negotiating Wonderland,” where everything is topsy-turvy, is what Donald Trump is doing, and what we all have to learn to do, in order to reinstate democracy and bring sanity back to the United States.

Wonderland

Wonderland, aside from being Lewis Carroll’s fictional land where everything is topsy-turvy and unexpected, it is also a great term for our modern global progressive culture, in which age-old values including democracy and religious freedom have been overturned, and political surprises, or Black Swans, surface faster than anyone can keep up with them. We are today living in a true Wonderland, where things change more quickly than ever before, most of us are struggling to keep up with the pace, and we question the wisdom of the giant social experiment that we were  railroaded into by previous administrations.

Negotiating It

Most people struggle to negotiate this Wonderland that has been forced on us.
Except for Donald Trump.
The Donald seems to be keeping up just fine, accomplishing the promises he made campaigning for President, proving that he is the conservative he claimed to be, and winning over more and more approval from the nation he represents as time goes on.
Donald, true to his business self, to his life-long experience as a negotiator, and to his own instructions in his book “The Art of the Deal,” is negotiating Wonderland, and he’s doing it very well.

NEGOTIATING PERILOUS CLIFFS NOW WITH A SHEPHERD

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Wonderland? Yes, Really.

Barack Obama invited this comparison by kicking off his didactic Presidency with a secretly held opulent celebration in 2009 themed on Alice in Wonderland, while ordinary Americans suffered economic hardship from the almost-depression of 2008.  At that time, it seemed inappropriate for the President to throw a glittering White House costume ball while the rest of the country was struggling with economy, unemployment, and bank bailouts.
So, Obama kept his lavish party secret for over two years.

(NOTE THE COLUMN OF SKULLS AT LEFT OF PHOTO)

Radical Change and “Cultural” War

Nobody Wants the Radical Change

BRAZEN SCANDALOUS MORAL VIOLATIONS

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After 8 years of Obama’s administration, it was pretty clear that many Americans were upset with the radical transformation of our “culture,” i.e. attempted eradication of many sensibilities that the Obama administration had railroaded in, they were sick of the scandalous morality, and were intent on fighting back.  There was so much discontent among mainstream Americans that 17 opposition candidates stepped forward to oppose the Obama Progressive Radical Agenda in the primaries prior to the election of 2016.

But most reasonable nice people, including 16 of the 17 candidates, were paralyzed by the Alinsky Tactics of the left.  Most nice people were intimidated and transfixed, staring like deer in the headlights at the barrage of abuse coming from the left, at a loss of how to proceed.

ONE LEFT STANDING

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The Truth of the Matter

The truth of the matter is that new times call for new measures.

Our gentlemanly Christian instincts serve us well in times of peace, when we are dealing with reasonable, similarly gentlemanly Christian allies.
But in times of war, we are forced to break out different tactics.
No more cards on the table.
No more transparency to all.
No more Mr. Nice Guy.
No more being played for a fool by people who mock our gentlemanly standards and use them against us  (Alinsky tactics).

And the other truth of the matter is that Donald Trump, despite occasional appearance, is really NOT a bully, but a gentleman who has learned how to survive and flourish in the real, difficult world.
A gentleman adept at dodging bullets and engaging in war.

Amazing Credentials

At the private military academy he attended (New York Military Academy, one of the oldest military schools in the United States), Donald Trump learned the history and art of war.  At the Wharton School of Business (America’s best business school 2017 , also outranked Harvard MBA ranking 2017), he learned world class business management.   And in the global business marketplace, Donald Trump excelled and succeeded. His successful business tactics included a certain amount of unpredictability and keeping things “close to the vest,” which any successful business executive will confirm is essential in a competitive world.

These tactics are not really new,  as Jesus instructs the Apostles in Matthew 10:16-20 :

Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of people,^k for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans.
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Dodging Bullets

When war has been declared on us, either by radical Islamic terrorists, or by progressive oppositional deep state resistance forces within our own country aiming to subvert our morals,  tactics have to change.
We have to call out and shed light on what the enemy is doing.
We have to dodge bullets.
And we certainly do NOT advertise our tactics pubicly for the enemy to read.

Anybody who has seen a World War II movie has noticed that combat soldiers do not walk slowly or majestically in a dignified way from place to place, but dart around zig-zagging, stopping and starting, changing direction, and taking cover frequently, in order to dodge bullets.

Think of Donald Trump, of his calling out of people, of his tweeting, and of his occasionally seemingly erratic behavior, not as being undignified, not as being illogical, but as calling out the enemy, shedding light on their atrocities, dodging their bullets, and keeping them busy trying to decode his intentions while he moves mountains behind the scenes.

Think of President Trump as being shrewd as a serpent and simple as a dove. 
Think of him as engaging Barack Obama’s, Hillary’s, and Soros’ Resistance with clever and misleading tactics of his own.
Think of the powerful effects of his psychological warfare, as he eats chocolate cake with Xi Jinping while hitting Syria with missle strikes, seemingly effortlessly on the back burner.

And realize that if President Trump is confusing you, he is also confusing the enemy.
Be grateful, pray for him, and wait to see the outcome.  So far, we have had nothing to regret, only to celebrate, since his inauguration.  Winston Churchill was equally complicated and perplexing.  And equally brilliant.

Warrior Yet Gentleman

In Donald Trump, behind the warrior dodging bullets, we still see many actions of a very gentlemanly Christian man who respects Judeo-Christian values.
This is a man who opposes abortion and loves babies.
He prays (including in the Oval Office), and reveres God.
He supports the Constitution, as written by our Christian founders.
He respects our flag.
He includes and loves all Americans.
He refuses to divide or to favor.
He calls all bluffs.
He offers wise and fair compromises, including on DACA.
And his patience for out of control opponents like Kim Jon Un is legendary.
This is a man who knows how to be decent to anyone who is also prepared to be decent, yet knows where to draw the lines and when to call scoundrels out.

But What About Access Hollywood?

There are definitely some things from Donald Trump’s past that could make one nervous, like his womanizing reputation, illustrated by the Hollywood Access recording of 2005, 13 years ago, in which he talked about grabbing women.

But as Pastor Jeffries has said, “We knew we were not electing an altar boy.”

Also, people do change, and we certainly, as Christians, do give them second chances.  We even gave a pass to a previous Democrat who sullied the Oval Office with sexual misconduct.

Consider also the possibility that the persona Donald Trump puts on in Hollywoood, among half-naked dressed-to-kill Hollywood starlets, in private conversation with Hollywood men, might be different from his real persona and his real views when the company of men and women who dress and behave like Christian gentlemen and ladies.  The successful businessman who adopts the “language” that each group understands, and tells people what they want to hear knows how to “make friends and influence people.”

Whether 13 years ago Donald Trump was trying to impress the Hollywood boys with his lewd suggestions, and whether Donald Trump had some bad attitudes towards women in the past is not the main question.   What is important is who he is, how he behaves, and what he says now in 2018.

Forgiving Donald

Let us also point out that forgiving Donald Trump for a rude locker room suggestion made over a decade ago is much less than we routinely forgive and overlook when it comes to progressives like the Obamas, the Clintons, the Kennedys, and many others, whose transgressions were not words that disgraced the Presidency, but included criminal actions and caused deaths.

Our Christian world is filled with the stories of sinners who repented and went on to live lives of great saintliness and accomplishment.  St. Paul practiced genocide against Christians, St. Matthew was a thieving tax collector, and St. Augustine was a shameless philanderer.
Nobody is suggesting we canonize Donald Trump just yet, but he has been declared by the Heritage Foundation to have achieved  64% of their recommended conservative agenda in just one year, better even than Ronald Regan’s (wonderful) achievement of 49% in his first year.  He has also become the most pro-life President we have ever had.  In my book, his pro-life record alone forgives much rude language.

According to the Heritage Foundation, Trump hasn’t just focused on one agenda area, but he and his team has pushed through administrative moves on foreign policy, deregulation, immigration, tax reform and health care.  These moves are often ignored by much of the media, which is still selling out their profession to favor the progressive agenda, rather than providing honest news coverage.

The Trump administration has scored 81 major achievements and slashed at least 11 major legacy items of former President Barack Obama.

So let’s consider forgiving Donald Trump one rude and immature comment made 13 years ago.

More Accusations Bound to Come

Of course, this will not be the last issue raised by the media, as evidenced by the now proven to be false Steele dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton.
And there are bound to be numerous additional accusations by the left ias they try to stop the Trump administration.
Just like they used in the past, against numerous other good men like Herman Cain in 2011.
We must follow our Constitution, we must allow everyone due process, we must remember that all are innocent until proven guilty, and this principle includes everyone, even the miscreants in Hollywood, whose heads have been rolling in the recent wave of #MeToo accusations, made without even waiting for due process.
In a just world, we would pass legislation that punishes false accusers by assigning the proposed penalty to the accuser, as was done in the case of Susanna in the Book of Daniel   

What Next?

We need to get over all jitters and finally and completely trust President Trump.
Anyone who balks at this suggestion should ask themselves whether there is anything Donald Trump has achieved in the past year that you disapprove of?
When each and every frantic panic was over, Trump had done the right thing, and we had not always guessed his plan at the outset.  Guess what?

This is good.  The opposition is also struggling to figure out the plan.

What Needs to Be Done NOW :

• IGNORE ALL ACCUSATIONS AGAINST TRUMP. We have heard many shocking accusations against him during the last two years, none of them have been borne out to be true. The left is adept at smearing and lying and accusing, but ignores their own faults.
• LISTEN TO DONALD TRUMP.  He is giving us instructions every day.  He has told us he needs more Republicans elected in November 2018.  He has even announced his own campaign well in advance for 2020, appointed a stellar campaign manager, and will be using his campaign organization to help elect loyal conservatives in November 2018.
  
• FOLLOW DONALD TRUMP ON TWITTER, check his messages every day, and believe what he tweets.
  His tweets are routinely ultimately proved true, no matter how far-fetched they may have seemed at the time of the tweet.  President Trump’s tweets provide a succinct daily summary of non-fake news for anyone who wants it “from the horse’s mouth,” and they place the President’s enemies on notice with fair warning, letting them know the President means business, as they did with Little Rocket Man, Kim Jon Un. This form of direct and blunt communication makes many uncomfortable, but its benefits are often underestimated.
• GET REPUBLICANS INTO OFFICE IN 2018, so the conservative agenda which Trump is advocating, and which is the only hope for America today, can be passed in this climate of Democrat madness and resistance, in which Democrats will not vote for anything just to spite Trump.  They would not even vote for the DACA they claimed to want, because they could not get 100% of their way, in a government in which both House and Senate and the Presidency are controlled by their opposition, and not a single Democrat voted for our recent tax cuts!
• HELP TRUMP GET RID OF THE DEEP STATE, those officials in government who oppose the directives of their boss the President, and who follow instead the progressive values they prefer, values which they pushed under their previous boss Barack Obama, & values which they continue to push through nefarious channels such as Antifa and the Deep State, with funding by oligarchs like George Soros.
  One way of helping to get rid of the “Deep State” is by donating generously to organizations like Judicial Watch, who are citizen watchdogs who look out for the Constitution and for accountability in government.
  
• HELP TRUMP WITH PRAYER- pray for his family, for our nation, for wisdom for him.
  Pray at Planned Parenthood, pray at Church, pray at home.
• JOIN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN, which was just announced last week.  The Trump 2020 campaign will not only work on electing Trump in 2020, but plans to work on electing good Republican candidates to positions in 2018.
  CONTRIBUTE to Donald Trump’s  campaign.
  VOLUNTEER to work for his campaign.
• STAY INFORMED and support conservative radio, TV, publications and organizations.  When an organization is attacked unfairly by the left, contribute or join that organization. Contribute to citizen watchdog groups like Judicial Watch, and to local conservative politicians.  Join the NRA, whether you plan to own a gun or not, simply because the left has been attacking this organization unfairly and heaping false blame on good law abiding people.
• SPEAK OUT IN PUBLIC, converse with your conservative friends in restaurants, participate in online discussions.
  Do not hide, do not cringe, and do not tow the politically correct line.
  When courageous people speak the truth, this gives others courage, and the movement snowballs.
• SPEAK OUT AGAINST the subjugation of our children, our schools, our universities, our google searches, our Facebook pages, our news media, and our entire lives to the politically correct, scientifically and morally nonsensical agenda now being pushed by the left.
  
• Most important of all, we should PUSH BACK ON THE KILLING OF OUR CHILDREN- the one million aborted each year- by donating to and volunteering at local maternity programs, praying outside Planned Parenthood, and pressuring politicians to support pro-life causes. A NATION THAT KILLS IT’S OWN CHILDREN CANNOT PROSPER.
  VOLUNTEER for pro-life organizations and maternity homes that help women in need

We Are At War

Make no mistake, we are at war

The rise of amorality in Politics, the pernicious infiltration of our government and our educational institutions by progressive activists who manipulate and circumvent the voice of American voters, and the now active attacks on the Presidency by numerous agencies in government, all constitute a very real danger to the founding principles of our nation.
The voice of the people, the Presidency itself, and the principles laid out in the Constitution are all being subverted, and we are headed for a Constitutional Crisis.

According to Charles Hurt, there is now a new standard for self-governance in America, established by a powerful big government bureaucracy “which must conduct a massive, sprawling, limitless investigation into any and all aspects of the president we pick.”  Apparently limitless investigation of a candidate selected by the people like Trump (as well as elimination of Democrat candidates like Sanders) was always the plan.

President Trump cannot fight this alone, the entire nation has to support him and back him.  As we speak, the corrupted intelligence agencies of our nation are ganging up against our President.

Former FBI Deputy Director McCabe has been caught lying to the Department of Justice and is blaming President Trump, instead of the Obama-appointed Inspector General Horowitz, who investigated him and recommended his firing.  Fired FBI director Comey, who had released classified information and had mishandled the Clinton email investigation by exonerating her before interviewing her and by failing to interview her under oath, has also been gunning for President Trump, accusing him of repeatedly and inappropriately pressuring Comey to back off in the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn.  And now John Brennan, former head of the CIA, has just released a venomous anti-President Trump tirade on twitter, which was followed by a Samantha Powers tweet stating that “Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.”

WHAT PUBLIC AND MISPLACED VENOM FROM A SENIOR CIVIL SERVANT!

By all appearances, senior members of the intelligence community of the US are in collusion with numerous progressives and the courts, attempting to subvert the legitimate President and his rightful government.

It has now become clear that progressive attempts at “transforming” our nation to their own experimental ideals have not been limited to legal and democratic methods involving persuasion, but that a malevolent network of dirty players have infiltrated our educational systems, our news media, many branches of our government, most internet and social media platforms, and countless other areas of our lives.

We must roll up our sleeves, and get busy supporting the President we elected with our actions and with our prayers in order to reinstate democracy and bring sanity back to the United States.

We must involve God and Judeo-Christian morality (both of which were incorporated into our founding and into our Constitution) in our battle, if we hope to have any luck against the pervasive and destructive forces of progressivism that have so permeated our nation today.

He Can’t Do It All By Himself…

Or

The Battle Is On: Choose It, or Lose It

The Fast Pace

As media scramble to report on the rapidly developing conflict between the previous Obama Administration, which clings to and tries to amplify whatever residual power it can manage, and the new Trump Administration, which has taken on the job entrusted to them by voters, of restoring American values, and which job is complicated severely by various covert progressive agents of the “deep state” left behind in government by Obama, some of us struggle to keep up, and find ourselves somewhat exasperated trying to stay on top of the story.

The Bigger Picture

But underneath the daily glut of confusing details and lies manufactured by Organizing for Action and liberal media, the story is actually quite simple.
You just have to remember that we are in the midst of a cultural war-

-war tactics are being used.
-war tactics are never what they seem.
-clandestine strategies are essential to winning a war.

So we won’t be seeing President Trump broadcasting his intentions to the enemy, who has access to all the same media outlets we citizens have access to.

President Trump will be holding all his best strategies close to the vest, and will even be releasing some red herrings that send us all scratching our heads.

And his opposition will be doing not only the same, but doing their special Alinsky version of the same—which includes breaking every rule in the book, and spreading a staggering number of lies.

Choosing Sides

In a war, those who don’t make choices get caught in the crossfire.

We ordinary citizens have to choose sides, realize that we don’t have the clearance to know exactly what is going on behind the scenes, and discern that a certain amount of blind trust and loyalty is not only in order, but is essential to winning the war.
We have to gauge what each side stands for, and where we stand.

This conservative’s first priority is backing the side that adopts Judeo-Christian morality.
President Trump has done enough during his first month in office to demonstrate that he truly holds these values, enough to earn the trust of, and to deserve the support of Christians and conservatives. We have to recognize the lies that being spread about him, and the red herrings being released about him for what they are, and we must rally to his support.

** Sung to the tune “You Can’t Always Get What You Want…”

And the Left has done enough during the past month to demonstrate that they are not at all committed to the Constitution of the United States, not committed to Judeo-Christian morality, and certainly not committed to the truth. This is reflected not only in their actions of the past month, but also in the publicly stated platform of the Democrat Party.

The Left Attacks

The enraged seditious progressive left has now launched an all-out attack on President Trump, using every agent available to them, including most of the press, Barack Obama’s Organizing For Action resistance campaign, and George Soros’ money.

Attacks include felonies committed by organized rioters like those seen at Berkeley, lies spread by unethical left-wing media such as the (zero-evidence) Russia collusion accusations against President Trump, active resistance in Washington against Presidential cabinet appointments, and even character destruction campaigns against Presidential appointees. These attacks are being carried out in a very visibly organized fashion, in all probability led by Obama’s new Organizing For Action, which seems to draw on permanent appointees in government who are prepared to violate their oaths of office and to act seditiously against the Constitution and the President of the United States. Some have called this web of clandestine activists the“Deep State.”

The “Deep State”

A comical illustration of the “deep state” concept can be found in the British comedy series entitled Yes, Minister, in which the permanent government staff runs circles around and controls the newly elected British Cabinet Minister, who was elected to make changes which the permanent government staff do not approve, and who cluelessly struggles to implement his promises to his voters. The problem is that in real life outside of television comedy, a group of civil servants who thwart the actions of a President is not funny. They not only commit felonies and treason, but also endanger the entire nation by neutralizing its Commander-in-Chief.

And in 2017, all appearances indicate that Barack Obama has indeed planted progressive permanent staff in government, and has organized “resistance” movement called Organizing for Action, which directs well-planned and well-funded “resistance” activities against the Trump Administration.

We now seem to have two governments – the Trump Administration, and the treasonous Obama resistance administration or Deep State, which has offices in Washington, D.C., and colludes clandestinely with government employees in steering it’s destructive agenda.

Regime change and culture change often spawn such seditious opposition. President Lincoln faced similar problems, and upon taking office fired about 1,100 of the 1,500 members of his Executive staff. Problem with 2017 is that it’s not so easy to fire embedded government employees, and President Trump is stuck with passive aggressive and not-so-passive aggressive resistance at every turn. Attempts are being made to clean house, but the house is actually a filthy swamp.

Even Bernie Belongs to the Deep State

Bernie Sanders, who appeared, at least during the 2016 Presidential Primaries, to be above and outside of the Hillary political machine, is now joining the concerted effort to attack the President and the newly elected agenda.
It looks like Bernie Sanders might even be taking orders from the Deep State.
Bernie has been posting articles maligning President Trump on Medium, a modern app aimed at millennial voters which boasts articles for “readers on the go,” and which spins everything quite progressively.

Bernie recently posted an article on Medium playing the poor Senator who (alas!) knows not what to do, since his President is such a liar! Apparently, in the deep state world led by Organizing For Action, even US Senators are recruited to do the drudge work of maligning President Trump, long after the election. In his article, Bernie laments the inaccuracies in crowd estimates Trump tweeted and portrays them as unbearable lies. This is the same Bernie who has had no problem with Benghazi lies, ObamaCare lies, and Hilary’s email felonies. Now, Bernie is prepared to participate in a traitorous campaign of sabotage and destruction against the President whom America elected, under the deceptive guise of Obama’s “resistance.”

Even Republicans Can Belong to the Deep State

This would be an appropriate place to note that “Deep State” government, although primarily composed of progressives, is not limited to progressives. Deep State can include Republicans as well, complicating the picture further. The Republican Party has been infiltrated over the years by some progressives, and there are stumbling blocks to President Obama’s conservative agenda within his own Republican Party.

This past week, Republicans are struggling over ObamaCare repeal. Established GOP leaders are pushing Paul Ryan’s American Health Care Act, while conservative Freedom Caucus leaders are opposing and calling the proposal “ObamaCare Light” and “RyanCare,” because it does not gut Medicaid expansion, some ObamaCare taxes, Obamacare subsidies, and the individual and employer mandates.
Trump, while appearing to support the proposed legislation, may, with his usual close-to-the-vest style of management, simply be letting the establishment group discover for themselves the folly of losing the support of conservative Republican colleagues, as they refuse to execute the complete repeal that voters expect. Some worry that President Trump has sold out conservative values, and is getting on board with “ObamaCare Light.”
This is an example of complications that can be very nerve wracking, and can shake our confidence in President Trump.

Daily headlines include items like McCain Intensifies Trump Tantrum and Paul Ryan Warns: If We Don’t Pass My Bill, ‘System Going to Collapse.’
With “Republicans” like this, who needs progressives?
We seen to be in a political upside down Alice in Wonderland world where it’s not easy to figure out what is up and what is down.  Ironically, Barack Obama started out his Presidency in 2009 with a clandestine, curiously prophetic Alice in Wonderland Party.  

At times like this, we have to remind ourselves that so far, President Trump had not sold us out, and there is not one instance yet of his betraying conservative values.
We have to wait and see what his game plan is, and how it turns out.

The Line Between Disagreement and Treason

But back to the progressives, who are violating laws with their “resistance.”

What the left is practicing now is not “resistance,” but felony and treason.
When disagreement, or passive and legal resistance escalates into the breaking of laws and into subterfuge against the Presidency, an obvious line has been crossed.

Alinsky Tactics: the Manipulation of a Population

The radical left has been using Alinsky tactics routinely since the 1960’s to work toward their goals.

• Alinsky tactics describe how a minority can hijack power in a democracy using unethical manipulative tactics.
• Alinsky tactics = how to manipulate a population against its will.
• Alinksy tactics were defined in a book by Alinsky, which was dedicated to Lucifer (Satan), the Father of Lies.
• Hillary Clinton studied under Alinsky, and Barack Obama taught Alinsky tactics many, many years ago.
• Alinsky tactics violate the Constitution, and they violate Judeo-Christian morality.
• Barack Obama’s “community organizing” was never real community organizing, but was the art of manipulating a community to help a radical get what they want against majority rule.
• Barack Obama’s new Organizing for Action is a front for “community organizing” or Alinsky tactics on a national level, i.e. underhanded felonious effort to seize control of the US government by minority radicals.
• When Americans did not give the progressive minority in America what they wanted in Election 2016, now alternative treasonous Alinsky subterfuge will be used.

Civil War

And so we are in a civil war.

Not a well-defined one as we were in 1861, with honesty and uniforms defining the opposition. But in a clandestine war of subterfuge, where all the opposition fighters, not unlike ISIS terrorists, are embedded and hidden in the population and in the government. And whenever the legitimate government takes any step to camouflage their own battle plan, they are attacked by Alinskyites who demand complete (one-sided) transparency from them. Yet the Deep State opposition offers no transparency whatsoever in return, and even engages in felonious treason by leaking highly classified information about the President and his staff. Even liberal CBS news has acknowledged that “stunning amounts of classified information are being leaked against the Trump administration.”

Learn to Recognize the Most Common Tactic of the Left

And so, one of the most common Alinsky tactics used by the left is challenging their opponent with a violation of the opponent’s own professed values (which the left does not share).  If they can’t find a real violation, they invent a violation.  If they have zero evidence, they just make an even more outrageous and shocking accusation.  Then, when their opponent protests “but you have ZERO evidence,” they say, “but the accusation is so shocking, that it is worth checking out, despite the fact that there is zero evidence.  We must make sure that such a heinous thing could not be happening.“

And, presto!, they have entangled their opponent in a snare of furious time, money, and resource-consuming activity, which slows down their opponent, and impedes the opponent’s progress toward the opponent’s own agenda.

This tactic can be summarized as ATTACK, LIE, and REPEAT, or simply as CLASSIC ALINSKY ATTACK.

CLASSIC ALINSKY ATTACK by Obama’s Resistance, February 2017

To translate this into 2017 politics, if the American public just rejected your (Obama’s) rapidly introduced progressive agenda and elected new government officials (the Trump administration) who are tasked with the restoration of common sense American values like respecting the Constitution, religious freedom, protection of life, and fiscal responsibility, and your (Obama’s) opponents have taken office with the obvious intention to SWIFTLY erase your dubious accomplishments of the previous 8 years, you invent a very shocking, very false, completely unsubstantiated claim, like “The Trump Administration has been colluding with Russia since before the election, and therefore they must be purged and stopped.”  Then you press on and repeat the accusations over and over, overwhelming all other news with your fake slanderous story, until people half believe that the accusations could be real.

Trump Tactics

Enter President Trump, an experienced and successful man of the world, who has encountered more than one such scoundrel in his time in the business world, also a serious battleground.

And what does such a man to do?

Does he spend precious time defending himself from such ludicrous and unsubstantiated accusations and derail the work he was elected to do?

No, he goes on the offensive and throws challenges back at his attacker.
President Trump pointed out an equally shocking accusation against his opponent, the Director of the Shadow Resistance in the Shadow White House, Organizer-in-Chief of Organizing for Action, Barack Obama.
Being a conservative who does not use Alinsky tactics, the accusation used by President Trump was a true one.
And for truth, evidence can be found– in the New York Times, the Washington Post, McClatchy and the Guardian:

On Jan. 20, the New York Times’ front-page story was titled, “Wiretapped Data Used In Inquiry of Trump Aides.” That story went on to reveal, “The FBI is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the CIA and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.”

President Trump brilliantly linked his accusation to the false baseless one that was aimed at him- and thus he charged investigators to pair all potential investigation of false Trump-Russian collusion to a simultaneous investigation of Obama’s well suspected, unauthorized and illegal surveillance of Trump and his allies.

Much has been made of Trump’s accusation, with the inevitable progressive parsing of what the meaning of the word ‘wiretapping’ is.  But it’s clear to any normal person with common sense that the Trump campaign was spied on by the Obama administration.   

Any investigation that follows will not only clear the false accusations against President Trump, but will now implicate the previous administration and the present Deep State administrator Barack Obama, by exposing their ongoing abuse of power.
President Trump has turned the resistance booby trap into a boomerang.

Unusual Battle

So this present Cultural Civil War that is being led by President Trump is an unusual battle. It’s by necessity clandestine, involves numerous enemies and the Deep State, and is beginning to involve a whole new set of cyber and media weapons.

The main players would be foolish to advertise their battle tactics.
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros and their partners certainly do not proclaim any of their plans or intentions.
President Trump would be foolish to proclaim all his intentions.
And so it follows that we cannot demand to know them.

Our Role in This War

Our main role is to pray, to screen both participants for the ethics of the methods they use, to choose a side, and to join the battle.

Join the Battle?
How?

Prayer is crucial, and has already played a major role in the events leading up to our present situation.
It is through the prayers of the American people, and through the intervention of God that so many unpredictable and seemingly impossible (“Black Swan”) events have occurred in the past few years.

An outsider has been elected to the Presidency, despite all efforts of the progressive Deep State to defeat him.
This outsider managed to bridge the gap and obtain votes that most candidates could not have won.
He seems to know how to accomplish things with speed and with decisiveness, while remaining fair to those who disagree with him.
The left is really gearing up to go after him.

It’s time for us to quit sitting on the fence, to acknowledge the “conversion of St. Donald,” to put our prayers AND our energetic support behind our Commander in Chief, and to play our parts in this epic battle.

How Can We Help?

There are many ways we can help:

• We can pray. A LOT.
• We can refuse to believe the daily new media lies about Trump & his administration- we can have some confidence in President Trump.
• We can identify Fake News and disregard it. Fake news is easy to identify– it does not give a specific and credible source. If it’s vague, it’s fake. If it comes from people who have made a practice of lying in the past, it’s fake.
• We can defend the restoration of conservatism to America publicly- to family & friends, on social media, in online discussion, and in casual conversation.
• We can neutralize the perpetrators of fake news by cancelling subscriptions to fake news media
• We can send president Trump & conservative leaders messages of support & assurances of prayer.
• We can be sure to vote for candidates who support the Constitution & Judeo- Christian morality, in ALL elections, including very local ones.

We cannot expect one man to fight this battle alone, to reverse years of regression single-handedly, and to fight off clandestine attacks by a now vicious sore-loser left.

If we want the restoration of Constitutional and Judeo-Christian values to America, we have to roll up our sleeves & help this courageous man whom we have elected.

The Extent of the Damage

Our nation seemed to have succumbed to progressive domination prior to Election 2016. The odds of reversing the direction taken by the Obama administration were low. Yet somehow, through a series of very statistically unlikely events, the duplicity of Obama’s radical progressive administration was exposed, and American citizens rallied to pray and to vote for change during the last few years.

The 8 year stream of scandals and revelations about the Obama administration, from the NSA & IRS scandals, and Benghazi shockers to the ObamaCare lies and failures, to the most recent WikiLeaks (Vault 7) CIA revelations, this unlikely stream of exposures has given us evidence of the extent to which the Obama administration tried to spy on and control not only the population of the United States, but even used a clandestine CIA agenda to control other governments, such as that of France.

The Choices We Make

We now have a unique opportunity to reverse this damage and domination by a minority of radical progressives, and to restore the values that built America – Constitutional and Judeo-Christian values.

We have to choose sides, we have to choose liberty, and if we don’t choose it and fight for it, we will lose it.
Our predecessors have had to fight wars to keep and to restore America’s freedom through many disasters and attacks.
This is now our generation’s war, and we must rise to the occasion and fight it.

Understanding the Epic Divide

The Divide

The very obvious epic divide between right and left in our nation, along with any discussion of unification or bridging of that divide, necessitates defining and understanding the world views projected by the right and by the left, and then searching for common ground.

This article seeks not to malign or denigrate any group.
In fact, we begin here with the presupposition that good Americans on both sides truly want what is best for our country, and are passionate about pursuing that good.

The problem comes in defining what is desirable and what is good.

The key to overcoming the divide is reason and understanding.
Also, the best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend.

Surprising Issue Surfaces- a Possible Clue?

One of the major issues that reflect this divide is the hot-button issue of abortion, which, for the first time in this election, took center stage at the Presidential debates. Quite frankly, in this writer’s opinion, the very grisly partial birth abortion may have been the straw that broke Hillary Clinton’s back in the 2016 Presidential Election. Trump deftly showcased to America Hillary’s cold and rigid position on the killing of a partially born human child. Although certainly not the only issue at stake, abortion is certainly a highly charged and very emotional issue on both sides.

Abortion has, after decades of being relegated to an unimportant “social” issue, bubbled up to the top of the conservative’s priority list, and continues to be a big priority for both sides – not only for Progressives like Hillary, who have been vocal all along on the essential nature of abortion to their platform, but also for the future Trump Administration.

In a mind-blowing first, one of the first actions of the 115^th Congress last week was to release a report on the sanctity and dignity of human life, and on the revelations of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, particularly in their sale of fetal body parts. To add to the surprise, the report came from a very unexpected source — from the Select Investigative Panel of the Energy and Commerce Committee – from which one would more likely expect reports on fracking or trade, NOT on the sanctity of life or on Planned Parenthood. See the remarkable commentary by John Stonestreet at Breakpoint. Clearly, the Trump administration is prioritizing the issue of abortion from a remarkably different perspective than that favored by Obama and Hillary.

Swept Under the Rug for Decades

The festering, neglected and unspoken problems of the epic divide, including the controversy over abortion, have been brewing now for decades. These issues have been skillfully skirted by politicians and have been side-stepped by American voters, in a well-intentioned effort at tolerance, an effort aimed at absorbing all views into our American melting pot of freedom and protected human rights. The most important issues, which are the moral issues, were long labeled “social” issues, and were swept under the rug, with varying success, until the 2016 Presidential debates.

And therein lies a possible clue to our big divide—reasonable people rarely go ballistic over mundane issues. However, morality, and it’s definition, IS something that both sides of America can get passionate about.

Despite everyone’s desire to tolerate and to include all Americans in our melting pot, problems surface as our population diversifies, as our morality shifts, and as we pass more and more new laws. The problem boils down to the fact that not all human philosophies, beliefs, or religions are compatible, and in our American melting pot these incompatibilities surface, causing inevitable conflict time and again. The definition of what is good and what is evil is not uniform in all societies, and needs to be defined by the entire nation, if evil is to be contained.

Defining Good and Evil

When regulating and protecting human interactions by law, determining what is right or wrong, or defining a person’s “rights” becomes complicated. The “rights” of one person can infringe on the “rights” of another person, and as a society we are forced to choose which “rights” trump which “rights.”

Abortion is one primary place where “rights” of citizens can clash. In abortion, however hard as it might be to imagine that the rights of a child and those of the mother could possibly not be aligned, progressives do insist that the well-being of a mother could be damaged by the existence of a child, and they advocate favoring “rights” for the mother over “rights” for the child.

Another example where the “rights” of citizens can clash is in the treatment of those who have broken the law. The rights of people to be protected from crime must be balanced with the rights of an incarcerated person to be treated decently. Also, the definition of decent treatment, which has to be paid for by the tax payer, is an area of potential disagreement. For example, taxpayers who cannot afford college for their own children could resent paying for college educations for prisoners.

Which brings up the question of defining “rights” altogether. Is a free college tuition a “right?” Does our nation have the budget to provide that? Does going into debt to pay for such “essentials” not steal from future citizens who will have to pay the bills we incur? If free contraception becomes a “right”under ObamaCare, why is free Tylenol not a “right?” Does free food or free housing then become a “right?”

Obviously, rights, and the definition of good and evil become very complicated.
And government gets the job of passing laws to balance those rights fairly, and to enforce the laws that were passed.

Defining Rights

Defining rights to intangible things is easier than tangible things.
We can say a person has a right life – to not being killed.
To liberty – to not being locked up.

To the pursuit of happiness – to choose their path in life.

But defining the right to tangible things is much more dangerous ground, because somebody has to actually pay for the thing that we declared everyone has a “right” to.

Finally, the amount of material things we can have varies tremendously, and depends on what is available. During a war, people ration and semi-starve, and may do it willingly. During a natural disaster, same thing. And people with an unrealistic grasp of economy cannot go around passing laws about what everyone has a “right” to have, if there is simply not enough to go around.

Pie offers a good simplistic example.
One can say that everyone deserves a slice of pie.
But if there is not enough pie, what happens then?

We have to redefine how much pie each person “deserves,” or has a right to.
In this life, there is not always enough of everything to go around, and if you throw away the right of ownership of property, and allow anyone who feels deprived, or feels envy, to demand what belongs to others, you have chaos.

Let the Rich Pay!!

The left frequently advocates shaking down the rich for funds, like the recent story put out by the World Economic Forum about the 8 richest men in the world who own as much as the poorest half of the world (that would be 3.6 billion of us).  A shocking statistic, for sure, but, sadly, this incompetent (or intentionally misleading) reporting would provide NO SOLUTION to the world economic situation, even if we were to repossess all their wealth, send all 8 to Siberia, and divide up all their wealth among the 3.6 billion poorest.

Why? Because, IF the claim is true and is not FAKE NEWS, then the total net worth of the 8 men, $427 billion, divided by the poorest half, 3.6 billion, equals a grand total of $119 per person.  After which the billionaires would be gone, and we would have nobody to fleece next year.

And the jobs they create would be gone, too.
Not mentioned is also the fact that most of these 8 people are Progressives, so why all the hate for conservatives?!?!
AND, the fact the the median American household income, $55,775, would cover 469 poor people if we took this approach.

Nobody mentions that the number of poor in the world is so great, and the number of super-rich is so small, that the rich do not have enough to pay for what progressives want.  To pay for what progressives want, the whole world would have to produce more money, and we would have to fleece not only Bill Gates, the #1 richest guy, but you and me and the Americans receiving unemployment checks as well.

Bottom line, we have to be careful about what we define as a “right,” and if we do, we have to indicate who is responsible for providing that right, particularly if that right involves a material thing.

Balancing People’s Rights

The simplest solution to this balancing act – to the balancing of rights of one citizen against the rights of another citizen, and declaring what is or is not a right—has been provided in the past by religion.
Religion outlined what rights a person had, what infringed on those rights, and what remedies were appropriate when those rights were violated.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States refers to God-given rights which the colonies felt were being violated by the English monarchy, and which colonialists wanted to guarantee for every future American citizen. Those God-given rights included life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

When it comes to defining good and evil, most people in this country used to acknowledge the Ten Commandments, which are actually the foundation and basis of most European and American law.
The moral beliefs of citizens, primarily those of Christian and Jewish citizens, since they were the most numerous, these moral beliefs stemming from their millennia of religious background, were incorporated into the Constitution of the United States and were voted into law via democratic process.

Religion Versus Self as the Boss

But religion has suffered decline in the United States since the 1950’s.
The Ten Commandments went out the window, one after another.

Despite the fact that 90% of Americans still say they believe in God, and 80% say they pray and they feel that their prayers are answered, many Americans have shifted in their definitions of what is right and wrong. They have shifted from looking to religion for guidance on these issues, to looking inwardly to their own thoughts to define what is right and what is wrong. The word for this is relativism. What is right for you may not me right for me, and I have a “right” to decide what is right for me.

One of the problems with looking to ourselves to define what is right or wrong is that most people are not experts in logic, and are very gullible to the first argument they come across that argues a seemingly convenient particular point. They do not realize that a convincing argument can be made for ANY position and for ALL positions, and that some people spend their lives becoming experts in debate, in law, in ethics, and in morality. Yet, despite all this training, the tendency of the human mind is to choose first what we want, then to find the logical construct that justifies what we want. Very few people truly seek truth and fairness, even when that represents a loss of what they wanted for themselves. Simply stated, our minds play tricks on us, and we seek the argument that gives us what we want, fair or not.

Another problem with looking to ourselves to define what is right or wrong is that it is not wise to assume that I myself am more intelligent, capable and informed than the best minds of history, and, if one concedes that there might be a God, that I myself am more intelligent, capable and informed than God Himself. So the very progressives who respect and deify many medical, legal, engineering and scientific experts, and who would not dream of building a house, curing their symptoms, or even making important life decisions without consulting an “expert,” presume to know how to evaluate the rights of all human beings, and to declare what is right and wrong, based on their own instincts and feelings, without training of any kind.

The Essence of the Divide

It makes a great deal of sense to point out that the most fundamental difference between the right and the left, the item that contributes most seriously to the epic national divide, is the disagreement on whether religion, the belief in a bigger super-power, or ourselves are boss.

And before the “Freedom From Religion – Religion is Medieval – Only Stupid Weak People Need Religion” mantra kicks in here, please consider the fact that IF the more religious half (or 80%) of America happens to be right, and there IS a God, and He HAS interacted with humanity and given us some guidelines (such as the Ten Commandments), the idea of following the guidelines of an infinitely vaster intelligence than ours, and of an infinitely kinder heart than ours, might just be a good idea.

An additional point on the Ten Commandments—even in the absence of an all-good and all-intelligent God, there is something to be said for the cumulative wisdom of ages of human beings and societies who have survived by those tried and tested rules for millennia to this day. It would take quite the ego to dismiss the cumulative wisdom of history and presume that I myself have the genius to dismiss and to better the wisdom of humanity with all its faults to date.

So Here Comes the Conservative Spin?

This is NOT an attempt to judge those who are not religious, because those who look inward for the definition of moral values might certainly be very sincere. We are trying not to judge, but to point out the shift in values in the United States that has occurred since around 1950.
And yes, this author IS conservative and religious, but is also trying to work towards communication via reason and with good will.
If nothing else, my writing will help progressives understand the thought processes that operate in the mind of one conservative, and realize that conservatives do not deserve the hateful pigeon-holing they have been subjected to following Election 2016.

People on both sides should find this analysis interesting.
There are religious people on both sides of these issues.
Some of the most ardent progressives claim to be religious – Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Al Sharpton, and others.
So read on, and consider what is being proposed.

Difference Chart

Let’s document some of the differences in beliefs that have surfaced in much of our nation in recent decades:
(Please indulge the introduction of the Ten Commandments to make this point.)

1. I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.

God is no longer the overriding value superseding all others today.
Many try to ban all mention of God from public life.
The highest value, the top “god” today, is probably MONEY (in Ten Commandments language, the golden calf).

2. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

Cursing God is now fine. In fact, much of Hollywood glorifies blasphemy, and even the expression “Jesus Christ” is often used as a curse word.
(I personally apologize to God every time I hear someone use the phrase disrespectfully, and I bow my head every time it is used appropriately.)

3. Remember to keep holy the LORD’S Day.

Sunday or the Sabbath is no longer holy, nor is Christmas, Easter, etc. For many, shopping has become a higher priority than attendance at Church

4. Honor your father and your mother.

Government has started to take over the role of father and mother, for example, with Common Core teaching values to children that are in direct conflict with most Christian religions. Government is trying to legislate how our children are to be raised. Many children have no respect for their parents, and even strike them.

5. You shall not kill.

Over 1 million babies are aborted (killed) in the United States each year, and we came very close to electing a woman who supports partial birth abortion, the killing of a full-term baby half-way during birth. Abortion may be a much bigger deal than you think. We are working on legalizing euthanasia, and we are routinely pardoning, tolerating, and releasing numerous violent criminals, particularly if they represent votes.

6. You shall not commit adultery.

Marriage has suffered much, and many citizens no longer value chastity before marriage. Adultery, and any form of sexual transgression is considered to be fine, as long as both adults are willing. Recently, prostitution by underage children has been decriminalized in California. This cripples the efforts of law enforcement to convict pimps who manage child prostitution, because then the children cannot testify against the pimps.

7. You shall not steal.

Property crime is no longer prosecuted in San Francisco. Stealing is often excused and even justified. Government taxation is headed toward stealing as well – demanding larger and larger taxation “rights” on the income of citizens. The right to ownership of property is very much in question.
Some don’t realize that there was a time in the United States when there was no taxation at all.

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Lying is no longer considered shameful, but is celebrated by funny and popular TV shows like Seinfeld. Fake News is widespread and seriously maligns many people. Politicians are re-elected by American voters, even following the exposure of numerous lies and manipulations. Truth, which used to be highly valued and venerated, is now discarded and almost despised. See What is Truth? Does Truth Matter? for an interesting analysis of why Truth might be important, after all.

9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

Your neighbor’s wife is not off limits, provided you both agree to the liaison. Everybody tries to dress and look “hot,” and there is no attempt whatsoever in fashion to avoid being sexually provocative.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

Today, covet away!
Most people don’t even know what the word “covet” means.
Hating those who have more than you and automatically labeling them as evil is common. Glorying in the idea of punishing the rich is very popular, and dismisses realities, such as the fact that the combined total assets of all the rich are not enough to impact the quality of life of the masses, and that the rich actually provide many jobs for the poor. Enjoying the idea of punishing the rich even if it does not help you is a serious form of envy.

What Do the Ten Commandments Have to Do With Anything?

Both the Ten Commandments and the Constitution of the United States, which was written by Christians, reflect a Judeo-Christian worldview. For years, the Ten Commandments have been displayed in courtrooms across the United States.

In recent decades we have been passing laws which drift away from that view, and we have been decriminalizing various activities that were previously considered illegal.
These changes have been driven by seeming compassion, and by the drifting away from religious values that has occurred in the United States. The unfortunate result of the drift is that our system of laws now represents a mass of internal contradictions, which require a highly trained lawyer to manipulate, and justice is not always served. The courts can even become a game of manipulation, deception and farce.

At this point we also have people who resent the still obvious Judeo-Christian roots of our Constitution and of our system of laws. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a testimony to that. Yet the Freedom From Religion Foundation, despite claiming to reject religion, simply promotes religion of a different kind.  Every Christmas the Freedom From Religion Foundation places a plaque at the Wisconsin State Capitol which celebrates the Winter Solstice – a pagan religious celebration. Pagan beliefs are being substituted for Christian beliefs, in the name of eliminating religion.

Some might say that religion should be done away with, but those are unaware that religion is actually a belief system or worldview, and ALL of us have belief systems, whether we have given them a name or not. Even the most progressive atheists evolve a system of beliefs that become as passionate as any religious group, including abortion rights, global warming, and other progressive doctrines that are imposed by ridicule and by force.

Alternative Value Systems

If we were to abandon Judeo-Christian principles and rewrite the Constitution, something that some progressive leaders and Justices are already advocating, it would be hard to create a value system that is internally consistent and does not contain contradictions– contradictions which lead to chaos.

Adopting other common philosophies, such as Atheism, or Islam, would inflame the sensibilities of numerous Americans who still hold fundamental Judeo-Christian beliefs. And it is not trivial to come up with a new system of beliefs with no internal contradictions and with a consistent logical message.

Atheism is not compatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview. In the Judeo-Christian world, God has placed limits on all people, including leaders and powerful people. A king cannot take the property or the wife of another. The leader is accountable to God for his/her actions, and is expected to observe the rules of justice. The Christian worldview values human life above all, and the taking of innocent human life is not permitted, even if the goals are desirable. Even kings must justify the taking of human life according to specific criteria.
Atheism, in contrast to Christianity, places no limits on the power of leaders or of individuals. Atheism frees leaders to impose their will on the nation without justification. Under atheism, the ends justify the means. If the government feels it can accomplish some good by sacrificing me and my family, it is free to do so. My Lithuanian grandparents were sent to Siberia by the atheist/communist Soviet Union, upon its occupation of Lithuania, and they had done absolutely nothing wrong. They were declared to be “capitalists” because they owned a 1-acre farm, one cow and a sewing machine, their possessions were taken away from them, and they were sent to Siberia.

Sharia Law is also incompatible with the Judeo-Christian world view, and with the Constitution of the United States. Sharia law does not acknowledge inviolable human rights for family members, and permits severe corporal punishment, including punishment to the point of death, by the heads of families.

Under Sharia law, there are no limits on the power of heads of families, religious leaders, and heads of state.

The New Morality

A new (experimental) morality has been creeping into our nation, one law at a time, and supplanting the Judeo-Christian values we used to have, without internal consistency. It has not been well planned, is not systematic, or even internally consistent on any new modern moral plane.

For example, the killing of a fetus/baby is permitted even after partial birth, but the killing of a pregnant woman counts as TWO killings by law. Can the murder of a human being, and the jail term of a killer, truly be dependent on what that woman was thinking? Was she walking home or to Planned Parenthood for an abortion? Can the number of crimes committed by a killer be determined by the thoughts that were going through the murdered woman’s mind? Can a murderer go to jail for the same action for which the abortionist is extolled?

Consider another example, sex with underage children, which is, understandably, a crime. Yet teachers are required to illustrate condom use to young children in classrooms, and the very children who are taught to be “Healthy, Happy and Hot” in their classrooms, become felons when one of the young couple turns 18 and becomes guilty of statutory rape of their younger girlfriend or boyfriend. Our sexual standards impose many confusing inconsistencies on young people today.

Numerous such inconsistencies exist in our new and jumbled morality, and many conservative Americans object to the newly introduced (experimental) morality, and have concluded that the experiment has failed.

Science Takes a Back Seat to the New Experimental Morality

As the failings and drawbacks of the new experimental morality surface, those who want that new morality very badly simply ignore truth and science, they sweep the damage done to other people under the rug, and they make sure that facts and science take a back seat to their progressive agenda.

The progressive leadership of our country has misquoted and swept science under the rug habitually, as problems with the new morality surface.

Government-sponsored sex education does not educate children about the data on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), misleads children into thinking that a condom will take care of everything, and fails to tell children that in 2011 the United States Center for Disease Control pointed out on their website that abstinence is the best form of prevention for STDs (this important fact has since even been removed from the CDC website).

Hiding the Truth

President Obama, a big sponsor of the new morality, withheld release of the results of a government-sponsored survey on abstinence, the results of which did not support Obama’s progressive agenda. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) performed a study (National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents) which showed that 70% of parents and 60% of teens favor abstinence before marriage. The study was ready for publication on Feb 26, 2009, but the Obama administration delayed its release for 1-½ years, until August 23, 2010.

The study results were theb released very quietly, and were later buried deeper on the HHS website, in such a way that searching obvious phrases such as “abstinence” did not call up the study, and a knowledge of the study title or project number was needed to access the study. Finally, a warning is posted for those who have succeeded in tracking down the study: This is a historical document. Use for research and reference purposes only.

Yes, the government feels it must clarify that the document is historical, lest it be used to formulate current policy. By no means can we acknowledge that most of America disagrees with the progressive government’s promiscuous agenda for our children.

Where can we see the National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents?

• Original 2010 HHS link, since removed: pdf
• The study can be accessed now atpdf – now buried on the HHS website and labeled as a historical document.
• If that link disappears, too, there’s a copy of it on my website at National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents.

Back to the Divide

The two alternatives, Judeo-Christian morality, and self-invented modern morality, are in complete contradiction.

• We cannot simultaneously allow abortion and declare abortion to be murder.
• We cannot encourage sexual experimentation in children, then jail them as soon as they turn 18.
• We cannot pass laws that punish Christian Churches for not placing adopted children with homosexual couples, and allow Christian Churches protection of their religious freedom and beliefs at the same time. (If Christian Churches believe that a healthy life for a child necessitates both a mother and a father, it is not the role of government to force Churches to place adoptive children in homosexual homes. If government wants such placement, government should run adoptive agencies. If homosexuals want such placement, homosexuals should run adoptive agencies. But the idea of government forcing Christian Churches how to direct their charities is a violation not only of religious freedom, but also of “separation of Church and State,” which goes both ways.)
• We cannot give unlimited benefits to various groups of citizens, without considering whether we have the money to hand out, who is paying the bills, or whether the bills are NOT being paid.

(Most people do not have the time to do their own analysis, and media fails to do the analysis for us, but this author HAS done the analysis— spreading 100% of the wealth of the United States today would not solve our financial problems or poverty, and we would then still be faced with zero wealthy people to tax next year. Most of us are not aware of how few really wealthy people and how many poor people there are,)

• We cannot brag that 98% of all published scientists support global warming, when the government makes sure that global warming opponents get no research funds, and therefore cannot publish.

We cannot cater simultaneously to all groups, when their beliefs on what is right and what is wrong are in direct conflict.
We cannot hand out more pie than there is.

Decision Making When Paths are Incompatible

We have to acknowledge that we can’t always have what we want, NOBODY can always have what they want, and sometimes my getting what I want can step on the toes of somebody else not getting what they want.

Decision mechanisms when people cannot all get what they want include:

• Free-for-all fight, and the most powerful win (Anarchy, King of the Mountain, or Chaos)
• An Authority Dictates (Dictatorship)
• Democracy (We all vote)

My preference? Democracy.
Even when my (conservative) side was losing the battle, during the last 8 years of Obama administration, I respected the system and tolerated a government which violated my world view and my view of what is right and what is wrong.
I thought sadly that if I live in a country that rejects my values, I must put up with it, or move elsewhere. Or pray that my fellow citizens see the light, begin to see things my way, and vote to restore my worldview.
I became a blogger, and have spent the last decade trying to persuade people with reason of the validity of my beliefs.

Now the tide of public opinion has turned, and the conservatives must be given a chance at government.
And yes, I have heard that many say the popular vote has NOT given conservatives a majority mandate.

Yes, We All Know that Progressives Think the Election Was Stolen

Most are familiar with the issue of the popular vote versus the electoral votes.

Hillary Clinton got more popular votes, but Donald Trump won the election because he earned more electoral votes. The electoral votes allotted to each State do not correspond directly to the number of voters in that state, so in close elections it is possible for a candidate to win the popular vote, but not the electoral vote, nor the Presidency.

An important point needs to be made about the electoral system.
The founders of this country were actually wise in choosing the electoral college instead of the popular vote as the method for selection of the President.
They did not want the choice of President always to be decided by the largest, most populous State, with little regard for the smaller ones.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic, and is similar to that used by classical institutions. The Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons. See the US Election Atlas for more details on the evolution of the Electoral College plan.
The concept can be simplified by example.
If the colonies wanted more rural, less populated States to join the union (and to provide food for the nation from their farms), they had to offer those States a guarantee that their rights would not be trampled and they would not be dominated by the States which were more populous and which had larger cities.
The same principle applies today—should the population of one State be able to dictate the fate of the the entire United States?
Hillary Clinton won California by such a large margin in 2016 ( 4.6 million votes) that her entire advantage came from just that one State. Should Californian values be permitted to steer the values of the entire United States?

No, even if Hillary did get 2-3 million more popular votes, the election was NOT stolen.
The electoral college system protects all of America from being dominated by one State – in the case of 2016, California.

Reasons Why Trump May Actually HAVE WON the Popular Vote

An added point about the popular vote:
Conservatives are just as unhappy about the closeness of the election as progressives are.
While progressives point out that Hillary won the popular vote by 2-3 million votes, conservatives point out that if we corrected the popular vote totals for frequently demonstrated massive voter fraud and for illegal immigrants with illegal voting cards, Hillary would have had at least 3 million fewer votes.

According to PEW Research, 24 million (one of every eight) voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate, more than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters, and 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state. That’s almost 30 million votes that are very susceptible to potential fraud.

These figures, combined with the frequently documented voter fraud exercised by “community organizers” and practitioners of “Alinsky tactics” of the left, call into serious question the exact numbers of the 2016 popular vote.

Alinsky Tactics and the Left

It is well documented that Hillary Clinton was a student of Alinsky, and that Barack Obama taught Alinsky tactics in the past. And Alinskyk tactics are Satanist Saul Alinsky’s 13 rules for political warfare, which are described in a book that Alinsky dedicated to Lucifer (Satan).   Needless to say, Alinsky tactics violate all rules of fair Christian behavior, and they describe how a minority can fight, lie, manipulate, and finagle their way against the despised majority, which limits themselves to Judeo-Christian rules of behavior.

Hillary’s recent collection of scandals– Benghazi lies, security breeches to escape accountability for email communications, the Clinton Foundation traitorous pay-for-play allegations, which are being proven just 2 months after the election, as well as the unethical tactics used against Bernie Sanders—this documented track record of “Alinsky” (in Judeo-Christian language “immoral”) behavior on the part of the progressives in the Democrat Party, certainly make election fraud allegations towards the Democrat Party credible.

Although nobody claims that conservatives are free of any misdeeds, it is still more likely that people who support Judeo-Christian morality might have a lower incidence of illegal deceptive tactics than those who actively teach, advocate and employ Alinsky tactics and “community organizing.” Just this week, news surfaced of progressives plotting to disrupt President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration by deploying butyric acid at the National Press Club during what they call the “Deploraball” event scheduled for January 19th. These progressives were meeting at the Washington D.C. pizza place that was mentioned in the Hillary-Podesta emails.  Today, the news  holds more on shocking progressive tactics — progressives held a training camp on disrupting the inauguration and how to handle being arrested, and hundreds of the LGBT community held a dance party in the street outside Vice President-Elect Mike Pence’s home.  CNN has even gone so far as to point out that if Donald Trump were to be killed during the Inauguration, an Obama appointee would become President.  The right has never planned and executed such interference and disruption of progressive events, discussed the killing of a progressive opponent, or targeted progressives in their homes.  

Why Can’t We Just Compromise?

Many of the most contentious issues today do not lend themselves to compromise.
Abortion, gay marriage, and sex education (chastity versus promiscuity) are examples of things that cannot go both ways.
A choice has to be made.

• It is not possible to take both roads when you reach a fork, as Yogi Berra can attest.
• We cannot aim for individual freedom and for governmental control of personal life and personal thought at the same time.
• We cannot outlaw and allow abortion simultaneously.
• We cannot both allow and forbid guns.
• We cannot preserve traditional marriage and allow homosexual marriage at the same time.
• We cannot respect religious freedom and require all doctors to perform abortions concurrently.
• We cannot enforce immigration law and simultaneously have open borders.
• We cannot build up military defense and reduce military defense at the same time.
• We cannot base our Constitution and Bill of Rights on God-given rights, yet forbid the public mention of God and of religion.
• We cannot respect Judeo-Christian values and delete Judeo-Christian values from our laws concurrently.
• We cannot have a Supreme Court which decrees national law and policy without regard to the beliefs of the American population- most of the above mentioned issues have involved decrees by Supreme Court and by Executive Action which are in disagreement with the beliefs of most Americans.
• We cannot have a Democratic Republic in which elected Representatives of the people do not represent the wishes of the people and in which politically appointed Supreme Court Justices overrule the will and the religious beliefs of the people.

This is why some advocate leaving these most difficult issues to the States, so that, for example, a progressive State such as California could allow progressive policies, and both liberals and conservatives could live in States which offered the policies that are most important to them.

The idea that the Federal government should not control issues that Americans struggle to agree on is one that Trump has been proposing. On these issues, local control would be local.

Think, dear progressive co-Americans—wouldn’t it be great if we could make room in America for both sides of the ethical and political spectrum?

In Trump’s language, that would be HUGE!

What is the Left So Afraid to Lose?

What are the main issues that the left to panic when considering a conservative or a Trump Presidency?

• Abortion?
• Gay Marriage?
• Welfare?

The Worst Case Scenario and the Most Likely Outcome

Abortion: There is little danger of abortion becoming unavailable in the United States.

I must honestly admit that I would like it if we were forbidden by law to kill inconvenient unborn infants the same as we are not permitted by law to kill inconvenient elders or spouses or children who have already been born.
But I also realize that we live in a democracy, and so long as so many Americans support abortion, abortion is not likely to go away.

The worst case scenario for progressives is that they may have to pay for their abortion themselves, instead of making me pay for it, which is against my ethics (It’s only fair– I have to pay for my own thyroid surgery and my own childbirth!).
They may have to shift to less permissive sexual behavior and more self control—something all of us should strive for constantly.
They may have to travel to a neighboring State for their abortion.

These might not be progressive first choices, but progressives must also realize that it is not the conservative first choice to pay for other people’s children to be aborted, particularly when a disproportionate number of those victims are minority babies.
It is also not the conservative first choice to live in a country where our children cannot be doctors, pharmacists or lawyers, because our Federal laws demand everyone in those professions to participate in abortion-related activities which are against our moral beliefs.

Whose right is more important—the right of a woman to enjoy unlimited sex, including premarital sex and promiscuous sex, or the right of a tiny human being not to be killed by his/her mother?

The job of the government is not to give progressives ALL their wishes, but to balance the rights of all citizens against each other in an ethical way.

We can’t always get what we want – progessives, OR conservatives.
And Christian doctrine always requires that the needs of the weakest be considered first – and who is smaller and weaker than an unborn child?

We appeal to progressives to realize that abortion is advocated only by people who have already been born. The unborn have no voice, other than the voice of conservatives.

Gay Marriage: There is little danger of homosexuality returning to the criminal status it previously held in this country decades ago.

The worst case scenario is that homosexual couples may be limited to civil unions, which do not threaten those of us who believe that marriage is central to the health and security of children and of our future society.
Progressives must realize that their wish for homosexual marriage has some unintended consequences on the rest of us. The moment we allowed homosexual marriage, Catholic adoption agencies had to close their doors, because the federal government requires them by law to do something their faith forbids: to place adoptive children with homosexual couples.
Whose rights are more important—gays to call their union “marriage,” or orphans to get free adoption services that the Catholic Church provides?
See Gay Marriage and Homosexuality for more ways in which the redefinition of marriage hurts the rights of Christian Americans.

Progressives need to realize that their wish to have homosexual unions be called “marriage” impacts the rights of conservative citizens not to have progressive doctrine forced on their Church charitable adoption programs, on public school sex education programs, and on bakeries which prefer not to bake cakes featuring images of homosexual unions.

Welfare: There is no danger of Social Security or Medicare being cancelled by conservatives.

The ObamaCare that is being repealed is a fiasco and failure, and WILL be replaced.

The worst case scenario is that some welfare programs will be streamlined to eliminate fraud and favoritism, and that more efforts will be made to offer jobs to those who are now dependent on welfare.

Two Last Words to the Left- Anarchy and Compassion

Word One about anarchy –

Of those who want to ignore the results of the 2016 election and attempt to delegitimize President-Elect Trump, we ask – what does Anarchy accomplish?

In what ways does the use of Alinsky Tactics such as riots, property damage and butyric acid terrorism accomplish anything?
What is your desired result?

Do progressives think that the Inauguration will be cancelled?
Do they think that Hillary will be given the Presidency?
By what mechanism could that be done?
Even if that was done, is Hillary’s moral history anything to pin our hopes on?

If the progressive goal is to weaken President Trump, so that he would make less progress on the progressive action items we’ve mentioned above, do progressives not realize that a weakened President and administration will not only be weak on abortion, but also in every other area, including our economy and our safety from terrorism? Do you really want to sink the ship you are sitting in?

Word Two about compassion –

Progessives are very admirable in their stated compassion.
But consider the opposite of compassion – heartlessness.

Do progressives not realize that some of their priorities are only compassionate towards one set of people, and only compassionate on the surface?
That some of their priorities become very heartless when the needs and rights of another group of citizens is considered?
Compassion towards a pregnant woman can also be heartless cruelty towards her partially born baby?

All Americans, progressive and conservative want to be compassionate.
We pick different issues on which our compassion focuses, depending our life experience.
We can’t always get what we want, and we can’t be compassionate to all at the same time.
The wishes of citizens and prisoners are opposed to each other and need to be balanced.
The wishes of Christians and Atheists are opposed to each other and need to be balanced.
The wishes of men and women are different, and need to be balanced.
The needs of parents and of children, as well as of teachers, need to be balanced.
Isn’t it time to start realizing that we all intend good, we are all compassionate, and we all have different perspectives that need to have a chance to be tried and to be heard?

Isn’t It Time? 

The Constitution of the United States has set up a framework for this balancing exercise to take place, and has served us reasonably well for centuries.
It is time for progressives to accept a temporary correction and to allow conservatives to have a hand in the game.

Let us all root for each other, pray for each other and, above all, pray for the new President of the United State, Donald Trump.

For the anti-Trumpers, you can always pray for your enemies- prayer helps everyone concerned.

One of the best attributes of conservatives is that they do not have to resort to butyric acid, but can pray.

It’s now time to give conservatives a chance.

Don’t Count Chickens When Deluged with Hatching Black Swans!

and

A Note To Republican Delegates

Counting chickens: This phrase comes from the saying “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!” which means do not conclude that you have something before you actually have it in hand.

Black swans: This is a political science concept based on the fact that most swans are white, and black swans were thought not to exist at all.  In actual fact, black swans do exist, but are very, very rare.  The political phrase refers to Black Swan events as very rare events that are completely unexpected, yet they transform history as we know it and make history completely unpredictable.

Don’t Count Chickens!

So today, in the very unpredictable political climate that seems to change direction radically by the day during this 2016 Presidential election, we should not be concluding or forecasting anything at all until all the rare, unpredictable events have finished arriving.  We should not count chickens when we are in the midst of a cygnet (baby swan) hatching explosion!

So what should we do? Nothing?

What should we do faced with one political shocker after another? Nothing?
No, we can soak in events, analyze them logically, and see if they fit into a pattern or frame of reference that we can make sense of.
You probably say- good luck doing that, analyzing or understanding anything in the present political climate!
By definition, black swan events cannot be anticipated, or prepared for.
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Yes. Good luck doing the impossible!
That is, unless you remember to include the interconnection of Church and State, a politically incorrect and taboo topic which we have been exploring on this website in recent years.  A concept that actually provides the key to understanding – and to steering or taming– the seemingly out-of-control events we are witnessing today.

Surprising and Stunning Events

Events shaping this presidential election political season have certainly surprised and stunned us all from the very start.

Who expected 17 Republican candidates? Who expected Donald Trump’s candidacy? Who expected socialist Bernie’s challenge of Hillary to amount to more than a hill of beans? Who expected Trump’s phenomenal success and his following? And who expected Cruz to drop out of the race as and when he did?

Here we might add the observation that Cruz’s exit speech on May 2nd at the conclusion of the Indiana Primary sounded more like a rallying speech, and opened the possibility, at least in my mind, that the “suspension” of Cruz’s campaign was not so much the waving of a white flag as a shift to a different, clandestine game plan. There is, after  all, more than one clandestine war going on behind the scenes, not controlled by and not on the radar of those of us who devote only 15 minutes every 4 years to entering a voting booth.  (More on the clandestine wars later.)

Black Swan Political Theory

The collection of unexpected, unprecedented events we have witnessed in the primary season so far this year indicate an outcome that could never have previously been imagined, and is presently hard to imagine. It is a classic example of a Black Swan political event.

And not only are we witnessing a Black Swan event in this election, but we have scores of Black Swan events occurring one after another.  They are stunning political professionals and pundits, and violating all laws of political probability!

What Can We Learn from Black Swan Theory Today?

So let us sit back and make some stabs at analyzing what is going on, what the future might hold, and whether we are powerless pawns in the unfolding of history, or whether we have at our disposal some secret weapons that could steer events.  (Via one of my favorite topics, the Interconnection between Church and State!)

When things seem dismal and all seems lost (incidentally, this is precisely the moment in time that most of us fall to our knees in prayer), some pretty remarkable things begin to happen.  We begin to include faith and God in our politics, and the Goliaths begin to fall.  It’s described in the Bible (David and Goliath), and it’s happened in recent history – including the recent collapse of the Soviet Union.  When people start praying and putting ethics first, that’s when we get to see the  successful and productive Interconnection of Church and State.

Religion is powerful, and the Interconnection of Church and State is powerful. There is a reason why despots, and why many in our present government and culture (also despots!), try so hard to eliminate God from public life.  With God included, despots have no chance, and the people win.

So Where Are We Right Now?
Trump versus Hillary?

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If you believe much of the media,  it’s going to be Trump versus Hillary, isn’t it?

Not quite so simple.
It very well may be Trump versus Hillary, but there are many reasons why it might not be.

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The Secret War Most of Us Missed in 2012

In 2012, it really looked like it would be Mitt Romney versus Obama. But those who followed this closely could see there was a clandestine war for delegates going on and Mitt Romney only made it by the skin of his (very polished) teeth.

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul had BOTH satisfied the conditions for entering the convention (plurality in 5 States) in 2012, and since delegates were only thought to be bound on the first vote, Ron Paul supporters were working on getting delegates to exercise their freedom of conscience. Delegates could prevent Romney’s nomination in the first vote of the Tampa 2012 Convention by abstaining, and thus they could trigger a brokered convention.  This would give Ron Paul a chance to compete for the nomination, and would allow the introduction of additional candidates.

Yes, in 2012, we were headed for a brokered convention – but it turns out that Mitt Romney had had enough clandestine foresight to seed the Republican Rules Committee with delegates who were loyal to himself ahead of the convention — delegates who then changed Rule 40(b) on the eve of the Convention in such a way as to exclude Ron Paul, and to allow only Mitt Romney into the Convention.  A brokered convention was avoided, and Mitt Romney got the nomination.

But Ron Paul came very close to winning a clandestine war against Mitt Romney, something that most Americans did not know then, and do not know to this day.

And we might add that this was not a gentleman’s war, but a dirty battle, during which Over 400 Republican delegates filed a Federal lawsuit against the Republican National Committee and Reince Priebus the Chairman, alleging that violence and intimidation were used against delegates in an effort to control how they voted.  These delegates refused to be bound and insisted on their right to vote their conscience in 2012. Today, it has been clarified that delegates do indeed, have the right to vote their conscience in all votes at the Convention. As it turns out, binding is not binding!

Note also, that it’s the progressives in the Republican Party (yes, there are some!) who are being accused of violence and intimidation– NOT the conservatives!

Are We in the Midst of More Clandestine Battles?

So, where are we today?
Today, we are on the brink of another brokered convention.
The same cultural war is raging, we have the same division in the nation and in both parties, and the same clandestine political struggles are occurring behind the scenes.
Not to mention criminal investigations that may impact the presidential race.

This time, the struggles have intensified, the media has publicized them, and more Americans know about the situation.
So make no mistake, there are plenty of clandestine battles going on, and there is no guarantee yet that it’s Trump versus Hillary.

Threats to Hillary

Because our primary focus here is on the Republican nomination, we raise only briefly the possibility that Hillary Clinton may be charged with criminal charges and may soon be disqualified from candidacy for President.  Charges against Hillary Clinton include tampering with and destruction of documents, and espionage.  The results of FBI email investigations and Bengazi investigation results (five House committees, two Senate committees and a bipartisan Select Committee on Benghazi) could lead to FBI indictment and serious federal charges against Hillary Clinton.  Needless to say, such charges would remove Hillary from any race for Presidency.  Unless, of course, Obama has the gall to issue a pardon.

In the event that Hillary is disqualified from the race on legal grounds, more black swans will arrive- are we to consider a socialist, possibly communist Presidential candidate in the United States?  Will there be attempts to introduce Joe Biden?  Someone else?

Threats to Donald

Back to Republicans – Donald Trump has just won 1237 estimated delegates, due to Cruz’s suspension of his campaign.  But that number is just that- ESTIMATED.
Nobody can know the true number until the first vote occurs at the Republican Convention in Cleveland in July.

For a while it seemed like NO candidate would clear the Rule 40(b) bar that Mitt Romney changed in 2012, which now requires a candidate to clear a majority (51%) in 8 States to enter the convention – a very difficult thing to do, and something that Donald Trump was in doubt of accomplishing before Ted Cruz’s unexpected suspension of his campaign.
Plans were even under way in the Republican Party to change Rule 40(b) on the eve of the Convention, so that Republicans would not have ZERO candidates meeting the requirements to enter the Convention.  The proposed change would have admitted all  candidates who “won” at least one delegate in the primaries (that would be about half of the original 17 candidates) to enter the convention for the first vote.

So now, with Cruz’s suspension it’s looking like Trump has cleared Rule 40(b), and the 1237 estimate, and will be the only candidate estimated to qualify for nomination.

Since the outset, 2/3 of Republicans voted for “Social Conservatives” (i.e. Judeo-Christian morality), while the more liberal Trump was only able to summon up 1/3 of the vote. Bankrupting your opposition may not be the best way to represent the will of the people!

However, Trump’s victories so far have been in the primary arena, an arena that is primarily money-driven, and not driven by the ideology of Republican voters. It is an arena which is tainted by the Democrat-driven legislation which allows non-Republicans to vote in Republican primaries in 24 States.  It is NOT an arena that represents  Republican voters, Republican ideology, or the Republican Platform.

It is not an accident that the Rules of the Republican Party provide delegates at the Convention a veto power over the Primaries. Delegates are active Republicans in 50 States and territories, are not from Washington, and they represent American citizens who are Republican better than the primaries now do. The delegates just may not reproduce the results of the Primaries.

What happens if the delegates actually represent the affiliation of American Republicans, who seem to lean conservative by 2/3, instead of representing the Primaries, in which Donald Trump collected his victories after bankrupting his 16 more conservative opponents?

Complicating the Already Complicated Mess

To make matters even less certain than usual, it has become clear this year that delegates are not bound by primary results, and can “change” their votes.  They are even free to vote their conscience in the first vote of the convention, and do not have to feel “bound” by the primary/caucus results. This information has just surfaced in this primary election season.  So Donald Trump is in serious danger of not getting his estimated 1237 votes in the first ballot of the convention, despite feeling that he has 1237 estimated votes based on Primary results!

In spite of Democrat and media efforts to portray this as a massive violation of democracy, it has become clear that delegates who ignore primary results would actually be restoring democracy, and would actually be protecting the right of the Republican Party to nominate it’s own conservative candidate– rather than handing that privilege to their opponent, the Democrat Party, who has surreptitiously succeeded in passing “binding” legislation in 24 States in recent decades.

These recent Democrat efforts to steer the Republican nomination have been trumped (no, not by Trump) by the Rules of the National Republican Party, a careful reading of which makes it clear that the rights of Republicans to nominate their own Republican candidate have been preserved, despite Democrat attempts to hijack their process.

Rogue Delegates or Patriots?

So this year, Republican delegates have finally been made aware of the fact that they hold the legitimate and legal power to restore the conservative face of the Republican Party to match it’s conservative platform.  They do not have to bend to legislation passed by Democrats in 24 States, who were trying to subvert the functioning of their opponent Republican party.
The Rules of the Republican Party have specifically exempted their delegates from such interference by State legislation.

So guess what?
Thousands of Republican delegates will be deciding this July  where to place their allegiance- to the Republican Party Platform, or to primary results (which were massively tainted by the participation of non-Republican progressives, even by progressives bussed in from neighboring States– in the 2016 New Hampshire primary— to hijack the Republican nomination).

Worth repeating: For the first time, delegates are highly likely to go rogue, on a massive scale.  And they’re not Republican “establishment” cronies.  They’re more likely very conservative patriots.

More Layers of Chaos

Needless to say, if the delegates Donald Trump thinks he has won (because of legislation in 24 States that “binds” delegate votes), if those 1237 delegates instead follow their own conscience, because they just learned that they are exempt from this legislation which was pushed through by Democrats in 24 States, more chaos will result.

The delegates might either abstain, depriving Donald Trump of 51% and forcing a second vote, in which additional candidates can be proposed, or delegates might vote for someone other than Trump (depending on who is on the ballot, which depends on what rules have been changed by Rules Committee the week before!!!).
As you can plainly see, massive numbers of Black Swans may be arriving to stun us, and there is little way of predicting which way it will go.

Particularly for us normal people who don’t have any of the pertinent clandestine details, and who are limited by the very limited and biased information offered to us by the press.

The Underground War

The players battling for control in this underground war which may or may not succeed in ousting Donald are not necessarily  RINO “establishment” delegates who want Mitt Romney to be President (although there will be some of those, too).
This is a multi-faceted war with an outcome impossible to steer, except by prayer and adherence to Judeo-Christian ethical principles.  (That’s the only way we can tame or steer Black Swans.)

The players will include:

• Trump & his associates
• Conservative Republicans who have been felt betrayed by the actions of increasingly progressive Republican leaders since the 2014 elections
• RINO “establishment” members who want to maintain the status quo, even if it means handing the election to Hillary. Incidentally, Donald Tump’s lumping of all Donald opposition under a common umbrella of “establishment” is vey misleading.   In actual fact, Donald is lumping two warring factions together – conservatives and RINOS – who are war with each other, and who each have very different reasons for opposing Donald Trump.
• Evangelical and Catholic citizens who are fighting to maintain Judeo-Christian values (religious liberty, pro-life and traditional marriage) in the Republican Platform
• Ted Cruz, who could be continuing an unpublicized yet legitimate behind the scenes effort to win delegates ideologically, as he did in Colorado and in North Dakota.
• The “Never Trump” group, which may overlap with some of the other groups mentioned.
• Tea Party Members who emphasize conservative economy over conservative ethical “social” values
• Libertarians, who often line up with Republicans in areas where their interests overlap. This year, some are even discussing Libertarian success as a third party, feeling they have a better than usual chance because so many voters want simply “not Hillary” and “not Trump” this year.
• Progressive infiltrators of the Republican Party who have been trying to steer left for quite some time.
• Mitt Romney, who has been rumored to be thinking of an Independent candidacy.  Mitt Romney?  No longer a Republican?  Now an Independent?
• Will there be two Independent candidates? A Libertarian and Mitt Romney?
• Or even a third Independent candidate? Bernie Sanders, who has been encouraged by Donald Trump to run as an Independent.
• …  there may be other factions that have not occurred to me, naive and out of the loop in politics as I am.
• And, most important, there is a invisible player, God.  And God has a wicked sense of humor.
  I am watching political developments with great anticipation, as America continues to pray.

The battlefields will include:

• Media- press, social, advertising
• Wooing delegates behind the scenes- both honest ideological wooing and potential dishonest manipulation and bribery.
• Alteration of the Rules of the Republican Party by the Rules Committee at the eve of the Convention.
• Alteration of the Platform of the Republican Party in the Platform Committee at the eve of the Convention
• … numerous other mechanisms that this politically naive citizen struggles to imagine
• And, most important, the hearts, souls, prayers and churches of America, where good people continue to pray for a restoration of Judeo-Christian morality to American government.

Possible Outcomes

The Outcome WILL Be a Black Swan

Davids can slay Goliaths

The outcome of this Presidential election season is likely to be a Black Swan not possible to predict at this point in time. We should not place too much confidence in the outcome being Donald or Hillary.

A Good Outcome Is Quite Possible

We should remember that Black Swans, although unpredictable, can be good – like the collapse of the Soviet Union without war in 1991.

We could, if we play our cards right (actually, if we talk to God right), end up with a restoration of Judeo-Christian values and an Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan emerging as our next President. That person could even be Donald Trump, provided his “conversion” to conservatism is legit.  And the conversion would have to be in all areas, particularly the ethical ones.

Violence May Be Involved

The outcome of this Presidential election season could include violence at conventions – both Republican and Democrat.
Donald Trump has forecast, even before he became the lone candidate following Ted Cruz’s withdrawal, and before Trump had the Mitt Romney-2012 rule-required majority in 8 States (which only a lone candidate could possibly acquire), Trump (very unprofessionally and very undemocratically) has forecast riots if he is not elected the Republican nominee on the first Convention vote.  Is Donald Trump considering encouraging the use of  Alinsky tactics, previously employed primarily by progressives?

There are reports of violence instigated by paid professional protesters at some recent Trump campaign events- protesters sent by Clinton and Soros. Several protesters admitted answering a Craig’s list ad paying $16.00 an hour for protesters.

There are even reports of Democrat on Democrat violence – between Bernie and Hillary supporters.   At the Nevada Democrat State Convention, Senator Boxer claimed that Bernie supporters made her fear for her life.

Even conservatives, albeit far right conservatives, have now made the mistake of hinting at the use of violence.  Glen Beck was just suspended from his show for comments hinting at the assassination of a President Trump in the event that he is elected and becomes dictatorial, following the Presidential present precedent.

Why All This Violence?

People most often turn to violence when they feel cornered.

The left has been fighting an uphill battle against Judeo-Christian morality and has been using violent and crooked Alinsky tactics now for years.

But now more and more “Independents” are turning to violence as a solution to our increasing problems.
This may explain the wide support now seen for Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric- people seem to think that it takes a bully (Trump) to subdue a bully (Obama).

But that attitude is very short-sighted, and I am personally hoping that Trump’s rhetoric is theatrical, not literal.
It is hard to say whether Donald Trump is a patriot or just another bully.
Introducing bully #2 into the White House could be very dangerous, and could boomerang in our faces, as do most violations of Judeo-Christian ethics.

We really do need to figure out exactly what page Mr. Trump is on.  Is he a legitimate convert to conservatism and the solution to America’s problems, is he a naive liberal who thinks he can win the Presidency by adopting a couple of conservative positions and hijacking the Republican Party, or is he actually a liberal plant, an infiltrator,  who is about to blow the Republican Party apart?
This blogger truly has NO idea. (Hence the increased need for prayer and for more GOOD Black Swans.)

Violence Not Too Surprising From Alinskyite Progressives- But Will Trump Encourage Joining In?

The practice of  Alinsky tactics  by Democrats is not too surprising, considering Obama and Hillary were students (and teachers!) of Alinsky tactics. These aggressive tactics were well illustrated during the circus staged by Democrat union protesters in Madison Wisconsin, to fight Governor Scott Walker’s financial reforms in 2011. I witnessed and experienced those “non-violent” tactics myself, at the hands of Madison, Wisconsin progressives.

But the possibility of violence and Alinsky tactics among Republicans is truly disturbing. So far, it’s only talk, and actual disruptions have been limited to progressive and paid “activists.”

To Win A Battle, We Must Be Prepared to Engage in It

A positive outcome of this Presidential election, with a victory for Judeo-Christian values, is still possible.   But such an outcome  will definitely require courageous action and fervent prayer on the part of conservatives.
The outcome will not be favorable if we do not engage in the battle and stick to our guns.
Goliath would never have been slain if David had not stepped up to the challenge.
The Soviet Union would never have collapsed if Ronald Reagan, Polish Solidarity and Pope John Paul II had run away from the problem or cowered.

We will be facing some Alinksyites and some primitive mobs.
But with God in our corner, we will not be facing them alone.

2016 – a Pivotal Election

This election represents a very major battle with the potential to reclaim the soul and the morality of America.
It may be the pivotal battle that determines whether America is Great again, or whether America falls into decline and ethical collapse.  A nation that kills it’s children at the rate of 1 million per year cannot thrive- either morally, or economically.

And making America Great Again is not a reference to Trump- on whom the jury is still out.

America will not be made great solely through economic strategy.
America will be made great by returning to the Judeo-Christian values on which America was established.

Whether America returns to those founding values, and whether that return is headed by a converted St. Donald (analogy to St. Paul the Evangelist) or by a different ethical conservative leader, remains to be seen.

In 1571, Christian Europe was under threat of Muslim domination, and prayer of the Rosary to Our Lord, through the intercession of his Mother of Good Counsel, led to a very surprising (Black Swan) victory  for Christian forces against terrific odds.

Christian Europe was saved from annihilation.
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The inscription on the image of Our Lady of Good Counsel reads “Mater Bonii Consilii, Ora Pro Nobis Jesum Fillium Tuum,” or “Mother of Good Counsel, Pray for Us to Jesus your Son.”
You don’t have to be Catholic to pray the Rosary, a meditative prayer on the Life of Our Lord.
Praying the Rosary today is as pertinent and as effective as it was in 1571.

One Way to Win

One possible mechanism for a positive outcome could include delegates using their freedom to pressure Donald Trump into supporting the present Republican Platform.
Donald Trump is just beginning to back up his claim of conversion to conservatism with action- with the announcement of his Supreme Court picks.
Let’s hope he continues by supporting other important ethical issues, like pro-life, religious freedom and traditional marriage.

Can We Dispense With the Moral Issues?

Some think that we can dispense with the “social” or “moral” issues and focus on the economic.
Rush Limbaugh has actually suggested that the Republican platform is optional or dispensable.  This implies that the mission statement describing what the Republican Party represents and has represented for decades, and which assures voters of exactly what they are voting for, need not be followed.  It’s dispensable, said Rush Limbaugh.  Nobody follows the platform any more.  Really?  How did Mitt Romney fare in the 2012 election when he failed to follow the platform?  How did that work out for Mitt and for the entire Republican Party?  Has Rush Limbaugh now abandoned conservative values?

When a conservative icon like Rush Limbaugh begins to waffle on conservative principles we can be sure that events have become truly baffling.  They are only baffling, however, when someone gets scared by all the black swans that have been arriving.  Rush needs a reminder on the role of Black Swans in history and their steerability via  some serious prayer and some serious adherence to Judeo-Christian ethical principles, no matter what!

Can’t We Just Compromise?

Some suggest that a middle of the road outcome, in which Donald Trump, with the appointment of a relatively liberal Vice President, possibly even a Democrat, would “solve” the political tug-of-war that has existed for decades now between the right and the left.

This national ideological split, characterized by tug-of-war elections which are won by the slimmest of margins, has produced almost random election outcomes in recent years.

The formation of a “hybrid” merger, a middle-of-the-road party through a mechanism involving Donald Trump could serve the purpose of eliminating the established political system and the current players who have much invested in continuation of the system.  The resulting elimination of lobbyists, entrenched politicians and self-interested parties, often using political correctness to force their agendas, would be replaced by a more rational system, more accountable to the electorate.

Although this possibility is theoretically attractive and is aimed at producing policies that benefit all Americans, it does not address the resolution of some major problems, for which compromise does not seem possible.

A wagon pulled in two directions simultaneously by two different horses gets nowhere.

Where Compromise May Not Be Possible

There are many areas in which it is not possible to compromise, in which one side must win:

• It is not possible to take both roads when you reach a fork.
• We cannot aim for individual freedom and for governmental control of personal life and personal thought at the same time.
• We cannot outlaw and allow abortion simultaneously.
• We cannot both allow and forbid guns.
• We cannot preserve traditional marriage and allow homosexual marriage at the same time.
• We cannot respect religious freedom and require all doctors to perform abortions concurrently.
• We cannot enforce immigration law and simultaneously have open borders.
• We cannot build up military defense and reduce military defense at the same time.
• We cannot base our Constitution and Bill of Rights on God-given rights, yet forbid the public mention of God and of religion.
• We cannot respect Judeo-Christian values and delete Judeo-Christian values from our laws concurrently.
• We cannot have a Supreme Court which decrees national law and policy without regard to the beliefs of the American population- most of the above mentioned issues have involved decrees by Supreme Court and by Executive Action which are in disagreement with the beliefs of most Americans.
• We cannot have a Democratic Republic in which elected Representatives of the people do not represent the wishes of the people and in which politically appointed Supreme Court Justices overrule the will and the religious beliefs of the people.

Choices Must and Will be Made

Choices must be made, and laws must be enforced.
This election is likely to determine whether the United States steers right or steers left.
We’ve been waffling too long and getting nowhere.
Actually, no.  We have been very rapidly drifting left- not by the will of the people, but by manipulation by the Presidency and by the Supreme Court.  And Congress is NOT doing their job of checking those out-of-control branches of government.

There is no way to predict or to influence the outcome of this very complex situation except through sticking to our ethics, praying, and watching the Black Swans as they arrive.

Personally, I think it’s high time somebody corrected the damage done by the Obama administration, which is ramping up affronts to morality and to religious freedom by the day.
There is a major spiritual battle going on, and we need to engage in it.

Citizens must support the most ethically conservative candidates and must vote.
Delegates must follow their consciences and make sure that the candidate elected, whether it is Donald Trump or not, sticks to the Judeo-Christian ethics outlined in the present Republican Platform.

May God Bless and Help America!

See also:

• The Truth About Brokered Conventions

-which explains why the brokered convention has been totally misrepresented by media and by campaigns, and why the brokered convention could be the Black Swan that saves America, as it has done in the past- with the election of Abraham Lincoln and of Ronald Reagan.

• Have We Ditched Democracy? Was the Colorado Primary Rigged?

-an explanation of why delegates having the power to reverse primary results may not be a ditching of democracy at all, but the reverse- a protection, or check and balance built into the system against infiltration of primaries by the opposition or by monied interests.  Also why “rogue” delegates may not represent the Republican “establishment” at all, but may represent the reclaiming of the soul of the Republican Party.

• Battle of Wisconsin Results

– which reflects the conservative leanings of most of America.

Aside: Wisconsin Primary results reflect the conservative will of America, which could dominate the Presidential election if Conventions are allowed to play their intended role of checking the money-driven Primary results, in which 16 (mostly conservative) Republican candidates were out-maneuvered financially by Donald Trump, but still represent the will of two thirds of America.

• The Battle of Wisconsin

-which describes why Wisconsin is a great model for the whole United States, our war between right and left, and why Wisconsin offers successful solutions for all of America.

• Election Infiltration and Here Comes Paul Revere!

  -which discusses the conflict between Primaries and Convention, between State legislation and RNC Rules, and the recent legal developments that give Republican delegates complete freedom to “trump” Primary results – and why they might not be traitors, but patriots if they do so.

• Election 2016 – the Elephant in the Room

-which discusses the politically awkward questions that are being evaded, yet which are steering this Republican primary season.

• Presidential Nominees -Who Gets to Choose Them? or What’s a Delegate to Do?

  – which outlines the dillemma faced by Republican delegates on “binding,” Mitt Romney’s Rule changes, and the question of whether RNC rules trump State legislation passed by Democrats.

   

   

   

The Battle of Wisconsin

(Added 4-6-16: See Battle of Wisconsin Election Results)

What’s So Special About Wisconsin?

As the presidential election season progresses and candidates proceed from state to state vying for support, there is much talk about the “Battle of Wisconsin,” portraying the primaries occurring here this Tuesday as being particularly crucial in determining the Republican nominee for the presidential election of 2016.

On the one hand, every primary/caucus in every state since Iowa gets built up by the press to heighten the excitement of the race and to boost network ratings.

On the other hand, Wisconsin does feature some characteristics that may be reflective of the evolving mind of the American people at large, and thus might give us a glimpse into what is to come.

Why is Wisconsin a Good Model for the National Struggle Between Right and Left?

A power shift from Democrats to Republicans has recently been witnessed in Wisconsin, and has made Wisconsin a sort of national battleground for the progressive agenda on more than one occasion.  This included the near-rioting union takeover of Wisconsin’s Capitol building in Madison in 2011, the Wisconsin Supreme Court Scandals on the eve of an important union ruling, and the present election to be held on Tuesday, April 5th, 2016, which represents not only the battle between Republican presidential hopefuls, but also the battle for progressive control, by hook or by crook, of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

In each of these battles, progressive Alinsky tactics have been used by radical Democrats, testing frantically whether a minority can dominate in a democracy, by sheer bullying (Alinsky tactics). Incidentally, in Wisconsin, conservative values have won so far, despite the Alinsky tactics, and despite the progressivism of Wisconsin’s Capitol city, Madison.

Aside

It could easily be argued that Donald Trump’s rapid rise to popularity is a consequence of progressive bullying and Alinsky tactics of Democrats. Trump’s bold outspokenness and willingness to fight fire with fire, his unintimidated attitude, is garnering widespread support across the nation.

So It’s In Wisconsin…

And so it is here in Wisconsin, where close-to-rabid progressive crowds chased a Republican senator around the Capitol building, where a progressive Mayor called off  police from enforcing law and order during union demonstrations, where police were nowhere to be found and fire-fighters had to rescue a cornered senator, where conservative legislators had to be escorted out of town for safety after a Senate vote, and where Justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court used assault and slander in attempts to progressivise the Supreme Court – it is here in Wisconsin, that Governor Scott Walker combined the necessary boldness, courage and justice to win the battle against Madison’s progressives Unintimidated (the title of the inside story). 

Wisconsin is where our unintimidated conservative governor was sustained by the support and gratitude of his people, where he balanced the budget and restored solvency, and where conservative values continue to return via legislative change.

Wisconsin is where Scott Walker went on to to win the progressive attempted recall by a landslide with more support than he got when first elected, and where Scott Walker went on to get re-elected yet one more time.

So It’s Also in Wisconsin Again…

So it’s also in Wisconsin where the Republican nomination will also be tested.  In this case, the choice will be between two candidates who share some of Scott Walker’s values.

Donald Trump certainly demonstrates the valuable quality of “unintimidation” needed to face today’s progressive agenda.
Sadly, his commitment to conservatism is newfound, and yet to be tested.
His flip-flop on important values has been highlighted just this week, with contrasting statements on abortion, which change with the media pressure that is placed on him.
Donald Trump would make an infinitely better President than any progressive opponent, like Hillary or Bernie.
But he pales by comparison with most other Republican competitors, particularly in the area of “social issues-” or, in my book, ethics – religious liberty, abortion, and marriage.
He also has me slightly nervous about the possibility of being a Trojan Horse.

Ted Cruz also demonstrates the unintimidation needed today.  He gets much better marks than The Donald on ethics – on religious liberty, abortion, and marriage.
If we are limited to the three Republican candidates today, he is unquestionably the best choice.

At the risk of almost omitting poor John Kasich from the discussion, Kasich has a significantly lower probability of success than Trump or Cruz.  He is too liberal for my taste, but I would vote for him any day above Hillary or Bernie. And God bless his heart, he helps both major candidates to remain short of the magic number of 1237 delegates.  This fact increases the probability of a brokered convention, for which I am rooting, and which would make it possible to return some very fine candidates into consideration– including Scott Walker, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and many others.
(Stay tuned for another article coming very soon on the Brokered Convention and why that is a Godsend during this 2016 election, despite all the media hype that portray it as a looming catastrophe.)

But now back to the Wisconsin Primary of Tuesday, April 5, 2016, which is being veiwed by some as a pivotal “Battle of Wisconsin” in the Republican presidential nomination of 2016.

So What Are the Candidates’ Chances?

What are the candidates’ chances, nationally and in Wisconsin?

One indicator of the candidates’ chances is the (speculative) number of delegates each candidate has accumulated.

Despite attempts by Donald Trump’s campaign and by much media to imply that Donald Trump is entitled to being declared the Presumptive nominee of the Republican Party because he (speculatively) has accumulated 736 delegates in the primaries so far, Donal Trump is still far short of any such assumption.

The Republican nomination is not a horse race, and the winning candidate does not win by a nose.  Republican nominations, as are most elections, including the general election, require the support of more than half of the Republican Party.   When races are close, or candidates are numerous, runoff elections occur, designed to home in on a candidate on whom 51% of America can agree.

Looking at the (speculative) distribution of delegates won so far by various candidates below, it becomes pretty obvious that Donald Trump has no guarantee whatsoever of receiving the support of half of Republicans in the United States, and a runoff election, otherwise known as a brokered convention, is highly likely to be required.

Incidentally, the brokered convention is not an evil plot concocted by the Republican elites, as Donald Trump’s campaign and some media would have you believe.  The brokered convention is the natural result of numerous candidates, close races, or a split party – all of which are occurring in 2016 – and rules specifying brokered conventions have been around since Abraham Lincoln’s election.  Those rules are not stacked in favor of anybody, not “establishment” Republicans, not liberals, not conservatives, but are simply rules, like Robert’s Rules of Order (which govern the Rules of the Republican Party), which have been refined by experts and statisticians over decades to specify the fairest way to operate a runoff election.

NOTE: Looking at the pie chart above, you can see not only that neither Trump nor Cruz are the Presumptive nominee by any means, but also that Wisconsin’s contribution to the number of delegates up for grabs is not overriding, either.

So What’s the Fuss About Wisconsin?

So what’s the fuss about Wisconsin?

The fuss is two-fold:

• Wisconsin has succeeded in reversing a progressive liberal trend and restoring Wisconsin safely and efficiently to a more rational conservative government.  It serves as a model for the changes needed in our Federal government today.
• Wisconsin has also succeeded in rescuing it’s Supreme Court from radical takeover by progressives who were using Alinsky tactics.  This also serves as a model for the changes needed in our Federal Supreme Court today.

As goes Wisconsin, so might go the United States.
Or at least we hope so.
Our Lady of Good Help, help us!

The Wisconsin Vote

So What Will Happen in Wisconsin?
Republican presidential candidates are polling 40% Cruz, 33% Trump, and 19% Kasich.
One might add that conservatives are sometimes reluctant to participate in polls, pariticularly in the aggressive progressive Alinsky tactic climate we are presently in.  So polls often underestimate the magnitude of conservative support a conservative candidate might receive.  This happened to Governor Walker in the recall election of 2012, which Governor Walker won by a landslide.

So it will be no surprise if Ted Cruz wins Wisconsin by a landslide.
Let’s hope this happens, and that it is indicative of national attitudes.

However, it is most probable that nobody, neither Trump nor Cruz, will get the (speculative) 1237 delegates nationally, and a runoff election will be needed.
Again, a welcome development, which might even return Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s governor (or anybody else) into the running if Trump or Cruz cannot get 51% of the delegates in the first vote at the convention.

Equally Important- the Wisconsin Supreme Court

Equally important is Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, where a regressive progressive, JoAnn Kloppenburg, is challenging the seat of constitutionalist Justice Rebecca Bradley, who can be relied upon to stick to the constitution instead of legislating progressivism from the bench.

To complicate the matter, the good Justice Rebecca Bradley of the Wisconsin Supreme Court has the same last name as the horrible regressive progressive Justice Ann Walsh Bradley of the Wisconsin Supreme Court who assaulted fellow Justice Prosser in 2011, then lied to the press reversing the tables to smear Justice Prosser. See photos of the two diametrically opposed Justice Bradleys below.

So Let’s Get it Clear!

Let’s Get it Clear-

Vote for Ted Cruz, who supports Religious Freedom, opposes Planned Parenthood and abortion, and supports traditional marriage.  He’s a patriot who supports the Constitution of the United States.

Vote for Justice Rebecca Bradley, who is committed to the rule of law and applying the law fairly and impartially.

Vote for Ted Cruz on April 5th in Wisconsin!

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Vote for Justice Rebecca Bradley on April 5th in Wisconsin!

Election Infiltration

and

Here Comes Paul Revere!
.

Some Shocking Realizations

Let’s put the shocking news bluntly:

• • Primaries and the binding of delegates, which media pundits are presently analyzing agonizingly, are not democratic necessities in elections, but may actually be harmful to the democratic process, making it uber-susceptible to manipulation.
• Primaries and the binding of delegates have been introduced illegitimately into RNC rules by progressives, in order to hijack the Republican Party. This quasi-militaresque infiltration of the Republican Party by liberals been ongoing for several decades now, pretty much under the radar. It resulted in the nomination of Mitt Romney, to the dismay of millions of conservative Republicans in 2012.
• Now this infiltration is being challenged by a modern day Patriot who is as determined and as courageous as was Paul Revere in 1775,  as he rode across the country warning the Colonies that the “British were coming.”

As the new Paul Revere exposes the truth and suggests possible remedies, we must all decide whether to heed his alarm or whether to let progressives continue their take over of the Republican Party.

BTW: Don’t blame the Republicans
later if you don’t lift a finger
to help their conservative contingent during the present battle.

Have You Lost Your Marbles, or is this the Story of the Century?

Now some will want to question the sanity of the above suggestion-  that Republicans have been succumbing to grand scale election manipulation by outsiders for several decades -but give this a paragraph or two more, and see what your common sense tells you after that.

Most conservatives will willingly acknowledge that liberals have slowly and clandestinely penetrated many other crucial elements of our society, from universities, to Hollywood, to the media.  Examples of clandestine infiltration of one’s enemy can be  also be seen throughout history-  from the Trojan Horse stories of 11th century BC to the widespread  infiltration of political movements today. Reports abound of Alinsky tactics used by today’s progressives, which include detailed instructions on the infiltration of opponents with intention to disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize conservatives.

In the present political climate, with the President of the United States enforcing laws selectively, with Supreme Court Justices overriding the will of the American people on the definition of marriage and on ObamaCare, with elected Republicans abandoning conservative platform values and chumming up and selling out to the opposition, with Secretaries of State committing grossly dangerous  national security email violations and a socialist candidate who is just one opponent’s FBI indictment away from becoming a major contender in the US Presidential race, is it really so unreasonable to consider whether a decades- long monumental hijacking of Republican nominations has taken place by clandestine liberals, and whether true conservatives who actually support the (still-conservative) Republican Platform are on the brink of losing the Republican Party altogether?

Are You Sold?  Or At Least Curious?
Then Read On…

If you are prepared to accept the possible infiltration of the Republican Party’s nomination process by progressives in recent decades, and want to hear what our modern day Paul Revere has to say about what he has unearthed and what can be done about it, read on.

So Who Is This “Paul Revere?” and later, What is He Saying?

Who is raising the alarm on the infiltration of the Republican presidential nomination process?
Our modern “Paul Revere” is Curly Haugland, a member of the Republican “Establishment.”

“Aha!” you say- “Establishment Republican!” “One of those nefarious people trying to thwart the wishes of the American people, who are trying to sneak in Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or John Kasich into the Republican convention!”

Actually, NO.

Curly Haugland is as conservative as they come– he wrote GOP Field Must Use 2016 to Force Conservative Primary Reform for Breitbart in December of 2015.
This bears repeating- Use 2016 to Force Conservative Primary Reform!

Curly Haugland is an unbound delegate, a senior GOP official.  He is a national committeeman of the North Dakota Republican State Committee, from 2004 to the present.  He is President of the North Dakota Policy Council, from 2006 to the present.  He was on the RNC Rules Committee since 2009, and was RNC State Chairman for the North Dakota GOP from 1999-2001. He has the common “humble American can make it good” story that so many of us have and that inspires so much love for the Constitution and for the United States in all of us.

So What Did Curly Say?

Curly said he has found hard evidence that Republican delegates are ALL unbound, and are all free to vote their conscience at the Republican Convention in Cleveland in July.

Curly announced his findings in a letter to the RNC.
Not one member of the GOP, not even Chairman Reince Priebus, has contradicted Curly’s findings so far.
Curly states in his letter:

Binding delegates to the results of presidential preference primaries first appeared in the Rules of the Republican Party in 1976. ….. And, 1976 was also the last time delegates have been bound by convention rules to cast their votes according to the results of binding primary elections………“Select, allocate and bind. The fraudulent addition of these three words to the Rules of the Republican Party in the 2008 Convention, as detailed in Chapter One, is the political equivalent of “spinning straw into gold”. Without the use of force to bind the votes of delegates to the results of the primary process, primaries are nearly worthless “beauty contests”.

So Curly has produced the hard evidence showing that the “binding” provision was added to the RNC Rules fraudulently, and that Republican delegates were only “bound” for one Republican convention in 1976.
All the rest has been smoke and mirrors, with progressive infiltrators of the Republican Party trying to use “binding” to obtain control over the Republican nomination process for several decades.

The Corollary

A corollary is something that follows unavoidably and logically from a given fact.
So what follows unavoidably and logically from Curly’s fact finding that Republican delegates are not bound?

What follows, is that all this talk of bound delegates, committed delegates, plurality and majority of votes, “winner take all” and most importantly, of 1237 delegates and “presumptive nominee” is just that – talk. And speculation.
If  all delegates are free, it’s impossible to know whether anybody has 1237 delegates until the first vote at he Convention has been cast.

The corollary is that the Republican Party selects their nominee for President at the Convention, and not during the Primaries.  The Primaries are advisory in nature, and give the Party an opportunity to see and to consider what the public thinks.
But the Primaries are not binding in any way on the Republican Party.

That Sounds Like They’re Trying to Get Rid of Trump!

The facts that Curly Haugland has found are just historical facts and rules.
Those facts may be used by many people for many purposes.
Curly Haugland started his search for facts way before Donald Trump was ever thought to be a serious candidate.
Curly Haugland was actually searching for information on following one’s own conservative conscience when your party is besieged by progressives.

These Facts Might Make it Possible for Conservatives to Take Back the Republican Party with an “Outsider” like Ben Carson, or Carly Fiorina.

These new findings, that State delegates still have the rights that our American system first gave them, the same rights that Senators and Representatives and General Election Electors have, the rights that  counterbalance the primaries (which are often very skewed by voter fraud and by deep pocketed donors)- Curly’s finding that delegates are permitted to use their common sense and conscience to ensure that candidates are faithful to the Republican Party Platform, are very exciting.

These findings open new doors for nominating very conservative candidates — candidates like the 65% conservative Republican candidates who first ran with Donald Trump, and who were eliminated by the primary money game, while 65% of American voters were still backing them. The conservative voters of America should not be punished for the fact that so many conservative candidates came forward.

In fact, Curly, as a member of the Rules committee, will be proposing a Rule change to return more power to the Convention, where the delegates from 50 States and the territories represent the wishes of the States (as opposed to the Primaries, which often reflect the depth of the pockets of candidates).
Curly is proposing the reversal of the Mitt Romney Rule change of 2012, which allowed liberal Mitt Romney to kick conservative Ron Paul out of the Convention before it even started.  Curly’s new proposed rule allows any candidate who won any delegates in the State primaries to enter the Convention, so candidates with shallow pockets and no wealthy donors (like Ben Carson) are not punished at the outset.

God Bless Donald Trump’s Heroic Heart, He May Still Win- But Even The Donald has to Follow the Age-Old Rules

It is still premature to nominate Donald Trump, until it can be demonstrated at the Convention that he has won 51% of the Republican vote.

The entire history of the United States, starting with Federal elections and continuing with political party rules, is based on arriving at a candidate who has 51% of the people behind him or her.
This design is crafted very purposefully and carefully, to ensure that candidates are not punished when many people run, and to ensure that our nation is not governed by someone whom 65% of the nation does not want.

When there is a legitimate 51% backing of one candidate in the nation, that candidate is nominated.
But this year, with 17 candidates, the conservative vote was split between as many as 16 candidates.  Just because Donald Trump got one third of the nation behind him does not mean that the conservative voters whose candidates dropped out will back Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, no matter how loud he sells his case, must follow the rules.

And those rules have always been that if a person does not get 51% of the vote, or 1237 delegates, that person has to run off at the convention against other candidates, to give the people a final say.
And now we find out that the 1237 cannot be counted before the first ballot at the Convention.
This may not even be an issue, unless Donald Trump actually gets 1237 votes– but even then, who gets to estimate the number of delegates?

Aren’t the RINOS going to Take Advantage of the Brokered Convention?

Yes, there will be some  RINO progressive “establishment” types who may try to use these findings to their advantage, to re-introduce people like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney or even Paul Ryan at a brokered convention.

But there will also be CONSERVATIVE “establishment” types like Curly, people who were elected and sent by their States, people who represent voters, not the Washington Republican elites, conservatives who are just as determined to reclaim the Republican Party and to stick to it’s still-conservative platform.

The Battle MUST Be Fought

This battle between the progressive and conservative Republicans MUST be fought out at the Convention, and it is wrong for Donald Trump, and the media, including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, to declare that Donald Trump represents the will of the people when he does not have a majority, and thus to hand control of the Republican Party over prematurely to someone like Donald who is only partially conservative and who may not support the “social” conservative aspects of the Republican Party Platform, which represent the Judeo-Christian values that most of us Americans professes to hold.

Isn’t Curly Cheating Donald Trump of a Legitimate Win?

No, Curly is not cheating Donald Trump of anything.

Neither Donald Trump, nor some voters, nor Rush Limbaugh, nor Sean Hannity, seem to realize that there is a big difference between a plurality and a majority, that Donald does not have the majority, he just has the plurality, and that there are whole fields of mathematics and political science which calculate the fairest way to run off competing candidates in an election.  Those principles have been incorporated into our General Election Rules, into the RNC Rules, and into Roberts Rules of Order which governs the RNC.  We need to continue following those rules in 2016.

Shame on Some

One alarming aspect of the 2016 Election is that some very big players have not only failed to do their homework and to understand the rules of the game, but they have also recently started discussing “riots” and “violence” if the 35% of Americans who support Donald Trump do not instantly get their way.

Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity have referred to the “riots” that they claim will result if Donald Trump does not get the Republican nomination.  Suggestion of riots by such nationally known figures are tantamount to inciting of riots, and shame on Donald, shame on Rush, and shame on Sean for abusing their status and talking this way.

Those of us who are fair-minded may be happy to vote for a President Trump in November, but we don’t like to see our conservative colleagues using the left’s Alinsky scare tactics, nor do we want to be deprived of the chance that a brokered convention could very legitimately produce a staunch conservative President like the ones produced by two other brokered conventions – Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.

Aren’t Republicans Trying to Thwart the Will of the People?
Some May Be, But Some are Trying to Win Back the Conservative Platform

These developments do not mean that the Republican Party is thwarting the will of the people.

In fact, they would be out of business pretty quickly if they tried to thwart the will of the people, as evidenced by the disillusionment of the electorate with the nomination of Mitt Romney in 2012.

Yes, there is a civil war going on in the Republican Party between conservatives and progressive infiltrators, but progressives have won only a few battles, and many conservatives are not giving up the fight.

So why should we give up the battle before it has even started?

Watching Reince Priebus sweating out a stuttered answer about Curly’s claims on Sean Hannity yesterday is all we need to know, to gauge our chances of success in reclaiming conservatism through a brokered convention.
Don’t let the fear-mongers push us into premature nominations!

May God bless and guide America!

Election 2016 – the Elephant in the Room

Here Come the Elephants!

Why is it that people often skirt the obvious?
Do they not see it?
Do they not wish to acknowledge it?
When people refuse to discuss the most obvious dominating and overwhelming issue at hand, we say there’s an elephant in the room.

Regarding Election 2016, there is more than one elephant in the room, and the elephants will soon run away with the election, so we may as well acknowledge them and start discussing them.

Pundits agree that this 2016 election is already different, historic, perplexing and unpredictable.  What they now need to acknowledge and to discuss are the dominant issues steering this election, or the elephants in the room.

From Swans to Elephants

We have previously discussed unexpected transformative historical events which steer the subsequent course of history, called Black Swans.  Black Swans are unpredictable determinants of history which may or may not be possible to control.  Black Swan theory is a serious political science theory documented in the political literature and quoted by the 9/11 Commission.

In the present 2016 election, we have seen the arrival of a bevy of Black Swans – led by the transformative and unexpected success of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign (note: Black Swan events are simply unexpected, not necessarily either bad or good).

But now we switch to the elephant analogy, because numerous Black Swans have arrived, and media and pundits seem to be in denial, refusing to discuss them. Media was slow to acknowledge the Trump phenomenon, and they have yet to acknowledge several other important determinants in this election- hence the undiscussed dominating forces become the Elephants.

What are these Elephants?

So what are all these elephants?

1. Donald Trump’s phenomenal success and the reasons for it.
2. The reason why we had 17 (!) Republican candidates.
3. The “Big Rule Switch” that occurred surreptitiously at the 2012 Republican Convention in Tampa, and is now controlling and complicating this 2016 election.
4. Discussion of whether Primaries and Caucuses are a transient and meaningless experiment.
5. Analyzing what the Super Tuesday Primary numbers really show us.
6. Determining what new elements are influencing the outcome of this 2016 election in place of Primaries and Caucuses.

So let’s look at these Elephants one-by-one.

Elephant #1
The Reason for Donald Trump’s Phenomenal Success

The reason for Donald Trump’s phenomenal success is not anger of the American people, as pundits often postulate in exasperation, failing to find a better explanation.

The real reason for Donald Trump’s phenomenal success is the fact that the American people realize that sometimes it takes a bully to subdue a bully.  But that’s not a politically correct suggestion, so nobody mentions it.

It was very amusing to watch the progressive CNN commentators looking quite panicked on Super Tuesday while discussing Donald’s proposed autocratic tactics and contrasting them with Ted Cruz’s promotion and adherence to Constitutional guidelines.  Who would have thought that progressives could ever welcome the idea of Ted Cruz, even if by contrast to Donald Trump?!

In view of the Democrat party’s escalating Alinsky tactics in recent decades, our confidence in the ability of a controlled Christian gentleman diplomat like, say, Ben Carson, to win the culture war can be shaken.

Americans love the way Donald Trump takes no nonsense from the left and fights back. His counterpunches almost seem appropriate when dealing with practiced Alinskyites like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump not only hits back, but hits back harder– as he did going after Bill Clinton’s sexual history when Hillary accused Trump of sexism. In Donald Trump’s own words, both Clintons “had a very bad weekend”  after Donald was through with them on that issue.

“Can he/she beat Hillary?” is a common litmus test for Republican candidates in this 2016 election, and Donald Trump passes that litmus test.

That is not to say that Donald’s techniques are the best ones in the long run, particularly on the world stage, but we can all appreciate how satisfying it is to see a bully creamed.

Aside: we do need to ask ourselves whether we want to replace one bully with another, and whether a David could slay a Goliath more easily than a second Goliath could do the job, particularly with the assistance of a nation at prayer. We should remember that there is a contrast between the behavior of a Christian and that of a Progressive.

Elephant #2
Why Did We Have 17 Republican Candidates?

.

.

Why 17 Candidates?

.Because there were 17 extremely talented, qualified, and patriotic men and women who were so dismayed at the destructive Progressive agenda of the Obama Administration that they were willing to run for office, to volunteer to captain a sinking ship.

Just as Americans flocked to the polls in 2014 and are flocking to the polls now in 2016 to reverse the progressive dictates of the present Obama administration, so too candidates are flocking to run for President as if to throw themselves sacrificially on the progressive hand grenade.

Note that the vast majority of these candidates are very conservative, and if one counts primary votes for conservatives versus liberals rather than counting votes for individuals, Donald Trump’s supporters are far outnumbered by Americans supporting conservative candidates.

Note also that the Rules of the Republican Party allow for such eventualities, and provide for a brokered convention when one candidate is not able to collect the support of the Party majority.  The brokered convention then does the job of eliminating candidates through a series of votes until one candidate finally achieves a majority.

Elephant #3
The “Big Rule Switch” in Rule 40(b)

Another important Elephant that never seems to be discussed by media is the “Big Rule Switch” that occurred surreptitiously at the 2012 Republican Convention in Tampa, and is now controlling and complicating this 2016 election.

This is important: so pay attention!

The Republican Party has always regarded Primaries in an advisory capacity, particularly since some states have allowed anyone, not just Republicans to vote in a Republican primary.  In recent decades, there have been numerous illegitimate attempts by progressives to hijack the Republican Party via rule changes.

The most recent attempt involved Mitt Romney’s supporters in 2012 succeeding in introducing changes into the Rules of the Republican Party to exclude Ron Paul from participation in the Republican Convention and leaving Mitt Romney as the Presumptive Nominee.

Under the previous rules a candidate needed a plurality (most votes) in 5 State Primaries to go to the Convention.  Two men cleared this hurdle in 2012 – Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Mitt Romney supporters managed in 2012 to get the bar to be set higher- suddenly, on the eve of the Republican Convention in Tampa in 2012, the rules were changed so that a candidate needed to get a majority (51% of votes) in 8 State Primaries to go on to the Convention.  This “Big Rule Switch” in Rule 40(b) excluded Ron Paul from consideration, and handed the nomination to Mitt Romney.

Today, this same “Big Rule Switch” that helped liberal Mitt Romney to get nominated is getting in the way of liberal Donald Trump.  Despite his obvious popularty and clear ability to get the plurality in 5 States, he has not been able to get the majority in 8 States (or in ANY State).  It is looking like NO CANDIDATE will clear the new “Big Rule Switch” bar, and presumably all remaining candidates will go to the convention. Then, after the first vote, it will be possible to add additional names into the running, including those who suspended their campaigns like Scott Walker, and those who never declared candidacy, like Sarah Palin.

The “Big Rule Switch” May Lead Us Into a Brokered Convention

So Mitt Romney’s supporters in 2012 created a rule change which might force us into a “brokered convention” in 2016.  This can actually be a good thing– when Republicans cannot agree on a nominee, having a run-off at the election where candidates compete again and additional candidates can be proposed is a good idea.  This eliminates the danger of nominating a candidate who is backed by less than half the Party – as seems to be the case right now with Donald Trump.

Despite his obvious popularity, Donald Trump has not received a majority, over 50% in ANY state so far, and certainly not in 8 States, so he cannot be considered the Presumptive Nominee by any measure under the “Big Rule Switch” of 2012.

Confirming at the convention that a majority of Republicans are on board with nominating Donald would be a prudent precaution.  Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan were products of a brokered convention, so this is not something to fear.

Elephant #4
Could Primaries and Caucuses Be a Transient and Meaningless Experiment?

Should the  approximately 2500 Republican Delegates who are elected to represent their States at the Republican Convention be bound to vote according to Primary and Caucus results obtained six months prior to the Convention?

According to Curly Haugland, National Committeeman from the North Dakota Republican State Committee, and member of the RNC Rules Committee, for the past 90 years RNC rules have prohibited the binding of Republican delegates.  RNC rules continue to protect the right of each delegate to The Republican National Convention to vote their personal choice on issues coming before the convention, and for the candidate of their choice to receive the party’s nomination.  Senators and Congress members have this right to use judgement, and so do Republican Party delegates.

In recent times, progressives who would like to hijack the Republican Party and the media which supports them have been pressuring Republicans to rely more and more on Primary results, rather than allowing the Convention to be the final determining factor in nomination as it has been in the past.  Some States have even passed laws requiring delegates to be bound by Primary results.  But the Rules of the Republican Party clearly indicate that no State can supersede the Rules of the Republican Party or the freedom of their delegates.

The media pressure and spin has been so great in recent decades that many Americans do not even realize that Primary votes are only advisory in nature, are not binding, that Democrats and Independents participate in Republican Primaries, and that Republican delegates also carry the responsibility to keep candidates accountable to the principles outlined in the Republican Party Platform.

Relying on Primary results might sound democratic, but  giving undue weight to the Primaries actually permits outsiders to hijack the Party more easily and allows in candidates (like Mitt Romney) who do not support the entire Republican Party platform.

Relying heavily on Primary results for nomination also gives more power to money interests, by preserving the results obtained during the Primary season, and taking away the right of elected delegates to use their judgement at the Conventions, as our Senators and Congressmen do when they vote in Washington D.C.

The idea of “binding” delegates to the results of the Primaries also prevents delegates from considering events that occur between the Primaries to the Convention in the nomination process.  What if a Republican candidate was subject to prosecution by the FBI as Democrat Hillary Clinton may be, would delegates still feel bound to vote for that candidate at the Convention?

The idea of holding Primaries and Caucuses to advise Republican delegates of their Party member’s interests was a good idea in the past.  But in this progressive world which legislates allowing Democrats to vote in Republican Primaries, and in which political hijackings occur frequently, the idea of binding has become preposterous, and even the concept of holding Primaries and Caucuses should be reevaluated.

Elephant #5
Super Tuesday Numbers – What Do They Mean?

This 2016 Super Tuesday’s Numbers show three remarkable things:

• Donald Trump did not get a majority (over 50%) in ANY State, let alone 8 States.
  By the 2012 “Big Rule Switch,” he is not the Presumptive Nominee.
• Donald Trump still has only 319 delegates (if you believe in binding) of a required 1,237 to win. He has one quarter of the delegates needed to win, but he cannot even count on those in a climate in which delegates could feel more allegiance to the Party Platform than to a candidate who is not a “social conservative.”
• Republican turnout was phenomenal compared both with previous Republican turnout and compared with Democrat turnout, which was much reduced. So unless an awful lot of Democrats suddenly stayed home on Super Tuesday, this means that a large number of Democrats “turned” and voted for Republicans. American Thinker claims that we are witnessing an incredibly shrinking Democrat Party in this election.

Other conclusions can be drawn from the Super Tuesday numbers as well-

1/3 Trump versus 2/3 Social Conservatives
(AKA Serious Christians)

Since Donald Trump has been averaging 35% of the Republican vote in most States, the other four candidates share the other 65%.

So what?
So here is another Elephant in the room which is never pointed out – that the other four candidates, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Carson, are all “social conservatives” (like me).

What does this mean?
Being “social conservatives” means that they uphold certain moral values – opposing abortion, preserving traditional marriage, and defending religious liberty in the United States. These are, incidentally, fundamental Christian values, or “moral” values.
This means that 65% of voters in Republican Primaries, and that includes some Independents and Democrats, vote “social conservative,” and include morality in their conservatism, not just fiscal conservatism.

It is not surprising that Republican voters and most Republican candidates support “social conservative values” since the Republican Party Platform supports “social conservative” values.

This observation should make for some interesting sorting of votes and delegates at the Republican Convention, and Donald Trump could struggle to reach his desired 51% for nomination. As candidates drop out, social conservative voters will probably go to another social conservative, and not to Donald Trump.

So if you tabulate the Super Tuesday numbers as Trump (“economy rules!”) versus Social Conservatives (“morality rules!”), we could be in for a very interesting convention.  We really could end up electing a poorly known morally upstanding person like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan– not only from the original 17 candidates, but from other sources as well.  Some have even suggested that Sarah Palin is not out of the question.

Last But Not Least- Elephant #6
If This Election Breaks With the Past, What Are the New Rules and the New Determinants for this Election?

The previous 5 issues affecting this 2016 Election indicate that we are breaking new ground here.
We can speculate on who may try what, and what the outcome will ultimately be.
But as mentioned initially, Black Swans are never predictable, and rarely controllable, except through prayer.

Both sides, Republican Progressives and Republican Conservatives, as well as those Democrats who are trying to hijack the Republican Party (from whose ranks Donald Trump has not been entirely out ruled!) may try many of the above approaches to steer things their own way-

• bluffing and claiming victory based on legally non-binding primaries
• threatening and coercing delegates to obtain their votes (happened in 2012, when 400 Republican delegates filed a lawsuit alleging violence and intimidation)
• trying to dominate Republican Rule Committee or Republican Platform Committee to make last minute eve-of-the election changes as was done in 2012
• introducing new candidates during the brokered convention
• trying to convince and/or intimidate delegates that they are indeed “bound”
• using media to spin numbers to their own advantage
• there are many more surprising things that are bound to happen but which are not predictable

What Should We Do?

What should we do?
Me?
I plan to sit back, watch, pray, participate in some conservative activism, and vote.
You should too.
See my election guide from 2014- the same rules still apply- vote for the most moral candidate, pro-life topping the list, and pray.

I truly believe that we are watching the moral reawakening of America, which is guided by an interaction between Church and State – from the bottom up, not religion imposed from above.  I am very excited about Christians having the chance to reclaim our Judeo-Christian roots and our Constitution, and believe that we are now watching this process, emboldened by our delightful Mr. Trump.  The morality that will result will be a synthesis of what we all believe and what we agree on. Like the Constitution, it will be encompassed democratically, grass roots up, in our laws.

What Should We Expect?

CONVERSION OF ST. DONALD?

Should we expect more surprises along the way?
Absolutely.

Who knows, with the surprising nature of Black Swans, Donald Trump could even be our St. Paul!
(Although I am not holding my breath.)

God Bless America, and God Bless Our Candidates!
Any one of the Republican contenders will be an improvement over the Progressive Agenda of the last eight years.

My favorite?
Dr. Ben Carson.
Yes, I know he just announced that he “sees no political path forward” after Super Tuesday’s results.

But re-entry through a brokered convention would not be a political path forward.
Could the good doctor be avoiding the political, high-spending, favor-exchanging world of the Primaries, and be planning to step into the Convention directly and apolitically, where the market of ideas is tested by delegates who uphold the Republican Party Platform?

Time will tell.
That would be one elegant and unexpected possible result.
When you interconnect Church and State, many new options become possible for the American people, with God in their corner.

The Biggest Issue of All

God is a best example of the elephants in the room of American politics- a very large, important and crucial issue that everyone is acutely aware of, but nobody wants to talk about.
The Freedom of Religion Foundation has tried to ensure that.
But we won’t count God as an Elephant; too disrespectful.
However, if you count God in, you will have a smoother ride.
In politics, and everywhere else.

Progressive Media Pontificates on Right to Free Speech While Trampling It

and

WiSJ Disses the Catholic Church, Yet Again

Wisconsin State Journal Publishes a Call to Prayer?

The fact that Wisconsin’s State Journal would more appropriately be named the Wisconsin Progressive Journal is not news to many.

But a recent headline in the Wisconsin State Journal calling for prayer, for first amendment rights and for Jesus, is truly worth noticing. Chris Rickert provided us last week with such an invocation with this headline:

Praying that Bishop has a First Amendment Come-to-Jesus Moment

The Irony

Yes, it’s pretty clear that this call to prayer by Chris Rickert is not genuine and represents an attempt at sarcasm. The headline also represents a number of ironies worth mentioning:

• Disrespectful use of the name of Jesus constitutes blasphemy, insulting not only the God who is a bit more powerful than Chris Rickert, but also the 80% of Americans and Wisconsinites who believe in Him.  Nice job, WiSJ, alienate your  audience from the outset!
• The headline calls for the protection of First Amendment rights, of free speech.  Coming from progressives, who aggressively silence all who disagree with them with name-calling and accusations of hate speech, and who try to ban the mention of Christianity from any public forum, this is amusing.
• The timing of the headline is also highly ironic.  Chris Rickert calls for freedom of speech immediately after  the Wisconsin State Journal withheld freedom of speech from this conservative Catholic, by blocking me from discussion forums in which I was pointing out the slanted reporting of the WiSJ on the Catholic Church.

Nice Job, Chris Rickert- diss Jesus, diss Christians, diss the Catholic Church and Madison’s Bishop, while pontificating on free speech and simultaneously denying free speech in WiSJ discussion forums to those who are not progressives.

Blind Eye Towards Real Catholic News

Why was this Catholic blocked from discussion in the WiSJ?
I cannot speak to what motivated the WiSJ to block me last week.
I can only describe the discussion in which I participated, and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

During November so far, the Wi SJ, was again, somewhat clumsily, mis-portraying the Catholic Church. WiSJ failed to report the news on Nov 17 that Pope Francis reiterated the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman-

“Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity. That is why I stressed in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium that the contribution of marriage to society is ‘indispensable’; that it ‘transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple’ (n. 66). And that is why I am grateful to you for your Colloquium’s emphasis on the benefits that marriage can provide to children, the spouses themselves, and to society.”

He continues, “May this colloquium be an inspiration to all who seek to support and strengthen the union of man and woman in marriage as a unique, natural, fundamental and beautiful good for persons, families, communities, and whole societies.”

In the present media-generated atmosphere of questioning Pope Francis’ “real” position on various Church teachings, this support of traditional marriage was an important story. Unfortunately Pope Francis’ statements did not fall in with the media’s storyline, which tries to portray the new Pope as supportive of  the progressive agenda, despite his repeated assurances that he is a faithful son of the Church.

So this important statement of the Pope’s position on marriage, which would represent real news on religion, of interest to the majority of Wisconsin, was ignored by the WiSJ.

Publishing Dissident Ripples Instead

Yet the Wisconsin State Journal found the time and the space in the last few weeks for FIVE articles on Catholicism, all of which provided a platform and lent credibility to minority dissidents who oppose Catholic teaching:

• In Letter to Pope, Progressive Catholics List Grievances with Madison Diocese – Nov 10, by Doug Erickson- the WiSJ featured 96 LGBT and Call to Action members (96 out of diocese of 270,000, or 0.03 of 1% of Catholics in the Diocese of Madison) because they wrote a dissident letter to the Pope. It should be noted that numerous faithful  Catholic groups and individuals who support of Catholic teaching routinely write letters to the Pope, letters which are never featured in the WiSJ.
• Stubborn Bishop Morlino Causes Divisiveness– Nov 13, by John Murphy – WiSJ published a letter in which one man calls out Bishop Morlino for being stubborn and divisive (for Bishop’s failure to promote John Murphy’s vision of Catholicism and for the Bishop’s adherence to Church teaching).
• Catholic Church is big Enough for All of Us – Nov 14, by Jeanne Burger, WiSJ published a letter in which one dissident, member of the heretical Call to Action and supporter of (non-Catholic) Holy Wisdom Monastery, challenged the Church to include her heretical doctrines because the Church should be “big enough” (to include error?).
• Bishop Robert Morlino Halts Speech, Changes Venue after Tangle with Reporter – Nov 21, by Doug Erickson, in which the WiSJ covered the handful of  non-students who came to stir up controversy during Bishop Morlino’s invited talk to UW Platteville Catholic students. The dissidents brought a media photographer, signs, and hummed their favorite controversial hymn, clearly trying to stir up controversy, which the Bishop avoided by moving the talk to a privately owned location. The WiSJ colluded with the Platteville Journal by publicizing this and giving a Wisconsin-wide platform to 7 or 8 Catholic dissidents.  Meanwhile, these publications routinely fail to report on pro-life activities in Madison which are attended by hundreds and even thousands of Catholics and Christians.
• Praying that Bishop Has a First Amendment Come-to-Jesus Moment – Nov 23, by Chris Rickert, in which WiSJ’s Chris Rickert calls out Bishop Morlino for not having welcomed the Platteville dissidents with their Platteville media supporter in the UW Platteville confrontation that Bishop Morlino managed to defuse and avoid.  Rickert’s headline, claiming to pray that the Catholic Bishop of Madison would have a “Come -to-Jesus Moment” and demanding that the Bishop welcome those who came to disrupt his talk because of the First Amendment, speaks for itself as far as maturity is concerned.

As described above, the WiSJ omitted a major story on Pope Francis and marriage, but focused 5 news items on individuals and minority dissidents who want to change the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Either WiSJ’s journalists do not understand the subject they are writing about, or they are misrepresenting the Catholic Church in the WiSJ intentionally. Neither alternative is very flattering.

I was in the process of pointing these things out in discussion forums at the WiSJ when my posts were suddenly blocked.

Professionalism (and any notion of free speech or of tolerance) had completely been abandoned by the Wisconsin State Journal.

Invoking the First Amendment While Trashing It

Thus the invocation of the First Amendment by WiSJ’s Chris Rickert in his Nov 23rd  article was particularly ironic in the light of WiSJ’s own blocking of my freedom of speech last week.

Progressives seem to advocate freedom of speech selectively- freedom of speech for progressives only- for dissidents, for minorities, and for rabble-rousing local media who seek to stir up controversy, as they tried to do at the Platteville talk.

However, progressives deny First Amendment rights to Bishop Morlino, actively hindering his ability  to speak to his flock.  They also deny faithful Catholics like me, who support Catholic teaching, the right to be heard.

Wi SJ seems to operate via the progressive motto: Freedom of speech for me, but not for you!
Hate speech labels for all who disagree with the progressive agenda.

Now I’m Unblocked…

Now, several days later, my participation in WiSJ discussion has been unblocked- due to what reason, I am not certain.

Perhaps the WiSJ suddenly had, to borrow Chris Rickert’s phrase, a “Let’s Respect the First Amendment Moment.”

More likely, they realized that word could get out if they manipulate their discussion forums.

Publishing Truth

When will the Wisconsin State Journal start publishing the truth about my Church, the Catholic Church?

Unfortunately, progressives don’t seem to speak or publish truth.
Their Alinsky tactics encourage “lack of transparency” (i.e. lies) to fool the “stupid people” of America into voting for the progressive left.
They specialize in attacking those who oppose them, those who represent reason and morality, with lies and misrepresentations.

Their opponents include, among other good people, the Catholic Church.

I’m not holding my breath to see the WiSJ publish the truth about the Catholic Church.

Related Articles:

1. Setting the Record Straight I
2. Setting the Record Straight II
3. Wisconsin State Journal Reports on Bishop Morlino’s Ten Year Anniversary in Madison
4. Catholic Belief Now Defined by Media and Sociologists?
5. Grading Wisconsin State Journal Report on Bishop Morlino’s 10 Year Anniversary in Madison
6. Doug Erickson and the Wisconsin State Journal Are Up to Their Old Tricks or Catholic Bashing in Wisconsin
7. Diocese of Madison Prohibits Field Trips to Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery – or – Progressive Guide to Attacking Catholics

The Holy Season of Lent: Time for Bashing Catholics in Madison Wisconsin

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The Wisconsin State Journal Defiles Itself Again

Common Knowledge

It is common knowledge among people of faith that “enlightened” irreligious progressives who do not engage in customary Lenten spiritual sacrifice/self-improvement, frequently spend Lent attacking Christians and attacking the Catholic Church in the media and elsewhere.

Why? Anybody’s guess.  Too much free time?  Subconscious guilt?  Satan preying on undisciplined minds and spirits?  Conscious exercise of Alinsky Tactics by progressives who want to damage the reputation of the Church?|

After all, the Catholic Church is the largest, most organized and most effective opponent of the radical agenda in the world today, and Madison, home of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the place where embryonic stem cell research was developed and patented, is not a welcoming place for Catholics or for their philosophy.

Predictable Lenten Attacks

So, in predictable fashion, Lenten attacks against Catholics have been escalating in progressive

Madison in recent weeks, led by the Wisconsin State Journal (WiSJ), which seems bent on self-destruction, like it’s partner publication the Cap Times, which is no longer available in print.

The Wisconsin State Journal just published an interview with Madison’s Bishop Morlino about Pope Francis’ teachings.  Although not biased in itself, the interview spawned vicious online discussion attacks on the Bishop, with “enlightened,” highly educated and “tolerant” Madisonians dredging up old false myths and accusations against the Catholic Church, denigrating Madison’s Bishop, and even ridiculing Catholic liturgical vestments.

Unbiased, or Set Up to Spike?

This Wisconsin State Journal’s “unbiased” interview actually only looked unbiased to those uninitiated to Madison and it’s WiSJ. The interview article was actually a set up, like a volleyball play set up by one player for another to spike the ball.  Once the interview was placed by reporter A (Doug Erickson, who incidentally tried just last month to associate the Bishop of Madison falsely with child abuse allegations elsewhere in the US), attackers followed.  The attackers included a second WiSJ reporter B (Chris Rickert), who ridiculed the Bishop’s interview and questioned his motivations in a second article, in which Rickert presumed to know the mind of God.  The Editor John Smalley participated by publishing three letters from angry readers ( 1,  2,  3 ) who attacked the Bishop and the Diocese.  And finally, attackers included the “regulars;” anonymous Madisonians who attack the Catholic Church, the Diocese, and the Bishop routinely in the discussion forums after each WiSJ article published about Catholics.  These “regulars” include Madison’s biggest bullies hiding their true identities behind screen names, lacking the courage to spread their hateful slander undisguised.

Obama Sets Up and Spikes

This set-up-and-spike tactic is not uncommon among progressives; it was the very tactic used by President Obama to attack the Catholic Church in the early planning stages of ObamaCare.  President Obama invited Cardinal Dolan, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to the White House, assured him that ObamaCare will respect the religious rights of Catholic institutions, invited Cardinal Dolan to relay the message to the other bishops to put the Catholic Church at ease, unprepared for what was coming next.  The axe fell a few months later, when President Obama issued the Contraception Mandate, to which many other groups were exempt, but to which the Catholic Church received no exemption, thus requiring Catholic institutions to violate their religious beliefs or be punished financially and cripplingly by law.

At present, President Obama is fighting 91 Religious Liberty lawsuits, and the Vatican’s Chief Justice, Cardinal Burke, has declared that Obama’s policies are “Progressively More Hostile Toward Christian Civilization.”

Intolerant Progressive Dogmatist Attacks

So these set-up-and-spike tactics are not new to progressive politics.  Not too surprising, for a group that advocates free birth control and promiscuity, followed by abortion which perpetrates eugenics, lack of fiscal accountability either in government or in citizenry, and numerous other unethical policies which violate the Ten Commandments and the Constitution of the United States.   The WiSJ simply appeared to be mimicking President Obama in it’s use of tactics against the Catholic Church.

Second Round of Attack – Who Ridicules Victims of Arson?
Stations of the Cross?

The above series of attacks stemming from the interview with Bishop Morlino about the Pope was then followed by reporter B’s (Chris Rickert’s) publishing a very disrespectful piece about the Diocese of Madison’s burnt down Cathedral site in Madison, which now houses a temporary outdoor Stations of the Cross until the economy permits the rebuilding of a Cathedral

Who ridicules? Chris Rickert does

downtown.   In this second round of attacks, Rickert failed to even mention that the plot of land had housed a Cathedral burned down by arson, he showed no sympathy for his fellow Christians (he actually claimed to be a Christian in the piece!) for the tragic loss of their Cathedral, and made wise-cracks about the tax-ability of the land, suggested its use for public bathrooms, lamented that the land was not used for soup kitchens, Girl Scout and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and suggested it would be more useful for tossing a football or for “smooching under the stars.”

If Rickert is truly a Christian, he could look into some Lenten spiritual self-improvement rather than ridiculing the Stations of the Cross during Lent.

Professional Journalism, or Professional Suicide?

The level of misinformation and disrespect delivered by Rickert’s piece was pretty remarkable for someone who claims to be a journalist and claims to have a “laser-like perspective.”  More remarkable is the fact that his editor, John Smalley, allowed it to be published. Finally, most remarkable of all, is the fact that the second largest newspaper in Wisconsin publishes such literary offal.  Offal which insults the 25% Catholic population of Madison, of Wisconsin and of the United States.  All the while claiming to be a mecca of tolerance, intellectualism and enlightenment.

The Wisconsin State Journal is likely to go the way of other progressive organizations that have imploded from their own boomeranging tactics.  That would include the Capital Times of Madison which abandoned print editions in 2008, and the plunging ratings of MSNBC, CNN, and even of President Obama himself, whose lies and misrepresentations are coming home to roost, both at home and abroad.

More Disgruntled Progressives During Lent

Wisconsin State Journal is not alone in their nefarious activities this Lent.  Apparently, the Freedom From Religion Foundation of Madison also got a bee in it’s bonnet over religion recently.  They were incensed to hear that (Christian) Governer Scott Walker tweeted a scripture reference recently  (Philipians 4:13), and demanded removal of the tweet.  The scripture verse reads “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Why would the Freedom From Religion Foundation be in such a quandary over the tweeting of a scripture reference?  Because the scripture reference summarizes the Power of Religion and alerts people to the fundamental reason why Freedom From Religion wants eradication of religion from public life—the fact religion advocates an inviolable moral code, which places limits on the actions in which all, including the powerful, can engage. The Freedom of Religion Foundation is terrified of nice men who are powerful; for politicians, these men are dangerous.  Such men include Pope Francis and Scott Walker.  In actual fact, the Freedom From Religion Foundation represents only 1 out of thousand atheists, and only one out of 10,000 Americans, so they do not represent a serious threat to the rest of 80% Christian America, unless we allow ourselves to be bullied into submission by a pathetic and angry minority.  Most atheists (999 out of 1,000) are quite happy to coexist with Christians without demanding to control their tweets.

Have a Good Productive Lent, Everyone

So, as the disgruntled media and progressives continue their customary attacks on Christians in Madison this Lent, let’s remember that Religion is Power, and including God in the plan helps us to win the war.  Our opponents can attack and sputter as much as they want during Lent, but as Governor Walker reminds us, in Christ, we can do all things.  Lent is our training camp, the Way of the Cross is our salvation, and the Resurrection and Easter are not just symbolic; they are very, very real.

No wonder the Enemy is sputtering at the approach of Lent and Easter each year!

Have a good and spiritually productive Lent, everyone!

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Praise be to God!

Want to Complain?

COMPLAIN TO:

• John Smalley, editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, (608) 252-6104, jsmalley@madison.com
• Doug Erickson, faith and values reporter of the Wisconsin State Journal, (608) 252-6149, derickson@madison.com
• Chris Rickert, metro columnist of the Wisconsin State Journal (608) 252-6198, crickert@madison.com

Want to Pray for Our Bishops?

Check out the cool global map  at Rosary for the Bishop, a website organized in 2005 to help support Bishop Morlino against the attacks he was suffering in Madison, and which now coordinates 1580 members from 258 dioceses and from 996 parishes, who have prayed 278,300 rosaries for 456 bishops globally since then.

Join the effort by signing up to pray as little as one rosary per month for the bishop of your choice. Note: Pope Francis is also a bishop, and you can sign up to pray for him.

Against odds like this, Chris Rickert, Doug Erickson and the Wisconsin State Journal have little chance.

See what happened the last time we took to global prayer: Making Sense of Syria.