The warning that Dowd offers is one I’ve heard a lot when famous political figures die. Whether its Richard Nixon or Ted Kennedy, when a controversial political figure dies, critics fear that the funeral week coverage represents a whitewash of the bad or troublesome things they did, that the act of memorializing them will, as Dowd said, canonize them.

Yet, it doesn’t happen. Nixon was given a lovely funeral and respect from opponents. Yet, he’s still remembered for the way his presidency ended. The decency of Republicans at the dead of Ted Kennedy hasn’t wiped away the stain of Chappaquiddick. In fact, I’m aware of no instance in this country where a political funeral has altered public views of the deceased.

There are two reasons to cast aspersions on the recently deceased politicos. First, you could have an intense hatred for the dead politicians and you can’t stand the idea of them being respected and honored and their family not being reminded of how terrible you think their loved one was. Second, it is possible to have such a high regard for your opinion that you can’t possibly imagine withholding it from the world for something as mundane as showing respect for the dead and their survivors. Neither are particularly good looks.

To forbear from criticizing a recently passed politician that we had issues with develops self-control and humility. Listening and mounring can help us to realize that people we disagree with are human beings who love and are loved.

This period doesn’t last forever. In a few weeks, it’ll be perfectly appropriate to discuss Bush’s weaknesses and shortcomings, but right now, it’s far better to save your criticism for another day.

B

ecause: North Korea has promised to do exactly that — with far more specificity — in the past. The actual paper agreement that Trump and Kim signed is not just worthless on its own, it’s less than worthless given that it literally recycles past worthless promises as if they are new ones. That’s contrary to the opinions of a lot of people on Twitter and TV who think — and feel — that this is Trump’s masterstroke. This isn’t a criticism of Trump. It’s just a simple recognition of reality. The Norks have bamboozled everyone else who extracted promises from them. By all means, let’s hope for the best. But North Korean duplicity is normal.

Allahpundit calls Trump out on agreeing to cancel “very provocative” war games with South Korea though more that he actually used the language of “provocative:

Calling U.S. military exercises with South Korea “very provocative” is a line straight out of the North Korean songbook. American hawks were aghast on social media this morning at the leader of the free world adopting Pyongyang’s rhetoric to describe something the U.S. and South Korea have every legal right to do. Trading a halt to those exercises for a halt to NorK nuke- and missile-testing (a “freeze for freeze”) is defensible, even if NK’s activities are illegal while ours aren’t, but framing them in the terms most favorable to Kim is yet another example of Trump gratuitously flattering the North rhetorically when he didn’t need to.

Speaking of flattering dictatorship, Jay Nordlinger addresses the human rights aspect and examines what’s wrong with Trump’s proclamation that Kim loves his people and they love him by going through the horrors of that regime. Nordlinger concludes:

Bukovsky, the great Soviet dissident, said something like this: “Free World governments should do what they have to do — but as they go about their business, they should occasionally pause to ask, ‘How will it look to the boys in the camps?’”

A lot of Americans care very much about the NFL and the national anthem. But standing up for American values means other things too, such as not perfuming one of the most disgusting and murderous tyrannies ever known to man.

I’m not someone who thinks Donald Trump can’t do anything right. His administration has done quite a few good things. However, to think he would flourish in a 1-on-1 setting with Kim require an industrial sized drink of Trump train kool aid. What is likely to come out of this Trump diplomacy is an agreement that North Koreans won’t follow, and overall Trump has given the North Koreans numerous propoganda victories and is unlikely to get anything out of it.

Truth is that while there are junk polls, and some with bad sampling, most pollsters try to get an accurate picture of the race. Pollsters have made errors in the 2017 elections and it’s worth noting, that both in the Virginia Gubernatorial race and the Alabama Senate race, the Real Clear Politics average was off 3-5%…in favor of Republicans. So much for conspiracies.

“The movie Show Dogs sends a troubling message that grooms children for sexual abuse,” said Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. “It contains multiple scenes where a dog character must have its private parts inspected, in the course of which the dog is uncomfortable and wants to stop but is told to go to a ‘zen place.’ The dog is rewarded with advancing to the final round of the dog show after passing this barrier. Disturbingly, these are similar tactics child abusers use when grooming children—telling them to pretend they are somewhere else, and that they will get a reward for withstanding their discomfort. Children’s movies must be held to a higher standard, and must teach children bodily autonomy, the ability to say ‘no’ and safety, not confusing messages endorsing unwanted genital touching.”

Global Road Entertainment, the film’s producers, defended the film in their initial Facebook post (although they’ve since agreed to edit it):

It has come to our attention that there have been online discussion and concern about a particular scene in Show Dogs, a family comedy that is rated PG. The dog show judging in this film is depicted completely accurately as done at shows around the world; and was performed by professional and highly respected dog show judges. Global Road Entertainment and the filmmakers are saddened and apologize to any parent who feels the scene sends a message other than a comedic moment in the film, with no hidden or ulterior meaning, but respect their right to react to any piece of content.

To borrow an appropriate Southern phrase, “That dog don’t hunt.” As an argument, it’s absurd.  First of all, Show Dogs is a talking dog film. The comedy of talking animals comes from taking an animal and giving it human or humanized reaction to what is happening. This changes the game and makes this far more creepy and of great concern.

I wouldn’t assume that this was intentionally grooming kids (though given the recent scandals involving sexual abuse in Hollywood I wouldn’t rule it out.) It seems likely that someone thought this would be a funny way to push the envelope in a kids film. When it turned out to have a bad meaning, the studio should have made it right immediately. Instead, they tried to defend themselves until some theaters started pulling it and then they announced they would cut two scenes from the film.

I’d also say there’s a somewhat disturbing trend online with many people complaining that the film’s critics are “snowflakes” who can’t understand that a movie’s just a movie. Many add “liberal snowflakes” to emphasize the point. However, one doesn’t have to be a liberal to be concerned about the sexual grooming of kids. We’ve learned there’s a lot of nasty stuff going around over the last couple years. At the same time, our country is dealing with an epidemic of human trafficking and child sexual abuse. This is a real problem.

And it’s also a real problem for too many conservatives to underrate the influence of media, particularly on children. I mean, to get political for a moment, you let your kids spend unlimited amounts of time consuming entertainment created by Viacom and NBC, and wonder why they grow up to be liberals who lack common sense. Entertainment has power that conservatives have ignored to their own detriment.

In the case of child abuse and exploitation, I think a lot of these statements that are lumping this in with overly sensitive “politically correct” reactions to movies and TV shows come from ignorance not malice. However, many of these people have kids and grandkids, so ignorance isn’t acceptable. There are real dangers that your kids face, and it’s not politically correct to learn about those dangers and address them, it’s parentally correct.

So my thoughts on Episodes 1-4 of the Karate Kid sequel series. It’s better than it probably deserves to be. The idea of picking up the story of the Karate Kid more than thirty years after the movie sounds like a joke for a  creative community that seems to always going back to some old hat rather than producing anything new itself.

The genius of Cobra Kai is that it takes advantage of the fact that we’re already invested in these characters to go ahead and tell a story centered around them.

Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) is past fifty but is really stuck in the 1980s in so many ways. He drives the same car he had in High School (which is still a cool ride,) listens to 1980s music, watches 1980s movies, and has the same social attitudes he had as a teenager in the 1980s. In many ways, Johnny’s aggressive eightiesness is what makes the show funny.

Yet, it also makes Johnny tragic. He’s grown older but he hasn’t really grown up. Essentially, he’s a very old high school senior, with self-destructive behavior that hurts himself and others. He has a son he abandoned from the time he was born. The kid has gone wrong and Johnny wants to step in and set him straight, but it’s too late. Johnny’s kid and his mom have given up on him.

So has his step-father (Ed Asner) who after Johnny’s latest scrape with the law, writes him a check to be done with Johnny. He had spent so many years bailing Johnny out of one scrape after another because of his promise to Johnny’s mother. Yet, when a man reaches his late eighties, he shouldn’t have to spend the last years of his life taking care of a fifty-year-old teenager.

Daniel Larusso is the focal point of Johnny’s anger. He obsesses over the final fight. He was robbed. That last kick was illegal.  Daniel is successful and Johnny isn’t and Johnny’s conclusion was that Daniel LaRusso ruined his life. Of course, this is garbage. At the end of the tournament, Johnny had two All-Valley Championships, plus a Second place finish which is a respectable career. He came from an upper class family and should have been able to succeed, but he didn’t.

There may be reasons for it. The competition in the first Karate Kid ended with Johnny handing Daniel the trophy and informing him he was alright. Because, that would be the sensible thing to do. However, Karate Kid II tells us that his sensei Kreese went nuts and kicked Johnny off the team and told him he was “nothing and a loser.” In anger, Johnny barked back with high school with that Kreese was a loser, and then Kreese would have killed him if Mister Miyagi hadn’t stepped in.

In the original trilogy, this showed how Kreese lost the respect of his students, setting up the ludicrous events of Karate Kid III.  Yet, Cobra Kai challenges us to look at it in a different way. Johnny came from a wealthy family but one without his natural father present. Karate was Johnny’s area of success and Kreese was his mentor and father figure. The moment in the parking lot was devastating and Johnny dealt with it in the most unhealthy ways possible.

So far, Johnny has been pushed by the likable and guileless Miguel, a young man without a father in his life. Johnny has already grown four episodes in. In the first episode, Johnny beat up a group of bullies attacking Miguel (mainly because they touched his car) and when Miguel came and asked him to train him, the ex-Bully advised Miguel to try not to be so annoying. Yet, as the series has gone on, the two have begun to bond and Johnny really is beginning to care for him. In some ways, he sees Miguel as a way to make up for his failed relationship with his own son.

For Daniel, life is good. The kid who had to push his mom’s crappy car to avoid it breaking down owns his own car lot, and it’s a nice place with good service and charges good prices, with happy employees.  He’s got a nice house and a wife and two kids.  It’s an idyllic life.  Daniel is a pretty nice, easy-going guy. When Johnny is hit and major damage is done to his car at the start of the series, Daniel has his body guys fix it at no charge and assures Johnny he doesn’t blame him for what happened.

Yet Daniel is plagued by the past in his own way. He’s insecure, as the hero of three martial arts films might be. The very presence of the Cobra Kai dojo alarms him. When a competitor creates a cheezy ad to challenge Daniel’s own bit of cheese, Daniel goes down to the dealership of his competitor and gives him what for. Daniel has enjoyed decades of prosperity and well-being, but you get the sense that he thinks he’s never more than a step away from being that poor bullied kid from Jersey.

After their heated confrontation at the Cobra Kai dojo, Johnny sees that he can get tDaniel’s skin and that’s confirmed at Daniel’s daughter’s high school dance when Daniel confronts him for putting up Cobra Kai posters during the dance. There’s a brief smile on Johnny’s face every time he gets under Daniel’s skin.

Both men are in risky places and have emotional baggage to deal with. (Thoough I think Daniel’s got a carry on bag and Johnny’s got a full set of luggage at this point.) It’s interesting stuff because we’re gaining insight into who these men have become.

 Rather, he referred to members of the murderous gang, MS-13, as “animals” after a questioner brought the outfit up by name. That he was responding to the question, not riffing on illegal immigrants in general, is extremely obvious to anyone who has watched the full footage of the exchange, which, presumably, is why every single news story that suggests otherwise features a truncated clip or transcript that edits the questioner out. Here, from CSPAN, is a good example of the trick.

First of all, let me be clear that as a Christian that I believe God’s grace and forgiveness is available to anyone, including gang members and terrorists. As the old hymn says, “His Grace can set the vilest sinner free. ” So I don’t agree with the use of the term “animals.” That said, they are dangerous people who do horrible things, who our government needs to protect us from, so I understand why Trump said what he did.  To suggest he was making a statement about all illegals is a stretch. (And as an aside, CSPAN is doing this sort of garbage. Really?)

Trump isn’t above a bit of race-baiting and he should be called on it when he does that, but he clearly wasn’t doing that here.  The media not only lied, but stories like this are why many conservatives will shrug off reports with legitimate news of Trump making racially charged statements.

I’ve called Trump out when he’s tried to undermine the free and Independent press, but the media needs  to take responsibility for undermining confidence in their own reporting through cheap stunts like this.

I truly don’t think the Left understands how the relentless drumbeat of sexual scandal looks to Americans outside the progressive bubble. Left-dominated quarters of American life — Hollywood, the media, progressive politics — have been revealed to be havens for the worst sort of ghouls, and each scandal seems to be accompanied by two words that deepen American cynicism and make legions of conservative Americans roll their eyes at the Left’s moral arguments: “Everyone knew.”

French concludes the case with a good explanation of why the Democrats are struggling against Trump:

Moral arguments are always perilous to make. They invariably put a spotlight on the person and the movement making them. They carry with them an implicit requirement to be better. Hillary Clinton could never manage that burden. Now the #Resistance is saddled with the collapsing credibility of major progressive cultural institutions.

The whole thing is worth a read. I’ve always thought that if you think the Access Hollywood Tapes are proof that Trump is a predator (and I think it does), this raises some really troubling questions about the media. There has been a lot of cases regarding this situation, but they always get away because they have the best lawyers from Noonan Law. After all, the tape was made in 2009 and no one said anything. The fact is that the liberal-dominated media culture at NBC was one that would allow a “star” like Trump or Matt Lauer to do whatever he liked to women without repercussion.

I’m no Trump supporter, but the problem isn’t that the evil and immoral party is in power.  It is that there is no good or decent party and that’s the problem we need to remedy.

Brad Little showed the Butch Otter formula worked: run a campaign pretending to be a conservative and dress like a cowboy while gathering behind you the endorsement of newspapers and the unparalleled strength of the Idaho Republican establishment and teachers unions and you too can be nominated for Governor.

Little should prevail in the Fall. Jordan has many positives as a candidate and will draw massive media coverage due to her being a Native American woman running for Governor. She has some good qualities as a candidate. However, she’s too liberal for the state, particularly on abortion. Resentment against Little runs high in the GOP, where nearly 2/3 of Idaho Republicans wanted someone else.  I think most Republicans will hold their nose despite objections to him. I’ll vote for neither of them.

I’d like to congratulate Tommy Ahlquist on running a positive, inspiring campaign. I’d like to, but I can’t. His campaign was an utter disgrace. The Idaho Governor’s primary was so toxic due to Ahlquist’s negative, scorched Earth campaign. I had little opinion of Tommy Ahlquist one way or another when this started. I thought he was a well-intentioned guy (and maybe he was) but as he filled the airwaves and our mailboxes with his negative trash campaign, I began to loathe his campaign.

I lost count of the number of pieces of campaign literature I received in the mail from this guy. It was ridiculous. Here’s a tip for a future outsider candidate. Try making us feel good about you rather than trying to make us hate your opponents. The successful outsider candidates make us feel like we’re dealing with a Class A individual who would be great at the job despite their lack of experience. Ahlquist couldn’t do that, so he tore down his opponents. And neither Labrador nor Little had the mind-blowing scandal or corruption that would make for a successful negative campaign, so Ahlquist was left trying to blow up petty issues into the scandal of the year. As much as I don’t like Brad Little, the fact Tommy Ahlquist’s attempt to buy our governorship failed is a positive.

Given Ahlquist campaigned against the political establishment and cronyism, it’s fair to ask, was he a vote-splitting phenomenon that helped prolong the run of the Idaho political establishment? Many Labrador supporters might say that, but I’ll admit to being less sure. The campaign was endorsed by Mitt Romney. Many of the figures who ran his campaign are the type of people you’d expect to be backing Little, but I also think he ran a campaign that had a conservative platform and was for term limits. For Ahlquist’s campaign to have been decisive, 58% of his supporters would have to be people who would back Labrador if Ahlquist wasn’t in the race, and I don’t think that’s the case. If it is, it can’t be proved.

As to Raul Labrador, this is his first political loss, but it hardly finishes him off. He has many great qualities as an intelligent guy and he can run for office again if he chooses. Jim Risch isn’t a spring chicken and his current term expires in 2020. If Labrador wants to run for the Senate, he could have an opportunity if there’s a retirement. He also could get an appointment in the Trump Administration if he so desires. (But who desires that?)

That does bring me to Raul Labrador’s greatest mistake in this election. He decided to wrap his campaign in support for Donald Trump and to bludgeon Little and Ahlquist for being insufficiently supportive of Trump in 2016. I can see the strategy behind it, Trump won Idaho by a solid margin in the General election, and it’s been one of the few states where Trump has maintained an approval rating above water. Being the guy who stood by Trump should make you successful in MAGA-land.

However, Idaho was one of Trump’s worst primary states.  In the 2016 Republican Primaries, 72% of Idaho Republicans voted for someone else. In the fall, 7% of voters voted for Evan McMullin, 4% voted for Gary Johnson, and a combined 1% voted for Darryl Castle and Scott Copeland. That’s a pretty large chunk of the right in this state that didn’t back Trump. And even many who voted for Trump did so with reservations, and only voted for Trump because they didn’t want  Clinton to win.

By making an issue over who was most supportive of Trump in 2016, Labrador’s campaign said to voters who were less than enthused about Trump, “We don’t understand you and think you are bad people because you didn’t get behind this campaign or you struggled to do so.” I voted for Labrador despite his crowing about being the pro-Trump candidate, not because of it.

I like him as a person and I thought he had a great plan for our state, so I can get past the whole Trump thing. But I can get how he would turn many people off.  The fact is, Trump has endorsed a lot of good candidates and a lot of candidates have tried to wrap themselves in his banner, and no candidate has won because of Trump other than Trump. This goes back to Trump’s first endorsement after becoming the presumptive nominee. He backed Renee Elmers for re-nomination for Congress and she lost. Consider Luther Strange in Alabama. Trying to prove you’re the biggest Trump sycophant in the race isn’t how you win anything.

Despite this, there’s not a market for being anti-Trump in the Idaho Republican Party. However, there’s a significant downside to trying to shame voters who were less than enthused with Trump in 2016.

And the fact is Raul isn’t a Trump sycophant. He was the only candidate who Trump mean-tweeted. Raul Labrador record is as a  principled conservative who didn’t always go along with the powerful whether it was Butch Otter, John Boehner, or Donald Trump.  I hope Labrador takes a lesson from this and if he runs again, he runs his own race as his own person and ignores other campaigns in the past. Run your own race, not someone else’s. There is no reason to limit the number of voters who will back you by being divisive about a campaign that’s over.

All along, in other words, I didn’t doubt Hill. I knew the truth was on her side. But I was subconsciously belittling her experience, and that was wrong. In 2017, post-Weinstein, we can’t let sexual harassment slide just because it doesn’t rise to the severity of rape, or because we believe that boys will be boys…

Yet, I disagree with Goldberg that President Trump deserves the Award. He’s made news and stirred up controversy but affected very little change. Historically after naming a President, Time goes another direction with its next choice.

#MeToo has made a huge impact. The number of icons that have been toppled by women alleging sexual harassment/assault has been stunning: Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, in Louis C.K. and more. It’s a joke that in 2016 if someone was trending on Twitter, it was because they died. In 2017, it was because they were charged with sexual harassment. It’s forced us to confront some true ugliness we’ve avoided for a long time. It’s brought a day of reckoning that is long overdue. It may turn ugly before it’s all said and done, but we can’t ignore these issues any longer.

Trump has continued to be Trump, and through all the bluster is a still meager legislative portfolio. He’s been more active in media criticism. #MeToo has succeeded in getting two major network morning show hosts fired, which is two more than Trump.  ’nuff said.

It’s worth noting that if Trump to repeats as Person of the Year, he’d be the second President to do so. The first was Richard Nixon. Does this President really need more Nixonian precedents?

Relevant links:

Castle 2016

Castle Report
Constitution Party

I’m officially endorsing Marco Rubio for President of the United States and he will have my vote on March 8th. I believe that he has the financial resources to carry the fight against Donald Trump’s fraud, indecency, and authoritarian tendencies all the way to Cleveland and prevail.

More importantly, I believe he offers a contrast to Donald Trump. In Donald Trump, we’re offered bluster, we’re offered a man who preys on people’s fear, anger, and ignorance, and stokes those fires of rage so that they will think their only hope is to vote for him.

Marco Rubio is cut from a different cloth. He is a principled conservative with a 98% Conservative Rating from the American Conservative Union, but he is also a person who speaks to our best hopes and dreams for our  country. He speaks in a way that inspires optimism about our country and after these last dark divisive years, Marco Rubio would represent a needed change.

He’s un-apologetically pro-life and will defund Planned Parenthood. He will stand for religious liberty and I trust him to pick the next Justices of the Supreme Court. If he is elected, he will be the most Conservative president America has ever had and he has a record of advocating and fighting for conservative principles.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I don’t agree with all that Senator Rubio did in his career. The Gang of Eight immigration bill he pushed in 2013 was a mistake. It failed because you cannot address anything on immigration until you secure the border. Government has broken trust too often with the American people  I can understand why he supported it: with Obama as President, the only way our border would be secured is if a comprehensive deal was reached. However, Senator Rubio has learned from his mistake and has made clear that as President he will secure the border first.  Some will call the Gang of Eight an unforgivable betrayal. I’ll call it a mistake. I do not believe a healthy or wise political movement identifies otherwise outstanding leaders as “heretics” and excommunicates them.

As for Senator Cruz, I would vote for him in a second over Donald Trump, however all things being equal, I prefer Marco Rubio. In addition, I do not see a path to the nomination for Senator Cruz (Leon Wolf of Red State writes more extensively on this.) Governor John Kasich is a good man but I can’t trust him on religious liberty. As for Ben Carson, he’s a good man, but not long for this race.

This has been a long and difficult campaign and during such a campaign many things will be said that candidates don’t mean. If you wonder about the conservative bona fides of Senator Marco Rubio, I want you to consider this statement by a well-known conservative to Senator Rubio and the entire nation. Keep in mind this was  a statement he made after the Gang of Eight bill. H

“You inspire me. Senator Marco Rubio is a critical national leader…Let me tell you, I don’t know if there’s any more effective, more articulate, more persuasive voice for conservative principles than my friend, Marco Rubio. ..His victory in 2010 was a transformational moment in American politics.”

Who heaped such praise on Marco Rubio even after the Gang of Eight bill? None other than the junior Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. (See: here)

In the end, I choose hope. I choose a proven pro-life conservative who can grow the Republican Party and the conservative movement. I choose a leader who has the intelligence and the personal skills to address the challenges our country faces. I choose one of the best-informed voices on foreign policy in our party I endorse Marco Rubio for President.

Many Americans have romantic ideas about revolutions. We cheer the overthrow of bad regimes by violent force to bring change in other parts of the globe. In recent years, revolutions that Americans have cheered have led to the rise of state sponsors of terrorism. In the past, “the people” declaring revolutions led to the reign of terror in the eighteenth century, and the mass genocide of Stalinism and Mao that left tens of millions dead.

Most revolutions don’t end quite so horrifically. But too often, after thousands of men have given their lives for liberty, those they left behind discover the new boss is the same as the old boss as powerful “freedom fighters” take power over others as the spoils of war.

Imagine, an incompetent government that can’t even pay its own soldiers with a beloved general who was popular both with soldiers and the people. The general could easily exploit his way into leading the disgruntled soldiers to overthrow the government and install him as the new ruler.

George Washington faced the same opportunity as the Continental Congress had failed to make provision to pay its long suffering victorious army.  Washington could have seized power from the weak Congress. Instead, he visited the soldiers and appealed to the soldiers to give Congress more time. As he was reading a letter from Congress, he stumbled over several words. It was then, that he removed from his coat pocket, a pair of spectacles and offered an apology.  “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”  This simple gesture moved the soldiers who voted unanimously to except civilian rule.

Washington resigned his commission and returned to Mount Vernon to private life, with the respect of his country who would call him to Chair the Constitutional Convention and then to be President of the United States. President, and not king as he could have been.

February 15^th will be heralded in most places as, “Presidents Day,” a time for sales on couches and mattresses with talking Washington and Lincoln cartoons to hawk their wares. However, the Federal Holiday isn’t President’s Day. The federal Holiday is still listed as Washington’s Birthday.  It’s not a day to honor the good and bad of the more than forty men who’ve come after him, but a day to honor the greatest of our Founding Fathers.

The Presidency is defined today by a never-ending quest to obtain the office and to maintain it. Yet, Washington’s birthday points us back to an extraordinary man who was quite different. He won a Revolution, but that’s not why he’s remarkable. What’s remarkable is that he won the Revolution, resigned his commission, and returned home.

A bad man would have been tempted to take power for ego and a lust to rule over others. Even a good man could decide that he would make a fine king and do a much better job running this country for the people than those idiots in Congress. Yet, Washington went back to his farm, which is why America is a republic today.

Washington was flawed and imperfect like all of us, but his selfless service to country and his dedication to the principle of republican government raise a standard which more of our politicians should aspire to.

“We may want to have hearings on this,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an influential voice among GOP hardliners and a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in an interview at the Capitol. “We shouldn’t be surprised they were misleading us.”

Actually Congressman Jordan, unless you want to waste a bunch of time, you should not have a hearing on this. There’s nothing to be learned from a hearing.

The type of hearing Jordan would go exactly like this:

1. Jonathan Gruber delivers a long and boring opening statement.
2. Republican member of Congress spend the entirety of the hearing trying to smack down Gruber or confronting him while Democrats defend him or more likely Obamacare and its outcomes.
3. After the hearing the best clips appear on You Tube, Talk radio, and partisan television programs.
4. A day of committee time is wasted.

And so many of these sort of hearings which are political showcases take place in Washington. Both sides have been guilty of these sort of hearings. You can track it back it to the Iran Contra hearings. The American people have seen the dance and knows that the one thing these hearings aren’t about is: finding the truth. Congress has destroyed its credibility and destroyed the power of its oversight process, and a hearing on Mr. Gruber’s statement would be just another in a train of abuses.

Besides, Gruber was wrong. The American Voter wasn’t stupid. Congress passed Obamacare despite calls, letters, and emails showing the opposition of the American people. The voters then punished Democrats in the 2010 elections. There’s no need for an investigation of that.

Thanks for keeping in touch people, here is a free iherb gift for you guys. Enjoy

I’m not a runner.

This Fall, I’ll be participating in four half marathons in five weeks.  Here’s the reason why:

There are hundreds of thousands of AIDS orphans in India. Either their parents have died or they have been abandoned. They face starvation, and a future without hope.

Send Hope has established orphanages in India where these children who would otherwise be abandoned, are given food, clothing, medicine, education, and more importantly, love and hope.

Run for Heaven’s Gate began in Boise at a grassroots level several years ago to raise funds for these children in India with walker and runners doing four half marathons to raise funds for the orphans in India. I heard about it church and decided that this year, I was actually going to do it and I’ve been training for it since March.

It’s been quite an experience. Prior to this year, the longest I’d ever walked was 5K or 3.1 miles. Prior to Run for Heaven’s Gate, Saturday was my “sleep in day,” now I’m getting early and going to bed early on Friday. I’ve been introduced to a whole new world where people take things like GU to prepare for long runs and where it really does make sense to pay extra for good shoes because good shoes are cheaper than physical therapists.

While I hope that  I become more fit through this whole process, I admit that there is no way I could imagine doing this except for the fact that in India, there are children whose futures lay in the balance between life and hope and death and despair. Run for Heaven’s Gate gives me an opportunity to make a difference in their lives. Every dollar raised goes to help these kids and every $400 raised will cover all the needs of a child in India for a whole year.

You can make a tax deductible pledge in any amount support of my walk by going here/.

Senator: Jim Risch

I’m pleased with the job he’s done for our state and I think he deserves another term.

Congressman 2nd District: Bryan Smith

Mr. Simpson has fought dirty throughout this race and tried to lie about liberal he is. And let me say, I don’t think he’s liberal per se. He’d be considered Conservative if he were running in I don’t know Brooklyn, but this is Idaho. He doesn’t take the threat of our national debt seriously as he proposes only the passage of a Constitutional Amendment to Balance the Budget. Given how Simpson spends tax money on bigger government and more spending, he’s practically begging us, “Stop me before I spend again.” We need more fiscal discipline.

Governor: Russ Fulcher

I think Butch Otter may have held to many fine principles, maybe sometimes in the 1970s or 1980s,  but his tenure in office and overall legacy as Governor is as someone who flounced around reactively from one situation to the next. He has no ideas to move the state forward. He has no ideas to create an environment to create high quality jobs. He represents a time of careerism and cronyism that is the corrosive battery acid eating away at our state’s civic life. His desperation was shown in his stunt on the debate stage.

I would give more credence to his malarkey rhetoric about wanting every candidate to be heard if he hadn’t flat out refused to debate Rex Rammell, Sharon Ullman, Pete Peterson, and Walt Bayes in 2010.

Lieutenant Governor: Jim Chmelik

I support replacing Brad Little because getting rid of Otter without replacing Little merely allows the oligarchy to continue.

Secretary of State: Lawrence Denney

It’s a tough call between him and Toryanski in my heart, but my gut says it’s either Denney or another four years of the party establishment.

State Controller: Todd Hatfield

Attorney General: Chris Troupis

I don’t hold the matter of Wasden’s office accidentally signing wrong brief in Heller and then correcting it. It was a bad show to be sure. I just believe Chris Troupis would be a better attorney general.

Treasurer: Ron Crane

Superintendent: John Enyon

Supreme Court Justice: Joel Horton

Judicial campaigns are studies in false advertising. A candidate has to give both sides of the aisle that they’re with them and I know that are convinced that Breck Seiniger is with them, but he’s also posting on the Idaho Young Democrat Facebook wall. Horton hasn’t been that bad and I’m not convinced his opponent will be better, so I’m voting for Horton.

Ada County Coroner: Mike Chilton

District 4 Judge: Richard Greenwood

I honestly don’t even known if I’m in this district. Judged by the mailers by Les Bock I am but several tools say that I’m not. Regardless, if you have this race on your ballot, vote for Arnold. Bock failed as one of Idaho’s furthest left legislators and now once his chance to began a career in the world of black robed tyranny.  Let’s retire Les Bock for good.

District 4 Judge: Samuel Hoagland

Apparently, someone at Walt Disney didn’t the memo based on what the studio managed to produce, a violent and dark movie that left little room for the Lone Ranger creed or its high ideals. Many who have a memory of this character are saddened and angered by the motion picture version’s bastardization of the concept.

There was a time when the American entertainment industry produced great works: Comedies that were funny without relying on lewdness and profanity to get a laugh with comedic geniuses like Abbott and Costello and Red Skelton, there were great human dramas that taught moral points, and productions that had to tell powerful stories that would engage us without the benefit of being able to drop a stream of F-bombs, throw naked bodies on the screen, or just blow things up for the heck of it.

Hollywood doesn’t usually produce these type of films. Hollywood will often try to recapture golden age glory with their own updated version of classic stories but usually ends up producing something really stupid or offensive. The best Hollywood can do is to mock and belittle any wholesomeness and goodness in productions like Dragnet ’87 or The Brady Brunch. Hollywood only rarely gets it right, as they did with the 2011 film Captain America, but that was a definite exception.

The only way that future generations will understand and enjoy the great cultural works of the 1940s and 50s is if people deliberately and intentionally pass them on. The best way is from parents to their children like i did with my child with an in-depth guide on dual showerheads. Growing up, my dad exposed to me to Abbott and Costello, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Pride of the Yankees, and many other programs and movies that were before my time. Because of that I really gained an appreciation of so much golden agen entertainment.
With the proliferation of DVDs, we’ve never had greater access to golden age cultural works of years gone by. If we want kids to enjoy wholesome quality entertainment, we shouldn’t wait for Hollywood to produce a film. It’s really a do it yourself job.

Let me preface this blog post by saying:

1) I love animal and I love the zoo.

2) My wife and I hold an annual pass to Zoo Boise.

3) We were upset when the monkey was killed by the burglar there several months back.

I say all that to say that overall I really enjoy the zoo and there’s a lot of great things to see there from Butterflies to Giraffes.

However, today I encountered something that was disquieting: robotic dinosaurs have invaded Zoo Boise. The park is full of several of these large metal beasts. The design ranges from lifelike T-rex to the somewhat less implausible looking specimens.

And they roared.

Loudly.

All the time.

It was hard to find a single corner of the zoo where you couldn’t hear dinosaurs “roaring.” I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the animals were bothered by the noise. None showed it full proof, but it bugged my wife and I.

Yet the kids at the zoo to love them and be fixated on them. Adults had some mixed reaction. I heard one guy say, “I didn’t know the dinosaurs would be such a big distraction.”

At times, I felt like at 32, I’d become just an old grump unable to relate to kids joy at the dinosaurs. Maybe, I was too worried about the noise to really enjoy it.

I did have some fun with a t-rex later. But I think it comes back to what that other gentleman said. It’s a distraction from the point of the zoo. The point of a zoo is to enjoy living animals who don’t always roar from lions to tigers, giraffes, the sloth bear, the red panda. These are wonderful masterpieces of Almighty God

We get so much electronic stuff, the zoo ought to be place where we ought to be able to appreciate enjoy the real natural creatures, even in a situation that’s far removed from their natural habitat. The zoo has welcomed several new baby animals, in addition to the existing wonderful stock.

Loud roaring robotic dinosaurs have their place: At a theme park,  or a big science center. But at a zoo, they’re just stealing the show from the creatures who should be on center stage.

Let me say that first off, if Raul Labrador runs for Governor, I will be behind him 150%. The question of whether he should run is going to be up to him and will depend on where he can make the most difference?

Being in the House of Representatives is an often difficult job particularly when the House as a whole has such weak-kneed and fiscally liberal folks as Mike Simpson in it. It’s dysfunctional and any conservative gains are going to be stymied by a Democratic President and Senate. This will be the case for at least the next four years.

In Idaho on the other hand, Raul Labrador would have a huge Republican contingent in the legislature, and the ability to dramatically impact state policy on issues such as taxes, size of government, and reform of education.

I have to wonder if people who think Raul Labrador should stay in Washington DC have fallen into the trap of thinking what goes on in Washington is far more important that what is happening at our State Capitol. It’s not so.

Republicans have held the Governor’s Mansion in our state for going on 20 years, with all but Jim Risch’s six month tenure seeing the Governor’s mansion occupied by hard-core party establishment guys like Phil Batt, Dirk Kempthorne, and Butch Otter. The question Idaho Conservatives is, Are we better off now than we were twenty years ago?

Other than getting some pro-life legislation passed, how different would our state be if we’d been led to that most endangered of political dinosaurs, the Idaho Moderate Democrat leading our state with Republican legislatures we have had. Given the size of the GOP majorities, we ought to have made serious changes to our state, we ought to be a model of wise and prudent tax policy, of innovative limited government.

Instead, what do we have? We have an income tax code that’s a refugee from the progressive era.  A sales tax that plays so many favorites and picks so many winners and losers that it excludes more sales than it taxes. We have an education system that is in desperate need of reform, and a sprawling state government that we didn’t use the late fiscal shortfalls as a chance to fix.

The reason for this is that we have a state leadership that views power as an end.  Conservatives need to change the state executive desperately but have shown very little competence in doing so.

In 2010, the best conservatives could come up with was Rex Rammell.  If conservatives don’t plan to win the Governorship in 2014, they’ll easily lose it with another lackluster candidate.

To be clear, Raul Labrador is not the only candidate who would make a fine Governor. I’ve often thought the same of Senators Russ Fulcher and Marv Hagedorn. However, what makes Raul Labrador such an interesting potential candidate is that he has the name recognition and fundraising base to easily run this campaign while others will have to work to get that statewide recognition.

While I’d hate to lose Raul Labrador’s legislative capabilities in Washington, our state needs Conservative leadership in the governor’s office that’ll make up for the past twenty wasted stagnant years. So, if Raul Labrador thinks he can makes a difference as Governor, I hope he runs.

If not, I hope conservatives can offer a serious alternative to a continuation of the status quo of Batt-Kempthorne-Otter.

I did not swear to uphold just part of the Constitution. Our Constitution includes the right to keep and bear arms, but it also includes the “supremacy clause” that says that every state shall abide by the laws passed by our Congress.

So, despite the fact that I personally oppose some of the gun control measures currently under consideration, my oath requires me to uphold the laws that are passed by our federal and state representatives…

I fear that passions have led people into a rally of mistruth. It is time we truly respect the Constitution and our system of justice. Regardless of your personal opinion on the Second Amendment, embrace everyone’s liberty and use our well-established process to pass laws and contest them.

• I’m on board if Congressman Raul Labrador runs for governor. We’ve had a Republican Governor in Idaho for 20 years but you wouldn’t know it looking at the state of our state’s finances, its tax code, or its education system.  We ought to be one of the most innovative conservative states in the nation. Instead, we have a Governor who is willing to rest on his laurels and propose insignificant bills that due nothing to address our state’s fundamental tax and fiscal problems which sees our state so often running behind. I think Raul Labrador would offer Idaho a new generation of leadership. Though if he doesn’t run, I hope some conservative will actually offer an alternative to Otter. If Otter is re-elected expect to accomplishment the name of his running mate-little. And if conservatives choose to sit idly by and let Otter cruise to another term, they’re choosing the slow and steady decline of our stat.e
• Idaho Reporter notes Butch Otter has gone from proposing eliminating funding for IPTV to offering an increase a budge. Of course Otter was for eliminating in 2010 when he was facing a primary and needed to throw a bone to conservative voters. Though perhaps, its a case of “once bitten twice shy.” I don’t think the way that Senator Sheryl Nuxoll framed the issue helped the cause of reducing it, “Private enterprise is where innovation comes from. I believe the private sector could fulfill the niche that Idaho Public Television currently fulfills.” Laudable sentiments but that turns the debate into an existence over IPTV and state funding or no, it won’t go away. They’ll run an extra telethon or so, but it won’t go away.  There are people who like classical music on the radio or Masterpiece Theater who get upset when you threaten their public broadcasting. This debate shouldn’t be about “ending public television” but ending subsidies for public television. The reason the left is gung ho about government funding is that they believe the government should be funding this in toto as an ideological commitment. That’s the argument you have to take down. Going to war with Public TV as a concept is a bad idea.
• Count me as a “yes” for making it harder for initiatives and referenda to qualify for the ballot. I’ve become less a fan of direct democracy over time. As someone who tries to cast informed voters and really studies issues, I love the idea of  direct democracy. The reality is though that our founders had good reason for making our country a Republic. If you look at California and how its problems have resulted (to some extent) from a bevy of ballot initiatives that often run at cross-purposes from one another.  The California ballot is unruly with its endless pages of initiatives.  Few people are going to realistically take the time to study every little issue on a very lengthy ballot. That’s why our founders gave us a republican form of system where we the people designate representatives to act on our behalf. Now, if we have representatives who refuse to pass good laws or pass bad ones, we don’t need a referendum, we need new representatives.
• Finally, I’ve never before announced that an issue will be on the Idaho Conservative scorecard, but let me go ahead and make an exception. Health Care Exchanges will be on the scorecard and a vote against the Health Care Exchanges will be scored a conservative vote.

Owyhee Prosecutor Doug Emory said Thursday he would not seek the death penalty against Herrera, who could still be sent to prison for life, without parole, if found guilty of first degree murder.

An Owyhee County grand jury found late last year that Herrera, “with the intentional application of torture,” intentionally inflicted “extreme and prolonged pain,” by “inflicting repeated acts of blunt force trauma upon (Nakita) by means of physical force … emotional abuse, and/or lack of physical and/or medical care, which caused bruising, pain, burns, broken bones, and injuries,” that led to the toddler’s death on Aug. 16.

You know some people think Idaho is intolerant. Let me suggest that we’re way too tolerant and lax on real evil. I’m not an advocate of willy nilly application of the death penalty, but if there’s a case where it should apply. It’s this one. If what the prosecutor alleges is true. This woman took a child who it was her duty to protect and tortured and destroyed her. If Convicted, this woman should face the death penalty.

But I think prosecutors have been very lax in using it when it should be used against people who have done unspeakable acts of evil. Prosecutors shy away from it. Maybe, it’s because it’s such a pain to work through and Idaho’s Capitol Punishment laws are a joke. We have people who’ve been waiting thirty years for their execution and their victims also waiting.  It is a messed up system and it needs to be fixed.

It also requires prosecutors who are willing to actually pursue the necessary sentence rather than taking the easy way out.

In 2011 When Speaker Boehner had a chance to demand real fiscal change, he instead blinked when facing President Obama and relented with a milquetoast deal that raised the debt ceiling with the feckless expectation that a bi-partisan commission would come up with cuts or there would be automatic spending cuts. The bi-partisan commission predictably failed and the cuts that were proposed to justify the last giant increase in the debt ceiling have been something every politician has been trying to avoid occurring.

Then this past year, Speaker Boehner,  floundered in negotiations with President Obama punted to the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, ending up with a bill that increases the debt limit by increasing taxes $40 for every $1 in spending cuts.

Talk about crap sandwiches. It’s time for John Boehner to go.

He became Republican leader in 2006 after Tom DeLay resigned. He was chosen as a compromise candidate between the status quo roughshod management style of then Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Conservative Stalwart John Shadegg (R-Az.).  He is Speaker by accident and he has shown no talents particular for the job.

Boehner has no negotiating acumen. He is constantly outmaneuvered at every turn by the White House in negotiations. Despite, a working class background, he does not communicate effectively with the American people.

He doesn’t seem to have a Caucus that’s willing to follow him. He proposed a “Plan B” that would raise taxes only on those earning $1 million or more and was unable to get his own caucus to support it.  This could have been because, knowing that he would need conservative support for any sort of debt ceiling deal, he antagonized that part of his caucus by punishing four members of the Caucus for not towing the party line. He’s no better with the moderate side of the Republican Caucus. When he was minority leader, he failed to get the moderates to go along with an earmark ban within the Republican Caucus.

The only sort of “leadership” Boehner is capable of is presenting doomsday scenarios as he did on TARP and on the fiscal cliff to frighten cowardly politicians into betraying conservative principles. John Boehner is like a general whose only talent is leading retreats.

When people speak of John Boehner and his defense, they say he’s a good man. I don’t dispute it, but that’s not good enough. They say it’s a tough job, and they’re right. But the fact remains that it’s a tough job he has shown himself incapable of doing.

They may even argue in defense of this bill that it was necessary for Republicans to get the tax issue off the table. The debate had ceased to be about deficit spending and had become about the willingness of Republicans to vainly block tax increases on the rich. Their may be a kernel of truth to that, but whose fault is it that the debate got away from Republicans? None other than Boehner’s.

Republicans might hope that with the tax issue off the table they can turn this debate back to spending and reducing our mammoth debt. However, they’d be wrong, as long as John Boehner remains Speaker of the House. Boehner has turned the Speaker’s office into a veritable “Crap Sandwich” stand and Democrats can expect that he will cry and quote poetry, but at the end of the day, he will blink and once again he’ll serve up his apologies and tell the House and the American people to swallow the latest confection that has happened to him. If Republicans expect a different result, they’d better get a different Speaker.

Nothing symbolizes what’s wrong with the Republican Party in America than that the fact that John Boehner is the most powerful Republican in this country. As long as that’s the case, the Republican Party is pointless and irrelevant. The Republican Party’s position today is reminiscent of the post-World War II GOP that enjoyed terms in the majority but squandered it’s time there behind the listless leadership of Speaker Joseph Martin who led the Republican Party to become a minority for forty years.

If there are not seventeen members in the entire House Republican membership who have the courage to prevent the re-election of this leader who is dragging our Party and our country, than the Republican Party isn’t worth a red cent. To be clear, if John Boehner is re-elected Speaker of the House, I intend to expend no effort for and give no money to the national Republican Party and its various committees. As long as John Boehner remains America’s most influential Republican, it is  a waste of time, energy, and money.

Gun control wouldn’t have prevented this (indeed a story from China about the knifing of 22 children shows the folly of it), a pistol packing teacher  mitigated the tragedy. Neither would have prevented it. We’re dealing with a type of evil deep-seated with the heart of our nation.

The problem comes down to this: We are no longer a  God-fearing nation. This is not to say that we are atheists or agnostics, far from it. And this is not a Jerry Falwell style, “Atheists, agnostics, abortionists, and homosexuals caused 9/11” rant.

In some ways, the non-religious person is more honest than many American professed Christians. Americans serve a designer God, a convenient God who fits their needs.  We want a God who approves everything we do, who calls us to nothing higher. We want a Santa Claus in the sky who will help us out.  We want a God who allows us to be comfortable, who allows us to fit in. We want a God who is flexible enough to change with our times.

Or perhaps we just want a God whose up there but stays out of our business.

This isn’t the God of the Bible. This isn’t the God of our Founding Fathers. This God is an amorphous blob, an impressionist painting splattered on the wall that can be whatever you want it to be.  We are a nation with no fear or reverence for God.  God is merely a mascot and symbol we use in pursuit of what we want.

In prior generations, people would avoid even taking God’s name in vain and would apologize if they did. Now, “OMG!” is a frequent throw away phrase on chat. ” Today, God is sport for the denizens of Comedy Central and Hollywood make of Christ and His sacrifice.

We are surrounded by an entire culture from every generation that treats God as either non-existent or irrelevant whether its politics, business, or entertainment, the story is the same.

The question ultimately is whether a culture that dishonors God in sexual relations, in marriages, in the workplace, in child rearing methods, in education, in politics, in business practices, and in every other area of life can truly expect anyone or anything else to be treated as sacred. As long as we are a nation that tells people that it comes to morals that God doesn’t care and that you can, “Make it up as you go,” then we can expect that some of this improvisation will end up hurting people who will in turn hurt others.

We like to feel powerful, like there’s .  In politics, our leaders like to think they can do something to fix every problem. We like to think there’s a simple way we can fix things. Even comic book writers do it. J Michael Straczynski and his fans have come up with their own seven point  proposal. There has to be some amazing magic legislation that can avoid this.

However, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, “Of writing many blog posts, there is no end…Fear God and keep His Commandments.” That advice isn’t popular, but it’s the only that will work. And the implementation doesn’t begin in Washington DC or some state Capital. It begins in your house and mine which makes easier and harder too, but it’s the only thing that will work.

However, as Christians, we have to be aware that our nation more than having political problems has spiritual problems that are at the root of it. Our political problems are so intractable because our hearts are so hard.

Our Libertarian friends will extol the virtues of selfishness and looking out for yourself, Yet, I would suggest thatAmericais in the throes of national and cultural decline because of a cultural of selfishness and self-centeredness.

This is not to say that all the emphasis our society places on the individual is bad. I’m grateful that we don’t live in a country where the individual is stamped on by an almighty government.

Why is that we are unable to reform our nation’s entitlements? Selfish seniors or near seniors are manipulated into believing that any reforms will affect them and so are willing to allow future generations to suffer horrifically in order to protect their existing benefits because “we worked for them.”

We have entitlements grown out of proportion because many families would rather have the government take care of their aging relatives rather than them. This is also why we have so much for government-funded school lunches and school breakfasts. There are many parents who can’t, but there are many who just don’t. The same pursuit of selfish desires explains the over-sized burdens of foster care and correctional facilities with men from broken homes.

Why is that younger people came out to vote for Obama despite the fact that he was wrecking their futures and had left them with record unemployment? Because President Obama allowed them to remain as “children” on their parents health insurance until they were twenty-six years.

Yes, it is part of our culture’s new extended adolescence. Young men, who would have  in prior generations, seized the day, begun families, started businesses, and sought to make something of themselves too often follow the easy path to being overgrown children who are going nowhere because it’s easy.

Our political culture is gripped by this self childish worship. We have liberals who believe that they are demigods who can create Heaven on Earth, we have libertarians who  believe every man is an island and ought to be granted full autonomy. Both are equally egotistical, equally egregious self-willed positions that are symbols of the Spirit of Our Age.

We fundamentally as a society, believe we don’t need God. This not to say we’re an atheistic society. We believe God is okay-in his place. We might like God like we like Doctor Phil or like we enjoy music. For many, religion is good for comfort, it’s good for their well-being, but don’t think that it’s going to change their lives.

We are a nation of Cafeteria Christians who will choose which Christian doctrines we’ll believe in and which we won’t. If you’re a protestant, you’ll change churches until you find that fits you like a suit you and fits all your preferences.

Our problem is that while Americans acknowledge the existence of God, most of us in our heart of hearts deny His authority. We are looking out for our self-interest as we see it. And we will not let anyone man, moral, or even God, restrain us from our pursuit of what we want. This was well-illustrated during the last election (particularly the primaries) as I noted many professed Christians committing the grossest of slanders against good and decent men.

Our libertarian friends will praise as the highest virtue, the pursuit of enlightened self interest. The problem with human beings in general is that we have a twisted idea of what our is really in our best interest and are not that enlightened about it. For most, what’s in their self-interest is what will provide the short-term gratification. If you don’t believe this, you only have to examine our trimmed waist lines and our bank statements.

Examine the Federal Budget. The libertarians like to tell us about the high cost of the War on Drugs. I wonder if they’ve taken a look at the high social costs and big budget expense of our people’s War on the rule of God in our lives: of broken homes, out of control health care costs, and rampant fraud. The breakdown of the family itself costs us $300 billion a year.

Let me be clear, I’m not calling for any level of government to make us submit to God. History shows that  theocracy just allows unbalanced people to oppress others and ambitious people to disguise their avarice in a cloak of religion. Nor do I exclude myself from being a part of this problem. I think almost all us who live in this country, follow the ways of our culture, some times without thinking about it.

The Reverend Billy Graham called for our nation to repent:

We must also remember that no election will ever solveAmerica’s most basic problems. That is because the trouble, at its root, is in the human heart, and the only path to true restoration—for a person or for a nation—is through repentance. The Bible says, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19–20, ESV). Only the Gospel, God’s Good News, has the power to change lives, heal hearts, and restore a nation.

John Adams said of our country’s constitution, “Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The ideal of the Founding Fathers was self-government. However, self-government will not work for a whole people if we are being driven by exalted egos that tell us we and are immediate needs are the center of the universe. While, there are many things that can help bring our nation back, repentance is essential.  We must become a people that relies on God and trusts in Him to direct our lives, so that we can exercise self-government as a blessing to ourselves and others, and not a curse.

There are many hare-brained proposals out there on how the GOP can find its way back to success that involve various compromises of principle. We need to become a party that favors rewarding illegal aliens for breaking our countries laws, we need to become more socially liberal so that we can attract non-religious voters, apparently that the GOP should operate on the theory that two birds in the bush is worth pursuing at the cost of the birds in the hand. Or that the GOP needs to become all things to all people.

Never mind that the GOP nominated the most liberal, big-time political chameleon in the entire field. Folks, if trying to be all things to all people really worked, Mitt Romney would have won in a landslide.

For this same reason, I categorically reject attempts to blame conservatives or principled voters for the defeat of Mitt Romney.  They got their candidate nominated and it was their job to get enough votes for their candidate to win. If they failed to do that, they have no one to blame but themselves.

To these people, what the Republican Party actually stands for and what a Republican victory actually means doesn’t matter as much as the Republican winning whatever that is supposed to mean.

Then we have the purveyors of hare-brained schemes. There are the advocates of a third parties who say what our divided country needs is yet another political party.  Logic seems to escape third party advocates. The reason they advocate for a third party is generally because they’ve lacked the intelligence, skill, and financial resources to change the Republican Party. So, apparently what we need is a political party that’s broke and where none of its leaders are possessed with any political skills. We all ready have both the Libertarian and Constitution Parties that serve as living monuments to the total unadvised nature of such proposals.

Then we have the concerns about fraud, which are not entirely illegitimate. However,  there is no way isolated cases of fraud will change the outcome of this election. Obama won this election by votes in four states. And if there were a serious chance of proving massive fraud by recounts, don’t you think the guy who has spent the last five years of his life running for President might do something about it?

Then we have those who are calling for the dissolution of the union. Yes, even as most of us are celebrating Veteran’s Days, there are those who are eagerly circulating on Facebook and posting on Twitter about petition for dissolution of the Union. Yes, Millions of men and women have died for our country but let’s break it up because we don’t like the way the election went!

Let me be clear, there is no such thing as peaceful secession in 21st Century America. Sorry, if you don’t like that, but that’s the fact. We have been taught in schools that if there were ever another secession, it would be perfectly okay for the federal government to come down on the offending state like an avenging angel. Even if you think America would let states go, you can’t find a single state of the country where a majority want to break up the union.

The good news out of this election is that the results of an Obama victory are not nearly as apocalyptic as some of his most outspoken supporters believe. There probably will be some tax hike on people earning $200,000 or more a year.  We better pay every day for the http://topsteroidsforsale.com/buy-trenbolone-pills-online/, for our health, safety, and job satisfaction of every member of the Supreme Court because Obama could do great harm to our nation’s future and culture with more radical judges.  And Obamacare is going to be very hard to get rid of, if not impossible. Nothing will be done to avoid the fiscal cliff because this president lacks the guts to actually do anything, so we’ll face an even sharper economic crisis in coming years.

However, for those who simply want an (R) to win, there’s good news. The second term of most presidents are usually much rockier than the first. And with the Democrats certain to have an epic primary struggle and not having an incumbent president, or a particularly deep bench, there’s a strong chance of a Republican victory in 2016 given that the election came down to 400,000 votes in four states.

However, the Obama presidency is not the problem. It’s a symptom of a much larger series of problems that grip our Republic. We must address these problems if our country to survive in a recognizable form at all in the next years. We’ll begin talking about those problems tomorrow.