God’s Anointed Leader Isn’t Always Who We Expect

Much has been spoken and written lately regarding the evangelical community’s feelings toward President Trump, especially since the Christianity Today editorial calling for his removal from office was published last month. Many evangelicals continue to support him wholeheartedly because he has proven repeatedly that he can be trusted to keep his campaign promises and to govern faithfully and conservatively. Others vow never to support him because they feel that he “embodies the anti-Christian ethic.”

President Trump certainly has a “colorful” past, and that is the key reason that I did not support him in the republican presidential primary of 2016. I just couldn’t imagine a man of his moral failings representing this nation and becoming the leader of the free world. However, when it ultimately came down to a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on November 8, it was a no-brainer. I would have crawled on my hands and knees to the polls, if necessary, to vote against her. And that’s exactly what my vote was at that time—a vote against Hillary Clinton.

It turns out, however, that millions of us who held our noses and voted for Trump have been quite pleasantly surprised by his ardent support of the values and policies that we hold dear. He has been the most pro-life president in the history of our nation, and he was the first president ever to attend the annual March for Life on Capitol Hill. He has been a true friend to small business owners; he has appointed hundreds of wonderful federal judges; he is defending religious liberty; he is improving our international trade relationships; and among many other accomplishments, he is making our military stronger and our nation safer. Despite all of these successes, many persist in demanding the removal of President Trump because they dislike how he conducts himself.

For many evangelicals, the decision to vote for and to continue to support Donald Trump essentially boils down to this: he operates from the Republican Party platform, which represents life, liberty, and conservative, Judeo-Christian values. Whoever his Democrat opponent turns out to be in November, that person will stand on the Democrat Party platform, which is immoral, anti-Christian, anti-God, anti-life, and anti-freedom. Seems pretty clear and simple.

My church went through a study in 2019 called OT19, in which we read much of the Old Testament together. The very same week that the Christianity Today editorial calling for Trump’s removal was published, our assigned reading included Isaiah chapters 44 and 45. In these chapters, the Israelites were captives in Babylon, and God used a non-Israelite, a Persian king named Cyrus, to free His people from captivity and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

Speaking to Cyrus, God said,

For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know that there is none besides me (Isaiah 45:4-5) [emphasis mine].

I see some parallels between God’s anointing of the Persian King Cyrus and the election of President Donald Trump. Cyrus clearly was not a follower of God, but God anointed him and gave him a “title of honor.” Donald Trump has not historically been a follower of God either, yet God has also bestowed on him a title of honor and given him the role of shepherding the most influential and powerful nation in the history of the world.

There has been much debate about whether President Trump is truly a Christian and whether he is “morally fit” to lead our nation. He certainly has moral shortcomings, as we all have. It is true that only God can judge the hearts of men, but hundreds of trusted evangelical leaders all over the nation, who have spent time with President Trump and advised him and prayed over him, continue to defend and support him. Regardless of Trump’s true spiritual condition, which none of us can know with certainty, God has shown clearly in His Word that He can and will use both people who honor and serve Him and people who do not in order to accomplish His purposes on this earth. When God anointed the foreign, heathen Persian King Cyrus, He said about him, “He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please” (Isaiah 44:28).

Cyrus was the tool that God used to bring deliverance and restoration to the Jews thousands of years ago. God has continued to use all sorts of flawed and morally deficient people—Moses, Samson, Rahab, and Paul are just a few examples—down through the centuries, because He is God and He knows best.

God doesn’t need our permission or approval to put His choice of shepherd over us to accomplish His purposes. His ways are higher than our ways, and we can’t always understand with our finite minds what He is doing in this world. However, we can see when good and moral fruit is coming from the White House, as it certainly seems to be now. I, for one, am abundantly thankful for the shepherd who has been anointed to watch over our nation. Our responsibility is to continue to pray for our president to make wise decisions. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and we, like Aaron and Hur, should help to hold up his hands when he grows weary (Exodus 17:10-13).

(See this column at American Thinker and LifeSiteNews.)

Michelle Thomas is a Christ follower, wife to Trevor Thomas, and homeschooling mom of four. Her books include Lord, I Need You, Through Deep Waters, and Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. Her website is KingdomCrossing.com, and her email is michelle@kingdomcrossing.com.

If Only We Could Impeach the Left-Wing Media

In order to remove the U.S. President, Vice President, federal judges, and other federal officials from office, Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. House of Representatives “the sole Power of Impeachment.” Article I, Section III gives the U.S. Senate “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” In the history of the United States, the U.S. House has initiated impeachment proceedings dozens of times; however, only 19 individuals have faced actual Articles of Impeachment.

Most of these 19 were judges, and most were acquitted or resigned from office before facing trial in the Senate. All, save two, were impeached for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In addition to the charges of bribery and treason, George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention who is known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” proposed adding the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as cause for removing executive and judicial officials from federal office.

For a better understanding of how our founders viewed high crimes and misdemeanors, the Federalist Papers provide insight. In Federalist 65, to explain impeachable offenses, Alexander Hamilton wrote of

those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

In other words—as just about any sentient adult who was alive in the late 1990s well knows—impeachment is a political, not a criminal, process. A person or persons can be impeached, whether or not their actions are technically criminal. And though the word “impeachment” almost always implies the removal of a public official from office, to “impeach” simply means “to challenge the credibility of; to bring an accusation against; to call into question; or to cast an imputation upon.” (Which is exactly what happens to an “impeached” individual at his “trial.”)

As Hamilton makes clear, those “public men” who have abused or violated the public trust, and whose actions are injurious to society itself must be impeached. I submit to you that no one in our society today is more worthy of impeachment than the liberal members of the mainstream media whose offensive “misconduct”—almost always resulting in political injury—has grievously poisoned our culture.

For decades now, in violation of the public trust, liberals in the American mainstream media—including the news, information, and entertainment media—have willfully corrupted the values and institutions that made the United States of America into the greatest nation in the history of humanity. Their lies and immorality have wrought havoc on families, churches, schools, businesses, corporations, governments, and so on.

Contrary to their sacred duty to provide what is truthful, they have willfully presented false and misleading information to the public at large concerning, but not limited to, the following:

1) The election of democrats over republicans. This is especially disconcerting when it comes to the news media. Violating the Journalists Creed where it declares that “a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all,” for over a half-century now, the liberal news media—which constitutes the vast majority of the news media—has deliberately deceived the voting public in order to see democrats elected. This has never been more true and clear than with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Even after the historic democrat losses in the 2016 election, for over two years now, in their lust to undo the 2016 election, the liberal news media has regularly engaged in malpractice and corruption, and have well-earned the title “merchants of propaganda.” Barely 100 days into office, the liberal American media was clamoring for the impeachment of President Trump, while for months and years they ignored or played down the corruption of his election opponent, Hillary Clinton, which includes:

the e-mail scandal; the reckless mishandling of classified information that has surely exposed our national-defense secrets to hostile powers; the mass destruction of thousands of government records after Congress asked for them; the obstruction of government investigations; the serial lies to Congress and the public; the shocking failure to provide security for Americans stationed in Benghazi and the failure to attempt to rescue them during a terrorist siege; the lies to the American people and to the families of murdered American officials about the cause of the attack; the trumping up of a prosecution against the video producer scapegoated for the Benghazi attack; the Clinton Foundation corruption involving the sale of influence for donations, the favors done for shady benefactors at the expense of national security, and the use of the State Department as an arm of the Clinton pay-to-play enterprise.

2) The role of good government—especially in most every fiscal matter. With the United States government over $20 trillion in debt, liberals in the media continue to promote an ever-growing Welfare State. Whether health care, housing, food, retirement income, education, cell phones, and so on, media liberals continue to misinform the electorate that such things are a “right” and thus we must demand them from our government. In doing so, media liberals have trampled the Constitution and ignored the warning and instruction of men like President Grover Cleveland—a democrat—in the late 19th century when he declared, “once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again…It is the responsibility of citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of government to support its citizens.”

3) The nature and details concerning radical Islam and Islam in general. In spite of the continued carnage (Nigeria provides a tragic constant reminder), liberals in the media continue to paint Islam as a “peaceful religion,” and radical Islam as nothing much of a going concern. As I’ve noted multiple times, with significant detail: Islam is an enforced religion with a violent founder, a violent founding, and a very violent past and present. Islam is generally repressive to women and to those of other faiths. Islam is typically financially devastating and technologically backward. Any politician, pundit, or journalist who attempts to paint Islam or Islamic nations in a positive light is at the least not giving the whole picture, and is at the worst, a political and moral coward.

4) The nature and details of the relationship of the burning of fossil fuels as it relates to global climate change—specifically what is often referred to as “global warming.” In addition to hyping the fake science of climate change, media liberals have aided and abetted what has been frequently deemed “the greatest scientific fraud of all time.” This has led to what has been called “the greatest scandal in science”—where so-called “champions of science” have falsely declared that “the debate is over” and that a left-wing big-government agenda must be pursued in order to achieve what is humanly impossible: halting climate change.

5) The nature and role of sound immigration policy. In order to elect more liberals to political office, the liberal American media has pushed an open-borders policy that threatens the safety, security, and economy of the United States of America. Historically, the United States is the friendliest nation in the world towards immigrants. However, far from simply promoting assimilation and the accurate idea that America is the “land of opportunity,” the liberal media has promoted the false notion that it is the responsibility of American citizens to provide immigrants—legal and illegal—with “free” food, housing, education, and the like.

6) Whether through pornography or the promotion of fornication, adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like, media liberals have grossly misled the public when it comes to right and proper behavior in all things sexual. The perverse lie that any sexual activity is permissible as long as it occurs between “consenting adults” has resulted in widespread tragic consequences, including: the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases, rampant divorce, over 40% of all U.S. births out of wedlock, the deaths of tens of millions of helpless children in what should be one of safest places in the universe: their mother’s womb.

7) The nature and details of life in the womb. In order to justify abortion (and, as logic dictates, the “right” to have sex without consequences), media liberals have aided and abetted the many lies of the abortion industry. To justify the slaughter of tens of millions of children in the womb, abortion apologists in the American media have long used the de-humanizing language employed by no less than the Nazis.

8) The nature and details of what is marriage. In defiance of the vast majority of the American electorate—in addition to sound science and clear, long standing morality—and in support of the perverse homosexual (LGBT) agenda, the liberal American media helped bring about the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity.

9) The nature and details of what is a male and a female. In further support of the madness and perversion that is the LGBT agenda, the liberal American media is engaged in perhaps their strangest effort yet. In defiance of what is plain to most, they—including even the sports media (who, perhaps more than most, should know better), and aided by no less than the former President of the United States, Barack Obama—have promoted the insanely foolish notion that one’s sex (gender) is mutable.

The liberal American media, by such conduct, warrants impeachment, removal from their offices, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office or position of information, entertainment, honor, trust or profit under the United States. Of course, though there is no formal process for this to occur, but each of us can certainly choose to personally impeach them in our own lives. 

(See this column at American Thinker and LifeSiteNews. A version of this column ran in 2017.)

Copyright 2019, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Why Evangelicals—Like Me—Voted for Donald Trump and Are Sticking With Him

The Never-Trumpers of every stripe still don’t get it. Ten months after his historic defeat of Hillary Clinton, those opposed to Donald Trump—whether from the political right, left, or middle—have yet to grasp why so many Americans—especially evangelical Americans—have embraced, or at least tolerate, the politics of the Man from Manhattan. As my wife (and chief editor) pointed out when I began this piece, “It’s really a no-brainer. There was no other option.” But nevertheless, to those dulled by their disdain for Mr. Trump, let me explain again our continued support for him.

First, let me make this abundantly clear: as passionate as we are about our politics, we understand well that the cure for what ails this nation, and this world, is as far above politics as the north is above the south. Dwight Eisenhower put it well when he declared, “Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America.” Thus, when we pull the lever, or tap the screen, for any man or woman, for any political office, our expectations for what they can or can’t accomplish are always tempered by the notion that our real problems are spiritual and require spiritual solutions.

Of course, such thinking stands in stark contrast to those who have put their hope in the things and the people of this world. As I’ve noted before, the left is so devoted to politics and political power because that is the chief means by which they hope to make the world into their idea of “heaven.” Virtually every dictator to rise to power has done so by promising some version of a leftist utopia. The twentieth century is replete with such tragic examples.

Is there any doubt that the biggest reason those on the left are throwing a seemingly never-ending temper tantrum over Donald Trump’s ascent to the White House is because Mr. Trump stands as a “YUUUGE” obstacle to their utopian dreams? In spite of bitter opposition in the U.S. Congress—as much as can be mustered given democrats’ historic losing streak,— the liberal media, and an inability by congressional republicans to unite on a conservative agenda, President Trump is doing much to stymie the perverse left-wing agenda.

This is especially true with the federal courts. As Legal Insurrection noted a few weeks ago, month after month—to the tune of dozens of nominees—President Trump has consistently appointed conservative judges. And as William Jacobson pointed out just prior to Mr. Trump’s inauguration, President Trump could end up appointing half of the federal judiciary. Thanks to the “Reid rule,” democrats can do little to stop him. The little democrats can do, they are persistent in, using, as U.S. News reports, “every procedural tactic they can to block [Trump’s] judges.” The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate needs to get busy making sure these conservative nominees actually make it to the bench.

Using jurists who imagine themselves lawmakers—and who reject the Laws of the Law Giver—the courts have long been a favorite tool of the modern left. Thus, it has often not mattered whether U.S. liberals win elections; with the aid of the courts, their evil agenda still gets enacted and enforced. This is why the power of the U.S. President to appoint federal judges is more important now than perhaps ever before in American history. That alone is reason enough to have voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. However, there were plenty of other reasons as well.

Again, in today’s political climate, few things are as certain as this: Virtually every crazy policy, corrupt courtroom ruling, or depraved piece of legislation that plagues our political climate is a product of modern liberalism. Whether killing children in the womb, stifling small businesses, legally redefining the oldest institution in the history of humanity, legalizing and promoting a wide variety of sexual immoralities, criminalizing (or attempting to criminalize) the life-blood of American industry, criminalizing Christianity, de-criminalizing illegal immigration in order to help maintain a “permanent underclass” of potential voters, stealing money from one group of constituents to buy votes from another, and so on, liberals and their lackeys in the Democrat Party, the courts, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and academia have used their political, judicial, information, and entertainment powers in manners most perverse.

Thus, political power, especially political power in the most powerful nation on earth, is no small matter and should never be taken lightly. That is why when we vote, we always do so prayerfully. When it came time to vote last November, Michelle and I were as certain as any human being can be that the next President of the United States was going to be Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Thus, as my wife put it above, the choice was a “no-brainer.”

Along with his solid efforts at remaking our courts, President Trump has already done much to support a pro-life, pro-family, pro-America agenda. His Department of Justice has reversed the Obama administration’s efforts to undermine biology and religious liberty. An executive order re-instated and expanded the “Mexico City policy” which prevents foreign groups who promote and provide abortions from receiving U.S. aid funds.

Trump and his EPA are “shredding” the foolish Obama climate agenda. “Slashing red tape at historic levels,” while saving billions in regulatory costs, the Trump administration has ended hundreds of Obama-era economic regulations.

None of this—not one single bit of it—would have happened in a Hillary Clinton (or virtually any other democrat presidential) administration. Whatever Donald Trump is, he is not Hillary Clinton. Enough said.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Impeach the Left-Wing Media (Updated to Include Charges Concerning Islam)

In order to remove the U.S. President, Vice President, federal judges, and other federal officials from office, Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. House of Representatives “the sole Power of Impeachment.” Article I, Section III gives the U.S. Senate “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” In the history of the United States, the U.S. House has initiated impeachment proceedings dozens of times; however, only 19 individuals have faced actual Articles of Impeachment.

Most of these 19 were judges, and most were acquitted or resigned from office before facing trial in the Senate. All, save two, were impeached for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In addition to the charges of bribery and treason, George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention who is known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” proposed adding the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as cause for removing executive and judicial officials from federal office.

For a better understanding of how our founders viewed high crimes and misdemeanors, the Federalist Papers provide insight. In Federalist 65, to explain impeachable offenses, Alexander Hamilton wrote of

those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

In other words—as just about any sentient adult who was alive in the late 1990s well knows—impeachment is a political, not a criminal, process. A person or persons can be impeached, whether or not their actions are technically criminal. And though the word “impeachment” almost always implies the removal of a public official from office, to “impeach” simply means “to challenge the credibility of; to bring an accusation against; to call into question; or to cast an imputation upon.” (Which is exactly what happens to an “impeached” individual at his “trial.”)

As Hamilton makes clear, those “public men” who have abused or violated the public trust, and whose actions are injurious to society itself must be impeached. I submit to you that no one in our society today is more worthy of impeachment than the liberal members of the American mainstream media whose offensive “misconduct”—almost always resulting in political injury—has grievously poisoned our culture.

For decades now, in violation of the public trust, liberals in the American mainstream media—including the news, information, and entertainment media—have willfully corrupted the values and institutions that made the United States of America into the greatest nation in the history of humanity. Their lies and immorality have wrought havoc on families, churches, schools, businesses, corporations, governments, and so on.

Contrary to their sacred duty to provide what is truthful, they have willfully presented false and misleading information to the public at large concerning, but not limited to, the following:

1. The role of good government—especially in most every fiscal matter. With the United States government nearly $20 trillion in debt, liberals in the media continue to promote an ever-growing Welfare State. Whether health care, housing, food, retirement income, education, cell phones, and so on, media liberals continue to misinform the electorate that such things are a “right” and thus we must demand them from our government. In doing so, media liberals have trampled the Constitution and ignored the warning and instruction of men like President Grover Cleveland—a democrat—in the late 19th century when he declared, “once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again…It is the responsibility of citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of government to support its citizens.”
2. The election of democrats over republicans. This is especially disconcerting when it comes to the news media. Violating the Journalists Creed where it declares that “a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all,” for over a half-century now, the liberal news media—which constitutes the vast majority of the news media—has deliberately deceived the voting public in order to see democrats elected. This is perhaps never more true and clear than in the recent election of the GOP’s Donald Trump over the democrats’ Hillary Clinton. Even after the historic democrat losses in the 2016 election, the liberal news media continues to create “fake news” in order to prop up democrats and undermine republicans. What’s more, barely 100 days into office, the liberal American media is clamoring for the impeachment of President Trump, while for months and years they have ignored or played down the corruption of his presidential election opponent, Hillary Clinton, which includes: “the e-mail scandal; the reckless mishandling of classified information that has surely exposed our national-defense secrets to hostile powers; the mass destruction of thousands of government records after Congress asked for them; the obstruction of government investigations; the serial lies to Congress and the public; the shocking failure to provide security for Americans stationed in Benghazi and the failure to attempt to rescue them during a terrorist siege; the lies to the American people and to the families of murdered American officials about the cause of the attack; the trumping up of a prosecution against the video producer scapegoated for the Benghazi attack; the Clinton Foundation corruption involving the sale of influence for donations, the favors done for shady benefactors at the expense of national security, and the use of the State Department as an arm of the Clinton pay-to-play enterprise.”
3. The nature and details concerning radical Islam and Islam in general. In spite of the continued carnage (Manchester is the latest tragic episode), liberals in the media continue to paint Islam as a “peaceful religion,” and radical Islam as nothing much of a going concern. As I’ve noted multiple times, with significant detail: Islam is an enforced religion with a violent founder, a violent founding, and a very violent past and present. Islam is generally repressive to women and to those of other faiths. Islam is typically financially devastating and technologically backward. Any politician, pundit, or journalist who attempts to paint Islam or Islamic nations in a positive light is at the least not giving the whole picture, and is at the worst, a political and moral coward.
4. The nature and details of the relationship of the burning of fossil fuels as it relates to global climate change—specifically what is often referred to as “global warming.” In addition to hyping the at least suspicious “science” of climate change, media liberals have aided and abetted those who have falsely declared that “the debate is over” and that a left-wing big-government agenda must be pursued in order to achieve what is humanly impossible: halting climate change.
5. The nature and role of sound immigration policy. In order to elect more liberals to political office, the liberal American media has pushed an open-borders policy that threatens the safety, security, and economy of the United States of America. Historically, the United States is the friendliest nation in the world towards immigrants. However, far from simply promoting assimilation and the accurate idea that America is the “land of opportunity,” the liberal media has promoted the false notion that it is the responsibility of American citizens to provide immigrants—legal and illegal—with “free” food, housing, education, and the like.
6. Whether through pornography or the promotion of fornication, adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like, media liberals have grossly misled the public when it comes to right and proper behavior in all things sexual. The perverse lie that any sexual activity is permissible as long as it occurs between “consenting adults” has resulted in widespread tragic consequences, including: the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases, rampant divorce, over 40% of all U.S. births out of wedlock, the deaths of tens of millions of helpless children in what should be one of safest places in the universe: their mother’s womb.
7. The nature and details of life in the womb. In order to justify abortion (and, as logic dictates, the “right” to have sex without consequences), media liberals have aided and abetted the many lies of the abortion industry. To justify the slaughter of tens of millions of children in the womb, abortion apologists in the American media have long used the de-humanizing language employed by no less than the Nazis.
8. The nature and details of what is marriage. In defiance of the vast majority of the American electorate—in addition to sound science and clear, long standing morality—and in support of the perverse homosexual (LGBT) agenda, the liberal American media helped bring about the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity.
9. The nature and details of what is a male and a female. In further support of the madness and perversion that is the LGBT agenda, the liberal American media is engaged in perhaps their strangest effort yet. In defiance of what is plain to most, they—including even the sports media (who, perhaps more than most, should know better), and aided by no less than the former President of the United States, Barack Obama—have promoted the insanely foolish notion that one’s sex (gender) is mutable. 

Wherefore, the liberal American media, by such conduct, warrants impeachment, removal from their offices, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office or position of information, entertainment, honor, trust or profit under the United States.

Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

A Short Primer on the Electoral College

Just prior to the 2004 presidential election, I gave a short explanation on the Electoral College. It was true then, and it's true today. With a few slight edits, I wrote:

Frustrated with the outcome of the last presidential election, especially since Al Gore won the popular vote, some in our country have cast a wary eye at the method by which we choose our president. Murmurings against the Electoral College began even before George W. Bush was sworn in and they have picked up recently as we approach the 2004 presidential election. Significant members of Congress have even suggested abolishing the electoral college. Like-minded editorialists and media elites have joined in the fray.

Upon being elected to the U.S. Senate, Hillary Clinton promised to introduce in the Senate a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College. [I never accused her of failing to plan ahead!] The movement was supported by other like-minded Senators from both parties: Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and Republican Senators John Warner and Arlen Spector. There was also support in the House of Representatives, from Republicans Ray Lahood and Jim Leach and Democrats Robert Wise, Dick Gephardt, Rick Boucher, Virgil Goode, and Robert Underwood. Most of those calling for a change offer no real alternatives other than allowing the popular vote to determine the winner.

Within the last few weeks editorialists from The New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution also called for the abolition of the electoral college. The New York Times called it “a ridiculous setup, which thwarts the will of the majority.” They added, “There should be a bipartisan movement for direct election of the president.”

What were our Founders thinking and why shouldn’t we have a direct election of the President? According to historian David Barton, “During the Constitutional Convention, three proposals were originally discussed by the framers on how the president could be elected. Interestingly, those three proposals were rejected.” The first proposal called for Congress to elect the president, the second proposal allowed for the state legislators to do so, and the third proposal was to have the president chosen by national popular vote (direct election).

According to Barton, the national popular vote method was rejected “not because the framers distrusted the people but rather because the larger populous States would have much greater influence than the smaller States and therefore the interests of those smaller States could be disregarded or trampled. Additionally, a nationwide election would encourage regionalism since the more populous areas of the country could form coalitions to elect president after president from their own region. With such regional preferentialism, lasting national unity would be nearly impossible.”

The framers, then, referred the issue of the selection of a president to a “Committee of Eleven” for further investigation. The Electoral College was the result of this investigation.

Barton adds that, “The electoral college synthesized two important philosophies established in the Constitution: (1) the maintenance of a republican, as opposed to a democratic, form of government and (2) the balancing of power between the smaller and the larger States and between the various diverse regions of the nation.”

The Legislative branch of our government, with its House and Senate, also reflects this balance desired by our Founders. Representation in the House is proportional to a state’s population, but representation in the Senate is the same for all states no matter their population. Consequently, Alaska, the third least populous state, has only a single vote in the House, where California, the most populous state, has 53. Therefore Alaska, a very important state in our union (with all of its natural resources), has almost no power in the House to affect legislation. However, it has equal power in the Senate and there must be significant agreement or compromise for legislation to become law.

Using the Electoral College system to determine the head of the Executive branch of our government maintains the same kind of balance reflected in the Legislative branch.

The will of the people is taken into account, but the will of the states is also.

People frustrated with the outcome of the last [2000] presidential election point only to the majority of the vote, which Gore won by ½ of 1%. They ignore the fact that Bush won 30 states (60%), to Gore’s 20; or that Bush won 2436 counties (78%) compared to 676 for Gore; and by my count, Bush won 225 congressional districts (51.7%) to Gore’s 210. So, while a very slight majority of the people chose Gore, a much more significant majority of states and regions chose Bush. The result, therefore, was a slight electoral victory for Bush.

In support of the Electoral College, John Taylor (an officer during the American Revolution and a U. S. Senator under Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) wisely put it this way:

“Two principles sustain our Constitution: one a majority of the people, the other a majority of the States; the first was necessary to preserve the liberty or sovereignty of the people; the last, to preserve the liberty or sovereignty of the States. But both are founded in the principle of majority; and the effort of the Constitution is to preserve this principle in relation both to the people and the States, so that neither species of sovereignty or independence should be able to destroy the other.”

Like George Bush, Donald Trump won 30 states to Hillary Clinton's 20. With final results still to come in (or simple be counted--see the 2016 U.S. presidential election map by county below), I believe it's safe to say that Trump won more counties and congressional districts than Bush (thus a more comfortable electoral win). In other words, in spite of Hillary perhaps having a larger popular vote win that Gore, her electoral performance was much worse, and that is what matters in our constitutional republic.

The counties won by Donald Trump make the U.S. a sea of red. 

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Trump Wins!!! (Update 2)

I did not see this coming. In a meeting at work this morning I was asked what I thought would happen. I said that, if I had to bet, I would bet on Hillary. I was far from alone. Trump trailed Hillary in the final Real Clear Politics average by 3.2 points: 46.8 to 43.6. Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog gave Trump only a 27% chance of winning. And remember, liberals escoriated Silver for even giving him even that much of a chance. The liberals running the Huffington Post's projection model gave Trump a 2% chance of winning.

This is truly a historic moment in American political history. Donald Trump has rewritten the electoral map. He won states that the GOP hasn't won in a presidential election since the Reagan era (Wisconsin). On the other hand, many reliably conservative states that were won easily by Mitt Romney and John McCain, were much closer victories for Trump.

Don't get me wrong, as I've often pointed out, there are many things about Mr. Trump that give me great pause. However, as I posted somewhere else earlier tonight:

As a Christian conservative, I voted for him (Trump) knowing what I would get from her (Hillary), and hoping what I would get from him.

In other words, though Mr. Trump has given me little reason to be hopeful, I'm stunned (pleasantly) and hopeful. If Donald Trump is a conservative, he's not shown himself to be my kind of a conservative. If Donald Trump is a Christian, he's not shown himself to be my kind of Christian. (Though, that is not the standard he has to meet, is it?) Nevertheless, I'm hopeful, and I'm glad to give him the opportunity to prove me wrong.

I'm also anxious. I'm very anxious to see if he holds to what he led us to believe about the Supreme Court. I'm anxious to see if he, and his republican Congress, repeal and replace the abomination that is Obamacare. His presidency will be fascinating to watch.

Speaking of Congress, in addition to winning the presidency, electorally, the GOP has done well across the board. The democrats fell far short of their necessary margins to overtake the U.S. House or Senate. In addition, the GOP was able to hold on to--even picking off a couple of states from democrats--its large majority of state governors. A good summary of results are here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

As it became more and more clear that Mr. Trump was going to win, liberals across the media expressed their aghast at what they were watching. Juan Williams said the moment was (unpleasantly) "surreal." Liberals who expressed no shock or surprise at a community organizer becoming U.S. president, somehow find it amazing that a billionaire businessman could achieve the same.

As I pointed out in 2008, when Barack Obama won his historic election:

Writing in The Light and the Glory, Peter Marshall and David Manuel note that in hoping for America to be on the right path many Christians have “hoped that electing a Christian President would do the job. But as Dwight Eisenhower once said, ‘Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.’” 

Marshall and Manuel continue, “It is the most dangerous kind of corporate self-delusion to think that a President, regardless of how much he heeds God, can reverse the bent of the national will, once it is set in a certain direction…which seems to put the responsibility directly upon each of us who has a personal relationship with our Savior—much as we might like to blame the immorality of others for the precipitous rate of decline. But the responsibility is ours, and it always has been.”

Update: Results of the "battleground states" some of which were not considered such before last night:

Update 2: Another thing to keep an eye on here (for years to come): Watch the donations to the Clinton Foundation plummet. What reason is there now to support the "work" of Bill and Hillary Clinton?

Trevor Thomas

www.trevorgrantthomas.com

Crooked Hillary Resurrected (Updated)

Eleven days from the election of a new U.S. President, and it seems the FBI is not done with Hillary Clinton. In what has been described as devastating for the Hillary Clinton campaign, in a letter to Congress, James Comey announced that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Hillary's personal email server. Of course, this has been all over the news. I can offer nothing new. Guy Benson at Townhall provides a nice summary here.

However, I will add this to the conversation: Hillary's campaign manager, Leon--"please change your password"--Podesta slammed the FBI's timing, calling it "extraordinary" that the FBI would announce a new review of emails tied to Hillary Clinton "just 11 days out from a presidential election." Podesta called on FBI Director Comey to "immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen."

No Leon. What is truly "extraordinary" here is that the Democrat Party has nominated one of the most corrupt public officials in American history for the office of U.S. President. The depth of Hillary's lies on this matter are also "extraordinary," as is the willingness of the mainstream media to aid her cover-up of her crimes. Though all of this is "extraordinary," it comes as little surprise, after all:

Of course, liberals across the U.S. have expressed their disdain for Comey and his recent actions. As Guy Benson put it on Twitter:

Psst, maybe you should be mad at the woman who endangered nat'l security w/ an unsecure email scheme & lied about it endlessly--not the FBI.

 Update: At a rally in Florida today, Hillary told her supporters,

It is pretty strange to put something like that out, with such little information, right before an election. In fact, it’s not just strange; it’s unprecedented and it is deeply troubling because voters deserve to get full and complete facts. Put it all on the table.

What a surprise! More hypocrisy from a liberal! Hillary wants the FBI to do for her and her campaign what she refused to do for the FBI and the American people. And the FBI's actions are "unprecedented" and "deeply troubling?" No Mrs. Clinton. With your private server, your pay-for-play State Department, your deletion of thousands of emails, your continued lies about your email, Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, et al, it's your behavior that is "unprecedented" and "deeply troubling."

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Black Lives in the Womb Matter

As a teacher and a staunch observer of the political scene, one recent event particularly caught my attention. Educators at several schools in the Seattle Public School district held "Black Lives Matter at School" rallies. According to the Seattle Times,

About 2,000 Seattle educators wore Black Lives Matter shirts at their schools Wednesday to call for racial equity in education. 

Schools across the district held “Black Lives Matter at School” rallies before classes began for the day. Students, parents and teachers also wore stickers and buttons emblazoned with the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. 

The purpose of the day was to affirm that “black lives matter in the public schools,” according to organizers, who are members of Social Equality Educators, a group of educators within the Seattle teachers union.

This caused me to ponder, if such an event were organized at my school, how would I participate? Given that without a doubt, the most dangerous place on earth for a black American is in its mother's womb,

my attire would look something like this:

Given even the slightest notion of some institutionalized injustice perpetuated against what is all too often a foolish criminal thug, the ignorant fools who perpetuate the lies of Black Lives Matter are quick to cry "racism," but are seemingly blind to the greatest holocaust in the history of humanity.

The worldwide abortion machine is responsible for more human deaths than any other single event, institution, or army since the Great Flood. With Planned Parenthood leading the way, abortion is the leading cause of death among black Americans. Additionally, as Dr. Alveda King--MLK's niece--put it, "Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate." With nearly 18 million black babies killed by abortion since 1973 (the infamous Roe v. Wade decision), the number of black slaves in the womb far surpasses the number of American slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In spite of this, Black Lives Matter (BLM) officially formed an unholy alliance with the abortion industry. This is unsurprising given that BLM is led by those corrupted by liberalism. Of course, BLM is far from the only group that (supposedly) advocates for black Americans outside of the womb but ignores the most helpless and innocent black Americans.

In late 2014, the NAACP tweeted out a list of 76 "unarmed" black people killed by the police from 1999 to 2014. That amounts to about five deaths per year. Many on the list--such as Michael Brown--were guilty of crimes that led to their tragic encounter with police. Every year, over 360,000 unarmed black lives are killed in the womb by abortionists. The NAACP--what some now refer to as the "National Association for the Abortion of Colored People"--along with many other so-called "civil rights" organizations, has long advocated for the "right" to kill children in the womb.

Of course, these organizations are now little more than political arms of the Democrat Party. Modern democrats have never been more hostile to the most helpless and innocent Americans. Having abandoned the deceptive "safe, legal, and rare" argument in favor of abortion, democrats now want abortion legal at any moment during pregnancy, and free .(i.e., taxpayer funded)

At the final presidential debate, when asked by moderator Chris Wallace "how far the right to abortion goes," Hillary responded that late term, and the now illegal (and never necessary) partial-birth abortion, should be legal under any circumstances. In other words, Hillary is in favor of the gruesome practice of ripping fully developed second and third trimester babies to shreds. (See video here. Warning: it's well done but still traumatic.) What's more, she wants taxpayers to fund these heinous acts.

I've said this many times before, but it bears repeating: It is the height of hypocrisy for any politician to claim to stand up for the least of us, all the while ignoring the most innocent and helpless among us.

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Forget Tawdry Trump or Lyin’ Hillary; Vote for the Party Platform

It would bring me no sorrow to awaken tomorrow and find that Donald Trump has withdrawn as the GOP’s candidate in the race for President of the United States and has been replaced by Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Scott Walker or Bobby Jindal—even Mitt Romney—or nearly any other lukewarm body who has, in the last two decades, been at least as conservative as Keith Olbermann. (It seems Hillary’s team feared such a list.)

Of course, I’ve felt this way for well over a year now. As I wrote back in February warning GOP voters against nominating Trump:

Donald Trump is a biblically-illiterate, adulterous, strip-club owning, casino magnate. He has been on every side of almost any political or moral issue you can imagine. Yeah, he's said some things that people like to hear, but what is there in his life that reveals that he will actually do what he says? He is “wise in his own eyes” and we should not be swayed by his cunning, craftiness, and deceitful scheming. Even the shallowest of political observers knows well that Washington, D.C. is one of the most difficult places in the world to remain a principled person. The temptations for corruption are rampant. What is there in Trump’s life that tells us that once he gets to D.C. he will act according to conservative principles? Nearly nothing. America should NOT gamble with Donald Trump.

In other words, I was not the least bit surprised to hear a decade-old recording of a biblically-illiterate, adulterous, strip-club owning, presidential candidate do his best imitation of someone corrupted by liberalism. (One of the first things I said to my wife after hearing Trump’s vulgar comments: “He sounds like a liberal!”) However, unlike many conservatives—especially Christian conservatives—I never declared myself a “NeverTrumper.” And (like the highly regarded Dr. Michael Brown) I’m still not. However, I’ve also not committed to voting for Trump.

Nevertheless, I’m as certain as any human being can be that the next President of the United States is going to be Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. If that is still the case when it comes time to cast my ballot, I almost certainly will vote for Mr. Trump. As Franklin Graham said after the Trump video was released:

The only hope for the United States is God. Our nation's many sins have permeated our society, leading us to where we are today. But as Christians we can't back down from our responsibility to remain engaged in the politics of our nation. On November 8th we will all have a choice to make. The two candidates have very different visions for the future of America. The most important issue of this election is the Supreme Court. That impacts everything. There's no question, Trump and Clinton scandals might be news for the moment, but who they appoint to the Supreme Court will remake the fabric of our society for our children and our grandchildren, for generations to come.

One of the few things Mr. Trump has impressed me with are the two lists of potential Supreme Court nominees he’s released. How much Mr. Trump can be trusted actually to nominate a candidate from these lists is a matter worth weighing.

Another matter worth weighing: the platform of the Republican Party vs. that of the Democrat Party. Again, I’m not sure how much Donald Trump can be trusted to govern according to the soundly conservative platform of his (current) party—as another recently concluded, it’s likely Trump is merely renting out the Republican Party in pursuit of his ambitions—however, I know that I can trust Hillary to govern according the radically liberal platform of her party.

When it comes to which candidate to choose come election time, a considerable amount of attention should be paid to the platform of the political party the candidate represents. I long ago (in my twenties) abandoned the silly notion of “voting for the person” and not for the party.

The party matters because the platform of the party matters. Many a modern “Blue-Dog Democrat” has capitulated (remember Bart Stupak and Obamacare?) to the extreme liberalism of their party leaders (who determine the party platform). (Tellingly, Stupak voted with his party 96 percent of the time.) Older history provides a great lesson here.

As The Miracle and Magnificence of America reveals, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the anti-slavery platform of the newly formed Republican Party played no small role in the formation of the Confederate States of America. Every party platform since the creation of the Republican Party had forcefully denounced slavery. After the infamous Dred Scott ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857, the subsequent Republican platform strongly condemned the ruling and reaffirmed the right of Congress to ban slavery in the territories. Tellingly, the corresponding Democrat platform praised the Dred Scott ruling and condemned all efforts to end slavery in the U.S.

Throughout its secession document, South Carolina, the first state to secede from the U.S., repeatedly declared that they were leaving the U.S. in order to preserve the institution of slavery.

[A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding [i.e., northern] states to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations. . . . [T]hey have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery. . . . They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes [through the Underground Railroad]. . . . A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States [Abraham Lincoln] whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.

“They” in the secession document refers to the Republican Party. The first GOP platform did not use the word “sin,” but instead declared polygamy and slavery “those twin relics of barbarism.” (Imagine that! An implied reference to marriage as the union of one man and one woman in the very first Republican platform!) Like every other state to secede, my home state of Georgia (the fifth state to leave the U.S.) also cited the election of Lincoln and the Republican Party:

A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the federal government has been committed [the republicans] will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia [who voted to secede]. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican Party under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party…

In 1816, George Bourne, a renowned minister and abolitionist, published The Book and Slavery Irreconcilable, which “dealt at length with individual texts of Scripture, even as it leaned even harder on what Bourne obviously considered the humanitarian agreement of biblical and republican principles.” Bourne (rightly) considered slavery a sin and questioned whether those who owned slaves should be considered Christians.

Bourne wrote,

“Every man who holds Slaves and who pretends to be a Christian or a Republican, is either an incurable Idiot who cannot distinguish good from evil, or an obdurate sinner who resolutely defies every social, moral, and divine requisition…. Every ramification of the doctrine, that one rational creature can become the property of another, is totally repugnant to the rule of equity, the rights of nature, and the existence of civil society.”

The same argument that Bourne made regarding slavery can easily be made regarding abortion, homosexuality, and a perverse redefinition of marriage. For example, substitute “holds Slaves” with “supports abortion,” and then substitute “that one rational creature can become the property of another” with “that a child in the womb is a mere ‘choice.’” And like slavery, abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, and a perverse redefinition of marriage are “totally repugnant to the rule of equity, the rights of nature, and the existence of civil society.”

The 2016 Republican Party Platform has been hailed as “the most pro-life, pro-family ever.” On the contrary, as was the case with slavery, for decades now the platform of the modern Democrat Party has been dedicated to preserving the “right” to kill children in the womb. Add to that the commitment modern democrats have to undermining what God has revealed on sex, marriage, and the family, and it should be clear to any truth-loving American that the modern Democrat Party must be opposed at every turn. This will certainly be true come November 8.

(See a version of this column American Thinker.)

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Tim Kaine's Abortion Distortions

No one should be surprised by this. It takes an immense amount of liberal-speak—double-talk, gibberish, propaganda, and outright lies—to attempt to justify the slaughter of children in the womb. Tuesday night, in his debate against Mike Pence, Tim Kaine, the Democrats’ nominee for Vice President, gave it his best effort.

Tim Kaine on the left, Mike Pence on the right.

During the debate, Kaine, a Catholic, reiterated his absurd and long-held position of, "I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I support a woman's right to choose." In order to make people feel okay about voting for a candidate who won't stand up for the defenseless, for decades now Democrats running for office have used the "personally opposed" argument when it comes to abortion.

Renowned Christian thinker, Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, satirically (and brilliantly) indicts the "personally opposed" position:

I am personally opposed to killing abortionists. However, inasmuch as my personal opposition to this practice is rooted in a sectarian (Catholic) religious belief in the sanctity of human life, I am unwilling to impose it on others who may, as a matter of conscience, take a different view. Of course, I am entirely in favor of policies aimed at removing the root causes of violence against abortionists. Indeed, I would go so far as to support mandatory one-week waiting periods, and even nonjudgmental counseling, for people who are contemplating the choice of killing an abortionist. I believe in policies that reduce the urgent need some people feel to kill abortionists while, at the same time, respecting the rights of conscience of my fellow citizens who believe that the killing of abortionists is sometimes a tragic necessity-not a good, but a lesser evil. In short, I am moderately pro-choice.

Do you suppose Senator Kaine "personally opposes" slavery? I wonder if his car is adorned with the bumper sticker, "Don't like slavery? Then don't own a slave." According to Mr. Kaine's logic, Jeffrey Dhamer’s cannibalism was just a "dietary choice;" Hitler and Stalin's genocide was merely a “demographics choice;” and as they execute apostates, members of ISIS are only exercising their "right" to religious liberty.

As National Review's Kevin Williamson points out, Tim Kaine's abortion argument (like countless others before him, and no-doubt—until we all stand face-to-face with the Eternal Truth—countless more after him) "is incoherent and indefensible; it is, in fact, illiterate." The word "incoherent" came to my mind when Senator Kaine declared, "That’s what we ought to be doing in public life: living our lives of faith or motivation with enthusiasm and excitement, convincing each other, dialoguing with each other about important moral issues of the day. But on fundamental issues of morality, we should let women make their own decisions."

When it comes to the morality of life, we as a society often stop people from "making their own decisions." What's more, we often "discriminate" when we do so. For over a year now, my family has wished that someone would have stopped the drug-impaired man who, "making his own decision," got behind the wheel of his truck and struck and killed my beloved father-in-law.

Senator Kaine also declared, "We really feel like you should live fully and with enthusiasm in the commands of your faith, but it is not the role of the public servant to mandate that for everybody else." Kaine seems perilously close to another "incoherent and indefensible" argument: the old tried and untrue, "We shouldn't legislate morality!" As I've noted more than once, all law is rooted in someone's idea of morality. And as I put it in 2013, "It is absurd and ignorant to lament conservative Christian efforts when it comes to abortion, marriage, and so on as some attempt to 'legislate morality.' The other side is attempting the very same thing!"

Mr. Kaine seems stunningly blind to the fact that, whether through the courts or through legislation, the left has long been "mandating for everyone else." Whether abortion, homosexuality, a perverse redefinition of marriage, transgenderism, and so on, for decades the "public servants" on the American left have used the power of the U.S. legal system—with the threat of fines, jail, and other similar punishments—to enact and enforce, in other words, to "mandate," the (im)moral agenda of modern liberalism.

Bakers, florists, photographers, wedding hosts, conservative U.S. States, and the like have suffered under our legal system due to their Christian views on marriage and homosexuality. In addition, those corrupted by liberalism in the corporate and entertainment industries (especially the sports entertainment industry) have joined their perverse pals in legislatures and the courts in punishing those who hold to what the Bible reveals on marriage, sex, gender, the family, and so on. So much for allowing those with whom we disagree to "live fully and with enthusiasm in the commands of [their] faith."

Mr. Kaine seems to have no problem allowing his faith to inform his decision-making as a professional when it comes to the death penalty. As the Daily Beast recently pointed out,

Over the course of his career, Kaine didn’t just oppose the death penalty; he worked to prevent executions by representing men facing death because they committed murders...Since his first days as a lawyer, Kaine has put in hundreds of hours, for free, to get murderers off death row. His first, formative case was [Richard Lee] Whitley's, who confessed to slashing the throat of a 63-year-old woman living in his Fairfax County neighborhood and then using two umbrellas to sexually assault her.

At first, Kaine said no to defending Whitley, but then his selective hypocrite radar went off.

"But then it kind of worked on me that I had said no because my feeling is, well, I say I’m against the death penalty," Kaine told the Virginian-Pilot for a 2005 profile. "If I say that’s my belief but I say, 'Nah, I’m not going to do it,' then I’m a hypocrite."

Kaine ended up putting in about 1,000 hours for Whitley, who would eventually—and justly—be executed. After Whitley's just sentence was carried out, Kaine declared, "Murder is wrong in the gulag, in Afghanistan, in Soweto, in the mountains of Guatemala, in Fairfax County... and even the Spring Street Penitentiary." Liberal logic at its finest: executing a throat-slashing rapist is "murder," but killing the most innocent and defenseless among us is a "choice."

"And he cited his faith," the Daily Beast adds, then quotes Kaine concluding: "I think it’s outrageous that there is the death penalty. It's not the biggest outrage in the world, but it's one of a number of outrageous [things] where people don’t appropriately value the sanctity of human life." Again, according to Kaine's twisted logic we should "value" the life of murderers (who themselves have shown a callous disregard for human life), but not the unborn. Amazing.

And notice what's absent from Kaine's personal "pro-life" activism? For a man who's "personally opposed" to abortion, other than not having an abortion himself (If liberals think men can have babies, can't they also have an abortion?), Mr. Kaine seems to have done almost nothing to help the plight of the unborn. In his mind, he’s a “hypocrite” for not standing up for murderers, but that doesn’t apply when it comes to the unborn. Again, amazing. Sadly, it seems Kaine has done a wonderful job of humanizing the worst among us and dehumanizing the least among us.

Lastly, Kaine's notion that, if Donald Trump has his way, women who have abortions will face legal consequences ignores the fact that, when abortion was illegal across the U.S., the law targeted abortionists, not pregnant women. State laws treated women as the second "victim" of abortion.

As Williamson concludes, when it comes to abortion, Tim Kaine is an intellectual mess and a moral coward, and as Matt Walsh puts it, a heretic as well. In other words, he's the perfect candidate to run alongside Hillary Clinton.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Powerful New Ad Highlights Democrat's Abortion Extremism

A new pro-life ad by March For Life Action is airing in Pennsylvania and Ohio. It features only women and very effectively reveals the abortion extremism of the Democrat Party. See it for yourself:

In spite of the clear and indisputable science of life in the womb, many Americans still support killing children in the womb. However, a large majority of Americans don't support the radical pro-abortion extremism of the modern Democrat Party. Hillary Clinton supports the "right" to kill children at any stage of their life in the womb. The video below (which is changing the minds of many who view it) illustrates well just exactly what Hillary supports:

Democrats not only support this barbarism, they believe that you--no matter your position on the matter--should pay for such "procedures." "Procedure"--that's a nice word isn't it? In spite of their rabid support for these executions, when national elections are on the line, Democrats can't even bring themselves to utter the word "abortion." They would rather say things like "right to choose" or "family planning." In other words, they would rather say almost anything than to say what they really support. Such deception is standard operating procedure for the political party that once defended the "right" of Americans to own slaves.

Kudos to March For Life Action for helping to spread truth.

Trevor Thomas

Does Omar Mateen Fit in Hillary's "Basket of Deplorables?"

I wonder if Hillary has room in her "basket of deplorables" for radical Islamist Omar Mateen. In case you've forgotten, Mateen was the Allah-praising, ISIS-pledging Islamist who shot up a homosexual night-club in Orlando killing 49 Americans.

Also recall that Mateen was a registered Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton for U.S. President. Also recall that Mateen's father was recently spotted at a Hillary rally where he showed off his own elaborate personally made pro-Hillary sign:

The elder Mateen is a supporter of the Taliban who ran for president of Afghanistan in 2015. It makes one wonder how many other Islamists are "in the basket" for Hillary Clinton.

Whatever is the case, it seems lost on Hillary that a significant portion (perhaps even a sizable majority) of Trump's supporters are voting for him, not because they are strongly behind his candidacy, but simply because they find her much more "deplorable" than they do him.

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The Law is Dying because Morality is Dying

Tuesday, after FBI Director James Comey spent about 15 minutes laying out the legal case against Hillary Clinton, and then spent about three minutes declaring that he was going to ignore the evidence and recommend no legal action against Mrs. Clinton, the Blaze’s Matt Walsh declared that “The Law is Dead.”

Walsh writes,

July 5, 2016. 11:15 a.m. One day after America’s 240th birthday. 

When historians conduct their autopsy on Lady Justice, that will be the time of death. That is the precise moment when Justice drew her last labored breath, cursed our ridiculous country and our hopelessly corrupt government, and collapsed. Sure, she’d been in bad shape for a while, but there was no surviving the final blow. When it is explicitly announced and made public that the wealthiest and most elite and most liberal are indeed above the law, the charade of “law” cannot continue. There is no law. We are living under the rule of men, not of law. We are subject to the whims of petty tyrants and bureaucrats. They are subject to no one on Earth.

I don’t think Comey’s presser heralds the end of law in the U.S., but he surely did put another nail in the coffin. Like the Supreme Court rulings on abortion and marriage, few should be surprised at this outcome. America has been on a long ugly road when it comes to law and justice, reason and logic, morality and truth.

Two days prior to this year’s Independence Day, noted Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias asked, “Whatever happened to the American Soul?” He continued,

We are truly at the cliff’s precipitous edge and the fall could be long and deadly. Why? We have a deep crisis of the soul that is killing us morally and we have no recourse. We have no recourse because the only cure has been disparaged and mocked by the elite and the powerful. And those very ideologies are now presiding over the slaughter of our citizens while the abundance of speeches is inversely proportional to the wisdom they contain and Reason bleeds to death before our eyes… 

How many families will be shattered and offered up at the altar of our foolishness?...I propose to you that multiple killings have preceded the horrors with which we now live. Those killings prepared the ground for the literal burial of our own people.
Three killings in particular are as real as the carnage we see when suicide vests are detonated: the death of morality, the death of truth, and the death of reason.

To illustrate the death of morality, Dr. Zacharias recalls the comments of Robert Shapiro, the famous attorney who helped represent O.J. Simpson in Simpson’s murder trial. While being interviewed by Megyn Kelly, Shapiro was asked if justice had been served in the Simpson trial (Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman). Shapiro utters a “pathetic answer,” telling Kelly, “There is legal justice and moral justice. Legal justice was served.” Thus, as is common among those corrupted by liberalism, Shapiro divorces law from morality.

When it comes to the disconnect between morality and the law in the U.S., we have long been warned. As I pointed out years ago (and as I've suggested often), and as Ben Franklin declared, “Laws without morals are in vain.” Additionally, in 2003, after the Supreme Court foolishly reversed itself and legalized sodomy across the U.S. (Lawrence vs. Texas), the late, great Antonin Scalia warned, “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ (the 1986 Supreme Court decision upholding Georgia’s sodomy law) validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding.”

Scalia continued, “The Court embraces… the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.” He concluded that, “This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.”

In other words, over a decade ago, no less than a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court warned us that liberals were “amputating” (to borrow from Dr. Zacharias) the law from morality. However, instead of an “amputation” what we are really seeing is more of a transplant. On November 18, 2003, just four and a half months after the Lawrence decision, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled in favor of legalized same-sex marriage. Thus Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to grant marital rights to same-sex couples.

Writing for the majority, the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts court, Margaret Marshal, referenced Lawrence in the ruling: “Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” But of course, the only way to redefine the oldest institution in the history of humanity is to “mandate our own moral code.”

The biggest obstacle to writing one’s own moral code is Christianity. As The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (of the Southern Baptist Convention) recently put it, “in the twentieth century, more and more people began to see Christian morality as standing in the way of a new moral code: the morality of self-fulfillment. Throwing off burdensome traditional mores, people began to imagine life without a bothersome God standing watch.”

Recent Barna research “highlights the extent to which Americans pledge allegiance to the new moral code.” As Barna summarizes, this “morality of self-fulfillment” can be summed up in six guiding principles:

As we sadly see, this “morality of self-fulfillment,” otherwise known—as I noted last August (referencing philosopher Michael Novak)—as the “theology of self,” has crept into the church. This “morality of self-fulfillment” or “theology of self” is nothing new. As Genesis chapter 3 reveals, the desire to “be like God”—to rule our world—is nearly as old as humanity itself.

What is new, at least for the United States of America, is that such a wicked philosophy has now become deeply embedded in U.S. law. Again, all law is rooted in someone's idea of morality. We either are going to be governed by the morality of the Law Giver or the “morality of self-fulfillment.” Americans must simply decide, by whose morality we wished to be governed.

(See this column at American Thinker and The Patriot Post.)

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com