Sexting with the Stars

Washington, DC – For two months, the so-called mainstream media all but ignored the Sept. 11 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in four dead Americans. What actions the Obama administration took before, during and after the bloody assaults on the U.S. consulate and a CIA outpost should have been a legitimate election issue. But the Romney campaign only raised the disaster once — and then avoided it like an outbreak of the Ebola virus.

 

Now that the election is decided, the Fourth Estate is on the story. Though the president never mentioned the Benghazi debacle in his prepared remarks at this week’s press conference — his first since last March — fallout from the fiasco in Libya was finally topic number one for the potentates of the press. Of course the question wasn’t, “What did you know and when did you know it?” Instead, the lead off question, posed by Ben Feller of the Associated Press, was: “Can you assure the American people that there have been no breaches of national security or classified information in the scandal involving Generals Petraeus and Allen?” The follow up was about whether the “commander in chief and the American people should have been told that the CIA chief was under investigation before the election.”

So rather than focus on incompetence, misfeasance and/or malfeasance leading up to, in the midst of, and following a deadly terror attack – President Obama gets a pass by claiming that “There’s an ongoing investigation” and that he didn’t “want to comment on the specifics of the investigation.”

It was a brilliant, audacious diversion. The “reporters” present didn’t even question the veracity of Obama’s claim that “we’re not supposed to meddle in, you know, criminal investigations and that’s been our practice.” Perhaps they have simply forgotten how he used executive privilege to cover up the details of Operation Fast and Furious and the murder of another American — Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

The president did pontificate about “FBI protocols” and “certain procedures that both the FBI follow or DOJ follow (sic) when they’re involved in these investigations.” All this served to cleverly shift the focus from O-Team culpability for death and destruction in Benghazi to what really captures the attention of the media: a salacious sex scandal involving the CIA Director, our senior NATO commander in Afghanistan, at least two attractive women, an FBI agent who sends shirtless images of himself over the Internet and lots of torrid emails. If I wrote plot lines like this for video games and novels, my editors and producers would tell me to come up with more realistic scenarios.

Tawdry aspects of the Petraeus affair fascinate our media elites and distract from far more important work. Some of it even landed in my lap. On Tuesday, Activision-Treyarch released their new, astoundingly successful video game, “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.” Within hours of the launch, I was receiving calls, text messages, tweets and emails asking if I’m offended by my likeness appearing in the same video game with that of David Petraeus.

The short answer is, no. “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” is fictional, as are most of the characters — even the villains. I was able to work with the producers on developing the game scenario, participate in the story and make commercial endorsements. I last interviewed General Petraeus when he was ISAF commander and I was on assignment in Afghanistan for Fox News. We talked on and off camera about real special operations and did not discuss the video game. In retrospect, I don’t know him as well as I thought. But I am certain the prurient fascination with “sex and the stars” is a distraction from the vital need to get the truth about what really happened at our diplomatic mission in Libya — and taking steps to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.

That’s crucial because Obama’s Arab Spring is rapidly degenerating into an explosive Islamist winter. Radical websites and propaganda organs are trumpeting U.S. weakness and disarray. Calls for martyrs to attack American military and diplomatic posts overseas have increased five-fold since Benghazi. That may not be as sexy as military-mistress dalliances, but it’s a lot more important.

Not surprisingly, this line of thought does not appeal to all callers. Instead, some want to concentrate on similarities between between “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” and my new novel, “Heroes Proved.” There are some. Both the novel and the game are set in the future. Both deal with the threat of global terror and realistic unforeseen threats, unexpected challenges, unwanted dangers and unpredictable outcomes. But the main characters and story line in the game and the book are unique to each. General David Petraeus is in “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.” He’s not in “Heroes Proved.” I’m in both. Those who want to see how they differ will have to play the game and read the book.

Oliver North

Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel, the author of the new novel Heroes Proved and the co-founder of Freedom Alliance, an organization that provides college scholarships to the children of U.S. military personnel killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. Join Oliver North in Israel by going to www.olivernorthisrael.com.

http://townhall.com/columnists/olivernorth/2012/11/17/sexting_with_the_stars/page/full/

This will definitely be interesting to watch, just to see if Obama will omit “so help me God” from the oath. (trinityspeaks)

President Barack Obama will be taking the oath of office  for the second time on Jan. 21, 2013. And atheists want him to do so without  mentioning “God” and without a Bible.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent Obama a letter following his  re-election, asking him to reject the way “this country politicizes  religion.”

“When you stand to reaffirm your oath, do so using the language of the  Founders. Eliminate the religious verbiage. While you’re at it, why not place  your hand on the Constitution instead of a bible?” FFRF attorney Andrew L.  Seidel wrote in the letter.

The words “so help me God” are not included in the oath as prescribed by the  Constitution, the organization  argues. The Constitution also does not require the president to place his hand  on a Bible when taking oath, FFRF adds.

When Obama took office in 2009, he repeated after Justice John Roberts: “I,  Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear that I will execute the Office of  President of the United States faithfully and will to the best of my ability  preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me  God.”

FFRF argues that “so help me God” violates the Constitution as it alienates  the nonreligious, which the organization believes is the future of America.

Since this is Obama’s second term, FFRF says he is not “beholden to any  future constituency.”

“This term is a chance to do something that no president in recent memory has  done: reach out to secular Americans. In the past, that might have been  politically costly. But this recent election shows  that it will be politically costly not to reach out to secular America,” FFRF  wrote. “We are the future. Use this second term to build a legacy by rejecting  the way this country politicizes religion.”

Atheist Michael Newdow tried to take the issue (“so help me God”) to court  but was refused a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

The FFRF doesn’t plan to file any lawsuit but is imploring the president to  honor the “secular intent of the oath.”

Atheist Hemant Mehta doesn’t believe it’s a big deal or that any real harm  would be done if Obama does recite “so help me God.”

But, he argues, “every time we let something like this slip, the Religious  Right adds it to their giant list of Ways to Trick People Into Thinking We’re a  Christian Nation. Let’s not let the occasion pass without at least posing a  challenge.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/atheists-ask-obama-to-ditch-so-help-me-god-bible-in-presidential-oath-84954/#IrfvWuUCl0uQXtfP.99

Gay Marriage at the Ballot Box

SUPPORTERS OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE have reason to cheer after last week’s election. Supporters of democratic self-government, even those of us who oppose gay marriage, do too.

On Nov. 6, for the first time ever, voters in three states – Maine, Maryland, and Washington – redefined marriage by popular vote. In Minnesota, residents said no to a constitutional amendment enshrining the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. There is no denying the significance of these results: Previously the issue had gone to the ballot in 32 states, and in all 32 same-sex marriage was defeated. Gay-marriage advocates have insisted for years that it is outrageous to put what they consider a question of civil rights to a vote, but going 4-and-0 on Election Day presumably made the outrage a lot easier to swallow.

In nearly all of America, of course, marriage still means what it has always meant. Obviously a once-settled consensus has been changing, and last Tuesday may eventually prove to have been a tipping point. At the moment, however, there is no new consensus and it’s anything but clear that the battle to redefine the core institution of human society is a done deal. The votes in Maine, Maryland, Washington, and Minnesota – Democratic strongholds all – were close, and in each one Barack Obama got a lot more votes than gay marriage did. Even in four deep-blue states, in other words, many voters who wanted to see the president re-elected drew the line at same-sex marriage.

Plainly the political and philosophical struggle over the definition of marriage isn’t going away any time soon, no matter how much gay-marriage backers wish to declare the issue over. But now that gay activists have turned to the ballot and won, perhaps we can finally dispense with the claim that there is something unjust or illegitimate about deciding a question as momentous as marriage by referring it to the people (or to their elected lawmakers.)

In our democratic republic, we vote on rights all the time. On Nov. 6, citizens in 38 states voted on ballot questions inviting them to legalize marijuana, end the death penalty, ban affirmative action, permit assisted suicide, bar public funding of abortion, reject an individual health-insurance mandate, and eliminate teacher tenure, to mention just a few. The rights of immigrants, of gun owners, of gamblers, of criminals, of union members, of homeowners, of taxpayers – all of them and more have been the subject of ballot initiatives and referendums in recent election cycles. And they in turn are only a drop in the bucket next to the flood of votes routinely taken by legislators – federal, state, and local – that have a direct impact on the rights of individuals and groups.

Resolving thorny legal controversies through the political process can be frustrating and upsetting, all the more so when people feel that their fundamental rights are at stake. But the only alternative is to resolve them through fiat, as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did in 2003 when it conjured a right to same-sex marriage out of the state constitution. Or as the US Supreme Court did 30 years earlier, when Roe v. Wadepurported to settle the question of abortion by taking it away from voters and legislators. Abortion, you may have noticed, is more unsettled than ever. Stifling the political process rarely leads to democratic harmony.

“Rights should not be put to a vote,” same-sex marriage advocate Evan Wolfson, the founder of Freedom to Marry, was still insisting the day after the election. But I suspect we’ll be hearing that argument less and less, as activists embark on fresh ballot campaigns to amend the many state constitutions that now block same-sex marriage. Unless, of course, the Supreme Court intervenes, and tries once again to impose a resolution by short-circuiting the workings of democracy.

I don’t claim that voters are always right, or that the people can’t make mistakes. By my lights, voters in Maine, Maryland, Washington, and Minnesota made a grave one last week. I believe same-sex marriage is a bad idea. But I also believe that political legitimacy derives from the consent of the governed. “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves,” wrote Thomas Jefferson after a lifetime in public affairs. “If we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.”

Gay marriage shouldn’t be treated as sacrosanct, too lofty for mere politics. Let the debates, the struggles, the compromises, and, yes, the votes continue. Until the people work it out politically, this issue will never be settled.

Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby is an Op-Ed writer for the Boston Globe, a radio political commentator, and a contributing columnist for Townhall.com.href=”http://www.townhall.com/Secure/Signup.aspx”>Sign up today

http://townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/2012/11/14/gay_marriage_at_the_ballot_box/page/full/

Sex Beats Benghazi

You’ve heard the old adage that sex sells. But as we’re recognizing more and more often, sex wins elections.

Here’s the brutal truth: the American people seem far more interested in what happens in the bedroom than they do what happens on the battlefield. How else to explain the media’s fascination with CIA Director David Petraeus‘ steamy sex scandal, even as they ignore the ramifications for the investigation of four murdered Americans in Benghazi, Libya?

Two days after President Obama won re-election, Petraeus submitted his resignation letter to Obama, supposedly over an affair with biographer Paula Broadwell. The FBI had been investigating the affair; another four-star general had gotten tangentially entangled in the investigation. The story was juicy.

The story was also a smokescreen. The week after Petraeus resigned, he was scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. It quickly emerged that he wouldn’t be setting foot inside the committee in the near future. That news followed on the heels of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s announcement that she had no intention of testifying before Congress — she’d be too busy sipping wine in Australia to discuss Ambassador Chris Stevens choking to death on soot and ash in a dingy building in Libya. As for Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, he’s been anything but forthcoming.

What do those three figures — Petraeus, Clinton, and Panetta — have in common? They’re all likely to be out of the administration within the next month. Petraeus has stepped down; Clinton is leaving; Panetta, rumor has it, will be replaced with former Winter Soldier Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the ultimate slap in the face to American troops. When all three are gone, the link to Obama is gone, too. They can testify, certainly. But the blame rested on their shoulders. And Obama won’t have to fire them.

The media shows no interest in any of this, however. They’re far more interested in whether Petraeus enjoyed the company of Broadwell on the dunes of Kandahar, or whether he was shtupping a Florida friend of the family on the side. Sex sells. Benghazi doesn’t.

That simple fact rang true throughout the election cycle. When the media had a chance to cover Benghazi originally — when the administration lied day after day about a YouTube video being responsible for a terrorist attack and obfuscated the on-the-ground timeline — the media ignored the story completely. Instead, they covered the ill-articulated comments of Indiana senate candidate Richard Mourdock. Earlier in the election cycle, the media ignored President Obama’s attempt to stifle the religious freedoms of Catholics in favor of hubbub about Sandra “Pay For My Condoms” Fluke.

The media wanted to watch Mitt Romney burn, of course, and honed in on stories designed to emphasize his supposed sexism. But there’s more to it than that. The media is comprised of Baby Boomers and their kids. The Boomers were obsessed with sex in the 1960s — that’s why they tried to tear down all the major institutions of American life, some for good and some for ill. Today, the Boomers justify all sexual behavior as normal; they brought their children up to do the same.

Despite their live and let-live politics, though, the Baby Boomers and their kids still evidence a bizarre fascination with sex. That’s why they obsess about abortion and same-sex marriage. It’s why they were taken in by the Obama lie that Republicans would bar birth control. Sexual politics aren’t everything to the left-leaning Baby Boomers and their offspring; they’re the only thing.

So Benghazi doesn’t matter. But Petraeus’ sex habits do, even if we’re supposed to laugh at them and then claim they’re none of our business. The schizophrenia here boggles the mind.

But psychological dissonance never bothers the Baby Boomers and their kids. They’ve been living with it for too long. So the prurient will continue to beat the virtuous, both in media coverage and in elections.

Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro is an attorney, a writer and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center. He is editor-at-large of Breitbart and author of the best-selling book “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV.”

http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2012/11/14/sex_beats_benghazi/page/full/

What Went Wrong Last Tuesday

Disbelief is the word that defines the Republican state of mind in the wake of the 2012 re-election of President Barack Obama.

The obvious questions are: “How can Americans have re-elected a president who has presided over an economy where unemployment still hovers at 8 percent ?”

And, “How can Americans have re-elected a president who still doesn’t grasp that his big government policies are what have blocked our economic recovery?”

The Republican Party needs to take responsibility for this disaster.

Nothing in the outcome of this election is a surprise. The realities which produced these election results have been looming before us not for months, but for years.

Yet Republicans have made a point of ignoring it all. Now, “the chickens have come home to roost.”

What are these realities?

The profound changing demographics of the nation. And, the challenge of getting a nation that is already addicted to government off it.

I wrote last April regarding an analysis done by Ron Brownstein in National Journal: “Brownstein estimates that Barack Obama could be re-elected with as little as 39 percent of the white vote. He notes that in 2008, when Obama was elected with just 43 percent of the white vote, it was the first time ever that a presidential candidate was victorious with double digit losses of white voters.”

In a column I wrote a month ago, I noted: “What was once the exception to the rule in America – not being white, not being married, not have traditional views on family, sex, and abortion – is becoming the rule. And these constituencies are becoming sufficiently large to elect a president.”

A nation doesn’t change overnight. Yet, Republicans have been in chronic denial about what has been happening.

Ironically, the Republican political establishment, and particularly this year’s candidate Mitt Romney, presented themselves as the party of businessmen who know how economies work.

Well, businessmen pay attention to their markets. They make sure they understand their product and present it clearly and that they stay attuned to their customer base.

Republican Party operatives ignored both -clear definition of their product and savvy marketing to a diverse base of customers.

Instead, they chose wishful thinking. Simply hope that more and more white voters will turn out and vote Republican to make up for their shrinking part of the electorate.

When polls showed what was really happening, these same Republican operatives chose to deny them too, charging they were biased.

We can win our country back.

Low and middle-income blacks and Latinos are hurt disproportionately by a sluggish economy that can only be revived by less government spending and regulation, and low taxes. They just need someone to care to focus on their communities and explain these dynamics to them.

They need to get their kids out of public schools, a cause which only conservatives champion.

And they need to understand that they have everything to gain by getting out of the entitlement programs that the left tells them they need.

The last thing low-income earners need is to pay payroll taxes when they could save this money and build wealth. And the last thing they need is government bureaucrats running their health care.

When the only message blacks and Latinos get is from left wing politicians and media telling them they need government to take care of them, what can we expect but what we just saw in this election?

Business is also about knowing that there is no short cut around hard work.

Republicans must do more than showcase a few black and brown faces at their convention every four years and call this outreach.

Conservatives must get into black and Latino communities, talk to their clergy and community leaders, and explain how conservative policies of limited government and traditional values will save their communities and our nation.

Star Parker

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam‘s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can do About It.

http://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2012/11/12/conservatives_can_win_over_blacks_and_latinos/page/full/

Obama Likely Won Re-Election Through Election Fraud

There were many factors that hurt Mitt Romney and favored Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. The Democrats portrayed Romney in the worst light possible; as a wealthy, out of touch millionaire who wanted to return women to the 1800′s. The left wing media predictably did everything it could to perpetuate that false caricature. Obama’s race was an advantage; voters of all persuasions, particularly minorities, still cannot get over the allure of the first black president. The 47% of Americans on welfare were predisposed to vote for the food stamp president over Romney, wanting the free goodies to keep on giving, despite the long-term unsustainability.

In spite of those odds, polls indicated that Romney was going to win the election. The economy is close to Great Depression era conditions, and unemployment is almost as high as when Obama entered office. Economic conditions became so dire after Obama took office it prompted the rise of an entire new movement, the Tea Party. Presidents rarely win reelection when the economy is in the tank.

So how did Romney lose a race that numerous reputable polls and pundits predicted would be an easy win, based on historical patterns? The most realistic explanation is voter fraud in a few swing states. According to the Columbus Dispatch, one out of every five registered voters in Ohio is ineligible to vote. In at least two counties in Ohio, the number of registered voters exceeded the number of eligible adults who are of voting age. In northwestern Ohio’s Wood County, there are 109 registered voters for every 100 people eligible to vote. An additional 31 of Ohio’s 88 counties have voter registration rates over 90%, which most voting experts regard as suspicious. Obama miraculously won 100% of the vote in 21 districts in Cleveland, and received over 99% of the vote where GOP inspectors were illegally removed.

The inflated numbers can’t just reflect voters who have moved, because the average voting registration level nationwide is only 70%. The vast majority of voters over the 70% level are not voting because they want to, they are voting because someone is getting them to cast a vote, one way or another. Those 31 counties are most likely the largest counties in Ohio, representing a majority of Ohio voters. This means the number of votes cast above the 70% typical voter registration level easily tops 100,000, the margin Obama won Ohio by.

Videographer James O’Keefe, known for his undercover videos exposing left wing fraud, caught a Virginia Democratic Congressman’s son on video in October explaining how to commit voter fraud. Patrick Moran, the son of Rep. Jim Moran, told O’Keefe’s videographer that in order to make a vote for someone else, you’d need two pieces of identification, such as a utility bill, explaining, “they can fake a utility bill with ease, you know?” He went on to advise the videographer that he should also call the voter and pretend to be a polling company in order to make sure the voter isn’t intending to vote. He said that Democrat attorneys would be located in the polling places to assist him if challenged casting one of these illegal votes.

In another video, O’Keefe’s videographer tells a DNC staffer from Obama’s Organizing for America that she intends to vote in both Texas and Florida. The staffer laughs and says, “It’s cool.” The staffer then prints out a voter registration form for the undercover videographer and advises her on what to do if she gets caught.

These are just the known instances of attempted voter fraud. How many instances occurred that were not discovered? Obama’s Organizing for America looked up voters in swing states – many who would not have bothered voting otherwise – and got them to vote. How did they get them to vote? They may have given them rides to the polls, they may have offered to fill out and return their ballots for them, or they may have voted ballots for the ones who were not going to vote.

Many on the left believe there is nothing wrong with committing fraud in order to ensure Obama’s reelection. It is a common tenet on the left that the ends justify the means. Saul Alinsky, the 1960′s radical who inspired Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, taught community organizers like Obama that dishonesty is acceptable if it achieves your political goals. And when caught, Alinsky teaches radicals to deny the wrongdoing and change the topic to put their accusers on the defensive. One Obama supporter brazenly posted on Facebook that he was voting four times for Obama, asserting that the ends justify the means.

Aiding Obama’s win was a devious suppression of the conservative vote. The conservative-leaning military vote has decreased drastically since 2010 due to the so-called Military Voter Protection Act that was enacted into law the year before. It has made it so difficult for overseas military personnel to obtain absentee ballots that in Virginia and Ohio there has been a 70% decrease in requests for ballots since 2008. In Virginia, almost 30,000 fewer overseas military voters requested ballots than in 2008. In Ohio, more than 20,000 fewer overseas military voters requested ballots. This is significant considering Obama won in both states by a little over 100,000 votes.

Voter fraud has been in the works for years. At least 52 employees of the left wing group ACORN have been convicted of voter registration fraud. ACORN itself was convicted of the crime of “compensation,” paying its registration canvassers bonuses to exceed their quotas. In 2008, 36% of ACORN’s voter registrations were invalidated. Left wing political pundit Chris Matthews admitted last year that pretending to call someone from a polling company, then voting their ballot for them, has been happening in big cities since the 1950′s. He admitted he knows that kind of voter fraud takes place in Philadelphia.

Strong-arming people into voting who really have no desire to vote undermines our form of government. People do not choose to vote because they are uninformed about the issues and candidates, are lazy, cynical, or are content with the status quo. Voting someone else’s ballot for them is cheating the system and essentially giving yourself two votes.

When people claim that Obama won because the economy was improving, or because Americans generally think he is doing a good job, it is not true. He won through dishonest methods and rhetoric. Many of the votes cast in the swing states were cajoled, some legally and perhaps even more illegally, into supporting him. If voter fraud becomes acceptable, then maybe Donald Trump is right: it’s time for a revolution.

Rachel Alexander

Rachel Alexander is the editor of the Intellectual Conservative.

http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2012/11/11/obama_likely_won_reelection_through_election_fraud/page/full/

Dear Republican Congress, Give Obama and His Boys Everything They Want

A cigar aficionado and amigo of mine named Irwin penned a note to the Republican Congress the night after Obama got elected for four more years of this slop, and I thought I’d pass it on to you. Check it out …

Dear Republican Congress,

As a conservative Republican I am begging you to give president Obama and those who voted for him everything they want.

They want higher taxes on the rich and companies. Give it to them.

They want higher capital gains taxes that will hurt their investments. Give it to them.

They want a system that will make Medicare insolvent by 2024 and Social Security insolvent soon after that. Give it to them.

They want policies that will lead to constant double-digit unemployment rates for minorities and young people. Give it to them.

They want an educational system that entraps the poor in failing schools. Give it to them.

They want higher energy prices. Give it to them.

They want to spend trillions of dollars fighting global warming while China and India continue to tap oil and coal. Give it to them.

They want 20 trillion dollars plus in debt. Give it to them.

They want the Obamacare penalties to kick in next year. Give it to them.

They want a larger, more powerful Washington DC. Give it to them.

They want a more secular society that is increasingly hostile toward religion. Give it to them.

They want a more “fair” society run by bureaucrats. Give it to them.

They want socialist cronyism. Give it to them.

They want to go down the road of Europe. Give it to them.

In addition to the aforementioned, I say that we legalize weed from sea to shining sea. Wait … not just weed but acid. Think of how creative everyone could be and how it would distort the Obama voters’ reality from the truly sucky conditions his policies have created. That’s what you call a bona fide two-fer, folks. You’re welcome.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget cocaine and heroin legalization. And bath salts! How could I forget bath salts? Bath salts help spice things up during an unemployed weekend! Calgon’s calling. Nothing like dumping drugs into a culture of entitlement. I can’t imagine that going south.

Yes, I join with my friend Irwin and say that we give it to them and find out once and for all who is right. If we are right, they will have no one to blame but themselves, and maybe we will finally get true change in this country and in the Republican party so that we have a real choice in the years to come.

If we are wrong, then so be it. I will gladly repent of my evil conservative ways and become a socialist … I mean Democrat.

Doug Giles

Doug Giles is the Big Dawg at ClashDaily.com. Watch him on ClashTV. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. And check out his NEW BOOK, Raising Boys Feminists Will Hate.

http://townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/2012/11/11/dear_republican_congress_give_obama_and_his_boys_everything_they_want

United We Stand!!! Will President Obama Truly Bring the Nation Together? Part 1

This election cycle has been one of the most interesting in modern history. Most observers agree that the nation was split down the middle on their opinions of the character and vision of the candidates. Without assigning blame, I would like to ask the question: How is it that a campaign of Hope and Change has resulted in such division?

The answer is as simple as the question is puzzling. Our primary division stems from two things: justice concerns among minorities (Blacks, Hispanic, and Asian) and a very liberal agenda concerning personal liberty, energy strategy, and foreign policy. These are questions, according to President Obama, about the foundational values we want the nation to be built upon. It seems to me that whites in the nation are still leaning slightly more toward conservative values. Unfortunately the GOP minorities (blacks, Hispanics, and Asians) who represent almost 1 out of 4 voters, feel that there is no place for them in the Republican ranks.

For years, I have presented the fact that many African Americans and Hispanics have voted on justice issues such as poverty while evangelical Christians focused on righteousness issues. Rush Limbaugh is wrong when he said that the divide in the nation has to do with those who believe in “Santa Claus” and those who don’t. Rush’s rhetoric sounds good but is not based in reality. The Obama campaign forced the nation to look at several “moral issues” that were based on a different kind of grid. If the GOP had spoken a concrete vision concerning revitalization of urban America, systematic immigration reform, and a unifying vision of the support of traditional marriage; they would have won with a landslide.

In a very real sense the presidential race was about choosing what kind of foundation the nation will rest upon for the immediate future. The administration masterfully played on the fears of minorities and the desires of half a dozen liberal agendas – the radical green movement, gay marriage advocates, etc.

The 2012 presidential election is very important because of the profound directional decisions the president has before him. This president will likely choose at least two Supreme Court justices, determine the size of government, set the direction of foreign policy in a post Islamic spring era, and decide the shape of our national healthcare system for a decade beyond his term.

History will look back on this time and say that Barack Obama was either the most transformational president or the worst president in history. His power has not come from a coherent plan or vision which he rightly demanded from Governor Romney. His strength has come from the fact that many segments of the electorate who have felt disenfranchised believe that he understands them better than anyone on the conservative side of the ledger.

Being the better of two evils was a powerful political advantage for the president. Since May 2012, I have spoken with hundreds of faith leaders who described themselves as being caught between “the devil and the deep blue sea.” For them, Mitt Romney represented white privilege and in this period of American disillusionment with politics-as-usual, President Obama’s first election unified many folks. He was elected because we as a people wanted to turn our economy around and to end to five things:

1. Partisanship and game playing in government

2. Racism and social division

3. Reckless national spending under George Bush

4. Irresponsible corporate greed and corruption

5. An era of perceived US war mongering

It is obvious that President Obama has not fixed the economy; even the most optimistic of the president’s supporters are not expecting his policies to produce immediate results. President Clinton’s brilliant national convention speech gave President Obama a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, when he stated that no one could have turned the economy around in such a short time.

At that point of the campaign, candidate Romney could have still won the race by shifting to clearer discussions about capitalism, government, renewing blighted urban areas, and social issues. Focusing on objective economic and tax measures should have been of interest to most Americans. Unfortunately for Romney, economics alone were not on the minds of the electorate.

….To be continued…

Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

Bishop Harry Jackson is chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition and senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, MD, and co-authored, Personal Faith, Public Policy [FrontLine; March 2008] with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

http://townhall.com/columnists/harryrjacksonjr/2012/11/10/united_we_stand_will_president_obama_truly_bring_the_nation_together_part_1/page/full/

Aftermath: Lessons from the 2012 Election

The 2012 U.S. election is over, and more than 100 million Americans  participated in the great exercise of democracy — fulfilling the  franchise of the vote. Even with some votes not yet counted and some  issues as yet clarified, a general picture of the election is clearly in  view, and the impact of this election will be both massive and  enduring.

Several lessons emerge in the immediate aftermath of the election and Christians should consider them carefully.

A Decisive Victory

First,  we must recognize that President Barack Obama won a decisive and clear  victory, surging to over 300 votes in the Electoral College before  midnight. Against the expectations of many, the President held his 2008  coalition together. Voting intensity among younger Americans,  African-Americans, Hispanics, and other crucial constituencies held  firm. Once the election results started coming in, an Obama victory came  quickly into view.

Barack Obama avoided the ignominy of an  electoral repudiation and may also have won the popular vote. The  decisive nature of his win spared the nation the agonies of the 2000  election and points to a major political realignment. Other issues also  became clear. The election returns and voting data indicate that  President Obama’s “evolution” on the issue of same-sex marriage cost him  nothing. That probably surprised both sides in that controversy.

Christians  must now pray for our President. As the Apostle Paul instructs us,  “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions,  and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in  high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and  dignified in every way.” (1 Timothy 2:1-2 ESV) We should eagerly and  urgently pray for our President. We should pray for his health and his  family, for his stamina and his character. We should even pray that he  and his administration will be remembered as one of the greatest of our  nation’s history, measured even by the convictions that are most  important to us.

We are rightly and deeply concerned. We must pray  that God will change President Obama’s heart on a host of issues,  ranging from the sanctity of unborn life to the integrity of marriage.  We must push back against his contraception mandate that tramples upon  religious liberty. Given the trajectory of his first term in office, we  are urgently concerned about a second term, knowing that the President  will never again face the electorate.

As the President  acknowledged in his speech last night, our nation faces huge challenges.  We must pray that President Obama will lead in a spirit of national  unity and mutual respect, bringing Americans together to resolve these  ominous problems. Incredible responsibility now rests on his shoulders.  He has won a second term, now he must rightly lead.

A Divided Electorate

As  morning dawned, the election of 2012 looms as one of the closest in  American history. At 2:00 a.m., only 240,000 votes out of more than 103  million cast separated President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney. That is a  margin of .3% and would rank the election as the third closest, falling  behind the slim margins of the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and  Richard M. Nixon and the 1880 election between James Garfield and  Winfield S. Hancock.

The margin in the Electoral College is  significant, but the popular vote reveals a deeply divided nation. The  nation is divided politically, but that divide points to a division at  the level of worldview. The 2012 election makes clear that Americans are  divided over fundamental questions. Americans are divided into camps  that define and see the world in fundamentally different terms. The  election did not cause this division, it merely revealed it. This deep  division at the level of worldview presents President Obama with a  daunting political challenge, but a worldview crisis is an even greater  challenge for the church.

A Changed and Changing Electorate

Fundamental  changes to the American electorate also became evident. Vast  demographic changes mean that the electorate is far more ethnically,  culturally, and ideologically diverse. The electorate is becoming more  secular. Recent studies have indicated that the single greatest  predictor of voting patterns is the frequency of church attendance. Far  fewer Americans now attend church, and a recent study indicated that  fully 20% of all Americans identify with no religious preference at all.  The secularizing of the electorate will have monumental consequences.

America  is becoming more urbanized, and this also changes voting patterns.  Younger voters are disproportionately identified in ethnic terms,  pointing to long-term electoral shifts. Fewer Americans are married and  fewer have children in the home. This, too, changes voting habits. These  are just a few of the factors pointing to a fundamental change in the  nation.

The Demise of the Republican Coalition

Though  many Republicans will draw encouragement from the popular vote, the  Electoral College now confronts the Republican Party as a massive  problem. The map just does not add up for Republicans in terms of the  present reality, much less the shape of the future. Put simply, the  Republican Party cannot win unless it becomes the party of aspiration  for younger Americans and Hispanic Americans. Otherwise, it will soon  become a retirement community for aging conservatives. The party’s  position on immigration is disastrous, and it is at odds with the  party’s own values.

No party can win if it is seen as  heartless. No party can win if it appeals only to white and older  Americans. No party can win if it looks more like the way to the past  than the way to the future. The Republican Party could not defeat a  sitting President with a weak economy and catastrophic unemployment. As  columnist George Will has said, a party that cannot win under these  circumstances might need to look for another line of work.

The  Republican Party will surely enter into a period of intense  self-examination and a struggle for the future shape and direction of  the party. That fight will be necessary, and it will be important to  those of us who are concerned about a range of issues.

A Catastrophe on Moral Issues

Evangelical  Christians must see the 2012 election as a catastrophe for crucial  moral concerns. The election of President Obama returns a radically  pro-abortion President to the White House, soon after he had endorsed  same-sex marriage. President Obama is likely to have the opportunity to  appoint one or more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they are  almost sure to agree with his constitutional philosophy.

Furthermore,  at least two states, Maine and Maryland, legalized same-sex marriage  last night. Washington State is likely to join them once the votes there  are counted. An effort to pass a constitutional amendment preventing  same-sex marriage went down to defeat in Minnesota. These came after 33  states had passed some measure defining marriage as the union of a man  and a woman. After 33 victories, last night brought multiple defeats.

Other states considered issues ranging  from abortion and marijuana to assisted suicide. While not all were  lost, the moral shift was evident in the voting patterns.

Clearly,  we face a new moral landscape in America, and huge challenge to those  of us who care passionately about these issues. We face a worldview  challenge that is far greater than any political challenge, as we must  learn how to winsomely convince Americans to share our moral convictions  about marriage, sex, the sanctity of life, and a range of moral issues.  This will not be easy. It is, however, an urgent call to action.

More than the Presidency Was at Stake

Scores  of other offices were at stake in the 2012 election, and at every  level. The lack of complete election results leaves many unanswered  questions this morning, but one big fact is known — the U.S. Senate  will remain in Democratic hands. As a matter of fact, this election may  well point to a liberal shift in that body. The election of Elizabeth  Warren (MA) and Tammy Baldwin (WI) and the re-election of Sherrod Brown  (OH) point in this direction. Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly-gay  candidate elected to the U.S. Senate.

It’s Not Really About Politics

Christians  must never see political action as an end, but only as a means. We can  never seek salvation through the voting booth, and we must never look  for a political messiah. Nevertheless, Christians do bear a political  responsibility, established in love of God and love of neighbor. We are  rightly concerned about this world, but only to a limited extent. Our  main concern is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Being in the world but  not of the world has never been easy. The 2012 election underlines the  challenges we now face and the responsibilities we dare not neglect.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/11/07/aftermath-lessons-from-the-2012-election/

We Reap What We Sow

So, guess what? I’m disappointed, along with the other 57 million people who voted for Mitt Romney. Even still, disappointment and failure is never an excuse for any of us to give up. From that first big slug in my gut after my husband was killed in 2001 until this day, the one thing that has kept me grounded is my faith in God and the knowledge that things will get better over time.

Mindboggling is the word that comes to mind when I swallow the fact that a majority — almost 60 million people — voted to affirm the antithesis of America’s Judeo-Christian values and sound economic reform. It is as if people checked their brains at the door prior to pulling the polling booth’s curtain.

The chickens will most certainly be coming home to roost in America, so it sure would be nice if there were a way to protect those of us who voted with all our faculties intact from the looming collateral damage. But it doesn’t work that way. Until the bottom drops out and we become Greece West, we are still America, and Americans do not give up just because times are tough.

Failure is not a bad word — just as long as it is followed by a comma or semicolon and not a period. History is filled with examples of failure transformed into achievement. The 2012 election should serve as an opportunity for introspection as well as inspiration because conservatives can do better.

One takeaway from Romney’s defeat is we conservatives must invest our time and energy on America’s youth. Analysts say more youth voted in 2012 than in 2008 and Obama was the recipient of more than 60 percent of the youth vote.

While many of us have been preoccupied making big bucks and moving up the corporate ladder, liberalism has wormed its way into our school systems and universities; hence infiltrating our children’s minds. We’ve been too busy for family dinners during the week and no time for worship on the weekend. We’ve sent our kids onto the battlefield unarmed and defenseless. No wonder so many of them voted for Barack Obama.

How easy it is to cast blame on everyone but ourselves when bad things happen. Sure, 60 million people decided to give Obama a second chance, but until conservatives take responsibility for their own missteps, they will never become the better version of themselves America’s children deserve.

I can’t help but wonder had we done our job; maybe the youth would have noted an inconsistency in a president who blatantly betrayed the Christian faith he claims to be part of, when he mandated a plaque with Jesus’ name on it be covered during his Georgetown University speech in 2009. And they should have at least questioned why a smart Harvard graduate would strategically omit the word “Creator” from the Declaration of Independence in recent years. And if we’d taught them sound economic values like balancing a budget or how to balance a checkbook, maybe they wouldn’t have been so mesmerized by one who uses taxpayer funds like Monopoly money and offers handouts as if they grow on trees on the White House lawn.

Elections have consequences, and we will reap what we sow, so we may as well busy ourselves in the meantime investing in something that will undoubtedly pay off in the future — our children. The Republican Establishment will say it’s time to go back to the drawing board, but I think we need to go back to the dining room table.

Susan Brown

Susan Stamper Brown’s weekly column is nationally syndicated. She can be reached at writestamper@gmail.com or via her website at susan@susanstamperbrown.com. Her Facebook page can be found here.

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