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News

David French: it’s time for Rubio and Kasich to drop out

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I’ve always been a bit annoyed at David French for backing that horrible RINO Mitt Romney in 2012. It made me think that he was very liberal, because Mitt Romney is moderate. But lately, I’ve been reading David French columns, and I’m not so sure that he is moderate.

Look at this one from National Review. You would expect him to back a moderate conservative like Rubio or a moderate liberal like Kasich, if he was moderate, right?

Well, he doesn’t:

[…][B]ecause normal political rules didn’t apply to Trump, other candidates falsely believed they were immune as well. But it turns out that when you don’t attack the front-runner, he tends to remain the front-runner. It turns out that when you start an epic losing streak, it’s virtually impossible to come back. It turns out that when you make crass personal attacks, it diminishes you more than the target. It turns out that math is still math, and building strategies around winning your first big state halfway through the primaries looks not just foolish, but vain.

Can we wake up yet? Can we do math? Can we do politics? Here’s what our actual political experience tells us: Donald Trump is not going to beat himself, he will win a four or even a three-man race, and he is entirely capable of winning the GOP nomination with roughly 35 percent of the vote — indeed, he’s doing it now.

Here’s what the math says: John Kasich and Marco Rubio, you have no hope of becoming the GOP nominee. Even if you win your home states, the only thing that will do is maintain the four-person dynamic under which Trump thrives. Even if you are fortunate enough to work cooperatively to deny Trump an absolute majority of delegates, do either of you — in your right mind — believe that a convention dominated by Trump and Cruz delegates is going to unite behind you? They’d sooner riot (and I’m only partially joking).

We’ve given the multi-candidate “blind ambition tour” exactly 23 states and one territory to work, and here’s the score: Trump 15, Cruz 7, Rubio 2, and Kasich . . .  zero. I think that’s a sufficient sample size. Let’s try something else. Let’s try uniting around the person who’s beaten Trump more than anyone else — a person who happens to be a constitutional conservative, who would replace Justice Scalia with a judicial superstar, who is unquestionably pro-life, who is unyielding in his defense of religious liberty, and who actually understands the dynamics of the global economy, trade policy, and national security.

[…]After 24 contests, the pattern is emerging. Cruz battles Trump for first, while Rubio and Kasich tend to battle each other for last. This is true in the South, the West, the Northeast, and the Midwest. Can conservatives finally get serious? Can we finally unify, now, before Trump starts sweeping winner-take-all states with 35 percent of the vote? If not, then a foolish GOP will richly deserve its fate.

This seems to make sense to me. And it’s likely that Rubio and Kasich voters would break for Cruz more than they would for Trump.

A recent Monmouth poll said this:

With all the discussion about hands in this election, Monmouth decided to test how Rubio and Cruz would do mano a mano against Trump. Although Rubio is struggling to make the delegate threshold in a four-way race, he would virtually tie Trump in a hypothetical two-person contest – 46% for Rubio and 45% for Trump. Cruz, though, does better, beating Trump 48% to 41% head to head. In the Rubio-Trump contest, both Cruz and Kasich voters would split at more than 2-to-1 for Rubio. However, in the Cruz-Trump matchup, Rubio voters would go 3-to-1 for Cruz, while Kasich voters would split at half for Cruz and less than 1-in-5 for Trump with another 1-in-4 saying they would not vote at all.

Seems to me that if Kasich, and especially Rubio, dropped out, then we could get a real conservative to run against Hillary. And Cruz does much better against Hillary than Trump does.

Two polls from Wednesday show that:

Trump performs poorly against Clinton in the general election
Trump performs poorly against Clinton in the general election

If we were really serious about beating Hillary in November, seems to me that we should be putting pressure on Rubio and Kasich to get out. This isn’t the time for big egos. We need to beat Hillary.

News

What happens when Christians vote to put secular government in charge of health care?

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Canada Election 2015: Socialists in red, Communists in Orange, Conservatives in blue
Canada Election 2015: Socialists in red, Communists in Orange, Conservatives in blue

No need to wonder, just look north to Canada. Wesley J. Smith explains in First Things.

Excerpt:

Last year, the Canadian Supreme Court created a right to euthanasia and assisted suicide. To qualify for death, the court ruled unanimously, one must be a competent adult with a medically diagnosed condition causing “irremediable suffering”—a circumstance wholly determined by the patient and including “psychological suffering.”

The decision went well beyond mere legalization. Indeed, the court manufactured an enforceable legal right for qualified patients to receive what Canadian policymakers are euphemistically calling “medical aid in dying” (MAID).

But what about doctors opposed to euthanasia? The court left with Parliament and the medical colleges (associations) the decision of whether and how to accommodate doctors with conscience objections, granting a one-year (now extended) period within which to enact laws to govern the practice. Since then, civil liberties groups, provincial medical colleges, and official government commissions have urged Parliament … to pass laws that would coerce doctors who are religiously or philosophically opposed to euthanasia to cooperate actively in mercy killings by forcing them to procure death doctors for their patients.

But isn’t there a “Constitution” in Canada? Yes, but it’s interpreted by unelected judges:

All of this would seem to fly in the face of Canada’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms,which states, “Everyone has the fundamental freedom of conscience and religion.” Illustrating the utter lack of regard that secularized Canada now has for religious liberty, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association—that country’s counterpart to the ACLU—applauded the parliamentary committee’s call to stomp upon religious conscience as a “promising step forward.”

Doctors aren’t the only ones threatened with religious persecution under Canada’s looming euthanasia regime. Provincial and federal commissions have both recommended that nurses, physician’s assistants, and other such licensed medical practitioners be allowed to do the actual euthanizing under the direction of a doctor.

Voting for a single-payer health care system, such as the one praised by Donald Trump, makes the situation much worse:

Even Catholic and other religious nursing homes and hospices may soon be required by law to permit euthanasia on their premises, for the federal commission recommended that federal and provincial governments “ensure that all publicly funded health care institutions provide medical assistance in dying.” That is a very broad category. Canada has a single-payer, socialized healthcare financing system that permits little private-pay medical care outside of nursing homes. Not only that, but as Alex Schadenberg, director of the Canada-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition told me, “religiously-affiliated institutions [in Canada] have become the primary care facilities for elderly persons, those requiring psychiatric care, and dying persons. They are now being told that as a condition of providing those services they will be required to permit doctors to kill these very patients by lethal injection. If they refuse, they will find themselves in a showdown with the government.”

The more people who opt to kill themselves, the less the government has to pay in health care. Naturally, the secular government looks at euthanasia as a great way to cut the costs of taxpayers who have paid into the single-payer system their whole lives, and now want to make withdrawals. If the government kills them now, they get to keep all the money, and not give any of it back.

The rights to religious liberty and conscience protections are put at risk everywhere that the secular government takes over the private sector. Christians need to be careful what they vote for at election time. Small government is best for religious liberty and conscience protections.

News

Suppose God had coffee with Donald Trump… how would that go?

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The Jesus Seminar and their pre-suppositions
Donald Trump and his evangelical Christian supporters

My friend William shared this post by well-known social conservative Matt Barber. Barber imagines a conversation between Trump and God.

Excerpt:

The following statements attributed to Mr. Trump are not fabricated. The man truly uttered them. Those attributed to God are likewise genuine.

[…]The discussion begins.

Trump: “I am a really smart guy. I’m intelligent. Some people would say I’m very, very, very intelligent. I know what sells, and I know what people want.”

God: “[I] oppose the proud, but give grace to the humble. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (James 4:6 and Luke 14:11).

Trump: “Nothing wrong with ego. Show me someone without an ego, and I’ll show you a loser. Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest – and you all know it!”

God: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil” (Jeremiah 9:23, Proverbs 11:2, James 4:16).

Trump: “If you don’t tell people about your success, they probably won’t know about it.”

“Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich. I’m really rich. Cash is king, and that’s one of the beauties of the casino business. And while I can’t honestly say I need an 80-foot living room, I do get a kick out of having one.”

God: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).

Trump: “Fighting for the last penny is a very good philosophy to have. I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day. Who the f–k knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?”

God: “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).

The conversation moves on to Mr. Trump’s boasting of his many adulterous affairs.

God: “Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?” (Proverbs 5:20)

Trump: “Nice t-ts, no brains. A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10. Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world, I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’”

God: “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).

Trump: “[Women:] You have to treat ’em like s—t.”

“When a man leaves a woman, especially when it was perceived that he has left for a piece of a– – a good one! – there are 50 percent of the population who will love the woman who was left.”

“If I get my name in the paper, if people pay attention, that’s what matters. You know, it really doesn’t matter what they write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of a–.”

“It’s all in the hunt, and once you get it, it loses some of its energy. I think competitive, successful men feel that way about women. Don’t you agree? Really, don’t you agree?”

God: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for [I] will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:4).

I have to skip a bit… can’t quote the whole thing!

Trump holds up Bible he "received from his mother" to evangelicals
Trump holds up Bible he “received from his mother” to evangelicals

More:

Trump: “For many years I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back. When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can.”

God: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 5:44, Matthew 6:15).

Trump: “I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes?”

God: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

You know, when I think of the people I really admire in this world, I think of people like Jay Wesley Richards, Michael Licona, J. Warner Wallace, Bruce Gordon, Paul Copan, Scott Klusendorf, Tim McGrew, etc. If you asked me who takes the Bible seriously, I’d point to them. I can see how a thorough understanding of the Bible’s teaching has affected their character and behavior. I cannot imagine why anyone who claims to be a Bible-believer would support a man like Trump. It’s not that I insist on someone who agrees with me on every point of theology. My favorite podcast is the Ben Shapiro show, and he’s an Orthodox Jew! It’s that I expect that people who claim to take the Bible seriously to show it in their character and their behavior. Don’t hold up the Bible and claim to respect it when there isn’t anything in your life to show it.

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