Tag Archives: Election

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Wayne Grudem responds to Christians who think arrogance is worse than infanticide

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President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Trump, Pence and Pompeo champion religious freedom at the United Nations

Laura send me this amazing article from the Christian Post, written by famous evangelical theologian Dr. Wayne Grudem. He was responding to a blue state pastor named John Piper. Piper has made a name for himself by emphasizing emotions, piety and “Christian hedonism”. Let’s take a look at what Wayne Grudem had to say about Christians who support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Here’s the intro:

[John Piper] and I have reached different conclusions about this year’s presidential election. His October 22 article, “Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin,” explained why he thought it would be wrong for him to support either candidate in this election.

Here is Grudem’s summary of Piper’s argument:

1. The personal sins of a leader can be as harmful to persons and to nations as morally evil laws.

2. Christians communicate a falsehood when we act as if policies and laws are more precious than being a certain kind of person.

3. The horrible sin of pride leads people to other sins, including defending abortion, and therefore voting for a clearly boastful candidate might also be indirectly supporting abortion.

4. Voting for either candidate would compromise a person’s Christian witness

I have a friend in my office, Scott, who has exactly these views. He is pro-life and pro-family, but he thinks voting for Trump’s policies would be wrong, because of Trump’s past moral failings.

Here’s part of his response to point 1:

Americans are perfectly free to say, “Trump’s boastfulness offends me and I don’t want to act that way myself.” But if laws are passed (and upheld by the courts) that enforce the LGBT agenda, no creative professional like a cake decorator (or photographer or florist) will be free to say, “I believe same-sex marriage is morally wrong, and I won’t use my artistic talent to decorate a cake celebrating same-sex marriage.” No high school girl will be free to say, “I won’t undress and change clothes for my gym class because there are boys in the locker room who claim to be girls.” No Christian adoption agency will be free to say, “We will not place children with same-sex couples.”

And if Democrats gain control of our government and the Supreme Court, and enact their desired policies, no Christian taxpayer will be free to say, “I refuse to pay that portion of my taxes that the government is using to pay for abortions.” No business owner will be free to say, “I will not buy medical insurance for my employees that pays for abortions and sex-change surgeries.” There will be only two choices: violate your conscience or else be driven to bankruptcy or go to jail.

Trump’s first four years not a parade of immoral actions:

[A]fter his nearly four years in office, I would add that he has shown remarkable courage of his convictions, faithfulness to his campaign promises, steadfastness of purpose in spite of an astoundingly hostile press, incredible energy in the performance of his job, dignity and even eloquence in many formal speeches and ceremonies at home and abroad, respect and appreciation for his wife Melania and his sons and daughters, and a wide-ranging understanding of the hundreds of different issues that every president faces. In contrast to his past life, during his term in office there is not been even a hint of any sexual impropriety. He is sometimes boastful but on a number of occasions I have seen him publicly give credit to many other people for things that have been accomplished. And I think he has shown mature and wise judgment in a variety of situations that he has faced as president.

Biden’s character not exemplary:

It is easy to compare President Trump with a hypothetical “perfect” president and to conclude that he falls short, but that is not our choice. If Trump is not reelected, we will have President Biden, with an entirely different set of character flaws. The multiple allegations that Vice President Biden used his government office and influence to enrich members of his own family with millions of dollars from China, Russia, and Ukraine should be of deep concern, because using government power to enrich one’s own family is the consistent characteristic of corrupt leaders in many countries of the world.

Conservative Christians occupy prominent positions in Trump’s Cabinet, and they make many decisions that affect voters:

Donald Trump is not the only person we are voting for. It is remarkable that the Trump administration has elevated so many self-professing evangelical Christians – far more than any in my lifetime – into positions of high influence in our government. They also provide role models for Americans. To vote for Trump as president is also to vote for Mike Pence as vice president, Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and numerous others. In addition, Trump has appointed numerous deeply committed Roman Catholics to various positions, the most recent being Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The character of these leaders is also a role model for the nation.

We will look at responses to the points 2-4 in  another post.

For my part, I think that if Trump’s character was going to be a major factor, it would all have come out in his first term. Instead, we’ve seen him act in a way that is friendly to evangelical Christians. I don’t expect him to write systematic theology or do philosophical apologetics or discover a new example of cosmic fine-tuning. He doesn’t have to be a Christian in order to push for laws and policies that allow me to run my Christian life-plan. I need to be able to earn money without compromising my values, and spend it on the Christian causes I care about. I need to be protected from people like Antifa and gay rights extremists, who don’t seem to be at all concerned about moving from angry words to property damage to actual violence against those who disagree with them.

By the way, if you want a good review of Trump’s achievements in different areas: economy, job creation, immigration, foreign policy, national security, defense, deregulation, agriculture, law and justice, energy and environment, transparency and accountability, health care, social programs, infrastructure and technology, education and veterans, you can find all that right here.

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News

Fact-checkers silent as their hero Joe Biden repeats Politifact’s LIE OF THE YEAR

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Where did all this money come from?
Where did all this money come from?

Big Tech social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. all would like you to believe that they are very interested in honesty and integrity. But what’s the truth? During the Thursday night debate, Joe Biden claimed that not a single person lost their health insurance after Obamacare. The claim was labeled the Lie of the Year in 2013. Yet the fact-checkers are silent now.

First, here is the clip of Biden claiming that no one lost their health insurance as a result of Obamacare:

Here are the facts as reported by Just The News:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said during Thursday night’s debate that nobody lost their health insurance plans when Obamacare was fully implemented, but millions of individuals had their insurance policies cancelled at the time.

A RAND Corporation study estimated that 5.9 million people lost their insurance plans due to Obamacare’s rules and regulations.

Obamacare is the 2010 health care law crafted by former President Obama, for whom Biden served as vice president for both of his terms.

Obama was heavily criticized at the time for telling Americans that if “you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” which turned out not to be the case.

Politifact rated Obama’s promise the “lie of the year” in 2013.

Biden said this during the debate:

“Not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare. They did not lose their insurance unless they chose they wanted to go to something else,” he said.

Although Politifact rated the claim “Lie of the year” in 2013 – AFTER OBAMA’S RE-ELECTION WAS FINISHED – they actually rated the exact same claim “True” before the election. They did this so to trick people into voting for the re-election of the Democrat candidate.

Avik Roy, health care policy expert at Forbes magazine, wrote about Politifact’s assessment of Obama’s promise to Americans about keeping their health plans after Obamacare.

In 2008, before the presidential election, PolitiFact rated Obama’s claims about Obamacare “True”:

Roy writes: (links removed)

On October 9, 2008, Angie Drobnic Holan of PolitiFact published an article using the site’s “Truth-O-Meter” to evaluate this claim: “Under Barack Obama’s health care proposal, ‘if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it.’”

And she concluded:

[…]…people who want to keep their current insurance should be able to do that under Obama’s plan. His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True.”

Roy notes:

PolitiFact’s pronouncements about Obamacare were widely repeated by pro-Obama reporters and pundits, and had a meaningful impact on the outcome of the election. Indeed, in 2009, PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 2008 campaign.

Here’s the screen capture from 2008:

Politifact caught with its pants on fire
Politifact says that everyone who likes their health care plan can keep it

Before the election, it’s true! And Obama got re-elected, because people believed that. But what happened after the election?

In 2013, after the 2012 election, PolitiFact rated Obama’s claims about Obamacare “Pants On Fire”:

Roy writes: (links removed)

On December 12, [2013] the self-appointed guardians of truth and justice at PolitiFact named President Obama’s infamous promise—that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it”—its 2013 “Lie of the Year.”

[…][N]one of the key facts that made that promise “impossible” in 2008 had changed by 2013. The President’s plan had always required major disruption of the health insurance market; the Obamacare bill contained the key elements of that plan; the Obamacare law did as well. The only thing that had changed was the actual first-hand accounts of millions of Americans who were losing their plans now that Obamacare was live.

And the screen capture from 2013:

Politifact says: we were just kidding! Kidding!
Politifact said one thing before the election, and the opposite afterwards

So when Politifact rates a statement by a Democrat as true, what they really mean is that it’s pants-on-fire-false, but it’s election time so they can’t say that. This is what “fact-checking” by far-left progressive “journalists” amounts to. They’re liars.

News

New study: Biden’s tax hikes hit 80% of Americans, $6,500 less median household income

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These people are all voting for Joe Biden - are you?
These people are all voting for Joe Biden – are you?

This study actually appeared in the Wall Street Journal, but since they have a paywall, I am linking to The Federalist instead. This new study comes from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. The Biden campaign is claiming that middle-class households won’t feel any effects from these tax increases. But the study is clear. Not only will 80% of Americans pay more, but many jobs will also be lost.

The Federalist reports on the study, which has some very prestigious authors:

A new study shows that Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden’s proposed economic plan would significantly hurt the long-term American economy if implemented.

While many mainstream media outlets claim Biden’s plan will target the wealthy and save the middle-class money, the 50-page study released by the Hoover Institution shows different results.

“Economists have paid too little attention to the economic effects of the Biden plan,” said Casey B. Mulligan, professor of economics at the University of Chicago. “Our report, which focuses on taxation, health insurance, regulation, and energy policy, suggests that these effects are potentially very large indeed.”

The study conducted by a group of financial and economic experts including Mulligan, former Chief Economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Kevin Hassett, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers since 2017, demonstrates how Biden’s plan will hurt everyone.

This is the bottom line: higher unemployment, lower household income for the average household:

“We conclude that, in the long run, Vice President Biden’s full agenda reduces full-time equivalent employment per person by about 3 percent, the capital stock per person by about 15 percent, real GDP per capita by more than 8 percent, and real consumption per household by about 7 percent,” the report stated.

If Biden’s proposed changes are implemented, the economists warn that, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s projections, 2030 may yield “4.9 million fewer employed individuals, $2.6 trillion less GDP, and $1.5 trillion less consumption in that year alone.” The economists also note that the median household income in 2030 would fall by $6,500 despite Biden’s promises to prioritize the middle class.

You’re not going to be immune to this, even if you’re poor:

While Biden and his VP Nominee Kamala Harris previously promised that they will not “raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000,” they have also promised to repeal the tax cuts made by President Trump, which gave 80.4 percent of all taxpayers a cut and 91 percent of the middle quintile a cut.

I don’t like numbers like this. It’s not just that I have to work the same amount for less take-home pay, which reduces my freedom. It’s also that the pressure on “the rich”, i.e. – MY EMPLOYER, causes companies to ship jobs overseas where labor costs are lower. Did you know that higher taxes causes outsourcing of jobs? The more that business owners have to pay, the more likely they are to pick up and move somewhere else – taking their jobs with them.

I don’t like this. It’s hard enough for me to make a living without the government taking more of what I earn. I’ll have to work longer in order to make up the difference – assuming I can even keep my job.