Mitt-Stake

From TownHall.com

By Steve Deace

 

There is raging debate within American Christendom about what to do with Mitt Romney. Three schools of thought have emerged.

The first group is trying to put lipstick on a pig by pretending that Romney didn’t deliver the kill-shot to marriage in Massachusetts, didn’t beat Obama to the punch with government-mandated healthcare that included taxpayer-funded child killing, hasn’t at some point taken a liberal position on every issue, isn’t a self-proclaimed champion of gay rights, and hasn’t been caught lying and flip-flopping more times than you can say John Kerry. These are the Republican-firsters. They have no king but the chairman of the RNC, whom they’re almost as grateful to for the food on their dinner table each night as they are to God. Heck, they think God can only work through the RNC. These are the people that put the Bush-Cheney bumper sticker on the back of their car before the Jesus fish. This group believes any Republican that will kill one less baby, steal one less dollar, and tell one less lie than the Democrats is credited unto him righteousness. What they call being practical or pragmatic is really prostitution.

Obama Favored to Win South Carolina, GOP Consultant Says

Could these two beat General Sherman in South Carolina?

We have assumed that our intended protest vote in South Carolina against the GOP's "presumptive nominee" would be meaningless, given that this is the reddest of red states.  However, the establishment's own oracle, Karl Rove, has suggested that even South Carolina may be in play with Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee.

Could there be a clearer "wake up" call for Republican delegates to the 2012 GOP convention?  In this critical year, does the Republican Party really want to commit suicide with a candidate who couldn't command a majority of votes in most of the states he contested.  Are we about to nominate a candidate who avoids rallies because he can't generate a crowd?  This is the weakest GOP candidate since the 1930's, in a year which should belong to the Republican Party.  

Rick Santorum's name remains on Texas Primary ballots.  The Lonestar State could provide a great national service by voting for Santorum and sending a message to the GOP establishment that conservatives won't be herded once again, through fear, behind an unsuitable candidate.

If South Carolina is in play in this election, something is SERIOUSLY wrong with the "presumptive nominee."  There is still time to recruit a genuine conservative candidate with broad, national appeal.

From Charleston Democrat Examiner

By Rob Groce

Only once in the last half-century has South Carolina awarded its electoral votes to a Democratic presidential candidate.

A top Republican advisor is predicting that the Palmetto State could turn blue once again this year, however.

In a recent state-by-state breakdown, Karl Rove listed President Obama to have a three-percent lead in South Carolina over Mitt Romney, the apparent Republican candidate.

The Republican political consultant and former Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush includes the state with five others in a “toss-up” category.

Rove doesn’t list a source for his recent state-by-state estimates, but refers to poll results compiled by Real Clear Politics for a nationwide status.

Obama has led Romney in practically every national poll conducted over the last 15 months, according to Real Clear Politics. However, its few South Carolina polls that included a head-to-head contest between the two show the Republican candidate in the lead.

The most recent of such South Carolina polls listed by Real Clear Politics was conducted in October 2011, in which did Romney take 46 percent to Obama’s 40, leaving 14 percent undecided.

Another aggregate poll result source, David Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, shows Romney’s lead over Obama in South Carolina to only be 44 to 43, and includes a more recent poll from January 2012 in its compilation.

The Obama campaign appears to regard the state as winnable, having opened a local campaign headquarters in North Charleston last October.

In a November interview on the South Carolina Radio Network, Ben LaBolt, press secretary for the president’s re-election campaign, said “If we’ve got supporters in a state, even if it’s a traditionally red state, they ought to have the means to help the campaign if they want to get involved, and that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

Adding weight to the state in this year’s election, South Carolina gained a delegate, rising to nine.

John Kennedy won South Carolina’s delegates in 1960 with 51 percent of the vote. It wasn’t until 1976 before another Democrat, Jimmy Carter of neighboring Georgia, won the state. The Republican nominee won in South Carolina every election since.

John McCain led the state in 2008 with 54 percent of the vote. Obama had a majority of votes from Charleston County, however.

Romney: He's Just Not That Into You

Steve Deace asks: Will evangelicals 'lower God's standard' by voting for Mitt?

From WorldNetDaily

By Steve Deace 

Steve Deace

The other day I had a newspaper reporter contact me for my take on what Mitt Romney has to do to rally evangelicals for the general election. I told him he was asking the wrong question.

The question isn’t whether or not Mitt Romney will be able to successfully rally evangelicals this fall. The question is whether or not he actually wants to.

If Romney wants to endear himself to his base, he’s got a funny way of showing it. From refusing to sign either the Personhood pro-life or Susan B. Anthony anti-abortion pledges, to bragging about being a champion for so-called homosexual rights, and then demanding Republican National Committee members sign some heavyhanded “loyalty pledge,” Romney sure does have a funny way of wooing us.

Chorale at Christ Church - "The King of Love, My Shepherd Is"

"If I wanted America to fail ..."

Anti-Bullying Speaker Curses Christian Teens

Bullying is a problem in many schools throughout the United States.  School administrators have told us that it is particularly acute among young girls of 8 to 10 years old.  It is one of the most heartrending problems many children and their parents face, and it is wrong for any child to be bullied for any reason.  Unfortunately, the radical homosexualist movement has seized on this vexing problem as an opportunity to gain access to schools and to indoctrinate the students.

The following story illustrates the anti-Christian intolerance, vulgarity and demonic nature of the homosexualist movement and what activists are doing in the public schools.  Apparently, while one may not read a Bible in a public school, it is perfectly acceptable to blaspheme and condemn its teachings.  The message of the video below will sound familiar to those who have read the posts of one particular South Carolina blogger; their evil flows from the same place. 

What a hopeful sign that so many students had the courage and moral clarity to walk out on this speaker, and what a wonderful opportunity to start an association for Christian high school journalists!

From Fox News

By Todd Starnes

As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly called those who refused to listen to his rant “pansy assed.”

The speaker was Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” project, an anti-bullying campaign that has reached more than 40 million viewers with contributors ranging from President Obama to Hollywood stars. Savage also writes a sex advice column called “Savage Love.”

Savage, and his husband, were also guests at the White House for President Obama’s 2011 LGBT Pride Month reception. He was also invited to a White House anti-bullying conference.

FOLLOW TODD ON FACEBOOK FOR CULTURE WAR NEWS

Savage was supposed to be delivering a speech about anti-bullying at the National High School Journalism Conference sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association. But it turned into an episode of Christian-bashing.

Rick Tuttle, the journalism advisor for Sutter Union High School in California, was among several thousand people in the audience. He said they thought the speech was one thing – but it turned into something else.

“I thought this would be about anti-bullying,” Tuttle told Fox news. “It turned into a pointed attack on Christian beliefs.”

Tuttle said a number of his students were offended by Savage’s remarks – and some decided to leave the auditorium.

“It became hostile,” he said. “It felt hostile as we were sitting in the audience – especially towards Christians who espouse beliefs that he was literally taking on.”

Tuttle said the speech was laced with vulgarities and “sexual innuendo not appropriate for this age group.” At one point, he said Savage told the teenagers about how good his partner looked in a speedo.

The conservative website CitizenLink was the first to report about the controversy. They interviewed a 17-year-old girl who was one of students who walked out of the auditorium.

“The first thing he told the audience was, ‘I hope you’re all using birth control,’” she told CitizenLink. “he said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the (expletive deleted) in the Bible.”

As the teenagers were walking out, Tuttle said that Savage heckled them and called them pansy-assed.

“You can tell the Bible guys in the hall they can come back now because I’m done beating up the Bible,” Savage said as other students hollered and cheered. “It’s funny as someone who is on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible how pansy-assed people react when you push back.”

The executive director of the National Scholastic Press Association provided Fox News with joint statement from the Journalism Education Association that was sent to members – after a number of people complained about Savage’s remarks.

“We appreciate the level of thoughtfulness and deliberation regarding Dan Savage’s keynote address,” the NSPA wrote. “some audience members who felt hurt by his words and tone decided to leave in the middle of his speech, and to this, we want to make our point very clear: While as a journalist it’s important to be able to listen to speech that offends you, these students and advisers had simply reached their tolerance level for what they were willing to hear.”

The NSPA said they did not have a prior transcript of Savage’s speech and that wish “he had stayed more on target for the audience of teen journalists.” They also said it provided a “teachable moment” for students.

As for Savage’s attack on people of faith?

“While some of his earlier comments were so strongly worded that they shook some of our audience members, it is never the intent of JEA or NSPA to let students get hurt during their time at our conventions,” they wrote.

However, not once did the NSPA or the JEA offer any apologies to the students or faculty advisors or anyone else in attendance.

Savage did offer a sarcastic apology “if I hurt anyone’s feelings.”

“But I have a right to defend myself and to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible and insisting we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.”

Tuttle said that he “felt duped” by the event. “There were Christian schools who went to the conference. To have this happen was disappointing and shocking.”

The NSPA said they should have done a better job preparing schools for what to expect.

For his part, Tuttle said that he will definitely be more cautious about the speakers at future conventions.Tuttle related how Savage told students that for a number of years he was not allowed in schools. He told the students that because it’s gained national acceptance “he’s reveling in the fact that it’s basically a middle finger to all those teachers and administrators who wouldn’t let him have access to those students before.”

But for some of Tuttle’s students – they felt like the anti-bullying activist was in fact – the bully.

From the Pastor - "Gentle In All His Ways"

A weekly column by Father George Rutler.

King Charles II said that a gentleman is one who puts those around him at ease. Even on his deathbed he apologized to the courtiers in attendance: “I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying.” When William Penn, as a Quaker, would not doff his hat to the King, he asked the monarch, “Friend Charles, why dost thou remove thy hat?” The King answered, “Friend William, in circumstances such as these it is customary for only one man to keep his hat on.”

One would risk glibness if not irreverence to say that Christ was a gentleman, but in His human nature He habitually put those around Him at ease. With protocols from the Heavenly Court, He went to lengths in calming people and caring for their comfort. Never did the Lord “lord over” anyone, and if the occasional hypocrite or unjust judge or weak disciple became nervous in His presence, it was the fault of their guilt, for He never deliberately intimidated or shamed anyone.

Once, when a reporter shouted to the 33rd President: “Give 'em Hell, Harry!” Truman replied, “I don't give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's Hell.” Our Lord gave people Heaven itself, and if that frightened them it was because their duplicity made Heaven hellish.

In the Resurrection, our Lord kept putting people at ease, saying: “Peace.” “Do not be afraid.” “Why are you troubled?” He went so far as to let the apostles touch His wounds, and He ate a piece of baked fish to domesticate their incredulity. I expect that the only one He did not have to tell to calm down was His mother, who was full of grace.

Jesus had no need to apologize for having taken so long to die, because His very agony was a grace. He did another gracious thing by spending the forty days before His Ascension explaining how all the tangled events of history shaped a picture and how the prophets were prophetic. You can tell how well He taught by the way the apostles later wrote their letters, always with that gentle zeal for souls that makes the term “gentleman” inadequate to describe souls so sympathetic. When He had “opened their minds to understand the scriptures,” He told those in the Upper Room to “stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). We know that Peter listened very carefully, for when he was clothed in that elegant spiritual haberdashery which is sanctifying grace, he delicately told the crowd in Jerusalem that they had acted out of ignorance, but if they repented, the Lord would grant them “times of refreshment,” for the Lord—unbending to evil and fierce in the face of the Evil One—is also gentle in all His ways.