All this social distancing we’re urged to do because of COVID-19 is like being trapped in a bizarre game of cooties – the adult edition.
Don’t touch anything or anyone but if you do, wash your hands before and after touching whatever it is you’ve touched – either accidentally or on purpose because – COVID cooties.
Keep a recommended six-foot distance from anyone else, and for heaven’s sake, DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE or you may, like Lot’s wife, turn into a pillar of salt.
Don’t get me wrong, the danger of COVID-19 transmissions is certainly real, but…I’m skeptical that the hysterical, hyperbolic daily reporting and projection of fatalities in the hundreds of thousands isn’t. But that’s a post for another day.
Today we want to share some thoughts about faith amidst all this fear, chaos and uncertainty.
As Christians, we are called upon to not only talk up our faith, but to live it in our daily lives. I Colossians 1:10 says we should bear fruit in every good work so we can grow in the knowledge of the Lord.
This “fruit” isn’t the oranges and bananas prompting all the handwashing mentioned earlier, but rather our attitude, our action and our approach with others.
We are to be examples for others in all things, including how we handle adversity like sickness, financial setbacks, career disappointments – even death.
As we are becoming painfully aware on a daily basis, COVID-19 can include all the above.
The COVID-19 virus understandably has millions of Americans worried, but if we as a nation panic and hyperventilate like the breathless media hopes we will because it makes good prime time footage, we aren’t properly living our faith in the God who loves us.
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” (Luke 12, 25-26 NIV)
In Isaiah 7:9 the prophet said, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”
Now, today, this minute – is the time for all good Christian men and women to stand up for America by praying for our nation, its leaders, and those affected by the COVID-19 virus.
It is vital that as believers we stay calm and assure everyone we know that God is in charge and He is watching over all of us. If we confide our worries and put our trust in Him just as the Founding Fathers did in times of crisis, He will not abandon or forsake us.
God has never abandoned America and He’s not going to start now because of a new strain of respiratory virus.
That’s not the way our God rolls.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to all those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country.
Sources: The Gateway Pundit, You Tube, Wall Builders
Photo source: Jakarta Times, Digital Learning Commons
Shortly after 2 pm on June 5th Peggy Joyce King was ushered in heavenly style to a new address way north of where she lived the past eight decades.
Mom was what used to be called a P.K. – Preacher’s Kid. It was a title she wore with pride as an adult, although growing up it was never easy being a P.K.
Mom’s father was a Baptist minister that served a number of small churches throughout Indiana.
Grandpa used to say as a minister you went where you were called, and apparently he was called a lot because Mom went to seven different Indiana high schools over four years.
She attended schools everywhere from Kendallville and Auburn in northern Indiana, to Bunker Hill in north central Indiana, and a few others in between before the Rev. Raymond Finkbiner family settled in Wirt, a small community near the Ohio River town of Madison, Indiana on State Road 7.
Even though she met our father there, Madison was not her favorite stop on the Finkbiner Express. That would be Kendallville, a small community 25 miles north of Fort Wayne.
What Mom said she most enjoyed about Kendallville was she wasn’t treated like a P.K., but just like any other kid.
What kid doesn’t want that?
It was at a small Baptist church in downtown Kendallville where Peggy Finkbiner first played piano for a church service at age 17. That was the beginning of an unofficial calling that lasted roughly 65 years with Mom playing piano at various Baptist church services until her early 80’s.
Music was always a big part of her life and one of her favorite high school memories in Kendallville was going to a friend’s house on Saturday nights to listen to a Top 40 radio program featuring big band and swing music.
This was Mom’s rebellious period because her mother forbade her from listening to the radio show at home due to one of the sponsors being – gasp – Chesterfield cigarettes.
My sister Dee (DeDe to her big brother because “Deanna” was too phonetically challenging as a four-year-old) and I both love music today thanks to Mom – including those energetic, boisterous 40’s bands and possibly the best TV theme song ever: Peter Gunn.
Another legacy Mom left us was the joy of laughter. She had an infectious laugh and once it got going her laugh was like the Energizer Bunny – it kept going, and going, and…
The officiating minister at her June 10th Celebration of Life service shared during his remarks he once saw Mom burst into a spate of giggling that lasted 20 minutes. “I thought she was going to have a stroke,” he recalled with a smile.
Yes, Mom taught us to laugh and laugh often – “It’s good for what ails you,” she’d say. And she was right! Whatever Mom found funny, she knew that if she laughed, eventually the world would quit taking itself so seriously and laugh with her.
It couldn’t help itself!
As a long-time resident of the Otterbein Senior Community (formerly the Franklin United Methodist Home), we used to tell her that sharing joy and kindness was her personal ministry, and she should share it with other residents that might need a smile or encouraging word.
Happily she did and it was appreciated – by both residents and staff. Several hospice workers and Otterbein staff have shared with our family how they looked forward to their visits with Mom because she was always smiling and laughing.
We also inherited our love of reading from Mom. Until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s several years ago, she loved to read.
In elementary school I read almost every famous American biography the library had and she always had the time to listen if I wanted to share book insights with her.
Little did I know at the time she was prepping me for writing opportunities as a book reviewer.
My sister and I still enjoy reading, and while our first and second grade teachers taught us to read, it was Mom that encouraged it and cheered us on.
The most important thing we learned from our mother was to love God because He loves us. One Christmas when we were young Mom and Dad gave us Bibles for Christmas. DeDe’s was white and mine was black.
Wish I could say I still had that Bible, but thanks to Mom I know the wisdom and guidance written between those pages.
Because of the gospel story and God’s promise that eternal life is available to all who believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, we have the comfort at difficult times like these of knowing that our time apart from loved ones is just temporary.
Mom believed and so do we that when we die, those that accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior receive forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life.
Meaning that when we die we not only see Christ face to face, but also family and friends who preceded us.
This gave us comfort when Dad passed three Easters ago, and it gives us peace and grateful hearts today.
So Mom has a new address and a new heavenly mansion just for her.
She never lived in a mansion during her 87-plus years here, but it does our hearts good to know she is living in one now.
So this isn’t goodbye, Mom. We’ll see you again, and until then, we know you’ll enjoy praising God, playing hymns of praise on the piano and laughing with family members and friends.
Please know you’ll forever be in our hearts and thoughts. And save us one of your black walnut brownies, okay?
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to all those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who don’t, God bless you but there’s nothing here for you to see.
Just when you think Democrats can’t stoop any lower, their amorality and dearth of common decency drags them further down the cesspool of moral depravity.
In essence the bill said, any doctor or healthcare practitioner present at the time of birth “must exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”
A vote of 60 senators was required to pass what just a few years ago would have been a commonsense piece of legislation.
Last week only three Democrats supported the bill and 44 opposed it – including all the party’s 2020 presidential candidates. Not a single Republican senator opposed the bill sponsored by Nebraska Republican Ben Sasse.
Apparently the Dems’ recent obsession with ‘Medicare for All‘ applies to everyone except newborns who miraculously survive attempts to snuff out their lives.
In the eyes of those Democrats’ who voted against Sasse’s bill, babies not only have no right to Medicare for All, they also don’t deserve to live.
Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
If God had plans for a baby before it was born but a mother decides for whatever reason the baby is no longer wanted (after carrying it to term the previous nine months), what does that do to God’s plan for that child?
Why do Democrats lobby constantly for the rights of those here illegally, both children and adults, but don’t give a whit for the lives of helpless American infants surviving late term abortion?
Is there any reason why Planned Parenthood and the Democrat Party would oppose saving the life of infants whom have survived abortion, other than the money earned from harvesting their body parts?
Has one of our country’s two major parties sunk so low that not only does it advocate aborting babies born alive in the name of womens’ rights, but they support the harvesting of infant body parts in the name of blood profit?
Matthew 19:14 says, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” (ESV)
When God authored His magnificent plan of salvation, he intentionally saw that mankind’s hope and salvation took the form of a helpless, needy human infant.
An infant not unlike those born today – when they’re allowed to live.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to all those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country.
Christmas Eve 2018 marked the 200th anniversary of the world’s most beloved Christmas carol, Silent Night.
Coincidentally, this coming Sunday marks the 164th anniversary of the song’s composer unsuccessful attempt at confirming authorship of Silent Night’s melody.
Over the years there have been lots of stories about the song’s debut, ranging from a church organ in disrepair requiring a musical arrangement for a guitar, to the song being sung only once by its two creators and then discarded.
Like the song itself, the beauty of the true story of Silent Night, or Stille Nacht, Hellige Nacht in the original German, is the simplicity of the song’s heritage.
BACK STORY A young German priest named Joseph Mohr wrote the poem in 1816 that later became the lyrics to the song.
On Christmas Eve day in 1818 Mohr presented his poem to his musician friend Franz Gruber and asked if he could create a melody and guitar accompaniment that could be sung at Midnight Mass in Obendorf, Austria.
That night Gruber and Mohr, accompanied by the St. Nicholas Church choir, sang the song for the first time.
The original composition contained six stanzas compared to the three in the contemporary version and the original lyrics also were slightly different than what is usually sung today.
How did a hastily arranged composition intended for a single Christmas Eve service come to be translated into hundreds of languages and become the world’s best known Christmas carol?
You might say it was a Christmas miracle.
THE DISPERSION OF SILENT NIGHT An Austrian organ builder and repairman named Karl Mauracher traveled frequently to Obendorf over the years to repair the organ at St. Nicholas.
One visit after the debut of Silent Night Mauracher obtained a copy of the composition and shared it with the Strassers and the Rainer Family, two families of traveling folk singers based in his home area of the Ziller Valley. (Think the Von Trapp family immortalized in The Sound of Music but a century earlier.)
The Strassers reportedly changed some of Franz Gruber’s original notes into the version we know today at a concert in Leipzig, Austria in 1832. Around that same time the Rainer Family sang the carol before an audience which included Emperor Franz I (Leader of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and Tsar Alexander I (Russian emperor from 1801-1825).
The beloved Christmas carol was first sung in America by the Rainer Family outside Trinity Church in New York City in 1839.
A decade later the song was famous throughout Europe but its origins were not. Father Joseph Mohr died penniless in 1848 after donating his meager earnings as a priest to child education and elder care in Wagrain, Austria.
Silent night, Holy night,
All is calm, All is bright…
THE MYSTERY OF SILENT NIGHT During his lifetime Franz Gruber produced numerous orchestral arrangements of the classic, but when public speculation arose as to the popular song’s composer (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were the most popular guesses), Franz Gruber wrote to authorities in Berlin on December 30, 1854 asserting he was the real composer.
Gruber went to his grave in 1863 unacknowledged as the melody’s creator. It wasn’t until 1994, when an early Joseph Mohr arrangement of the song with the words, “Melodie von Fr. Xav. Gruber” handwritten in the upper right-hand corner was authenticated, that the composer’s identity was finally credited.
God has used imperfect humanity for millennia to help illustrate His love for mankind by sending His only begotten Son in the form of a human baby to reconcile us to Him.
Father Joseph Mohr and music composer Franz Gruber can sleep in heavenly peace knowing that their reverent Silent Night continues to touch millions of people 200 years after their inspired collaboration.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For those wanting to experience the Silent Night Chapel here in the United States, check out a life-size replica of Austria’s St. Nicholas Church at Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan.
Psalm 77:11-12 (NIV) I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.
It’s a scene frequently seen in public. Adults sitting wordlessly together, reading and pecking away on their smart phones.
At one restaurant table I recently saw a young girl, maybe 9 or 10 years of age, sitting silent and bored while three adults were immersed in their smart phones, ignoring her and each other.
It always amazes me to see people go about their lives oblivious to life around them because they’re so absorbed with the inanimate device in their hand.
I wonder if this is what God experiences when Christians fail to take time for prayer and Bible reading?
We are so busy liking, tweeting, and pinning emoticons, memes and selfies that we fail to appreciate the wonders of the present and the beauty surrounding us. Even worse, we waste so much precious time on trivialities rather than taking a few minutes of every day in prayer and meditation.
When the disciples asked Jesus why he spoke to the people in parables, he said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.” He continued, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
Smart phone technology is fantastic and offers a terrific way of sharing the Word, but like TV and radio, it often is a mindless distraction that steals our time and attention from important things like prayer and Bible reading.
II Tiimothy 2:15 (KJV) says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workmen that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividng the Word of truth.”
Today why not take a break from the Internet and take a few minutes to connect with God?
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Nike’s marketing slogan “Just Do It” has made that company a fortune selling shoes that cost a few dollars to make but routinely sell for ten times that.
With apologies to Nike, after seeing God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, I’m encouraging everyone I know to “Just See It.”
This is the third installment in the GND franchise, and in my thinking the best so far. The excellent screenplay by Michael Mason plays as if it was lifted from the day’s headlines.
A random act of vandalism in the form of a tossed brick through the basement window of a historic church sets off a gas leak. That leak serves as the spark in a burst of spiritual enlightenment that involves the entire college community.
Historic St. James church is pastored by Pastor Dave (David A.R. White), an amiable shaggy haired pastor who grew up with his now estranged brother Pearce (John Corbett) in the church pastored by their late father. Tragedy and anger ensue when Jude, a newly appointed co-minister from Ghana (Benjamin A. Onyango) is accidentally killed in the course of events.
The contemporary story line occurs when Hadleigh University, on whose campus the St. James church is located, rebuffs the church’s plans to rebuild in favor of building a new student union building on the site of the burned church.
College administrators and students argue that the church isn’t relevant in today’s culture.
That contentious decision sets the stage for battles on multiple fronts as Pastor Dave and his athiest brother Pearce work together to rally public support for rebuilding the church via social media, TV interviews and newspaper coverage.
One of the movie’s strengths is the multiple sub-story lines. For example:
*Pastor Dave and Pearce are estranged for unknown reasons initially but join together to fight for the legal right to rebuild the church;
*How a young female college student (Jennifer Taylor) questioning her faith unwittingly sets off the spark that lays bare the church vs state issue and pits the college against the local churchgoing community;
*Why Pastor Dave and his friend and fellow Christian, the school chancellor (Ted McGinley), find themselves at odds during the controversy and even resort to fisticuffs;
*Why Pearce lost his faith in law school and became estranged from his family, essentially leaving his younger brother to care for the pair’s parents;
*Why a gifted and promising law student (Shane Harper) told Pearce he abandoned pursuing law to serve as St. James youth minister. Spoiler alert: Because “Jesus was the ultimate social justice warrior”;
*The moving backstory of how the college student who threw the brick through the church window (Mike C. Manning) lost his faith and resented his girlfriend’s struggle in searching for hers;
*How Pastor Dave overcame struggling with his own faith and anger after Jude’s death to help bring the college and community back from the brink of animosity and help “stop the shouting.”
GND3 emphasizes that listening to others is better than shouting slogans, seeking understanding is better than stoking strife, and love always triumphs over hate.
Most importantly, the movie shows that if we check our egos and emotional baggage at the door, and treat others as we wish to be treated, it is then that God works through us and helps fulfill His purpose.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
When I was younger I remember questioning the name “Good Friday,” instead thinking it should be called “Black Friday.”
In my thinking at the time there was nothing good about it.
On that eventful day our Lord and Savior was maliciously charged with blasphemy by Jewish leaders, handled over to Roman authorities for prosecution, beaten, scourged, forced to carry his own execution device while mocked and heckled by onlookers, nailed to that cross, and then heckled and ridiculed some more while painfully hanging pitifully from the cross for hours – all while enduring real alienation from God His Father.
Eventually, his indescribable pain was finally relieved when death claimed Him. SPOILER ALERT: Death didn’t have him long.
Black Friday was indeed the darkest day in human history when The One who was sinless, who preached love and forgiveness, and who wanted nothing more than to share God’s love and mercy for all, was killed in the most barbaric and brutal method known at the time.
Even as a young Christian raised in the church I knew that many called it Good Friday because it was the day Jesus saved humanity from its sins and made it possible for us to intercede with God.
But it was Easter and Christ’s resurrection that brought us salvation, I remember thinking, because if Christ hadn’t risen from the dead there would be no Christianity (I Corinthians 15:14), no possibility of a direct relationship with God (Ephesians 2:18), no eternal life (John 3:16).
As I’ve pondered on Good Friday since, the reverse of what I previously thought is also true – just as there would be no Good Friday observance without Easter, there would be no Easter without the sorrowful sequence of events that transpired on Good Friday.
Just as darkness comes before the dawn, repentance comes before forgiveness, and the pain of childbirth comes before a newborn is delivered, according to God’s plan his Son, a blameless man who’d led a perfect life, had to be sacrificed before mankind could receive atonement (Romans 8:34).
The day Christ was sacrificed may well be known today as “Black Friday” – if there had been no resurrection and no promise of eternal life. But very few in modern times would know it as anything more than a historic footnote when a homeless Jewish rabbi was used as a useful pawn between Jewish leaders and their Roman captors.
This Good Friday let’s all take comfort in the knowledge that thanks to the selfless sacrifice made possible by a loving God over 2,000 years ago, we need not be alienated from Him. God has a purpose for every life, and while death may be inevitable, it isn’t final and we need not fear it. (1 Corinthians 15: 55-57).
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Photo source: billtammeus.typepad.com, Windows On My World, billygraham.org
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – JOHN ADAMS
In January we wrote about how fervent Alexander Hamilton was about his Christian faith. Click here for Hamilton: Unapologetic Christian Part One.
A native of the West Indies and orphaned at an early age, Hamilton’s friendship with a Presbyterian minister on the island of St. Croix led to the minister and others sponsoring young Hamilton’s education in New York.
Hamilton finished his formal schooling and earned a Bachelor’s degree at King’s College, now Columbia University, in just one year.
In 1775 Hamilton created a volunteer military company and on March 14, 1776 he was commissioned Captain of New York’s Artillery. His intelligence and skill with artillery caught the attention of Nathaniel Greene, which later led to his introduction to General George Washington.
Hamilton was only twenty years told when Washington promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and made the young islander his aide-decamp in 1777. Hamilton served as a military secretary and advisor to Washington for four and a half years.
After the war Hamilton turned his talents to politics and the law. A proponent of a strong central government, Hamilton is credited with writing half of the Federalist papers and played an important role in having the Constitution ratified.
A brilliant writer and financier, he skillfully guided the world’s newest country past the pitfalls of its Revolutionary War debt as the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, quickly putting his adopted country on solid financial footing.
Hamilton was happily married to wealthy New York socialite Elizabeth Schuyler (December, 1780) and the Hamilton’s had eight children over the years. The family was well respected locally and was prominent in civic affairs.
Unfortunately like many career-minded people, Hamilton’s personal ambition sometimes caused him to relegate God to the back seat at different periods of his public life. Then as now, this often leads to spiritual problems that manifest themselves in unforeseen ways.
The worst incident for Hamilton became public in the summer of 1797 as a result of an affair six years earlier. Infamously he became the first American politician embroiled in a public sex scandal. While serving as the country’s first Treasury Secretary during the summer of 1791, the 34-year-old Hamilton began a year-long affair with a 23-year old named Maria Reynolds.
Making matters worse Hamilton was blackmailed during the affair by the husband of the woman he was seeing. When all this became public five years later, a ruthless journalist named James T. Callender made the case that Hamilton used government funds as U.S. Treasury Secretary to make the blackmail payments.
He was eventually exonerated on using the payments for his blackmailer but his public reputation was tarnished and his future with the Federalist Party he helped found was ruined.
Stripped of his party and his honor, in 1800 Hamilton focused his efforts on opposing both the Democratic-Republican backed Thomas Jefferson and the Federalist nominee, John Adams. Ever resourceful, Hamilton raised about $10,000 from a group of investors to create a bully pulpit for his political opinions by founding the New York-Evening Post, known today as the New York Post.
Less than a week after the newspaper was created Hamilton’s first born son Philip was shot in a duel defending his father’s honor. Fourteen hours later, with his mother and father at his bedside, Philip professed his faith in Christ before succumbing.
The death of their eldest child crushed the Hamilton’s and their remaining six children. Their oldest daughter Angelica was 17 at the time and suffered a mental breakdown after her older brother’s death from which she never recovered.
Still mourning three months later, Hamilton revealed his own spiritual thinking in a letter to Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush on Feb 12, 1802: “My loss is indeed great…he was a fine youth…But why should I repine? It was the will of heaven, and he is now out of reach of the seductions and calamities of a world of folly, full of vice, full of danger…I firmly trust, also, that he has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity.”
In 1802 Hamilton proposed a Christian Constitutional Society that had two goals: The support of the Christian religion and the support of the Constitution of the United States.
Cynics say that the real purpose of the society was to create a new political party to oppose the other two parties, but in the letter outlining the plan to society co-founder James Bayard Hamilton wrote, “I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.”
Unfortunately like his son Philip, Hamilton was also killed in a duel, this one with Vice-President Aaron Burr on June 27th, 1804. Burr blamed Hamilton’s opposition for costing him both the 1800 presidential election and the 1804 New York gubernatorial election and justified the duel by claiming Hamilton attacked his honor at an upstate New York dinner party.
Historical accounts vary on details of the duel, some saying Hamilton intentionally missed because he personally opposed dueling. Regardless, Burr’s shot struck Hamilton in the abdomen just above his right hip.
Knowing the wound was serious, the next evening Hamilton requested communion be administered by the rector of Trinity Church, the Rev. Benjamin Moore. Moore initially refused because the church forbade dueling, but he agreed the second time he was summoned by his mortally wounded parishioner.
Hamilton’s final words to Rev. Moore hours before his passing were these: “I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.”
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
If Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan were advising Judas about betrayal, the disciple that sold Jesus out for a mere 30 pieces of silver would have commanded a much higher price for his treachery.
Conservatives, mark down in your history books – 2018 was the year that Good Friday was preceded one week by Black Friday – or maybe it should be called “Red Friday” since it committed taxpayers to billions of dollarsin reckless social services spending with a budget that would make the Kremlin proud.
If Chuck and Nancy do a tell-all book on this disastrous bill, they might well call it “Trumping the Art of the Deal.”
Many Trump supporters experienced disbelief, anger and depression faster than a Lamborghini going from 0-60 mph when shortly after midnight March 23, Senate Republicans joined handswith Democrats to pass the second highest budget in U.S. history.
If the president had followed through on his threat hours after the vote to veto Chuck and Nancy’s pirated pork pie, it is unlikely it would have cost him a single loyal supporter.
A veto would have shut down the government and forced Congress to come back from a two-week Easter recess and renegotiate. If Congress chose not to negotiate and managed to override Trump’s veto, congressional Republicans would have owned this disaster themselves.
Not now – Trump’s signature makes him just as culpable as the Republicans who stabbed their constituents in the back – his good intentions regarding the military notwithstanding.
Bottom line: after the president signed what he himself called a “ridiculous” bill numbering 2,232 pages, it may conceivably cost him millions of supporters and done irreparable damage to his brand as a political outsider and consummate negotiator.
No wonder Democrats were smiling so broadly – they got almost everything they wanted(Planned Parenthood funding, sanctuary city funding, firearms restrictions, funding for the New York-New Jersey underground tunnel), plus they got their Republican counterparts to put a 727-sized hole in Trump’s plans for a beautiful border wall.
That’s two walls the Democrats managed to bring down in time for this fall’s 2018 election – the much promised border wall and Trump’s former wall of invincibility.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Barack Obama RSVP’ed he wouldn’t be attending any of the memorial services for world renowned evangelist Billy Graham last week but was that a big deal?
Multiple news sources also reported at the time that Obama wouldn’t attend any of the Graham tributes, but no reasonwas given for the former president’s absence.
Pfft. None of the other living presidents attended Rev Graham’s funeral either. But both Bush 42 and Jimmy Carter are 93 years old and their absence was based on health reasons.
Bill Clinton and Bush 43 also didn’t attend Rev. Graham’s funeral, but they did pay their respects to the Graham family earlier in the week in North Carolina.
Obama did find the time to tweet his condolences the day of Graham’s passing. Wasn’t that generous?
So what was Obama doing the week of Rev. Graham’s memorials?
Obama has been busy of late with important issues in the here and now; specifically, issues concerning his favorite subject: his legacy writ large in the form of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
As we wrote earlier in this blog, the 235-foot-tall monument to himself has met with some controversy from conservationists, academics and – here’s the irony – grass-roots activists.
On Feb 27th Obama made a surprise visit to Chicago pleading his caseto residents how his temple – er, library/center – would not force them to eventually relocate by “gentrifying” their neighborhood.
Charles Lipton, a political science professor at the University of Chicago campus adjacent to where the Obama shrine – er, campus – is to be placed says Obama is “indulging himself” by “building a monument along the lakefront.”
Obama’s trip to Chicago was two days before Rev. Graham’s memorial at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and three days before 2,000-plus attended his funeral.
The juxtaposition between the plain spoken North Carolina preacher who pleaded with millions to come to Christ and the silver tongued former president who pleads for millions of dollars to help build his pantheon tells you all you need to know about true greatness.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Source: dailycaller.com, heavy.com
Photo sources: twitter.com, newyorktimes.com, Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune