A gruesome anniversary

The Taliban took control in Afghanistan two years ago due to Biden's disgraceful, evil surrender and abandonment of our allies and troops. No one has resigned; no one's gone to jail.  Bush freed the women, and Biden put them back in bondage.  And yet Democrats remain loyally blind and deaf ignoring his parting gift to the Taliban of more than $7 billion worth of weapons and equipment. This old man is no different than the young man in 1975 who ran out on our South Vietnamese allies, saying then U.S. had "no obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals." But he finds it necessary to accept millions of foreign nationals from over 160 countries at our border.

Biden with the aid of billionaires, crooked elected officials and appointed judges is trying to destroy our system of elections by putting his opponent in jail for questioning the flawed election of 2020. Donald Trump received 12 million more votes for his second term, something that doesn't happen, and swing states and counties going Dem that had always been Republican. Obama received 6 million fewer in his 2nd term. We're to believe Biden is more popular than Obama? Something doesn't smell right.
Democrats so manipulated the voting system by using Covid mandates, something they'd hoped to do for many years. A DA in Georgia is claiming a conspiracy because of a Trump tweet or asking for a phone number. Why do Democrats believe they can't get elected unless they become fascists and terrorists?

Using the KKK terrorist tactics of the 19th century (also from the Democrat party), Biden's handlers are even charging anyone associated with Trump in order to insure he can't possibly have good lawyers and loyal supporters.

'The US has no obligation': Biden fought to keep Vietnamese refugees out of the US | Washington Examiner

US left billions in weapons in Afghanistan, with Black Hawks in Taliban's hands (nypost.com)

Republicans slam Joe Biden administration on two-year anniversary of fall of Afghanistan - Washington Times

Donald Trump indicted: Georgia grand jury charges ex-president, 18 others in sweeping RICO case | Washington Examiner

The Dominion Voting Software

So all these "crazy" people, Trump included, who said there was something wrong with Dominion weren't so crazy after all? All that money Dominion got from Fox? What's going on? The Halderman Report.

"The warnings are stark, suggesting that Georgia’s voting machines could be manipulated by bad actors in mere minutes. Halderman argued that attackers could alter the QR codes on printed ballots, and install malware on individual voting machines “with only brief physical access.” They could attack the broader voting system if they have the same access as certain county-level election officials, his report said."

Expert report fuels election doubts as Georgia waits to update voting software (nbcnews.com)

From Feb. 1, 2022 What We've Been Waiting For: Judge May Release Bombshell Report on Dominion Voting Machines in Georgia (westernjournal.com)

From Sept. 9, 2022  Tech Experts Warn Georgia's Voting System in Danger After Trump Supporters Busted Copying Software (thenewcivilrightsmovement.com)

Software updates on new voting machines in Georgia | 11alive.com

After a lengthy delay in disclosure, Georgia Report on Dominion Systems explodes onto the scene: Analysis | News | city-sentinel.com

Methodists: Don't miss your exit!

Dr. Warren Lathem, a retired UMC pastor and husband of a blogger friend, writes on Facebook, (1) Warren Lathem | Facebook :

"Atlanta drivers know if you wait until the last minute to try to cross 6 lanes of traffic to get to your exit, you are likely to either miss the opportunity and wait for the next one, or get run over by a delivery truck. Therefore, we have learned to get prepared to exit long before the exit appears.

 
The UMC made a provision for churches to disaffiliate (exit) from the UMC taking their property and all assets without any liability for future unfunded UMC pension benefits. It is described in paragraph 2553 of the current (2019) Book of Discipline.

 
However, this provision has an expiration date: December 31, 2023. There are costs involved, specifically paying the church’s share of the unfunded pension liability (the conference has to provide that number) and any unpaid current year apportionments plus one more year apportionments. Various other bishops and Conference Boards of Trustees have added other requirements, some quite onerous.

 
The paragraph 2553 of the 2019 General Conference made provision for disaffiliation by a local church and was ruled constitutional in 2021 by the Judicial Council. This meant disaffiliation could be processed beginning in 2022. Seventy churches in North Georgia completed the process and were approved/ratified for disaffiliation at the June, 2022 Annual Conference.
The remaining churches wishing to disaffiliate have a very narrow window. They must complete the church decision making process and ask for a church conference to be scheduled January 1- February 28, 2023. The North Georgia Conference must vote on whether to ratify the local church disaffiliation agreement which is scheduled for May 31, 2023. No further opportunity for ratification is presently planned.

 
In order to meet this deadline it is imperative churches act now. The Annual Conference has published very specific procedures which must be followed exactly to be able to successfully execute this process. A sixteen page disaffiliation package has been prepared to help churches navigate this laborious process. The packet is available via email on request.

 
Please do not believe the speculation that there is no need to do anything before the 2024 General Conference. Also do not believe the speculation that the 2024 GC will make the process easier and less costly. Indications across the church reveal an agenda to thwart the process of disaffiliation. For example, one bishop has declared no churches will be allowed to disaffiliate until after the 2024 GC. Another has required churches to surrender 1/2 of their assets in addition the Disciplinary requirements. Further, the centrists and progressives who were involved in the negotiations which resulted in the Protocol for Separation have withdrawn their support for the legislation in the 2024 GC. The NGA bishop has declared, “The Protocol is dead.”

 
There is not sufficient evidence to believe the 2024 GC will adopt a new version of Paragraph 2553 nor make leaving less onerous, if even possible. Many have speculated they will, but this a very unlikely outcome.

 
Therefore, I believe you will have one opportunity: Annual Conference 2023. If you miss the exit, you will have probably made a very costly mistake.

 
In order to avoid missing the exit, you must begin moving toward it now, not later. Now. No one knows how many NGA churches will seek to disaffiliate in 2023. It could be hundreds. The exit ramp is fast approaching and the exit lane will fill quickly. You need to move toward it quickly.

 
Please do not let conference leaders, centrist/progressive clergy, or other church members convince you there is no hurry. The time is now.

 
There are folks available to speak with you, your church leadership, your church or a group of churches to help with understanding the current situation and the necessary process to successfully get through this exit.

 
In many churches there has been little or no discussion of the whole matter forcing the decision. Often that may be the natural state of inertia in many of the congregations of the UMC. Or it may be a theological misalignment of the pastor and the congregation. Further, it may be the fear of conflict in the congregation. Now is the time to face the fears and the consequences. Time is of the essence.

 
Disclosure: after 50 years of ministry in the UMC I transferred to the Global Methodist Church. It was in some ways a very sad and difficult decision. However, it was for missional reasons, first, then doctrinal and theological reasons. I believe we have a great missional future together. Our Wesleyan heritage is one of outwardly focused mission. It’s time to pursue it again.

warrenlathem@gmail.com

He also wrote:  Warren Lathem: North Georgia Ripple Effects - Juicy Ecumenism

"Interestingly, the reasons churches are discussing leaving almost always have nothing to do with human sexuality, the high-profile issue at the General Church level. They are talking about a misalignment of mission, decades of ineffective pastoral leadership, the misuse (in their opinion) of their apportionment dollars, the forced closing of local churches, the seizing of local church assets, and a desire for a viable future which appears to no longer be possible in the UMC. They have watched their children leave to go to effective orthodox churches, often independent or loosely aligned with an association of churches. They have observed the sometimes slow and sometimes rapid exit of their contemporaries to other vital churches in their community. They have observed the politically driven actions of the leadership of the conference in hiding or withholding information that for years was readily available to local churches. They have had to receive and pay the salaries of District Superintendents who have little experience and often no serious effective experience. Some of them have had a new DS assigned and have never met them in over two years! Many discuss the all-consuming institutionalism of the denominational leadership while experiencing either benign neglect or open hostility from that same leadership to the needs of the ministry of the local church. Now many of these most faithful United Methodists gather in sanctuaries for worship, look around and see fewer than 50% of the folks who were there just a few years ago. Some will say this is simply the result of Covid. Certainly some of it is. However, in most churches this downward trend in attendance stretches over multiple years and pastors. They never see a believer’s baptism. Confirmation classes have fewer than five or none at all. They are threatened if they do not pay their annual apportionment in full. They are not included in any district or conference decisions, not even consulted. So they want out with their assets to continue ministry in a more effective way. They may not be sure what that looks like, but they know what is current reality is not working."

Two speeches, a defining moment in history

Peggy Noonan, whom I gave up on when she went all soft and gooey and swooned over Obama in 2008: 

"It is startling when two speeches within 24 hours, neither much heralded in advance—the second wouldn’t even have been given without the first—leave you knowing you have witnessed a seminal moment in the history of an administration, but it happened this week. The president’s Tuesday speech in Atlanta, on voting rights, was a disaster for him. By the end of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s answering speech on Wednesday you knew some new break point had occurred, that President Biden might have thought he was just crooning to part of his base but the repercussions were greater than that; he was breaking in some new way with others—and didn’t know it. It is poor political practice when you fail to guess the effects of your actions. He meant to mollify an important constituency but instead he filled his opponents with honest indignation and, I suspect, encouraged in that fractured group some new unity.

The speech itself was AGGRESSIVE, INTEMPERATE, not only OFFENSIVE but meant to OFFEND. It seemed prepared by people who think there is only the Democratic Party in America, that’s it, everyone else is an outsider who can be disparaged. It was a mistake on so many levels. Presidents more than others in politics have to maintain an even strain, as astronauts used to say. If a president is rhetorically manipulative and divisive on a voting-rights bill it undercuts what he’s trying to establish the next day on Covid and the economy. The over-the-top language of the speech made him seem more emotional, less competent. The portentousness—“In our lives and . . . the life of our nation, there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before them from everything that followed. They stop time”—made him appear incapable of understanding how the majority of Americans understand our own nation’s history and the vast array of its challenges. (Wall Street Journal pay wall, but you get the idea Biden’s Georgia Speech Is a Break Point - WSJ )

In my opinion, I don't think Biden is able to think or comment like this.  His speech writers are all steeped and stewed in Critical Race Theory, which means they know nothing about American history.

The Georgia scandal

 Even with the video showing the Georgia scandal of counting votes after sending the poll watchers home after a "water pipe leak" Facebook is calling my post and link about it "fake news." I guess they'll call the GA governor out on that one, too. These twits really irritate me, but Facebook is "free" and can set its own rules about fake. Fakebook. We get what we pay for, folks. An addiction, a vote manipulator, and a really poor source of news.

What a sore, sour loser! Stacey Abrams

“This is not a concession speech,” Ms. Abrams said, delivering a fiery speech to supporters saying the voting process was poisoned from the start by Republicans — and in particular Mr. Kemp, who had been secretary of state until he resigned after the election.

He led by 60,000 votes, well over the number needed to avoid a run-off.  If every time a black and/or female candidate loses and she cries foul, what happens if there are two black candidates?  Doesn’t someone have to lose?

Considering Abrams’ socialist stance and Georgia’s traditional conservative views, Kemp should be embarrassed that his lead wasn’t greater.

https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/16/brian-kemp-wins-georgia-governors-race/

NPR snarked that African Americans fought “only decades ago” for the right to vote and is playing fast and lose with history.  That was 50 + years ago and it was the Democrat Party that had special rules for blacks to votes, like counting beans in a jar.  If any election season showed why every voter needs to have ID it’s what has happened in Florida, Texas and Georgia. The Democrats are still acting as though blacks aren’t smart enough to follow the rules.  These recounts with people trying to figure out the “intention” of the voter are ridiculous.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/668753230/democrat-stacey-abrams-ends-bid-for-georgia-governor-decrying-suppression

Socialist running the south

Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel

 Mike Huckabee:  "The ballots had barely begun to be counted [6th district Georgia] before angry liberals on Twitter were blasting Ossoff as a terrible candidate who didn’t articulate why working class voters should support him. And yet, when Hillary lost, it could only have been due to a Russian conspiracy. How do they know some Russians didn’t get misled by their iPhone Maps app, end up in Roswell, Georgia, instead of the Republic of Georgia, and stuff the ballot boxes? Hey, there’s as much evidence of that as there is that they colluded with the Trump campaign."

Just what do liberal candidates have to offer the working class voter? More government transfers? Take away their health insurance, doctor and network? Destroy the base of whatever industry they work in because it's not sustainable enough? Keep them away from school choice so their kids have to stay in failing public schools? Bring in more immigrants to compete with them for jobs? Ridicule their Catholic beliefs?

Just wondering. Other than calling deplorables names, just what are the liberal policies?

And just look at the sad angry faces of the media last night.

 " Just two weeks ago, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll had Ossoff up by 7 points, and he lost by about 5. Either the vote swung against him by 12 points in two weeks, or else polls are now the only section of the newspaper less reliable than the Horoscope column." Huckabee

Why do we tax payers need to support Planned Parenthood laundering money through campaigns for Democrats who can then vote to give the baby killer more money?

Update: Wall St. Journal

"Liberals may need some time and space to get over the Georgia result. In the New York Times, Frank Bruni captures the anguish of Democrats—and not just the ones who work in the media industry:

They ached for this seat. They fought for it fiercely. They reasoned that Ossoff had a real chance: Donald Trump, after all, won this district by just 1.5 percentage points. Donations for Ossoff flooded in, helping to make this the most expensive House race in history by far.

Democrats came up empty-handed nonetheless. So a party sorely demoralized in November is demoralized yet again — and left to wonder if the intense anti-Trump passion visible in protests, marches, money and new volunteers isn’t just some theatrical, symbolic, abstract thing."

I guess they don't see how this hateful anti-Trump idiocy is turning people off.

One job, created or saved--$800,000

I was browsing the government ARRA "transparency" site for the first stimulus (looked like it had been months since it was updated), and I came across a place in Georgia, Huston County, I believe, where upgrades to a public housing project TJ Calhoun was to get $800,000. Under jobs created or saved category, the word "one." But nothing had been done, so I guess that's a moot point. Meanwhile, on the radio, I can hear the familiar voice castigating Republicans for wanting people to stay unemployed. ARRA money went to unions and to government agencies. ARRA Junior won't be any different.

Was it NCLB?

Depending on your politics, education statistics are fodder for your cause. While in office President Bush was roundly criticized by both conservatives and liberals for throwing money at education, particularly NCLB. Although if you look at the grant money available from HHS, USDA, and other agencies, the money for children extended far beyond the DOE and NCLB. No president in the history of the nation has better reason to be called “the education president” than George W. Bush, based on the money spent, (or wasted, depending on your viewpoint). However, today I came across some interesting statistics.

In 1998 Georgia had the lowest overall graduation rate in the nation with 54% of students graduating, followed by Nevada, Florida, and Washington, D.C. The national rate was 71%, according to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. (Its figures differ from some government statistics which include GEDs in graduation rates). Nine years later, Georgia's graduation rate rose to an all-time high of 72.3 percent in 2006-2007, according to data released by State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox and Governor Sonny Perdue.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research tends to be conservative/libertarian. I don’t know about the state superintendent of schools in Georgia, but I’m sure she would want to make it as positive as possible, regardless of her party. But it looks like NCLB helped some of the worst school districts in the country, which I believe was its intent. The NEA and teachers in general complained bitterly about it, and I'm sure anything good about the program will go the way of all digital information agencies of the federal government don't want you to see. As I've said many times, the archives belong to the victor, and the public libraries to the Democrats.

However, here’s another statistic I found. In 1993 Georgia began to invest more (many millions) in pre-K education which included a component for working with the mothers of the children so they could get their GED and job training. This was under Governor Zell Miller, and was funded by the state lottery. Press release 1993. If even some of the poorest children were helped by that program, it should have shown up in the 2007 graduation rates, 14 years later.

During the last three weeks, we've seen the previous administration dissed at every possibile turn by current officials, from Obama on down, and it is in very bad taste. It will be interesting to see if he is criticized for not caring about children.

Voter fraud is everywhere

Only if Obama loses will it get investigated. Check out this news video story from Atlanta about how many Georgians are voting in Florida or Ohio, both battle ground states. This morning on the radio I heard a very disturbing interview with John Fund about fraud in Wisconsin. In Ohio with the same day register and vote "golden week," it was golden for fraud. Even people like BuckeyeRINO who went to vote early said he could understand why they are careful on election day and so sloppy during early voting.

The early voting environment in my county doesn’t lend itself to confidence in the integrity of the system that Jennifer Brunner has provided us with. No matter how the elections turn out, there will still be questions raised about how they were conducted. My early voting experience in Erie County was, at the least, unsettling.

My son said he voted early at Vet's Memorial last week (before the early rush) and was surprised no one asked for ID especially since he had moved since registering. In Ohio they're accepting park benches as addresses for the homeless. Tough to mail a confirmation to a bench. You can never match up a vote with a registration, so how will Brunner stop this fraud?

I was supposed to be a poll watcher today, but the new rules made that virtually impossible unless you can be on your feet from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.--they won't allow shifts.

Due to the clarification issued by the Franklin County board of elections, effective Monday, October 27, 2008--Each political party is limited to one poll observer per precinct for the ENTIRE DAY. If you are receiving this email you have been scheduled for a half day shift and we are going to have to ask you to commit to the entire shift. We understand that working the entire day is a sizeable obligation. If you are NOT able to fulfill this commitment please reply to this email by 3pm Tuesday, October 28, 2008.

Most of the center left Democrats I know would not want fraud, but will they object? Would they get as angry as they did about the Supreme Court returning the decision to Florida about hanging chads, after ballots were handled multiple times in trying to determine the intention of the voter couldn't possibly be what was shown on the ballot? Unless Democrats raise the objections, I don't think we'll hear a peep from the Obamachine.

Both parties have teams of lawyers ready to go, just as they did in 2000, when the investigation would have moved on to another state even though each recount still came up with Bush as the winner. Ohio Democrats cried buckets in 2004, despite the significant advantage that Bush had. They couldn't believe their own polls or post voting surveys which had given Kerry an advantage could be wrong. Our press is useless--we have to rely on student news media and bloggers, which is just silly. Maybe one of the 3rd party candidates could investigate voter fraud--doesn't look like AG's of the winning party will do it.