Today a reader asked if I thought it was "morally wrong for a Christian to be a democrat"? In reply I said:

God is not a Republican or a Democrat :>)

The bible teaches us some moral principles that are routinely broken by people who are members of every political party. Note, however, that people make moral decisions as individuals, not as parties. There is no Christian political party just as there is no Christian company, just individuals who follow Christ however imperfectly.

Just to look at just one issue, I disagree with the position on abortion taken by the Democrat party in their platform, but so do many Democrats. While I like many things the Libertarian party supports, I also disagree with them on abortion, as do some Libertarians. The Libertarians are more extreme than the Democrats on this issue. However I am convinced there are true Christians who are members of both parties.

Humans are not perfect, so it would be unreasonable to expect any group of humans to be perfect. I and many other Christians have chosen to work within the Republican party as we feel that on balance it offends less against what we see as the teachings of scripture than the Democrat party. Others disagree.

To be effective within the political arena in the USA you must work within either the Republican or the Democrat party. On the national and state levels third parties have zero power, so working within them is the same as disengaging from the political process. We have to work within one of the two major parties if we are to change anything in our country.

I would love nothing more than to have two good candidates to choose from for each office in September. Therefore I hope that those within the Democrat party manage to improve it. Meanwhile I will work for issues and candidates I believe in. At this point in time most of those candidates are Republicans.

I hope this clarifies where I am coming from.

The Church I attend, Vinelife Community Church, is helping to sponsor a Serviceman's and Veteran's Day of Appreciation to be held at the Boulder Country Fairgrounds on Sunday May 29, 2005 from 10:30 AM to 2 PM. If you are in the area I hope you will join us in saying a big "THANK YOU" to all who are serving or have served our country in the armed forces.

More information is available here, here, and here.

The invaluable Power Line today linked to a story about election fraud this last election in Milwaukee Wisconsin. A joint Federal / State investigation found that the number of ballots exceeded the number of voters by 4,609. As John Hinderaker of Power Line put it "There is no evident explanation for this other than ballot box stuffing."

Why should we care? Because John Kerry won Wisconsin by a mere 11,000 votes and the fraud investigation has yet to look at the suburbs of Milwaukee or other parts of the state. Further the investigators found over 200 felons voted illegally in Milwaukee, and over 100 voted twice or used fake names, addresses, or used the ID of a dead person. Investigators have focused on the over 70,000 people who registered to vote on election day in Milwaukee since the registration paperwork still existed and not on the over 200,000 other voters since Milwaukee's election records are in such bad shape they would not hold up in court! In other words the fraud could be far worse, but we will never know because of poor record keeping in this overwhelmingly Democrat city.

"U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Green Bay Republican who has introduced a national photo ID requirement, said: 'People are having their faith in the election system shaken. This news will make it much, much worse.'" I hope that everyone who believes in honest government no matter what your political beliefs will realize our election system in this country is seriously broken. Requiring photo ID to vote is just one of many steps that need to be taken if we are to be confident in the election results. Minimum requirements for voter records would seem to be another.

As John Hinderaker wrote "it is only a matter of time until voter fraud determines the outcome of a Presidential election. (Indeed, this may well have happened in 1960.) It could have happened last fall; that it didn't was entirely a matter of luck." I would say this has been the grace of God.

Captain Ed of Captain's Quarters drew my attention today to an article in the New York Daily News about remarks by Pat Robertson on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that are not helpful to the cause of trying to get good judges through the US Senate, even though Pat Robertson evidently was trying to support them.

At first I was cautious wondering if his remarks were taken out of context, particularly since the longest quote in the New York Daily News article was one which I could largely agree with.

"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings"

Some might feel that statement is wrong, but it can at least be debated by reasonable people.

The 9/11 terrorists did a lot of damage to this country, but they united us in a way not seen in a long time. Obvious external enemies tend to do that.

On the other hand "the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together" has resulted in what Dennis Prager calls a civil war in our country. This is not to say our current culture war is anything less than an all out (cold) civil war, but thank God it is not a shooting war. I pray it never becomes a shooting war!

After I questioned the context of Pat Robertson's statements both Captain Ed and Derek Rose the author of the New York Daily News article provided the remarks in context:

" STEPHANOPOULOS: But sir, you have described this (inaudible) battle in pretty apocalyptic terms. You said: The liberals are engaging in an all-out assault on Christianity. The Democrats will appoint judges who don't share our Christian values and will dismantle Christian culture. And the out-of-control judiciary -- this was in your last book -- is the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history: more serious than Al Qaida, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War.

"ROBERTSON: Yes, I really believe that."

There is more which tends to moderate what he just said, but few will get past the above without dismissing Pat as a kook, and by inference all Christians and Republicans with him. The fact that Pat Robertson no longer has very large followings in either Christian or Republican circles will not matter.

Captain Ed wrote "Gee, Thanks, Pat" to which I can only add "with friends like these ..."

One of the main reasons I and so many other Christians supported President Bush and the Republican Senatorial candidates this last November was that we knew that one of the most important issues that will determine what sort of country our Children and Grandchildren will grow up in, is who will be our judges. The recent Terri Schiavo drama helped drive home this point.

Filibustering in the US Senate is a means a minority in the Senate can use to prevent the majority from passing a law, and it requires a supermajority of 60 out of the 100 Senators to break a filibuster. When it comes to blocking the creation of new laws the filibuster has in general been a good thing for the country. The filibuster is not in the Constitution, but has been part of the rules of the US Senate since the early days of our country.

The US Constitution gives the US Senate the duty to approve or reject the President's nominations for Federal Judgeships. It does not say this should require a supermajority.

Before President G. W. Bush entered office, never in the history of our country was a President's nominations for the Circuit Court or the Supreme Court filibustered. Exactly once there was a filibuster of a nomination of a sitting Supreme Court justice to become Chief Justice, and that was an unusual case of a nomination submitted at the end of the year when the Congress was about to go home, and the justice in question had serious ethical questions. That's it!

Our Constitution has a number of supermajority requirements in it including for doing things such as amending the Constitution, but the approval or rejection of a president's judicial nominations by the US Senate was not one of them. The Democrats are lying through their teeth and trying to tell the American public that all they are doing is upholding the traditions of the Senate, when really they are trying to ram though an Amendment of the Constitution without following the Constitutional provisions for such an Amendment.

Unfortunately there are Republicans who are siding with the Democrats in this unconstitutional Amendment attempt. Hugh Hewitt just reported on his radio program and his website that "Republican" Senator John McCain has declared he is going to support the Democrats in their unconstitutional filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominations.

There are also Republican Senators Alexander, Chafee, Collins, Hagel, Snowe, Sununu and Warner who are said to be thinking of joining Senator McCain in betraying the trust of the American people and of those who worked so hard to get them elected, by supporting the Democrats in this back door attempt to Amend the US Constitution.

Please call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-225-3121 and ask to speak with each of the above Senator's offices. Be polite, but ask them to please support the Constitution by voting against the use of the filibuster against the President's judicial nominations. If you are a past donor to Senatorial campaigns let them know that if they vote against the Constitution you will donate to their primary opponents next time around.

After you have left messages for the 7 waffling Senators above, call back and leave messages for Senators Frist and Specter urging them to take prompt action on the President's nominees. All of the President's judicial nominees currently before the US Senate would be approved, if they could only get a vote.

Senator's emails and direct phone numbers can be found here.

To learn more about the use of the filibuster against judicial nominations click here. To learn more about the history of judicial nominations click here.

Ed at Captain's Quarters has some choice words about Senator McCain and his history in the US Senate.

UPDATE: It was pointed out to me by Jarrad Shiver that my original wording "The US Constitution gives the US Senate the duty to approve the President's nominations for Federal Judgeships" could easily be read to imply that the Senate was under an obligation to approve the President's nominations, which is of course incorrect. Therefore I changed it to read "The US Constitution gives the US Senate the duty to approve or reject the President's nominations for Federal Judgeships" which I hope clarifies what I meant to say.

John H. Hinderaker of Power Line writes "We have expressed our disappointment, in several respects, with this year's Pulitzer awards." "Cartoonist Nick Anderson of the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal was awarded the top prize in print journalism "for his unusual graphic style that produced extraordinarily thoughtful and powerful messages," according to the Pulitzer Web site.

"You can see Anderson's prize-winning cartoons here. Virtually every one is a vicious, hateful attack on President Bush, the United States, or Christianity."

Here is one example:

"Yup, that's right. The central symbol of the Christian faith, with its two billion adherents, is just a tool to ride herd on those poor Democrats. That's what happens to them, I guess, when they aren't being run over by construction equipment or set aflame by Vietnam veterans." [as depicted in his other prize winning cartoons]

"Am I missing something, or is this a pathetic body of work, as whiny, self-pitying and incompetent as it is hateful? It's of a piece, though, with the journalism that the Pulitzer committee found worthy of reward this year. Loyalty to the Democratic party and antipathy toward America are the only qualities that count."

Read the whole article.

I have known of and supported Spirit of America for about a year. They have done outstanding work helping the cause of freedom in Iraq and elsewhere. Jim Hake the founder writes:

"I'm in Beirut, Lebanon to kick off a project to support the pro-democracy demonstrators at the "tent city" in Martyrs' Square. Their goals are independence (i.e., Syria out of Lebanon) and free and fair elections. The tent city demonstrators are the center of gravity for Lebanon's pro-democracy movement. They are leading the charge. They put together the massive demonstrations 3 weeks ago. As they go, so goes Lebanon's independence. And so goes a great opportunity for democratic transformation of the Middle East and Arab world.

"They need our help to sustain their struggle. Our project is raising support for them (food, shelter, water, etc.) While I'm here we're looking into other things to help (e.g., Internet access at tent city)

"People can go here to help. 100% of all donations go directly to the things that will help the pro-democracy demonstrators.

"Syria is publicly acting like it is playing nice and withdrawing. Behind the scenes they are destabilizing the country, delaying the elections and intimidating the opposition. The good guys in Lebanon need our support.

"Please blog and help get the word out. This message is posted on our blog here."

Lots of people ask "but what can I do?" Well here is something you can do to help. Any donation large or small will help the cause of freedom.

The website for GodBlogCon is now operational and they expect to be accepting registrations soon.

"The Torrey Honors Institute of Biola University is proud to announce that the first ever GodBlog Convention will be held at Biola University on October 13th through October 15th, 2005. GodBlogCon is designed to establish and cultivate relationships within the Christian blogging community and to provide opportunities for Christian bloggers to think about their role within the broader blogging world."

I will post more as information becomes available.

This morning before the news of the Pope's death, Hugh Hewitt wrote: "With Reagan and Solzhenitsyn, John Paul II represents the three forces of opposition to communism that shattered the evil empire, the Soviet Union --the American-led West, the Eastern European resistance, and the Russian dissident movement. They also represented the three spheres of opposition: political, artistic and spiritual. Each man came into the field of his greatness later in life, and each has endured hard circumstances in their later years. I hope Solzhenitisyn is able to and inclined to write about his colleagues in the struggle that triumphed."

I am not a Catholic, but there is no denying the huge impact for good that Pope John Paul II made on the world.

UPDATE: I relied on what turned out to be a premature report of the Pope's death when I made this post. None the less it appears his time on earth is coming to an end.

Remember Sandy Burger, the Clinton White House Official who it was claimed removed the only copies of top secret documents "by accident" from the National Archives by hiding them in his socks? He claimed the documents were later misplaced or thrown out.

At the time the story was treated as one of those wild accusations coming out of what Hillary calls the "vast right wing conspiracy".

Now we learn due to his plea bargain that he intentionally removed the only copies in existence of these documents, and then personally shredded them with scissors in his office.

The liberal Washington Post leads off their story today this way: "Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, a former White House national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism."

As Bill at INDC Journal writes: "So, let me get this straight: Sandy Berger intentionally destroyed the only copies of top secret documents about this country's historical knowledge of looming terrorism threats for clearly political purposes, even though a bipartisan Congressional commission was requesting and utilizing all such documents in an effort to formulate recommendations about how to protect America from another terrorist attack.

"In my world, that's not a "$10,000 fine ... three-year suspension of his national security clearance" offense, it's in the parking lot of the ballpark of treason. Former NSA or not, this man should suffer a permanent revocation of any security clearance, and probably sample the cuisine at a federal prison. "

Ed at Captain's Quarters writes: "He should face obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress just for this action alone, both felonies. The Post, meanwhile, insists on calling these "copies". They were not exact copies; each memo started off as a copy of an original draft by Richard Clarke, but the memos had handwritten notes from each recipient as comments, requests for revision, and suggestions for possible action. Each document was unique, and their destruction by Mr. Scissors means that we will never know what some did with Clarke's information. All we know is that it must have reflected badly on Berger, Clinton, or both. Otherwise, why would Berger destroy them?

"This is a travesty. If a lower-level cleared worker had done a fraction of what Berger did in this case, he would face years in prison. Berger gets off with a fine that any of his well-connected friends will wind up underwriting, a gracious gesture of gratitude for pulling their chestnuts out of the fire."

Indeed. Clinton's buddy Sandy Burger has obstructed justice, and the joke is on us.