Dr. Earl Tilford writing in the Jewish Press has an excellent Op-Ed on the problem the "Christian Left" has with Israel.   The article is excellent and well worth your time to read.  One point he makes is that "Definitive truth, righteousness, and sinfulness are concepts alien to a Christian Left that denies the existence of evil (except as it applies to political and religious conservatives, “big oil,” and anyone who questions the left’s assumptions)."

This is similar to my often stated view that the Left does not believe in "evil" other than violence.  To many on the Left, all violence is EVIL and can never be justified.  This of course opposes all use of military force.  As Dr. Tilford writes "Further, Israel does something Christian leftists find incomprehensible: it uses military power to defend itself."  I believe things are even worse on the Left than he claims, as many of those on the Left believe that the mere fact that Israel has and uses military force PROVES Isreal to be evil.  This of course does not only apply to Israel, but also to the USA.  Much of the loathing of our country by those on the Left is due to the fact we have a powerful military and use it.

Of course the use of force by all the truly evil regimes and dictators around the world is excused by the Jimmy Carter Left who have never found a despotic government they did not favor.

HT to Free Republic for the link to the Op-Ed.

It is not too late to get your seat at the

 BoulderCountyRepublican

Lincoln Dinner!

Hear Bob Beauprez sing

and

Bob Schaffer's riveting recitation!

*NEW LOCATION*

Millennium Harvest House

5:00 Saturday, May12

 

Only $50 for a Rip Roarin' Time

To use your credit card call 303-443-7810

Deadline - May 9^th  Don't miss out!

Family Research Council Action has just published links to many Voter Guides, including the Colorado Voter's Guide published by Rocky Mountain Family Council. RMFC has taken positions on many of the Amendments and Referendum on the ballot this November.

Christian Coalition of Colorado has just published their Voter Guide in conjunction with Christian Family Alliance of Colorado.  The Alliance has voter guides for all 7 Colorado Congressional races available here.  Christian Coalition of America the national organization, has a Voter Guide for Colorado Congressional Districts 4 and 7.

Focus on the Family has lots of general information of interest, and their political action wing Focus on the Family Action has lots of voting information.  Focus on the Family Action together with Family Research Council Action has just published their 2006 Voter Scorecard.  It shows the votes of all members of the US House and Senate on key issues, and rates the members.  Here in Colorado, Bob Beauprez who is running for Governor received a 100% rating, as did Marilyn Musgrave and Thomas Tancredo, both of whom are running for re-election.

The Colorado Catholic Conference has just published a Letter to the Faithful signed by Archbishop Chaput urging support for marriage, and in particular voting for Amendment 43 and against Referendum I.

Gun Owners of America has just released their 2006 Congressional Candidate Ratings Guide.

The Hill has just published commentary on the NJ Supreme Court decision demanding the NJ legislature pass Gay Marriage or Civil Unions.

The hate mail and phone calls from groups opposed to our great representative Marilyn Musgrave have been coming regularly.  One recent mailing tries to smear Rep Musgrave as corrupt, and to try to fool folk into believing they are a pro life group, call themselves "Coloradians for Life".  Another mailing tries to falsely paint Marilyn as a tax and spender who is running up our national debt.  This mailing comes from a leading "Gay Rights" group.  Since Marilyn Musgrave is a strong supporter of traditional marriage, they will do anything they can to defeat her.  They could care less about the debt, but to try to get conservatives to not vote they put out misleading stuff like this.

Be sure to vote Tuesday!

I will be adding to this post new sources as I find them.

Brendan Miniter writing today in the Wall Street Journal's subscription only "Political Diary" tells us of the latest efforts of Michael Schiavo. When last heard from, Michael Schiavo had gotten a court to allow him to dehydrate and starve his wife Terri Schiavo to death. Now he has started what he calls "TerriPAC" to get back at those he feels opposed his efforts to kill his wife. As Mr. Miniter wrote "He might have just as easily have called it RevengePAC."

"His targets include Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman and Republicans Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. George Allen, Sen. Jim Talent and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave."

With our own Rep. Marilyn Musgrave targeted, we can take comfort in the fact that the Democrats have "Friends like these ...". None the less this should make us work even harder to relect Marilyn. After all it is a badge of honor to have enemies like this!

Dean Barnett today posted 10 questions and answers about Israel and the situation in the mid-east.

"1) What would happen if all the Arab nations and their terrorist proxies like Hezbollah set down their arms and gave up their ambitions to drive Israel into the sea?

"There would be peace in the Middle East.

"2) What would happen if Israel disbanded the IDF, junked its nuclear weapons and declared to its neighbors that she would do anything to live in peace?

"Israel would be annihilated, millions of its citizens killed. The term genocide could be used to describe the ensuing holocaust, but since that term has been so hopelessly debased by American academics, a new term would have to be created like super-duper-mega genocide to really capture the nature of things."

That is about as good a short summary of the situation as any I have heard. Go read the whole post.

Marc Holtzman is acting like a spoiled child.

According to Ed Sealover writing in the Colorado Springs Gazette "After threatening to bypass the assembly, his campaign persuaded the party and Beauprez to agree to major changes in voting procedures." This in large part lead to the extreme delays in the voting. A Holtzman campaign worker said "I don’t think there’s any question that the delay worked to our advantage. Our people stayed in place."

Two months ago "Holtzman declared he had 2,500 of his delegates elected to state and county assemblies" so his workers assumed they would win. The reality was different, with Beauprez getting 2,340 votes to 902 for Holtzman.

After the voting was done, the Holtzman campaign refused to sign off on the results, even though they had gotten their way and hundreds had left (including friends of mine) without being able to vote.

Today some "independent" group I have never heard of started running attack ads against Beauprez on KNUS 710 AM during the Hugh Hewitt show. They were very careful to not mention any candidate other than Beauprez, but their talking points exactly followed the attacks Holtzman has been making against Beauprez. Holtzman may try to claim the mantle of Reagan, but he obviously has not been following Reagan's 11th Commandment "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican."

If the official Holtzman campaign has been bad, his grass roots followers over at ColoradoPols have been far worse. They have been slandering Beauprez with comments like "Does anyone else think it is funny that Beauprez stood up there goin on about his hatred for them gays while gay disco music roared in the background" and "A failed P.E. teacher who became a failed dairy farmer, only to become a failed real estate developer who made the jump to corrupt banker who then became a corrupt and failed party chairman that then became the “both ways” bench warming congressman that we all know now will be the nominee." It seems the tune used when Beauprez was introduced had been played by a "gay" group 15 years ago. However, the vicious attacks on Beauprez's pro-marriage position as "hatred for them gays" by the obviously pro-homosexual supporters of Holtzman make me wonder how sincere Holtzman's almost identical pro-marriage position is. What do they know that we do not?

Of course, according to these Holtzman supporters, everyone who supports Beauprez is evil, even including Mike Coffman, and gets slandered in turn. You can tell much about a person by observing his friends and enemies. Reading these Holtzman supporters on ColoradoPols makes me want to have nothing to do with their favored candidate.

Today the Colorado Republican State Assembly met, and it was an embarrassment. At 10 AM the credentialing was closed, and we were supposed to approve the report of the credentials committee by 10:30 AM.

At 10:45 AM we were told to take a break and the credentials committee would be ready with their report by 11:15 AM. After many more delays they decided to start releasing counties to go vote on a county by county basis. I believe the first county was released around 1 PM. Boulder County was released close to 3 PM, and I don't think they were last.

Meanwhile I discovered that my wife and myself had not been given our delegate's information packages when we were credentialed by Boulder County, and therefore had no clue what the 20 resolutions on the ballot were. Since it was after 10 AM when we discovered we did not get our packets it was impossible to get copies. I managed to borrow a copy of the resolutions to study while waiting. Apparently this was a common problem as we saw many others who did not know how to vote on the resolutions since they were not printed on the ballots, but just the resolution numbers from 1 to 20.

Every delegate had a sealed envelope waiting for them with their name on the outside and two serial numbered ballots inside. This means this was not a secret ballot since they knew exactly which ballot serial numbers had been issued to you and how you voted.

UPDATE I have been told that the serial numbers on the ballots were unique to the County and not to the individual delegate. This was done to allow the results to be tallied by County.

To further mess things up each delegate was given two ballots, one for the candidates and one for the resolutions. After voting these had to be deposited in voting boxes, with one box for the candidate ballots and the other for the resolutions ballots. Ballots inserted in the wrong ballot box would not be counted. I wonder how many of the 357 delegates that were credentialed to vote but who did have recorded votes, lost their votes due to putting them in the wrong ballot boxes, and how many just left in disgust before being allowed to vote.

UPDATE Apparently after the initial announcement stressing the importance of getting the correct ballot in the correct box, it was later announced during the wait for the credentials report that either ballot could be placed in either box and still be properly counted.

One unconfirmed report said that part of the delays were due to Adams County not requiring their delegates to sign in when they picked up their credentials. Given what happened to use in Boulder County and to many others who did not get their delegate information packets when signing in, I could easily believe this.

UPDATE I now have confirmation from a second independent source that part of the delay was due to Adams County messing up. I also heard from two sources that Adams County had made a similar mess the previous day at the 2nd CD Assembly. According to a source with the Beauprez campaign the majority of the delays, however, were due to "the extremely convoluted process
demanded by the Holtzman campaign". To be fair I must note that the Beauprez campaign did agree to this process.

I can only hope that this State Assembly will serve as an object lesson in how not to run a State Assembly. Is anyone paying attention for two years from now?

Charles Krauthammer identified Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush."

Dr. Sanity now exponds on Christianophobia or Christianity Derangement Syndrome (CDS) defined as "The excacerbation of acute and severe paranoia about the imminent imposition of a Christian theocracy in the U.S.; in an individual already suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome as a reaction to the very existence of (1) the Christian religion; (2) the practitioners of Christianity; and (3) symbols of Christianity anywhere within the culture; while simultaneously completely ignoring and dismissing any threat from the religious fanatics of Islam who repeatedly and clearly have stated that their goal is the imposition of a world-wide Islamic theocracy (or "Caliphate")".

While Dr Sanity has a point, I think those suffring from CDS have been around far longer than those suffering from BDS and that instead of CDS being a subset of BDS the other way around may be closer to the truth.

Two very recent examples of CDS are "The Da Vinci Code" and Time magazine's article by Andrew Sullivan "My Problem with Christianism". "The Da Vinci Code" of course is the virulently anti-Christian and anti-Catholic work of fiction which in book form clearly stated it was a novel, but Sony Pictures has refused to so label the movie version. "My Problem with Christianism" on the other hand is merely the latest example of someone who denies the doctrines of Christianity insisting loudly he is a better Christian than those who follow Christian doctrine.

For those who have questions about "The Da Vinci Code" a good place to start is Dr. Mark D. Roberts "The Da Vinci Opportunity".

For those with more basic questions about Christianity and Christian doctrine I recommend C. S. Lewis' "Mere Christainty".