"Lucky Me" by Helene Cronin

Victories are Won by the Victorious

Written By: Teague Cuddeback
for Vision to America

Want to see a conservative win in November?
Those who would be victorious in any endeavor always take
the long view. That’s what our Marxist opposition does.
They see the great sweep of history and they look far into
the future. They analyze the reasons why things have turned
out the way they have. They know succeeding and winning is
an up and down affair, that it requires specific knowledge
of the enemy and his beliefs, methods, weaknesses and habits,
that there’s no gain without pain, and no advance forward
without an occasional falling backward, that sacrifice of time,
effort, money, and sometimes blood, is part of the journey.

If only Republicans, conservatives and Christians, cuddly
safe in their glass towers, suburbs and worship centers could
grasp this fact. Jesus surely did, but sadly, many of us can’t
see beyond our noses. Mention what has transpired over the past
fifty years that paved the way for the installation of our
totalitarian president and some ill informed, historically
challenged, angry short-sighted individual will blare “you are
living in the past and blaming republicans for all the ills in
the U.S.A.” Nothing could be farther from the truth.
But should we criticize only the beliefs and actions of the
opposition and never consider our own?
Can any logical person deny that the “past” is part and parcel
of today, still influencing the events and thinking of a great
many people who don’t understand Republican, conservative or
even Christian principles?
Can we ignore the fact that Republicans didn’t then and even
now do not go into certain neighborhoods with an eye toward
winning conservative converts?
They think all they have to do is “rally the base.”

The truth is, the conservative base is smaller than the liberal base.
We are surrounded by fellow Americans who still live with
political attitudes and beliefs from by-gone decades.
The past has been passed on in memory and emotion and kept
alive by current voters. Their narratives are embedded in
the mission statements of existing governmental agencies
and programs.
If we want to dismantle those agencies and programs, as so
many do, we can do so safely and more permanently only by
connecting with individuals who hold those wrong beliefs
and offering replacement beliefs that make sense to them,
thereby moving their loyalties from Democratic Party to
Republican Party, helping them understand that Marxism is
not Liberal and that conservative and traditional values
are emotionally rewarding and spiritually generous,
forgiving and liberal because that is God’s nature and
He is the author of true governance.
If we don’t do this difficult work, those individuals will
strengthen in their fight against us. Our very personal
educational outreach to them must be sustained over a long
period of time to make one victory become a second victory,
then a third victory, and so on.

If we fail in this effort, we can’t begin to deconstruct
what our sins of omission helped to build. We become deniers
of history who can’t or won’t face the truth and so help
perpetuate the lie that conservatives are hateful, stingy
and racist. If we do a good job now and keep it up, people
will be able to look back in history to our era and learn
in another time of crisis how we came to our senses, and
pulled back from the brink of totalitarianism to regain
control over the future of our nation to save freedom for
another generation.

The attitude of denial is not uncommon. Republicans for
decades have refused to seek votes in minority communities.
They would rather concede those geographic areas to Democrats,
believing that everyone living there is out of reach.
What lack of faith.
By thinking this way, Republicans merely prove what Democrats
say about them, that they don’t care about those people,
neighborhoods, communities, legislative districts, etc.

There are too many Republican voters who childishly think
all that has to happen is for conservatives to be victorious
on November 2nd, and then all will be right with the world.
Anger and disgust over high taxes and excessive spending
activates people only for a short period of time.
It is hard to sustain indefinitely.
People get tired, become depressed.
And there are other issues to consider.
Tea Parties are great outlets for expression but they cannot
do real politics because they are not registered as political
action committees. Political action committees can raise money
to fund candidates, run campaigns, buy candidate and ballot
issue-specific advertising, activities with the potential to
generate governing power. I wish every conservative could grasp
the importance of organizing and campaigning.
It is the glue that binds people together in political victory
and sustains them even in defeat. Sustained political togetherness
enables a government to be strong and remain strong. It enables
people with dissimilar backgrounds to stick together through thick
and thin, for the long haul. The nature of politically forged
relationships takes on aspects of family.

I spent this past weekend working with an independent fiscal
and pro-life conservative who is running on the Republican ticket.
He is Hispanic and running for office in a minority district.
The Republican Party ignored his candidacy and offered him no
support for his run because he is trying to unseat a very liberal
Latina incumbent of sixteen years who only once had faced opposition
in an underfunded campaign. I had met the Republican candidate’s
wife months ago when she was part of a small Tea Party group I was
invited to counsel. I chose to speak on political history, party
structures and effective campaign planning and messaging techniques
for reaching the politically unreached. It is easy to tell who’s
getting it and who isn’t simply by the questions they ask.
She was getting it.
Those who don’t get it usually remain silent or just make
disparaging comments. Some while later, the woman told me
her husband had decided to run for political office.
His campaign started early applying the principles and methods
I had offered. He is a very committed candidate and a consistent
and effective door-to-door campaigner.
Today, the incumbent politician he is working to defeat can’t
go home at the end of the day without seeing this man’s yard
signs up and down her street and a huge banner for him directly
across the street from her house. I’m sure it takes some of the
wind out of her sails.
It is always a good strategy to demoralize the opposition
candidate and cause them anxiety without ever having to say an
ugly word about them. People in the district are talking about
their respective candidacies, comparing who’s doing what and
who’s taking the voters for granted, and it’s all free because
it’s word of mouth. That’s good campaigning.

To be victorious requires deep individual commitment, constant
working of precincts, on-going positive campaigning, teaching
everywhere, person to person. Jesus committed himself to working
this same way for our spiritual benefit every day for three years
and gave his life for us. We can follow his pattern and do the
same to preserve the liberty that allows us to evangelize and
worship freely.

Still on the sidelines?
Don’t be “a moderate.” It’s a curse,
a blight on the body politic and a hellish thing.

Moderates have no passion for a cause unless they are “it.”
They are neither hot nor cold. They have no convictions and
cannot be convinced on an issue. They only gravitate to one
side or the other of a cause when it suits them, as they weigh
and consider their present circumstance against the political
and economic backdrop that frames it.
If they are “religious moderates,” they consider themselves
“good” people who understand those gray areas that escape
the rest of us. They are a religion unto themselves.
Principles mean little to such persons. They live in the now,
and for them, all ethics are situational. Their words and actions,
or lack thereof, prove it.
And they tend to ignore the lessons history can teach.

Don’t forget to examine history.
Take it into account. Then, do politics.
Make the decision that you will go where you have never been
and that you will do what you have never done.
Help America secure its future in a new era of freedom.
Call your local political party and find out how to contact
a conservative candidate’s campaign near you.
Ask questions about the candidate’s beliefs.
Find out who and what groups have endorsed their campaign.
You can make a significant difference in the effectiveness
of a candidate’s efforts. And when you do, you’ll discover that
what you’ve done and learned campaigning has etched you deeply.
You’ll never see politics quite the same way again.

My Country- My Ass

My 9-11 Tribute Videos

Here Without You--Military Tribute

Remember Who We Are--Krista Branch

REMEMBER?

Remember the couple who sneaked into the White House with no credentials?

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Well, they're still there!

The Rest Of THe Story

Railroad tracks.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails)
is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England,
and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built
the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the
same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons,
which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would
break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because
that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe
(including England ) for their legions.
Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else
had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels .

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all
alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States
standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the
original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process
and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate
the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, The Rest Of The Story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad,
there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides
of the main fuel tank.
These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.
The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make
them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the
factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens
to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through
that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track,
and the railroad track, as you now know,
is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's
most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand
years ago by the width of a horse's ass.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
Ancient horse's asses control almost everything...
and CURRENT Horses Asses in Washington
are controlling everything else

When Your Holdin' the Hammer

65 Years Later

We all know that Hiroshima was destroyed in August 1945
after the explosion of atomic bombs.

However, we know little about the progress made by the people
of Hiroshima during the past 64 years.

HIROSHIMA - 64 YEARS LATER

The foundations for the welfare state were laid in the 1930s
with Roosevelt's New Deal. The form we see it now largely
congealed in the 1960s.

DETROIT- 55 YEARS LATER

NOW I ASK YOU, WHATS MORE DESTRUCTIVE

ATOMIC BOMBS or WELFARE?

"Is It Possible To Be Astonished, But Not Surprised?"

I Like Guns

Illegal Aliens Want Sanctuary Policies In Writing

Lawmakers and police in a major U.S. city have reassured
illegal immigrants that they’re protected under longtime
sanctuary policies amid demands from open borders
advocates that the measures be formalized in writing.

A group of Latino activists, clergy and civil rights leaders
took to the street this week to command Baltimore officials
to further solidify the city’s measures to shield illegal aliens
from federal authorities. Like many law enforcement agencies
across the nation, Baltimore Police bans its officers from
inquiring about suspects’ immigration status.

Now emboldened illegal immigrants want the policy in writing
to reduce crime and help bridge the gap between officers and
immigrants after the recent murders of three Hispanic men in
the area. The most recent victim, a Honduran, was clubbed and
beaten with a wooden stake by a mentally disturbed teen who
professed to hate “Mexicans.” Illegal immigrants are more prone
to cooperate in these sorts of police investigations if the
department has a written don’t-ask-don’t-tell immigration policy,
their advocates say.

But Baltimore Police Chief Frederick Bealefeld asserts that a
written policy is unnecessary because his officers never ask
about immigration status as per the citywide sanctuary measures.
In the three years he’s served as department head, Bealefeld
says he hasn’t heard “one utterance on enforcement of
immigration laws.” For their part, city officials assure residents
that they should trust police to focus on fighting violent crime,
not enforcing immigration laws.

This week a Maryland legislator threw a wrench in Baltimore’s
sanctuary public relations campaign by announcing a proposed
bill that will give citizens the power to sue public officials who
violate federal immigration laws. If the measure passes, citizens
can file complaints against public officials in circuit court and,
if convicted, the official could be booted from office or face
criminal charges.

Stone Cold Dead

Restoring Fiscal Responsibility to the People's House

Dear Fellow Patriots,

In his first ad, which ran before the primary ended,
Ron Klein attacked my personal financial responsibility.
You and I have shared the challenges faced in these
tough economic times. And like many of you, my family
has struggled with financial hardship. And also like many
of you, we have honestly resolved every issue, and both
my wife and I are working hard every day to honor all of
our obligations, while ensuring our daughters' futures.

As I began looking over my own financial records to be
sure we were being upstanding, I considered the financial responsibility that a United States Congressman owes to
the American people. When one considers that Ron Klein
is questioning the roughly $15,000 my family has or is
working to repay, I have several questions for Ron Klein:

What about the trillions of dollars you have wasted at
the taxpayer's expense?

As a Member of the House Financial Services Committee,
why did you allow American taxpayer-funded TARP money
to be provided to foreign banks and financial institutions?

Why did you allow your office to exceed its allocated
operating budget?

Why do you refuse to take accountability for the failure
of stimulus money to actually stimulate the economy?

While you sat on the House Financial Services Committee,
South Florida has seen its unemployment rate more than
triple from 4% to nearly 13%.

On Tuesday evening, Klein's ally, Keith Olbermann,
again named me the "worst person in the world" -
for the 3rd time...truly one person's misguided opinion.
But there is no debate that - in the terms of fiscal
responsibility, Ron Klein is one of the worst Members
of Congress in the United States House of Representatives.

The teachable moment for Klein is that inept, incompetent
and dishonorable trial lawyers should never pick a fight
with professional intellectual warriors.
My House is in order.
But the same cannot be said about the people's House.

Steadfast and Loyal,

LTC(R) Allen B. West

Don't Tread On Me??

Don’t Tread on Me?
by Eric Rauch

Anne Rice’s recent announcement that she was
“quitting Christianity” is yet another voice
being added to the chorus of modern Christians
who claim to have forsaken Christianity.
Although there was nothing particularly novel
or unique about Rice’s statement, hers has received
an inordinate amount of press attention.
Apparently now that every drop of crude has been
wrung out of the Gulf oil spill, the American media
is returning to its former fascinations and obsessions—
and denigrating the church and Christianity is one of
its perennial favorites.
If you doubt this, I can assure you that I am speaking
from personal experience.
One of my weekday morning rituals is to locate positive
and encouraging articles about Christianity and the
church on the internet. It’s nearly as challenging as
hunting for elk in Florida—maybe even more so.

One recent article—by William Lobdell in the
Los Angeles Times—made the case that Anne Rice’s
exodus is only the “tip of the iceberg.” Lobdell writes:
“Rice is merely one of millions of Americans who have
opted out of organized religion in recent years, making
the unaffiliated category of faith the fastest-growing
‘religion’ in America, according to a 2008 study by the
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.” Of course, Lobdell
isn’t reporting anything new either. George Barna has been
warning of this trend for more than ten years. In fact,
just before his death earlier this year, Michael Spencer
(aka The Internet Monk) completed a book entitled
Mere Churchianity in which he made this observation:

What evangelicals in North America call Christianity is,
ironically, largely disconnected from Jesus as he appears
in the four Gospels.
I have argued for the past decade that American Christianity
has evolved into a movement that Jesus would not recognize
if he were to show up next Sunday. And it’s not just the
rituals and assumptions and values that are off-base.
The spirituality itself that comes out of contemporary
Christianity is largely unrelated to Jesus.
You don’t have to believe me; all you need do is look at
the statistics on who attends church, who used to attend,
and who swears they will never attend again. Thousands,
and possibly millions, of people are walking away from any
association with the religion known as traditional Christianity.[1]

In other words, what is true of “organized religion” in
general-Anne Rice was a Catholic—is also true of evangelicalism
in particular. Spencer limits his focus to evangelicals, but
Lobdell insists that this trend can be seen throughout all
of Christendom. Apparently Christians of every stripe are
becoming disillusioned with the model they have been given.
But does this really mean that the model itself is deficient?
Is Christianity as we have come to understand it, really a
deviation from the biblical definition, such that Jesus
Himself would fail to recognize it? Could it be that we
have set our expectations too high?
In truth, I believe the answer is much simpler and has
more to do with who we are and what we believe as Americans,
than it does with any perceived deficiency in the church or
with organized Christianity.

In his book, The Prayer of the Lord, R.C. Sproul relates
the following story:

When my friend John Guest, who was a noted evangelist in
England, first came to the United States in the late 1960s,
his first exposure to American culture was in the city of
Philadelphia. During his first couple of days there, his
hosts escorted him around the city to attractions such as
Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, and they told him
stories of the American Revolution to introduce him to the
history of this new world he was embracing as his home.
John was enjoying all of this until they went to Germantown,
just outside Philadelphia, and visited an antiques store
that specialized in Americana. Among the items in this shop
were placards and signs that displayed some of the battle
cries and slogans of the Revolutionary era, such as,
“No Taxation without Representation”
and “Don’t Tread on Me.”

But the placard that drew his keenest attention was one that
announced with bold letters, “We Serve No Sovereign Here.”
John told me later: “That sign stopped me in my tracks.
I had left my native land and come across the Atlantic Ocean
in response to a call, a vocation to be a minister of the
gospel, to proclaim the kingdom of God. But on seeing
this sign, I was filled with fear and consternation.
I thought, ‘How can I possibly preach the kingdom of God
to people who have a profound aversion to sovereignty?’”[2]

John Guest’s question is no less important today than it
was 40 years ago. In a dramatic twist of irony, the modern
Christian accepts the sovereignty of the state without
question, all the while being skeptical and critical of
any sort of authority claimed by the church. While the
majority of early American colonists sought a limited
government that was accountable both to God and men,
most modern Americans seek a government that can grant
their every wish and a God who is limited and accountable
only to them.

Note the following reasons why Anne Rice decided to quit
Christianity: “In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay.
I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial
birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be
anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse
to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity
and being Christian.”
Each one of these “reasons” is not only a hot-button
political topic, but a convenient straw man that she can
set up to make it look like she has actually thought through
what she is refusing. The fact of the matter is that she
realized that she could only serve one sovereign. It’s sad
that she has chosen a liberal political agenda over the
Bride of Christ, but to her credit, at least she made her
choice. Too many other Americans are naively trying to swim
the channel between the two.

This is certainly not to say that conservative politics and
Christianity go hand-in-hand though. It’s also not to say
that everyone that has made the decision to quit Christianity
has done so for political reasons. The fact of the matter is
that people leave for all sorts of reasons. There are even
some—like the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-22)—who go away
grieving because they are unwilling to forsake all for Christ.
But one thing is certain; those who are forsaking being Christians
or being members of Christ’s Church are doing so because they
believe that something else holds greater authority. And without
fail, that “something else” is where that individual’s true
religious convictions reside.

Notice how many “I”s are included in Anne Rice’s resignation
notice. In essence, she is claiming that her personal creed
is superior (and more “Christlike”) to the creed of organized
Christianity. And in this belief she is far from being alone
(just read the comments that follow her announcement). One of
the most crippling heresies among modern Christians is that
Christianity is a “personal” faith.
Now, there is a sense where this is true, but it has been so
inflated by evangelistic programs and techniques, that it
has become the driving force of modern religion.
Nearly every religious bestseller in the last twenty years
has been written with the individual in mind. For every book
that can be purchased at any popular Christian bookstore chain
that discusses how the Gospel of Christ can transform a community,
I can show you 50 that discuss how the Gospel of Christ can
transform you: transform your marriage, transform your finances,
transform your Bible study, even how to transform your sex life.
Ever since Norman Vincent Peale, mainstream Christianity has
been repackaging the same message and Christians have been
buying into it.
The message is that Christianity is primarily a private faith,
a secret belief that has nearly limitless power to prepare you
for any personal circumstance that life throws your way, yet
one that is nearly powerless to change your neighborhood,
community, town, or city. You see, the powers that be have
informed us—and modern Christianity has conceded—that Jesus
can only transform individuals; it takes a civil government
to make any lasting societal change.

This change in sovereignty—replacing the True Sovereign with
the state—has had drastic effects on how people view the church.
Rather than viewing the state in light of the church, we have
learned to view the church in light of the state. No longer do
we question governmental policies based on what the Bible teaches,
instead, like Anne Rice, we have learned to question the church’s
policies in light of what the state teaches. We have taken Jesus’
statement to Pilate in John 19:11 and turned it upside down.
Rather than Pilate being granted his power from above, we now
believe that the state rules over the church. In reality, both
church and state get their power from above; there would be no
power anywhere on earth, if it wasn’t given from above.

This is what makes statements like Anne Rice’s so seditious.
We have become comfortable enough with separating Jesus from
His Church to the extent that we can no longer recognize that
His Kingdom is over all. We are more than happy to have the
nice loving Jesus, the one that meets all of our expectations
of social equality, yet we get a bit squeamish over the
commanding and law-abiding Jesus, the one who demands that if
we love Him we will keep His commandments (John 14:15).
This is where the reality of John Guest’s question about
proclaiming a Sovereign to a people who “serve no sovereign”
resides. It has become vogue once again to wave signs and
banners like those found in the Germantown antiques store.
But have we learned the lesson? What are we really proclaiming
when we raise our “Don’t Tread on Me” flags at the local
TEA party rally? We must remember always that we DO serve
a Sovereign here, and His name is Christ,
and He is the King of kings.

Notes:
[1] Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press, 2010),
24-25.
[2] R.C. Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2009), 40-41.

Dick Morris at DC Works Coral Springs

Allen West Speaking at Boca Raton Republican Club

Marco Rubio Speaking at Boca Raton Republican Club

Lt. Col. Allen West Speaking at Prayer Breakfast in Pompano Beach