I am red but I can't overlook Trump having an astounding level of immaturity and lack of growth. He doesn't change and that makes him a no go for me.
I would vote for Cruz or Mario or several other Red reps or Governors. But not Trump. He has enough time to mature and is incapable. I am sure his very disturbed father had all to do with that...there is a book about his father out and it is severe I guess. I haven't read it.
I think Harris will win but will fail completely in her term. Affirmative action candidates will never succeed. You have to be at a higher level than that.

There is a confirmed photo of a possible Haitian man that was carrying a goose. That picture is from Columbus, Ohio. The federalist story link here though takes you to an audio from rumble. I could not find a mainstream media source though some others are reporting this allegedly breaking story. It could be fake news, though the Ohio Attorney General is now on record that one Springfield claim of a animal complaint is true.

This "fact checking" is garbage. A lack of evidence does not make a claim untrue. To know with certainty you would have to have cameras at every meal eaten in Springfield in the last months. So discrediting a claim that is unknown and presenting it as a fact is simply media bias. Proper logic would be to look and see if Haitians eat dogs, cats, etc there. If it is as common as it is in some Asian countries then the probability is high the practice might be included in Haitian communities in the USA. So the fact is that most fact checkers are dumb because they either fail in logic at times or they fail by being politically motivated, or both.

I have little doubt if Taylor Swift lived in Springfield on a regular lot, she would worry about letting her cats roam free. I can't of course prove a hypothetical but if she or anyone loves their cats and it is indeed a Haitian practice then anyone might be fearful of letting a beloved animal be free.

About a week or so ago, I noticed something I did at work that might be correct or it might be a mistake and I've been worrying about it. I'm thinking maybe I should just tell my boss but it was something from months ago and I'm embarrassed that I didn't bring it up sooner. Please pray that God would work this situation out for me and that He would grant me the wisdom to know whether to say something about it.

A House Oversight subcommittee chair is demanding the Biden administration hand over any documents detailing efforts to suppress information after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accused the White House of engaging in censorship last month.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who chairs the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on cybersecurity, urged the White House to "cease and desist" any such activity with social media platforms in a letter sent to President Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

I have a question.

I have not pieced this together exactly, but as far as I can tell, when Judas betrayed Christ, it was the start of the feast of unleavened bread.

First, is this correct?

And secondly, what is the significance of Judas betraying Jesus at this time?

Thanks for any answer.

Repentance is possibly the most difficult thing to maintain doing throughout your whole life. At least that is the way I feel about it.

Luke 13:1-5
"At that time, some people came and reported to him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And he responded to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were more sinful than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as well. Or those eighteen that the tower in Siloam fell on and killed—do you think they were more sinful than all the other people who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as well.”"

John Calvin, though I do not agree with him on everything said, "Repentance is not the start of the Christian life; it is the Christian life."

Further, we see John the Evangelist say, "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Acts 3:19-20
"Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus, who has been appointed for you as the Messiah."

Paul then talks about "being saved" not a "one and done" sort of thing.

And not to mention Job, who suffered so horrendously who, by all appearances, was a "righteous" man. In fact, the only thing he did to deserve his ill will was that he was a righteous man. Yet we see even Job had something to repent of. He very well could have said, "Is it not enough that I have suffered unjustly?" But he does not do that. He humbles himself, having seen the Lord.

But repentance is not easy. It is not automatic. At least true repentance is not automatic. It is, or can be, very painful. It is denying yourself. It is denying all you are, all you have strived to be, to be contrite in heart. It is not simply confessing your sin in some sort of passionless mechanical thing. It is coming to the end of yourself. It is the knowledge that you are not God. That you are weak. And even that, "Yes, God, I messed up. Again."

BDAG Lexicon says one definition of repent is, "feel remorse, repent, be converted." But do we feel this way about our white sins? The sins that everyone else does and does not question? And that is why repentance is hard. It is not only the big mess-ups that we make that require us to repent, but it is that we tell our wife that she looks pretty when we don't like her outfit. It is when you don't speak up when people are doing their daily gossip and you remain silent and don't tell people what they are doing is wrong and damaging. It is when you have assumed you know what position your political opponent has without asking first. And every time we do one of these white sins, Christ requires us to come to him penitently and with remorse for them. It is knowing that even these white sins are whip marks on Christ's body. They are things that Christ bled and died for. And how much do we take God's forgiveness for granted? Does not Paul say, "Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith,"? That is why repentance is hard.

I am not going to follow orthodox or catholic church because it does not meet people where they are as christ taught He does to the samaritan woman that does not give assurance if person effort is enough to see a priest for him to be saved. That also if one converts to orthodox and catholic church and is baptised and has communion in a prison does not give assurance for how often person must seek communion when he may no be able to in a prison

But I do wonder for those who want to be orthodox who can be how does one answer the problem with being assured a person is truly received if perhaps the priest who baptised him is not considered legitimate that does not the church teach there is requirements that should be met before being priest for it to be valid that what if he broke it and they still ordained him or he didn’t believe sincerly. Is there writings in the church fathers that say every priest ordination is valid? Chatgpt says augustine taught heresy or moral failure may make priest merits not valid but may mean just is a bad leader.

Or rather is the requirements made for the ordination of priests now not found in the fathers and if not can we conclude from this every priest ordination is valid.Also how can one know if he was worthy of conversion does not church teach person must fast and meet other requirements if one is catechumen before he is received into the church.

If you do not want to answer me because you don’t think I am worthy Jesus does not support you who says love your enemy and you are saved by grace not by works to be worthy.

And by this all will know you are My disciples if you have love for one another

This is something I have been looking into and its not just the corvette, thats just an example. And for that example the corvette is a race car and has no real reason to be purchased except for pride and entitlement. Reasons I come to this.
Jesus speaks highly about the ways into heaven is through humility, meekness etc.
Phil 2:3 Tells us to put others as more important then ourselves and not from selfishness.
1Pet 5:5 Clothe ourselves with humility towards one another
Matt 18:4 Be humble as a child
Of course there is a lot more. Humility is a heart attitude with meekness, submissive to Christ and not the world. True humility seeks to bring glory and honor to God and looks out for the interest of others. Meekness would to be submissive to others and their needs.
So I feel when a person goes to buy a truck for example, should buy a used truck that isnt loaded with features, not to think we deserve brand new even if we can afford it. If you can afford a 60k truck but go with a preowned 45kmile truck that is a basic model and be content with less is humility. That extra money you have can easily go to a family in need, specially now that so many people are struggling.
When I see a 500k dollar motorhome, I dont see some glorious and nice thing. I see a temporary man made item that will not last because nothing we do on this earth or create will last forever. In time that treasure will rust. I see something that could pull my mother and father, brother and myself out of debt completely, relieving us from the slave position that stresses and does nothing but draw negativity.
What we do is, we take from God and his creation, we form it and mold it then call it ours. When really everything is His. The money we make is because of the health and energy he has given us. He puts us in positions to be blessed financially to bless those who are struggling.
I think we have let money creating this ability to justify our purchases.
There is more to this but this is the start and I am just wanting to see what people think and also to consider do we deny self or reward self because we deserve a good life with the things of this world we want.

Interesting review of the election map just after the debate

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I think Harris has provided "the blue print" for her defeat in the list of things that she refused to answer combined with the details she just got wrong.

In that way she has exposed the path to victory for her opponent if he can focus on the path-to-the-win that she handed out.

In any case - it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

Her answer to the border - debacle? deny it exists? ignore the topic? Side track trump"
Her answer to the economy fiasco? side track Trump?
Her answer to the crimes committed by her illegals and her released criminals? -- side track the discussion?
Her answer to the no-limit 7,8,9 month abortion policy - ? Ignore it?
Her answer to "why haven't any of your suggested solutions been tried out NOW while you ARE in office?" -- Sidetrack the discussion

Maybe she is trying to spell out the path-to-victory so all can see it.

I'm The Old Maid of Potluck ("TOM" is fine).

Technically potluck2.0 ... I haven't figured out how to put it in the About Me profile page yet.

I write book reviews that nobody reads.

I wrote up some of the "Left Behind" books. It took a long time.

Blessings everybody.

And don't you dare use the wrong pronouns...

However, the poll also shows Trump gained one percentage point of support among likely voters from a pre-debate survey taken following the Democratic National Convention in late August, while Harris held steady.

Dear CF,

Please pray for me as I have no more strength to go on.

Even my own mother gave up hope that there will be something good from my life. She recently told me I had never brought them good news, ever.

And I looked back on my life and she is right. Been unemployed a lot, was falsely accused and ended up convicted and sent to prison, unmarried, no kids.

I'm angry and disappointed with God. Angry that he made me to suffer. And disappointed that even though I pursued his blessings by honoring my parents, being kind to strangers, the poor, etc. and pursued the Abrahamic blessing, I still have a life with nothing to show. Why is God not keeping to his promises?

I am out of faith. I don't expect anything good to show up in my life.

I am out of gratitude. I have nothing to be grateful for.

I stopped going to church....I've been to several and they all talk about how great they are and what new building they are building, but no one bothers to do a welfare check on a newcomer in so much pain.

I've also pulled back from all social engagements. Everyone has their life together except me.

There are no words for the misery I feel every day.(staff edit)

Democrat lawmakers have repeatedly expressed support for laws that would allow abortionists to end the lives of babies who survive abortions — and voted against laws that protect babies who survive abortions.

That’s a fact that former President Donald Trump highlighted during Tuesday night’s debate, drawing the annoyance of Vice President Kamala Harris and the admonishment of debate moderator Linsey Davis.


“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it is born,” Davis said Tuesday evening, as Trump argued that some Democrats support executing babies after birth.


So much for the fact checking.

I've seen a lot of posters here claim that Harris "lied incessantly," though they've pointed out few specifics. The Federalist, though, has helpfully provided a list of 25 lies. So let's look at them:

1. "Middle Class Kid"

I'm not sure how being the child of a college professor and a university research scientist disqualifies someone from the middle class. Neither is a particularly lucrative profession. Her family certainly wasn't poor, but she didn't claim that.

Verdict: Not a lie.

2. Trump's tax cuts

It should be noted that the analysis cited here by The Federalist is just a loop of the same person citing himself, and only considers data from 2018. Furthermore, it only looks at individual income tax data, which doesn't tell the whole story. While that data does show that people making less than $50,000 received the largest percentage tax reduction that year relative to 2017, the real dollar value of those reductions was mostly pretty small. For example, people making $10,000-$15,000 saw their average taxes drop by 72%. Which is great - but the real dollar value of that "massive" drop was $85/taxpayer. In contrast, people making $500,000-$1,000,000 saw their taxes drop by a paltry 9% - which worked out to around $15,000/taxpayer. Now, if you consider those numbers as a percentage of the taxpayer's total income, the picture changes a bit. Ther person making $15,000/year regains 0.6% of their income per year, while the person making $1,000,000 regains 1.5%. Seems to me that the person making a million per year wins out in this exchange.

Verdict: Not a lie.

3. Trump "Sales Tax"

Trump has proposed a 10-20% tariff on all imports, and 60% on imports from China. While not technically a sales tax, we would see most, if not all of that passed on to consumers, leading to higher prices for imported goods.

Verdict: Mostly true

4. Jan. 6

Contrary to the Federalist's claim, the J6 events did put American self-governance in jeopardy. And bringing up examples of military attacks is a complete non-sequitur; Harris was referring to attacks on our democratic institutions, not physical attacks on US territories.

Verdict: Not a lie.

5. Project 2025

Hard to grade this one. While Trump certainly has said that he has nothing to do with Project 2025, the fact remains that many current and former members of his administration/campaign are involved in it, and some of its provisions look a lot like things that Trump did or was trying to do towards the end of his first term. Ultimately, though, this is a statement of opinion, as no one can predict the future, and opinions are not lies.

Verdict: Opinion; not a lie

6. Just Restoring Roe

She absolutely dodged the question, but dodging the question isn't lying.

Verdict: Not a lie

7. Pro-Life Laws Criminalize Miscarriages, Ectopic Pregnancies

While technically correct in their assessment that these things are not explicitly criminalized, the Federalist conveniently ignores the real effects of recent anti-abortion legislation, which have been widely discussed here on this site. In states like Texas, hospitals have been turning women with life-threatening conditions away over fear of prosecution. Even if the laws do not explicitly criminalize these situations, the effect remains the same.

Verdict: Half true

8. Trump's abortion stance

I'll give them this one. Trump does not seem to be in favor of a national abortion ban.

Verdict: Lie

9. Ninth Month Abortions Don't Exist

Last I checked, 21 weeks gets you into the 6th month, not the 9th month. Therefore, the number of abortions performed after 21 weeks is not evidence of abortions being performed during the 9th month of pregnancy.

Verdict: Not a lie.

10. Border Bill

This is just the Federalist's opinion. Others disagree with their assessment, and again, no one can see into the alternate future where that bill passed, so no one knows for certain what the real effects would have been.

Verdict: Not a lie.

11. SCOTUS Immunity Ruling

The Federalist is splitting hairs here. The SCOTUS ruling was rather vague, and arguments couple be made for many things that the president does being "official acts." Regardless, it's pretty clear what she was getting at.

Verdict: Mostly true.

12. Fracking Ban

Again, dodging the question isn't lying. Regardless, 2019 was not 2020, so using an example from 2019 to disprove her statement about her beliefs in 2020 is misleading. By 2020, Harris had already backed away from the commitment to a fracking ban, even casting the tie-breaking vote to expand fracking leases then, so her statement that she "made herself very clear in 2020" is accurate.

Verdict: Not a lie.

13. Minnesota Rioters Bail Fund

Harris did indeed promote the Minnesota Freedom Fund in a June 1, 2020 tweet. However, at that point, they were a very small organization that had only been in operation for 4 years, having helped a total of ~500 people in that time. The aftermath of the George Floyd protests (and, in part, Harris's tweet) caused them to expand massively and seems to have changed their policies, such that they started providing bail for more dangerous/violent criminals. So, it's a bit misleading to suggest that she promoted an organization that was putting violent criminals back on the streets when - at the time that she promoted it - they were not.

Verdict: Not a lie

14. Trump's Role in J6

Trump did make the "peacefully and patriotically" statement, but he also said that his supporters needed to "fight like [heck] or [they wouldn't] have a country anymore" in the same speech. And that's before getting into the repeated lies that he told leading up to that day about the election being stolen or fraudulent. There is a pretty strong argument to be made that Trump at least had some role in inciting the J6 riot.

Verdict: Not a lie

15. J6 Deaths

I believe that the final cause of death for Officer Sicknick was a stroke. While technically "natural causes," it can be reasonably deduced that the stroke was related to the injuries he sustained on January 6th. Additionally, 4 further officers died of suicide in the immediate aftermath. Harris specifically said that these five officers died "as a result of" the January 6th riot - in that their deaths were related to it and they would likely still be alive had it not occurred. The Federalist tries to debunk her words by deliberately misinterpreting them to mean that they were directly killed during the riot.

Verdict: Not a lie

16. "Fine People" Hoax

Yep, Trump walked that one back and clarified, but it took a while, and he did say it.

Verdict: Mostly true.

17. "Bloodbath" Hoax

Again, he said it. Maybe he didn't mean it in the way that Harris puts it, or maybe he did. As we're not mind readers, it becomes a matter of opinion.

Verdict: Mostly true.

18. Trump's NATO Comments

Technically, the Federalist is correct here - the comments that Harris refers to were about NATO members, not Ukraine. However, those comments reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about how NATO works - the defense spending targets are not binding obligations, and there are no penalties for not meeting them. If Trump wants there to be penalties, that's fine, but he needs to push for an amendment to the NATO charter to that effect - he can't just declare it unilaterally. Furthermore, his many other statements on Ukraine and Russia, as well as his evasiveness when asked directly about his preferred outcome of the current war, reveal his attitude on the conflict.

Verdict: Lie, but the Federalist misses the point.

19. Autocrats' Preferences for President

The reasons for Putin's "endorsement" of Harris have been discussed on this site already. Also, Viktor Orban is (arguably) an autocrat, and Trump specifically touted Orban's praise of him during the debate. He's also fond of pointing out his close relationships with Putin and Kim.

Verdict: Not a lie

20. Combat Zones

Harris was splitting hairs here. I'll call it a lie.

Verdict: Lie

21. Blaming Trump for Biden's Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal

Both parties bear some blame on this one. Trump negotiated a pretty bad deal (including releasing 5000 Taliban fighters), and Biden then rushed the process.

Verdict: Half true

22. Gun Confiscation

Harris did support a mandatory buyback program for "assault weapons" in 2019, but more recently, she's amended that to say that she supports an assault weapons ban, but without a mandatory buyback program.

Verdict: Half true

23. Trump's Foreign Policy Record

This is just opinion.

Verdict: Not a lie

24. Defunding the Police

“reimagin[ing]” policing and “redirect[ing] resources” from police toward what the outlet described as “other areas of government [such as] schools and small businesses.” does not sound like "defund the police" to me.

Verdict: Not a lie

25. IVF

While Trump himself may not be opposed to IVF, the abortion bans that he enabled (AKA "Donald Trump's abortion bans") have not been so discerning. The issues in Arkansas have bene well-publicized.

Verdict: Not a lie.

So, final counts are 3 lies, 7 partial truths, and 15 things that weren't actually lies. Not a strong showing from The Federalist, I gotta say.

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There She Stands by Michael W Smith
For me, the music and lyrics of this song will always have an especially powerful meaning each and every year on this day.
Let us never forget the day terrorists attacked the USA and never forget to honor the heroes who gave their lives on September 11, 2001
I know that all of my fellow soldiers will NEVER FORGET where we were when the terrorists attacked our nation on 9/11

A new survey from the Pew Research Center shows that while most Protestants and Catholics intend to support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, voters of most other religious backgrounds plan on backing Vice President Kamala Harris.

Pew released the results of a poll of 9,720 adults in the United States conducted from Aug. 26-Sept. 2. While the survey looked at the overall state of the presidential race with two months to go until Election Day, it also analyzed preferences for each major candidate among religious subgroups.

Trump, the Republican nominee for president, leads Harris, the Democratic nominee, among both Catholics and Protestants as a whole. Fifty-two percent of Catholics plan to support Trump compared to 47% for Harris. Meanwhile, Trump has 61% support among Protestants in contrast to Harris’ 37%.

Continued below.

Tuesday's debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was truly about the moderators. Nothing that was said by Trump or Harris was groundbreaking and both will be seen as winners by their respective supporters.

The real story is not how they articulated their policy positions, but how Trump was constantly fact checked while Harris was allowed to say abject lie after abject lie without any pushback from the moderators.

She has 275 million followers on Instagram.

A CNN poll taken after the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris found that the percentage of voters who trust Trump more on the economy rose from +16% to +20%.

Taking a page out of her boss’s playbook, Vice President Kamala Harris told major whoppers during her Tuesday night debate against Donald Trump. With help from left-wing activists masquerading as debate moderators, Harris whitewashed her extreme record, lied about Trump’s policy positions, and more.

Here are some of the biggest falsehoods she told throughout the evening.

ABC News‘ David Muir and Linsey Davis faced intense backlash online during Tuesday night’s presidential debate for their obvious bias against Republican nominee Donald Trump.

The bias manifested itself in several ways, from asking Trump more hostile “gotcha” questions than they asked Harris to pressing Trump with followup questions while allowing Harris to evade answering questions with no followup to fact checking Trump while allowing Harris to lie with impunity.