Well, It's Been A Long, Strange Trip..But We're Back! All about "The Kingdom Way"

Well, I don't know what your excuse for not blogging much lately is, but here's mine. I wrote a book on  the process of discovering your destiny, cleverly called, The Kingdom Way: Discovering The Path To Your Destiny! Don't believe me? Here's the cover:

Want to know more? Go to Amazon.com to look at and/or purchase it,  for a modest $19.99, which is a heck of a deal for a 398 page book. 

Had to use my pretentious author name, C. Wayne Stewart. That sounds better than Cliff Stewart, right?

The book is a twelve week study of the aspects and steps to discovering your destiny, and takes you from the place of not understanding your own path and worldview to having a focused life and passing on a multi-generational vision and call. Basically, it's a book about everything, as in, life, the universe and everything. 

The Kindle version will be out in a month or so. I'm workin' on it! 

Here is the back cover blurb about the book:

Who am I? 

Why am I here? 

What am I here to do? 

Is there a God? 

If so, does He have a plan for my life?

The Kingdom Way is a book intended to help those on the path of life to begin to answer these important questions for themselves. The book is designed as a twelve week course, equivalent to one season of your life, with five studies per week and questions to answer that develop into a treasure trove of information about your particular life call and path. Join author C. Wayne Stewart as he explores the amazing possibilities available to those willing to take the journey called 

The Kingdom Way.

Along the way, you will discover:

 - The skills and information necessary to honestly seek God

-  How to truly see God through creation and His personal attributes

 - That when you meet God, you are finally able to see yourself

 - That you can hear the voice of God and what that means in your life

 - The incredible power that is released when your will and God’s will are aligned

 - What it means when God has spoken to you for a specific purpose, or call

 - How God’s dream and vision for you unfolds into a compelling life of effective impact 

 - The wonderful gifts, talents and motivations God has given you to accomplish your life purpose

-  The skill and ability to perceive processes, times and seasons

 - An understanding of what it will take to fight for your dream and to persevere until it is done

 - What it might look like to live in the preferable future of a fulfilled dream, call, vision and destiny

 - How to live as a visionary leader

Whether you use it for personal or group study, The Kingdom Way will help you to know what God has uniquely designed you to do, what He is doing in the lives of others and how you can make a profound difference in the world. Take the challenge. Take 

The Kingdom Way. 

“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

To the house of the God of Jacob;

He will teach us His ways,

And we shall walk in His paths.”

 Isaiah 2:3

About the Author

C. Wayne Stewart is founder and president of Restoration Ministries in Centennial, Colorado and also serves on staff of Plumbline Ministries (Kansas City) with Brian Fenimore. He is a jazz fan, a lover of coffee, and an admitted Jesus Freak. His vision is to see people walk out their call and destiny in God to the full.

The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson, and read by Richard Burton

The Hound of Heaven

By Francis Thompson  (1859–1907)

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;    

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;    

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways    

    Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears    

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.             5

      Up vistaed hopes I sped;    

      And shot, precipitated,    

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,    

  From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.    

      But with unhurrying chase,            10

      And unperturbèd pace,    

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,    

      They beat—and a Voice beat    

      More instant than the Feet—    

‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’            15

          I pleaded, outlaw-wise,    

By many a hearted casement, curtained red,    

  Trellised with intertwining charities;    

(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,    

        Yet was I sore adread            20

Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside).    

But, if one little casement parted wide,    

  The gust of His approach would clash it to.    

  Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.    

Across the margent of the world I fled,            25

  And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,    

  Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;    

        Fretted to dulcet jars    

And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.    

I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;            30

  With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over    

        From this tremendous Lover—    

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!    

  I tempted all His servitors, but to find    

My own betrayal in their constancy,            35

In faith to Him their fickleness to me,    

  Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.    

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;    

  Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.    

      But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,            40

    The long savannahs of the blue;    

        Or whether, Thunder-driven,    

    They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,    

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:—    

  Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.            45

      Still with unhurrying chase,    

      And unperturbèd pace,    

    Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,    

      Came on the following Feet,    

      And a Voice above their beat—            50

    ‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’    

I sought no more that after which I strayed    

  In face of man or maid;    

But still within the little children’s eyes    

  Seems something, something that replies,            55

They at least are for me, surely for me!    

I turned me to them very wistfully;    

But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair    

  With dawning answers there,    

Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.            60

‘Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share    

With me’ (said I) ‘your delicate fellowship;    

  Let me greet you lip to lip,    

  Let me twine with you caresses,    

    Wantoning            65

  With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses,    

    Banqueting    

  With her in her wind-walled palace,    

  Underneath her azured daïs,    

  Quaffing, as your taintless way is,            70

    From a chalice    

Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’    

    So it was done:    

I in their delicate fellowship was one—    

Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies.            75

  I knew all the swift importings    

  On the wilful face of skies;    

  I knew how the clouds arise    

  Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;    

    All that’s born or dies            80

  Rose and drooped with; made them shapers    

Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine;    

  With them joyed and was bereaven.    

  I was heavy with the even,    

  When she lit her glimmering tapers            85

  Round the day’s dead sanctities.    

  I laughed in the morning’s eyes.    

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,    

  Heaven and I wept together,    

And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;            90

Against the red throb of its sunset-heart    

    I laid my own to beat,    

    And share commingling heat;    

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.    

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek.            95

For ah! we know not what each other says,    

  These things and I; in sound I speak—    

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.    

Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;    

  Let her, if she would owe me,           100

Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me    

  The breasts o’ her tenderness:    

Never did any milk of hers once bless    

    My thirsting mouth.    

    Nigh and nigh draws the chase,           105

    With unperturbèd pace,    

  Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;    

    And past those noisèd Feet    

    A voice comes yet more fleet—    

  ‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me!’           110

Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!    

My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,    

    And smitten me to my knee;    

  I am defenceless utterly.    

  I slept, methinks, and woke,           115

And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.    

In the rash lustihead of my young powers,    

  I shook the pillaring hours    

And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,    

I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years—           120

My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.    

My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,    

Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.    

  Yea, faileth now even dream    

The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;           125

Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist    

I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,    

Are yielding; cords of all too weak account    

For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.    

  Ah! is Thy love indeed           130

A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,    

Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?    

  Ah! must—    

  Designer infinite!—    

Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?           135

My freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust;    

And now my heart is as a broken fount,    

Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever    

  From the dank thoughts that shiver    

Upon the sighful branches of my mind.           140

  Such is; what is to be?    

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?    

I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;    

Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds    

From the hid battlements of Eternity;           145

Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then    

Round the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.    

  But not ere him who summoneth    

  I first have seen, enwound    

With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;           150

His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.    

Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields    

  Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields    

  Be dunged with rotten death?    

      Now of that long pursuit           155

    Comes on at hand the bruit;    

  That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:    

    ‘And is thy earth so marred,    

    Shattered in shard on shard?    

  Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!           160

  Strange, piteous, futile thing!    

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?    

Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),    

‘And human love needs human meriting:    

  How hast thou merited—           165

Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?    

  Alack, thou knowest not    

How little worthy of any love thou art!    

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,    

  Save Me, save only Me?           170

All which I took from thee I did but take,    

  Not for thy harms,    

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.    

  All which thy child’s mistake    

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:           175

  Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’    

  Halts by me that footfall:    

  Is my gloom, after all,    

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?    

  ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,           180

  I am He Whom thou seekest!    

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’

What Really Satisfies Your Soul? A Kingdom Quote From Henry Blackaby

Have you ever heard people say they are experiencing a dry spell in their Christian life? What are they saying? Are they saying that the Lord ran out of water? It should never cross your mind that the fountain of living waters residing within you should ever be reduced to a trickle. You don’t need to run all over the country trying to find sources of spiritual refreshment. Conferences, retreats, and books can all bring encouragement; but if you are a Christian, the source of living water already resides within you. - Henry Blackaby

Welcome to JUMP THE SHARK Week!

In honor of Discovery channel's Shark Week and the Democrats going absolutely bat guano insane in their "argumentation" against Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, we here at the Triangle have declared this week JUMP THE SHARK WEEK. Why? Why not! But since you asked so politely, it's really clear the the reality distortion field that has enveloped the entire Left Character Assassination Machine has become virtually cosmic.

For example, let's remember that, according to the Dems, Mitt Romney is so powerful and diabolical that he can leave a job in 1999, go into the future and give a woman cancer and cause her death in 2006, and then come back into reality and space-time just in time to kill off the rest of the poor and deject huddled masses. He then, of course, would finish it off with a nice cigar and a cognac. He then would reappear in our time continuum in time to save the 2002 winter olympics and plan his eventual takeover of the world while daily dining on babies and drinking the tears of depressed sweatshop workers.

Perhaps I am exaggerating the Democrat's fears of Mitt Romney. But what else would explain their willingness to follow and support a man who has utterly failed in each and every possible way to live up to the goals he set for himself. I refer you to one statement to the effect of "Well, if I don't turn things around in three years we'll be overrun by baby eating, cancer causing super-villains!"

And what about the plans Romney has to sell all non-Mormons to a group of space aliens for the cost of settling all of the United State's debts. Oh, wait? That was the Israelis. Uh, no, it was actually some hidden professor in the halls of Obama's past that he won't let us know about. Does that ring a Bell? Maybe a Derek Bell? Must be hidden in the closet with all of those pictures of the dead Usama, Barack's first communion Quran and all of the pictures of those freaky "composite" people he mentions in his biographies. Didn't that used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder?

So what's the point of all of this? In all of the attempts to JUMP THE SHARK today, I haven't even come close to what Barack, David Plouffe, Bill Burton, Stephanie Cutter and all of his other hench-type persons did this week. Not even close.

Obama That I Used To Know

This is a parody of a song by a group called Gotye called "Somebody That I Used To Know."

It is a an excellent parody, and you can see the original here if you are haven't heard it.

This tells the story of all the young hope-and-changers and what happened after they voted for O. Just like the original song, they feel like jilted lovers, left out in the cold and not just forgotten, but coldly rejected. Oh, where is that Obama they used to know? He never really was...    

From HOPE to FEAR - again

via American Crossroads - the best part of the "Fear"video, nice and short!
Click the above link to see the whole video.

The REAL Obama

From HOPE to FEAR

A snippet of a the American Crossroads video - "Fear" 

A New Use For An Old "Hope" Poster - (cartoons)

J. Lee Grady - Don’t Let Delays Defeat You

A breakthrough is waiting for those who persevere. If you have stopped praying, receive fresh grace to pray again.

George Mueller, the great 19th-century British evangelist, prayed in more than $7 million during his lifetime to feed the thousands of orphans in his care. He didn't believe in telling people about his financial needs, yet he always had enough to pay his enormous grocery bill because God supernaturally provided.

But Mueller’s faith was stretched in other ways. He prayed regularly over a list of five people he wanted to see converted to faith in Jesus. The first man was saved after five years. The second and third men converted to Christ after 10 years. The fourth man was saved after 25 years of consistent prayer.

“Sometimes construction crews in my city erect large flashing signs along the highway near my house. All drivers groan when they see the message: ‘EXPECT DELAYS.’ Life is littered with these signs, and Jesus said they are part of our training process.”

But here’s the clincher: Mueller prayed for the fifth man’s conversion for a whopping 52 years. The friend made a profession of faith in Christ a few months after Mueller’s funeral!

This story challenges me to the core because I’m so impatient. I’m guilty of revving my engine at stoplights and tapping my foot when my Internet connection is slow. Technology is a blessing, but it has also spoiled me into thinking I can get spiritual results as fast as I want them.

Would you pray about something consistently for 52 years if there was no sign an answer was coming? I started praying about some big requests three years ago, and I realized recently that I had grown weary of the process. Prayer had become painful. Doubts began smothering my dreams. I felt like giving up, but God spoke three simple truths to my heart. They might help you:

1. God never said this would be easy. Jesus gave us many wonderful, rosy promises, but He also said: “In the world you have tribulation” (John 16:33, NASB). That’s not a Scripture you will find embroidered on a pillow or inscribed on a flowery greeting card. But it’s a guarantee. Anybody who attempts something great for God will face difficulties.

Sometimes construction crews in my city erect large flashing signs along the highway near my house. All drivers groan when they see the message: “EXPECT DELAYS.” Life is littered with these signs, and Jesus said they are part of our training process. If Abraham and Sarah had to wait 25 years for the birth of their promised heir, why do we think our answers should be instant?

2. You must persevere if you want to receive. Perseverance is one of those archaic words we’ve stripped from our vocabulary. Waiting is a weird concept for people in the 21st century who have movies-on-demand. If someone tells us to wait, we just find an app on our phone to speed up the process.

But there is no shortcut when it comes to receiving God’s answers. The definition of perseverance is "steady persistence in a course of action or purpose, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles or discouragement." Faith is painful because God is stretching our spiritual capacity to receive. Press through the pain! There is gain on the other side.

Speaking of prayer, Jesus said: “Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7, AMP). In other words, don’t stop praying no matter how long the answer takes.

3. The end result of faith is a larger territory. When Isaac sojourned in the land of Gerar, the Bible says he re-dug the wells of his father and then dug new wells. After he dug the first two, the Philistines quarreled with Isaac and tried to claim ownership of the water. But when Isaac dug a third time, the fighting stopped and he named the new well “Rehoboth,” which means “a broad place” (see Gen. 26:18-24).

Isaac could have become discouraged after the first well-digging fiasco. Many people back off at the first sign of a fight, but Isaac didn’t let the quarrels stop him. He dug a second time and hit yet another roadblock. But he kept on digging. When the breakthrough occurred, Isaac declared: “At last the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land” (26:22, NASB).

The lesson Isaac learned is still part of our faith curriculum today. There is no getting around it. We must keep on believing when circumstances tell us to quit. We must stretch our faith when it feels like we have no more stretch left. We must pray beyond the delay.

George Mueller said: “God delights to increase the faith of His children. We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory, no exercise for patience, to be willing to take them from God's hands as a means. Trials, obstacles, difficulties and sometimes defeats, are the very food of faith.”

If you have grown weary, or even if you have quit believing, receive fresh grace to pray again. Let patience have its perfect work. God will fortify your faith and empower you to receive a miraculous breakthrough.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of The Mordecai Project. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

Michael Brown - Young Americans, Faithless and Fatherless

According to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, almost one in three Americans under the age of 30 doubt that God exists, while, in contrast, the figure for Americans over the age of 65 is less than one in ten. Could there be a connection between the fatherlessness of this younger generation and their struggles with faith? According to a theory called “the psychology of atheism,” the answer might well be yes.
But first, some caveats. 1) There are many reasons why people struggle with the issue of faith, so it would be wrong to think that “one size fits all.” 2) The highest percentage of fatherlessness is found in the African American community, and yet African Americans tend to be more religiously oriented than other population sectors. 3) It cannot be denied that a large portion of contemporary American Christianity is often superficial, hypocritical, and powerless (in terms of radical life transformation), and these serious defects certainly account for some of the faith struggles experienced by American young people. That being said, it is important to probe the connection between fatherlessness and faithlessness.
In 1999, New York University professor Paul C. Vitz, a former atheist himself, wrote a book entitled Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism. In it, he argued that the absence of a father or the presence of a defective father (say, a weak, cowardly father or an abusive father) often played a major role in the development of the atheism of the child (or grownup). A similar argument was made by journalist John P. Koster, Jr., in his 1989 book The Atheist Syndrome.
To be clear, these authors are not denying that atheists claim to have strong, rational reasons for their atheism. Instead, Vitz and Koster argue that what lies at the root of atheism is often the lack of a solid father figure, thereby allowing unbelief to become dominant later in life (or even in childhood).
According to Vitz, “an atheist’s disappointment in and resentment of his own father unconsciously justifies his rejection of God,” a theory Vitz developed while reading the biographies of well-known atheists. He calls it the “defective father” hypothesis.
Under the category of “Dead Fathers,” Vitz lists famous atheists like Nietzsche, Hume, Russell, Sartre, and Camus; under “Abusive and Weak Fathers” he lists Hobbes, Voltaire, Freud, and Wells, among others. He then compares their stories with the stories of theists like Pascal, Wilberforce, Kierkegaard, Chesterton, Buber, Barth, Bonhoeffer, and others, before reviewing apparent exceptions to his theory.
Speaking of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Vitz notes that her son, William, “claims that he did not know why his mother hated her father so much – but hate him she did. In the opening chapter of the book, he reports a very ugly fight in which O’Hair attempted to kill her father with a ten-inch butcher knife. She failed but screamed, ‘I’ll see you dead. I’ll get you yet. I’ll walk on your grave.’” Does this remind you of her desire to eliminate God from American life?
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “I have absolutely no knowledge of atheism as an outcome of reasoning, still less an event; with me it is obvious by instinct.” As a young boy, Nietzsche was very close to his father, who was a pastor, but he died shortly before Nietzsche’s fifth birthday, having suffered the previous year from a brain disease.
In his early teens, Nietzsche wrote about the agony he experienced when his father died, noting that, “In everything God has led me safely as a father leads his weak child. . . . Like a child I trust in his grace.” So, for the teenage Nietzsche, God was just like a loving father. Unfortunately, Nietzsche also remembered his father as weak and sickly, and it was this image, Vitz claims, that Nietzsche “also associated, naturally enough, with his father’s Christianity. . . . It is therefore not hard to view Nietzsche’s rejection of God and Christianity as a rejection of the weakness of his father,” a father who abandoned him by death when he was but a little boy.
As for H. G. Wells, he was raised by an irresponsible and often absentee father (named Joe) and by a mother whose faith collapsed when her 9-year-old daughter died suddenly from appendicitis two years before Wells was born. Vitz notes, “Whether it was Joe the father or God the Father who gave no answer seems to make no difference to Wells, because for him both were equally absent.”
Describing his mother’s faith struggle in his autobiography, Wells wrote, “My father was away at cricket, and I think she realized more and more acutely as the years dragged on without material alleviation, that Our Father and Our Lord . . . were also away, playing perhaps at their own sort of cricket in some remote quarter of the starry universe.”
Returning to our day, the U. S. Census Bureau reports that as of 2011, one third of American children are growing up without their biological father, and over the last 50 years, the number of babies born to unwed mothers has jumped from 5 percent to 40 percent.
Could it be, then, that there really is a connection between the lack of fathers and the lack of faith among young Americans?

via Townhall.com

Seems like Michael Brown is really getting to the core of what is really going on in our culture, especially lately. The Vitz book he mentions is excellent, by the way.  - Cliff @the Triangle

Why Obama Will Lose in a Landslide - by Wayne Allyn Root

Most political predictions are made by biased pollsters, pundits, or prognosticators who are either rooting for Republicans or Democrats. I am neither. I am a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee, and a well-known Vegas oddsmaker with one of the most accurate records of predicting political races.

Neither Obama nor Romney are my horses in the race. I believe both Republicans and Democrats have destroyed the U.S. economy and brought us to the edge of economic disaster. My vote will go to Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson in November, whom I believe has the most fiscally conservative track record of any Governor in modern U.S. political history. Without the bold spending cuts of a Gary Johnson or Ron Paul, I don’t believe it’s possible to turnaround America.

But as an oddsmaker with a pretty remarkable track record of picking political races, I play no favorites. I simply use common sense to call them as I see them. Back in late December I released my New Years Predictions. I predicted back then- before a single GOP primary had been held, with Romney trailing for months to almost every GOP competitor from Rick Perry to Herman Cain to Newt- that Romney would easily rout his competition to win the GOP nomination by a landslide. I also predicted that the Presidential race between Obama and Romney would be very close until election day. But that on election day Romney would win by a landslide similar to Reagan-Carter in 1980.

Understanding history, today I am even more convinced of a resounding Romney victory. 32 years ago at this moment in time, Reagan was losing by 9 points to Carter. Romney is right now running even in polls. So why do most pollsters give Obama the edge?

First, most pollsters are missing one ingredient- common sense. Here is my gut instinct. Not one American who voted for McCain 4 years ago will switch to Obama. Not one in all the land. But many millions of people who voted for an unknown Obama 4 years ago are angry, disillusioned, turned off, or scared about the future. Voters know Obama now- and that is a bad harbinger.

Now to an analysis of the voting blocks that matter in U.S. politics:

*Black voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. His endorsement of gay marriage has alienated many black church-going Christians. He may get 88% of their vote instead of the 96% he got in 2008. This is not good news for Obama.

*Hispanic voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. If Romney picks Rubio as his VP running-mate the GOP may pick up an extra 10% to 15% of Hispanic voters (plus lock down Florida). This is not good news for Obama.

*Jewish voters. Obama has been weak in his support of Israel. Many Jewish voters and big donors are angry and disappointed. I predict Obama's Jewish support drops from 78% in 2008 to the low 60’s. This is not good news for Obama.

*Youth voters. Obama’s biggest and most enthusiastic believers from 4 years ago have graduated into a job market from hell. Young people are disillusioned, frightened, and broke- a bad combination. The enthusiasm is long gone. Turnout will be much lower among young voters, as will actual voting percentages. This not good news for Obama.

*Catholic voters. Obama won a majority of Catholics in 2008. That won’t happen again. Out of desperation to please women, Obama went to war with the Catholic Church over contraception. Now he is being sued by the Catholic Church. Majority lost. This is not good news for Obama.

*Small Business owners. Because I ran for Vice President last time around, and I'm a small businessman myself, I know literally thousands of small business owners. At least 40% of them in my circle of friends, fans and supporters voted for Obama 4 years ago to “give someone different a chance.” I warned them that he would pursue a war on capitalism and demonize anyone who owned a business...that he’d support unions over the private sector in a big way...that he'd overwhelm the economy with spending and debt. My friends didn’t listen. Four years later, I can't find one person in my circle of small business owner friends voting for Obama. Not one. This is not good news for Obama.

*Blue collar working class whites. Do I need to say a thing? White working class voters are about as happy with Obama as Boston Red Sox fans feel about the New York Yankees. This is not good news for Obama.

*Suburban moms. The issue isn’t contraception…it’s having a job to pay for contraception. Obama’s economy frightens these moms. They are worried about putting food on the table. They fear for their children’s future. This is not good news for Obama.

*Military Veterans. McCain won this group by 10 points. Romney is winning by 24 points. The more our military vets got to see of Obama, the more they disliked him. This is not good news for Obama.

Add it up. Is there one major group where Obama has gained since 2008? Will anyone in America wake up on election day saying “I didn’t vote for Obama 4 years ago. But he’s done such a fantastic job, I can’t wait to vote for him today.” Does anyone feel that a vote for Obama makes their job more secure?

Forget the polls. My gut instincts as a Vegas oddsmaker and common sense small businessman tell me this will be a historic landslide and a world-class repudiation of Obama’s radical and risky socialist agenda. It's Reagan-Carter all over again.

But I’ll give Obama credit for one thing- he is living proof that familiarity breeds contempt.

via Townhall.com

Kingdom Quotes: God is there for every generation - Spurgeon

"We do our Lord an injustice when we suppose that He wrought all His mighty acts, and showed Himself strong for those in the early time, but doth not perform wonders or lay bare His arm for the saints who are now upon the earth...Surely the goodness of God has been the same to us as to the saints of old."

C.H. Spurgeon 

Ted Haggard, Larry Brinkin, And Glaring Media Bias

Ted Haggard, Larry Brinkin, And Glaring Media Bias

by Dr. Michael Brown

According to published reports, when Larry Brinkin was arrested two weeks ago, the police found “images of year-old infants subjected to sodomy and oral sex, and perverse racial comments (Brinkin’s email: ‘I loved especially the 2 year old n----- getting nailed. Hope you’ll continue so I can see what the little blond b---- is going to get. White Power! White Supremacy! White D--- Rules!’).” Yet the media has barely reported this terribly disturbing incident.

But, you ask, who was Larry Brinkin? He was “a central figure in the gay rights movement,” a man who was so influential that, “The San Francisco board of supervisors actually gave a ‘Larry Brinkin Week’ in February 2010 upon his retirement.” It was Brinkin who first used the term “domestic partnerships” in a legal dispute, marking a watershed moment in gay activist history, yet news of his alleged crimes against infants and children, not to mention his alleged White Supremacist leanings, has received very little media attention.

Is there a double standard here? Imagine what the media would be doing if Brinkin had been a conservative Christian leader.

When evangelical leader Ted Haggard fell, the media was quick to pounce, suggesting that this exposed the corrupt nature of evangelical Christianity as a whole. And media leaders have done this repeatedly whenever there has been a scandal connected to an evangelical (or Catholic) leader, and the news is blared from the headlines. But where, I ask you, is the outrage or the front page news when a gay leader commits atrocities such as those allegedly committed by Larry Brinkin? And why isn’t the media claiming that Brinkin’s transgressions expose the corrupt nature of gay activism as a whole?

The failure of a Christian leader is considered endemic and representative; the failure of a gay leader is considered an aberrant exception. Why the unequal treatment? more...

via townhall.com

Larry Kudlow: Are We In A Global Recession?

Is it possible that we are already in a global recession but just don’t know it yet? And is the U.S. itself — still the epicenter of the world economy — standing on the front edge of another recession?

I sincerely hope I’m wrong. But warning signs are everywhere.

The eurozone economy is flat on its back. Greece may be headed for a political crackup and an exit from the euro and European Union. Deposit runs in Greece and elsewhere are beginning, and a credit freeze throughout the continent is not out of the question. Meanwhile, emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil are slumping.

Here at home, ex-Clinton strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg sent a memo to President Obama telling him that his campaign message of slow and steady recovery progress is out of touch with Main Street America. They’re right. Of course, Obama’s “private sector is doing just fine” statement is part and parcel of his disconnect from economic reality.

And the reality isn’t good. Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, take a look at the numbers:

Job growth has been slipping badly for three months. Retail sales and factory orders are down two straight months. Real incomes are flat. Household wealth is way underwater from the housing collapse, dropping nearly 40 percent in the last three measured years. And GDP was an anemic 1.9 percent in the first quarter. Nearly all leading Wall Street economists are marking down their second-quarter estimates to 2 percent or less.

But here’s the key point: 2 percent growth is not a recovery. Many economists would call it a growth recession. When you get that low there’s little margin for error. A shock from Europe, an inventory selloff in the U.S., or almost any unexpected event could push us back into negative territory for an official double-dip recession.
The last saving grace for the U.S.? Business sales and profits are still trending higher, although GDP-measured profits did fall in the first quarter. That needs to be watched carefully.

That said, a recent IBD poll shows that the number of households with at least one person looking for employment is 23 percent. That translates to 30 million people looking for work. That’s not a recovery.

I can think of two major reasons for the latest economic stall — even inside an overall recovery rate that’s only half the normal pace of post-WWII recoveries. First is the deflationary impact of a sharp, nearly 10 percent rise in the exchange value of the dollar relative to the euro. That’s imparting a deflationary influence on the economy, where both import and producer prices have recently turned negative. The good side of commodity deflation is that oil and retail gas prices have fallen considerably; the bad side is that manufacturers may hold back production and that debtors have to climb out of deeper holes.

As someone who always touts the merits of a strong King Dollar, why am I complaining now that we have one? That’s my second reason for the latest economic stall: King Dollar is not being accompanied by lower tax rates.

The original supply-side growth model argued for a strong dollar and lower taxes, where the former keeps prices stable and the latter provides fresh growth incentives. But instead of easier taxes, a huge tax-hike cliff looms. Big problem. Wrong model. Anti-growth.

As the Bush era tax cuts expire at year end, so do the temporary payroll tax cut and the alternative minimum tax patch. By some estimates, over $400 billion in cash will be pulled out of the economy in 2013, along with a rollback of growth-oriented, marginal-tax-rate incentives. It’s hard to quantify, but it’s quite possible that business hiring plans and consumer-spending expectations have been put on hold until folks can figure out future tax policy.

All this is why the tax-cliff problem needs to be solved immediately. If the tax cuts are extended sooner rather than later, the economy might straighten out faster than most folks think. But House Speaker John Boehner told me that while he’s ready to talk to President Obama, the phone isn’t ringing. And while House Republicans are expected to pass a tax-cut extension in July, it won’t go anywhere without White House support.

Unfortunately, the president is still talking about tax hikes on the rich. He should listen to Bill Clinton who argues for a full tax-cut extension to stop recession. If we wait until after the election to address the tax cliff, we will face uncertainty and chaos, bringing us closer to recession.

Isn’t there some way to nip this worst-case outcome in the bud?

via - National Review Online

Military First: Pentagon Salutes Gay Pride Month

Secretary of Defense the Honorable Leon Panetta addresses service members at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Marc I. Lane/Released)

The Pentagon is set to salute gay and lesbian troops by marking June as Gay Pride Month.

The move comes nine months after the Obama administration's repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that banned gay troops from openly serving in the military.

"We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot ... a nation that believes that all men and women are created equal," President Obama said after the repeal.

Defense Department officials are planning the first-ever event to recognize gay troops.

They declined to give details about the event but said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta feels it's important to recognize the service of gays in the armed forces.

The move comes as legislation is being proposed in Congress to protect military chaplains who don't support gay marriage.

"The chaplains are an integral part of our defense and have been for a long time," Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who sponsored the legislation, said. "And honoring the beliefs and the convictions of those people is only reasonable."

"We need to allow people to have those kinds of beliefs without being worried that they're going to get demoted or run over because they believe in something," he said

via Charisma News

No Purple Heart For Soldiers and Victims of Maj. Nadal Hassan?

Survivors of the Fort Hood massacre say they expected the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, to “come in and finish the job,” according to exclusive interviews to be broadcast on "Fox Files: The Enemy Within."
“I saw the muzzle of the weapon pointed at me about six feet away,” Pvt. George Stratton III told Fox News in his first TV interview since the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting that killed 13 and injured more than 43 others.
Stratton, who had just turned 18 at the time of the shooting, said the readiness center was turned into a battlefield bathed in blood, as the wounded crawled to the exit doors to save themselves.
“As soon as I got out the first set of doors, I got up to my knees, pushed the other door open and kneed my way out, and I got up to my feet,” he said.
Watch "Fox Files: The Enemy Within" at 10 p.m. ET Friday and 9 p.m. ET Sunday.
Stratton, who needed his family’s permission to enlist at the age of 17, thought he might be safe until he heard a soldier cry out that the shooter was following the wounded.
"He's coming around the corner with the gun, he's shooting and killing people," Stratton said. "I just sat there - felt helpless - felt hopeless waiting for this person to come in and finish the job.”
Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning was shot six times, with one bullet narrowly missing his heart. Manning said he had sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Manning paused as he described the shooter.
“Domestic enemy, I mean, that’s what this was," Manning said. "He might have wore the uniform, but he wasn’t a soldier. He didn’t act like a soldier. He tried to kill soldiers. I mean, he was an enemy – plain and simple.”
When it came to Hasan, Manning said, there was a double standard. Hasan wrote emails to radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – seeking advice on reconciling his Muslim faith with serving in the Army. This fact was known to the FBI.
“You could lose your security clearance in the Army for having bad credit and be kicked out of the Army. But you can't lose your security clearance for talking to a member of Al Qaeda, through e-mail. I mean, it doesn't make any sense," Manning said.
Despite calls from some members of Congress, none of the injured or murdered soldiers from the 2009 shooting has been awarded the Purple Heart.

via Fox News - Catherine Herridge
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/15/survivors-fort-hood-massacre-tell-tales-fearing-shooter-would-finish-job/#ixzz1xtVC2KOA

Internet Meme Time: Hitler Finds Out Scott Walker Won In Wisconsin Recall Election

Whoever started this meme of using this scene of Hitler raging and adding new subtitles should be applauded for having a wicked sense of humor. Let's hope that someone gets to do one for our dear leader Mr. Obama in November! Cue the ominous music...Action!

I Repent! An Evangelical Christian Admits His Bigotry

One hot summer day in 2008 I was riding around with a friend waiting for a meeting we were conducting that evening. While we were killing time we heard an interview with then candidate Mitt Romney on a local radio station here in Colorado, just days before he won the state's Republican primary. He made the most sense of any of the candidates I had heard in the lengthy interview, and I concluded that, if we just had to have a Mormon candidate that it probably wouldn't be the end of the world. But then I said to myself, and then to my friend, "but I could never vote for a Mormon."

    And I continued to say that on a regular basis all the way until the election of one Barack H. Obama to the illustrious office of the Presidency of the United States in that next November. No doubt like all of you I hoped that, even though he wasn't my choice, that he would at least do a decent job, although there was no reason to think he would, owing to his extreme lack of experience in anything remotely like executive leadership. "Look at the resume, people!" I would say, wryly.
    Fast forward three years later to my new life under Mr. Obama as an underemployed Walmart cashier after having been laid off in October of 2008 and having worked five different part time positions before getting my great gig at WallyWorld. I am walking through the aisles of the Home Section and I have this surprising conversation with God. I was praying that he would bring great leadership to our country and turn things around for us.
     Then I heard these words, "Cliff, do you remember the last campaign? Remember how you said that if John McCain would really want to win and bring Democrats together with Republicans that he should select Joe Lieberman as his Vice Presidential running mate?"
My response was, "Yes...and...?
"Well, did you once think that people wouldn't vote for Joe Lieberman because of his Jewish faith?"
"No, not at all..."
And then it hit me. I was a religious bigot, plain and simple. I had let my passion for truth as a Christian get in the way of my thinking clearly and objectively about the issues. I was being truly intolerant against the beliefs of others, which is the very definition of bigotry. Seriously! Look it up!
    I still have major problems with Mormon theology and what they believe about Jesus, Joseph Smith and a whole host of other things, but I know and have known many Mormons who are good people and true Americans and patriots.
    So here it is, my confession of public repentance. I was wrong about what I said about Mormon candidates for office, and I humbly confess that I should have never even thought like that as a Conservative, a Republican, and an American, and especially as a Christian. I believe in an America with a big tent that includes all people, regardless of religion, race, or ideological bent.
    I have been looking at the lives of the two men running for the Office of the President of The United States this year and I am convinced that the man who better lives a life that looks like that of Christ from the outside is Mitt Romney. Mr. Obama claims to be a Christian, but has ignored and even snubbed people of faith, or tried to use them for his own political reasonings, quoting from the Scriptures to either shame them or mock them. I believe a true man of faith would not do this.
    Ultimately, we all stand before God on our own. He will be the best Judge of whether we were a true believer or not. But at least now I can look my God in the eye and say back to Him, "You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom(Psalm 51:6). May He give us all wisdom this year and all those after.

Beck on Romney's Faith speech

This is a good response to Romney's "Faith In America" speech by commentator and fellow Mormon Glenn Beck, back in his CNN days. He makes the one point that we should all hear: if you had a problem with Romney's religion but you didn't have a problem with, say, Joe Lieberman's religion, what's the difference? I for one, was one of those in 2008 who thought McCain should have chosen Joe Lieberman as his Vice Presidential choice. And at no point did I think that his being a Jewish believer disqualified him to fill the office of Vice President, or President for that matter.