Birthright Citizenship: A Fundamental Misunderstanding of the 14th Amendment

Birthright Citizenship: A Fundamental Misunderstanding of the 14th Amendment

Hans von Spakovsky
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@HvonSpakovsky
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October 30, 2018
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134 Comments

The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons
born in the U.S. are citizens. It says that “[a]ll persons born or
naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof” are citizens. (Photo: vlana/Getty Images)

Commentary By

Hans von Spakovsky

@HvonSpakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide
range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First
Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a
senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center
for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election
Law Reform Initiative. Read his research.

What’s the citizenship status of the children
of illegal aliens? That question has spurred quite a debate over the
14th Amendment lately, with the news that several states—including
Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia, and South Carolina—may launch
efforts to deny automatic citizenship to such children.

Critics claim that anyone born in the United States
is automatically a U.S. citizen, even if their parents are here
illegally. But that ignores the text and legislative history of the 14th
Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 to extend citizenship to freed
slaves and their children.

The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons born in the U.S. are
citizens. It says that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United
States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That
second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or
misinterpreted by advocates of “birthright” citizenship.


Critics erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States
has “subjected” himself “to the jurisdiction” of the United States,
which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats,
and illegal aliens alike.


But that is not what that qualifying phrase means. Its original
meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the
jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.


The fact that a tourist or illegal alien is subject to our laws and
our courts if they violate our laws does not place them within the
political “jurisdiction” of the United States as that phrase was defined
by the framers of the 14th Amendment.


This amendment’s language was derived from the 1866 Civil Rights Act,
which provided that “[a]ll persons born in the United States, and not
subject to any foreign power” would be considered citizens.


Sen. Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the adoption of the 14th
Amendment, said that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. included
not owing allegiance to any other country.


As John Eastman, former dean of the Chapman School of Law, has said,
many do not seem to understand “the distinction between partial,
territorial jurisdiction, which subjects all who are present within the
territory of a sovereign to the jurisdiction of that sovereign’s laws,
and complete political jurisdiction, which requires allegiance to the
sovereign as well.”


In the famous Slaughter-House cases of 1872, the Supreme Court stated
that this qualifying phrase was intended to exclude “children of
ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born
within the United States.” This was confirmed in 1884 in another case,
Elk vs. Wilkins, when citizenship was denied to an American Indian
because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not the United
States.


American Indians and their children did not become citizens until
Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. There would have
been no need to pass such legislation if the 14th Amendment extended
citizenship to every person born in America, no matter what the
circumstances of their birth, and no matter who their parents are.


Even in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case most often cited by
“birthright” supporters due to its overbroad language, the court only
held that a child born of lawful, permanent residents was a U.S.
citizen. That is a far cry from saying that a child born of individuals
who are here illegally must be considered a U.S. citizen.


Of course, the judges in that case were strongly influenced by the
fact that there were discriminatory laws in place at that time that
restricted Chinese immigration, a situation that does not exist today.


The court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment as extending to the
children of legal, noncitizens was incorrect, according to the text and
legislative history of the amendment. But even under that holding,
citizenship was not extended to the children of illegal aliens—only
permanent, legal residents.


It is just plain wrong to claim that the children born of parents
temporarily in the country as students or tourists are automatically
U.S. citizens: They do not meet the 14th Amendment’s jurisdictional
allegiance obligations. They are, in fact, subject to the political
jurisdiction (and allegiance) of the country of their parents. The same
applies to the children of illegal aliens because children born in the
United States to foreign citizens are citizens of their parents’ home
country.


Federal law offers them no help either. U.S. immigration law (8
U.S.C. § 1401) simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment,
including the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”


The State Department has erroneously interpreted that statute to
provide passports to anyone born in the United States, regardless of
whether their parents are here illegally and regardless of whether the
applicant meets the requirement of being “subject to the jurisdiction”
of the U.S. Accordingly, birthright citizenship has been implemented by
executive fiat, not because it is required by federal law or the
Constitution.


We are only one of a very small number of countries that provides
birthright citizenship, and we do so based not upon the requirements of
federal law or the Constitution, but based upon an erroneous executive
interpretation. Congress should clarify the law according to the
original meaning of the 14th Amendment and reverse this practice.

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution - Fourteenth Amendment - anchor babies and birthright citizenship - interpretations and misinterpretations - US Constitution

Original intent of the 14^th Amendment

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the
State wherein they reside."

Babies born to illegal alien mothers within U.S. borders are called anchor babies
because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that
pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives
into permanent U.S. residency. (Jackpot babies is another term).



The United States did not limit immigration in 1868 when the Fourteenth
Amendment was ratified. Thus there were, by definition, no illegal
immigrants and the issue of citizenship for children of those here in
violation of the law was nonexistent. Granting of automatic citizenship
to children of illegal alien mothers is a recent and totally inadvertent
and unforeseen result of the amendment and the Reconstructionist period
in which it was ratified.




Post-Civil War reforms focused on injustices to African Americans. The 14^th
Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born
Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed
slaves. It was written in a manner so as to prevent state governments
from ever denying citizenship to blacks born in the United States. But
in 1868, the United States had no formal immigration policy, and the
authors therefore saw no need to address immigration explicitly in the
amendment.



Senator Jacob Howard worked closely with Abraham Lincoln in drafting and
passing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,
which abolished slavery. He also served on the Senate Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution. In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out
the intent of the 14^th Amendment by stating:

"Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject
to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a
citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons
born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the
families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the
Government of the United States, but will include every other class of
persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all
doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.
This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and
legislation of this country."

This understanding was reaffirmed by Senator Edward Cowan, who stated:

"[A foreigner in the United States] has a right to the protection of the
laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptance of the
word..."

The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was intended
to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose
allegiance to the United States was not complete. With illegal aliens
who are unlawfully in the United States, their native country has a
claim of allegiance on the child. Thus, the completeness of their
allegiance to the United States is impaired, which therefore precludes
automatic citizenship.

Supreme Court decisions

The correct interpretation of the 14^th Amendment is that an illegal alien mother is subject to the
jurisdiction of her native country, as is her baby.



Over a century ago, the Supreme Court appropriately confirmed this
restricted interpretation of citizenship in the so-called
"Slaughter-House cases" [83 US 36 (1873) and 112 US 94 (1884)]¹³. In the 1884 Elk v.Wilkins case¹²,
the phrase "subject to its jurisdiction" was interpreted to exclude
"children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born
within the United States." In Elk, the American Indian claimant
was considered not an American citizen because the law required him to
be "not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of
the United States, but completely subject to their political
jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance."



The Court essentially stated that the status of the parents determines
the citizenship of the child. To qualify children for birthright
citizenship, based on the 14th Amendment, parents must owe "direct and
immediate allegiance" to the U.S. and be "completely subject" to its
jurisdiction. In other words, they must be United States citizens.



Congress subsequently passed a special act to grant full citizenship to
American Indians, who were not citizens even through they were born
within the borders of the United States. The Citizens Act of 1924,
codified in 8USCSß1401, provides that:

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:

(a) a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal
tribe.

In 1898, the Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court case^{10,11, 16} once again, in a ruling based strictly on the 14^th
Amendment, concluded that the status of the parents was crucial in
determining the citizenship of the child. The current misinterpretation
of the 14th Amendment is based in part upon the presumption that the Wong Kim Ark ruling encompassed illegal aliens. In fact, it did not address the children of illegal aliens and non-immigrant aliens, but rather determined an allegiance for legal immigrant parents based on the meaning of the word domicil(e). Since it is inconceivable that illegal alien parents could have a legal
domicile in the United States, the ruling clearly did not extend
birthright citizenship to children of illegal alien parents. Indeed,
the ruling strengthened the original intent of the 14^th Amendment.




The original intent of the 14^th Amendment was clearly not to
facilitate illegal aliens defying U.S. law and obtaining citizenship for
their offspring, nor obtaining benefits at taxpayer expense.
Current estimates indicate there may be between 300,000 and 700,000
anchor babies born each year in the U.S., thus causing illegal alien
mothers to add more to the U.S. population each year than immigration
from all sources in an average year before 1965. (See consequences.)




American citizens must be wary of elected politicians voting to
illegally extend our generous social benefits to illegal aliens and
other criminals.

For more information, see:

1.   P.A. Madison, Former Research Fellow in Constitutional Studies, The UnConstitutionality of Citizenship by Birth to Non-Americans (February 1, 2005)



2.   Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq., Illegal Aliens and American Medicine The Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10 Number 1 (Spring 2005)



3.   Al Knight, Track 'anchor babies', Denver Post (September 11, 2002)



4.   Al Knight, Change U.S. law on anchor babies, Denver Post (June 22, 2005)



5.   Tom DeWeese, The Mexican Fifth Column (January 27, 2003)



6.   Anchor Babies: The Children of Illegal Aliens (Federation for American Immigration Reform)



7.   Tom DeWeese, "The Outrages of the Mexican Invasion" (American policy Center)



8.   P.A. Madison, Alien Birthright Citizenship: A Fable That Lives Through Ignorance The Federalist Blog (December 17, 2005)



9.   Dr. John C. Eastman, Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law,
Director, The Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence,
Dual Citizenship, Birthright Citizenship, and the Meaning of Sovereignty -
Testimony, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims (September 29, 2005)




10.   William Buchanan, HR-73 -- Protecting America's Sovereignty, The Social Contract (Fall, 1999) - includes discussion of the related Wong Kim Ark 1898 Supreme Court case




11.   Charles Wood, Losing Control of the Nation's Future -- Part Two -- Birthright Citizenship and Illegal Aliens, The Social Contract (Winter, 2005) - includes discussion of the related Wong Kim Ark court case



12.   U.S. Supreme Court ELK v. WILKINS, 112 U.S. 94 (Findlaw, 1884)



13.   U.S. Supreme Court Slaughter-House cases ('Lectric Law Library, 1873)



14.   Jacob M. Howard, Wikipedia.



15.   A
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and
Debates, 1774 - 1875 Congressional Globe, Senate, 39th Congress, 1st
Session Page 2890 of 3840.



16.   United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), Justia.com.

Commentary:

Democrats have become the party of haters

Thousands protest the Trump administration's separation of migrating families at the southern border during a rally on June 30, 2018, in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty)

Desiree Zapata Miller

In my lifetime I have never seen hate for those who support a president the likes of which I see toward the supporters of President Donald Trump. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is calling on people to publicly harass Trump staffers. Hillary Clinton called us a basket of deplorables, accusing women of supporting Trump only because their husbands told them to. A Virginia restaurant owner and staff refused service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she works in the Trump administration. In Charlotte, N.C., City Councilwoman Dimple Ajmera says Trump supporters have no place on the council.
Is this what the Democratic Party has become? A party of haters? Do Democrats condone this behavior? Please tell me it isn’t so! Yet I see few Democrats calling to end the behavior that causes such strife and division.
I must say, however, that these tactics of the far left are not surprising to me. We have their playbook: “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. The left has been playing by his rules for decades. Hillary Clinton praised Alinksy in her thesis. President Barack Obama taught Alinsky’s tactics to grass-roots organizations in Chicago. Alinsky’s fifth rule states: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. It infuriates the opposition, who then reacts to your advantage.” The desired immediate outcome is for those who voted for Trump to show fear and retreat.
I assure you that will not happen. We will not fear or retreat, because we have had enough. The Republican Party is emboldened.

Republicans have continually supported and campaigned for dignified, collegial, polite and yes, polished statesmen. Unfortunately, our Democratic opposition has not offered the same dignified approach. Our candidates from George Bush to Mitt Romney and many others since have not been treated with respect or dignity by members of the Democratic political machine or their comrades in the media. Trump isn’t always polite, but he has no choice but to push back hard.
So we have Donald Trump, a true fighter. He has taken off the gloves and applied the very same fighting style against our opponents. He does not put up with lies. He calls people out. We are fighting back in this war of words with the truth, delivering it with the same hard-hitting rhetoric that our opposition has been using for decades.
Is this the party you Democrats want to become? The party of personal attacks and perpetual lies? The party that has delivered 50-plus years of promises to help the little guy, while continually making it worse?
To my Hispanic friends, don’t be fooled by politicians on the left who pretend to care for you. Democrats held both the presidency and the Congress when Obama came into office, yet they did nothing to help you. As he departed, Obama threw you a bone by signing an executive order for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly referred to as DACA. He did nothing to reform immigration, a promise he made repeatedly.

If anyone can fix this immigration mess, it will be Trump, pressuring Congress to work with him.
There was a time when those of us of differing political beliefs and opinions could have a civil conversation, but now many of us don’t even attempt to understand one another. I challenge you to have a cup of coffee with someone who sees things differently than you see them, and seek to understand where he or she is coming from. A little empathy and a little respect will go a long way.

Walker Stapleton: Why THIS governor's race matters to all of us – It's time to defeat socialism and radical extremism

Walker Stapleton: Why THIS governor's race matters to all of us – It's time to defeat socialism and radical extremism

By Walker Stapleton | Fox News

 

Walker Stapleton speaks after he won the Republican nomination to run for Colorado's governorship during an election night watch party in Greenwood Village, Colo., June 26, 2018. (Associated Press)

Americans are a freedom-loving people who want the government out of their lives. More government regulation is never the answer to our country’s most challenging problems. And in Colorado, where I’m running for governor as a Republican, it’s no different.

Colorado is a state with a deep libertarian streak. In past elections, Coloradans have overwhelmingly voted down single-payer health care, defeated a massive tax increase proposed by the teachers union, and legalized marijuana at the ballot box.

That is the independent Colorado I know and love – a fiscally responsible state that isn’t afraid to chart a path for the nation on contentious issues.
But this year that all can change.
Democratic candidates across the country are adopting far-left, radical policies that the majority of Americans do not support. The Democratic Party has moved to the far left to appease its extremist supporters.
An avowed socialist, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, is now the face of the Democratic Party. Whether it’s mandating government-run health care, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or banning fracking (a technology that has helped the United States become number one in the world in energy production), Democrats are now advocating policies that are far outside of the mainstream and endanger our economy and our jobs.
In Colorado, the race for governor is a microcosm of what is happening on the national stage. In June, Democrats nominated Congressman Jared Polis, the most radical and extreme gubernatorial candidate in Colorado’s history. His record in Colorado over the past few years only underlines this fact.
In 2014, Congressman Polis earned national recognition when he used his vast personal wealth to bankroll a ballot measure that would have banned fracking and driven 230,000 energy jobs out of Colorado.
Congressman Polis is now running on a platform of single-payer, government-run health care; transitioning Colorado to 100 percent renewable energy; promising “free” pre-school; and promoting a carbon tax.
This list of promises and other unfunded mandates adds up to at least $90 billion in spending and costs, and would triple the size of Colorado’s budget with no means to pay for it except through higher taxes – nearly triple what Coloradans presently pay.
As we near the final days of this campaign, Congressman Polis is unapologetically doubling down on his radical persona. The face of American socialism, Bernie Sanders, is joining Congressman Polis on the campaign trail in Colorado.
Recently, when asked to name a single policy difference he has with Sen. Sanders, Congressman Polis came up short, failing to name a single point of disagreement with America’s most famous socialist.
This is a race for governor of Colorado, but the impacts will be felt all across our country. Make no mistake -- a Polis victory in a swing state like Colorado will further normalize socialist policies. Will Congressman Polis and Bernie Sanders' brand of extreme government regulation and intervention cement itself as the standard?
Voters in Colorado and across the country are being presented with a new brand of unabashed extremism that risks economic catastrophe and flies in the face of our country’s founding principle of individual freedom.
While we are working tirelessly to defeat socialism in Colorado, it ultimately will be up to voters. It is my hope and prayer that voters across the country choose to let freedom ring and that Coloradans’ voices are heard from coast to coast.

Who Was Methuselah in the Bible?

Who Was Methuselah in the Bible?

Who Was Methuselah in the Bible?

October 24, 2018 2:30 PM

 

My grandmother died two weeks short of her 102nd birthday. I’ll tell you more about her in a minute. But Methuselah? He was OLD. What would it be like to be a 969-year-old? What would it be like to be the grandfather of Noah? Yes, that Noah. What would it be like to witness the beginning of the Flood?
Methuselah was the eighth among the antediluvian patriarchs, those precursors of our modern type of humanity. They lived long; we live short. From the first of our ancestors, Adam, and through to the tenth, Noah, longevity was what they had and how they lived. What did Methuselah worry about when he was, say, middle-aged, at 500? The Flood was still to come.

Those Ten Men Before the Flood

Methuselah was the longest lived among the ten, although four others lived, as he did, longer than 900 years. The shortest lived was Methuselah’s son Lamech, who died when he was a mere 777-year-old.
All these ten patriarchs died natural deaths except one. Methuselah’s father, Enoch, did not die. At age 365, he “walked with God” and, as Genesis 5:23 puts it, “he [Enoch] was not, for God took him.” In other words, Enoch was transferred directly into heaven by God…which God would later do with Elijah as described in 2 Kings 2:11. Enoch and Elijah are the only two men in Scripture who went to heaven without dying first.
Are we certain, though, about Enoch? We’re certain about Elijah—the Bible tells us details of his transport. But Genesis does not say where God took Enoch, nor does it describe the details other than to say that Enoch was not. Most Christians, including the earliest commentators, assume Enoch was taken up to heaven, but how?
Saint Ambrose (c. 340-397) in his work Isaac, or the Soul, fleshes out the story with dramatic detail. Ambrose alludes to Pentecost; he refers to the wings of fire that flew through the mouths of the Apostles, those true wings which spoke the pure word. Enoch flew on these wings, avers Ambrose, when he was snatched up to heaven. Ambrose goes farther and comments that Enoch’s transport shows us something we need to know, something we should apply didactically to ourselves. Those who truly “walk with God” place their hope in God and so do not dwell among the sinful of earth but are transported, so to speak. They cleave to God, we should, too.

What Does the Bible Say about Methuselah?

The fact that Methuselah’s dad vanished makes an exciting tale, and Methuselah’s grandson also has an exciting tale. Most of us learned about him during our childhoods. He was Noah, the ark man. Our children’s Bibles had illustrations of the animals—two by two—marching into Noah’s ark. I expect many of us had our own set of play animals and a play ark to go with them.
But what does Scripture tell us about Methuselah himself, son of Enoch and grandfather of Noah? Not much.
Among the antediluvian patriarchs, Adam gets a lot of scriptural attention—he being the first—as does Noah, the last. Enoch has his transport story, by means of spiritual fire or otherwise. But all the rest of the patriarchs get only three sentences each, and they all get the same sentences, in sonorous repetition. Read Genesis 5. Between verse 4 and verse 31 all the patriarchal lives are summed up, and the summations use exactly the same words (with one extra sentence for Enoch). Only the men’s names vary and their numbers of years.
For example, regarding Methuselah, here are the three sentences. First, we learn how old he was when he fathered his first son—187 years. Second, we learn how long he lived after the birth of his first son and that he had other sons and daughters—782 years, and they all had other sons and daughters. Third, his lifespan is summed up in years—969 years—and then there is a final phrase, “and he died.”

The Artistic and Linguistic Elements of the Story

We hear that same poetic measure regarding nine out of the ten patriarchs: “and he died.” There is literary artistry in this tolling, bell-like refrain.
Literary artistry is deliberate in Scripture. God, who is both protagonist and author, is invisible but He speaks—either as a still, small voice (to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:12) or as a rumbling thunder (enjoined by Elihu to be heard by Job in Job 37:2). When God speaks, the Hebrew word debar, which is used, means both word and action. Both at the same time. Word is action; word does not exist idly, on its own merit.
Regarding the antediluvian patriarchs, God’s repetition in Genesis 5is deliberate. And he died, and he died, and he died. This repetition is formative. It witnesses to the historical progress of time and event in the antediluvian era while at the same time—literarily, creatively, and biblically—it is the progress of time and event.

What Can We Know about Methuselah Himself?

I’ve stated that we learn nothing about Methuselah in the Bible except from his three sentences. But is there anything we can infer? What about the man’s name? What does his name suggest to us? Most scholars believe Methuselah’s name is Semitic, so I agree.
Semitic (and Hebrew) existence is rooted in the salvific saga of the Old Testament. God’s act, which is His word, included the following debarim(plural of debar). He “spoke” a people of His own, in His image, to inhabit the world He made, to flourish in it, to multiply, and to obey the single commandment He set in place. Unfortunately, they didn’t. And thereby hangs a tale. In fact, thereby hangs the tale of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. But back to Methuselah.
The first half of the man’s name, which is the m tu portion, is almost certainly man of. After that, it gets dicey. I’ve read that the traditional understanding of this portion, as part of a name, is javelin. If accurate, Methuselah is the antediluvian Javelin Man, which is a super hero designation I adore. Other suggestions of the meaning include sent or sending—hence sent man. Or canal—hence man of the canal. Maybe one of these others is the actual correct one, but neither one of them is as exciting as Javelin Man!
Personally, (here I’m thinking of myself as an antediluvian patriarch) I was never much good at the javelin; instead, the other “patriarchs” dubbed me Shot Put Man. But I had javelin friends, and I remember the way they sent their spears vibrating and singing through the upper air in the sun, when we were all out on the field competing during our age of twenty-somethings. Because of those exciting moments, I love to imagine my antediluvian teammate Methuselah, a hale young athlete during his 300-somethings, perhaps at war or more likely competing in the annual Semitic Games—javelin high!

The Oldest Men Who Ever Lived & Why We're Different

The antediluvian age was the period into which the history of humankind descended after the Fall. Kicked out of the Garden, Adam and Eve were separated from God’s immediate companionship—in the cool of the day—and forced to make their way on their own, in a world requiring labor from men in the fields and labor from women in childbirth. Disease, evil, death—all these were the consequences of sin…and are still our reality today as inheritors of sinful nature in a fallen world.
In fact, the machinations of the evil one have been so successful since his appearance as the fourth inhabitant of the Garden that, today, we scarcely recognize his work as having blighted the universe, so ubiquitous is the blight. Today, we go along in our lives feeling—more or less—our urgency to sin, doing our best to avoid it when we are in a salubrious mood, trying when we’re not too distracted to get ourselves closer to Jesus, doing the best we can. But we are fallen.
The question has often come up: how is it that the antediluvian patriarchs lived lives of a length that is incomprehensible to us? I mentioned my grandmother who was a centenarian (my dad was one too—101). But these contemporary humans who seemed to me to be so old were outpaced by the patriarchs at the rate of seven, eight, or nine times! What did they remember and concern themselves about when they were surrounded by their first sons and their other sons and daughters at a birthday party?
Maybe, here’s how their longevity came to be, and then stopped. Cain killed Abel, about as early in the patriarchal age as possible. Adam and Eve had another son, Seth, to replace their good Abel. After that, for centuries conflict burned between the good Sethites and the bad Cainites—interpreters consider Methuselah to have been a Sethite—and whatever was good, and strong, and righteous in God’s eye was battered until God was angered mightily.
The Spirit of God still abode in humankind until the end of the patriarchal age. However, God was fed up with the wickedness of man, which was great upon the earth. God dictated that His Spirit would not abide in humankind forever. At the end of the age, God determined that “[Mankind’s] days shall be 120 years,” as is reported in Genesis 6:3. God’s fury was such that, when he found one righteous man, Methuselah’s grandson, He determined to start over again, this time with that one righteous man, with Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives—and with seven pairs of all the clean animals, and one pair of all the unclean animals. And then God unleashed the Flood. It was by faith that Noah was found righteous, and it was by faith that he and all other believing patriarchs were redeemed and saved by grace.

My Grandmother’s 100th Birthday

Slender and elegant, my grandmother sat on her couch in the middle of her extensive family of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I am her first grandchild. I sat next to her. I was 42 and would be 43 in two weeks—getting older myself. I remember that our conversation went something like this.
“How are you doing, Gram?”
“I’m feeling good. I want to see what happens next.”
“I’m told that the first century is the hardest. After that they get easier.”
She laughed. “That’s good to know.” She smiled at me. “Have you been talking about it with Methuselah?”
“I can’t find him anywhere.”
She thought for a moment and then said, “He’s out there somewhere. All those old ones are. We can still feel them if we try.”
Today, we still live in a fallen world and humans are still consumed by sinful nature, but God had a plan from the very beginning knowing the choice the first Adam would make. His plan of redemption through His Son Jesus the Messiah is available to all—all can be saved by grace through faith. One day, as believers, when we pass from this earth and enter into the heavenly presence of our Father, we will see every believer from the patriarchs onward who was redeemed by the saving power of the Savior.

30 Quotes about Jesus Christ to Inspire Your Faith

30 Quotes about Jesus Christ to Inspire Your Faith

30 Quotes about Jesus Christ to Inspire Your Faith

October 3, 2018 12:37 PM

Jesus, our God and Savior, chose to humble Himself as a mere infant on this earth. He lived for 33 years, and then in the greatest act of love, laid down His own life and rose again for all mankind. Throughout His ministry here on earth during those 33 years, and beyond through inspiration by the Holy Spirit in believers afterward, His love endures forever.
Through His actions, words, and revelation to man, it is clear to see His intent of love for mankind. He is the only person to ever walk this earth and live a completely perfect life with no sin. His ever-lasting impact upon this earth through His sacrifice, resurrection, and miracles changed the course of history forever. Through His actions and words, we can be encouraged each and every day to pick up our own cross to follow His lead, knowing He will walk with us and draw us closer to Himself.

Powerful Words in the Gospels Spoken by Jesus

1. “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” ― Matthew 6:12
2. “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?”― Matthew 6:25
3. ^“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”― Mark 10:45
4. “’The most important one,’ answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. ‘There is no commandment greater than these.’” ― Mark 12:29-31
5. “Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” ― Luke 5:31-32
6. “Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?’” ― Luke 9:23-25
7. ““So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” ― Luke 11:9-10
8. ^“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” ― John 2:23-25
9. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” ― John 3:16-18
10. “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” ― John 7:37-39
11. "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” ― John 14:1-4
12. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other." ― John 15:9-17
13. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. ‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’” ― John 16:32-33

Encouraging Words in the Bible about Christ

14. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." ― Romans 5:8
15. “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” ― Romans 8:3-5
16. “God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.” ― Ephesians 1:9
17. “While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.”―Hebrews 5:7
18. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so, we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him." ― 1 John 3:1

Inspiring quotes about Jesus Christ from Well Known Authors and Theologians

19. “My evidence that I am saved does not lie in the fact that I preach, or that I do this or that. All my hope lies in this: that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. I am a sinner, I trust Him, then He came to save me, and I am saved.” ―Charles Spurgeon
20. “For those who love, nothing is too difficult, especially when it is done for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.” ― Saint Ignatius
21. “The dearest friend on earth is a mere shadow compared to Jesus Christ.” ― Oswald Chambers
22. “Our Heavenly Father knows us and our circumstances and even what faces us in the future. His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior, has suffered and paid for our sins and those of all the people we will ever meet. He has perfect understanding of the feelings, the suffering, the trials, and the needs of every individual.” ―Henry B. Eyring
23. “Only through repentance and faith in Christ can anyone be saved. No religious activity will be sufficient, only true faith in Jesus Christ alone.” ―Ravi Zacharias
24. “He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” ― John Piper
25. “[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” ― C.S. Lewis
26. “It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
27. “Christ's miracles were not the suspension of the natural order but the restoration of the natural order. They were a reminder of what once was prior to the fall and a preview of what will eventually be a universal reality once again--a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict.” ― Tim Keller
28. “Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all." ― Augustine
29. “[Jesus] not only kept Himself from engaging in evil, He also continually acted in ways that honored and glorified God. He not only continually avoided the negative, He always pursued the positive.” ― David Jeremiah
30. “When He tells us to love our enemies He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” ― Corrie ten Boom
The love of Christ goes beyond all comprehension and understanding. Through belief in Him, and choosing daily to follow Him, we too can experience what it means to be truly children of the Light. He crafted and intended us with a relationship with Himself in mind, and that relationship begins with believing that He is the Son of God and the Savior of the World.

The Colorado Model

The Colorado Model

Fred Barnes
• @fredbarnes

July 21, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Denver
Last January, a "confidential" memo from a Democratic political consultant outlined an ambitious scheme for spending $11.7 million in Colorado this year to crush Republicans. The money would come from rich liberal donors in the state and would be spent primarily on defeating Senate candidate Bob Schaffer ($5.1 million) and Representative Marilyn Musgrave ($2.6 million), who are loathed by liberals for sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The overarching aim: Lock in Democratic control of Colorado for years to come.
Leaked memos have a way of revealing who's on top and who's not in politics and which party has energy and momentum. In Colorado, Democrats are third in registered voters (31.2 percent), behind both Independents (34.19 percent) and Republicans (34.14 percent). But in the last two election cycles--2004 and 2006--they've routed Republicans, capturing the governorship, both houses of the state legislature, a U.S. Senate seat, and two U.S. House seats. Democrats are on a roll, and that's not likely to change this year. Republicans are demoralized, disorganized, and more focused on averting further losses in 2008 than on staging a comeback.
The Democratic surge in Colorado reflects the national trend, but it involves a great deal more. There's something unique going on in Colorado that, if copied in other states, has the potential to produce sweeping Democratic gains nationwide. That something is the "Colorado Model," and it's certain to be a major topic of discussion when Democrats convene in Denver in the last week of August for their national convention.
While the Colorado Model isn't a secret, it hasn't drawn much national attention either. Democrats, for now anyway, seem wary of touting it. One reason for their reticence is that it depends partly on wealthy liberals' spending tons of money not only on "independent expenditures" to attack Republican office-seekers but also to create a vast infrastructure of liberal organizations that produces an anti-Republican, anti-conservative echo chamber in politics and the media.
Colorado is where this model is being tested and refined. And Republicans, even more than Democrats, say that it's working impressively. (For Republicans, it offers an excuse for their tailspin.) Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, a conservative think tank based in Denver, says Republicans around the country should be alarmed by the success of the Colorado Model. "Watch out," he says, "it's coming to a state near you."
It probably is. With enough money, its main elements can no doubt be replicated in other states. But a large measure of political shrewdness and opportunism is also required, political traits that have eluded Republicans in Colorado while becoming the hallmark of their opponents. Democrats are wisely running candidates, statewide and locally, who campaign as centrists, not as liberals.
In 2004, in their first offensive against Republicans, the rich liberals worked surreptitiously. They'd been brought together by Al Yates, the former president of Colorado State University, and later were dubbed the "Gang of Four" by the press--or, sarcastically, by Republicans, the "Fab Four." Two of the four, Tim Gill and Rutt Bridges, made millions in computer software. Jared Polis, along with his parents, grew rich from building and selling Internet companies. The fourth, Pat Stryker, is heir to a medical products fortune and runs her family's foundation.

They quietly targeted a handful of Republican state legislators (particularly social conservatives opposed to gay rights), polled to find out what issues might work against them, and promoted their Democratic opponents. Dan Haley, the editorial page editor of the Denver Post, told me he realized a clever, new tactic was being pursued when he received a glossy mailer late in the campaign backing a firefighter who was the little-known Democratic challenger of a Republican incumbent. The firefighter had obviously not paid for the expensive piece of campaign literature.
The firefighter lost, but other Democratic challengers won. Republicans were flummoxed, having been caught totally by surprise. For the first time in 44 years, Democrats gained control of both the state senate and house. The Gang of Four had spent an estimated $2 million. In 2006, Gill and Stryker escalated their spending to $7.5 million, and Democrats won the governor's race. "There's nobody on the Republican side putting in that kind of money," says Republican consultant Walt Klein.
As for the 2008 race, that confidential memo, dated January 23, fell into the hands of a Republican activist and was first reported on January 29 by Lynn Bartels of the Rocky Mountain News. It had been drafted by Democratic strategist Dominic DelPapa and sent to Al Yates, the guru of the rich liberals. They downplayed its significance, though it memorably declared the plan would "define Schaffer/foot on throat." At the very least the memo showed the magnitude of the effort to drive Republicans deeper into the minority in Colorado.
And that effort draws powerful support from a liberal infrastructure that conservatives aren't close to matching. For years, the Independence Institute, founded in 1985 by John Andrews and headed by Tom Tancredo before he was elected to the U.S. House, stood alone as an influential intellectual and political force in Colorado. (Later Andrews was Republican leader of the Colorado senate.) In 1999, Rutt Bridges started the Bighorn Center for Public Policy, and a year later the Bell Policy Center was created specifically to counter the Independence Institute--prompting the institute's Caldara to quip, the Bell center should be called the Dependence Institute.

That was only the beginning of the buildup. Eric O'Keefe, chairman of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance in Chicago, says there are seven "capacities" that are required to drive a successful political strategy and keep it on offense: the capacity to generate intellectual ammunition, to pursue investigations, to mobilize for elections, to fight media bias, to pursue strategic litigation, to train new leaders, and to sustain a presence in the new media. Colorado liberals have now created institutions that possess all seven capacities. By working together, they generate political noise and attract press coverage. Explains Caldara, "Build an echo chamber and the media laps it up."
First, there are the think tanks such as Bighorn and Bell and supposedly nonpartisan political advocacy groups like the Colorado clone of MoveOn.org called ProgressNowAction.org, founded in 2005. Another clone, this one a local version of Media Matters known as Colorado Media Matters, was created two years ago to harass journalists and editorial writers who don't push the liberal line.
There's a "public interest" law firm, Colorado Ethics Watch, established in 2006, plus an online newspaper, the Colorado Independent, with a team of reporters to ferret out wrongdoing by Republicans, also begun in 2006. And there's a school to train new liberal leaders, the Center for Progressive Leadership Colorado, as well as new media outlets with bloggers and online news and gossip, including ColoradoPols.com and SquareState.net. That covers all seven capacities. Count them.
It's unclear exactly who is funding these outfits, since they don't have to disclose their donors. But the band of rich liberals are assumed to be the biggest contributors. And that's part of the problem for conservatives and Republicans. They don't have a cadre of what Caldara calls "super spenders" to tap for money, and Republicans have lacked the gumption and foresight to build a comparable conservative infrastructure.
To their distress, Republicans have discovered how skillful the liberal collective is at bedeviling them. It works quite simply. The investigative arm uncovers some alleged wrongdoing by a Republican candidate or official or plays up what someone else has claimed. Then Ethics Watch steps in and demands an official investigation, and ProgressNowAction.org jumps on the story. This is synergy at work. It spurs political chatter. Finally, the mainstream media are forced to report on it.
Republican secretary of state Mike Coffman was hounded for months by Colorado Confidential, now the Colorado Independent, for allowing a state employee to run a side business and not reporting a supposed conflict of interest too microscopic to be worth explaining. The mainstream media eventually picked up the story, and Colorado Ethics Watch filed a formal complaint. Later, an official audit found no wrongdoing, but only after Coffman had been publicly pilloried. The episode didn't help his current campaign for a U.S. House seat.
Caldara, too, has been targeted by the liberal groups. He used the phrase "bitch slapped" on his late-night talk radio show. Colorado Media Matters complained, and Caldara says ProgressNowAction.org sought to get advertisers to drop his show. "They tried to find a way to Imus me," Caldara says. He's still on the air.
Colorado, for the past half-century anyway, has not been a solidly Republican state. "We're not a very ideological state or a very partisan state," former Republican senator Bill Armstrong says. Colorado voters tilt slightly to the right, though you'd never know it from recent elections. The state was strongly affected by waves of newcomers. Starting in the 1970s, Colorado elected Democrats Gary Hart, Tim Wirth, and Ben Nighthorse Campbell to the Senate, Pat Schroeder to the House, and Democrats to the governor's office for 24 consecutive years. Bill Clinton won the state in the 1992 presidential race. So the notion the current rise of Democrats is a historic, unprecedented breakthrough--that's pure myth.
Republicans rallied in the 1990s when a fresh influx of immigrants from western states arrived. They were more conservative. Highlands Ranch, a town south of Denver, was nicknamed Orange County East because thousands of newcomers from conservative Orange County, California, settled there. After Campbell switched parties in 1995, Republican Wayne Allard won the other Senate seat in 1996, and Republican Bill Owens was elected governor in 1998, giving the GOP all the top statewide offices, four of the six House seats, and the state house and senate.
George W. Bush won Colorado by 9 percentage points in 2000, and Republican control appeared to be firmly entrenched two years later when Owens was reelected over a hapless Democrat opponent, 63 to 34 percent. Championed by National Review as America's best governor, Owens was viewed as a logical Republican presidential nominee in 2008. But by 2004, the Republican heyday had begun to unravel. Owens and his wife had a highly public separation and later divorced. And Republicans made critical mistakes and squabbled among themselves just as Democrats were uniting.
Two policies helped set the stage for the emergence of the Colorado Model. Term limits, enacted in 1990, forced experienced Republicans out of state office, leaving open seats easier for Democrats to win. And a new campaign finance law limited individual contributions to $400. This allowed independent TV and radio ads and direct mail financed by the Gang of Four to have a disproportionate impact on elections.
On many levels, 2004 was a disastrous year for Republicans in Colorado. Bush's margin of victory was cut in half from 2000. Democrats not only took over the legislature, but a gregarious rancher named John Salazar, a Democrat, won the U.S. House seat west of the Rockies, where Republicans have an overwhelming edge in voter registration. (He was reelected in 2006.) An even bigger blow to Republicans was the U.S. Senate victory by Salazar's younger brother, Ken.
Owens, whose backing was critical, initially endorsed conservative congressman Bob Schaffer for the Senate seat being vacated by Campbell. Schaffer is a likable conservative from northern Colorado who retired from Congress in 2004, honoring his promise to serve only three terms in the House. Then Owens changed his mind and supported beer company chairman Pete Coors, insisting he was the only Republican who could beat Ken Salazar, then state attorney general. Coors defeated Schaffer in the Republican primary, only to run a poor campaign against Salazar.
The bitterness of the Coors-Schaffer race was in contrast with Salazar's undisputed claim on the Democratic nomination. Democratic congressman Mark Udall had announced for the seat the moment Campbell said he would retire. So had Rutt Bridges. But a day later, after a tumultuous 24 hours of negotiations, Udall and Bridges appeared at a press conference to endorse Salazar, who ran as a moderate and an "independent voice" for Colorado. Among Democrats, unity prevailed, and Ken Salazar won.
In 2005, Republicans split over Referendum C, designed to waive the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (known as TABOR) for five years. Passed in 1992, TABOR limited spending hikes to inflation and population growth, required any surplus to be refunded to taxpayers, and mandated a referendum to raise taxes. Conservatives fervently opposed suspending TABOR. But Owens and a handful of Republican leaders joined with Democrats to pass the referendum in order to fund education and transportation initiatives.
Things got worse for Republicans in 2006 as the Colorado Model began to take hold. Another bitter primary, this one for governor, pitted congressman Bob Beauprez against Marc Holtzman, the ex-president of the University of Denver. Beauprez won the nomination, but the "Both Ways Bob" label slapped on him by Holtzman stuck, and Democrat Bill Ritter won the governorship in a landslide. Democrats gained legislative seats as well.
Like Salazar, Ritter had gotten the Democratic nomination without a struggle. This was all the more amazing because he ran as a pro-life, pro-business Democrat. Feminists tried to find a pro-choice Democrat to oppose him but failed. Again, unity behind one candidate prevailed.
In 2008, Republicans are still reeling from the string of setbacks and show few signs of recovery. One bit of progress: Schaffer faces no serious opposition for the Republican nomination to hold the Senate seat of Allard, who kept his promise to retire after two terms. Schaffer is already being trashed in TV ads by an environmental group, the League of Conservation Voters, as "Big Oil Bob." Schaffer worked for an energy company after he left Congress.
"The bitterness of Coors-Schaffer in '04 still exists," says John Andrews. "The bitterness of Referendum C persists. And the bitterness of Marc Holtzman versus Bob Beauprez in 2006 persists." Moreover, Andrews says, "I'm not sure our party has learned the lessons it needed to learn. Republicans and conservatives missed our moment to be the next wave of the Reagan revolution at the state level. We didn't seize the center, and we didn't seize the imagination of Colorado voters."
That's a remarkable indictment of Republicans by a leading Republican. But it strikes me as a fair assessment. Gill and Stryker, the wealthier half of the Gang of Four, remain determined to drive Marilyn Musgrave out of office after she narrowly won reelection in 2006. Gill, who is gay, is also active in opposing foes of gay rights in other states.
How much they're actually willing to spend against Musgrave and Schaffer is unclear. The leaked memo said a budget of $11.7 million was "little more than our own thinking about what a successful [independent] operation for the presidential, U.S. Senate and [Musgrave] elections might look like." Republicans often trail during the summer before the election, and Schaffer is no exception, running behind Mark Udall in public polls. Barack Obama is a slight favorite to win Colorado in the presidential election. If he does and also wins New Mexico, Democratic consultant Mike Stratton points out, "Obama doesn't need to win Ohio."
Republicans desperately need Schaffer to hold Allard's seat to avert a filibuster-proof Senate in Washington, a Senate in which Republicans can't block or even modify liberal legislation. Schaffer and his campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, insist Udall is vulnerable as a "Boulder liberal" who can't credibly pose as a moderate as Salazar and Ritter did. Neither of them had a voting record. Salazar was state attorney general, Ritter the Denver district attorney. "Udall doesn't have that advantage," Schaffer says. Udall, by the way, lists his residence as Eldorado Springs, not Boulder. Colorado voters tend to view Boulder as a haven for hippies and out of the Colorado mainstream.
Undeterred, Udall is running to the center, saying he plays a bipartisan role in the House. That will be news to House Republicans. "Udall will get to where he needs to be," says Eric Sonderman, a public relations executive in Denver. The question is whether he can effectively respond to Schaffer's call for exploiting Colorado's vast oil shale reserves. Schaffer's position is increasingly popular, and he intends to dwell on it relentlessly. To propose drilling, Udall might have to defy his wife, Maggie Fox, the state director of the Sierra Club, the ardent environmental group. According to a former aide of Bill Armstrong, she has the distinction of being the only person Armstrong ever ordered to leave his Senate office. (Armstrong doesn't recall the incident.)
Absent the Democratic headwind, Schaffer would have a reasonable chance of winning. But his prospects could be further hampered by an antiabortion referendum on the ballot this November declaring that life begins at conception. If abortion becomes a major issue, Schaffer, who is pro-life, might lose the votes of suburban Republican women. "We don't need this," Wadhams says. In recent years, Republican female voters have tended to stray.
Republican hopes of a renaissance rest largely on winning the governor's race in 2010. That won't be easy. For one thing, they lack a candidate. The Republican bench of attractive candidates with statewide recognition is bare. The most prominent ones--Armstrong, Owens, former senator Hank Brown--have retired. Armstrong is president of Colorado Christian University. Aides of Allard have hinted he could be talked into running, but that's a long shot.
In 18 months as governor, Ritter has managed to anger business, labor, and the Denver Post, which had promoted him as a candidate. After promising labor leaders he would sign legislation gutting the Labor Peace Act, he bowed to business pressure and vetoed it. The act makes it difficult for unions to organize new workers.
Labor leaders were apoplectic. At the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington a few weeks later, Ritter was confronted aggressively by Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr., who told him "all of labor is upset." Hoffa warned the Democratic convention might "blow up" if other issues were not resolved in a way favorable to labor.
Then, late on a Friday afternoon last November, Ritter issued an executive order permitting state workers to join a union. Organized labor was pleased, but Denver Post publisher William Dean Singleton wasn't. He ordered a front-page editorial that criticized Ritter harshly. "This may be the beginning of the end of Ritter as governor," the editorial said. It certainly was the end of Ritter's warm relationship with the newspaper.
For the fall ballot, Ritter is pushing a referendum to impose a $300 million increase in the severance tax on the mining industry, further alienating the business community. He personally called leaders of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce in the faint hope he could persuade them to back the referendum. The chamber refused.
For all his problems, Ritter will have what Republicans do not have, if he seeks reelection: the full force of the Colorado Model engaged on his behalf. At the same time, his Republican rival is bound to be tormented by the phalanx of liberal groups and targeted by the rich liberals, who are free to spend an unlimited amount of money.
"Colorado is being used as a test bed for a swarm offense by Democrats and liberals to put conservatives and Republicans on defense as much as possible," says Andrews. The initial results of that test are favorable. "The wind's at our back here," says Andrew Romanoff, the Democratic House speaker. The Colorado Model, by nearly all accounts, is working in 2008. And it should continue to be a powerful political force in Colorado (and other states) for many years--that is, until conservatives and Republicans come up with a way to counteract it.

BENGHAZI AND THE MATCHING SERIAL NUMBERS

BENGHAZI AND THE MATCHING SERIAL NUMBERS
 
So here's the REAL story: Ambassador Stevens was sent to Benghazi to secretly retrieve US made Stinger Missiles that the State Dept had supplied to Ansar al Sharia in Libya WITHOUT Congressional oversight or permission.

 

Sec State Hillary Clinton had brokered the Libya deal through Ambassador Stevens and a Private Arms Dealer named Marc Turi, but some of the shoulder fired Stinger Missiles ended up in Afghanistan where they were used against our own military.   On July 25th, 2012, a US Chinook helicopter was downed by one of them.  Not destroyed only because the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile.  The helicopter didn't explode, but it had to land and an ordnance team recovered the missile’s serial number which led back to a cache of Stinger Missiles kept in Qatar by the CIA.
 
Obama and Hillary were in full panic mode, so Ambassador Stevens was sent to Benghazi to retrieve the rest of the Stinger Missiles. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the Stand Down Orders given to multiple rescue teams during the siege of the US Embassy.

 

It was the State Dept, NOT the CIA, that supplied the Stinger Missiles to our sworn enemies because Gen. Petraeus at CIA would not approve supplying the deadly missiles due to their potential use against commercial aircraft.  So then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus when he refused to testify in support of Obama’s phony claim of a “spontaneous uprising caused by a YouTube video that insulted Muslims.”

 
Obama and Hillary committed TREASON!
 
THIS is what the investigation is all about, WHY she had a Private Server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and WHY Obama, two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was the result of the YouTube video, even though everyone KNEW it was not.

 
Furthermore, the Taliban knew that the administration had aided and abetted the enemy WITHOUT Congressional oversight or permission, so they began pressuring (blackmailing) the Obama Administration to release five Taliban generals being held at Guantanamo.

 
Bowe Bergdahl was just a useful pawn used to cover the release of the Taliban generals. Everyone knew Bergdahl was a traitor but Obama used Bergdahl’s exchange for the five Taliban generals to cover that Obama was being coerced by the Taliban about the unauthorized Stinger Missile deal.

 
So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised, as well and a Sec of State that is a serial liar, who perjured herself multiple times at the Congressional Hearings on Benghazi. Perhaps this is why no military aircraft were called upon for help in Benghazi:  because the administration knew that our enemies had Stinger Missiles that, if used to down those planes, would likely be traced back to the CIA cache in Qatar and then to the State Dept’s illegitimate arms deal in Libya.

Republicans Are Out-Voting Democrats In Early Voting 

Republicans Are Out-Voting Democrats In Early Voting

October 22, 2018

Hannah Bleau

We previously told you about the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, which suggests that people want Democrats to control the House more than Republicans.

In the poll, 50 percent of likely voters prefer Democrat to control Congress after the November elections, versus 41 percent who want Republicans to stay in charge — up 1 point from Democrats’ lead in the September NBC/WSJ survey.

An important thing to note: This poll doesn’t necessarily reflect individual congressional races. As I stated before, it’s literally just asking people, “Hey. You want Dems controlling the House or nah?” So I’m not getting TOO worried. Especially now that I’m seeing this:
NBC reports:

Is the “blue wave” turning purple?
Republican-affiliated voters have outpaced Democratic-affiliated voters in early voting in seven closely watched states, according to data provided by TargetSmart and independently analyzed by the NBC News Data Analytics Lab.

Does this mean Republicans are MORE energized? That’s certainly what it sounds like.
Imagine how much of a mass freakout we’ll see if Democrats fail to take control of the House. Oh man. Pelosi would FLIP! PLEASE– let’s make that happen!

Ballot initiative seeks to increase taxes by $1.6 billion; could end Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights

Ballot initiative seeks to increase taxes by $1.6 billion; could end Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights

• By Bethany Blankley | Watchdog.org
• Oct 22, 2018

RaksyBH | Shutterstock.com

A controversial ballot initiative would raise taxes on Coloradans by $1.6 billion to increase funding for public schools if approved. Opponents argue it also would make the constitutionally protected Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) impotent.
Amendment 73, the Establish Income Tax Brackets and Raise Taxes for Education Initiative, seeks to amend the state constitution to replace Colorado’s flat rate income tax with a progressive income tax. Individuals earning more than $150,000 would be taxed more and the corporate income tax rate would increase. The revenue collected from the tax hikes would go into a newly created Quality Public Education Fund.
The state constitution requires a 55 percent supermajority vote for the initiative to become law.

“‘Take your success elsewhere’ should be the signs erected if Colorado approves Amendment 73," Penn Pfiffner, former state legislator and chairman of the board of the TABOR Foundation, told Watchdog.org. "The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights properly treats everyone equally, requiring the same income tax rate be applied to everyone. Currently, if you make more money, you pay more, but only at the rate that everyone else pays. This proposal would change that, bringing an attitude that the upper middle class and wealthy should be attacked and made to pay increasing amounts. It is the worst concept in raising taxes.”
A group of opponents of the measure launched a “Blank Check. Blatant Deception. Vote No on 73,” campaign, arguing the ballot language is deceptive. It tried to have the question removed after the required deadline and Colorado’s secretary of state rejected its complaint.
Dave Davia, co-chair of Blank Check and executive vice president and CEO of the Colorado Association of Mechanical and Plumbing Contractors, maintains the amendment’s ballot title “is inaccurate, deceptive and deeply flawed.” The group hopes to “continue to educate Colorado voters to Amendment 73’s unprecedented deception and deceit.”
Advocates for Great Schools, Thriving Communities are holding rallies and using social media campaigns throughout the month of October to persuade voters to support the measure, including having teachers picket at scheduled events for several hours.
In a Colorado Politics’ op-ed, Great Schools, Thriving Communities advocates wrote that the Amendment “freezes the local property tax rate for families, currently the third lowest in the nation, and cuts property taxes on businesses, farmers and ranchers. It only increases the income taxes for the top 8 percent of earners and the corporate tax by a modest 1.7 percent.”
Pfiffner disagrees, arguing that the corporate income tax rate increases by 30 percent and the proposal “would create havoc in Colorado’s already-complex property tax system by doubling the complexity and forcing cuts in county, special district and town taxation, under the Gallagher Amendment rules.”
The amendment comes at a time when “Colorado school funding is at its highest levels ever,” Linda Gorman, a director at the Denver-based Independence Institute, told Watchdog.org. “At current spending levels, there is no correlation between per-pupil state spending increases and achievement. The tax increases are aimed at businesses and ending Colorado's flat tax.”
The amendment also exempts new education spending from the state’s constitutionally mandated limits established by TABOR, she adds.
Gorman authored “What you need to know about Amendment 73 and public education funding,” which explains all of the tax increases associated with the bill. Even if the tax increases were implemented, she argues, “There is no guarantee that more spending will increase educational opportunities for existing students.”
If passed, proponents say Amendment 73 would increase base funding for all students, provide for full-day kindergarten and increase revenue for early childhood education. It also expands the definition of “at-risk” students to include both free and reduced lunches and increases the amount of funding local districts receive for English Language Learners, special education and gifted and talented students.
Proponents argue that public school underfunding “is a state-level problem, so we need a state-wide solution.” On their website, www.yesonamendment73.com, they point to school districts that have consistently tried to raise funds locally through Mill Levy Overrides (MLO) but the amount raised wasn’t enough to offset state budget cuts in some cases.
For example, one mill can raise between $4,000 and $13 million, with the average raising $500,000. The amounts are unpredictable and vary, and are impacted by a local school district's inability “to address the cuts they have received from the state through the Budget Stabilization (Negative Factor),” the site states.
The Independence Institute says “Amendment 73 effectively ends protections against continuous increases in residential property taxes. It increases the state residential property tax assessment rate for school districts” and “reduces legislative oversight by locking increased spending into the state constitution.”
Pfiffner adds, “In short, this measure would damage the way Coloradans treat one another and hurt our economy badly in the long run. We’ve been successful here. Do we want to follow Illinois and California into their fiscal nightmares?”