Clarice Feldman has a great article today at the American Thinker…http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/wont_you_come_home_bill_daley.html

It appears from this article that Valerie Jarrett is really running things.

I remember this article: “Obama’s Women Reveal His Secret” February 6, 2008 by Spengler at the Asia Times. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JB26Aa01.html Women have shaped Obama and even now after reading Feldman’s article this morning I am convinced he is being led by them.

My books are my friends. At different times I turn to different ones and these days I have opened one entitled “The Disciplines of Life” by V. Raymond Edman.

“The Discipline of Disappointment” is the chapter I have been looking at over and over. Edman begins: “Who has not experienced the depths of discouragement that come from the stinging defeat of eager expectations, the merciless blasting of high and happy hopes, the frustrations of fond dreams; in a word, from disappointment, dark, deep, dismal?” He is right, you know. Who has NOT experienced such discouragement? We all have.

What delivers us from such disappointment? Going onward does. Thankfulness helps. Thankful for what we CAN be thankful for. I for one am thankful for the internet and the freedom of communication. I am thankful for you guys at RedState even though we don’t always agree.
I am thankful for your sincerity, for your engagement, for your patriotism!!

Going on to the next thing helps. It takes God’s grace to go on to the next challenge and not give up and to maintain a thankful heart.

This has been an altogether disappointing nomination process. I just have to be thankful for what I can and go on.

An article of THANKSGIVING: http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_1_scott-walker.html

I realize that speaking French makes conservative Americans suspicious. France is socialist. However, there is one story that I will never forget, that is the story of Marie Durand. Most Americans have never heard of her.

http://www.museeprotestant.org/Pages/Notices.php?scatid=144&noticeid=543&lev=1&Lget=EN

This above is a link to a brief summary of her life. I visited La Tour du Constance at Aigues-Mortes. Aigues-Mortes means “bitter death”. Located at the mouth of the Rhone River in southern France it is a very humid place and a strong wind, “Le Mistral”, blows down that river valley for days on end in the winter. Inside the tower it is dark and damp. I saw the stone where someone engraved the word “Resister”. Originally the prison was built for male prisoners but somehow a few managed to escape, after that only women were kept there. These women were there because they were protestants and refused to renounce their faith. Marie Durand was a young woman when she was incarcerated and spent most of her adult life there. She did not live many years after her release because of poor health. She never renounced her faith. What a remarkable woman!!
The French have hung a plaque on a wall in the tower. I don’t remember exactly the wording on it but I remember it said that the prisoners held there were “les obstines” (that’s with an accent mark I can’t make with my keyboard”) “the obstinate” ones.
So, even though we certainly do not want to be like the French in that they are socialists there are some French people who loved God and were true to their faith at a great price. Socialists believe Government is god.

The Washington Times had this article yesterday: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/8/former-times-editorial-page-editor-tony-blankley-d/print/

I was saddened just now to learn of Mr. Blankely’s death.

I did not where to insert this link in the thread of posts and so just made a diary entry.

http://www.wsws.org/tools/index.php?page=print&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Farticles%2F2011%2Fdec2011%2Ffarm-d16.shtml

This story is posted on the World Socialist Website!! The title is “Police besiege village land protest in China” It is an excellent article.

Tiananmen Square happened 21 years ago. There was no Facebook then. The government was able to contain the protests. Now there is the internet and the bursting housing bubble and inflation with the price of rice rising. Will they be able to contain the protests this time?

I posted a link to this article yesterday in a thread http://therepublicanmother.blogspot.com/2011/12/newt-tried-to-install-internal.html

I had not known what happened with the issue of the National ID card. This article gives insight into what happened and how it was stopped. Newt Gingrich tried his best to get it through in an underhanded way.

This morning I searched online to see if I could find the audio of Paul Weyrich’s America’s Voice segment hosted by Coalition for Constitutional Liberties Director Lisa Dean on July 13, 1998. I wanted to hear the interview. I could not find it.

I did find this on YouTube:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/11/30/2813233/nc-house-to-dnc-no-unions.html

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/13/120548/12-unions-tell-dems-theyll-boycott.html

The party of the Unions chose a state with the lowest unionization rate in the country as the place to hold their convention. Whose idea was that?

Just how successful do you think the Democratic convention will be?
Obama had hoped to win North Carolina. Talk about strategic mistakes!!
Of course, this is very cheerful news!!

Before this election cycle I just had not given much thought to Newt Gingrinch.  I never dreamed he could win a Republican primary because I never dreamed conservatives would vote for him.  I think people have forgotten just what Newt Gingrinch has done.  What people have done in the past is a valid concern when considering what they would do in the future.

Sure, Gingrich is a smooth speaker.  Obama is too.  Everyone wanted to give Obama a chance.  Are we to turn a blind eye to Gingrinch’s record?  The same speaking skills that thrill some conservatives now will grow old and become wearying just as Obama’s skills have become wearying.

Adam Graham at Pajamas Media today has posted a very good article, “Four Reasons Why Conservatives Should Think Twice About Gingrinch.”   http://pjmedia.com/blog/four-reasons-why-conservatives-should-oppose-newt-gingrich/?singlepage=true

A happy Thanksgiving to all of you at RedState and to Erick Erickson!!

William Cowper wrote these words in the 1700s:

GOD moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines 

Of never failing skill;

He treasures up his bright designs,

And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break 

In blessings on your head.

Judge not the LORD by feeble sense,

but trust him for his grace;

Behind a frowning providence,

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding ev’ry hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan his work in vain;

GOD is his own interpreter,

And he will make it plain.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/28/black_market_global_economy?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

This is a very interesting article.

Years ago when we lived in France we encountered people who did business “sous la table”.  That is “under the table”. This article calls the black market “System D”.   The French word debrouillard  (the e has an accent I don’t know how to make without a french keyboard).. describes a man who is resourceful and ingenious.  People have shortened the Black Market name to System D.

The rise in this system will worry bureaucrats because there is no regulation, no taxes!!  According to this article System D is also creating jobs!!  One think tank came to the conclusion that half  the workers of the world are working in System D!

This is what happens when welfare state governments strangle economies.

In 1787, after 20 years of labor, Edward Gibbon completed his The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  In it he attributed the fall of the Empire as being

1. “The rapid increase of divorce; the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.”

2.  “Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies for free bread and circuses for the populace.”

3. “The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.”

4. “The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within, the decadence of the people.”

5. “The decay of religion–faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life and becoming impotent to warn and guide the people.”

I have begun reading Volume I God and Government A Biblical and Historical Study by Gary DeMar .  The first chapter in and of itself has given me much food for thought.  The family was designed by God.  If we want to see real change in America it will have to begin in our families.

Andrew Murray is an author that I love.  In one of his books he wrote, “In the home on earth, in the love of husband and wife, or parent and child. God wanted to reflect the love of the Father’s home in heaven.”

This is the deep and very real need in America today.

Otherwise we have the welfare state...an anonymous author wrote this “The Hymn of the Welfare State”

“The Government is my shepherd,

Therefore I need not work.

It alloweth me to lie down on a good job.

It leadeth me beside still factories;

It destroyeth my initiative.

It leadeth me in the path of a parasite for politic’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of laziness and deficit-spending,

I will fear no evil, for the Government is with me.

It prepareth an economic Utopia for me, by appropriating the earnings of my grandchildren.

It filleth my head with false security;

My inefficiency runneth over.

Surely the Government should care for me for all the days of my life!

And I shall dwell in a fool’s paradise for ever.”

I found the information about Gibbon and The Hymn of the Welfare State  in the book “Down to Earth the laws of the harvest” by John W. Lawrence.

I had to escape for a few hours last Sunday afternoon so I read John Grisham’s latest book.  It is absolutely hilarious!!

After all the heavy reading and thinking it was delightful to laugh out loud!!

Sometimes we just need to get a breath of air!!

That is the title of the third chapter of a book of the same title by Leonard Ravenhill published in 1979.

The title caught my eye and so did two other titles by him: “Revival Praying” and “Sodom had no Bible”.  I have had them on my shelf for some time.  Every time I have opened the first one above I can only read a small portion because it just burdens my heart so much.

He opens the third chapter with this quote:  THOMAS MACAULAY, the British historian who died on the eve of the Civil War, wrote a warning to America.  He predicted the possibility that our country would come under a dictatorship.  The alternative which he forecast is no less forboding.  Macaulay wrote “…your republic will be fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the Twentieth Century as the Roman Empire was in the Fifth, with this difference:  that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from WITHOUT and your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered WITHIN your own country, by your own institutions.”

Now I am not convinced that America will ever come under a dictatorship but we do see what is happening in our own institutions.

Another interesting quote by Abraham Lincoln:  “At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected?  If it ever reaches us, it must spring up among us.  It cannot come from abroad.  If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher;  as a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.”

Ravenhill went on to write in closing the chapter:  “In a day when men ignore the diagnosis of history and pretend that America does not have the disease that destroyed every major civilization there ever was, it is time to tell the truth with all the passion and zeal that pure love for one’s country can produce!

“America can die, but it would have to be by suicide.  It would be because she thinks God is dead, and because she believes that His laws, which, when broken, have felled every nation that ever lived, do not, in her hour of freedom and affluence, include her.”

“America will not be sold by Alger Hiss of the Rosenburgs, but by people who just don’t care.” 

“America fights a battle that cannot be won at the ballot box.  Her need is not the “new morality” of the hour, but new morals based on the old laws of God.”

Reading this book is like touching something very hot.  It burns.

Eric’s post this morning hits home.  I do thank God for the Heritage Foundation and for the fact that  they are holding politicians accountable.  This is what Americans should have been doing for a long time.  It is just that for too long too many Americans  have not cared.   That is why what happened last November is such an encouragement to me.  It is a sign of life in America.

The very ultimate battle though is not won at the ballot box but on our knees seeking God.  That is a very real battle.  If we win the battle on our knees then we will see real victory.

I found out about this add this morning.  Here is the link:  http://youtu.be/GM9IKOWI-vc

Here is another article I came across at Pajamas Media:  http://pjmedia.com/blog/perry-the-only-credible-choice-for-latino-conservatives/?singlepage=true

This article addresses Romney vs Perry but I also believe Herman Cain hurt himself with Latinos with his “joke” about the electric fence.

Texas in-state tuition for illegal immigrants makes sense to me.  It obviously made sense to the Texas legislature.  Perry has an A+ rating from Numbers USA for border security.

Last year I rented from Netflix a series of videos entitled “Against All Odds:  Israel Survives”.  I only had time to watch the first dvd but it made a lasting impression on me.

The first episode was about an incident in 1973.  A group of soldiers were crossing a field at night when they discovered that they were in a minefield!!  They began the slow, deliberate process of searching for mines using their bayonets.  The chances that they would be out of the field by daybreak were next to zero.   A miracle happened.  The weather changed and a strong wind blew.  It was so strong that it blew until mines buried 30 cm. deep were all exposed.  The wind died down. They were able to walk out of the field unharmed.

After watching this I sat down and wrote out a prayer for my family that I have prayed many, many times:

Dear Lord,  Cause the wind of Your Holy Spirit to blow upon the circumstances of our lives to expose the “mines” hidden by our spiritual enemy, Satan, and guide us safely through this life.

I like 2 Samuel 22: 34  “He maketh my feet like hind’s feet:  and setteth me upon my high places.”

In taking up the personal challenge of praying for our country and this election cycle I will use it too.

Dear Lord, Cause the wind of Your Holy Spirit to blow upon all the circumstances of this Republican  primary to expose the “mines” we cannot see and guide us safely through unharmed.

I came across this article by an Iowa Radio Host:  http://stevedeace.com/news/iowa-politics/hermans-head/

This story is growing and getting uglier and uglier.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2011/09/28/fast-and-furious-just-might-be-president-obamas-watergate/

We will be learning a lot more about the Sinaloa Cartel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaloa_Cartel

I really like Herman Cain.  But these articles I read about him raise red flags.  This short article is very revealing and it is written by a man who likes him and has done business with him.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/96860.html

I am not libertarian.  Rush Limbaugh surprised me yesterday when he said that the only economic plan he has heard so far that appeals to him is that of Ron Paul.

We need to examine all of the candidates closely.

I came across this this morning.   http://www.makeusgreatagain.com/    and   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44402386/ns/politics-decision_2012/t/super-pac-backing-rick-perry-spend-million-beat-rivals-documents-reveal/#.Tpw9cnLSgZM

http://www.c-span.org/Events/Gov-Rick-Perry-Remarks-on-Energy-Policy-and-Jobs/10737424832/  This is the C-Span video of Perry’s speech in Pennsylvania.