I just watched the wild reception at the rally in Cleveland as Ivanka was introduced. The conservative movement is dead.....dead in the water....as Donald Trump has sucked us in with his skills of manipulation and indoctrination on a level that I had not previously witnessed in America.
It was thirty-nine years ago yesterday....November 4, 1979....that fifty-two Americans were taken hostage in Tehran. It proved to be the end of President Jimmy Carter's hopes for a second term. Ted Kennedy's presidential aspirations were effectively destroyed on that day also as he had given two interviews to Roger Mudd....who was at the time a prospective candidate to succeed Walter Cronkite....and those interviews were combined and broadcast on the same day....November 4th of 1979. It was utter disaster of which Ted Kennedy....thankfully.....never recovered.
I was a volunteer for Senator Kennedy in that campaign. My Kennedy roots go way back....for as an elementary student I saw John Kennedy's motorcade go by the Our Lady Help Of Christians grade school in Cheektowaga, New York. Robert Kennedy was later my hero....(and Beto....you're no Robert Kennedy.) My wife and I honeymooned on Cape Cod after being married at Heinz Chapel on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. I picked up another book on the Kennedy assassination just yesterday......this book being only the latest in a half century of on and off studying that fateful day in November of 1963....and my conclusion formed long ago.....is that no sane....reasonable.....and logical person.....who had seriously researched the assassination......could come up with any other conclusion than that Lee Harvey Oswald was a 100% dupe.
I didn't know on that day in November of 1979 about the hostages taken in Iran....nor did I watch the Roger Mudd interview....for I had watched the heart monitor next to my father's hospital bed slow down and then stop. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery not far from where John and Robert were buried.....and where Ted Kennedy would later be buried. I started a new job a month after my father died.....a job that would last a month short of thirty-seven years before retiring. I was 'born again' three years into my new job with guidance from other Christians who worked there.
For whatever reason....only God knows.....I went into the study of Christian apologetics almost immediately after becoming a Christian. For roughly ten years my studying emphasized research into 'Christian cults'....those being religious sects that claim to be Christian but deny the essential doctrines of the Christian Faith. To piggy-back a little on those hilarious Farmers Insurance commercials....'I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two'....and I've seen something like this Trump mania before where a charismatic individual starts his own religious sect....claiming to be Christian but bearing no visible traits to Christianity.....demanding that his followers do not read opposing opinions....'fake news'......and elevating himself (herself) above all of us mere mortals.
I learned this in those years of study....(and thus early on spotted Ted Kennedy's deviation from his brothers along with where the Democrat Party was heading)....that in order to recognize the counterfeit one must first know the genuine. So in order to identify the very problematic themes and counterfeit statements of belief from Donald Trump....one must read their Bible more than they listen to Rush Limbaugh....Sean Hannity.....Mark Levin.....and all the others combined. If we do not do this.....we may as well put on a saffron robe as we go to the rallies.....chanting USA...USA...USA!
Note: To those who wonder why someone would not let the Kennedy assassination go after 55 years I give this one explanation: JFK was a direct threat to the plans of those who orchestrated his murder. Whatever evil that was behind that despicable act....it has not simply gone away. If this was part of America in 1963....then it is still here now....so we must add this to the many reasons that God's judgment is indeed upon us....for this....whether we want to admit it or not....is part and parcel of who we are....and thus we cannot ignore it.
It was thirty-nine years ago yesterday....November 4, 1979....that fifty-two Americans were taken hostage in Tehran. It proved to be the end of President Jimmy Carter's hopes for a second term. Ted Kennedy's presidential aspirations were effectively destroyed on that day also as he had given two interviews to Roger Mudd....who was at the time a prospective candidate to succeed Walter Cronkite....and those interviews were combined and broadcast on the same day....November 4th of 1979. It was utter disaster of which Ted Kennedy....thankfully.....never recovered.
I was a volunteer for Senator Kennedy in that campaign. My Kennedy roots go way back....for as an elementary student I saw John Kennedy's motorcade go by the Our Lady Help Of Christians grade school in Cheektowaga, New York. Robert Kennedy was later my hero....(and Beto....you're no Robert Kennedy.) My wife and I honeymooned on Cape Cod after being married at Heinz Chapel on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. I picked up another book on the Kennedy assassination just yesterday......this book being only the latest in a half century of on and off studying that fateful day in November of 1963....and my conclusion formed long ago.....is that no sane....reasonable.....and logical person.....who had seriously researched the assassination......could come up with any other conclusion than that Lee Harvey Oswald was a 100% dupe.
I didn't know on that day in November of 1979 about the hostages taken in Iran....nor did I watch the Roger Mudd interview....for I had watched the heart monitor next to my father's hospital bed slow down and then stop. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery not far from where John and Robert were buried.....and where Ted Kennedy would later be buried. I started a new job a month after my father died.....a job that would last a month short of thirty-seven years before retiring. I was 'born again' three years into my new job with guidance from other Christians who worked there.
For whatever reason....only God knows.....I went into the study of Christian apologetics almost immediately after becoming a Christian. For roughly ten years my studying emphasized research into 'Christian cults'....those being religious sects that claim to be Christian but deny the essential doctrines of the Christian Faith. To piggy-back a little on those hilarious Farmers Insurance commercials....'I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two'....and I've seen something like this Trump mania before where a charismatic individual starts his own religious sect....claiming to be Christian but bearing no visible traits to Christianity.....demanding that his followers do not read opposing opinions....'fake news'......and elevating himself (herself) above all of us mere mortals.
I learned this in those years of study....(and thus early on spotted Ted Kennedy's deviation from his brothers along with where the Democrat Party was heading)....that in order to recognize the counterfeit one must first know the genuine. So in order to identify the very problematic themes and counterfeit statements of belief from Donald Trump....one must read their Bible more than they listen to Rush Limbaugh....Sean Hannity.....Mark Levin.....and all the others combined. If we do not do this.....we may as well put on a saffron robe as we go to the rallies.....chanting USA...USA...USA!
Note: To those who wonder why someone would not let the Kennedy assassination go after 55 years I give this one explanation: JFK was a direct threat to the plans of those who orchestrated his murder. Whatever evil that was behind that despicable act....it has not simply gone away. If this was part of America in 1963....then it is still here now....so we must add this to the many reasons that God's judgment is indeed upon us....for this....whether we want to admit it or not....is part and parcel of who we are....and thus we cannot ignore it.
