Politics

So what would a conservative Mennonite care about mere earthly politics? And why?

What If It’s a Tie

Reuters claimed yesterday: McCain-Obama tie possible in presidential race.

I thought we went through that in the last (ie Bush-Kerry) Presidential election. Or was it the previous (ie Bush-Gore) one? Or was it both.

Now they’re trotting out the same story again? 🙄

Maybe that’s their admission that the ObamaByLandslide polling they’re releasing isn’t as convincing to them as they want it to be to the American public. 😯

What if it’s a tie?

A handful of battleground states are likely to determine the November 4 U.S. presidential election and it’s possible that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama could split them in a manner that leaves each just short of victory.

If that happens, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would pick the president but it’s unclear whether Democrats would have enough votes to send Obama to the White House.

The House last decided an election in 1824. But the legal skirmishing and partisan rancor would probably resemble a more recent election — the 2000 vote in which Republican George W. Bush narrowly defeated Democrat Al Gore after a disputed Florida vote count and legal battle.

Bailout Arrows

Whether or not you’re for the huge bailout that went into law yesterday, I suppose you should know this:

An Oregon arrow maker suffers slings of outrage

An Oregon company selling a 30-cent shaft for children’s arrows became a bull’s-eye for critics of congressional pork nationwide Friday, when lawmakers eliminated an arcane tax as part of their $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

[…]

The critics gathered force, and the tiny company based in southern Oregon’s Myrtle Point found itself the surprising flash point for public venting against a bailout package with costs too vast for most citizens to grasp.

[…]

As of Friday, Dishion received more than 100 phone calls, 40 e-mails and hate mail from people across the country, not to mention phone calls from the BBC and mentions on the Bill O’Reilly talk show.

[…]

The flap reveals the misinformation circulating about what the 43-cent tax repeal is really about, according to Jay McAninch, president of the Archery Trade Association.

[…]

The tax became a problem for Rose City and a handful of other companies in 2004, when lawmakers, while trying to correct another problem with the arrow tax, changed a 12 percent tax on all arrows to a flat 43-cent tax on arrow shafts. The tax, which got tacked on to every arrow shaft, goes to fund educational programs put on by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

[…]

Rose City Archery’s wooden arrow shafts sell for 30 cents.

Wait a minute. How does that work?

A 43-cent tax on a 30-cent shaft? 😯

“The 43-cent tax took a huge toll on its youth archery business” the above article goes on to say.

No kidding.

How to Pray?

Things keep looking worse and worse for McCain-Palin:

Real Clear Politics Polling Info 10-03-08

I don’t suppose the above numbers reflect on last night’s VP debate yet.

So how should God’s people be praying concerning this election?

The Democrats have fielded a very leftist team.

The Republicans have a centrist for the #1 spot and a woman for the #2 spot. He’s centrist at best; she, “conservative.”

But whom does God intend to raise up to the highest elected offices of the land?

I. Don’t. Know.

So how should I be praying?

(No, I am not voting.)

Orissa

First, from the Indian Catholic:

The death toll in the continuing anti-Christian violence in Orissa state rose to 50 as India celebrated the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation and champion of peace.
The latest victim, Lalgi Nayak, a Protestant, succumbed to a gash on his neck and other injuries on Oct. 1. He was injured on Sept. 30, when Hindu extremists attacked his Rudangia village, UCA News reported.

Bibhu Datta Das, a legal consultant for the Church of North India, told UCA News on Oct. 2 that Nayak and others were attacked because they “heroically” resisted demands by Hindu fanatics to denounce their Christian faith.

“Such murders are rampant” in Orissa, said the lawyer representing the unified Protestant Church. He added that perpetrators of the violence that began on Aug. 24 not only burn down houses and churches but “demand that Christians accept Hinduism or face death.”

Sindh Today reports:

The Manmohan Singh government has committed to buy energy worth $70 billion from the ‘dying US nuclear industry’ under the nuclear deal, Communist Party of India-Marxist CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said here Thursday.

[…]

Karat condemned the continuing violence against Chrisitians in Orissa and serial bomb blasts in Tripura late Wednesday.

‘The Orissa government has failed to control the violence. It is shocking. The Naveen Patnaik government and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders should be held responsible for it,’ he said.

World Sikh News has this:

There was little that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could do to persuade the French President Nicholas Sarkozy on the issue of Sikh turbans as he was under fire with the European Union ticking him off for New Delhi’s failure to prevent massacre of Christians in Orissa and Karnataka. At the India-EU summit, Sarkozy, as head of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, took up the issue very strongly about Hindutva terror outfit’s attacks on Christians, leaving Manmohan Singh with little room to push the Sikh demand for removing the ban on turbans in French schools.

Breaking: Bailout Blowout

OK, OK. I don’t have time for this.

But here’s a bit to acknowledge that this crisis thing is big stuff for this country (and for the world, no doubt).

House defeats financial industry bailout bill

The House has defeated the $700 billion bail-out legislation for the financial industry.

More than enough members of the House had cast votes to defeat the Bush administration-pushed bill, but the vote was held open for a while, apparently as efforts were under way to persuade people to change their vote.

On Wall Street, stocks plummeted as investors followed the developments in Congress.

I’m surprised they defeated it.

So it’s “the Bush administration-pushed bill” — never mind Pelosi-pushed, Reed-pushed, Franks-pushed, etcetera-pushed. 🙄

But they held the vote open?! I guess I’d forgotten they could do that while they tried to armtwist and/or threaten and/or entice persuade people to change their votes. Wow! 😯

And stocks plummeted. By more than 700 points at one point. But “only” 514 as I type.

Recruiting Defiant Pastors

Late last night, I noticed WorldMagBlog was calling attention to this event:

Pulpit politics: Pastors to defy IRS

During sermons this Sunday, some 35 pastors across the country will tell their congregations which presidential candidate they should vote for, “according to the Scriptures.”

Their endorsements represent a direct challenge to federal tax law, which prohibits tax-exempt organizations from engaging in partisan political activity.

The clergy have embraced that risk, hoping their actions will trigger an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, which would then enable a Christian legal advocacy group to take the IRS to court and challenge the constitutionality of the ban.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative legal group based in Arizona, recruited the pastors for “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” to press their claim that the IRS tax code violates the free speech of religious leaders.

These pastors really were “recruited” for this purpose?

If that is the case, it seems the pastors are being moved by the wrong spirit, no? It certainly appears to me that whatever they “preach” would have more political and civic motivation than it would Spirit motivation.

Or am I missing something here?

(For a little more perspective on this: Church and State.)

Above all, love God!