PERIODIC REMINDER

To the pseudo-religious left, there is only one right answer, you don't have it and you never will.

On Tuesday, leaders of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted to affirm the traditional position on sexuality, upholding the biblical definition of marriage as between one man and one woman and forbidding homosexual relationships among the clergy. As black African leaders united behind the traditional position, white American liberals accused them of bribery.

The Traditional Plan won by a vote of 438 to 384 (53 percent to 47 percent), while the "One Church" plan — which would have allowed churches to choose to affirm same-sex marriage and appoint clergy who are in homosexual relationships — failed by a vote of 374 to 449 (45 percent to 55 percent). The United Methodist Church is the second-largest denomination in America.

There's not only one right answer, there's only one conceivable answer.  So any other answer can only be the result of evil doings.

"A point of order call to refer allegations of bribery for votes to committee on ethics passes, 417-388," the United Methodist News Service tweeted amid the United Methodist Church's General Conference.

The Reconciling Ministries Network, a pro-LGBT coalition that claims 900 churches in the United Methodist denomination, tweeted that the vote to refer the bribery charges to the ethics committee was "a victory for truth and ethics." The group praised the potential investigation into "rumors of bribery and paying for votes by anti-LGBTQ anti-UMC traditionalists."

Disagree with us and you hate Methodism?  Got it.  But hell, let's push all-in.

"Bribery for votes for the TP [Traditional Plan] has been an open rumor for ages.

I'll take "Methodist Fiction" for $2,000, Alex.

It is good that our youth are willing to call it out.

It's good to call out...a rumor.  Okay. 

Jesus had strong words for the money-changers in the temple," the Reconciling Ministries Network tweeted.

Public libel.  Methodist lefties are great Christian examples.

This liberal group was so confident of bribery among supporters of the Traditional Plan that it baldly compared its ideological opponents to the people Jesus condemned for turning the house of God into a "den of robbers" (Matthew 21:13).

 

There you have it.  The Methodist left is so determined to impose its "theology" on the rest of the denomination that it will quite happily resort to lying about and libeling fellow Methodists if votes don't go the way it demands that they go.  One hopes the UMC keeps this in mind because these people are not going away any time soon.

 

If past performance is indicative of future results, the countdown to an "illegal" but "prophetic" Methodist homosexual ordination, homosexual marriage or both should begin any day now.

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS FLY OFF AND OFF

Note to self: don't bet on the Democrats next year.  Nanner McBotox breaks with Dem radicals.

Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy Patricia D'Alesandro PelosiCoast Guard official accused of terror plot indicted on gun, drug chargesDemocratic tensions bubble up after GOP amends gun billOmar calls impeachment 'inevitable,' 'terrifying'MORE (D-Calif.) expresses some skepticism about single-payer health insurance in a new interview, asking how the trillions of dollars in new spending would be paid for.

 

“That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?” Pelosi said of single-payer in an interview with Rolling Stone.

 

The roughly $30 trillion price tag over ten years of single-payer health insurance, sometimes referred to as "Medicare for all," has been one of the leading criticisms of the proposal.

 

Over 100 House Democrats this week introduced a single-payer bill. But Pelosi, while supporting hearings on the legislation, has not given her support to the bill itself.

 

She faces a balancing act given that many more-centrist House Democrats think single-payer goes too far, and instead want to focus on improving the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and perhaps adding the option for government-run insurance.

UPDATE:  The inmates mean to run the Democratic asylum.  Seems High School has, in the immortal words of Gilbert and Sullivan, got a little list.

DOING BUSINESS

Expect Trump to take a lot of crap for this perfectly reasonable response.

"Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times," President Trump said Thursday after his second summit with Kim Jong Un abruptly collapsed. A working lunch and the signing of a joint agreement were scrapped after talks fell apart on the summit's second day, causing confusion among the press corps, the New York Times reports. "It was about the sanctions basically," Trump said at a press conference. "They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that." Trump said Kim had been willing to dismantle some of the country's nuclear infrastructure in return for sanctions being lifted, but wanted to leave other parts of the program intact, the Guardian reports.

If you want to know why, Google "Reagan, Gorbachev, Reykjavik."

WHO'S A GOOD BOY?

An SAS team was saved after a brave military dog fought off a jihadi who attacked a patrol in northern Syria.

 

The unnamed Belgian Malinois, a fierce breed of sheepdog known for its bravery, had been out on a routine patrol with a team of six crack soldiers from the SAS.

 

They had just entered a small village in a convoy of armoured vehicles when they got out to continue the recce on foot.

 

But soon after they left the safety of the convoy, they were attacked on all sides by waiting jihadis in what was described as a '360 degree ambush'.

 

The SAS men returned fire but the jihadis began closing in and tried to outflank them.

 

The animal was said to have leapt to the defence of the struggling British soldiers, tearing the throat of a gunman who was firing at the patrol. 

 

It then turned on two other jihadis, leaving them seriously injured before the other six ambushers all fled.

You're a good boy.

We don't deserve dogs.

EXODUS

It's not just going to be businesses.  Illinois is so screwed.

When he was campaigning for the Illinois governor’s office, Democrat Jay Pritzker promised to confront the state’s many fiscal problems without cutting rich public-employee pension benefits or raising taxes on millions of residents. Now it’s clear how Pritzker planned to work this miracle. Last week, he released his first set of fiscal proposals for an “honest” budget, which relies on hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes that he’s not authorized to levy. The plan also resorts to a traditional Illinois budget maneuver—pushing pension payments further into the future, which will reduce the retirement system’s already-anemic funding status and raise the risk of insolvency. The governor’s long-term solution to the pension crisis, meantime, includes selling unidentified state assets to raise funds, a plan that one Chicago Tribune columnist described as “more smoke and mirrors.” Overall, it’s a budget that says to the average Illinois citizen: “Don’t worry, be happy. This won’t hurt a bit.”

Pritzker faces a $3.2 billion budget deficit, but he’s proposing little in the way of cuts to fill that hole. His biggest saving amounts to a fiscal maneuver to reduce the funding goal for the state pension plan from 100 percent to 90 percent and extends by seven more years the schedule for paying off the debt. Doing that will trim $878 million off next year’s pension payment. While 90 percent funding must sound reasonable to any Illinois resident (the system has only 40 percent of the money it needs right now), the lower goal is just a way of avoiding fiscal reality and, in the process, raising the risk that the system runs out of money.

The state can’t make any headway on its pension debt because nearly two-thirds of what it’s promising employees is supposed to come from investment returns on money that was never put away. Specifically, Illinois is missing about $135 billion, and that’s a whole lot of investment returns that the state isn’t getting when the market booms. The less money Illinois puts in now, the more investment revenue it forgoes, and the bigger the burden that falls on the taxpayer. There’s no evidence from around the country, where government retirement debt is piling up even in states that make their pension contributions in full, that Pritzker’s approach will end well.

Nevertheless, the governor refuses to amend the Illinois constitution so that the state can reduce the rate at which current government workers—whose unions heavily backed him—earn pension benefits. Changing the current system would slow down the accumulation of new pension obligations and channel the savings into paying off the debt. Without benefit cuts, the state will have to pay about $9 billion a year—nearly one-quarter of current revenues—to begin fixing the system. And it will need to make that kind of outlandish payment annually for about 30 years.

SURPRISE

I'll admit that I wasn't too happy when Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announced  his candidacy for the US Senate.  After all, Hawley had only been AG for two years.  But so far, Hawley's been really impressive.

This week I’ve drawn fire from various quarters of the Washington establishment for daring to ask a simple question: whether a judicial nominee will follow what the Constitution says, not what they want it to say. You wouldn’t think that would be controversial but, well, it’s Washington. And I’ve got some news for Washington: I’m going to keep asking.

President Trump was elected thanks to his pledge to put judges on the bench who respect life and won’t make stuff up in the Constitution. He has kept his word. I made the same commitment to the people of Missouri, and I’m going to keep my word too. That means vetting judicial nominees carefully to ensure they are qualified and ready to sit on the most important courts of our country.

I’ve been a judicial clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, litigated there and in many other courts, and proudly served as Missouri’s attorney general. I know what a strong constitutional judge should do and say, and I’m not going to let other people, and certainly not the Washington establishment, do my thinking for me.

So I will be asking every appellate court nominee where he or she stands on the Constitution, and especially on the doctrine called “substantive due process.” That strange phrase stands for a dangerous doctrine in constitutional law that has allowed power-hungry judges to invent new “implied rights” out of thin air and usurp the will of We the People. It’s the doctrine used to justify Roe v. Wade and all manner of other judicial adventurism.

I want to know where nominees stand on this made-up doctrine. And I’m not going to vote for any nominee who would expand it. Lower-court judges are of course bound by Supreme Court precedents, including the bad ones. They don’t have any choice. But anybody willing to expand substantive due process won’t have my support for the federal bench.

As someone who believes deeply in the right to life and the equal dignity of every person, including the unborn, confirming judges who will resist the siren song of judicial lawmaking is especially important. All too often, lower courts have used substantive due process to stop states and local governments from protecting the unborn, even when Supreme Court case law would allow it.

Hawley's not up for reelection until 2022.  But keep an eye on this kid.  I've got a feeling that you're going to hear from him a lot.

N00B

God bless, Frank J.

UNCALLED FOR

I've only been to Eugene once in my life.  In the early 70's, we went out there to visit my sister and her family.  One evening, I decided to take in a baseball game so I walked over to Eugene's ballpark, a short distance from my sister's house, and saw the Eugene Emeralds play.  At the time, the Emeralds played in the Pacific Coast League and were Philadelphia's top farm team.

If you've never seen a minor league baseball game, you owe it to yourself to go if you ever have the chance.  The dynamic is completely different than the big leagues.  It's a lot cheaper and you're going to be a lot closer to the action than you'll ever be able to afford in your average major league ball yard. 

Plus, stuff like this happens.  At one point in the game, I got hungry so I went and got myself a hamburger and a Coke.  When I got back to my seat, a fellow next to me informed me that a foul ball had just hit right where I was sitting.  "Son of a...," I thought to myself  before sitting down and starting in on my burger which turned out to be...

The.  Single.  Greatest.  Hamburger.  I.  Have.  Ever.  Eaten.  Anywhere.  And.  Which.  Has.  Never.  Been.  Bested.  From.  That.  Day.  To.  Right.  Now.

Positively orgasmic, that thing was.  It was perfectly cooked and it was gigantic; you needed two hands to hold it.  And I couldn't quite figure out exactly what kind of sauce it had on it except that I had never before or since tasted anything so glorious.

So back on off Eugene, Hemingway.

BABY BOOMERS?

I don't know whether you realize this or not but there's just been another Nixon-in-China event.  The president of the United States is in Vietnam.

INFANTICIDE

It's what's for dinner.

The Senate on Monday rejected a bill making it a felony for a doctor to harm or neglect an infant who survives an “attempted abortion,” part of a Republican effort to squeeze Democrats ahead of the 2020 campaign.

The vote split mainly along party lines, 53-44. Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Doug Jones of Alabama and Joe Manchin of West Virginia crossed the aisle to vote for it; no Republicans broke ranks. Sixty votes are required for the bill to advance.

In a speech just before the vote, bill author Sen. Ben Sasse quoted campaign stump speeches by Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and independent Bernie Sanders vowing to look out for society’s “voiceless and vulnerable” and accused them of hypocrisy for opposing his bill’s regulations for the care of newborns.

LORD?  Considering how You felt about the practice of some of the nations surrounding Israel to sacrifice their children to their "gods," I wonder if I can prevail upon You to call me home some time soon since Your judgment on this nation will be horrible.