Caffeinated Thoughts

The Next Ex-Iowa Supreme Court Justice: David Wiggins
Glenn Beck’s Third Great Awakening May Put America to Sleep Once and For All.
Iowa Industry PAC Endorses Matt Reisetter
Georgia’s Personhood Amendment Passes With a Super Majority
Chick-fil-A and Double Standards
Don’t forget today is Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day!

The Next Ex-Iowa Supreme Court Justice: David Wiggins

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 07:15 PM PDT

And the campaign to oust the fourth Iowa Supreme Court Justice who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage is off. Three justices, Marsha Ternus, David Baker and Michael Streit, were ousted in 2010 after an unprecedented majority voting no on retention. A.J. Spiker, the Chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa called on voters to remove Justice David Wiggins from office. He said in a statement released this morning:

The Republican Party of Iowa believes we must be a state based on laws and not the whims of unelected activist judges attempting to impose their personal views on the public. The people of Iowa are tired of increasingly powerful bureaucrats arrogantly and deceitfully instituting law when they have no justification or ability to do so.

In 2010 Iowa voters chose to dismiss three activist judges who allowed their own politics to influence their obligation to uphold the Iowa Constitution. These three were among a handful of judges who chose to disregard years of legal precedent on the status of marriage and how it was to be defined. Instead of allowing the people of Iowa to decide this issue at the polls, these judges instead chose to impose their will upon the state and re-write history without weighing the merits of our laws and values. Regardless of political pressure or the state of cultural affairs at the moment, it is the people of Iowa through our elections that must be permitted to decide this important issue.

Just as Iowans successfully showed in 2010, it is again time to put a check on this power and reign in an activist judge from his position of misused authority. This is the only chance voters have to make their voice heard and we must take the opportunity to remove Justice David Wiggins from his post and show him his arrogance and disregard for the law does indeed have consequences.

On behalf of the Republican Party of Iowa, I urge all Iowans to go to the polls this November and vote "No" on the retention of Justice Wiggins. Let us make sure voters across all 99 counties send a strong message to the judicial branch and activist judges who may not fully understand the power that individual voters have within Iowa and our entire nation. Vote"No" on retaining Justice David Wiggins and help end the bullying of activist judges once and for all.

The FAMiLY Leader issued a statement that they aren't coordinating with RPI, and they will make a major announcement on August 11 at their Leadership Summit at Point of Grace Church in Waukee.

All plans and strategies for the 2012 elections are presently under consideration, including the retention of Judge David Wiggins. Actions and strategies for the November 2012 elections will be the subject of the announcement.

The FAMiLY LEADER did not coordinate with the state GOP regarding their press release today calling on Republican voters to remove Judge David Wiggins. Bob Vander Plaats, President & CEO of The FAMiLY LEADER said, "We don’t see this merely as a Republican issue, but we see this as a freedom and constitutional issue. We fully support the Iowa GOP in their efforts to inform Iowans about the retention vote. We are hopeful that the state Democratic Party will likewise issue a statement calling for voters to remove Judge Wiggins."

The FAMiLY LEADER, in conjunction with The National Organization for Marriage, ActRight, and Citizens United, will host The FAMiLY LEADERSHIP SUMMIT. The purpose of The FAMiLY Leadership Summit is to educate and mobilize the conservative base regarding specific issues that impact the family.

The FAMiLY Leadership Summit will be anchored by the 2008 and 2012 Iowa caucus winners, former Governor Mike Huckabee and former Senator Rick Santorum. Other speakers include New York Times best-selling author Joel Rosenberg, Dr. Laurence white, Senator Charles Grassley, and Congressman Steve King.

For more information about The FAMiLY LEADER or the event, visit our website at www.TheFamilyLeadershipSummit.com.

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Glenn Beck’s Third Great Awakening May Put America to Sleep Once and For All.

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 06:55 PM PDT

America needs reviving, but it won't happen through politics or rallies held in the name of unity, service, justice or cultural involvement by Christians. Revival means "life from the dead" (Romans 11:15). It is God's work alone: "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." (Deut. 32:39).

Talk show host Glenn Beck continues to try and take personal credit for bringing a "Third Great Awakening" to America. Last weekend, Beck sponsored a series of events in Dallas emphasizing service and culminating in a rally called "Restoring Love" at Cowboys Stadium. Previously, a "Restoring Courage" event was held in Israel in 2011 and "Restoring Honor" took place in Washington, D.C. in 2010. The latter was attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Friday's rally had about 40,000 in attendance, according to Beck.

Beck's website headline states it plainly:

"Witness the Third Great Awakening!" – Glenn Beck Brings the Movement of Peace and Freedom into a New Age."

Before we examine Beck's claim about the 3^rd Great awakening, we should briefly talk about what historians call the First and Second Great Awakenings in America.

The first revival (1730s-1740s) is mostly associated with two well-known Calvinists: Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Unlike Beck, these two men were orthodox Christian ministers whose sermons—by God's grace—converted unbelievers to faith in Christ alone, and were not intended to have them join preachers and others in "getting back the country," or to participate in some other cultural reform movement. Although the long-term benefit of an emphasis on revival movements may still be debated within the church, and a few excesses may be found here and there during the era, the hallmark of this revival was definitely faithful, biblical and evangelical preaching of the gospel of grace.

The results of the Second Great Awakening (1790-Early 1800s) seem to be more mixed. Certainly fine preaching by men such as Asahel Nettleton was used by God for great eternal benefit. However, much of the fruit associated with others in the movement appeared to go sour, as an emphasis on man-made salvation resulted in the increase of false religions such as Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, and The Unity School of Christianity. This era also saw widespread acceptance of the "new measures" of Charles Finney, which essentially rejected the work of the Holy Spirit and sovereignty of God in salvation in favor of crowd manipulation and emotion-based appeals. Man-centered conversions became the norm, rather than the preaching of the cross and a gospel of grace.

This brings us to Glenn Beck. Like all humanist religions, Beck's syncretism depends on man. During his keynote speech, Beck said:

"This whole event is about you. We did this for you…. The elderly, the lonely, those who are afraid. We said to them: Be not afraid! For we are with you and we will be your shelter—shelter from the storm."

Where is God in all this? For sure, it is not the one carrying the microphone.

Beck never mentioned Jesus Christ during this call to revival, but the Scriptures teach that we must "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31).

No great awakening can come from such events; they rather lull the one who imbibes to more spiritual drowsiness. Real revival is not about politics, nor is about picking ourselves up by the bootstraps. It is about turning from our sins to the only Savior of the World, Jesus Christ.

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Iowa Industry PAC Endorses Matt Reisetter

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 03:00 PM PDT

Waterloo, IA – The Iowa Industry PAC (IIPAC), the political action committee of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, has announced their endorsement of Matt Reisetter in the race for Iowa Senate District 30. Reisetter, who raised more than twice as much money as his incumbent Democrat opponent in the most recent reporting period, was the only challenger in Iowa endorsed by IIPAC in this round of endorsements; the rest of the endorsements went to incumbents and candidates in open-seat races.

"I'm grateful for the support I've received from the Iowa Industry PAC and others in the business community," said Reisetter. "They're supporting our campaign for the same reason we're seeing growing support from voters, volunteers, and donors: they agree with our message of limited government, individual liberty, and economic growth."

In response to the Reisetter campaign's growing success, State Senator Jeff Danielson (D-Cedar Falls) launched an attack this week on a businessman and conservative activist for donating to Reisetter's campaign.

Reisetter said, "As for my opponent's attacks, he's just trying to raise money and change the subject. It's just unfortunate that he saw fit to start his negative personal attacks so early; the campaign season is long enough as it is."

The Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) is comprised of over 1,400 companies that employ more than 310,000 Iowans.

The Iowa Industry PAC is non-partisan and endorses both Republican and Democratic candidates for legislative offices. The committee encourages voters to consider the endorsements when evaluating which candidates will focus on economic issues and help bring jobs to Iowa when voting this November.

Matt Reisetter, the owner of consulting firm SDG Solutions, has been married to his wife Jen for 12 years. Matt and Jen have three young children: Mason, Jillian, and Jentry. Reisetter grew up in Cedar Falls, having attended Valley Park Elementary, Peet Junior High, and Cedar Falls High School. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in science from the University of Northern Iowa in 1998.

Senate District 30 is composed of Cedar Falls, Hudson, and portions of west Waterloo and western rural Black Hawk County.

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Georgia’s Personhood Amendment Passes With a Super Majority

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 02:30 PM PDT

Norcross, GA – Georgia Right to Life President Dan Becker today called on the State Legislature to acknowledge clear public sentiment and approve placing a human rights amendment before all voters in 2014. By a 2-to-1 margin the majority party of Georgia has voted to protect all "human life from its earliest biological beginning."

"Personhood amendments do not grant rights to anyone — they merely recognize the God-given rights of every individual human being. The people of Georgia have shown that they are ready to vote ‘Yes’ on personhood, it is time for the legislature to ensure that the Georgia Personhood amendment is on the ballot," Becker said, ". . . time to let every Georgian decide the human rights issue of the 21st century." State law requires legislative approval to authorize ballot amendment questions.

Tuesday’s non-binding GOP primary results showed that a super majority (66% of voters) expressed support for amending the state constitution to grant the "paramount right to life" to all innocent human beings from their earliest biological beginning until natural death. The Amendment question won in 158 of 159 counties, garnering 593,250 votes of the 902,512 cast statewide. In most counties the "YES" vote was between 71% to 78%.

Adopting the amendment — which would be the first in the country — would allow the use of many contraceptives, continue to grant women essential health care, permit in-vitro fertilization and most stem cell research, as well as allowing abortion to save the life of the mother.

Saying it’s time for such a measure, Becker pointed to recent national polls that show most Americans no longer support abortion on demand. He also noted that the elderly, disabled and infirm are aware of the increasing threats to their well-being due to pending Medicare cuts and the looming possibility of healthcare rationing.

"We’re living in a society that sadly accepts death — either abortion or the willful neglect of the fragile — as a way to deal with perceived problems," Becker said, "and that violates both God’s will and our right to life guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence."

Becker said growing worldwide support for the Personhood movement was recently revealed when the Pontifical Council of the Laity called for a similar amendment to be adopted by the European Union.
"The tide is turning," he added, "more and more people are rejecting the culture of death that has pervaded our cultures for decades. It’s time to say — no more."

As for the elderly, disabled and infirm, Becker said the debate over Obamacare revealed that unless stopped " . . . the writing may be on the wall as some people feel society simply cannot afford extensive healthcare for everyone. God help us if we start applying cost-benefit analysis to healthcare."

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Chick-fil-A and Double Standards

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 10:15 AM PDT

Dan Cathy
President of Chick-fil-A

By Tom Thurlow

We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. We operate as a family business … our restaurants are typically led by families – some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that … We intend to stay the course. We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.

–Dan Cathy, President of Chick-Fil-A, Baptist Press, July 16, 2012

Some people have a lot of nerve. Have you ever heard such hate speech? Shocking.

In all seriousness, the food at Chick-fil-A might be a little bland, but its politics are hot and spicy, with an extra helping of political incorrectness. And the Chick-fil-A president's opinions on marriage have a lot of people's feathers in a ruffle, and they are starting to squawk.

Two mayors, one from Chicago and the other from Boston, have criticized the political opinions held by Chick-fil-A's president. No longer will Chick-fil-A be allowed to open a restaurant in Chicago, and forget about Boston. No word yet on other traditional-marriage advocates that have already made it into Boston and Chicago, like Catholic or Baptist churches, or Muslim mosques.

Michael Graham of the Boston Herald had a great scoop, when he pointed out that Boston's mayor took time out from his anti-Chick-fil-A ranting to help dedicate a Bostonian mosque. According to Graham, when the City of Boston sold the land to the mosque at below-market cost, the mosque followed an imam who advocated the execution of gays. The imam just couldn't decide whether gays should be thrown from a high place or burned.

The imam eventually settled on stoning gays to death. But yet the mayor of Boston reserves his ire for Christians like Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy, advocate of traditional marriage.

Honestly, what is it with liberals and Christianity? It seems as if Muslim countries can advocate and actually do any kind of torture or killing of gays and women and the average liberal will ignore it and instead find a Christian to hate. And of course it is the Christian who is branded the "hater."

This Chick-fil-A tempest reminds me of my own Facebook battle a few weeks ago with several liberals who attributed much of anti-gay actions in the world to Christians. Most of the time I ignore political posts like this, but when a liberal friend of mine posted a citation to an article about a Ugandan church that debated imprisoning or executing gays, I had to respond.

"It is horrible that gays are mistreated anywhere, whether by a proposal in Uganda by a few rogue bishops, or by much of the Muslim world, where gays are routinely tortured or executed," I ventured. Immediately, others in the discussion referred me to other notable Christians and their views on gays, as an explanation as to why Christians "have blood on their hands."

I responded that whatever the level of gay-hatred from people claiming to be Christian, it is not even close to what really happens to gays in Muslim countries. "Enough hate to go around," came the reply.

I provided links to websites that chronicle Muslim torturing of women and gays, including one website that had a photo, front and center, of two gays in Iran about to be hanged. A few minutes after the photo was taken, those gays were dead. That photo had to make an impression.

It didn't. Instead, my opponents provided citations to a story of one Christian pastor who complained that the government won't kill gays, and to another pastor who advocated quarantining gays.

After some back and forth on glass houses and moral equivalences, I finally got an admission that Christianity is "graded on a curve." As anyone who has been to sixth grade can tell you, "grading on a curve" means a double-standard in favor of lower-performing students. Bad students get help with their grades while good students get grade reductions.

And this is what is happening not only in the Chick-fil-A controversy but to Christianity in general. Christianity, and any organization like Chick-fil-A that advocates Christian positions, is "graded on a curve," or given a lower grade than the grade given to Islam and the murderous imam associated with the Boston mosque. That explains it.

And that might be the silver lining to this whole Chick-fil-A controversy: the double-standard exposed for all to see.

Meanwhile, anyone like me who supports Chick-fil-A is expected to participate in this week's "buy-cott" of Chick-fil-A's bland food, so I will dutifully join in. My only question is this: what will it take for a chain of Thai restaurants, or maybe a group of Szechuan Chinese restaurants to take the same position so that we can eat at their restaurants? Why is it that the only restaurant that defends traditional marriage also happens to be the purveyor of the most boring food around?

Tom Thurlow is an attorney who works in the San Francisco Bay area, the manager of a conservative blog called Napa Whine Country and lives in Napa County, CA with his wife and daughter.

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Don’t forget today is Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day!

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 09:15 AM PDT

Kudos to Mike Huckabee for starting this. Head on over to your local Chick-fil-A store and go get some chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, and don't forget to order a peach shake as well in order to support Chick-fil-A and the First Amendment.