Democrats

December 12, 2020

Why Would Americans Feel Worse Off Today Than Four Years Ago?

Spiritual Minutemen Readers:
I have hibernated this blog site for the majority of the past four years. In part, because the threats to our Constitutional liberties lessened during the Trump era; but also because I felt the world had enough bad news reminders.
Nevertheless, the following headline from THE Hill caught my eye this morning:
That headline, and the poll that inspired it, deserves a rational response.
Why would a majority of Americans surveyed feel worse off today than four years ago?
In my opinion, many of our fellow-citizens suffer from what I define as short-term memory loss. A reflection on the past often takes on a better light than it was in reality, especially compared to the immediate.
A negative view of present conditions, compared to four years ago, can be traced to what we have endured as a nation in 2020.
1) Freedom loving Americans have lived through excessive totalitarian shutdowns, mandated by state governors and local politicians who care little about Constitutional freedoms.
2) We have watched private-owned, small businesses forced into bankruptcy by mandated shutdowns, followed by widespread unemployment.
3) We have been disheartened by news of the militant Left’s riots, and acts of violence, that turned some of our cities into desolate wastelands.
4) We witnessed corruption in our election system that defies any explanation less than a massive coordinated hijacking of the electoral process.
5) Finally, individual liberties are being assailed by leftist socialist Democrats.
We are witnessing the erosion of our freedoms.
Freedom of speech has been shut down by social sites, newspapers, and media broadcasts. The right to peaceful assembly has been outlawed under the guise of COVID-19 guidelines. The cherished freedom of religion has been either severely limited, if not essentially shut down and fined by local politicians, effectively outlawing houses of worship.
Are we worse off than four years ago?
Looking back on 2020, I am afraid the answer is, yes. However, we are delusional if we do not think conditions are about to get far worse as the Biden\Harris administration is empowered to force upon us not only their rhetoric, but also their marxist ideology that is morally bankrupt.
I fear 2020 may one day be remembered as, “the good old days.”

Proverbs 29:2 – 2  When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: But when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

Your patriot parson,
Travis D. Smith
Copyright 2020 – Travis D. Smith
November 20, 2020

Is COVID-19 real?

Is COVID-19 real?
Absolutely; however, is it bad enough to force every American to wear a mask, destroy the economy, our livelihood, and our families?
Something to think about: Did you know, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), that in 2017-2018 nearly 45 million Americans had the flu, 808,000 were hospitalized, and there was more than 66,000 deaths?
You might argue, “COVID-19 has killed many more!” Maybe, but the problem with that argument is we really do not know!
For instance, the CDC’s own website is still estimating how many verified cases of flu there were in 2017-2018, and every year since. In other words, not only are cases of COVID-19 estimated at this time, but we all know the numbers have been politicized.
By this time, nearly every American has heard of suicide cases labeled COVID deaths; accidents labeled COVID-19 deaths; even the terminally ill with cancer, dementia, or pneumonia…all labeled COVID-19 deaths.
Is COVID-19 real? Yes, but are we being hoaxed for a political reason that is inevitably an attack on, and is eroding our liberties? I encourage you to listen to this clip of Dr. Hodkinson and draw your own conclusion. He says in it:

“Social distancing is also useless because COVID is spread by aerosols which travel 30 meters or so before landing,” Hodkinson claimed.

He also said “positive test results do not, underlined in neon, mean a clinical infection”, but simply serves to drive “public hysteria”.

My opinion is that his argument is commanding!
The following is his bio.
“Dr. Roger Hodkinson is the former Chairman of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons committee in Ottawa, he was once CEO of a large private medical laboratory in Edmonton, Alberta, and for the past 20 years has held the position as Chairman of a Medical Biotechnology company based in North Carolina currently tasked with selling a COVID-19 test. He is a medical specialist in pathology, which includes virology, who trained at Cambridge University in the UK — he is perfectly positioned to speak on this topic.”
A shepherd and a patriot,
Travis D. Smith
Copyright 2020 – Travis D. Smith
October 28, 2020

Rush Limbaugh, His Peace with God and Himself

I have followed Rush Limbaugh’s radio career since 1987. I have no doubt that he has been the force that God used to cause Conservatism to resonate with the American electorate. Almost singlehandedly, Rush Limbaugh took on the old Republican establishment and exposed many of them for what they were, “Rhino-Republicans,” Trojan horses of liberalism, masked as conservatives.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/rush-limbaugh-plea-re-elect-trump

When his voice grows silent with death, as all of our voices will, he will be missed much, but I rejoice he has found peace, by placing his faith in Jesus Christ as his Savior.

A shepherd and a patriot,

Travis D. Smith

Copyright 2020 – Travis D. Smith

March 16, 2020

Coronavirus and A History Lesson from Another Crisis – September 15, 2008

March 16, 2020

As I see panic gripping our nation and its rippling effect around the world, I ponder the question:

When was the last time I experienced a hysteria like the one I am witnessing in the United States?

The date was September 15, 2008, less than two months before the historic election that propelled Barak Hussein Obama from the relative obscurity of a junior U.S. Senator to become the President of the United States.

When the Federal Reserve refused to bail out Lehman Brothers and guarantee its loans, that giant financial investment bank filed for bankruptcy. Lehman Brother’s default set in motion a national and international economic crisis that experts suggested nearly plunged our nation and world into another Great Depression.

Bank failures, a plunging stock market, consumer default on home loans, and an eventual bail out of two of the big three automakers created instability and economic havoc.

For the Democratic Party and its socialist policies, the stage was set to take the White House in 2008, as well as, the House of Representatives, and Senate.

Dateline: March 2020 – A national crisis with seven months to the Presidential Election.

The news of the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the public panic fed by a 24\7 news cycle has forced politicians to respond to perceptions over reality (death toll as of March 16, 2020 is 69 according to USA Today).

Federal and state governments are instituting harsh policies that politicians insist are necessary to curtail the spread of the virus. The Washington Post headline reads: “U.S. Life Shuts Down Due to Coronavirus.”

In a matter of days, we have witnessed something no one expected: the world’s strongest economy is in trouble, federal interest rates are at zero, and the great surge of support for the re-election of President Donald Trump is threatened as he and his administration grapple with the Coronavirus and the political fallout.

What do 2008 and 2020 have in common? 

A crisis that has set the stage pitting two political ideologies against one another: Republican vs. Socialist.

Like the wizard hiding behind the curtain on the Wizard of Oz, I wonder who is pulling the levers of power in the current crisis. Regardless of who or what is behind the turmoil, the power to decide our fate as a nation still rests with “We the People.”

As Americans, we have an opportunity to decide if we will live in a “nanny-state” and serve the government, or if we will accept nothing less than a government that serves “We the People.”

Let us not place our faith in men. Trust God knowing He is Sovereign.

Romans 8:38-39 – “38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Copyright – Travis D. Smith

August 2, 2019

Socialist Health Insurance

Make no mistake, when the federal government, in partnership with state government, take over health insurance, government hacks and politicians will decide who lives and who dies; who has access to medicines and surgical procedures and who does not.

When the power of life and death is in the hands of bureaucrats, the long-awaited era of “Big Brother” will be realized and your viability as a citizen will be determined not only by your health, but also your political views.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/50148/watch-cnn-host-gets-kamala-harris-admit-shes-amanda-prestigiacomo?utm_source=shapironewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=080219-news&utm_campaign=position1

July 25, 2019

Mueller: On Making History When It Is Painfully Obvious, It Has Passed Him By!

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(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Today’s Washington Times headline reads, “Mueller befuddled by own report, stumbles through testimony”.

I managed to catch several minutes of audio sound bites from the Mueller testimony and my assessment of the man is like his testimony…bewildered.
We have been assured ad nauseam by liberals and the media that Robert Mueller’s integrity is clear of political bias; nevertheless, his testimony leaves little doubt his thinking is cloudy and reasoning skills are diminished.
I feel sorry for the man whose life and career will forever be shadowed by a glaring display of geriatric ineptitude.   Yesterday’s congressional hearing made it painfully obvious, Mueller’s place in time and history has passed.
Copyright 2019 – Travis D. Smith

 

October 2, 2018

A Nation Divided

Last week’s Judiciary Committee meetings unmasked in an indisputable fashion the deep-divide that now defines our nation.

The thought that United States Senators are statesmen suffered a debilitating blow as partisan politics clashed over the vacant Supreme Court seat that may well determine the future of the Supreme Court’s 1973 pro-abortion ruling in the case “Roe vs. Wade”.  Knowing the future of abortion, the sacred cow of liberal and progressive politics, hangs in the balance, Democratic Senators unleashed a barrage of personal attacks on Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh unlike anything I have witnessed in my lifetime.

Driven by a lust for power, coupled with a deep-seeded loathing of American patriotism, the Democrats have become the party of Global internationalism at the sacrifice of American exceptionalism.  Democratic party leaders Senators Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Keith Ellison, and Maxine Waters have whipped up a frenzy of hatred pitting male against female, black against white, and rich against poor.  Leftwing socialists and antifascists anarchists, have turned America’s “melting pot” into a boiling caldron of tension, hatred, and resentment that threaten the survival of our Constitutional Republic.

Becoming nothing more than a propaganda tool dominated by leftwing liberals, America’s news media has embraced a spurious partnership with Democrats and abandoned any semblance of reporting the news and holding politicians in check.

The United States is no longer “One Nation Under God”.  Torn asunder by rabid liberalism and radical partisanship, we are in the midst of a political civil war and the very soul of the American electorate is at stake.  In the immortal words of President Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand…I do not expect the house to fall–but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

We Americans will cast our mid-term vote Tuesday, November 6 and it is not an over exaggeration to say the future of our nation and liberties hang in the balance.

Copyright 2018 – Travis D. Smith

February 15, 2018

Prayer for Students and Families of Broward County, FL

The news of the senseless slaughter of innocent young lives in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, Wednesday afternoon, February 14, 2018 dominates the news this morning.  As of this morning, the death toll remains at 17 and the names of the dead, students and teachers, has not been released.

Like you, I am aware the tragedy of the loss of life reaches far beyond the dead…siblings, parents, grandparents, friends, classmates, teachers, administrators, neighbors, and yes, our state and nation…are all affected and scarred by the violence, suffering and death.

Liberal pundits will stand in their bully-pulpits and blame firearms for the loss of life.  The media and anti-liberty zealots opposed to the 2nd Amendment, will attack the NRA and conservatives, and advocate the need to limit, if not eliminate private ownership of guns and rifles.

Few will look deeper and honestly examine why this happened.  Why 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, a former student expelled last school year from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, would plan and unleash a hail of gunfire on students of his former high school?

We are learning Cruz’s life is scarred as much as the wounds he inflicted on innocent lives Wednesday.  USA Today reports, “teachers and former classmates say [Cruz] had an angry disposition that led to him being expelled and flagged as a danger on school grounds.”

Former classmates describe Cruz as a troubled soul and many say they are not surprised he unleashed his fury in an act of violence. According to Fox News, an unnamed student told a news station, “kids joked around that the student [Cruz] would be the one to ‘shoot up the school.’”

Cruz is a troubled soul and tragedy seems to have been the haunt of his life.  Fox News reports Cruz and a younger brother were adopted and both his father and mother, Roger and Lynda Cruz, are dead.  Roger apparently died of a heart attack several years ago and Cruz’s mother, Lynda, died of pneumonia November 1, 2017.  Unhappy with family members who took him in, sometime after Thanksgiving 2017, Cruz moved into a mobile home with a high school friend who is a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Cruz’s anger, rage and violence are pandemic in a generation educated in classrooms and nurtured in a society with an irreligious view of human life.  The doctrine that human life is sacred and every life is to be cherished is lost on a generation that mocks God, denies the Creator, and is entertained with acts of violence in video games and television programs from early childhood.

I am not surprised a 19-year-old murdered 17 classmates; I am surprised it does not happen more often.  Look into the eyes of today’s youth and you will find many who appear soulless…unloved and unloving; desensitized by bitterness, rejecting authority, angry with God, and waiting to be triggered into an act of rage that will not only destroy their lives and future, but leave countless others broken and dismayed.

Remembering Cain, the first son of Adam, murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8), we understand the problem is not guns and rifles; the problem is sin.  The invitation to this generation is the same as it was to Cain when God wrestled with his sinful soul and asked, “Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7  If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?…” (Genesis 4:6-7).

God warned Cain, “…if thou doest not well, sin lieth [crouches] at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire [sin drives our desires], and thou shalt rule over him [man will either master sin or sin will become his master]” (Genesis 4:7).

King Solomon taught his son the same truth, “[A sinner’s] own iniquities shall take [trap] the wicked himself, and he shall be holden [entrapped] with the cords [ropes] of his sins.”

Nikolas Cruz, and I am afraid many like him, is the personification of hopelessness.  Sinners have but two paths to choose in life…Remorse or Repentance.  Cruz followed the path of remorse and dejection and left in his wake 17 lost lives.

Repentance, on the other hand, assumes responsibility, admits guilt (Psalm 51:4), confesses sins, and seeks forgiveness (1 John 1:9).

Let us pray for the lives touched by the loss of 17 lives, but remember there are many Nikolas Cruz’s in our midst who feel unloved, act unloving, need to know the love of God, and our lives serve as the conduit of compassion for their lost souls.

With the heart of a shepherd,

Pastor Travis D. Smith

Copyright 2018 – Travis D. Smith

February 8, 2018

TRAGEDY STRIKES THE HEARTLAND OF AMERICA

After a 9-year assault on “white America” (I hate to use that term…I am an American!) led by the Obama Administration and gleefully embraced by liberals who hate America and Judeo-Christian values (marriage, family, and home), we now read the largest drop of life expectancy in America is among middle-age “White Americans”.

Liberal educators, politicians, and media buffoons, got their “Hope and Change” in 2008 with the election of Barack Hussein Obama and by 2016 America became a nation feeling hopeless, believing nothing would change…on the brink of spiritual, moral, and economic bankruptcy.

Only by the sovereignty and providence of God have we seen Donald Trump elected President (and no, he is not perfect) and a non-politician take the helm of state and begin to push back against a “hate ideology” that left so many Americans despondent.

Why have Americans turned to drugs, including the epidemic of opioids, alcohol, and pursued sexual depravity at the risk of their health and future?  Why is the heartland of middle America morally imploding?

Yesterday’s report in USA Today suggests, “The problem is concentrated in rural, largely white counties that have often struggled for many years with stagnant wages, unemployment, poverty and the loss of major industries that fueled local economies…”

Predictably, Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, suggests a change of policy “directed at strengthening the middle class” will be the answer.

No, Mr. Woolf, a change of policy is not what America needs.  America needs a spiritual revival.  Our nation needs to humble herself, return to God, repent of our sins, and embrace the fundamental spiritual principles that made us the greatest nation in the world.

Although addressed to Israel, I close with a verse that should be the passion of every believer.

2 Chronicles 7:14 – “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

Copyright 2018 – Travis D. Smith

September 28, 2017

The Naivety of “Taking the Knee”

I purposed to allow this blog to lie dormant except for the most pertinent concerns; however,  the continuing offense and collusion of NFL management, owners and players provoked me to offer my view (if only for my well-being).

I hope the majority of Americans recognize the “take the knee” protests practiced by NFL players is staged and encouraged by liberals promoting a socialist, anti-American ideology, using young millionaire athletes for their own ends.

The majority of professional athletes “taking a knee” are little more than young naive college graduates.   They have been the objects of praise and adulation their whole lives for no other reason than they can run faster, jump higher, and hit harder than the average.  Apart from playing football and the wealth that comes with stardom, they are like the majority of young Americans…searching for purpose and core values.   Many of these bigger than life athletes have been coddled by parents, pampered by coaches and are ill-equipped for anything more than the games they play.

There are a few athletes in professional sports who have a story to tell and inspire others to rise above mediocrity and become successful, productive citizens; however, they are the exception.

The “take the knee” gang inspires nothing and no one.  They inflame prejudice, provoke division, and dispirit the downhearted.   They live in gated communities, enjoy the luxury of multi-million dollar estates, and on Sunday “take the knee” piously suggesting they identify with millions of fans who cannot afford the expense of parking at the stadium let alone the price of admission!

Who is to blame for giving naive young men the privilege of offending an American public?  

We are!  We are guilty of idolizing professional athletes, showering them with applause and adulation, and nurturing in them a misguided notion their underdeveloped thoughts and opinions deserve expression on America’s biggest stage.  We are guilty of paying taxes that build stadiums and then privilege these misguided young adults with an opportunity to offend sons, daughters, spouses, and parents whose loved ones died in the line of duty!

We are to blame for electing politicians, Democrats and Republicans, who are anti-American liberals, socialists, and marxists!  We are to blame for being silent when politicians, main stream news reporters, teachers, professors, community leaders, and professional athletes denigrate our nation, erode our Constitutional liberties, and assault America’s core-ideals with impunity!

Reflecting a Marxist ideology, liberals veil the offense of “take the knee” protests in the principle of “free speech”, but loathe those who point out their ignorance and hypocrisy.  

The 1st Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”  Americans are protected from a repressive government that would silence its citizens; however, the right of “free speech” does not extend to a private work place, whether it is a Mom and Pop Pizzeria, local McDonald’s franchise or an NFL stadium.

The hypocrisy of the NFL on this point is undeniable.   As a corporation, the NFL did not hesitate to silence the Dallas Cowboys when they wanted to display a miniscule helmet decal in support of law enforcement after five police officers were slain in the line of duty in 2016.   However, the same NFL management supports and tacitly encourages its players to “take the knee” supporting liberal, anti-American speech that offends patriotic Americans.

Wake up America!  You will not give a kid wearing a McDonald’s uniform a free pass on offensive speech.  You will not allow a police officer to disparage you and justify his actions as “free speech”.   Why then will you give the NFL and its players the right to defame America’s flag and National Anthem?

A liberal, socialist ideology is driving the dialog and young NFL players “taking the knee” are pawns of those whose goal is the denigration of American patriotism and the erosion of American Constitutional liberties.

Copyright – Travis D. Smith