comMITTed to Romney!

I wanted to bring this controversy to the attention of our readers, not to promote any in depth discussion of the differences in understanding of Christian theology between the LDS Church and other Churches, but because I see a definite link between this ongoing in fighting amongst fellow conservatives and the electoral loss we just endured.

We have had a debate on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ for over 2,000 years. If past experience is any guide, it doesn’t look good for settling this anytime soon, so my suggestion is that we all respectfully agree to disagree on some points of theology, and to turn to those areas where we do agree, namely on our shared values and conservative political philosophy.

While some Evangelicals have dedicated themselves to pointing out the differences that do exist, they have had a “throw the baby out with the bath water” approach to this past election. They rejected the most full spectrum conservative, Pro Life Republican since Reagan, because of theological differences, and in doing so, they helped elect the most liberal, pro abortion President-elect ever. Wow! Do they yet realize what they have done? The so-called “Freedom of Choice Act” ( negating any law which tries to limit the scope of the abortion industry ) has already been written and awaits the signature of soon to be President Barack Obama. The “Fairness Doctrine” bill designed to silence ALL conservatives, Catholics, Protestants, Baptists and Latter Day Saints, awaits the signature of soon to be President Barack Obama. Embryonic stem cell research funding bills await his signature, too.

While the theology police were out on patrol for any deviation from doctrine, this is what they unwittingly unleashed.

I don’t mean to impugn their motives. They are passionate in their defense of dogma, but I just wish they would have realized the truth of what Romney supporters have been writing and talking about for the last two years. Mitt was running for President, not Pastor. If all of us on the right don’t take away some very hard earned and very expensive ( in terms of human life consequences ) lessons from this in fighting over theology when politics and policy should have been the focus, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes that cost us: 1. the Presidency 2. the House 3. the Senate 4. maybe the right to filibuster toxic bills 5. maybe the Supreme Court 6. Independent voters. What a terrible price to pay for the luxury of indulging ourselves in a hissy fit.

Of course, that’s all water under the bridge now. We can, however, learn from our mistakes and resolve never to repeat the errors made in the 2008 election. We can resolve that we will follow the Constitution in 2012 where it says: “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or Public trust under the United States.” ( Article VI )

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/joel_campbell/?id=5597

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family ministry has pulled from its CitizenLink Web site an article about talk show host Glenn Beck’s book “The Christmas Sweater” after some complained that Beck’s LDS faith is a “cult” and “false religion” and shouldn’t be promoted by a Christian ministry.

When contacted Friday, a Focus on the Family worker at the ministry in Colorado Springs, Colo. confirmed that the article had been pulled at this link and read a prepared statement for callers who had called about the Beck article:

“You are correct to note that Mr. Beck is a member of the Mormon church, and that we did not make mention of this fact in our interview with him. We do recognize the deep theological difference between evangelical theology and Mormon theology, and it would have been prudent for us at least to have pointed out these differences. Because of the confusion, we have removed the interview from CitizenLink.”

All other questions about the controversy were directed to a ministry media spokesman who would not be available until Jan. 2. Calls to Beck’s offices Friday went unanswered. A link to the story still remained on the Front Page of www.glennbeck.com.

Apparently, the controversy was fueled on Dec. 22, when an anti-Mormon group called Underground Apologetics issued a release through Christian News Wire which read:

“Focus on the Family has a story on Glenn Beck, a Mormon, on their CitizenLink Web site. Glenn Beck was a CNN host and will move to Fox News in January. Beck is currently promoting his book, ‘The Christmas Sweater.’ The CitizenLink story focuses on Beck’s faith and why he wrote ‘The Christmas Sweater.’

“While Glenn’s social views are compatible with many Christian views, his beliefs in Mormonism are not. Clearly, Mormonism is a cult. The CitizenLink story does not mention Beck’s Mormon faith, however, the story makes it look as if Beck is a Christian who believes in the essential doctrines of the faith.

“Through the years, Focus on the Family has done great things to help the family and has brought attention to the many social ills that are attacking the family.

“However, to promote a Mormon as a Christian is not helpful to the cause of Jesus Christ. For Christians to influence society, Christians should be promoting the central issues of the faith properly without opening the door to false religions.”

Underground Apologetics president Steve McConkey said in an interview that he had not read Beck’s book, but understood its message. He felt that the work was suspect based on what he understands about Beck’s faith. McConkey said he had not asked Dobson’s ministry to remove the article from its site.

The Mormon Media Observer contacted Karla Dial. identified as a freelance reporter living in Colorado Springs, and received an e-mail response that said:

“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on that in any forum, but thanks for asking.”

Because the offending article is no longer available at citizenlink.org, the Mormon Media Observer is reprinting it in its entirety from an archived record. Here is also a link to an Amazon.com video about the book.

Share on Facebook

Share This

I wanted to provide some perspective on what Gov. Romney was talking about with Glenn Beck on the post that Ann Marie put up. Specifically, his comments regarding the competitive disadvantage that the United States has relative to our competitors with regard to corporate tax rates.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.macpa.org/Content/24384.aspx

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2008 – Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge has released the latest Tax Foundation “Fiscal Fact” in response to a new study from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). The OECD study shows that for the 17th consecutive year, the average rate of corporate taxes in non-U.S. countries fell while the U.S. corporate tax rate stayed the same.

As a result of the U.S. failure to lower its corporate tax rate for more than two decades while other major trading nations lowered theirs, the U.S. corporate tax rate is now 50 percent higher than the OECD average. Nine key trading partners cut their rates during 2007.

“Continued failure by U.S. tax policymakers to keep up with our top global economic competitors means that we’re solidifying a trend that will result in our children and grandchildren not seeing the economic growth we’ve seen in our lifetimes,” said Hodge. “There’s a real-wallet impact for Americans as we continue to sit idly by while other countries improve the way they do business, and we should be very concerned about jobs, capital, and investments moving from high-tax countries to low-tax countries.”

This comes on the heels of another recent OECD study showing that corporate taxes are the single most harmful tax to GDP growth, more so than personal income taxes or consumption taxes.
The combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. currently stands at 39.3 percent (the second-highest among industrialized countries), while the OECD average rate has fallen to 26.6 percent. Even China has recognized the significance of cutting the corporate tax to become more competitive. According to the report, China has reducing its top standard corporate tax rate from 33 percent to 25 percent just this year.

Share on Facebook

Share This

From GlennBeck.com

Windows Media Audio
Real Audio

GLENN: Gosh, I think it was a year and a half ago I said, gang, the only thing that’s going to matter when this election rolls around is the economy. I know everybody thought I was absolutely out of my mind crazy nuts when I said we are in big trouble and we could be facing another Great Depression. I don’t know what we’re facing now but we are facing dire, dire things in front of us. Every play has to be played exactly right. You know, when I say that, I want you to know that it’s going to be a great time in the future to be an American just like it was on September 12th. September 11th you didn’t want to go through, and in ‘99 I was telling you Osama Bin Laden was coming and there would be bodies in buildings in the streets of New York in 1999 and nobody wanted to hear it then, and there were. And let me give you the same kind of warning there’s going to be real trouble ahead, but the next day comes and we’re America again. And I said this to you a year and a half ago that the only thing that they were going to be arguing about in the end is going to be the economy and that’s why I said Mitt Romney was the guy to lead us. He was just with John McCain in Cleveland. We go to Mitt Romney now and I want to get some handle, Mitt, on have you ever seen a candidate like Barack Obama be more clear that he is a Marxist and people not listen.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Rally, Glenn, it’s interesting. I haven’t been around forever and I’m 60 now and in my lifetime I do not recall a presidential candidate who had a more antijob program than does Barack Obama. He plans on paying people off by giving them a check, you know, sending a check to everybody, a $1,000 check. But I think the American people would far rather have a job than a one-time $1,000 check. And his plan kills job. John McCain’s plan will actually create jobs. Barack Obama’s would take a recession and turn it into a deep prolonged recession, or worse. And, you know, I just think Barack Obama at this time is exactly the wrong course for America.

GLENN: Did you hear the — did you hear what he said in 2001? Finally the tape has been released and surprisingly not by the mainstream media, what Barack Obama has said about the Constitution? Have you read the transcripts or heard the tape?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Yeah, I did. I heard that he again is, you know, sad that the Supreme Court wouldn’t deal with redistribution of wealth and it’s a very different economic approach than the one that’s created America as the most powerful economy and the most powerful country in the world. You know, right now, of course, no one’s thinking about redistributing the wealth because wealth is disappearing, and redistributing wealth, that was the policy that, well, that some in Europe and other places in the world adopted and it led to economic failure.

GLENN: Okay. He is saying that he’s got — Barack Obama’s saying that he’s got this jobs creation program. As a businessman, I mean, I’m a small businessman. You’ve been a large businessman your whole life. Tell me the frothing at the mouth that people, just chomping at the bit to get that $3,000 that Barack Obama will give you for every new job created here in America. That’s his job growth plan. Tell me how great that is for business.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, I’m afraid that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the economic risk you take in hiring additional employees, and people take that risk if they see a bright future. And if they’re looking at higher taxes for their corporation, higher taxes for them individually, if they’re looking at fees or penalties for not having a healthcare plan that Barack Obama finds acceptable and if also they are looking at new efforts to unionize small business through this card check program Barack Obama’s in favor of, they’re simply not going to be thinking about growing jobs here. I listened this morning to a CEO of a major employer. I won’t mention his name but a very large employer. He employs over 100,000 people. And he said, look, you know, Barack Obama’s policies will cause us to build plants in places other than the U.S., and it is a job-killing program. We’ve got to support a job program like John McCain’s. John McCain is talking about cutting taxes on corporations, it immediately sounds horrible to people because of the perversion that we’ve allowed to happen, you know, with our press and everything else, where corporations are evil, where rich people are evil. Explain, if you will, to you know the average person that is struggling, busting their butt. Why a corporation getting a giant tax cut, why that makes a difference in creating jobs here in America as opposed to other countries.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, the simple fact is that corporations can decide where they are going to reside, where they are going to do their business. And they can be here, they can be in Ireland, they can be in Canada, they can be anywhere they want in the world and right now America and Japan have the two highest corporate tax rates in the world and so as businesses think about locating a new facility or even moving their corporate headquarters, they are free to go wherever they want. They are not like U.S. citizens that don’t have citizenship in a place like Hong Kong or China or Japan. They can go wherever they want. And so if you have high taxes, high corporate taxes, you cause businesses to go somewhere else. It’s as simple as that. In Ireland, for instance, the European Union, they said, you know what, we’re going to have the lowest tax rates. And sure enough businesses flocked to Ireland. They created scores of new jobs. People had high paying jobs. It was good for the people and it was good for the government as well because they got taxes from all the people paying income taxes. The answer is always create growth, create jobs. A job is so much more of an economic benefit than is a check from government.

GLENN: Mitt, let me talk to you not about politics and no about either of the politicians. Let’s just say we’re having this conversation the day after and whoever’s won, whoever won, okay?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Yeah.

GLENN: I said earlier this morning I believe this is the most important — and I will say this the day after the election, no matter who won. This is the most important time possibly in American history. The problems that face us, the decisions that we have to make, the time to know who we truly are and what we truly believe in, the values of America, we must reconnect with them because this is quite possibly the most important time in our country’s history. Do you believe I’m overstating that?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: No, I actually think you’re right, Glenn. You know, in my campaign stump speech I used to say almost that, which is this is an extraordinarily critical time for our country. We face challenges from without. We face a new stronger China, we face Russia using energy to propel their new power and we face global jihad. So we face three fronts, if you will, from a national security standpoint. And then our economy is facing some tough competitive challenges. And if we become a second tier nation economically, we will have a hard time defending our freedoms. This really is a “Make it or break it” time for America.

GLENN: I know we have to let you go, you have other things scheduled but we’d love to have you back sometime this week if we could. I’d like to talk to you a little bit about the importance that Russia and Venezuela and Iran and what — everybody is looking at oil saying, oil, this is great, it’s going down. They are talking now it could go down to $46 a barrel, which would be great at the pump, but it is a colossal danger because these countries that we depend on for oil are now becoming extraordinarily unstable economically. Could we spend some time with you maybe later this week if we can get the schedules together?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: I’m out campaigning for John McCain but we’ll keep in touch.

GLENN: Okay, thank you very much.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Thanks, Glenn.

Share on Facebook

Share This

Share on Facebook

Share This

Hat Tip Neal Jones at NY for Mitt

Share on Facebook

Share This

As most of you know on this blog, we try to keep most “religion talk” off of this blog. Since it’s been such a pointed issue for Governor Romney, it’s normally met with scorn. Well, to those of us that are LDS we lost our dear beloved “Prophet, Seer, and Revelator” this week. His name was Gordon B. Hinckley, and throughout his entire membership in the LDS Church, particularly during his Presidency he affected so many people. His sweet disposition was very unique is that he always spoke so kindly to others.

Glen Beck (who also is a member of my faith) did a tribute to this beloved man, and here it is. I hope that those LDS and Non-LDS alike can take something very positive from it, and positively change the world.

P.S. There is a great shot of President Reagan and President Hinckley in this video.

Share on Facebook

Share This

Hat tip to reader Sadie for this article! 

Looks like Morning Joe isn’t the only one finally saying something about this.  Glenn Beck had this to say yesterday:

Apparently we do have some sort of a rule developing here that I just don’t understand. The truly important primaries are the ones that Romney doesn’t win….This is the new rule. It’s very hard, but once they put it up in a chart with just a slogan, if Romney wins, it’s not important. You mark my words. Florida is suddenly not going to be important.

I found this next part on Nevada very interesting.  Living in Nevada, and hearing the polls here, I really was worried that Mitt might not win here.  I’m still trying to figure out how the polls could have been THAT FAR off:

Nevada, however, is a different story. I mean, it’s obvious now. This is what they’re reporting. It is obvious that Romney was going to win, wildly expected, spent so much money. Romney was the man to win, wildly expected. Really? It was? That’s weird. Six days, six days before the caucus in Nevada, it was a 4-point lead for John McCain. By the way, that lead was not over Romney. That lead was over Giuliani. Romney was not only behind McCain at 22%, Giuliani at 18%. He was also behind Huckabee at 16%. Romney in Nevada, six days before the election at 15%. Some polls had him with a lead but nothing like the 51/14 win he wound up pulling off, Ron Paul coming in second. Now, does this give him any momentum? Of course not. People today are saying if he doesn’t win Florida, he should drop out.

Click below to read the entire article (hope I do this right).

More »

Share on Facebook

Share This

Last Thursday about 45 minutes before Governor Romney began his Faith in America speech, Kevin Anderson and I walked out of the media room and standing there was Glenn Beck speaking to a reporter who was taking notes. We waited until she finished and approached him for a few questions ourselves.

Next to him was his “manager” who was seemed 7′ 11″ tall and who could not smile. We were all waiting for the Secret Service to finish sweeping the conference room. We spoke for about 10 minutes. Following are my notes of our discussion. These are based on my crude notes and best recollection and are not exact quotes.

In the last 10 weeks or so, I had heard a couple of times that Beck had endorsed Giuliani. I asked him if that were true and he said something like,

Oh no! I have not endorsed anybody yet. What you may have heard was that once a month we take an informal survey of our staff, we tell them, ‘If you had a gun to your head and you had to make a choice of one candidate right now, who would you vote for?’ Back in October (I believe that was the month he mentioned), I chose Giuliani based purely on my perception of his stance on the war on terror.

In one of Beck’s shows, I was told that he mentioned the bias that can creep into Wikipedia postings and how I was hoping he could assist us in finding a good source (someone with override authority) to edit the Romney Wikipedia site. He said he had members of his team who could help and gave me a card of his manager for follow-up.

Then, I said that as an LDS member, I find it a challenge to get other members of the church excited enough to get involved in supporting Governor Romney. The response I get most often is that they don’t want to appear to support Governor Romney simply because of his religion; so many just don’t get involved at all. That it is frustrating at times, etc. He replied,

You know, that is very interesting. When I last interviewed Governor Romney, I told him that I am much tougher in my line of questioning of him simply because I am of the same faith. I am much tougher on Governor Romney than I am of other presidential candidates.

I had rather hoped that a) he would offer his advice as to how to better influence LDS members to get more involved in grassroots efforts in support of Governor Romney, or b) that he would consider using his own influence to get members to step up at this important time. Our conversation was cut short when the Secret Service gave the clearance to enter the room to take our seats.

Immediately following the speech, Beck met Governor Romney briefly among “the press” of people as you can see here.

~ Vic

Help Governor Romney get his message out — PLEASE CONTRIBUTE HERE, NOW

Share on Facebook

Share This