Below is what I wrote to the people who represent me in the U.S. Senate.
- Sherrod Brown (D)
- Rob Portman (R)
The subject is an omnibus spending bill.
Please vote against the proposed $1.7 trillion fiscal 2023 spending bill. Passing a huge bill at the last minute is crooked. Who is going to have the time to read 4000 pages, especially just as we are going into the holidays? Proposing legislation at the last minute so that we have to pass it in order to find out what it is in it is just plain crooked. It is no way to run a constitutional republic.
The members of the U.S. Senate are supposed to be members of the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” but you won’t have time to seriously debate what is in that bill. In fact, the advocates for that bill are almost certainly counting upon the fact the public is not paying attention because of Christmas. So, if you vote for that bill now, when it is almost certainly filled with pork and bad laws, that will make you complicit in their fraud.
Approving that bill will make you complicit in fraud, waste, and abuse. If you don’t want to be exposed once again as frauds, crooked legislators trying to deceive their constituents, then kill the bill. Vote against it, and vote for a simple, straightforward continuing resolution.
Citizen Tom 
You wrote, “…Our unwillingness to make the effort to hold our leaders accountable is our nation’s most fundamental problem….” (and that is exactly the reason that we will see more would be despots fomenting more insurrections against our democracy in the future — The last on that tried it will walk completely free and those coming down the pike will copycat his actions if they find it convenient. This is how dictatorships are born.
It seems you are referring to what I said in this comment, => https://citizentom.com/2022/12/20/a-note-for-my-senators/#comment-106311.
You are just spouting nonsense. It is kind of weird how Liberal Democrats have to turn everything into an attack on President Donald Trump. Silly thing to do. Trump cannot be responsible for every evil in the world. He is only human.
I was at the Jan 6 rally you are obviously complaining about. I listened to President Trump. President Trump explicitly called for a peaceful demonstration. Except for the police, no guns were used. The only person killed was unarmed woman. She was shot by a policeman. Since she was obviously breaking into the building, I don’t blame the policeman. Some have said that policeman used excessive force, but what should we expect when if we break into the Capitol when Congress is in session?
Unlike the George Floyd death rioters of 2020 — even those rioters who violently assaulted Federal Buildings, including the White House — the FBI enthusiastically held the Jan 6 rioters at the Capitol accountable.
This is the only thing I question … “He is only human.” That might be a technicality.
Trump may think so, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love the country. Stop believing Liberal Democrats and their propagandists.
I will stop believing Liberal Democrats and their propagandists if you will stop believing the Radical Right Wing Republican propagandists. Fair is fair!
So, I am supposed to stop believing the Bible is true and a constitutional republic is a decent way to govern ourselves? That is your idea of fair?
No, you are not supposed to stop believing the Bible but I would like to remind you that the Bible is not intended for individual interpretation and individual interpretation is what too many people are doing with the Bible these days. It takes quite an educational background to be able to discuss the Bible iintellligently and people who try to make the Gospels of Jesus Christ into political positions are in grave error because even Jesus was not opposed to secular government, his big fight was with the church of the time in which He was physically on the earth. (Render unto Caesar). I favor the idea of a constitutional republic with all my might but I do not care for the idea of a constitutional republic that would be rebuilt into the fascist image that some of our right wing radicals would have it reshaped into. I am still hearing echoes of MGT’s claim that if she had been leading the insurrection at the Capitol, she and her gang would have come armed and would have won. This kind of idiot pledged to protect the constitution and here she is already talking about how she would have gone about overthrowing it. My idea of fair is for the political parties to stop fighting against one another and get back to the across-the-table bargaining that was used back in the day when we had a functional government. But we have become so big and so diverse and so divided that I doubt we would ever see that kind of balance in our government ever again.
So, it okay for me to believe the Bible so long as I let some expert who doesn’t believe it tell me what it says?
Here is an older translation of the verse you are alluding to.
Let’s add a little context.
What is meant by “private’ interpretation? Some of the more recent translations try to clarify that.
The point is that the Holy Spirit is the origin of what we read in the Bible, not man. So, we need to take scripture very seriously.
The Bible has much to say about government. The Old Testament is filled with stories about kings and written by kings, for example. The New Testament tells us about Jesus Christ who was executed at the order of a government official. Pontius Pilate had his soldiers kill Jesus because the Sanhedrin feared Jesus. Why?
What about what Jesus said about “render unto Caesar? Read this => https://citizentom.com/2018/06/28/he-is-quoting-scripture-at-me-now-what-do-i-do-part-3/.
I don’t know who MGT is. I suppose you are talking about Rep. Marjorie Tayler Greene. Because the so-called mainstream news media uses her as a foil, I am supposed to? If she did not exist, they would use someone else. If nothing else they would do to someone what they did to Trump and misquote them.
I ceased believing the mainstream news media. Those people lie too much.
We don’t have what you would call a functional government because we are trying to make Socialism work. It doesn’t. Socialism is based upon the notion that the majority of the people decide everything, that there are no individual rights. Such a government is unrestrained. Eventually, majoritarian tyranny leads to plain old tyranny.
We are already at the point that we have cronies working together to rob us and throw their opponents in jail. Sooner or later they will openly suppress our First and Second Amendment rights. Then this country will start to look like China.
I am so glad that you have it all worked out, Tom and I hope it is working for you.
I don’t think anyone has it all worked out, but God does, fortunately.
Read this => https://justthenews.com/government/congress/pelosis-jan-6-story-unravels-evidence-mounts-capitol-breach-was-preventable
Just The News is one of those right-wing echo chambers. I will not lay eyes on it again.
Of you won’t. The truth hurts.
I love Truth and that is why I avoid right wing rags.
I think you have made a fundamentally bad assumption.
The Bible is not a right wing rag. The Bible is apolitical. But there is one passage from that Psalm that I pay attention to … the one that says, “The Lord opens the eyes of those who are blind;” I think The Lord needs to do a little more of that kind of work with the crazies from the radical right — as well as to some on the Left as well.
The Bible is apolitical? Did you know that Jesus is our priest, our prophet, and our king? Kings don’t care about the conduct of government?
I suggest you read the following passage. Then I have a question for you.
Roman authorities were not friendly to Christians. Eventually, the Apostle Paul had his head chopped off at Ceasar’s order. Nevertheless, so long as what the government commanded did not conflict with God’s commands, Paul and the other apostles counselled obedience to the governing authorities.
Problem? Who are the governing authorities? At what point does the Bible allow us to rebel against one governing authority and turn to another? Does God have anything to say?
Here is a real-world example. The people of this country rebelled against the King of the United Kingdom. To justify themselves, the rebels came together and wrote the Declaration of Independence. Please read it => https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs.
I suggest you stop playing the game of “I am superior to everybody” and remember that Jesus plainly told somebody that his kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus also said a lot of other things. Cherry-picking what He said can produce some rather strange conclusions, like a book that talks about the Law is apolitical. You are not the only one making the assertion that the Bible is apolitical, but all it means is that you adopted the position of people who have not read the book and thought about what its says.
There are quite a few governments who would like to make us ashamed of Jesus.
I have studied the Bible for more years than you have been alive and I am, indeed, an ordained minister in the Pentecostal faith. Make of that what you will.
Not relevant. The Bible is not about either me or you. It is about Jesus.
Tom.
If I sent your same request my Illinois Senators, it would be a total waste of time, in my opinion.
Regards amd goodwills blogging.
Half the battle is just showing up. The other half is fighting until your side wins. But first we have to decide to fight.
Tom
Showing up” will not worke in Illinois
See my reply to a blogger on one of my previous posts.
aputnam1980
12/21/2022 at 7:55 PM Edit
Michigan has a group that gathers information ahead of election to introduce us to candidates and pending legislation. I think it’s called Michigan Family Forum.
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scatterwisdom
12/22/2022 at 7:15 AM Edit
Thanks for your comment.
The reason it will never work in Illinois is because Illinois has more people employed by government families than any State in the USA. When it comes time to vote, every employed government employee or worker who obtains employment from government contracts, or union member will vote for the person who their job depends on along with thier family and friends.
Makes it almost impossible to win an election from an incumbent who has a head start number of votes because they believe their joy would be in jeopardy if “their guy” doesn’t win…
the only cure is for Illinois is to have term limits which requires incumbents to approve. and failed every attempt over the years.
Regards
Regards and goodwill blogging
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Or in other words, the only way to rid an incumbent in Illinois is to have Feds investigate and charge them for their crimes and send them to jail including three governors already.
scatterwisdom
In time our constitutional republic will fall. Nothing we do lasts forever. Nevertheless, we are called to do good works.
If the good works we are called to do seem hopeless, should we give up? No. We just need to remember that if we succeed it is because He may it possible so that we might give the glory to Him.
Ha, Tom, the Senate has not been the “worlds greatest governing body” in a long, long time. And 4,000 pages for deliberation a few days before the holidays? They don’t even try to act like the they have shame anymore, they know they won’t face accountability.
Our unwillingness to make the effort to hold our leaders accountable is our nation’s most fundamental problem. The desire of our leaders to be unaccountable is why they want to flood our nation with uneducated illegal aliens. The desire of our leaders to be unaccountable is why they insist upon educating our children in awful public schools. So it is that for the sake of being held unaccountable for their fraud, waste, and abuse they are destroying our country, and they know it. If they thought they are scoring some kind of great victory, they would not try to hide what they are doing.
For the sake of being lazy, most people are not willing to stop our leaders from robbing our people, including their own children. That is an example of why sloth is one of the seven deadly sins.
The Roman Empire died from the addiction of the people to cheap bread and the slaughter in their “circuses.” They allowed their leaders to buy them off with something worse than worthless. We are no better. Will we even do as they eventually did? Repent and ask our Lord for His forgiveness?