Some mood music:

On Monday, January 4, 2021, the night before the last of the 2020 general election contests…we hope…maybe…if a number of states don’t have to be done all over again…President Donald J. Trump will be headlining one of his signature rallies in the state of Georgia where any number of contests are in question, not just the senate and presidential races.

The mainstream media sorts are not amused. From CNN via MSN:

President Donald Trump is scheduled to headline a 9 p.m. ET rally for a pair of Georgia Republican Senate candidates, but his election eve appearance has GOP officials in Georgia and in Washington worried in the wake of his recently publicized call pressuring an election official over the November results.

The President’s presence at the Dalton, Georgia, rally would normally be a welcome sight for Republicans just one day before the runoffs — races that will determine which party controls the Senate. A big crowd for the President is expected and there is evidence that Trump’s presence will help turn out GOP voters.

But some Republicans are convinced the President, who unsuccessfully pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes that would tilt the balance in Trump’s favor, will spend far more time focused on his baseless electoral fraud claims as opposed to rallying his supporters to vote for the Republican ticket of Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

Public statements and private observations by sources familiar with the situation suggest that Trump is fixated with the issues he laid out on the call.

Trump repeatedly pushed for the call with the Georgia secretary of state, two sources familiar said. And between Election Day and Saturday’s phone call, there were 18 attempted calls from the White House to Raffensperger’s office, a source with knowledge and a Georgia state official confirmed to CNN.

And still the man won’t take the president’s call.

These people are stupid.

At any rate, there are some questions that have yet to be answered about tomorrow’s runoff in Georgia:

Not sure what time the lights go out, but which rendition do the readers prefer?

At any rate, RSBN is asking for 400,000 viewers tonight. Let’s make this happen.

This Sanctuary Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.

It is also a place to read, post and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.

In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.

We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.

Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure you’re addressing the issue only, and not trying to confront the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name calling, ridicule, insults, baiting and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.

In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion , outlined here https://wqth.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

Let’s not give the Internet Censors a reason to shut down this intellectual haven that Wolf has created for us.

God Replaces an Evil Government

On Wednesday, we saw how God intervened in the affairs of men, in this case Persian King Nebuchadnezzar, until he knew that “the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.”

As an example of God intervening in the affairs of men to replace an evil government, today’s post involves God’s installment of Josiah as king of Judah. It’s longish, but I think well worth the read, particularly in view of rumored (perhaps much more than rumored) former pagan practices in the White House and possible connections to child trafficking. Also pertinent is the incident of Pope Francis accepting and placing a bowl, earth and plant, dedicated to the false pagan goddess Pachamama on the papal altar in St. Peter’s Basilica.

I don’t intend to single out Catholics here. There are many (far, far too many), Protestant religious leaders who have strayed away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God’s Word.

Manasseh King of Judah

2 Kings 21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. ² He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. ³ He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. ⁴ He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my Name.” ⁵ In the two courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. ⁶ He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.

⁷ He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. ⁸ I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their ancestors, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them.” ⁹ But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰ The Lord said through his servants the prophets: ¹¹ “Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols. ¹² Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. ¹³ I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. ¹⁴ I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and give them into the hands of enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their enemies; ¹⁵ they have done evil in my eyes and have aroused my anger from the day their ancestors came out of Egypt until this day.”

¹⁶ Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

¹⁷ As for the other events of Manasseh’s reign, and all he did, including the sin he committed, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? ¹⁸ Manasseh rested with his ancestors and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. And Amon his son succeeded him as king.

Amon King of Judah

¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah. ²⁰ He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹ He followed completely the ways of his father, worshiping the idols his father had worshiped, and bowing down to them. ²² He forsook the Lord, the God of his ancestors, and did not walk in obedience to him.

²³ Amon’s officials conspired against him and assassinated the king in his palace. ²⁴ Then the people of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon, and they made Josiah his son king in his place.

²⁵ As for the other events of Amon’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? ²⁶ He was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. And Josiah his son succeeded him as king.

The Book of the Law Found

2 Kings 22 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. ² He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

³ In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said: ⁴ “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. ⁵ Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord— ⁶ the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. ⁷ But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.”

⁸ Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. ⁹ Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: “Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the Lord and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple.” ¹⁰ Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.

¹¹ When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. ¹² He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Akbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant: ¹³ “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.”

¹⁴ Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Akbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophet Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter.

¹⁵ She said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ¹⁶ ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷ Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and aroused my anger by all the idols their hands have made,^[a] my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’ ¹⁸ Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: ¹⁹ Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse^[b] and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. ²⁰ Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’”

So they took her answer back to the king.

Josiah Renews the Covenant

2 Kings 23 Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. ² He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. ³ The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

⁴ The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. ⁵ He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. ⁶ He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. ⁷ He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.

⁸ Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. ⁹ Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

¹⁰ He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. ¹¹ He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court^[a] near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.

¹² He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. ¹³ The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. ¹⁴ Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

¹⁵ Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also. ¹⁶ Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.

¹⁷ The king asked, “What is that tombstone I see?”

The people of the city said, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it.”

¹⁸ “Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones and those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

¹⁹ Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had aroused the Lord’s anger. ²⁰ Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

²¹ The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” ²² Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed. ²³ But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. ²⁵ Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

²⁶ Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse his anger. ²⁷ So the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’^[b]”

²⁸ As for the other events of Josiah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁹ While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo. ³⁰ Josiah’s servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

In view of the above, I think that Pope Francis is treading on very thin ice, indeed, with his honoring of the Pachamama bowl. From LifeSiteNews and Archbishop Viganò:

Archbishop Viganò: Is Pope Francis Preparing Us To Accept The Antichrist?

December 23, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, in a new interview with LifeSite, comments on LifeSite’s report that since the first coronavirus lockdown in March, Pope Francis is not anymore using the papal altar in St. Peter’s Basilica for his public Masses, an altar which is situated on top of St. Peter’s tomb. Instead, the Pope is using another altar at the basilica. For Viganò, this papal act is symbolic in light of the fact that Pope Francis himself ordered during the closing Mass of the October 2019 Amazon Synod that a bowl of plants dedicated to the false goddess Pachamama be placed on that very papal altar at St. Peter’s. Not long after that act, the Pope also decided that he would no longer use the title “Vicar of Christ” in the 2020 Vatican Yearbook.

The Italian prelate here finds strong words about the recent developments at St. Peter’s and the Vatican.

“In my opinion,” Viganò writes, “what we are witnessing represents the general rehearsal for the establishment of the kingdom of the Antichrist, which will be preceded by the preaching of the False Prophet, the Precursor of the one who will carry out the final persecution against the Church before Our Lord’s definitive and crushing victory.”

* https://catholictruthblog.com/2020/12/27/archbishop-vigano-is-pope-francis-preparing-us-to-accept-the-antichrist/

God has been very lenient with our country considering the distance we have strayed from Him, for example, since the times of our founding fathers. It would not be far-fetched to think we are now in the midst of a divinely mandated course correction.

Hopefully, PTrump is our Josiah, and we, as a nation, will heed what Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar:
“let my advice be acceptable to you; break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a lengthening of your prosperity.”

If we refuse to listen, we may soon be entering the disaster phase of God’s judgment.

RTFM

That’s an acronym meaning Read The Flippin’ Manual, except it’s not “Flippin'” there in that word starting with F.

The manual is the Supreme Law of the Land, the United States Constitution.

Article II, Section I describes, in the 2nd-4th paragraphs, the means of choosing a President. The third paragraph was replaced by the 12th amendment, but the other two are still current. The fifth paragraph gives the qualifications (including the famous natural born citizen clause). The sixth paragraph discusses succession, but was modified by the 25th amendment.

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1, 2nd Paragraph

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

US Constitution, Article II, Section 2, 4th Paragraph

The second paragraph seems pretty straightforward; legislators get to determine how the electors get picked. In every case, they’ve chosen to defer to a vote of the people in a state. Each party picks a slate of electors who will vote for their nominee, when you cast your ballot for president, you’re really voting for that slate of electors. The fourth paragraph simply states that Congress gets to pick the date on which the electors are chosen, and the date on which they themselves assemble to vote.

There are grounds for complaint here about the 2020 election, since in many states the Legislature’s rules weren’t followed by the election bureaucrats. I know of less controversy regarding Paragraph 4 being violated, though some have tried to claim that with Congress having set Nov 3rd as the date last year, the selection process had to stop at midnight that night.

Congress’s rules for picking electors and when they vote.

The law that Congress passed in order to pick dates is now codified in Title 3 of the United States Code. In fact Title 3 is entirely about the Presidential Election.

Sections 1 and 2 read:

The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President.

Whenever any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct.

US Code Title 3, sections 1 and 2

Section 2 appears to obviate the complaint about the count not having ended at midnight, provided that the individual state’s law allows for it.

Sections 5 and 6 are more painful, but they basically boil down to requiring the states to certify, to the federal government, the names of the electors. Section six mentions votes cast, but it’s votes cast for the electors, not the votes cast by the electors.

If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned.

Section 5

It shall be the duty of the executive of each State, as soon as practicable after the conclusion of the appointment of the electors in such State by the final ascertainment, under and in pursuance of the laws of such State providing for such ascertainment, to communicate by registered mail under the seal of the State to the Archivist of the United States a certificate of such ascertainment of the electors appointed, setting forth the names of such electors and the canvass or other ascertainment under the laws of such State of the number of votes given or cast for each person for whose appointment any and all votes have been given or cast; and it shall also thereupon be the duty of the executive of each State to deliver to the electors of such State, on or before the day on which they are required by section 7 of this title to meet, six duplicate-originals of the same certificate under the seal of the State; and if there shall have been any final determination in a State in the manner provided for by law of a controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, it shall be the duty of the executive of such State, as soon as practicable after such determination, to communicate under the seal of the State to the Archivist of the United States a certificate of such determination in form and manner as the same shall have been made; and the certificate or certificates so received by the Archivist of the United States shall be preserved by him for one year and shall be a part of the public records of his office and shall be open to public inspection; and the Archivist of the United States at the first meeting of Congress thereafter shall transmit to the two Houses of Congress copies in full of each and every such certificate so received at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Section 6

The Electors Vote

Finally, The actual vote by the electors takes place, and the results are sent to the President of the Senate, sections 7-10

The electors of President and Vice President of each State shall meet and give their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment at such place in each State as the legislature of such State shall direct.

Section 7

The electors shall vote for President and Vice President, respectively, in the manner directed by the Constitution.

Section 8

(This would be as specified in Amendment XII, which we’ll get to.)

The electors shall make and sign six certificates of all the votes given by them, each of which certificates shall contain two distinct lists, one of the votes for President and the other of the votes for Vice President, and shall annex to each of the certificates one of the lists of the electors which shall have been furnished to them by direction of the executive of the State.

Section 9

The electors shall seal up the certificates so made by them, and certify upon each that the lists of all the votes of such State given for President, and of all the votes given for Vice President, are contained therein.

Section 10

The electors shall dispose of the certificates so made by them and the lists attached thereto in the following manner:

First. They shall forthwith forward by registered mail one of the same to the President of the Senate at the seat of government.

Second. Two of the same shall be delivered to the secretary of state of the State, one of which shall be held subject to the order of the President of the Senate, the other to be preserved by him for one year and shall be a part of the public records of his office and shall be open to public inspection.

Third. On the day thereafter they shall forward by registered mail two of such certificates and lists to the Archivist of the United States at the seat of government, one of which shall be held subject to the order of the President of the Senate. The other shall be preserved by the Archivist of the United States for one year and shall be a part of the public records of his office and shall be open to public inspection.

Fourth. They shall forthwith cause the other of the certificates and lists to be delivered to the judge of the district in which the electors shall have assembled.

Section 11

[In case someone doesn’t realize this: The “President of the Senate” is the Vice President, at the current time that’s Mike Pence. Or is it? If it’s not him…is there any provision for who is “acting” VP until Trump can nominate, and congress approve, a successor?

UPDATE: Sylvia (she of the shovel) made a point that makes me think this is the wrong question. It’s not “acting VP” we are after, but rather “acting President of the Senate.” (That’s a description, not a formal title.) I strongly suspect that the President Pro Tem steps up when there is no President of the Senate available. As of right now, that President Pro Tem is Chuck Grassley.]

Sections 12 and 13 talk about what happens if the state’s slate of electors isn’t received by the President of the Senate by the 4th Wednesday in December; in essence he goes to the secretary of state for that state and asks him for HIS copy of the certificate; if that fails he then goes to the judge in that jurisdiction.

Section 14 basically says if the messenger doesn’t deliver, he forfeits $1000.

What I don’t see here is any sort of thing Pence had to do by some date in December to reject the certificates he had. There was an awful lot of noise about that for about two days, and whatever it was that Pence was (not) supposed to do, he didn’t do it so a lot of people got upset with him. For what, precisely?

Are some people supposedly on our side making up their own laws here to fit a narrative?

Twelfth Amendment: The Rest of the process.

The original process from Article II, Section I called for each elector to cast two distinct votes for President, neither vote carrying more weight than the other. Whoever came in first would be the next President, whoever came in second became the Vice President. However, one thing our Framers didn’t anticipate (or maybe they did but they certainly didn’t want) were political parties, and this process could, and did, lead to bitter rivals being elected President and Vice President in 1796. So the Twelfth Amendment was passed by Congress, sent to the states, and was ratified by September of 1804.

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;–the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;–The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. [And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.–]The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Amendment XII to the United States Constitution. The bit in the brackets was superseded, in turn, by the XXth Amendment.

Essentially they now had the electors vote for President and Vice President separately, and they modified the rules slightly for what to do if no one got a majority.

Speaking of which: “The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed” would mean that the winner must get 270 votes or more to win at this point in the process. As far as I can discern, no one is disputing that 538 electors have been appointed. Maybe that dispute will be taken up on the 6th of January. And this is probably what American Thinker is imagining Pence could do on Wednesday. If he refuses to acknowledge their appointment somehow, then that reduces the aggregate number of electoral votes.

It doesn’t look, at the moment, like someone’s going to fail to get a majority, but here’s what happens if no presidential candidate gets 270 or more: and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

In other words, the House drops what it is doing, and picks a president from the top three electoral vote winners. However, each state’s delegation casts one vote, so Wyoming has exactly as much to say as does California. At least two thirds of the states (34 or more) must have at least some of their Reps present for this to proceed (the quorum) and the winner must get the votes of at least 26 states. (Not a majority of those present, a majority of all states.)

This doesn’t seem like it would be much of a problem for Trump, provided we can get to that part of the process, because most state delegations are majority Republican. Except of course that I wouldn’t necessarily trust a bunch of RINOs to vote for him. On the other hand their other two options are Biden, and whoever comes in third in electoral votes.

I have heard nothing whatsoever about a third candidate getting any electoral votes from faithless electors. Seven or eight people switched their votes last time. (Countering this point is the claim that the electors vote by secret ballot; I don’t believe this is actually the case as 1) it’s not specified anywhere that they do this and 2) it would be impossible for those states who require the electors vote for their party’s candidate to apply that law. And I do know that some electors last time were replaced on the spot when they refused to vote for Trump or Hitlary.)

(Last time around, Colin Powell got three electoral votes and was therefore in third place. I believe someone was trying to set up an attempt to put him in the White House as a compromise choice if the election were kicked to the House–which it wasn’t.)

Who is third this time around? Is anyone third this time around? Does anyone know? The one source I have (Wikipedia) states there weren’t any. (Take that for what it’s worth.)

But in order to even get to a point where this matters, Joe Biden has to lose a bunch of electoral votes between now and Wednesday. How might this be accomplished?

Run On Legalese

Back to Title 3. Now we’re up to Section 15. And someone ought to be beaten by a rubber hose for this massive run-on pile of verbalistic schiff.

Congress shall be in session on the sixth day of January succeeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the Hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of 1 o’clock in the afternoon on that day, and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said tellers, having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted according to the rules in this subchapter provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the Journals of the two Houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section 5 of this title, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its law; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted. No votes or papers from any other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.

Title 3, Section 15.

At 1 PM on January Sixth, Four appointed “tellers,” two senators and two reps, in the presence of both the House and Senate, presided over by the President of the Senate, open the states’ votes in alphabetical order, and read them off. Last time around, they simply rotated; I remember one of the Senators was Klobuchar. This is normally a ritual; they were even reading from a prepared script.

The President of the Senate then accepts the vote of the state…at which point, it’s final for that state. There is no recourse.

But before that happens, objections can be made from the floor. “Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision;“

Note that all objections to a states vote must be made before the session breaks up. Once they’re done deciding, you can’t object again. You can make 25 objections before and they’re all to be considered simultaneously, but none after. So as I read this, we can’t tie this up simply by filibustering with objections to the same state, over and over. The run-on-sentence champion who wrote this law tried to ensure the process would come to an end someday.

[We will have, however, a very early indicator of how it’s going to go. You see, Arizona is one of the states rotten with fraud, and it’s quite early in the alphabet! I should expect there to be objections, we already have a senator and several house members who say they will do so. When that happens, we will see what comes of it.]

Basically the house and senate can only reject on the grounds that the slate of electors wasn’t valid or didn’t follow the process correctly. THIS IS WHERE ANY ALLEGATION OF ELECTORAL FRAUD WOULD COME INTO PLAY. (Or, if there are two competing slates, they get to pick the right one. Of course a bunch of competing Trump electors sent certificates to Washington, but those may have been rejected as invalid already–apparently the governor didn’t sign them; I’d certainly be surprised if the tellers open them up and read them; if they don’t, then the alternate certificates don’t matter since they haven’t been opened in the joint session. I don’t think anyone knows what happened to all of those alternate slates.)

The problem is, both the House and Senate must uphold the objection(s). If only one agrees, the objection(s) fail. And nothing is specified here about voting by states in the House. That only comes into play when the House selects the president-elect.

Do you expect the House, which will be a narrow Democrat minority on January 6, to uphold any objection to a Biden elector? Do you even trust the RINOs in the Senate to toe the line? The only way I can imagine it happening is if there is a lot of D/RINO absenteeism in both chambers.

I admit that I don’t see the President’s strategy here–what I can think of seems doomed to fail–but it seems pretty obvious that he thinks he has one, else why the Rally? I very earnestly hope he sees something I do not.

So let’s assume someone gets a majority of the electoral vote, or the House gets it and makes a decision in a timely manner. In that case, the person chosen becomes the President-Elect.

There is, at that point no appeal, and no remedy for the loser. As Joe Biden told an objector back in 2017 when no senator would join her objection, “it is over.”

January 6th is Wednesday. By next Friday, when I do my next daily, we will know who the President Elect is, or America will be glued to their TV screens watching Congress deal with an historic mess as we go into Day Three of Congress adjudicating the election.

I’ll close by quoting my own paragraph from five weeks ago.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, this is for all the Chips. After this, GAME OVER. If we lose this, to such blatant fraud, 2024 won’t matter. Trump won’t matter. Politically speaking, nothing on Earth will matter. There will be no recourse within the system.

A Reminder Of Today’s Big Issue.

Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People...Our campaign represents a true existential threat, like they’ve never seen before.

Then-Candidate Donald J. Trump

Needs to happen, soon.

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

Please note that our menu has changed, please listen to all of the options.

This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Political correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines,  here, with an addendum on 20191110.

We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

1. No food fights
2. No running with scissors.
3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
4. The first rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government take your guns.
5. The gun is always loaded.
5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty.
6. Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
7. Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.
8. Be sure of your target and what is behind it.
9. Social Justice Warriors, ANTIFA pukes, BLM hypocrites, and other assorted varieties of Marxists can go copulate with themselves, or if insufficiently limber, may substitute a rusty wire brush suitable for cleaning the bore of a twelve or ten gauge.

(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)

Coin of The Day

Unless I think of something…

Obligatory PSAs/Reminders

Just one more thing, my standard Public Service Announcements. We don’t want to forget any of these!!!

How not to get your ass kicked by the police. Chris Rock in 2007

Granted an “ass kicking” isn’t the same as being shot, but both can result from the same stupid act. You may ultimately beat the rap, but you aren’t going to avoid the ride.

Remember Hong Kong!!! And remember the tens of millions who died under the “Great Helmsman” Chairman Mao.

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

For my money the Great Helmsman is Hikaru Sulu (even if the actor is a dingbat).

The topic for this Sunday and the next will be God installing all authority on earth – kings, princes, presidents, dictators, despots . . . all of them. So, as some background, this post will contain two subjects that relate to that topic.

God Intervenes in the Affairs of Men

Daniel 4
⁴ I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my house, and flourishing in my palace. ⁵ I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts on my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. ⁶ Therefore I issued a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream. ⁷ Then the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers came in, and I told them the dream; but they did not make known to me its interpretation. ⁸ But at last Daniel came before me (his name is Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god; in him is the Spirit of the Holy God), and I told the dream before him, saying: ⁹ “Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, because I know that the Spirit of the Holy God is in you, and no secret troubles you, explain to me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and its interpretation.

¹⁰ “These were the visions of my head while on my bed:

I was looking, and behold,
A tree in the midst of the earth,
And its height was great.
¹¹ The tree grew and became strong;
Its height reached to the heavens,
And it could be seen to the ends of all the earth.
¹² Its leaves were lovely,
Its fruit abundant,
And in it was food for all.
The beasts of the field found shade under it,
The birds of the heavens dwelt in its branches,
And all flesh was fed from it.

¹³ “I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and there was a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven. ¹⁴ He cried aloud and said thus:

‘Chop down the tree and cut off its branches,
Strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.
Let the beasts get out from under it,
And the birds from its branches.
¹⁵ Nevertheless leave the stump and roots in the earth,
Bound with a band of iron and bronze,
In the tender grass of the field.
Let it be wet with the dew of heaven,
And let him graze with the beasts
On the grass of the earth.
¹⁶ Let his heart be changed from that of a man,
Let him be given the heart of a beast,
And let seven times pass over him.

¹⁷ ‘This decision is by the decree of the watchers,
And the sentence by the word of the holy ones,
In order that the living may know
That the Most High rules in the kingdom of men,
Gives it to whomever He will,
And sets over it the lowest of men.’

¹⁸ “This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, have seen. Now you, Belteshazzar, declare its interpretation, since all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known to me the interpretation; but you are able, for the Spirit of the Holy God is in you.”

Daniel Explains the Second Dream

¹⁹ Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonished for a time, and his thoughts troubled him. So the king spoke, and said, “Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its interpretation trouble you.”

Belteshazzar answered and said, “My lord, may the dream concern those who hate you, and its interpretation concern your enemies!

²⁰ “The tree that you saw, which grew and became strong, whose height reached to the heavens and which could be seen by all the earth, ²¹ whose leaves were lovely and its fruit abundant, in which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and in whose branches the birds of the heaven had their home— ²² it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong; for your greatness has grown and reaches to the heavens, and your dominion to the end of the earth.

²³ “And inasmuch as the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave its stump and roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze in the tender grass of the field; let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let him graze with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over him’; ²⁴ this is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king: ²⁵ They shall drive you from men, your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make you eat grass like oxen. They shall wet you with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.

²⁶ “And inasmuch as they gave the command to leave the stump and roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be assured to you, after you come to know that Heaven rules. ²⁷ Therefore, O king, let my advice be acceptable to you; break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a lengthening of your prosperity.”

Nebuchadnezzar’s Humiliation

²⁸ All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. ²⁹ At the end of the twelve months he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon. ³⁰ The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”

³¹ While the word was still in the king’s mouth, a voice fell from heaven: “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you! ³² And they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen; and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.”

³³ That very hour the word was fulfilled concerning Nebuchadnezzar; he was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.

Nebuchadnezzar Praises God

³⁴ And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever:

For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
And His kingdom is from generation to generation.
³⁵ All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to Him, “What have You done?”

³⁶ At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my honor and splendor returned to me. My counselors and nobles resorted to me, I was restored to my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to me. ³⁷ Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice. And those who walk in pride He is able to put down.

God Governs in the Affairs of Men

In 1787 at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at a critical juncture in the writing of the U.S. Constitution, Benjamin Franklin addressed the President of the Convention: “I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, That God governs in the affairs of men! We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it!’ [Psalm 127:1]

I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

“I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning and that one of more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.”

*http://www.learnthebible.org/thoughts-meditations/god-governs-in-the-affairs-of-men.html

This Sanctuary Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.

It is also a place to read, post and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.

In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.

We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.

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In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion , outlined here https://wqth.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

Let’s not give the Internet Censors a reason to shut down this intellectual haven that Wolf has created for us.

The Storm is upon us.
Please remember to Pray for our President.

AND WHAT TIME IS IT?
TIME TO DRAIN THE SWAMP!!!

It’s time to replace
a failed and CORRUPT political establishment
with a new government
controlled by you, the American People.
~ Candidate Donald J. Trump

Also remember Wheatie’s Rules:

1. No food fights.
2. No running with scissors.
3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.

And,

On this day and every day –

God is in Control
. . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . .
Keep Looking Up

Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.

“This day is holy to the Lord your God;
do not mourn nor weep.” . . .
“Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,
and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared;
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not sorrow,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

First Things First

This is the time of year when many of us think about making some resolutions for the new year, even though we know that our efforts, in general, will meet with something short of success in far less time than we would have imagined.

So, what is it that we might put on our “shoot for success but miss” list for 2021? The most popular New Year’s resolutions seem to deal with something that will improve us personally: exercise more, lose weight, get organized, learn a new skill or hobby, live life to the fullest, save more money / spend less money, quit smoking, spend more time with family and friends, travel more, or read more.

Now, if we look at this situation as Christians, and we are, we would want to choose New Year’s resolutions that would benefit us in our Christian walk . . . such as work at developing more characteristics like those of the Fruit of the Spirit, read and study the Bible more, improve my prayer life, get involved in more church activities or be a better witness.

All those are well and good, but if we think of our lives as Christians, we wouldn’t want to choose resolutions that make sense to us but, rather, we’d choose resolutions that reflect what God wants for us.

Attempting to accomplish all things that God’s Word says Christians should be and do is a very large task, and it reminds me of making a list of things that we think are good things to do and then working off the items that are on the list. I don’t think this is what God wants to see from us. I think He wants, rather than us working off a list, is for us to change our hearts, so that the items on the list come naturally as a result.

So, thinking about resolutions this way, perhaps the items we need to concentrate on aren’t on a giant list of thousands, but could be summed up by the two greatest commandments: to love God with all our heart, mind and soul and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

I think we’re narrowing in on our answer here. We need to concentrate on developing love in our Christian walk . . . specifically, agapé love, love that is a motivation for action that we are free to choose or reject.  Agapé is a sacrificial love that voluntarily suffers inconvenience, discomfort, and even death for the benefit of another without expecting anything in return.

So, what does that specifically mean . . . to agapé God? I think it means that we should go out of our way to do what God wants, for His glory, even though at the time we may feel that it isn’t something we necessarily want to do.

And agapé our neighbors? Agapé love is patient and kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Agapé love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Agapé love never fails. This is how we should treat those around us.

But, once again, I think I’m missing something important here. Developing more agapé love in my Christian walk is undoubtedly very important, but is that what God thinks is paramount?

Well, we go to God’s Word for the answer here. What better place to go to find out what God wants. First things must come first. So . . . what’s first?

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus, although speaking about not having anxiety over even the essentials of our lives (our food, something to drink and adequate clothing), gives us a clear priority: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness . . .”

So, OK, just what is this Kingdom of God that we’re supposed to seek first? Again from God’s Word:

“For the kingdom of God is . . . a matter of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit . . .” Righteousness first, then peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Naturally, the question arises, “How do I go about getting this righteousness?” I know that it’s not inherent in me, and I’m certainly not showing righteousness by all that I do in the world today.

Back to God’s Word. “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ” .

The concept of faith counted as righteousness is not a new concept. Way back in Genesis, “Abram had faith in the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.”, and “For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith.”

So, our righteousness comes from faith in Christ and in God. We are to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and not lean on our own understanding.

Christ and the Holy Spirit are within us . . . Christ our righteousness reconciles our sinful nature with God and God’s Holy Spirit works within us to change us, well, probably in every way on our giant list of thousands . . . and more.

So, for me, my New Year’s resolution is to acknowledge Him as supreme in every facet of my life and trust Him to make those changes in me that He sees fit . . . to give the things of the world in my life to God, trusting that He will ensure that “. . . all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Now, this can’t be a “state it and forget” it resolution. My part, with the proddings and support of the Holy Spirit, is to continually recognize that it is God who is in control of my life, always, in every way, and to trust Him to lead me down the proper paths.

The Battle of Trenton

First off I have to burst some bubbles–any that have survived the past couple of weeks.

The Battle of Trenton did not happen on Christmas Day after a crossing of the partially frozen Delaware on Christmas Eve.

No, it happened the day after Christmas after a crossing begun on Christmas. (Christmas night in modern reckoning versus Christmas Eve(ning) in Biblical reckoning where days started at sunset, not midnight. I’d wager the subtle difference between “eve” and “evening” is where the confusion stems from.)

And we didn’t kill them in their beds. Although we had some surprise on our side, they had time to get out of bed and make several daring attempts to win the battle.

Nevertheless, I have no doubt that, to alter the popular meme, we would be willing to kill agents of tyranny in their beds on Christmas, if we had to.

Speaking of “had to,” the United States absolutely had to win the Battle of Trenton. It would, by most standards and under most circumstances be a very minor battle, hardly worth noting, but it is instead often listed as one of the battles that shaped not just American, but World history.

As of Christmas morning, the Continental Army was getting its ass kicked. And everyone knew it. Morale was at near rock bottom. Washington had been in retreat since the previous summer, having been kicked out of New York and been chased across New Jersey into Pennsylvania. The army was now encamped near Philadelphia, and many of the soldiers’ enlistments would end in January; they could go home, having fulfilled their obligations.

And many of them were certainly planning to go home believing the Revolution to be a lost cause, and in so doing, they would make it so.

Washington himself had yet to really prove himself as a commander, too. His time in the French and Indian War was no triumph (in fact many historians blame his blunders there for helping to trigger the world-wide Seven Year’s War, which qualified as a “world war” in Winston Churchill’s estimation). And, thus far his record in this war was less than stellar. The scorecard of actual battles was less than inspiring.

Fortunately, George Washington was capable of learning from his mistakes. (Which if you think about it, is not as common as it should be.)

And also fortunately, there’s a lot more to being a general than being able to win battles. You have to have the strategic vision, the grasp of the big picture, to know when to fight and when to cut your losses and run, to fight another day.

Earlier this year I chose to highlight the 1812 Overture and Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and that was a perfect example. The Russian general there, Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, who had taken command after Napoleon had seized Smolensk, understood one thing: Meeting Napoleon head-to-head would be disastrous. Napoleon was very good at winning battles. But Napoleon had, as it turned out, blundered at a strategic level in invading Russia in the first place. It would only work if he could win quickly. Kutuzov could see that his job was to ensure that Napoleon did not win quickly, to not give him the head-to-head confrontation he needed, after which the Russian winter would take care of things. Not that the Russians engaged in no combat at all; they went after Napoleon’s lengthening supply lines relentlessly, and in what was perhaps the bloodiest one day battle since Hannibal annihilated five Roman legions at Cannae in the third century BCE, bloodied Napoleon at Borodino so badly that, though Napoleon won that battle, it qualified as a Pyrrhic victory. But Kutuzov mostly retreated, trading one thing Russia had in abundance–space–for strategic advantage. They even let Napoleon have Moscow, the old traditional capital of the Russian Empire, but they made sure that it was worse than useless to him.

Kutuzov was widely criticized as a do-nothing commander. And even his sovereign, Alexander I, grandson of Catherine the Great, was in some danger of being taken out in a palace coup.

But Kutuzov was right, as it turned out.

But the War of 1812 (either one) was off in the future.

In 1776, George Washington was right to retreat when he did. He still had a force to use, instead of having been annihilated and us having Queen Elizabeth’s mug on our money today, and the Declaration of Independence being such an obscure footnote in history that one would have to do serious digging on the internet to even find the text–if anyone gave a enough of a damn to even ask what was in it.

Thus the task in December of 1776 was to leverage that tiny force. To win a victory. To show potential allies that we had the stick-to-it-iveness to see this through. For example France, much as it wanted to give England a bloody nose if not a crushed windpipe, wasn’t going to risk its own existence if it thought we would fold quickly and thus allow England to bring the troops home and use them directly against the French.

But the most important reason to win a victory is that without some kind of victory the Continental Army would effectively cease to exist on 1 January 1777. Ninety percent of those who had fought in New York earlier that year were gone. Many were deserting. Washington himself wrote, to his cousin in Virginia, “I think the game is pretty near up.”

The Army was camped at Valley Forge, near Philadelphia, about 2400 men. A detachment of the Hessian Auxiliaries that had helped chase Washington was camped across the river in Trenton. This was about 1400 men in four regiments. It looked like it was a mere matter of waiting for good fighting weather in Spring, and Washington, with his depleted army, could be taken out if he hadn’t already surrendered, and it would be over.

In fact it could happen before that; Washington expected General Howe, with yet other troops, to cross the river to finish him off, once the river completely froze over.

But what if we could pull off a sneak attack? The Hessians weren’t expecting anyone to want to fight in this brutally cold weather. But they were professionals; they’d stand and fight and clobber the amateur Continental army if there were any warning at all. But caught off guard with their figurative pants down they could perhaps be beaten, proving to the world but most importantly to our own men, that we could win.

The first part of this was “intel” or intelligence gathering. One thing that we had going for us throughout the entire war was better intel than the British, and this time was no exception. I’ll just quote Wikipedia here:

George Washington had stationed a spy named John Honeyman, posing as a Tory, in Trenton. Honeyman had served with Major General James Wolfe in Quebec at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13, 1759, and had no trouble establishing his credentials as a Tory. Honeyman was a butcher and bartender, who traded with the British and Hessians. This enabled him to gather intelligence and to convince the Hessians that the Continental Army was in such a low state of morale that they would not attack Trenton. Shortly before Christmas, he arranged to be captured by the Continental Army, who had orders to bring him to Washington unharmed. After being questioned by Washington, he was imprisoned in a hut to be tried as a Tory in the morning, but a small fire broke out nearby, enabling him to “escape”.

Wikipdia, Battle of Trenton

The actual plan of battle was to attack Trenton from three directions; the main force would cross the Delaware well north of Trenton and split into two forces commanded by Sullivan and Greene, while another force under Ewing would cross to the south, seize the bridge at Assunpink (another battle would be fought there a few months later) to cut off any Hessian retreat. Yet a third group under Cadwalader would launch a diversionary attack on a British garrison at Bordentown, to cut off any reinforcements.

This battle plan was not conceived overnight; Washington had been working this for weeks. He had ordered raids harassing the Hessians, and the Brits even got some indication he was planning something, they just didn’t know when. Colonel Rall, in command of the Hessians, was no dummy, he had asked for permission to place units strategically to thwart a move against his force, but his request was denied.

So it was Christmas night (as opposed to Christmas eve) that we struck.

Any movement would have to be done as stealthily as possible, which today means shut off all the electronics and move at night and hope the enemy doesn’t have night vision, but back then simply meant to move at night and hope no one noticed.

Because it would be dark, our forces needed a password in case they blundered into each other in the dark. The one chosen was “Victory or Death.”

Indeed.

The actual crossing of the river had mixed results. It went too slowly, in fact it didn’t end until 3AM, when the plan called for it to be done by midnight. Washington had to give up hope of a pre-dawn attack. Worse, both Cadwalader, who was supposed to attack potential British reinforcements at Bordentown, and Ewing, who was supposed to secure the Assunpink bridge, were unable to do anything on account of weather.

It looked like a mess.

Washington, however, had no choice but to press on.

I’ll quote Wikipoo again:

At 4:00 am, the soldiers began to march towards Trenton.^[32] Along the way, several civilians joined as volunteers and led as guides (such as John Mott) because of their knowledge of the terrain.^[33] After marching 1.5 miles (2.4 km) through winding roads into the wind, they reached Bear Tavern, where they turned right.^[34] The ground was slippery, but it was level, making it easier for the horses and artillery. They began to make better time.^[34] They soon reached Jacobs Creek, where, with difficulty, the Americans made it across.^[35] The two groups stayed together until they reached Birmingham, where they split apart.^[7] Soon after, they reached the house of Benjamin Moore, where the family offered food and drink to Washington.^[36] At this point, the first signs of daylight began to appear.^[36] Many of the troops did not have boots, so they were forced to wear rags around their feet. Some of the men’s feet bled, turning the snow to a dark red. Two men died on the march.^[37]

As they marched, Washington rode up and down the line, encouraging the men to continue.^[28] General Sullivan sent a courier to tell Washington that the weather was wetting his men’s gunpowder. Washington replied, “Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton.”^[38]

About 2 miles (3 km) outside the town, the main columns reunited with the advance parties.^[39] They were startled by the sudden appearance of 50 armed men, but they were American. Led by Adam Stephen, they had not known about the plan to attack Trenton and had attacked a Hessian outpost.^[40] Washington feared the Hessians would have been put on guard, and shouted at Stephen, “You sir! You Sir, may have ruined all my plans by having them put on their guard.”^[40] Despite this, Washington ordered the advance continue to Trenton. In the event, Rall thought the first raid was the attack which Grant had warned him about, and that there would be no further action that day.^[41]

Sheer dumb luck. Rall had actually been lulled, not alerted, by the mistaken raid, imagining that was all that Washington had planned to do. But “sheer dumb luck” often turns history, in good directions as well as bad directions.

(Sheer dumb luck gives writers of alternate history novels all sorts of job opportunities. One such, who writes under the name of Harry Turtledove, has written books predicated on the assumption we lost the Revolutionary War early, and England had nevertheless learned a lesson and given us autonomy, like they would do in Canada, Australia and South Africa, and books based on the Union not finding the Confederacy’s battle plans before Antietam–wrapped around some cigars a Confederate had dropped.)

There were skirmishes at 8 AM and the element of surprise would soon be lost. Washington sent a detachment to block the road to Princeton; when it arrived it attacked a Hessian unit, and the commander of that unit, Wierderholdt, realized what was going on; this wasn’t some dinky raid. This. Was. It.

Meanwhile at Trenton we had entered the town and the Hessians were awake and forming up. Our artillery still on the other side of the river opened up to great effect, as did the few cannon that had been brought across. The Hessians tried to take the cannon, but failed; they may have been in Trenton, but they already had lost control of the town. They made a number of attempts to take it back, all failing.

In the end, the Hessians lost 22 men killed in action, one of them Rall, who had been mortally wounded. Another 89 were wounded. Including those wounded, 896 Hessians were captured.

On our side, two men had died on the march (not the combat itself), and five wounded (no deaths) in the battle, including a near fatal wound to the wound of a soldier named James Monroe. (Yes, that Monroe, whose last name is mistakenly thought to be “Doctrine,” the last president from among the Founders.)

However, we lost enough men during the subsequent days, from exhaustion, illness, and exposure, that in reality we may have lost more men than did the Hessians.

This was, nevertheless, a tactical triumph, and that is what we needed, strategically, to stay in the war, to go on to ultimately break the British in the northern United States at Saratoga, bring the French and their navy into the war, and ultimately trap the British at Yorktown.

However many died following Trenton, their deaths were certainly not in vain, and as a result no earlier Patriot deaths were, either.

And Queen Elizabeth does not appear on our money. But George Washington, head of our military effort, and Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence that Washington and his men were fighting to make stick, do.

I could spend some time drawing parallels between our situation today and this situation back then, but I’ll just point the criticality of the situation, how there would (will) be no Summer of 1777 (or election of 2024) for America without a victory now.

Postscript

It has been my custom for a number of years to deliberately fly the Betsy Ross flag overnight on this one night, December 25/26, to commemorate this event. Yes, it’s technically illegal to do so without illuminating it, and the Betsy Ross “thirteen stars in a circle” flag is probably a myth anyway, but there it is.

This year, and in this crisis, I’ve been flying Old Glory (50 stars) 24/7 with a Trump flag, and it will remain that way until this is resolved, one way or another. I’ve thus missed doing a special flag “thing” for such eminent holidays as the USMC birthday (November 10), Veteran’s Day (November 11), Pearl Harbor Day (Dec. 7), Bill of Rights Day (Dec. 15), and the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party (Dec. 16). [For this alone, Biden’s future grave deserves to be pissed on.]

But I did take down the 50 star old glory and raise Betsy Ross in its place, this time. And I got to inspect my flags in so doing. The US flag is a high quality item but is definitely fraying on the lower fly. I’ll need a new one January 21. (If Joe Biden has his way, though, I might not bother, as I’d have a strong urge to fly it upside down in distress.) The Trump flag is a cheap print, and has been disintegrating fly-hoistwards, most of the P is gone and it’s a TRUMI flag, soon to be a TRUM flag as even most of the vertical is gone.

Justice Must Be done.

Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People...Our campaign represents a true existential threat, like they’ve never seen before.

Then-Candidate Donald J. Trump

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Poltical correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines,  here, with an addendum on 20191110.

We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

1. No food fights
2. No running with scissors.
3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
4. Zeroth rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government get your guns.
5. Rule one of gun safety: The gun is always loaded.
5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty.
6. Rule two of gun safety: Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
7. Rule three: Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.
8. Rule the fourth: Be sure of your target and what is behind it.

(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)

The Mandatory Coin

Unlike last week, where I simply couldn’t think of anything, I have a topic in mind.

How did the Continental Congress pay for things?

War was expensive. The materiel wasn’t so bad, not then, especially when soldiers would live off the land. But we had to pay those soldiers, and we had no “real” money of silver or gold to speak of. England had done its best to bleed us dry long before the war happened. The idea of a colony, after all, was to send money home, not have it circulate in the colony and certainly not to have the colony send any money it made to other countries!

The Brits therefore tended not to let the colonies make their own coinage.

So we largely used Spanish money instead, with perhaps some French money in the mix (that latter bit is me speculating). This led to some monetary schizophrenia; the colonists thought in terms of shillings and pence (and very occasionally entire pounds), but much of what circulated here was Spanish reales, eight of which made a crown-sized coin that we called a dollar, from German thaler, which in turn was from Joachimstaler, which in turn was from Joachimsthal, a town with a gigantic silver deposit most conveniently coined into large coins, larger than had been seen before. (Today that town is known as Jachymov, and is in Czechia–and it played a key role in the discoveries that ultimately led to the atomic bomb–so it’s the home of both the Dollar and the Bomb.)

But there just weren’t enough dollars, nor reales, nor shillings, nor pence, to pay for the war effort; the individual states often failed to send anything to the Continental Congress.

So the Congress printed money, hoping someday to be able to redeem the notes with real money.

Thus was born the Continental Currency. And they had to resort to this a lot. To the point where it inflated, and we now have the phrase “not worth a Continental” to remember it by.

It was denominated in dollars, but often today the denominations seem odd. In 1775 we issued one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight dollar notes–as well as a twenty.

The next year we dropped the twenty dollar note in exchange for a thirty dollar note, added a half dollar note…but also a third of a dollar and two thirds of a dollar. And even a sixth of a dollar.

A sixth of a dollar? Really? That’s not even a whole number of cents! But, you see, our forebears didn’t even start dividing dollars into 100 cents until 1792. But this was still odd, because they typically thought of eighths of a dollar, single reales or “bits.”

In 1777, apparently, the inflation began to bite. The smallest denomination issues was $2, and we continued with $3, $4, $6, $7 and $8. (Apparently no $5, but all these other funky numbers.)

In 1778, the lowest denomination was $5, then $6, $7, $8, $20, $30, $40, $50 and even $60. Now if this was actual silver dollars, $60 would be huge sum of money by most people’s standards. But these weren’t, they were continentals, that weren’t worth a continental.

1779 saw the return of the $1 and $2, plus the $5, $20, $30, $35, $40, $45, $55, $60, $65, $70, and $80.

The British counterfeited these notes, in spite of the leaves depicted on them though a process that Benjamin Franklin had invented as a counterfeiting deterrent.

True connoisseurs of such notes will note there are a number of different designs, with notes from the same year often looking similar, and oftentimes the name of the printer contracted to run them off was quite prominent.

I’ll just embed a link to the full table in Wikipedia, rather than muck about with downloading the pics and re-uploading them:

(Or maybe not. I still can’t embed a link properly it seems. Try copying and pasting: https : // en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Continental_currency_banknotes without the spaces.)

Many of these referenced the “United Colonies,” some made no such reference, but all mention the “Congress,” which was the issuing authority. Many 1776 bills issued after July 4 1776 still referenced the “United Colonies.” The first bill to read “United States” was issued in 1777.

Here’s a not atypical example, 1/3 of a dollar from 1776, authorized in February of that year.

These aren’t ruinously expensive, and can be had in presentable condition for well under a thousand dollars. (I don’t know this series at all; for all I know there are denominations/dates that are extremely difficult to find and hence to pay for.)

Standard Disclaimer: These are not my notes. I never show my items, and I very often don’t have examples of the stuff I show. But the important thing for any criminally inclined reading this is to know I don’t keep the stuff I do have, at home.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

Just two more things, my standard Public Service Announcements. We don’t want to forget them!!!

How Not To Find Yourself In Contention For The Darwin Award
(Nothing to do with bearded dragons)

It has been pointed out that all of the rioting is nominally on account of criminals who resisted arrest in one form or another, and someone suggested schools ought to teach people not to resist arrest.

Granted an “ass kicking” isn’t the same as being shot, but both can result from the same stupid act. You may ultimately beat the rap, but you aren’t going to avoid the ride.

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

Addendum by Wolf – Current List of QTreepers Headed To DC

• Aubergine & Son
• Mr. MAGA Mom & Son
• Realsauce
• grandmaintexas & DH
• huskerheart & Patriot Friend
• Kalbo & Wife
• Wolf Moon (neither confirming nor denying) 

Current Total: 12

An interesting concept, but not without some difficulties, as also may be true with our understanding of some details of Luke’s narrative of the birth of Christ.

MIGDAL EDER – THE TOWER OF THE FLOCK

One of the most powerful statements in the biblical narratives on the birth of Christ is the proclamation made by the angel to shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem.

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12)

It was a first declaration of the euangelion, the Good News of the redemptive Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is remarkable to see that this first declaration made to Israelites outside the immediate family of Jesus was not given to the religious or political rulers of Israel but to shepherds keeping their flocks.

The shepherds’ fields outside Bethlehem, to this day, play a central role in the Christmas celebrations in the Holy Land. Countless tourists have visited the fields between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The church historian Eusebius linked these fields to a unique biblical location called Migdal Eder, which translated means the “tower of the flock”.

The first time Migdal Eder is mentioned in the Bible is in the account of Rachel, who died after giving birth to Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob. “Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder”, records Genesis 35:21.

This area on the outskirts of Bethlehem is also mentioned in the Talmudic writings. According to the Talmud, all cattle found in the area surrounding Jerusalem “as far as Migdal Eder” were deemed to be holy and consecrated and could only be used for sacrifices in the Temple, in particular for the peace and Passover sacrifices. There was thus a special, consecrated circle around the city of Jerusalem.

This means the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem who first heard the Good News from the angels were not ordinary shepherds but served the sacrificial system of the Temple. These men served the Mosaic covenant, a foreshadowing of the new covenant. And these men were now confronted with the reality of the eternal light to which their ministry had been pointing all these centuries. It was declaring a new era of salvation!

The Hebrew prophet Micah also refers to Migdal Eder. “And you, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, even the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.” (Micah 4:8)

Based on that prophecy, prominent Jewish writers concluded in the Midrash that from all of the places in Israel, it would be the Migdal Eder where the arrival of the Messiah would be declared first.

That means when the angels appeared that night to the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, it was not just a declaration of the Good News to simple shepherds. It was a powerful prophetic sign to all of Israel. The news of that night must have spread like wildfire through the surrounding villages.

Luke records: “Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.” (Luke 2:17-18)

What does this all mean for us?

1)  First, it is always beneficial for the Church to see that Jesus did not arrive into a vacuum, but was born into an entirely Jewish context. When Christ came in the flesh, he was born first-and-foremost to the Jewish people but would then also bring his favour and good pleasure to all men. Even though the celebration of Christ’s birth has become a feast marked almost exclusively by the gentile Church, it is important for us to see it in its historic and biblical context – as a message intended to give hope to Israel. As Zacharias prophesies at the birth of John the Baptist, this all happened to “perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham…” (Luke 1:72f).

2)  Second, already from the moment Jesus entered the world the ultimate reason for his arrival was alluded to. These were the shepherds who took care of the sheep and cattle offered in the Temple – in particular the Passover sacrifices. And it was they who were confronted with the announcement that the ultimate sacrifice, which would carry away not only the sins of Israel but of the whole world, was born. Just thirty three years later, no further sacrifice was to be needed, as all those who believe in him have been “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

3)  The angelic announcement gave these simple shepherds a profound revelation of who this Messiah would be. He was proclaimed to be both King (born in the city of David) and Priest. That he was both Christ and Lord, the son of man but also the son of God. He would be the saviour of humanity but also the shepherd of all those who would follow his voice.

It was truly good news which the angels proclaimed that night long ago. But as with the shepherds, the mere knowledge of this news is not enough. They needed to act upon it and they did. They went personally to see that child and then proclaimed his birth wherever they could.

Let us follow the example of the shepherds of Bethlehem and rededicate our lives afresh to that great saviour who was born in Bethlehem. He is the shepherd of our souls (1 Peter 2:25) who died for our sins and who redeems us to reign and rule with him for eternity! This is Good News indeed!

*https://int.icej.org/news/commentary/tower-flock