RLL 26 The Scripturalist Report for Week Ending 12.22.18

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Welcome to Radio Luke Solicit. I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me today for episode 26
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This is news of note for week ending December 22nd 2018
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Well, what am I gonna talk about this week? I think there's this as usual There's quite a bit of quite a bit going on in the world out there
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But I thought to this week that I would focus on a couple of things that took place specifically relating to to Donald Trump and in the first of those has to do with his
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Decision as far as Standing firm on his on the border wall on his promise to build the border wall
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And the second one was a very surprising Announcement that he the his intention to pull all
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US troops all 2 ,000 of them Currently in Syria out of Syria So to leave Syria entirely and he's also talking about drawing down Cutting in half the number of troops
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American troops that are in Afghanistan. I think that both of these are very positive developments and I think that's interesting too about this is
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The fact that the week started out so poorly it seemed like Things at the beginning of the week everything was going wrong and then all of a sudden on Wednesday on the 19th
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There was this huge reversal and we went from everything going south to all of a sudden everything
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Sort of being back on track So it was it was a pretty dramatic week in a lot of ways as well
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It was almost this week as though Donald Trump in some ways took his presidency back Maybe from some people who have been providing him maybe less than stellar advice
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So let's take a look at this and I kind of want to walk through walk you through a little bit About what was going on with the border wall?
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We'll talk about that first. For example, here was a headline and this came in this was from CNBC It was from Tuesday December the 18th and the headline reads this
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White House suggests it could back down on five billion dollar border wall demand So coming into the week
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Donald Trump had demanded the the five billion dollars to build the border wall you know, he had that big televised conference with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi the prior week
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He's had a pretty strong but then coming into this week he got a little bit wobbly for whatever reason and The kind of summarizing the article it goes on to say the
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White House could back down from its demand for five billion dollars in Border wall funding in a year -end spending bill press secretary
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Parts of the government will shut down Saturday if lawmakers don't pass spending bills
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Trump has threatened to let funding lapse if he cannot secure money for the border So anyway, he looked like he was going a little bit wobbly here and Sarah Huckabee Sanders came out.
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I is believe this was in the May visit the I don't know the exact circumstances under which he she announced this but I'll just read you her comments here quote we have other ways we can get that five billion dollars and quote and She goes on quote.
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We will work with Congress in quote to do so White House press press secretary
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News on Tuesday morning So she was talking on Fox News axle actually and she went on to add that the
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Trump administration could support 1 .6 billion in border security funding Proposed by Senate Democrats as long as it can a quote couple with that with other funding resources to get to five billion dollars
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So this wasn't a particularly good sign because the previous week Donald Trump was pretty adamant that he was going to get he wanted that five billion dollars in the
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Senate appropriations or the the Senate in in the congressional spending bill and So they started backpedaling and I was concerned when
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I saw this because I'm thinking you know that that just you know When you start backing off like that, that's almost sets the stage for feeding frenzy
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You know the Democrats smell weakness and I I think they were gonna go right after Trump Another headline from the same day and this is again, this is from Tuesday December the 18th
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Here's a headline in zero heads Trump blinks White House will avoid shutdown find other ways to fund wall
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And really I think that that's a pretty good headline because that's the way that Trump's the
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Trump administration That's the way their words their actions were being interpreted that they blinked
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They were so afraid of a government shutdown that okay. Yeah, I know we talked tough about that five billion dollars But yeah, you know when things really kind of when our backs are up against the wall pun intended
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When our backs are up against the wall We're gonna fold and we're gonna fold like a house of cards and we're gonna say yeah We can get that funding some other way.
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I Think it would be widely interpreted as a slam -dunk victory For Chuck Schumer and for Nancy Pelosi For Trump to back off his his demand to to get the five billion dollars
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So yeah, things weren't looking really good. And then later on this is the next day. This is on Wednesday, December the 19th
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Here's a headline from The Washington Post Senate passes bill to keep government open until February undercutting
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Trump's drive for border wall funding Reading from that article quote the
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GOP controlled Congress on Wednesday severely undermined President Trump's drive for a border wall Embracing a short -term spending bill that would keep the government open but deny any new money for his long -promised wall along the u .s.
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Mexico border The agreement announced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would fund the federal government through February 8th avoiding a partial showdown
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Scheduled to take effect at the end of Friday absent action by Congress and Trump But the spending bill would not include any of the five billion
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Trump is demanding for his wall It would punt the next round of border wall discussions into the new year
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When a new Democratic majority in -house will have the power to stop wall funding from going through Congress end quote so basically had
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The way things were looking here and this was early on on Wednesday the way things were looking here.
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And when you read this headline from The Washington Post and you read the article the Republican controlled
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Senate headed up by Mitch McConnell Created a bill was gonna send this sent this off to the president.
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I was going to send it off and it would have punted the any further discussion until February when the house took over and then the house would have the ability just to squash that because of course
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Nancy Pelosi and the the Democrats would take over and they're not obviously going to appropriate any funding for the wall
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I mean this effectively would have ended the wall Now the wall is not just a small thing for Donald Trump.
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This was his signature issue And the wall really comes down to this if he builds it
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He's got a chance to be reelected if he doesn't build it. He is history and honestly, he probably deserves to be history
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Why because that was his signature promise. I mean think back to the 2016 elections You know, what's the one thing that Donald Trump ran on more than anything else?
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It was build that wall. All right, and If he doesn't build that wall
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Why should anybody trust him? Why should anybody vote for him? I mean it raises a very serious question.
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And so at this point and this is on Wednesday the 19th things were looking Pretty scary pretty wobbly for Donald Trump, but let's continue because it didn't just end with that Representative Jim Jordan Republican from Ohio Kind of took the bull by the horns and there's a headline here.
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This is from Town Hall shame on us Jim Jordan blasts Congress Trump as he helps introduce amendment to build a build a wall
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And it turns out that Jim Jordan with some others actually paid a visit to the
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White House on On Wednesday, and they had a bit of a sit -down discussion with Donald Trump And it seemed to be that I think they made it pretty clear to the president that he had to stand firm on this
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And he did Now the president stood firm and so did the house because what happened is that Jim Jordan and the the house later on Wednesday the 19th
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They passed an amendment adding it on to the continuing resolution that appropriated five billion dollars for funding for the wall
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Then it goes back to the Senate and of course the the Senate they weren't very happy about that Well on on Thursday, this is on Thursday December the 20th, there's a headline here
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This is in the National Review. Trump says he won't sign temporary spending bill without border wall funding quoting from the article
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President Trump said Thursday that he will not sign a temporary spending bill over its lack of funding for the construction of a border wall
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The president informed us He will not sign the bill how speaker Paul Ryan reports outside the white hat we told reporters outside the
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White House after he met with Trump We have a very serious concern about securing our border. The president said
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I will not sign this bill So we're going back to work with adding border security to this Now that was a quote from Wednesday but you know
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Donald Trump comes out, you know after the After the house had added that that amendment for the border security and he came in he said, you know
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I'm not gonna sign the bill. I'm not gonna sign a continuing resolution without border wall funding So the thing it goes back to the
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Senate and And then the Senate has to vote to approve that and that's where the impasse is right now so you've heard all this stuff about the government shutdown and the reason the government shutting down is because the
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Senate has not agreed to the Continuing resolution that includes funding for the border wall
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Now later that day and this is I'm talking here on on Thursday There was a press conference held by Chuck Schumer who's the
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Senate minority leader and by Nancy Pelosi who's the incoming House? majority leader
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Where they castigated Donald Trump for his stance. This is the headline. This is from Fox News He's throwing a temper tantrum.
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They're talking about Trump Trump, you know He's throwing a temper tantrum Schumer Pelosi say Trump plunging country into chaos over wall demand
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And reading from the story the two top Democrat Democratic congressional leaders blasted President Trump's threat of a partial government shutdown if lawmakers do not approve 5 billion in funding toward a border wall with Mexico Democrats and Republicans work together to put work together to put together a bill to keep the government open speaker -designate
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Nancy Pelosi from California said a news conference Senator Charles Schumer of New York added that Trump is plunging the country into chaos
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By threatening not to sign the bill that does not appropriate money for the wall He said Trump is throwing a temper tantrum because Senate Democrats will not go along with his border wall plans
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All speaker Ryan has to do is put the non wall bill on the floor in the house Schumer said How Congress can keep the government open after the
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Friday deadline? Well, yeah, I mean that's that that's all he has to do.
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You know what? Why was I watched that press conference with Schumer and Pelosi? The other day and and it was really something to watch that basically, you know, they they almost said
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You know Republicans We'll give you everything you want as long as you bow before us and worship us and give up on that $5 billion border wall funding well,
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I Think that President Trump and the Republicans at least those people in the Freedom Caucus such as Jim Jordan Came to their senses about all of this and they know
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That if they lose this battle With Schumer and Pelosi that they are history.
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And again, they deserve to be history. You know this this whole Border wall funding is really so much about so much more than just the border wall.
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Yeah, the border wall matters But there's so much more to it than just that this really comes down to setting the tone for the next two years
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If Schumer and Pelosi are able to prevail. I don't see how they Won't roll the
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Republicans for the next two years if Trump if Jim Jordan if they stand their ground if the
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Senate Republicans stand the ground and if they vote and they get this funding for the border wall,
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I Think that'll be a significant victory over Schumer and Pelosi I think that's going to affect the next two years very positively for the
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Republicans and I would also add for the country This border wall is something that does matter now
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I have to admit I haven't always been a super big supporter of the border wall in my opinion
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Certainly immigration is out of control in a lot of different ways. I Would like to see us approach things differently other than having the border wall
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But you know after having watched some things over the over the years You know, maybe you can make a pretty good case for it.
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I Was thinking about this this past week for example The Trump administration tried to change the asylum laws so that people sneaking into the country illegally could not apply for asylum
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But that was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court and then it was upheld this week By the by the
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Supreme Court, so they said okay, so somebody can sneak into the country illegal they can violate our immigration laws and then fling themselves on the courts and say yes, but we we have where we're threatened with persecution in our home countries and then they get to stay in the
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United States and They get to take advantage of our full welfare system if the mother has a child in the
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United States that child becomes an anchor, baby and These people probably will never go home and their first act of coming in the country was violating our immigration laws and We don't even know for sure if they're telling the truth about their asylum claims their asylum claims may be bogus so I mean the only choice is
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That you're gonna have to keep them out of the country. You know, that's what's going to have to happen and What's the most effective way to keep somebody physically out of the country?
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Well, I think the border wall certainly would be effective in that regard Now there's another reason for supporting the idea of a border wall states such as California, you know these sanctuary states these sanctuary cities.
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They're bringing people in I Think there are some cities or reports this past November during the congressional elections during the midterms that there were some
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Areas, they were talking about actually allowing people who weren't citizens to vote You know and you have to think that these sanctuary states are really importing these people in order to at some point
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Eventually make sure that they do get the vote and guess how they're gonna vote. They're gonna vote hard left They're gonna vote hardcore socialist.
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That's one of the reasons the Democrats want these people to come in. They're basically importing Democrats to vote for their hardcore socialist policies to cast the votes that Americans won't cast and If a border wall keeps this kind of thing from happening.
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Well, then I'm all for it We're think back about a month ago.
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This was the weekend after Thanksgiving This is a third reason to talk about supporting a border wall Now what
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I've sometimes called the Battle of San Ysidro, you know that was when the migrant caravan finally got into Tijuana and they'd been there for about a week or two and People were getting a little bit of rest a little bit restless in that Sunday I think it was the last
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Sunday in in November. They decided to rush the border and Try to get it in the
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United States basically just just forced their way in well They had a border wall there and they couldn't get through it
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I'm glad that we had it. I'm glad that they were repelled. They had no business doing what they were doing
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You know, this is one of the things that that's so amazing to me about these these migrant caravans and this whole migrant issue
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It's just the arrogance that they have they shown absolutely no respect for the United States For the laws of the
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United States for the people of the United States. They make demands I think it was this past week where there were a group of them went to the
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US Consulate I think it was in Tijuana and they made a demand and they said that well
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There's there's one of two things has to happen They said that you can either give us $50 ,000 apiece to return to Honduras or let us into the country
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They said the United States had 72 hours to answer them So I guess if you're a an American citizen
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You've been served notice by these migrants and they want an answer and they want it now I mean, this is just outrageous stuff.
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I was talking to a friend of mine here recently about you know, the contrast between the attitude out of some migrants and What you see in the
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Bible You know, you look at the way Moses behaved remember this and it's recorded.
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I believe it's in numbers I don't have the text right here in front of me Exactly which chapter it was but they came to the border of Edom and Moses sent an emissary to the king of Edom And he said
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Israel your brother asked for passage through the country and of course They say Moses said
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Israel your brother because of course the Israelites and the Edomites were kindred people The Edomites were defended from descended from Esau.
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And of course Israel was defended descended from Jacob and he appealed to the king of Edom He says, you know, we'll stay on the
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Kings Highway. We're not gonna drink your water. You know, we're not gonna take your stuff We're gonna mind our own business. We just want to pass through we don't ask anything other from you other than to let us pass through and the king of Eden came out with some soldiers and Kind of shushed him off and in Israel Israel went around, you know,
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Israel didn't look for a fight there and a little while later they came to the the borders of the
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Amorites and they sent an emissary to Sihon king of the Amorites and Sihon came out after after Moses and Israel and The this time
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Israel didn't run away they they stood to ground and and they defeated Sihon But Sihon's the one that picked that fight.
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It wasn't Israel. You know, Moses said all we want to do is pass through your territory We're not gonna bug you. We're not gonna attack you.
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We're not gonna take your stuff Now if there are any people in the whole history of the world any migrants who have ever existed who had a right to make demands
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Wouldn't it have been Moses and the Israelites? I mean after all I mean they were specifically called by God out of Egypt to go to Canaan They had a commission they had they were on orders
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From God Almighty to go do this and yet even Moses and the Israelites did not see fit to make demands on the nations they passed through They asked permission
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But I mean these people coming up from Honduras are making demands And of course there are plenty of people there are plenty of politicians there are lots of Roman Catholic priests and bishops and cardinals
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Who very much support that idea? And they're very much in the corner and think they have every right to come in and make demands on the
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American people and it's really kind of fascinating when you look at the way the Immigration issue and not not just the migrant caravan, but the whole immigration issue is always presented in in the news
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It's always framed in such a way so that the migrants they always have infinite goodness supporting infinite demands on the
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American taxpayer, whereas the American citizen has infinite obligations backed up by their their infinite deplorable nests
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And their job is basically to fork it over You know, we talked about compassion compassion compassion with regard to immigrants
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But nobody ever seems to have any compassion on the American people You know, we're told we're to love our neighbors.
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Well, yes, we are the Bible says that well I would ask you this is not my fellow American my neighbor
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure my fellow American is my neighbor and literally much more my neighbor than somebody who lives in Honduras You know,
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I have compassion on my fellow Americans who are going to have to pay the cost for all of this Now I think that there are two main issues that need to be addressed when we're talking about immigration
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I think number one the issue of birthright citizenship. It's an outrage the way that's handled right now
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That is a scam. It is an obvious scam There is no good reason why somebody should be able to sneak into the
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United States Have a child and then have that child become an American citizen and so -called anchor babies
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I mean you're creating tremendous incentives for people to scam the system the second thing and Very closely related to that is the whole welfare state.
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We need to start rolling back the welfare state These are two major problems
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But in the meantime if a border wall Cuts down on some of this nonsense
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Then I think we have every right to put one up and it's certainly not something that's immoral
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It's certainly not something that's wrong. It actually defends the United States And that kind of leads me into another point and this was another thing
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I mentioned at the the start of this podcast that there were kind of two big I think really impressive things that Donald Trump did this week
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The first was he reversed himself and he he got his mojo back when it came to the wall
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The second one was on the foreign policy front So two kind of very different issues, but these were both issues that he ran
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I mean one of you know I mentioned maybe the the the building of the wall and getting control of immigration was his number one issue but he also ran on a
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Platform of what he called America first and that is the idea that the United States is not the policeman of the world
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That it's not our job to go and right every wrong everywhere in the world and This week very surprisingly.
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It almost seemed like it was out of the blues also on the 19th as well that Donald Trump made an announcement
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Surprise announcement to me and I think probably to most people that the United States is
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Pulling out of Syria, you know, we've been in Syria now.
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We've been involved in that since 2012 I believe and that was when Barack Obama started saying
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Assad must go And Hillary Clinton was out there Assad must go and and there's all this
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Hue -and -cry about the responsibility to protect and blah blah blah blah blah Well, anyway, the
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United States has been involved in Syria now for I'd say at least six years
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Maybe longer than that, but it's been a while. I mean, we've we have funded Armies attempting to overthrow
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Bashar Assad. It was the elected president of Syria the duly elected president and We've actually had troops on the ground.
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We've got probably a lot of people don't know this But I mean, they're actually 2 ,000 American soldiers serving in Syria right now.
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Well, how did they get there? I mean they weren't invited in by Syria There's no declared war, you know, it's it's an undeclared war
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I mean, we've got troops on on a foreign sovereign country soil They have not been invited in by the the leader of that country.
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I mean the American the the whole thrust behind The American military presence in Syria is to overthrow
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Bashar Assad You know and you you have to ask yourself by what right does the
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United States Have any business to attempting to overthrow the president of a foreign country?
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Now we may not like him for one reason or another But that does that give the
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United States the right to overthrow him. I mean has he ever attacked the United States? No, he has not.
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I Mean there's no good reason not one good reason for the
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United States To be in Syria and It is wonderful news that Donald Trump is pulling us out.
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I congratulate him for doing that That was wonderful and it wasn't just that either. He didn't just talk about Syria He also agreed to cut in half.
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The number of troops are currently in Afghanistan We've got 14 ,000 troops in Afghanistan.
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He's talking about bringing 7 ,000 of them home Now imagine that well, we've got a president who's actually
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Wants to defend the United the borders of the United States and stop defending the borders of other countries and You would think that everybody would be thrilled about that, right?
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I mean, isn't that what the government United States is supposed to do actually defend the United States and the people of the
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United States? Oh, no. No, no. No, no, everybody hates Donald Trump for this and you can see the headlines for instance
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Here's one. This is from the New York Times Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria is alarming. Just ask his advisors
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You know and the you know and all the usual suspect, you know guys like John Bolton Who I don't think ever saw war he didn't like was very upset about that And of course, well
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Lindsey Graham, you know Lindsey Graham kind of kind of went off on a on a tangent Marco Rubio Put out a tweet.
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He said if it isn't reversed He's talking about the decision to leave Syria Marco Rubio says if it isn't reversed
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It will haunt this administration in America for years to come. No, it won't Senator Rubio what's gonna haunt this administration in America for years to come if we continue to fight wars that we shouldn't be fighting
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If you continue to put American soldiers in harm's way When they shouldn't be in harm's way
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That's going to haunt this administration in America for years to come You know, it's kind of one thing it was interesting that I read about Trump and I I don't
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Know if this is true or not, but I've heard this from some good sources Suspect it probably is and that is one of the things that really motivated
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Donald Trump was he got tired of Having to make phone calls to the families of servicemen who were killed
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Yeah, and he started to ask himself, you know, why are we doing this? And I think that speaks very well of Donald Trump You know that he cares enough
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It realizes that there's a problem here and he asked himself, you know, why do we keep doing this?
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Why do we keep putting our soldiers through this? Why do we keep putting their families through this? And I believe that's one of the things that weighed heavily on his decision to pull the u .s.
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Out of Syria So congratulations to Donald Trump for that Now we haven't left yet So, I mean who knows what machinations, you know, the the deep state might pull to try to keep u .s.
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Troops in there I don't know but if Donald Trump sticks by his guns on this He's done a wonderful thing and he should be congratulated for that Of course his decision to pull out didn't sit too well with the
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Secretary of Defense either James Mattis James Mattis kind of left in a huff Here's a headline from the
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Wall Street Journal Mattis blindsided by Trump Syria decision resigned days later And it says the the resignations of the article here in the
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Wall Street Journal The resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis came two days after a top -level meeting at Pentagon in which he was unable to temper
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White House plans to withdraw u .s. Troops from Syria and Afghanistan according to officials familiar with the matter
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Well, you know, I I know that that the Jim Jim Mattis If well everything
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I've always read about him He was a one tough soldier if there's if you're in a foxhole and he had bullets and bombs whizzing overhead
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He's probably the the first guy that you'd want in that foxhole next to you But his views on American foreign policy are simply wrongheaded
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I Mean see one of the things that existed from the very foundation of the
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United States Was this idea that we don't go abroad in search of monsters destroy?
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We don't get involved in entangling foreign alliances. We treat other nations the way we ourselves would like to be treated and all of those ideas
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You know staying out of foreign alliances treating other nations the way that we'd like to be treated setting a good example
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Minding our own business. These are all things that are essentially a
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Christian reading a foreign policy. It's these are ideas that actually come out of the Bible they go back to the
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Protestant Reformation and to the Thirty Years War and To the treaty that settled the
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Thirty Years War the Treaty of Westphalia which established what's sometimes known as the Westphalian World Order in Which you had independent nations and those independent nations decided for themselves what their own internal policies would be
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And it wasn't the job of other countries to go in and tell To tell them what to do for instance It's not the job of the
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United States to boss Canada around and it's not the job of the government of Mexico to tell the
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United States what to do and vice versa But we have many people on our foreign policy establishment and have had for now over the past century
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Who take a very different view and they think the United States has a right to lord it over all of these countries
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They were called to do this somehow by Providence It has created problem after problem after problem not just for this country
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But also for other nations and for the people in those nations The Donald Trump seems to be
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You know, I I don't know how systematically he's thought through this, but he seems like his his basic foreign policy instincts
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Are for America to mind its own business and I think that that's admiral It's actually one of the reasons why
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I supported him for president So let's let's hope he continues on that that particular vein
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Until next time may the spirit of truth guide you in all truth as you read and study