Attacks on Evan McMullin escalate

After Evan McMullin’s sudden surge in Utah, the Trump campaign is taking him seriously and attacks are mounting. The situation in the deep red state was serious enough that Mike Pence made a late-in-the-campaign visit to Beehive State in an attempt to shore up hemorrhaging support in the wake of three disastrous debates and Trump’s sexual harassment scandal.

The first attack came from Lou Dobbs who tweeted that McMullin was “nothing but a Globalist, Romney and Mormon Mafia Tool.” McMullin responded on CNN a few days later saying, “A hallmark of Donald Trump's campaign has been to attack people based on their race and religion and all of this and so it's not a surprise to me at all.” McMullin supporters on Twitter started a tweetstorm of jokes about the bizarre insult.

The attacks continued over the weekend when Trump lashed out at McMullin and Bill Kristol in an interview on Fox News. “I love the people of Utah. I have great relationships in Utah," Trump said. "But you have a guy named Bill Kristol who's called it wrong for two years. He's a loser. He's called me wrong. He's called everything wrong. He's called the wars wrong. Everything he does is wrong. He gets his puppet to go and run in Utah.”

Trump continued, “The guy [McMullin] takes votes away from me. You know, we're going to win Utah. But he takes votes away from me, this man who I never heard of....   Now, if for some reason we lose Utah that could have a very devastating impact on the overall.” Utah has six electoral votes.

McMullin responded in Trumpian fashion: With a tweet. The independent candidate posted, “@realDonaldTrump, Yes you’ve never heard of me because while you were harassing women at beauty pageants, I was fighting terrorists abroad.” McMullin is a 10-year veteran of the CIA where he served as a clandestine agent in the Middle East. Donald Trump received student and medical deferments that exempted him from the draft, but told Howard Stern that not contracting a sexually transmitted disease was his “personal Vietnam” and made him feel like a “great and very brave soldier.”

McMullin added another tweet attacking Trump on substance. “@realDonaldTrump, you're an authoritarian, life-long liberal who disrespects life, liberty, & equality. We can't trust you on justices.” The Trump campaign did not respond to the tweet.

Then things got really nasty. Over Halloween weekend, McMullin was the target of robocalls in the new battleground state of Utah. Salt Lake City’s KUTV describes the call by William Johnson, a self-described “white nationalist” which attacks McMullin’s mother, a lesbian who is married to another woman, and alleges that McMullin, who is single, is a “closeted homosexual.”

Spoiler alert: Evan McMullin is not gay. Louise Mensch of Heat Street wrote of her earlier conversation with McMullin prior to an August interview. McMullin told her that “his greatest aspiration is to be a husband and a father.” Part of the reason that he left the CIA was his desire to one day be married and have a family, something that would be difficult for a CIA operative.

As to his mother, McMullin talked about her in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune on Oct. 26. “I believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage. It is an important part of my faith,” McMullin said. “My mother has a different view. That is OK. I love her very much.”

McMullin told CNN that the robocall was not a surprise. “This is exactly the narrative, the approach the Donald Trump campaign has had. So it didn't even surprise when I heard news of the robocall, I just thought of course this is more of the same.”

The Trump campaign had quickly denied involvement in the robocall. Sean Spicer, the RNC communications director, said, “The call was disgusting. It's reprehensible and it was appropriately denounced by the campaign.” Spicer continued, “But for him to then turn it back on them is almost as reprehensible. We live in a country of over 300-plus million people. Not everybody who supports Donald Trump, not everyone who supports Hilary Clinton, are exactly the kind of people that you want as supporters.” Spicer was denounced in turn for calling McMullin’s response to the insults “reprehensible.”

Then a remarkable thing happened. William Johnson, who is a Trump delegate, did something that Donald Trump hasn’t done. He issued a heartfelt apology and stopped the calls. “I am truly sorry,” he told the LA Times. “I am sorry for the mean-spirited message and I humbly retract its contents.”

Finally, Pax Dickinson, founder and CTO of Wesearchr, a pro-Trump website tweeted, “America hasn’t boasted a popular movement favoring genocide of Mormons for well over a century but @EvanMcMullin is working to change that.” Another tweet threatened a “Mormoncaust” if McMullin “succeeds and throws the election to Hillary.”

As another Twitter user replied, “This does not strike me as the argument that will finally win over Mormons for Trump.”

The disdain for McMullin and Mormons shown by Trump and his supporters has undoubtedly helped fuel the McMullin campaign. When Trump complained about “this character that's running all over the state … going from coffee shop to coffee shop,” McMullin’s reply shed light on Trump’s problem.

“The funny thing is a lot of people in Utah are Mormons,” McMullin said on Politico, “they don't drink coffee. So, we've done zero campaigning in coffee shops. If Donald Trump were truly interested in the state and in the voters, he might know a thing or two about that.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Book Review: The Circle Trilogy by Ted Dekker

Thomas Hunter is man caught between two worlds. After hitting his head, he wakes up in an alternate future Earth separated into areas of good and evil. When Hunter sleeps in the alternate world, he wakes in our Earth, and vice versa. This is the premise of Ted Dekker’s masterful Circle Trilogy.

The Circle Trilogy is composed of the books, Black, Red, and White. The books are a science-fiction/fantasy epic as well as a spiritual allegory. In a true Alpha and Omega story, Dekker provides a synopsis of the Bible from the Garden of Eden through the resurrection of Jesus to the birth of the Christian church.

The first book in the series, Black, begins as Hunter discovers his predicament and begins to learn about the future world. An encounter with the demonic Teeleh reveals to Hunter that a deadly virus is about to be unleashed in the 21st century Earth. When he sleeps in the future and wakes in the present, Hunter begins a quest to convince authorities of the danger and stop the virus, which according to the Histories, leads to the Great Deception, a Tribulation-like era.

The future world seems to be representative of both the future Millennial Reign of Christ as well humanity’s past in the Garden of Eden. We are specifically told that it is a future Earth and this is confirmed in Red and White as we learn more about the Books of the Histories, volumes that contain details of the Earth’s history. Some books of the Bible, including the Gospel of John, are included in the Books of the Histories.

Hunter’s future Earth is also symbolic of the Garden of Eden. Even though there is a large society, rather than a single couple, the good side of the future Earth is a beautiful and innocent place characterized by a lush rainbow forest where God, Elyon, and man exist together. The inhabitants of the rainbow forest are protected from the demonic bats, inhabitants of the dark forest, by a river that separates the two forests. The river is bridged, but the bats cannot cross. Unfortunately, the paradise that is the rainbow forest is vulnerable to rebellion and the bats are only too willing to deceive the humans with their forbidden water, which Teeleh claims will give knowledge.

Red is the fall of man. The bats are unleashed from the dark forest and wreak havoc on the rainbow forest. A disease is unleashed in both worlds. The deadly virus is unleashed by terrorists in our world, while the destruction of the rainbow forests leads to a degenerative skin disease in the future. The skin disease can be treated by obeying a set of rules handed down by Elyon, including bathing in protected lakes. The Forest People, as they are now called, have added to these rules over the years to create a complex code called the Great Romance, which is akin to the Talmud. The priest who oversees the new religion is Ciphus.

The Forest People are in a state of constant war with the Horde, the remnants of the rainbow forest dwellers who are victims of the skin disease. Hunter is now leader of the Forest Guard, a legend among friend and foe alike. Meanwhile, in the present day, Hunter leads a desperate effort to find an anti-virus to save the world from a horrible death.

The title of the book refers to the blood shed by a former member of the Forest Guard who tries to make peace between the Horde and the Forest People. Instead, he is betrayed and executed in an obvious allusion to Jesus Christ. His sacrifice leads to a method of permanently curing the skin disease by being “baptized” in a pool of red water.

The series concludes with White. The final installment deals with last-ditch attempts to forestall the virus. In the future, Hunter tries to gain access to the Books of the Histories while engaging in covert operations in the present day. White also deals with the persecution by the Horde of the new sect called the Circle. The volume is an allegory of the love of Elyon for His people, whom He considers His bride.

The Circle Trilogy is entertaining and spiritually enlightening on many levels. It can be read as a dramatic supernatural thriller in the vein of Stephen King or it can be viewed as parable of the Gospel. The fast-paced plot, as unlikely as it is, draws the reader in and makes the books difficult to put down. By transporting the story of Christ from the distant past to the distant future, Dekker deepens our understanding of why Jesus offered Himself for us, and what it must have been like for the people of Christ’s time who watched the world shattering events at close range.

In addition to traditional novels, the Circle Trilogy is also available as a series of graphic novels. The comic-style picture novels bring the story of Thomas Hunter to younger readers.

Captain Kudzu's Letter in USA Today

On May 16, I had a letter printed in USA Today. The printed version was edited by the newspaper. Here is the full, unedited version:

DeWayne Hickham underestimates white voters. The willingness of white voters to vote for a black candidate has been shown time and time again, both in this and other campaigns.

The problem that Obama faces is not the color of his skin, but his Marxist political philosophy and his radical associations. Obama is calling for a US surrender in Iraq, massive tax increases, new regulations on business and industry, and would roll back gains in civil liberties such as second amendment rights and the right to life. Most Americans will find these positions far out of the American mainstream. Obama is dogged by his record, not as a uniter, but as the most liberal senator in the entire US Senate.

The people with whom he chooses to associate are also out of the mainstream. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor of twenty years, is virulently anti-American. William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Weather Underground terrorists from the 1970s, helped kick off Obama's political career. Communist Frank Marshall Davis was Obama's mentor as he grew up in Hawaii.

Equally disturbing is the Obamania from dictators around the world. Anti-American leaders from Hugo Chavez to Daniel Ortega and countries from Russia to North Korea have indicated that they prefer an Obama presidency. A Hamas representative said, "We like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election."

There are myriad reasons for Americans of all colors not to vote for Barack Obama in November. To suggest that race is the dominant factor, either for or against any candidate, is itself a racist proposition. The American people, as Martin Luther King suggested, as judging Obama, not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.

The link to the letter is :
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/dont-underestim.html