Caffeinated Thoughts

I’ve dragged my feet writing this post, but I think it’s time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Caffeinated Thoughts has been inactive for several months, and we haven’t had daily posts here for quite some time. When I started The Iowa Torch, I had hoped I was going to be able to keep Caffeinated Thoughts up with guest articles and occasional posts from me, but that hasn’t been a reality.

The national debt is at $31 trillion and rising. The Congressional Budget Office has recently estimated that the Fiscal Year 2023 deficit could hit $1.4 trillion. The economy is still struggling with high inflation, which is a direct result of reckless and out-of-control spending. Under President Joe Biden the national debt has increased over $3.7 trillion. Since assuming office, President Biden has increased spending by over $10 trillion.

“The reality of what some of us call revival is initiated by God. It is not initiated by us” Craig Keener was a classmate of mine at Central Bible College from 1978-1982. I knew him as one of the most pious and brilliant but humble servants of God I knew. He went to seminary and eventually became a professor at Asbury Seminary. The video below is his take on the so called Asbury Revival that took place in the University next door in Wilmore, Kentucky.

Over the past year and a half, the news cycle has been inundated with coronavirus headlines. These include increasing cases and changing lockdown restrictions. While these stories are crucial to public understanding of the coronavirus, Americans already feel the effects of news on their mental health. A Digital Third Coast survey found that 68 percent of respondents felt anxious about the news during the pandemic.

I’m reading Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A Quest for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful by Leland Ryken and Glenda Faye Mathes. Glenda graciously sent a copy to me awhile back, and I added it to my stack of books to read which means it was a book that needed to make it to the top of my pile. I confess I’ve not read well in quite some time. I still read a lot, but typically blog posts and articles, and sometimes books (mostly nonfiction).

President Joe Biden said during his remarks on Monday addressing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan that “I am President of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me.” Before that he blamed everyone else. “When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021 — just a little over three months after I took office,” Biden said.

Covid, Covid, Covid. Variant, variant, variant. Trust me, I’m the government’s highest paid employee, and “I represent science.” Show your papers, wear a mask, take a shot or lose your job. And the beat goes on for an infection where 99.95 percent of infected persons under age 70 years recover. It’s becoming clear that Covid-19 is not merely a disease but an excuse to concentrate power in the government. It’s time for the political histrionics to stop.

“The Full-Dinner Pail” was a campaign slogan utilized by President William McKinley and other Republicans to symbolize support for working Americans. It is often assumed that Republicans are opposed to labor, but this notion is false. President Donald J. Trump’s America First policies were pro-labor.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) is a leading conservative who is fighting for the America First agenda. Recently, Senator Hawley introduced the ‚ÄúMake in America to sell in America Act,‚ÄĚ in an effort to address the supply chain crisis and the troubling dependency upon foreign countries for necessities. Americans are being confronted with increasing prices due to inflation and a clogged supply chain that is hindering consumer demand.

Watching President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address last night, I was struck by how it yo yo-ed between the inspirational and rank partisanship. The past year for the Biden administration, putting it mildly, has been challenging. Biden has seen his approval rating dwindle. By any objective standard, his pullout from Afghanistan was disastrous. He made promises about COVID-19 that he could not possibly keep.