Trump

Pray for President-Elect Trump’s Safety, Especially Between Now and December 17

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance are scheduled to be sworn into office just 69 days from today – a time-honored tradition dating back to 1937.

The ratification of the 20th Amendment officially moved Inauguration Day from March 4 to January 20. Nicknamed the “Lame Duck Amendment,” it was proposed and passed as a way to shorten the time between Election Day in November and the new president’s start date.

Up until then, the Constitution was silent on when a president was to assume office. It was the Continental Congress that established March 4 as Inauguration Day.  George Washington assumed the presidency the day the Constitution was adopted, but back in 1789, electoral votes weren’t officially cast until April 30. 

The formalization of our presidential election usually happens outside the headlines and often beyond the interest of the average citizen who is content with the notion we elect the president on Election Day.

But you’ll remember from your history lessons, we’re actually voting for electors in November. The executive of our respective state (usually the governor) then appoints them to the Electoral College.

This year, the “Certificates of Ascertainment” – official documents containing those electors – are due to be presented on December 11. Come December 17, these electors will be meeting in their states to vote.

The final tallies will then be sent to the National Archivist and Vice President Kamala Harris, the President of the Senate. At that point, the president-elect and the vice president-elect are officially elected.

A few weeks later, on January 6, 2025, a joint session of Congress will convene to certify the results of the election. The new president and vice president are then formally sworn in on January 20.

Scripture is clear that as Christians we’re to pray for all our leaders.

It was the apostle Paul who urged “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

He also advised believers in Rome, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (1 Timothy 13:1).

But prayers for the president’s well-being are especially in order on multiple fronts – his past brushes with two assassination attempts, physical threats from abroad and the constitutional silence concerning what happens if a president-elect doesn’t make it until the Electoral College meets.

The potential conundrum over a looming Constitutional crisis was the premise of a novel by longtime political correspondent Jeff Greenfield. Here’s how Publisher’s Weekly described the fictional story:

The country is set into a constitutional tailspin two days after the November election when President-elect MacArthur Foyle, a conservative Republican, dies as a result of a rodeo accident. Vice President-elect Ted Block, universally acclaimed as “a step or two slow out of the cognitive gate,” looks to be a shoo-in for the Oval Office until a renegade member of the electoral college, Dorothy Ledger, an office manager of a Michigan Bank & Trust, balks at having to vote for the moderate veep.
Ledger, joined by a New Jersey plumber, a Texas history professor and a CalTech computer-whiz dropout, orchestrates a campaign that leads to other electors willing to change or withhold their votes. Meanwhile, a menagerie of cynics and opportunists led by D.C. “political powerbroker” Jack Petitcon, the megawealthy, self-styled “Hebrew from the Bayou,” and W. Dixon Mason, a rhyming, dissembling, African American preacher, moves toward endorsing its own favorite candidate. Suspense depends on who will prevail: VP-elect Block, the ailing Democratic incumbent or the candidate of splintered factions.
After a tense electoral vote, an unexpected yet honorable resolution is reached. Characterization sometimes takes a back seat to plot machinations here but, for the most part, what The Player did for Hollywood, The People’s Choice, in its unabashed flailing of the American system, does for presidential politics.

Fantastical and far-fetched in many aspects, there remains constitutional questions and issues that, thankfully, have not been faced.

As Christians, we should be praying for President Biden and Vice President Harris, as well as President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Vance.

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Trump’s Promise to Shutter Dept of Education Could End Woke Agenda in Schools

When President-elect Donald Trump was in the midst of campaigning, he promised numerous times to shut down the Department of Education and return education to the states.

As he said at one campaign rally back in September:

We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing.

But his agenda for education goes far beyond this. And, if accomplished, it would begin to release schools from the stranglehold of woke ideologies, end the sexualization and confusion children, bring about more accountability, safeguard parents’ rights, and stop the assault on girls sports, safety and privacy.

Whether or not the next administration will dismantle the DOE remains to be seen, as Congress would have to approve it. Eliminating the department would leave education up to the states – and keep future presidential administrations from enacting egregious policies.

One key issue, as Inside Higher Education points out, is which department would manage “the $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio and the broader federal student loan program.” But there are already proposals to have the Treasury Department take over these loans, as the news outlet reports.

In 2024, the DOE had a budget of almost $80 billion, and the department has around 4,400 employees, making it one of the smallest federal agencies. But the agency has power beyond its size, as it sets some policies that schools must follow, controls student loans, and “issues about $100 billion in student loans a year along with $30 billion in Pell Grants,” as Inside Higher Education reports.

While state and local governments control most of education, the federal government also offers education grants to states and school districts, and those who receive grants must follow federal regulations.

The GOP platform, also known as Agenda 47, details what President-elect Trump wants to accomplish over his term in office:

1. Return Education to the States: “The United States spends more money per pupil on Education than any other Country in the World, and yet we are at the bottom of every educational list in terms of results. We are going to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and send it back to the States, where it belongs, and let the States run our educational system as it should be run.”

2. Accessible Higher Education: “To reduce the cost of Higher Education, Republicans will support the creation of additional, drastically more affordable alternatives to a traditional four-year College degree.”

3. Stop Illegal Immigration: Agenda 47 states that “Open Borders Policies … have driven up the cost of Housing, Education, and Healthcare for American families.”

4. Universal School Choice: “Families should be empowered to choose the best Education for their children. We support Universal School Choice in every State in America. We will expand 529 Education Savings Accounts and support Homeschooling Families equally.

5. Great Principals and Great Teachers: The administration “will support schools that focus on Excellence and Parental Rights. We will support ending Teacher Tenure, adopting Merit pay, and allowing various publicly supported Educational models.”

6. Safe, Secure, and Drug-Free Schools: The platform supports “overhauling standards on school discipline, advocate for immediate suspension of violent students, and support hardening schools to help keep violence away from our places of learning.”

7. Restore Parental Rights: The administration would direct agencies to “restore Parental Rights in Education and enforce our Civil Rights Laws to stop schools from discriminating on the basis of Race.”

8. Knowledge and Skills, Not CRT and Gender Indoctrination: Agenda 47 says the federal government will work to “ensure children are taught fundamentals like Reading, History, Science, and Math, not Leftwing propaganda. We will defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination of our children using Federal Taxpayer Dollars.”

9. Promote Love of Country with Authentic Civics Education:  The new administration says it wants to “reinstate the 1776 Commission, promote Fair and Patriotic Civics Education, and veto efforts to nationalize Civics Education. We will support schools that teach America’s Founding Principles and Western Civilization.”

10. Overcome the Crisis in Liberal Arts Education: The platform offers support for “the restoration of Classic Liberal Arts Education.”  

11. Freedom to Pray: The administration would “champion the First Amendment Right to Pray and Read the Bible in school, and stand up to those who violate the Religious Freedoms of American students.” 

12. End Left-wing Gender Ideology: The agenda makes clear, “We will keep men out of women’s sports, … stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.”

It’s an ambitious agenda, for sure.

We wish the president-elect and his administration well as they seek to accomplish important goals, many of which align with Christian values such as freedom of speech, religious freedom, and parents’ rights to educate and raise children according to their deeply held beliefs.

Related articles and resources:

Back to School With Sexualized Lessons

Dad Confronts School Board for Allowing Boys in Girls Restrooms

Education is on the Ballot – Over 20,000 School Board Seats up for Election

‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents

Title IX Redefinition of ‘Sex’ Faces Defiance and a Flood of Lawsuits

Is it ‘Book Banning’ to Keep Sexually Explicit Books out of Schools?

The National Education Association Wants to Indoctrinate Children Across the Country

Students’ Test Scores Tank After School Consults ‘Woke Kindergarten’

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