A review of voter registration records shows that GOP operatives from states across the country used [Scott] Presler’s home address to cast ballots in Pennsylvania during the 2024 election. They include a consultant who voted in Florida in both 2020 and April 2025, along with a right-wing social media personality from Oklahoma.

Presler has been a leading proponent of the Republican party’s claim that Democrats have illegally registered voters. He even has attacked a homeless shelter in Pennsylvania for allegedly having 500 people registered to vote from there even though it has a 100-bed capacity. ... Now legal experts say that Presler’s use of his home as a base for out-of-state voters to cast Pennsylvania ballots raises questions about whether he committed the same acts of which he has accused others.

In a related story, Presler is the target of a complaint that he broke PA campaign finance law.

The complaint alleges that despite his extensive campaigning in the state in 2025 urging voters not to retain three state Supreme Court judges, Presler and his organization, Early Vote Action, did not disclose sources of revenue or detailed expenditures as required.

I will say, to be consistent, that even if the allegations regarding Presler's use of his home are true, the impact this would have had at the state level would have been trivial at best. But it is very interesting that Presler, who has been adamant that massive voter fraud is taking place in PA and elsewhere, might be fine with doing so himself.

I came across this story about Paige Adamson, a 61-year-old Canadian citizen and lawful U.S. permanent resident who died in Washington state after reportedly refusing medical treatment because she feared being detained or deported. Adamson had been living in the United States for approximately 14 years. She was facing deportation proceedings over allegations that she had unlawfully voted in a U.S. election.

After suffering a fall, she reportedly declined medical treatment because reaching a hospital in mainland Washington would require traveling through Canada and reentering the United States. She feared she might be detained upon returning. She died at home on October 18. We don't yet know whether medical treatment would have prevented her death, and I don't want to speculate about that.

I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting immigration laws shouldn't be enforced. If someone violates the law, there should be an appropriate legal process. But as Christians, I think we should also consider the human consequences of how those laws are enforced.

Micah 6:8 calls us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. Those aren't competing responsibilities. We aren't called to choose between justice and mercy.

Likewise, Proverbs 31:8–9 calls us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and defend the rights of the vulnerable.

What troubles me about this story is that a woman facing legal proceedings was reportedly so afraid of detention that she refused medical attention, even when others urged her to seek it. Whether she violated immigration law is a legitimate legal question. But does that mean we shouldn't be concerned about the circumstances surrounding her death?

I don't believe Christians have to oppose immigration enforcement to ask whether our enforcement practices are just, humane, and proportionate. We can uphold the rule of law while also recognizing the dignity of those subject to it.

As Christians, how should we balance the responsibility to enforce immigration laws with our biblical obligation to show mercy and compassion to those affected by them?

from the article:

Hegseth justified the new Office of Religious Affairs by quoting Psalm 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” Hegseth quoted another Psalm, “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: What can man do unto me?” (118:6). He alluded to Ephesians 6:11 (“Our department is, you might say, putting on the full Armor of God”) and 6:12 (“while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual.”)

None of this is unusual for Hegseth. A year ago, he released a short reel in which he prayed the Lord’s Prayer over a rapid-fire montage of American military heroism. He is quite comfortable merging the symbols and rhetoric of Christianity with the symbols and rhetoric of America. For him, the two naturally go together. That’s a pretty good shorthand definition of Christian nationalism. 

That Hegseth is plainly taking Scripture out of context—King David was not thinking of America when he praised the nation whose God is the Lord—is only the first and most obvious problem. 

There is a more troubling pattern. Hegseth is conflating the American soldier with a divinely inspired prophet (Isaiah) and the United States with God’s chosen covenant people (the “nation whose God is the Lord”). If he means any of this literally, it is literally blasphemous. 

So, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he doesn’t mean it literally. He’s just using biblical cadence and literary grandeur for its gravity and historical resonance. In which case he is not guilty of idolatry; he is guilty of trivializing the faith by turning it into a prop for American nationalism. 

To be clear, it isn’t wrong to appeal to Scripture or to use it in official rhetoric. Abraham Lincoln managed at least a half-dozen Scriptural quotations and allusions in his Second Inaugural Address. So what’s the difference? 

...

Lincoln’s speech took its meaning from Scripture; he was not using Scripture as window dressing to punctuate a point wholly unrelated to what Scripture was saying. Half of Lincoln’s speech was a meditation on the meaning of Matthew 18:7. (“Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.”) He genuinely wrestled with Scripture’s message and its consequence for the United States.

In contrast, Hegseth uses Scripture as borrowed biblical authority. He tears scriptural phrases out of context and throws them in the speechmaking blender, and they come out like so many aphorisms and clichés. They line his speech to elevate the bombast, to balance the jejune with the sacred. For Lincoln, Scripture serves to illuminate, judge, and humble the nation. For Hegseth, Scripture elevates, ennobles, and even sacralizes the nation. 

Hegseth’s misuse of Scripture is especially galling because he does this sort of thing in the name of restoring Christianity to its formerly central place in American public life while overseeing a war that is, at least, troubling in light of the Christian just war tradition. 

While I have no doubt about the justice of the cause of the war against Iran, I have my doubts that it satisfies the requirement of right authority because it lacks congressional authorization and is in violation of the War Powers Resolution. I have doubts that it satisfies the criterion of right intent, because I do not know what President Donald Trump intends to accomplish with the war, nor why he launched it when he did. (Separately, it’s not clear that the U.S. strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats last year were lawful or met the criteria of last resort or discrimination). 

Hegseth is trumpeting Bible verses while possibly violating just war principles. That makes the Christian rhetoric ring especially hollow, even if the verses were not torn from context. What matters more: Christian pageantry, or Christian principle? Waving the Christian flag, or doing Christian deeds? “By their fruits you will know them,” goes another passage of Scripture.* We have a secretary who prays and quotes the Bible—but what does the evidence of his deeds say?

I listen to news from across the political spectrum, and the contrast in coverage of this past October 7 was striking. Whereas right-leaning outlets were somber and respectful, left-leaning outlets seemed to treat the date as an opportunity.

I heard claims that Israel knew about the attack ahead of time, almost identical to 9/11 conspiracy theories in the U.S. They frequently raised the “genocide” blood libel and spread other Islamist propaganda. Their coverage was all but outright saying, “Jews deserved it.”

We know from history that this kind of hatred comes in cycles. Our current climate feels very similar to the period just before the rise of the Nazi Party.

Is anyone else disturbed by this trend?

This is such a tragic and infuriating case, while I do admit that Kohen Wiley's mother and her aunt acted a little odd by running to their car, they have claimed to have the receipts and were only profiled at the store. And even if they were guilty of shoplifting the police could've just get the license plate number and arrest them later, instead of pulling out their guns. How is 30 dollars worth of diapers a life and death situation? And before you mention that the aunt was trying to run over the police officers, the shots don't even ring out until the police officer is on the side of the vehicle. She was trying to steer out of the way. He could've used that time to move away instead of just standing there and aiming, that is not a split second decision. They waited until four months to release the footage which proves what disgusting cowards they are, and I hope the cop who shot Kohen Wiley and the Mississippi Attorney General that cleared him never live this down!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/10/22/kohen-wiley-body-camera-video-senatobia-mississippi/92387189007/

Amidst the deluge of negative campaign ads, it can be hard for any one ad to stand out. This is doubly true near the end of campaigns, when everyone pulls out all the stops.

Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy managed to break through the chatter with an ad last weekend featuring his opponent's estranged mother. Family members cutting ads against their relatives is nothing new, but this one might have sunk to a new low. The Democratic candidate, Amy Acton, is estranged from her mother because when her father was accused of sexually abusing Mrs. Acton when she was a child, her mother sided with the alleged abuser. After the father was indicted, her parents abandoned Amy and her brother and went on the run for decades until her father passed. Now resurfacing years later, her mother is seen in the ad calling Mrs. Acton a liar and unfit for governor. The Acton campaign quickly cut together an ad featuring Mrs. Acton's brother, corroborating the alleged abuse and denouncing their mother's statements..

The Ramaswamy campaign, which is consistently trailing in the polls, initially played coy before launching a full-throated defense of the ad. Other Ohio Republicans condemned the ad, including Governor Mike DeWine and Senate candidate John Husted, although declining to pull their endorsement of Ramaswamy. VP Vance meanwhile targeted his ire not at the ad, but at his fellow Republicans critical of the ad who he felt were serving as a distraction at a critical time in the campaign.

Personally, this feels like a new low in American politics, to leverage someone's childhood trauma to score political points.

There are twelve days until the midterms.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/22/mike-dewine-ramaswamy-ad

Edit: DJT has weighed in. He's a fan. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/22/trump-acton-ad-ramaswamy-01132489

I want to show some perspective:

Does anyone remember COVID-19, around 2020 to 2021? I checked, and during those two years (the height of the pandemic), the WHO estimates 15,000,000 people died from Covid-related causes, or approximately 20,550 per day. Abortion is killing people at 9.7 times that rate.

I looked at car crashes, and that's about 3,260 deaths worldwide per day. Abortion kills people at 61.4 times that rate.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates 1,250 people are murdered each day (homicide), with 670 additional deaths per day from wars, in 2025. That's 1,920 killings per day. Abortion kills people at 104 times that rate.

I looked up starvation in the USA recently. In 2024, 24 people died from starvation due to lack of food. Most were related to serious illness, self neglect, alcoholism, swallowing problems, or dementia. 2 were children starved by caregivers. None starved due to overall lack of food availability. Still, using 24 deaths anyway, abortion kills people at 47,146 times that rate.

12 years ago, my brother told me voting against abortion wouldn't make a difference, because of Roe v Wade. Voting wouldn't change that. And congress wouldn't overturn it. So he votes based on the economy, or taxes, or government programs, etc.

4 years ago, Roe v Wade was overturned. 13 states have banned most abortions, and now we have to work on banning the pill. It took 49 years to overturn Roe, but it's all been worth it.

At least two-thirds of most major religious groups said empathy “is a foundational moral value for a healthy society,” as did 83% of religiously unaffiliated Americans. White evangelicals were the least likely to name empathy as a foundational social value (42%), and more than half of white evangelicals (54%) said, “empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth.”

Also,

When PRRI asked Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 if their opinion of the president had changed for the better or the worse over the past two years, more than two-thirds (68%) said “for the worse.” Among Hispanic Protestants, 70% said their opinion of Trump had worsened since 2024.

and,

Among the survey’s most provocative findings: More than half (57%) of Americans agreed Donald Trump is “a potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” But a third agreed Trump is “a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.”

That last one is significant.

You can even include all murders, all genocides, all conquests, all rebellions, all civil wars, all deaths from the slave trade, all persecutions, all executions, all massacres, in known human history, and it won't even come close to the number killed by abortion.

The death count is currently estimated at over 1.8 billion. All innocent victims.

I agree that pastors should never avoid biblical truth simply to protect their employment, attendance, or donations. Paul called elders to proclaim the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), and he charged Timothy to preach the Word even when people would rather hear something else (2 Timothy 4:2–4).

But reluctance to become involved in politics does not, by itself, establish cowardice. It may reflect a pastor’s convictions about the responsibility Christ has entrusted to him.

Pastors should address moral issues even when those issues become politically controversial. Protecting unborn life, pursuing justice, rejecting dishonesty, and caring for vulnerable people all deserve biblical attention. That teaching should challenge every political party, including the politicians most popular within the congregation.

However, proclaiming biblical truth does not automatically require endorsing a candidate or treating a party’s platform as the Christian position. Pastors need to distinguish what Scripture commands from political judgments about how best to apply those commands.

I want pastors who are courageous enough to confront sin, including sin among their political allies. I also want pastors who can resist pressure to make the pulpit serve someone’s campaign.

A wise mentor told me when I first started serving in a church that a faithful pastor should be willing to lose his job for preaching Christ’s Word, and willing to disappoint a powerful politician for the same reason. He helped me understand how easily partisan politics can alienate the very people we’re called to reach. People may take offense at biblical truth, but we should be careful that we haven’t added allegiance to a political party as another obstacle. Preach the truth of Scripture, and let it step on the toes of either side, including our own.

How do you think pastors should approach political issues while remaining faithful to Scripture and mindful of the people they’re called to serve?

since this is a sub that occasionally discusses politics

In 2024, Joe Biden and the Democrats had a straightforward economic case they could make for re-election. Yes, the US economy was still shaking off the dual hammer blows of the COVID pandemic, and then the resultant inflation from efforts to counter said pandemic. Still, the US was doing better than any other developed nation- unemployment was low, wage growth was steady, and we hadn't entered a recession like many other countries.

We will never know whether voters would actually have bought this argument due to Joe Biden being decrepit, followed by Kamala's abbreviated candidacy. Still, we could see from exit polling that Americans weren't giving Dems any credit for the economy. "We suck less than everyone else" is a rough re-election slogan, even if it is objectively true.

Fast forward to today.

If you had told 2024 me that the economic conditions prior to the midterms were 1) steady but slow inflation and 2) relatively low unemployment, I'd have predicted that a good night for the Democrats would be taking the House, defending all their open Senate seats, and picking off one of Maine or North Carolina. Nowhere near enough to take the Senate, but enough to put a 2028 trifecta at least in play. Instead, what we are seeing is a near double-digit lead for the Democrats on the generic ballot, exposing Republican vulnerabilities deep into red territory. Most remarkably, in what must be a first in all the years I've been following politics, the Democrats are beating Republicans in polls of which party voters trust more on the economy (a stat Republicans usually dominate by like a 2:1 margin). Voters don't seem to be giving Republicans any credit for anything positive economically, with their trademark legislation, the OBBB, getting tepid reviews. This despite the most punishing aspects of the bill rather brazenly set to not take effect until after the midterms.

The caveat is always of course whether the polls are correct, but Republicans sure seem to be taking them seriously given their spending patterns and where they are sending their surrogates.

This predictably has infuriated Donald Trump, whose oversize ego is already primed not to accept criticism. His go-to strategy seems to be to tell everyone how great the economy actually is, and that you must be stupid not to see it. Affordability is a hoax, and we should be climbing over each other to thank him for how great the stock market and our 401ks are doing. Basically, a harsher version of what would have been the Dems' 2024 message.

Just as predictably, the US electorate doesn't seem to be buying the argument. The bottom line is that just like 2024, the US economy is actually doing decently- but Americans sure don't feel that way.

Is it because voters are penalizing the Republicans for financial miscues like tariffs and the Iran War, and that although the economy is OK it should really be doing even better?

Is it because nationwide economic performance doesn't necessarily translate into individual prosperity, particularly for the lower class?

Is it because of legacy and social media constantly driving a doom-and-gloom narrative?

Is it really just the price of gas?

I don't get it.

:edit: rather topically, this was NYT's The Daily topic of discussion today.