The Rod Martin Report

Trump’s Death and Resurrection
The Access Hollywood Tape
Virtue Signaling
What Happens If She Wins?
The Wikileaks Revelations
What Trump Must Do
The Battle of Tours and Christopher Columbus

Dear Friends,

Wow.

Friday, Donald Trump imploded in scandal and was widely pronounced dead. Last night, a smug Hillary Clinton was nuked by that same dead man.

It was, in Pastor Jim Garlow’s words, as though Trump was buried on Friday, and on the third day rose again.

*******

So first, the debate. Two weeks ago I told you that Hillary had shown us her best, which wasn’t very good, but Trump had room for vast improvement.

On both counts I was right.

Trump lost the first debate, but was winning for the first 40 minutes. He stopped winning (which is really the best way to put it) because he repeatedly took Clinton’s bait, defending himself and his businesses instead of staying on the attack.

That Trump didn’t exist last night.

Hillary is a shockingly target-rich environment. And unlike all who’ve debated the Clintons before, Trump went after those targets, again and again, relentlessly and without mercy. He set her back on her heels. He dominated the debate. He won.

It wasn’t close.

We’ll come back to that.

*******

Second, Trump’s Access Hollywood comments. Unless you were somewhere in the Australian Outback over the weekend, you already know about The Donald’s 11-year-old Access Hollywood video, in which he and reporter Billy Bush (now indefinitely suspended) talked too near a hot mic about things we just don’t discuss in a family publication.

Some of you have decided that I’m a rabid Trump supporter (I know, because you tell me this on Facebook), despite the fact that even to this day I have not endorsed Donald Trump. Many of you (presumably the ones better capable of reading) have wondered aloud why I haven’t endorsed him.

Friday was why. It wasn’t the only reason. But it was why.

To borrow a Hillaryism, Trump’s banter with Bush was “deplorable.” It really was. There’s no sugarcoating that, and there shouldn’t be. And you can bet there’s more, just as you can bet there are equally damning tapes that NBC mysteriously doesn’t want to “leak” two days before a debate of Bubba and the Mrs. These are the most disliked Presidential candidates in history for a reason.

But enough with the virtue signaling.

Can anyone honestly say there was anything in that tape we didn’t know about Donald Trump before Friday? That we didn’t know a year ago? Because if so, that person is clearly under the age of 12, mentally if not physically.

So let’s talk about this for a minute as grown-ups.

*******

As I’ve repeatedly said, I was for the other guy. Or more specifically, I was exclusively for the Southern Baptist candidates for President, unlike far too many Southern Baptists (and evangelicals generally).

One of those candidates, Mike Huckabee, took up Newt Gingrich’s 2012 position that not only is Roe v. Wade bad law, but that the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause (which prohibits the taking of life without due process of law) already prohibits abortion. If a U.S. Justice Department were to take this position, before a Supreme Court stocked with Justices (such as a replacement for the dearly departed Antonin Scalia) who agreed with this position (as Scalia would have), this would mean not only that Roe would instantly fall, not just that “abortion would be returned to the states” as pro-lifers have sought all these years, but that abortion would be prohibited everywhere as a matter of Constitutional law.

Newt argued for this in 2012, yet many pro-lifers supported Mitt Romney.Huckabee argued this in 2015. Pro-lifers largely yawned. To the degree they ignored him because they instead supported Ted Cruz — who took up the same position — that’s understandable. But many of them…didn’t.

No matter how much you liked Mike Huckabee, there was never any question that Ted Cruz was by far the most qualified human being, probably ever in the history of the Republic, to be picking Supreme Court Justices. And make no mistake, the fate of the Republic hangs on who carries out that one task.

*******

This is true far beyond abortion. Hillary will appoint a replacement for Scalia, and then others also, who will interpret the preaching of large portions of the Bible as impermissible hate speech. She’ll then use that ruling against the Free Exercise Clause to go after the Free Speech Clause.

She’ll shut up or even shut down your church, and then she’ll go after your conservative media outlets, until Washington dictates all expression as thoroughly as Stalin. Or more precisely, as thoroughly as modern China.

Does that sound extreme? It shouldn’t: the first half of this is already starting, all across America, since Obergefell and since the left no longer fears Scalia ruling against them. A foretaste of the second half came last week, when the EU ordered British media not to report when terrorists are found to be Muslims. Note well that Justice Ginsburg regularly opines that Supreme Court rulings should follow international, not Constitutional, standards.

From cracking down on “climate deniers” (and anyone else who disagrees with the leftist orthodoxy du jour), to annihilating U.S. energy production, to handing American sovereignty to a variety of unelected foreign bodies, to upholding the rapidly expanding Obama precedent of rule by Presidential decree (er, executive orders), a Hillary Court will gut the Constitution and the America we know.

And just to be clear, the opposite is also true: a Court largely composed of the names on Donald Trump’s lists (here and here) would not only repudiate these catastrophes, but would overturn all the bad rulings going back to 1937 — not just Roe but Chevron and Wickard and a host of others — that have “fundamentally transformed” the federal government into Leviathan. It would achieve more in a few years than decades of Republican Congresses ever could.

Some of you will say that the catastrophe Hillary brings is good and right, because “America deserves judgment,” and maybe it does. But a lot of your neighbors don’t. Abraham prayed that God would save Sodom for just ten righteous men: America has far more than that, and a decent number of you don’t care, which hardly seems like loving your neighbor as yourself.

But the bigger point is, a so-transformed America isn’t going to collapse as some of you hope. It will be immensely strong. And evil. And a nation that has done more good in the world than any other for two centuries will do more wickedness than you have possibly comprehended.

We need to resist that.

*******

We also need to be clear about why the Trump tape — which has existed for 11 long years — was released on Friday October 7, 2016 and not Friday October 9, 2015 or Friday October 7, 2005. Yes, it was an “October Surprise”. Yes, it was Friday before the debate. Yes, Trump was starting to beat her (and he still may).

But those aren’t the reasons. They’re just the icing on a big nasty cake.

On Friday, Wikileaks produced damning documents against Hillary, including clips of her secret Wall Street speeches and hundreds of emails between Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta. It would be impossible here to recount all the revelations, including Hillary trashing African Americans, her “dream” of completely open borders, her massive “hits” file against Bernie Sanders (whom she and the DNC cheated out of the nomination), and her plan to impose nationwide gun control by executive order.

But those are nothing compared to Hillary’s promise to insiders that she has a public and a private position on everything, and only the private position is real. Indeed, she explained to the assembled Wall Street bankers that you have to tell people what they want to hear to get elected, but that once you’re in power you can pursue the real agenda and “it usually works out.”

In other words, her entire campaign, her entire public life, is a scam to defraud us all.

*******

No doubt this is especially true of Obamacare, which even Bill Clinton admitted last week is “the craziest thing in the world.”

Obamacare is imploding. Take Tennessee, an economically healthy state. Premiums are about to increase another 62% this fall, and even the state insurance commissioner says the program is “very near collapse.” 73 of Tennessee’s 95 counties are down to just one insurer, as is true of 1/3 of counties nationwide. Soon there could be none.

This is all just ahead of schedule, which is a problem for Hillary. As I told you all the way back in 2010, Obamacare was never designed to work: it was intended to blow up in the faces of the insurance companies and make most of you demand the single-payer plan (i.e., socialized medicine) Hillary’s worked for all her life.

Obama was all too happy to tee up the ball: like his and Hillary’s mentor Saul Alinsky, he was in for the long game. After 1994, all serious Democrats understood that America would never swallow full-blown socialism in one gulp. They had to be herded into it.

Hillary claims she’s for a sort of “enhanced” Obamacare, still mostly private.That’s her “public position.” But her private position, as revealed on Friday, is exactly what we thought: a single-payer Canadian-style disaster. And just like her husband (who is slated to “run the economy”) once ran on a promise to cut middle class taxes, and then — after just three weeks in office — announced the largest tax hike in American history, you can bet that private position will be public come about February.

That won’t just mean the same awful health care to which our veterans are daily subjected. That will mean the federal government will control every area of your life. Masculinity, as you know, is now “toxic” and a health care issue. Gun control is now a health care issue. Indeed, everything can be and is being conveniently redefined as a health care issue.

And if you oppose the coming regime, your health care issue is likely to be that you just won’t get very much. And what ever will you do then, when all your choices are gone?

*******

So back to Trump and his locker room talk, which I absolutely condemn.

The problem with condemning him along with it is severalfold. First, the tape is eleven years old. It’s not exactly a current event, like, say, the Clinton revelations its release is being used to conceal. And Trump has genuinely apologized for it, which everyone says was required but many don’t seem prepared to accept. That seems odd in both directions, but the one that matters is that Trump famously never apologizes and yet seems genuinely ashamed of this.

Second, it’s talk, not action. I don’t know if he acted on his talk, but I do know Bill and Hillary Clinton have acted on their talk and will continue to do so. And if you think Bill is irrelevant, you need to remember that Hillary’s promised he’ll be running the entire U.S. economy.

Third — and perhaps most damning to some of those who this weekend were shocked! shocked! — is that everyone knew this about Trump months if not years ago. The pretense that this is anything new is nothing but virtue signaling. But for many it’s also hypocritical: as my friend Kellyanne Conway pointed out on several networks last night, some of the same people unendorsing Trump have acted as badly as his words, even toward her personally.

But fourth, this flawed nominee is the nominee we have. I didn’t want him, but there isn’t going to be another one. And we have Christian “leaders” telling us that we should care more about his dirty talk than about unrestricted abortions, federal funding of not only abortions but transgender propaganda globally, the criminalization of faith and speech, the empowering of Iran, the constant increase in terrorist attacks, the deification of the state…

“They strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.”

I would have more respect for many of these men if they had united behind one of our best candidates in the primaries and fought the good fight. But many of them supported some of our worst candidates, and wrote off Trump as a “clown” who could never win and thus needed no opposition.

In many cases, they sat on their hands and did nothing at all. One prominent Baptist “leader” — whose job is to lobby Washington and inform the flock in matters such as this — managed to combine these two derelictions. He not only worked against his own team, he also made a habit — which he continued during last week’s Vice Presidential debate — of yawning through his Twitter feed, condemning the debaters as beneath him and the debates themselves as unimportant. He would frequently — as he did last week — announce mid-debate that the fate of America was too stupid to watch, and that he was going to bed.

What leadership. What an example. And now he wonders why we’re where we are.

*******

Well I can tell you why we’re here.

If you are a well-meaning soul whom none of this convinces, so be it. I disagree but I respect you. Believe me, I understand.

But a lot of Republican political leaders had no stomach for real change in Washington these last 20 years. A lot of Evangelical leaders had no stomach for applying Scripture to all of life, preferring not to offend big donors and to look down on those “politicizing the pulpit” by addressing any moral issue bigger than a Quiet Time.

And now, characteristically, they all want to focus on the shiny thing in front of them — sex! sex! — rather than the big picture catastrophes we face. Exactly as Hillary’s smirking elitist cronies knew they all would.

They have done and continue to do absolutely anything necessary to avoid responsibility in the messy fallen world in which we live. They are the sort of men who would not only condemn Rahab for lying to protect the spies, but advocate that she and the spies be executed, because after all, spying and lying are bad, and it’s especially bad for the pastors conference business to be seen as supporting them. Oh, and God certainly doesn’t need Rahab to accomplish His purpose, you know.

I didn’t want Donald Trump. But Donald Trump may well be a better man than some of these blind guides. He is at least a product of their dereliction. And he is infinitely superior to the fascist nightmare threatening to engulf us.

*******

So can Trump still win? Yes, but only if he continues to be the Trump we saw last night: relentlessly on offense, impossible to distract.

Make no mistake: there will be more revelations, against both candidates. I have told you from the beginning: these are the two most hated nominees in history, so the game will be to drive each other’s negatives as high as possible. Both candidates are going to hit each other with more mud than anyone has ever seen.

I always give you polls, but I’m not this time, because no polls have factored in the whiplash of the last three days. An NBC News poll this morning purported to, showing a double-digit lead for Clinton; but (a) it accounts for snap reaction to the Trump tape but not the debate, (b) it’s a sample of just 500 registered (not likely) voters, and (c) it has a margin of error of almost 5%. In other words, it’s meaningless.

We’ll see how this plays out over the next few days. But my guess is a lot of cognitive dissonance, followed by a resumption of the Trump uptrend, just as took place after Hillary’s “Trump is a Nazi” ad.

*******

#NeverTrumpers were quick to attack Trump’s promise to appoint a Special Prosecutor for Hillary’s emails, calling it “third world”. But they forget (conveniently) that this is a central issue: if Hillary were anyone else on Earth, she’d be in jail right now. This matters to a great many people, and to the future of this country as one ruled by laws, not by men.

They also forget that their darlings Jeb! Bush and Marco Rubio (not to mention Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and yes, Donald Trump) all promised the exact same thing last fall.

*******

But that brings us to the most potent message from last night: that Hillary’s been in politics for 30 years and has nothing to show for it except disasters.

This is the “are you better off than you were four years ago” of 2016. And it puts Hillary in the incumbent’s role in a year demanding change.

It’s certainly not the only point Trump can drive home. He’s right that Capt. Khan would be alive if he’d been President, as is also true of most of those who’ve died in combat these last three decades, in which Trump opposed every American conflict and Hillary supported or initiated all of them.

He’s right that he was right to pay only the amount in taxes that he owed. He’s also right that Hillary and her friends used the law she’s attacking him for using, and did nothing to change it in 30 years in public life.

He’s right that Hillary only discovered Russia was a geopolitical enemy this year, and that she handed them Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. He’s right that we should improve that relationship for the good of the whole world. He’s right that Hillary and Obama made Iran mighty, and in a very short time. He’s right that has to change.

He’s right that the inner cities are a disaster. He’s right that the Democrats have run them like a plantation for more than a century. He’s right that minorities “have nothing to lose” by switching sides, and potentially a tremendous amount to gain.

He’s also right that America’s economic growth is the worst it’s been in modern times, that there are a handful of things that would fix that, creating vast new opportunity for everyone, and that Hillary Clinton is unalterably opposed to all of those things.

He’s right to want to make America great again, Reagan’s shining city on a hill.

That’s the message he has to drive home: a culture of life vs. a culture of death, a land of opportunity vs. growing pockets of despair, Constitutional restraint and rule of law vs. crony corruption and dictatorial fiat, peace through strength, problems solved, by a man who’s spent his life solving problems instead of a woman who’s spent her life causing them. A future of legitimate hope, for all.

That’s the message he has to carry all the way through November.

He made a strong re-start last night.

*******

There are about 8 million other things we should discuss this week, but this is getting long, so I’m going to close with just a few thoughts on today’s two holidays: Columbus Day, and the Battle of Tours.

On this day in 732 A.D., Charles Martel, grandfather of the Emperor Charlemagne, defeated the invading armies of the Caliphate deep in northern France, exactly 100 years after the death of Muhammad in Arabia.

In that century, the armies of Islam — and note well, I did not say “the missionaries of Islam” — had conquered all of the Persian Empire and much of India, most of the Eastern Roman Empire, all of North Africa from Alexandria in Egypt past the Pillars of Hercules in modern Morocco, which is itself named for the Moors who dominated Spain for seven centuries after finally being stopped by the Franks at Tours.

Had Charles failed, it is very likely that all of Christendom would have been subjugated. Most of what then existed of Christendom already was, and is, down to this very day.

“The Hammer”, as he came to be called, drove the Muslims from Frankish lands, but not from sad Hispania. The Iberian Peninsula is often cited as proof of the greatness of Islamic civilization, but it was actually proof of the greatness of Rome and its Visigothic successors, who established their kingdom there as a continuation of the majestic antiquity before them.

The Muslims swept the Visigoths and inherited their wealth and their civilization largely intact, much as was true of the Abassids’ thriving in pre-existing Persia and the Ottomans’ in wealthy Byzantium.

The invaders established none of these realms. They subjugated and plundered them. From Jerusalem to Gibraltar, from Tarshish beyond Nineveh, they enslaved and castrated Christian boys and put all who opposed the will of the Prophet to the sword.

They were the Soviets of their day.

Charles Martel saved (most of) Europe. But it took 700 years for the Christians of Spain to retake their homes and land. 700 years. That’s three times the entire time our United States have existed, of relentless, agonizing, painstaking resistance.

They won their fight, once and for all, in 1492, a mere generation after the last outpost of Rome finally fell to the Muslim Turks, mere months before Isabella sent Columbus exploring on behalf of a reunited Spain.

Columbus has been derided by the left as a monster, just as Charles’ heirs are demonized when they stand against his ancient foe. All this proves is that the left cannot be trusted, about or with anything.

Columbus was a product of his era to be sure, medieval, imperfect, flawed. But he was also the man whose vision opened a New World, whose persistence unleashed a new era, whose intrepid entrepreneurship has been an inspiration to adventurous men and women from the founders of Jamestown to the founders of the Union Pacific and of SpaceX. It is right that we should celebrate and honor him.

But it’s that seven centuries that haunts me today.

The Muslims did not have to win at Ajnadayn in 634: they could have been contained, and the nations of the East did not have to fall. Julian need not have betrayed Hispania, Roderic need not have been betrayed at Guadalete.

All of these were the short-term choices for short-term gain of weak, myopic men who subjected their people to a 700 year dark age for lack of vision and a steadfast refusal to take responsibility for the likely consequences of their acts. It can happen, it has happened, and we are by no means exempt.

But it didn’t have to. It doesn’t have to now.

*******

You can read about the world anywhere. You come to RodMartin.org to understand it. Do your friends a favor and pass it along; and remember, there’s a lot more we publish each week that doesn’t make the newsletter.

Best wishes,

signature