Well, I expected to have one more election Substack, but I’ll have four, it looks like. The one I’d planned will be on Anabaptists and Civil Responsibility, and will be written tomorrow night, I think. Later tonight I will write one on Polling, which will essentially be my notes for math class tomorrow when I explain why a poll size of 1,000 is as good as 100,000. Tuesday night will be my notes for math class the next day when I will analyze whatever election night numbers are available. And this present Substack is the email Margaret Menge sent out to voters in Bloomington 7, Monroe County, Indiana. I earlier posted my Perry 19 email. Margaret has a different view of things, and her own personal experiences with the candidates and the issues. I asked her if I could post this, and she said yes. She is a professional journalist— you may have seen how she reported on the man from India who complained about being involuntarily registered to vote in Monroe County and couldn’t get the clerk’s office to de-register him (when he got his driver’s license, he check the “I am not a citizen” box, but they registered him anyway).
Subject: Message to our precinct -- Bloomington-8
Hello -- My name is Margaret Menge and I'm the elected Republican precinct committeeman for Bloomington-8, which is all of the Green Acres neighborhood.
I wanted to send you some information in the event you haven't voted yet.
The early voting location at 302 S. Walnut Street is open tomorrow, Monday, from 8 a.m. to 12 noon, if you'd like to vote there.
Election Day is Tuesday of course. Our precinct -- Bloomington 8 -- votes at Binford Elementary School at 2300 E. 2nd Street. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
If you haven't yet made a decision on who to vote for in the top two races, I wanted to share my thoughts.
Donald Trump
Why vote for Trump?
Because in his first term, he:
1. Ended NAFTA -- a huge accomplishment. That giant sucking sound we'd been hearing for 30 years (remember Ross Perot?) had been sucking money and jobs out of the U.S. economy for three decades. Trump ended it, and formed a new agreement with Mexico and Canada that protects American jobs, American workers and American manufacturing.
2. Ended the Syrian Civil War -- The war had been raging for five years and threatened to pull in more countries in the Middle East. The CIA was involved in funding ISIS, which was fighting Bashar al-Assad, who we were also fighting! It was insane for the U.S. to be involved in such a war and Trump smartly recognized this. After U.S. troops and funding were pulled, the war ended almost immediately.
3. Got us out of the Paris Climate Accord -- This was a terrible agreement that crippled U.S. companies while imposing no real restrictions on the world's worst polluters -- India and China.
4. Started no new foreign wars. He's the first president in 40 years about whom this could be said.
5. Appointed three pro-life Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade -- Long overdue. The Court in Roe had found a federal right to abortion in the Constitution though there is nothing like this indicated in the text. The issue was thus kicked to the states, where it should have been all along. Indiana was the first state to pass a law outlawing abortion in most instances. Here in Bloomington, Planned Parenthood a few years back met its "goal" of 1,000 abortions a year. The loss of innocent life is very sad to contemplate. Does anyone else look around and realize how few children live in Green Acres and what this means?
6. Fought for American workers as no president has in my lifetime.
7. Fought for a wall along our Southern border. Congress refused to give him the $15-20 million he needed to build it, but he went around them, and built 500 miles of wall on his own.
8. Instituted the "Remain in Mexico" program that required people claiming asylum in our country to wait for their court date in Mexico, instead of being released into the U.S. The truth is, very few people asking for asylum are actually legitimate asylum-seekers. Asylum is supposed to be for those fleeing war or famine. There is no war or famine in any country to the south of us!
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SIDE NOTE: I mention these last two things above because Illegal Immigration is the reason I live here in Bloomington. Until 2017 my son and I were living in Palm Beach County, Florida, in a town we loved. But about a third of the town was very poor immigrants, almost all of them illegal. Many were from Guatemala, and others from Mexico, Honduras, Haiti and other countries in Latin American and the Caribbean. It was becoming difficult to live there as the majority of children in the public schools were not native speakers of English and so the level of learning was very low. Most American families commuted every day to other towns to take their children to school. The last couple of years we were there, most of the people at the town's Fourth of July celebration spoke Spanish and wore black. They would stare at us as we walked by, as though we didn't belong there. I have traveled around Mexico, and lived in Russia. But feeling like a stranger in my own country is something I found very uncomfortable, and depressing, frankly. I wanted my son to grow up in America, in a place that felt like America. So we came to Bloomington (my old college town) and settled here in Green Acres.
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Trump's second term: If President Trump is re-elected, he'll put Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in charge of health policy and agricultural policy (they go hand-in-hand) and put Elon Musk in charge of reducing the size of the federal government and putting power back into the hands of the people. All authority belongs to the people, said Thomas Jefferson -- ALL. We have to get back to this.
Trump has also promised to end the war in Ukraine -- to stop the killing there -- and to return the world to peace. Yes! Let us have blessed peace, instead of these endless wars.
There are many other reasons to vote for President Trump: His love for our country, willingness to sacrifice his fame and fortune to lead our nation, willingness to take on the national media as no other president ever has and to expose them as agents of the Deep State (certainly, they cooperated in the Russia Hoax, meant to overthrow the 2016 election and remove him from office.)
I know not everyone loves everything about Trump -- but for God's sake, we need him!
***
Mike Braun and Micah Beckwith
Mike Braun as governor and Micah Beckwith as lieutenant governor will be an outstanding combination for the state of Indiana -- probably the best we've ever had. Braun is an entrepreneur, a self-made multi-millionaire. He got an MBA from Harvard and then returned home to Jasper, Indiana, to build the small distribution business his father had purchased into a major company. He's promised, as governor, to go through every state agency and if they're not delivering the best service to taxpayers for the amount we pay them, to cut their budgets. This is exactly what is needed.
As for Micah Beckwith -- He's a patriot and a fighter. Micah came down to Bloomington in June of 2021 and spoke at the Rally against the IU vaccine mandate that I helped organize. In fact, he kicked it off. He went on to speak at many more rallies in Indianapolis and elsewhere -- opposing mask and vaccine mandates and siding with the right of the people to make their own decisions about what they put in and on their bodies. In running for lieutenant governor, Micah did something no one has ever done before -- forced a vote of Republican delegates at the convention. And he won. He's not the one the Establishment wanted: He's the one the people chose. As lieutenant governor, and next in line to be governor, he'll be beholden to no one but the people. This is very good.
.....I'm also thankful we have Todd Rokita running for re-election as our Attorney General. Rokita sued the Biden Administration over the vaccine mandates, and won. He's also been an outspoken advocate for the right to life of the not-yet-born. Having a son with a serious disability, he knows that all life is precious. He's also been a great advocate for parents, publishing the Parents Bill of Rights to make clear what rights parents have in their children's education. This was really important for those of us who have kids in public schools.
I hope you don't mind me sharing these thoughts and observations with you. There's so much at stake this year that I didn't feel I could remain silent.
If you need a ride to the polls on Tuesday, or if you know anyone who does, don't hesitate to let me know. I'm available all day and am happy to help. Every vote counts, and we really need to deliver the biggest win we can in this very important election. I can be reached at (561) 801-6397.
To Victory! ... And to Making America Great Again.
Yours,
Margaret Menge