Author: Kerby Anderson

Kerby Anderson
We know that many of our public schools are failing. Therefore, it is encouraging to hear a success story. That is what John Stossel brings in a recent video. Although the public schools in his home state of New York are producing kids with below average scores, he points to one exception.
The school is aptly named the Success Academy. It succeeds, he explains, where government-run schools fail. The chain of 50 schools is run by a former Democratic City Councilwoman. On math scores, they outperform every school in New York State, even though the kids mostly come from low-income families.
They also do things differently. At Success schools, principals spend time in every classroom, giving tips to teachers. Some teachers may not like being watched, but a principal will be able to point out things a teacher may not see. Schools get better and the students improve and are more successful.
Another difference is the school day. Success Academy students typically stay until 4:30pm. Some may stay even longer. You can accomplish much more with the longer school day. John Stossel was surprised that the students said they “look forward” to school.
Lots of parents are desperate to get their kids into Success Academy. Almost 13,000 more families apply than there is space. The schools hold a lottery, and the video shows the sadness on the faces of parents and kids who don’t get into the school.
One last point is cost. The government gives charter schools like Success Academy $18,000 per student. Government-run schools get almost $36,000. In other words, Success Academy does better with half the money.
If we want to have an educated citizenry, we need more success stories from the public schools like this one.

Kerby Anderson
When the Southern Baptist Convention met a few weeks ago, the messengers adopted a resolution about in vitro fertilization (known as IVF). While it is unusual for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to debate medical ethics, they felt a need to respond to the recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court on IVF.
The mainstream press reported this as an attempt to condemn the practice. The actual statement was to “reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being” and asked that doctors “only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation.”
When I wrote my book about genetic engineering in the 1980s, I started to hear from infertile women (the modern-day Hannahs) wondering about the ethics of IVF. If you are interested, you might want to obtain my recent booklet, A Biblical View on Genetic Engineering.
Let me also point you to the work by Dr. Jim Denison, who have been on my radio program. He has an excellent white paper on, “When does life begin? Frozen embryos, IVF, and the sanctity of life.” He is the Theologian in Residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas and serves as Resident Scholar for Ethics with Baylor Scott & White Health.
He reminds us that “at the moment of fertilization, the embryo possesses the chromosomal makeup of a distinct human being with all inheritable factors.” And we also know that all persons are equal in their right to life (Psalm 139:13–16).
This perspective would therefore call for the careful and moral application of IVF. The Southern Baptist Convention resolution is not radical but based on sound biblical and medical information.

Kerby Anderson
Depending on the news source you have, you may or may not have heard about the arrest of eight individuals from Tajikistan who are suspected terrorists. In case you are unfamiliar with that country, it is at least 95 percent Muslim and located near Afghanistan, Pakistan, and communist China. Put another way, they come from a country that has been a hotbed for radical Islamic terrorism.
The FBI and other intelligence agencies believe these eight illegal aliens were planning a terrorist attack like the attack at the Moscow concert hall. At least four of the men involved in that attack were from the group ISIS-K. All eight of these men are connected to ISIS-K.
How did they get into the US? First, let’s remember that President Joe Biden and Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assure us that people crossing our border have been vetted. Second, we now know that at least one of these individuals used the app provided by the Biden administration that allowed people to get in the country. Third, some of the others were apparently intercepted by Border Patrol, supposedly vetted, and sent on their way.
Let that sink in for a moment. These men were not the “gotaways” I sometimes talk about in my commentaries. Yes, 8 million have crossed the border since President Biden took office, and another 2 million are “gotaways” that I usually suggest may be involved in trafficking or terrorism and did not want to be caught.
But these men were confident they could “game the system.” They didn’t even try to avoid being caught. And I might mention that another potential terrorist was caught in New York City with a full arsenal of weapons in his vehicle (such as loaded magazines and body armor).
This is the danger America faces from an open border and a vetting process that is broken.

Kerby Anderson
Nuclear war may be unthinkable, but we need to think about it, so it doesn’t occur. Recently at a China-Russia summit, General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed, “There can be no winners in a nuclear war, and it should never be fought.” While we can take comfort in their statement, we also need to realize these two leaders have threatened the use of nuclear arms in the past.
In his latest book, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, Victor Davis Hanson explains that war can settle disputes, topple dictators, and bend the trajectory of civilizations. But he also warns there have been times when war ended in utter annihilation.
He provides four historical examples: the city-state of Thebes, ancient Carthage, Byzantine Constantinople, and Aztec Tenochtitlan (tuh/noch/te/lan). The leaders believed their illustrious pasts would be enough to prevent their destruction. Alexander the Great, Roman Scipio, Muslim Mehmet, and the Spanish conquistador Cortés proved them wrong. Each of them didn’t just attempt to defeat their enemy but were successful in destroying them and their culture.
There are many ways that nations and people can vanish from history. Sometimes natural causes like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or plagues wipe out a population. His book provides four examples of how wartime destruction of a culture and civilization have taken place in the past. His book is an important warning that it could happen again.
What is striking is how quickly the transition from normality to the end of days can take place. This rendezvous with finality was unexpected. Their leaders failed to assess their military and cultural weaknesses. This needs to be a warning for us today.

Kerby Anderson
The world keeps getting increasingly more dangerous. Robert Clark provides several examples. There is the “war in Ukraine; China’s increasingly bellicose actions in the South China Sea and its little-talked-about nuclear proliferation; and Iranian aggression that threatens the existence of Israel, the lives of U.S. forces and their allies in the Middle East, and the security of global shipping lanes.”
All of that is enough for any of us to avert our eyes and focus on something else. But his argument is “The World Needs the West.” We may not want to think about foreign policy, but the future of a stable world depends on us electing the right politicians and appointing the right cabinet officers.
After the Cold War, we enjoyed a “peace dividend.” That allowed many European countries, along with this country, to reduce defense spending. This loss of military capability led to a loss of a credible deterrent. Many Americans don’t want to go to war. Perhaps the best way to avoid war is to have enough military might that will deter aggression.
The editors of the Wall Street Journal put it this way: “Mr. Biden talks about a world at risk from autocracies, but he acts like this is 1992 and the Soviet Union just collapsed. The world today is more like the late 1930s, as dictators build their militaries and form a new axis of animosity, while the American political class sleeps.”
The editors are also aware of our national debt and argue that what is currently spent “for defense in 2025 is a fraction of what Congress has blown on social programs over the past three years.” They argue we need an informed debate about priorities.
During this election year, we need to remember what is at stake not only in this country but around the world.

Kerby Anderson
When school is out, that is a time when administrators should establish needed policies before schools and colleges reconvene. High on the list is to develop policies concerning student walkouts.
In a recent article, Stanley Kurtz reminds us how the country has been swept up in successive waves of disorder and lawlessness on campuses. These range from protests about racism to protests about the election of Donald Trump to high school walkouts about guns to recent pro-Hamas demonstrations.
He reminds us that missing from all of this is any trace of accountability. Speakers are shouted down. Jewish students and conservative students are threatened. And high school students not only walk off campus but are often praised and even authorized by faculty.
In many cases, civic education in the schools has been co-opted and converted into a pretext for political activism under euphemisms like “civic engagement” or “action civics.” Students are not only encouraged to protest but are often given course credit for protesting or lobbying.
The Supreme Court has ruled in Tinker v Des Moines that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. But that case involved students wearing black armbands to class, not allowing students to just walk out of class and head to a protest off campus without any supervision from the school.
Also, that case assumed that the public schools would be neutral, but we now have cases of schools promoting protests and taking sides. Students face teacher pressure and peer pressure, along with pressure from outside the school. And there is a concern over student safety and the school’s liability.
It is time for accountability. It is time to develop and promote policies concerning student walkouts.

Kerby Anderson
Whenever I am out speaking and take questions, there is one question I can assume will be asked. Aren’t you concerned about the possibility we will soon have a central bank digital currency? Financial leaders in other countries are calling for the implementation of these CBDCs, and concerned Americans wonder if they are coming to this country.
My first response is to mention that I have written about CBDCs, which is usually followed by an encouragement to do it again. Hence, this commentary. My second response it to point to the upcoming election. President Biden signed an executive order encouraging the Federal Reserve to study the feasibility of digital currency. Former President Trump is on record opposing CBDCs.
Why should we be concerned? With CBDCs, every transaction could be tracked by the government. The government and the federal reserve would know even more about you, your family, your clients, and your charities. Although some critics fear we would lose our privacy, I fear a greater issue.
CBDCs would make it easier for governments to freeze financial resources. The Canadian government prevented the protesting truckers from accessing their bank accounts, but that would be made much easier with CBDCs. And CBDCs can be programmed. This could be used to prohibit people from buying certain goods or at least place a limit on how much they might purchase.
Proponents believe CBDCs would give central banks a new opportunity for monetary policy. It would be easier, they say, to undertake “helicopter drops of money.” But they also add that it would be possible to implement negative interest rates by shrinking balances in CBDC accounts. That is bureaucratic speak for taking money out of your account.
In many ways, this election will determine the future of CBDCs.

Kerby Anderson
Kids aren’t growing up. But you already knew that. We now have more evidence for why this is a significant problem. In the past, I have quoted from the book, The Coddling of the American Mind by co-author Jonathan Haidt, who I interviewed on our radio program. He argues that young people are fragile and have been protected by a culture that promotes safety at all costs.
In a new book, Abigail Shrier takes a different look at the problem by focusing on how psychology has become an all-consuming ideology. She argues in Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up that much of what has been said and written about psychological and emotional “trauma” is wrong. She also argues that kids would be better off if they had no therapy at all.
You might remember her previous book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. In my interview with her and in her book, she documents the push to medically transition girls who may merely have gender-dysphoria. Her new book picks up with that concern by examining our therapy-obsessed culture. Both Jonathan Haidt and Abigail Shrier reveal that the younger generations are sadder and more emotionally distraught than previous generations.
She argues that our anti-adversity worldview is to blame. Therapy has become an ideology. By talking about trauma and “treating” it, we have robbed an entire generation of character qualities like grit, perseverance, and resilience.
Instead, the writer of Hebrews (12:1) reminds us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” James (1:12) says we are blessed if we “remain steadfast under trial.”

Kerby Anderson
A few decades ago, Americans were increasingly concerned about privacy. Back then, we did several radio programs on the topic but now many of our privacy concerns have faded.
Mark Zuckerberg put this in perspective. He said when he got to his dorm room at Harvard, the question many students asked was, “why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?” He then went on to acknowledge that people (especially his generation) became more comfortable with sharing information online.
In his book, Why Privacy Matters, Neil Richards writes about some of the myths that surround privacy concerns. One myth is that privacy is about hiding dark secrets. We hear the argument that “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” But that doesn’t mean we should have everyone see everything. We wear clothes out of modesty. We don’t want videos of what we do in a bathroom or bedroom.
Another myth is that privacy isn’t about creepiness. He provides lots of examples of privacy invasions we would not tolerate. Yet we have the famous comment by Google’s Eric Schmidt that I have mentioned in previous commentaries. He explained that: “Google’s policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.”
Another myth is that privacy isn’t primarily about control. We are assured that we can make informed choices about the amount of information a technology company can use. But do you really read all the words in a privacy notice? One famous study from more than a decade ago estimated that if we were to quickly read the privacy policies of every website we encounter, it would take 75 full working days to read them all.
Privacy concerns still exist, and we need to focus on them in the future.

Kerby Anderson
You have probably heard the phrase, “History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes.” That observation is true, especially in economics.
Investor Ray Dalio learned that lesson at a young age. In 1971, he was clerking on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. When President Nixon announced that paper currency could no longer be turned in for gold, he expected pandemonium on the floor as stocks took a dive. Instead, the stock market jumped 4 percent as the dollar plummeted. He was surprised because he hadn’t experienced a currency devaluation, but he would have known if he had studied history.
This isn’t the first time the US has had to deal with significant inflation. In fact, the current chairman of the Federal Reserve (Jerome Powell) vows that he won’t make the mistake of Arthur Burns, who was Fed chairman in the 1970s.
I recently read an article from a Yale economics professor who was at the Federal Reserve back in those days. He said Arthur Burns wanted to remove energy-related products from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) because of the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent oil embargo. Blaming oil prices on a war. Does that sound familiar?
Then came surging food prices. Arthur Burns argued that this was traceable to unusual weather (specifically an El Niño event) that affected such things as fertilizers and feedstock prices. He, therefore, wanted to remove food prices from the CPI. Again, doesn’t this sound familiar?
By the time he was done, only about 35 percent of the CPI was left. If you have been listening to my commentaries for any length of time, you know that we no longer measure CPI the way we did decades ago.
This isn’t the first time America has had to deal with significant inflation, and we can learn lessons from economic history about what we should do.

Kerby Anderson
Why do we write down our laws? I recently read an article providing a practical reason for writing down the laws of a nation, but I would also like to add one historical reason for why we write down our laws.
This country is supposed to be a nation of laws and not men. We haven’t always lived up to the vision, but that is what we are to aspire to achieve. When you write down a law, you give it a fixed meaning. A government with laws with precise meanings is a government of law not of arbitrary power. You know what rights the government acknowledges, and you know what prohibitions will be punished.
In my booklet A Biblical Point of View on Constitutional Interpretation, I talk about two different views. Originalism attempts to understand the mindset of the framers who constructed it. That is why some have referred to this view as “strict constructionism.” The other view is modernism, also often called “the living Constitution.” It attempts to find meaning for the Constitution today and rejects attempts to view it through the eyes of white men who lived in the 18th century. Ultimately, rights and legal definitions become putty in the hands of judges and justices.
Historically, we write down laws because of the Puritans. They wrote out their covenants because they understood that they were to answer to God for their actions. These covenants bound each person to another person and the whole community as an agreement under God. They also understood that the rights they enjoyed came from God. Ultimately, these Puritan Covenants became a model for the US Constitution.
Americans want to live under a government of law, not a government where justices find principles in the unwritten “penumbras” of a living Constitution. Laws are written down to fix their meaning and protect against judges and justices who want to change the law arbitrarily.

Kerby Anderson
Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote about the “Leftist Mind,” and that got my attention since I have recently written a booklet on the “The Liberal Mind.” My goal was to describe the foundational assumptions of a liberal mindset. Hanson instead reminded us of how leftists supported the Electoral College and every decision from the Supreme Court until recently.
A decade ago, Democrats loved the Electoral College. The “blue wall” states made the election and reelection of Barack Obama possible. Then the wall crumbled in 2016 to Trump, and now they condemn the Electoral College as a “relic of our anti-democratic founders.”
Leftists loved the Supreme Court decisions on abortion, school prayer, same-sex marriage, pornography, and Miranda rights. The “Left cheered the Court as it made the law and ignored legislatures and presidents.” They welcomed Justices appointed by Republican presidents who drifted leftward and provided the needed votes on “affirmative action to Roe v. Wade, to Obamacare.”
What was the response? “Was there any serious right-wing talk of packing the court with six additional justices to slow down its overreaching left-wing majority – or of a mob massing at the home of a left-wing justice? Certainly not.”
But now that there is a narrow majority of originalist justices on the Court, “the once-beloved Court is being slandered by leftist insurrectionists as illegitimate. Every sort of once-unthinkable attack on the courts is now permissible.”
If you are looking for any consistency, you will not find it. Each of these examples illustrates the “end justifies the means” perspective of the Leftist Mind. And that’s why it is difficult to take many of these current arguments seriously.

Kerby Anderson
More than a decade ago, I did an interview with Mark Bauerlein about his book, The Dumbest Generation. Last week we focused our attention on his new book, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up. The ignorance and faulty logic of young people in college has now made its way into the young adult culture.
He reminds us that social commentators predicted that the millennial generation would make a significant impact on society because they were coming of age in the Digital Age. Back then, professor Bauerlein was warning that smartphones and computers were having a negative impact on his students and young adults.
He explains the millennials “grew up in a world of their own” and “it didn’t provide them with the tools to handle the ordinary pains of life once they had to leave that world. Most of them had no religion to give shape and direction to their mortal careers, no doctrine to explain suffering when it came.” On one side you had the “nones” who rejected religion. On the other side you had Christians who adopted the Christian Smith description of “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
We also talked about the cancel culture. They may have protested Charles Murray and Heather MacDonald, but they may never have a read a word written by them. They just knew they were supposed to protest these people when they showed up on campus.
A majority (51%) in one survey said they were justified in shouting down a speaker if the speaker utters “offensive and hurtful statements.” And the university faculty and administrators also failed them because many of them could not even explain why certain college courses were necessary.
The dumbest generation has grown up, but it doesn’t appear that too many of them have grown up emotionally or intellectually.

Kerby Anderson
Although Päivi Räsänen is the person on trial, realistically it is the Bible that is on trial. She is a long-serving member of the Finnish parliament, a medical doctor, pastor’s wife, and a grandmother. She continues to face persecution for her religious beliefs.
Five years ago, her church decided to sponsor a “pride parade.” She responded by posting some Bible verses and asked how that decision aligned with Scripture. Instead of a civil debate and a reasonable response, she was slapped with criminal prosecution.
In the process of discovery, the government officials found a church pamphlet she wrote on marriage and sexuality. The government charged her and the other author of the pamphlet (a Lutheran bishop) with “agitation against a minority group” based on a war-crimes statute in Finnish law.
The two were put on trial two years ago with most of the focus on biblical passages and the way in which the defendants interpreted them. The good news is that they were eventually acquitted of all counts. The bad news is the government filed an appeal to Finland’s Supreme Court.
Her case reminded me of the Swedish pastor Åke Green who preached a sermon based on Romans 1 arguing that “sexual perversions” are harmful to society. His case was prosecuted and convicted in the local courts. Eventually his case went all the way to the Swedish Supreme Court. The justices ruled that he violated Swedish law but that his freedom of religion was protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.
I believe this “Bible trial” in Finland will determine whether free speech and religious liberty will be allowed in this country and in other European countries.

Kerby Anderson
If he was alive today, John Deere might not even recognize the company that bears his name. As a blacksmith, he realized that farmers needed a better plow for the dense black soil of the Midwest. He took a broken steel saw at a mill and fashioned it into a plow. Soon he was mass producing them.
Today John Deere manufactures lots of agricultural technology. I would recommend you visit the John Deere Pavilion and get a tour. But if you want to understand the future of agriculture, you might also pay attention to the fact that company is building robots.
That is just one of the insights in the new book, The Coming Wave. We are going to be seeing robots and artificial intelligence devices everywhere, although we might not realize that we are seeing them. Autonomous tractors and combines may not look like the robots we see in science fiction movies, but they will be doing more and more of the agriculture of the future.
Robots will be planting, tending, and harvesting crops with a high level of precision. Drones will be watching livestock. Computers and robots will be measuring soil quality, moisture, and weather conditions.
Some agricultural robots will be hard to see because they will be the size of bees. There has been some concern (perhaps overblown) about the reduction in bee populations. That is why Walmart filed a patent for robot bees to cross-pollinate crops autonomously. A RoboBee created at one research institute measures about half the size of a paper clip and weighs less than one-tenth of a gram. It flies using “artificial muscles” compromised of materials that contract when a voltage is applied.
Robot technology is changing agriculture. In fact, robots may soon be helping to feed the world.

Kerby Anderson
Yesterday I mentioned the book by Frank Thomas, What’s the Matter with Kansas? Rich Lowry suggests that there might be a future book with the title, What’s Matter with People of Color? The point he is making is that Democrats have always assumed people of color will vote for their party. That doesn’t look like it will happen in this election.
The results of two polls illustrate the dramatic change. A New York Times poll a few months ago had Trump beating Biden among Hispanic voters 46–40. Recently, a Wall Street Journal poll found that 30 percent of African American men say they are “definitely or probably” going to vote for Trump. Although other polls aren’t as dramatic, something seems to be happening among potential minority voters.
Rich Lowry suggests the problem has been that Democrats lump all sorts of people with diverse backgrounds and demographic characteristics into the category “people of color.” Many of these ethnic groups are not supportive of the woke politics that have been promoted over the last few years.
Hispanics, for example, are much more like the rest of America. One poll shows that 69 percent of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. An even higher percentage (72%) of Hispanics say the same thing. About a third (30%) of the country says inflation and the economy is the top issue. Once again, an even higher percentage (42%) of Hispanics say it is.
What might this mean in this election? Hillary Clinton won Hispanic voters by nearly 40 points. Joe Biden won them by 23 points but will probably see a lower percentage in this election. Those potential votes might go to Donald Trump. I predict that this demographic shift in potential vote preferences will have a significant impact on many of the races in the 2024 elections.

Kerby Anderson
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett writes about “The Myth of Rural Rage,” arguing that red states and small towns are not full of hate. Her comments have a great deal of credibility since she is a university professor, and a lifelong liberal, who apparently has always voted for Democrats. She reads The New York Times and listens to NPR, but agrees with Uri Berliner, the liberal at NPR who expressed his concern about systemic liberal bias in its news reporting.
She tells the story of Craig (a retired person living in Iowa) to personalize the fact that the liberal media and liberal politicians have a false and biased view of rural America. She got to know him and many others when writing her book, The Overlooked Americans.
She refers to the General Social Survey that shows, even on politically charged issues, urban and rural Americans largely feel the same way. “Statistically, about half of both rural and urban Americans are religious, even if rural Americans are more likely to openly discuss their belief in God.”
She reminds us there have been shrill warnings that rural Americans are angry, vengeful, and ignorant. In his book (What’s the Matter with Kansas?) that I will mention again tomorrow, Frank Thomas portrayed rural America’s loyalty to the Republican Party as a form of “derangement.” The election of Donald Trump in 2016 led to countless essays in the liberal media about rural revenge.
She concludes by arguing that “our public intellectuals and leading media outlets have a duty to reset the conversation about rural America and take the time to find out the truth about the people who live there.” I appreciate her honesty and her sentiment, but I don’t see it happening soon.

Kerby Anderson
Michael Barone is a political analyst and best known as the principal author of The Almanac of American Politics. He has been writing about the disconnect between the left-leaning media and the typical American voter. He cites one writer for The Atlantic who argues that the Biden years have seen “the strongest economy the United States has ever experienced.” Her suggestion is that voters are not knowledgeable or sophisticated enough to understand how the economy is doing great.
His response is to point you to a pair of charts that were recently published in the Wall Street Journal. The two writers say the best way to compare two presidencies is to look at net worth. The first chart shows that net worth under Trump was a little better than under Biden.
The second chart then takes inflation into account. The red line (Trump) increases but has some dips along the way because of factors like the pandemic and lockdowns. The blue line (Biden) has a brief increase in net worth and then turns negative for the rest of his time in office.
Rebecca Downs also addresses the disconnect between the media and voters by citing an article in Axios. The article cites a Harris poll showing that more than half of Americans (56%) believe the US is in a recession and then confidently says they are all wrong.
It is true that according to the traditional definition, the country is not currently in a recession. But there is a reason why the latest polls show that most Americans (70%) say the cost of living is their biggest economic concern and why most (68%) also say inflation is an important issue.
Pundits and politicians can point to low unemployment and increasing wage growth. But the American people don’t feel these few positive economic indicators in their pocketbooks.

Kerby Anderson
The Bible talks about hope, and it talks about the importance of gratitude. I find it interesting that even liberal, secular commentators are also talking about hope and gratitude. Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times columnist and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of a new memoir, Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.
He laments that “more than three-quarters of Americans say the United States is headed in the wrong direction.” He is troubled that Americans think we have never been in such a mess. He points to the time before the Civil War or even talks about the turbulence of the 1960s, that included riots, assassinations, and Vietnam War protests. His argument is “we can get through this.”
Essentially, he is saying that we never had it so good. He observes that “if you had to pick a time to be alive in the past few hundred thousand years of human history, it would probably be now.” He tells the story of President Calvin Coolidge’s 16-year-old son, who developed a blister on a toe that became infected. “Without antibiotics the boy was dead within a week. Today the most impoverished child in the United States on Medicaid has access to better health care than the president’s son did a century ago.”
As Christians we have even more reason to have hope. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” And we should have gratitude. I Thessalonians 5 says we should “always be rejoicing” and we should “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
We have many reasons for hope, especially because we have hope in the Lord.

Kerby Anderson
Maine recently voted to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This has been an attempt get enough states to pledge that they will send electors to Washington to vote for the president based upon the popular vote. Essentially, it would require electors to ignore how their state voted and merely cast their vote for the winner of the popular vote. It has been an attempt to change the way we elect the president without a Constitutional amendment.
I first wrote about the National Popular Vote initiative back in 2008, when there were two states who joined the compact. By the end of the year, four states had joined. I haven’t written about it since 2019 because there hasn’t been any significant movement until last year when Minnesota joined and now Maine has joined.
So far, there are 17 states and Washington, DC that have joined the compact. It only will go into effect when enough states holding 270 Electoral College votes approve the plan. The current total is 209 Electoral votes.
As I have discussed in previous commentaries, the attempt to dismantle the Electoral College is a bad idea. Just look at the map that has been created to illustrate the impact big states and big cities would have on the outcome. The framers from small states feared they would always be outvoted by the large states.
Because of third parties, many of our presidential elections in the last few decades have not had any candidate with a popular vote majority. The Electoral College gives them a majority. It is also worth remembering that Abraham Lincoln won less than 40 percent of the popular vote and relied on the Electoral College for his authority.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact won’t have an impact on this election, but it might have a significant impact in future elections.