(Radio Iowa) – Former Vice President Mike Pence says Republicans have a winning message and he’s urging Christian conservatives to “buckle up” for the 2024 presidential campaign. Pence was the closing speaker at a day-long summit in Des Moines sponsored by The Family Leader and he listed his own frustrations with the political scene. “We’ve been through a lot in the last year: a global pandemic, civil unrest, a divisive election, a tragic day in our nation’s capitol and now a new admin intent on transforming American into a European style secular welfare state,” Pence said.

Pence ran through a litany of complaints about the first 177 days of the Biden-Harris Administration.  “The damage they’ve done in such a short period of time,” Pence said. “We know what our job is.”

About 1200 people gathered in a Des Moines convention hall Friday morning to listen to more than a dozen speakers, including South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — two other potential 2024 presidential candidates. The crowd stayed for Pence as the closer seven hours later and applauded throughout his speech, but without the whistling and loud bursts of cheering others received. Pence acknowledged this was an easy time to get a little down and appeared to indirectly address those in the G-O-P who believe he should not have certified Joe Biden won the Electoral College on January 6. “We ought to keep the faith in the founders of this country, in the timeless wisdom of the Declaration and the Constitution,” Pence said. “We need to be the movement that keeps our oath, even when it hurts.”

Noem, who spoke earlier in the afternoon, shared pieces of her biography with the crowd — growing up on a farm and the name of her new granddaughter.  “I hate this America that we’re giving her. I don’t recognize this country that we had the opportunity to grow up in. I just don’t,” Noem said. “When I grew up, people were proud to have a job. They weren’t confused on the difference between boys and girls…We honored our flag and we were a country that was proud of our history and that is not Joe Biden’s America.”

Noem acknowledged the first time many Iowans heard her name was as she was criticized for not closing any businesses or implementing lock downs during the pandemic. “But I do want you to know that my people are happy,” Noem said, “and they’re happy because they’re free.” As she has elsewhere, Noem emphasized that she did not close a single business.in South Dakota. “I was shocked by how the media and liberals used fear to control people and how people gave up their freedoms,” Noem said. “They just rolled over.”

Iowa Democratic Party chairman Ross Wilburn denounced what he called the “hateful agenda” of The Family Leader, which organized Friday’s event. Wilburn says it was shameful for Governor Kim Reynolds and other Republicans who approved at the event to support an organization that discriminates against L-G-B-T-Q-plus Iowans.”

The Red Oak Police Department reports an arrest on Friday evening. At 4:28 p.m. Officers found 42-year-old Heidi Ann Divis of Red Oak in the 400 block of East Corning Street in Red Oak lighting objects on fire and throwing them into the city street storm drains. Divis was placed under arrest for reckless Use of Fire. Upon further investigation Divis was also charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

Divis was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $1,000 cash bond.

(Radio Iowa) – The family of a U-S Marine from central Iowa will be the beneficiaries of a charity golf tournament this weekend. The event is scheduled for Saturday at the Briggs Woods Golf Course south of Webster City. Dennis Schnathorst, with the Hamilton County Peace Officers Association, says every year, the tourney honors the memory of a fallen police officer, firefighter or veteran.

“Staff Sergeant Kelling passed away on July 25th of 2019,” Schnathorst says. “Staff Sergeant Kelling served our country on seven deployments overseas, including Afghanistan and Iraq and as a combat war veteran.” Kelling was from Ankeny and was 41 when he suffered a fatal heart attack. He leaves behind a wife and several children, who will be recognized at the benefit.

“This year’s recipient is Amber Kelling and her four sons, Braeden, Caleb, Jace, and Liam, ages 12 to six,” he says. Following the day of golf, there will be an auction and dinner, with all proceeds to benefit the Marine’s family. Learn more on the organization’s Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/Hamilton-County-Peace-Officers-Association-of-Iowa-790812940945444

(Radio Iowa) – Former Secretary of State and potential 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pompeo says Christian conservatives should “never give an inch” as they pursue their political goals. “We are a not a defeated nation. We are not a nation in decline. We are not a racist nation. We are a God-blessed Christian nation,” Pompeo said. “Don’t let the woke socialists get you down. Keep working.”

Pompeo addressed a crowd of 1200 today at The Family Leader’s summit in Des Moines. Pompeo began by joking he’s an unemployed diplomat. “I’ll be honest with you, it has been tough to watch what is going on and what has gone on in these six months,” Pompeo said. “I wish that I was still there.” While Pompeo touted the “America First” approach to foreign policy he pursed as President Trump’s chief foreign diplomat, Pompeo spent the vast majority of his speech discussing his faith and domestic issues.

Mike Pompeo. (Family Leader photo)

“You all see the garbage they’re trying to teach in our schools today. It comes under various guises, often called critical race theory, but suffice it to say that it is a suggestion that somehow our nation is inherently and systemically racist,” Pompeo said. “This is a nation that has borne the costs and benefits associated with equality like no other nation in the world. We should be proud of it. We should not challenge our founding. It was noble.”

Pompeo, who spoke for about 22 minutes, said Christians are right to feel threatened and concerned about what they’re seeing in the culture and the government. “I will tell you as we stare at the problem sets that we all are aware of teoday, we see in our homes, on television, that the breakdown of the American family is at the core of most of them,” Pompeo said. “It’s why the left wants to undermine the family unit upon which this nation was built.”

Pompeo is the first of three potential candidates for the Republican party’s next presidential nomination to speak at today’s event in Des Moines. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and former Vice President Mike Pence are speaking later this afternoon.

(Radio Iowa) – Former Vice President Mike Pence says the time has come for Republicans to push back against Democrats in control of congress and the White House. Pence was the keynote speaker at Congressman Randy Feenstra’s midday fundraiser in Sioux Center. “I came here to say ‘Enough is enough!'” Pence said, to applause and cheers. Pence suggests the G-O-P formula for 2022 and 2024 is to cite the record of the Trump-Pence Administration.

“I think what we demonstrated under the leadership of President Donald Trump was what you can accomplish if you stand firm and don’t back down for conservative principles,” Pence said, to applause. “It’s incredible.” Pence, asked by Trump to lead the administration’s pandemic response, touted the outcome of Operation Warp Speed. “On the day we left office, we were vaccinating one million Americans a day,” Pence said. “I’ll always be proud of the way the American people responded over the course of the last year and a half with courage and compassion…I will always be grateful for the doctors and nurses and health care workers and first responders that saw our nation through this trial.”

The event was a fundraiser for Feenstra’s bid for a second term in the U.S. House and Feenstra introduced Pence to the crowd as a great friend. “And he stood by President Trump, secured the border, grew our economy and did so many great things for our country,” Feenstra said.

Pence is scheduled to be today’s (Friday’s) closing speaker at The Family Leader’s day-long summit in Des Moines