July, August, & September 2023 | Issue No. 24
The Rachel Report
Canyon County Republican Committeewoman
Upcoming events
Tuesday, September 5th, 2023 is the next Treasure Valley Republican Women meeting. As usual, the luncheon will be held at Bob’s Restaurant 1411 Shilo Dr. Nampa. Food orders begin at 11:30 am and the event begins at 12 pm!
Tuesday, September 5th, 2023 Gem County is having their Youth Chair re-election and the Ada, Canyon, and Gem County Republican youth are taking this opportunity to turn it into a youth event! This will be a great way to see the interworkings of the Central Committee at the county level! Bring money for dinner at Roe Anne’s Drive-In afterward. The meeting will be at 1144 N Washington Ave Emmett Nazarene Church. The meeting begins at 7 pm.
Wednesday, September 6th, 2023 from 6-9 pm at the Lincoln Auditorium in the Idaho State Capitol, Idaho COBS: Community Outreach Behavioral Services is hosting a “Human Trafficking’s Threat to Idaho” seminar.
Friday- Sunday, September 8th-10th, 2023 from 9 am to 4 pm is the Disabled American Veterans Yard Sale fundraiser! This is a great organization that works hard for our disabled veterans. The address is 12493 W. Medalist Dr., Boise (street backs up to Boise Ranch Golf Course, Hole #1).
Monday, September 11th, 2023 ConservativesOf: is hosting their monthly meeting at 6:30 pm at Harvest Church in Meridian. The address is 831 N Main St. This is an excellent opportunity to hear from conservative candidates and see a special 9/11 tribute.
Sunday, September 17th, 2023 is Constitution Day and Mountain Heights Calvary Chapel is hosting its third AWARE Conference at the Idaho State Capitol 700 W. Jefferson St., Boise from 10 am to 6 pm. There will be an Appeal to Heaven service beginning at 10 am. The featured speaker will be Dr. Bill Federer! Pastors that will be sharing include Neil Mammen, Ben Harris, and Scotty Brown and the event will also include hearing from elected members of the legislature and candidates in the 2024 primary election. The AWARE Conferences are always such incredible days that are so Jesus and freedom-filled. Make this day a priority…I promise you will walk away blessed, encouraged, and excited!
Tuesday, September 19th, 2023 is the Canyon County Central Committee meeting at 7 pm at the Canyon County Administration Building in Caldwell. This is a great way to be involved in Republican “politics on the ground.”
Thursday, September 21st, 2023 is Lifeline Pregnancy Care Center’s Benefit Banquet at 6 pm at St. Paul’s Marist Hall 500 Roosevelt Ave. Nampa.
Friday, September 22nd, 2023 the Republican youth are going on a hike and picnic! Keep an eye on my Facebook, Instagram, or website for details.
Saturday, September 30th, 2023 is We Are Nampa! Come for a night of faith, family, and freedom from 4 pm-8 pm at Lloyd Square 1 14th Ave. S., Nampa. There will be games, music, vendors, and food trucks! Bring the kiddos for a fantastic evening!
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 is the Treasure Valley Republican Women’s meeting. As usual, the luncheon will be held at Bob’s Restaurant 1411 Shilo Dr. Nampa. Food orders begin at 11:30 am and the event begins at 12 pm!
June 18th, 2023 was Father’s Day! Men, their roles and masculinity, and fathers are under attack in this country. We live in a world where words like “toxic masculinity” and “mansplaning” are thrown around with reckless abandon. These types of words and the ideology they stem from aim at dismantling Biblical gender roles, deprioritizing male leadership, and fostering weak and hyper-feminized men. Men are labeled as “toxic,” or “patriarchal” if they embrace God’s design and calling as leaders and men of God. The modern feminist movement is systematically destroying our nation and one of the ways their agenda has accomplished this is by dismembering masculinity. Strong men are needed if we are going to restore our republic. Our republic was conceptualized, built, and fought for by strong men who desired freedom for themselves, their wives, and their children. Society tries to erase the importance of men and say “Anyone can do it.” Well, no actually. God has designed men and women uniquely and there are things that only men can do or that men do better than women. God has designed us for unique roles. One of the most effective tactics the enemy has ever used in the United States is emasculating men, removing them from leadership positions, silencing them in the name of perceived equality, or removing them from the equation entirely (fatherless homes). Men, husbands, fathers… Thank you for the unique qualities you bring to life and society. As is Biblical, you are the backbone of the family, church, and society. Walk in that calling boldly regardless if you are smeared as “patriarchal,” or “oppressive.” Men of courage we need you. America needs you. The family needs you. The church needs you.
Thank you men of courage. Keep leading well.
July 3rd, 2023 was Idaho Statehood Day!
One hundred thirty-three years ago, President Benjamin Harrison signed an act of Congress that made Idahome the forty-third state to enter the Union! IDGOP Chairwoman Moon made a video about our great state that moves my heart each time I see it. She says, “We Idahoans aren’t defined by the land beneath our feet, but by the spirit that lives in our hearts. We are defined by our undying belief in freedom, liberty, and especially our love for God. Idahoans are pioneers and explorers; we’re innovators and builders. We have grit. We’re families, waitresses, farmers, teachers, truckers, and we’re proud of our home. Because Idaho is more than the mountains and the rivers and the land. I am Idaho” (Moon, 2023; Idaho Republican Party).
This state is beautiful… but it’s the people who make it home.
We are Idaho.
July 4th, 2023 was Independence Day! July 4th is one of my favorite days of the entire year. I love taking this late June/early July season to celebrate this beautiful country we get to call home. How blessed we are to be Americans. For two hundred forty-seven years, this country has been a beacon of hope and a bastion of liberty all across the world.
The stars and stripes cry liberty.
August 26th, 2023. On this day two years ago, thirteen American service members were killed in Afghanistan in one of the worst leadership and strategic defense catastrophes in contemporary American history. August 20th – 30th, should be a solemn ten days for the United States and freedom-loving nations globally. After twenty years in country, nearly 2,500 American deaths, and over twenty-eight billion dollars between 2002 and 2017 to arm the Afghans against the Taliban, the Biden administration withdrew from Afghanistan in one fatal swoop. The disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces left the U.S. weakened as global hegemon and sparked shock and outrage in the on-looking world. This has long-term and truly global ramifications. Biden weaponized an already powerful enemy. Billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment and supplies were left which will sustain Taliban military efforts for years to come. The massive cache of equipment and supplies included over “600,000 rifles, 76,000 vehicles, 208 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, drones, over 16,000 night vision goggles, grenades, millions of ammunition rounds, meals, fuel, rockets, boots… and U.S. uniforms” (Spoehr, 2021). The Afghanistan withdrawal cost many lives…including American lives and poised the Taliban to claim many, many more. We cannot forget the fact that our Commander in Chief abandoned Americans and our allies, cost precious lives, armed an already perilous enemy, forfeited a great deal of American military might, and relinquished a great deal of American strength and legitimacy in the Middle East and globally. He also set the United States up to face a brutal fighting force that is stronger now than they were before the Twin Towers fell in 2001.
September 11th, 2023 is Patriot Day!
This marks the twenty-second anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. At 8:46 am on September 11th, 2001, the North Tower was hit. Nearly two hours later, it collapsed. At 9:03 am the South Tower was struck and fell at 9:59 am. In Arlington, Virginia the Pentagon was struck by Flight 77 at 9:37 am and at 10:03 am, Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Before 11 am on September 11th, 2,996 Americans lost their lives and the years that followed have brought countless more deaths from cancer, grief, depression, and other toxin-related illnesses.
Remembering this day still brings tears to my eyes. I remember the tears my parents cried that morning as my family sat around the television watching the towers fall. I remember my parents whispering prayers of deliverance for the people inside the towers and their loved ones. That was a pivotal moment in my young mind. It was the first time I remember being sad for not only the people there… but my country. I remember not fully grasping the gravity of that moment, but I do remember thinking it was sad that people and America were hurt. May we never forget. May we always remember the lives lost and how our great nation rose from the rubble that day.
September 17th, 2023 is Constitution Day!
Constitution Day commemorates the adoption and signing of the U.S. Constitution. On September 17th, 1787, of the fifty-five delegates assembled at the Constitutional Convention, thirty-nine men signed the Constitution. Signers ranged in age from twenty-six to eighty-one. On that day, the Constitution became the supreme law of the land, enumerating the rights government cannot infringe upon. The signers of the Constitution recognized that rights are given to humans by God and that governments are instituted to protect those rights. Our Constitution was radical and revolutionary and is the longest charter of government in existence. It was built on the truths that humans are endowed with certain unalienable rights, those rights are given by God to man, and governments exist to serve the people.
It was nothing short of inspired.
Past Rachel Reports
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This Months Liberty Gem
In honor of Independence Day in July and my current geographical location, our September Liberty Gem will highlight the founding of our great nation. July 4th is one of my favorite days of the entire year. It was on that day that one of the greatest documents ever penned was unanimously adopted by the Second Continental Congress. This irrevocably altered history. That is not overstating it. The Declaration of Independence radically changed the course of world history morally, religiously, politically, economically, socially, and culturally.
To understand the significance and radicalism of the Declaration of Independence, we must understand the pre-1776 power stage. At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, a victorious Britain emerged on the geopolitical stage as the greatest imperial power in the Atlantic world. By 1775, they were superior to nearly every other nation globally in every way imaginable- militarily, economically, and politically. At the onset of the Revolutionary War in 1775, the Continental Army, headed by George Washington, was anything but comparable to their motherland. The American colonists had little in the way of a navy and their “army” was anything but impressive to the expansive forces of the British Empire. Think for a moment how radically brave these men were… to take on the world’s greatest fighting force… with a glorified militia.
Separation was never the goal at the beginning of the Revolutionary War or the First Continental Congress. In fact, many delegations were forbidden by their colonies from discussing separation from England. In the following two years, however, the idea of independence grew in the minds of many colonists. Additionally, key figures such as Thomas Paine and his pamphlet Common Sense contributed to the shifting mindset amongst the general public. In his work, Paine mocked the monarchy, called for the establishment of a republic, and encouraged American independence.
This pamphlet signaled the shift towards independence.
On June 6th, 1776, Richard Henry Lee offered the first resolution for independence to the Second Continental Congress. A committee was assigned to draft a document that would change everything.
Between July 2nd and July 4th, every word of Jefferson’s draft was argued by Congress. Finally, on July 4th, there was a vote to approve the wording of the Declaration of Independence. The document was then sent to Timothy Matlack to be written formally.
But then came the moment when the founding fathers would actually have to put their names to it. This moment has gone down in history as “the great suicide pact.”
August 2nd, 1776… fifty-six men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Rush explained this moment as “anything but celebratory” (Rush, 1778). The Declaration of Independence was high treason against the British Empire, and the punishment for treason was death; and that, very brutally. For the fifty-six signers, penning their names to that paper was nothing less than signing their own death warrants.
Rush painted a picture of the scene. He reported that total silence fell over the room. The only sound made was slow footsteps as each man slowly walked forward to sign their name on the document.
Finally, someone spoke. Virginia delegate Benjamin Harrison, who was described by Rush as “portly,” stood beside Massachusetts delegate Elbridge Gerry who Rush explained to be “quite skinny” (Rush, 1778).
Harrison split the silence by stating to his thin Massachusetts counterpart “I shall have a great advantage over you Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body, I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body, you will dance in the air for an hour or two before you are dead” (Rush, 1778).
Harrison’s humor momentarily lightened the gravity of the mood. These men were farmers, lawyers, merchants, doctors, clerks, businessmen, and bookkeepers. The fifty-six were varied in ages and occupations; some were well known in Europe and the colonies, others were not; many came from wealthy families, but some were self-made. They were all different, from different walks of life. They were ordinary fathers, brothers, uncles, sons, and husbands; yet they were united by their desire for freedom. They were men wanting a better life for themselves and their posterity.
By signing this document, they were risking their lives, their families, property, and sacred honor. There was no turning back.
The fifty-six signed that paper and “mutually pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” (Declaration of Independence, 1776). They mutually pledged… which means they would rise…or fall together.
I had the opportunity to lay eyes on the Declaration of Independence last week for the first time. I walked in on Thursday afternoon and the room was completely empty except for myself, four police officers, and an elderly couple. It was perfect. Quiet and peaceful. I walked in and read the sections talking about the Declaration and Constitution before getting to the case with the Declaration of Independence inside.
I stood in front of the case and immediately tears filled my eyes as I pictured that fateful moment the fifty-six made the bold decision to sign that document. My eyes moved over every line of the document that began the country that I love so dearly… “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”… “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”… “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government”… “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
The words seemed sweeter standing in front of the real document. I was brushing away tears when one of the security guards glanced over and whispered, “Ma’am? Are you alright?” I laughed and said, “Yes, sorry, this is my first time seeing these documents and I wasn’t prepared for how powerful it would be.” He smirked and said, “I have to say, I’ve been working this post for several years and have never seen a reaction like that.” I laughed and said, “I just love this country.”
Standing in front of those documents brought a fresh wave of gratitude for our country and the brave men who started it.
Like the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, we too are facing a world in which we may have to put our name to the twenty-first-century version of a “great suicide pact.”
If… dare I say when… that time comes… I hope I’m bold enough to be one of the fifty-six.
Praise the Lord, for the fifty-six.
JUNE, JULY, & AUGUST’S POLITICAL RECAP:
Friday- Saturday, June 23rd-24th, 2023 was the IDGOP Summer Meeting! I have to say… There was more unity at the Summer Meeting than I’ve seen in quite some time in the Party and when I say we claimed some big victories…I mean we claimed some BIG victories! Here are the highlights:
The State Central Committee revoked executive committee voting rights from the Idaho Federation of Republican Women, the Idaho Young Republicans, and the Idaho College Republicans. This was a big win in safeguarding the Republican Party in Idaho from non-elected voting members (If you have questions about this, please reach out to me. There is a significant amount of propaganda about this issue that seeks to villainize conservatives who voted for this removal).
The State Central Committee passed a “vote of no confidence” against Governor Brad Little and fourteen other Republican legislators who did not vote to override Governor Little’s veto of House Bill 314 (pornography bill). This was an incredible victory!
And the big one…We voted to adopt a caucus system for 2024’s Republican Presidential Primary. Because the legislature removed our Presidential Primary, this was our best option. Thus, this is a victory for what we’re working with!
Saturday, July 29th, 2023 was the IDGOP Special Meeting in which the State Central Committee elected a new National Committeeman: Bryan Smith from Bonneville County! Massive victory for Idaho!
Wednesday, August 16th, 2023 BIG win in Gem County! Our very own nineteen-year-old Forrest Tomlin was elected as Gem County Central Committee’s Chairman! So exciting to see another conservative at the helm of a Central Committee and SO exciting to have it as one of our youth!
Candidates are emerging for the 2023 November and 2024 May elections! I would encourage you to begin dialoguing with candidates and incumbents and prayerfully considering who to vote for. Watch people. Make sure they do what they say and say what they mean. Make sure these candidates- incumbent or not- are worthy of your vote. As you begin to prepare for who you are voting for in the upcoming elections, I would encourage you to vote for believers, liberty lovers, truth seekers, and justice promoters. Vote for people who fight for children, who understand the plight we are in as a state and nation; people who know politics is about right and wrong, people who are spiritually armored up to take a leadership role; who stand with veterans, limit government infringement, and care. Make sure the people you are voting for care about you, are willing to talk to you, and are ready to sit in the lion’s den
Dear Liberty Lovers,
It has been a WILD few months as evidenced by my taking the past two months off from sending out my reports. For all of you who reached out regarding my lack of communication, thank you! I appreciate each of you.
Much has changed in my life since June! By now, most of you are aware that I am currently in Washington D.C., and will remain here through December. Here’s the short story:
In late April, I was approached about a fellowship in Washington D.C. to work in my field as a researcher and assist in writing policy. The next few months were filled with craziness- speaking, working, participating in politics in Idaho, traveling, and working on my continued education. Finally, in late June, I was honored to accept a fellowship with the Heritage Foundation! I will be working in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy working with Chinese foreign policy and by extension, identity politics, Marxism, and critical race theory.
My work will be multifaceted which is really exciting! I’ll be working with a Senior Fellow here and I am excited to contribute to the work done at Heritage as well as learn from the conservative policy experts!
I feel so incredibly blessed to be here and that the Lord has given me this opportunity to learn and serve. I look forward to learning information and strategies that will help me be more effective in Idahome. I also feel so humbled by the support I have back home while I’m in the swamp! God is so good and has already given me so many “Jesus kisses” during my time here.
A common question I have been receiving when people hear about this trip is “Are you coming back?” To that, I always give a resounding “yes.” I don’t know what God has for my future and wherever He leads me, there I will go. But my heart is in Idaho. My heart is to save our beautiful state. You can take the girl out of Idaho but you can’t ever take Idaho out of the girl. I am here to work and I am thankful for and loving this time… But Idaho is in my heart every moment.
My newsletter will look a bit different over the next few months while I’m in D.C. but I will be sharing updates and stories as the weeks go, as time allows.
My patriotic heart is full from walking around the buildings that house liberty and justice and seeing the monuments of the great men who built our nation. At the same time, however, my heart is heavy seeing and feeling the corruption in this city. Satan is after this place. I’ve always heard people call D.C. “the swamp” but being here, you are slapped in the face with it. I had a moment this week while walking to the grocery store. I passed the Capitol on my right, the Supreme Court on my left… to my right stood what ought to be a temple of liberty and to my left a temple of justice but as I thought about what’s been going on in our nation, I was hit by an overwhelming sense of discouragement.
I kept walking and there before me was a group of people from India. Their eyes were open as they faced the Supreme Court with hands outstretched. I paused for a moment under a tree and watched the scene unfold. A few minutes later, the group pivoted and outstretched their hands towards the Capitol. They were praying. A few minutes later I walked up to one of the men on the outskirts of the group and asked what faith they were. He told me they were Christians here from India. They had come to pray for the United States. He told me “America is the leader and the leader is sick. So we come to lay hands and pray for healing.” I was shocked. For a moment, I couldn’t even speak. I was so humbled and thankful… but then I was struck with such grief.
The on-looking world knows we are sick. They know we are falling. But it is a comfort to know that believers in this country and outside of it are praying for us and over us.
As I integrate into D.C. I am overwhelmed with the need to pray. So I’ve been praying. I pray while I walk to work. I pray while I walk to the grocery store. I pray while I walk around the monuments. I pray while I go on my nightly runs. I touch the buildings as I pray. I pray, pray, pray because this city and this country need it desperately.
For those of you joining me in prayer, thank you! This city is dark and I have only scratched the surface.
I miss my Idahome and all of you but am praying for you all from afar.
For Idaho,
Rachel Hazelip
“To desire revival…and at the same time neglect prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.” ~A.W. Tozer
How To Contact Rachel
When we talk about the role of men in a healthy society, we must realize the pivotal role of fatherhood. That is, for any child to grow in a loving healthy family need patents from both genders male father and female mother. DO NOT let the government fool you into thinking that it can replace the role of parenthood in your life. Only God can.