November 5, 2008–USA: On Becoming a Marxist-Run Nation
By Sher Zieve, RenewAmerica.US, Nov. 5, 2008
Despite the gratuitous rhetoric that the American people and the world were subject to — during the 2008 US presidential election — opposition to now President Elect Barack Hussein Obama had little to nothing to do with race. But, it had everything to do with ideology. We who opposed and still oppose this man for president of the United States of America oppose him because he is a Marxist.
Although Socialism (more appropriately Communism) has been pushed into our country’s governmental systems by Democrats for years, it is now official. With the results of last night’s elections, the people of the USA have called for the end to our republic, freedom and liberty and are demanding the beginning of tyrannical rule and the rise of the self-avowed Marxist soon to be Dictator Barack Hussein Obama.
Too late they will discover that who and what they voted into the presidency of the United States was an illusion of their own making.
Too late they will discover that what they thought they voted into office is actually just the opposite.
And too late they will realize that what they thought was truth was and is the biggest lie ever perpetrated and perpetuated on any people who have ever existed. If you are one of these, may the Lord help you when you finally realize what you’ve done.
Becoming a Marxist nation will change — destroy — the very fabric of the country, our lives and our very ability to exist. Unfortunately, those who voted for Mr. Obama — legally or illegally — either don’t perceive those important truths or simply don’t care. And the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) are almost as culpable as the far left lunatics which now comprise virtually all of the Democrat Party. These are the faux Republicans who told us we had to be “compassionate” and “all inclusive” in order to attract “diversity to the Party.” Balderdash!
When the Republican Party really was all inclusive, it attracted a very culturally diverse base of voters. We won elections. This happened under President Ronald Reagan. And the reason we won elections is because we were — and hope to again be — a conservative party.
The reason we now keep losing elections is that the Republican Party has become liberal and “Democrat-lite.” Contrary to popular lies, conservatives do not discriminate against gender, race or religion. We believe in and support meritocracies — those systems that reward excellence, regardless of one’s background. But, we DO discriminate against ideologies that are bent upon the destruction of the American Republic. That is why we oppose Barack Obama and the leftists who now run Congress. Conservatives do not like Marxists. In fact, as Marxists are anti-humanity, most of us detest them.
My prediction is that we are now going to experience some of the darkest days — if not the darkest — that have ever befallen this country. Marxism — as professed by Barack Obama — will destroy both this once-great country and its people. Harbor no doubts, my friends. The days of massive oppression have just begun. With no one — or groups — willing to oppose him and his minions, this will be the end of the American experiment. May the Lord God bless us all.
Funny Political and Editorial Cartoons
Political and Editorial Cartoons for
GITMO . . . ECONOMY
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
GOP TAKES A STAND
Editorial Cartoons by Ed Gamble
BONKERS! Pelosi Appeals for China’s Help on Climate Change: Tells China “A Clean Environment is Also a Human Right.”
.…In answering a question from a student about how Pelosi was going to get Americans to cut back on their carbon emissions, the leading Democratic lawmaker said it was important to educate children on how to conserve energy and for citizens to build more environmentally friendly homes . . . “We have so much room for improvement. Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory … of how we are taking responsibility.”….
BEIJING (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Beijing on Thursday to cooperate on climate change, calling a safe environment a basic human right.
Speaking at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University, Pelosi continued the theme of her five-day China trip — that combating global warming represented a new challenge that both governments must tackle jointly.
“We are all in this together,” Pelosi told an audience of about 200 students and faculty who applauded enthusiastically throughout the 45-minute session. “The impact of climate change is a tremendous risk to the security and well-being of our countries.”
Pelosi’s trip has been notable for skirting human rights and the fierce public criticisms she has frequently leveled at the authoritarian government.
The trip comes as President Barack Obama’s administration has emphasized climate change as a new area where the two governments can broaden already wide-ranging engagement. The two countries are the biggest emitters of the carbon gases that are causing warming temperatures. Both governments are staking out positions ahead of a meeting late this year in Copenhagen that will try to forge agreement on targets and steps to reduce carbon emissions.
In a meeting Wednesday, the head of China’s national legislature, Wu Bangguo, told Pelosi that climate change was a common challenge and that Beijing stood ready to work with Washington.
Turning around her usual criticisms about human rights, Pelosi linked global warming to environmental justice, saying the right to a clean environment is also a human right.
“I do see this opportunity for climate change to be … a game-changer,” she said at Tsinghua. “It’s a place where human rights — looking out for the needs of the poor in terms of climate change and healthy environment — are a human right.”
To achieve this, Pelosi said governments would have to make decisions and choices based on science.
“They also have to do it with openness, transparency and accountability to the people,” she said. “Everyone has to have their situation improved by it.”
In answering a question from a student about how Pelosi was going to get Americans to cut back on their carbon emissions, the leading Democratic lawmaker said it was important to educate children on how to conserve energy and for citizens to build more environmentally friendly homes.
“We have so much room for improvement,” she said. “Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory … of how we are taking responsibility.”
Pelosi, who arrived Sunday, brought with her five members of a House committee on energy policy and global warming. A bill that would impose the first U.S. limits on greenhouse gas emissions was approved by a House committee last week, a step being considered by the full House later this year.
Pelosi’s visit is part of a flurry of contacts between Washington and Beijing that highlight their wide-ranging cooperation on issues including North Korea’s nuclear program and combatting the global economic slump.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLcZ2j
Q4mu4rd7XlB3hetiVn1qbAD98F32AG0
For Marriage, the Supreme Test
….Homosexuals have failed in the court of popular opinion, so now they insist on suing their way to legitimacy in the courts of America….
Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, May 27, 2009
Our friends in California barely had time to exhale–let alone celebrate–after yesterday’s Proposition 8 victory before the second wave of litigation came crashing down. Less than 24 hours after six justices upheld California’s same-sex “marriage” ban, an unlikely duo announced that another suit had already been filed, this time with the U.S. Supreme Court in its crosshairs.
Although the paperwork was officially filed four days before the Prop 8 ruling came down, it’s expected to get plenty of publicity after today’s press conference in downtown Los Angeles.
This time, the Left is calling in some big guns, two men who represented the opposing sides of the legendary Bush v. Gore case in 2000: former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson and attorney David Boies. Together, they’ve launched a federal attack on Proposition 8, claiming that homosexuals have a “right” to marry under the U.S. Constitution. As part of the suit, the plaintiffs, two homosexual couples, have asked the U.S. District Court of Northern California for an injunction against Proposition 8, which, if granted, would recreate the “right” of gay and lesbian couples to marry in California.
While FRC and our allies have been prepared to wage this war, none of us expected the battle to arrive on the national stage so quickly. Olson said yesterday, “This is a federal question… [It's] an issue that will get to the Supreme Court, and I think it could well be this case.” For the suit to land at the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court, a decision would have to be appealed from the District Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Obviously, those are a lot of “ifs,” particularly since the 14th Amendment argument for counterfeit marriage is nothing new. For years, homosexuals have claimed that defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violates the Constitution’s due process and equal protection clauses. FRC has said it before–and we’ll say it again–there is no federal constitutional “right” to same-sex “marriage.”
The members of Congress who wrote the 14th Amendment in 1868, and the state legislators who ratified it, could not possibly have envisioned or intended this application. Everyone has an equal right to marry in this country, but no one has an unlimited right to marry “the person of their choice.” No individual can marry a child, a close blood relative, or a person who is already married, and in 45 states and the District of Columbia (Vermont and Maine would permit same-sex “marriage” under laws that take effect this September) no one can “marry” a person of the same sex.
Ironically, the very first sentence of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger complaint includes an explanation of why marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman. Quoting Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case that recognized a right to interracial marriage, it says that “marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.” But marriage can only be called “fundamental to our very existence and survival” because of its role in encouraging and protecting the only type of relationship which results in the natural reproduction of the human race.
Homosexuals have failed in the court of popular opinion, so now they insist on suing their way to legitimacy in the courts of America. Even if they succeed in making Perry v. Schwarzenegger the Roe v. Wade of marriage, neither side should expect a resolution to this debate.
As with abortion, the Supreme Court’s involvement would only make the issue more explosive. As such, it’s time for the far Left to stop asking judges to redefine our most fundamental social institution and leave the decision of marriage where it belongs–in the hands of the American people.
Associated Press: Gay groups call federal marriage suit premature
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU09E17&f=PG07J01
Everything is Not the “White Man’s Fault”–A Tale of Two Kids From the Projects
And yet, both harbor resentments and seek to re-shape America. Says Sotomayor:
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experience, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Despite Sotomayor’s heartwarming story, Republicans must have the courage to say, “NO!” to this radical, extreme left, agenda driven nominee.
Like Sotomayor, I too lived in the projects. Allow me to share the tale of why I am a proud black conservative.
Confessions of a Black Conservative
A urine smell permeated the stairwell. In the darkness, due to smashed light bulbs,
the sound of broken wine bottles underfoot echoed off the concrete walls. I was nine years old. With the elevators out of service half of the time due to vandalism, many times I was forced to take the scary trek into the shadow of death up the stairwell to our sixth floor apartment in the projects of East Baltimore.
This was a far cry from the brand spanking new building we moved into just two years earlier. I remember our excitement when my parents, three younger siblings, and I moved in our apartment. It was a dream come true, moving from our leaky roof ghetto into a place where everything, including the appliances, was new. We were one of the first in the eleven story all-black-residents building. While a few people kept their apartments lovely, most seemed committed to destroying the building.
My early experience living in the government project taught me that some folks simply have a ghetto mindset. I also witnessed the trap of government welfare.
And why were so many around me angry and violent despite getting free housing, food and health care?
It was the late 50s when my Dad was one of the first blacks to break the color barrier into the Baltimore Fire Dept. The sight of him in his crisp dress blue firefighter’s uniform made everyone proud, though none more than me. With Dad’s new job, the government raised our rent to $72 per month. I remember my dad saying, “Seventy-two dollars! They must be crazy. We’re movin’!”
We moved to a suburban black community. I truly believe I would not be who I am today had we staye
d in the projects.
Several of my cousins stayed enslaved to the system and the bigotry of low expectations. Because true self esteem comes from personal achievement, they possessed very little. They lived angry and bitter lives consumed with serial impregnating, out of wedlock births and substance abuse. An outrageously high number died prematurely.
So when I hear politicians pandering to the so-called poor of America, it turns my stomach. I’ve witnessed the deterioration of the human spirit, wasted lives and suffering that happens when government becomes ‘daddy’.
Lloyd Marcus, is a songwriter & vocalist of the American Tea Party Anthem, as well as President, NAACPC (National Association for the Advancement of Conservative People of Color)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/a_tale_of_two_kids_from_the_pr_1.html
A THREAT? White House to Sonia Sotomayor Critics: “Be Exceedingly Careful”
By ALEXANDER BURNS & JOSH GERSTEIN, POLITICO, 5/27/09
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a pointed warning to opponents of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination Wednesday, urging critics to measure their words carefully during a politically charged confirmation debate.
“I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation,” Gibbs said.
He was replying to a question from CBS’s Chip Reid about a blog post by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accusing Sotomayor of imposing identity politics on the bench and declaring: “A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. A Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”…..ENTIRE ARTICLE: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/23016.html
Holy Father Says Church Offers Solution to Society’s ‘Loss of Belonging’
The Pope made his remarks yesterday evening in the basilica of St. John Lateran, cathedral of Rome, where he inaugurated the ecclesial congress of the Diocese of Rome. The congress, which is due to last until May 29, has as its theme: “Church membership and pastoral co-responsibility.”
The Holy Father addressed the gathering and began by calling on ecclesial movements to work in harmony with the diocese, with “a true sense of belonging to the Church.”
Lay people, the Pope said, need to redouble their commitment to “not merely to be collaborators of the clergy” but to shoulder their own specific responsibilities in the life of the Church.
One of the erroneous tendencies that has surfaced is one of identifying the Church with her hierarchy while forgetting that everyone is part of her “from the Pope to the most recently baptized.” Another faulty way of thinking that the Pope singled out is that of conceiving of the People of God in sociological and political terms, while overlooking the novelty of the Church.
In the same vein, those who see the Second Vatican Council as a break in the continuity of Church tradition, are also in error, Pope Benedict stressed.
The Pope then invited young people “to experience the beauty of being Church” in a world where individualism reigns and a sense of belonging is being lost.
The Holy Father also proposed creating missionary groups in the workplace, where many people spend most of their time, and highlighted the need for “adequate pastoral care on environment issues.”
Recalling then how many baptized people do not feel they form part of the ecclesial community and that few lay people, though they call themselves Catholic, are ready to work in the various fields of pastoral activity, the Holy Father encouraged pastors to favor a climate of spiritual and apostolic growth in their flock and to reach out to the population of Rome.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16117
- Individualism and a loss of a sense of belonging are becoming more and more prominent in modern society, Pope Benedict said on Tuesday as he urged a greater understanding of what it means to belong to the Church.
Obama Picks Cuban Liberation Theologian as US Ambassador to the Holy See
- In a surprising move, President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday evening that Miguel H. Diaz, Ph.D., a 45 year old lay Liberation theologian born in Havana (Cuba) is his pick to become the United States Ambassador to the Holy See.
An associate professor of theology at St. John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, Diaz, a strong Obama supporter and father of four, earned his bachelor’s degree from St. Thomas University in Miami, Fla., and his master’s and doctorate in theology from the University of Notre Dame at Notre Dame, Ind.
He taught previously at Barry University, Miami Shores, Fla.; St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, Fla.; University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio; and the University of Notre Dame. He also served as the academic dean at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary and is fluent in Italian, Spanish and French.
Diaz serves on the board of the Catholic Theological Society of America, is past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, and is a past member of the steering committee of the Karl Rahner Society.
He is also a theological consultant to the Catholic Association of Teachers of Homiletics and was appointed to the task force overseeing the review and revisions of the accrediting standards for the Association of Theological Schools.
Diaz is author of the book “On Being Human: U.S. Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives” (Orbis Books, 2001); Co-Editor of “From the Heart of Our People: Explorations in Catholic Systematic Theology” (Orbis Books, 1999;) and author of numerous articles and book chapters inspired in the Latino and Black liberation theology, such as the forthcoming “The Life-Giving Reality of God from Black, Latin-American, and U.S. Hispanic Theological Perspectives,” “Otherness in Black Catholic and Latino/a Catholic Theologies and the Otherness of God,” and “Outside the Survival of Community there is no Salvation,” in Building Bridges, Doing Justice: Constructing a Latino/a Ecumenical Theology (Orbis Press, 2009.)
Diaz is currently working on two future books: “Cuban-American Catholics” (Paulist Press) and “Migrating Across Theological Borders: The Essentials of Theology from U.S. Hispanic Theological Perspectives” (Orbis Books.)
His body of work, which includes some controvesial positions related to how to understand “inclusiveness,” has gained him significant apprisal from the Catholic left, and his nomination was immediately hailed by pro-Obama Catholics such as “Catholics United” and “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good,” as well as from Prof. Douglas Kmiec.
His election seems to be the first pay back of the Obama administration to Catholics who have been unconditionally supporting his policies and appointments. Diaz, in fact, is listed as a member of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, although he explains his relationship with the pro-Obama group founded by Democratic militant Alexia Kelley as “a response to an invitation to become a theological advisor.”
In a brief statement, Diaz said that “I wish to be a diplomatic bridge between our nation and the Holy See, and if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, I will continue the work of my predecessors and build on 25 years of excellent relations with the Holy See.”
Miguel Diaz served in 2008 on the Obama campaign’s Catholic advisory board. Also in 2008, he donated $1,000 to the Obama Victory Fund.
Although he claims to be a “defender of life in all of it stages,” Diaz was among 26 Catholic leaders and scholars who signed a statement supporting the nomination of staunch pro abortion Catholic Kathleen Sebelius as Health and Human Services Secretary.
“The College of Saint Benedict is enormously proud that Miguel has been nominated by President Obama for this important post,” said MaryAnn Baenninger, president of the College of Saint Benedict. “Miguel is a highly-respected theologian and scholar, and an excellent teacher. Most importantly, he has a deep commitment to Catholic social justice and to inclusiveness in the Catholic Church. He truly lives a life of faith. He is the ideal candidate for this post.”
He and his wife, Dr. Marian K. Diaz, are the founders of “Companions on a Journey” at the College of Saint Benedict, an organization aimed at promoting the involvement of young Catholics in public life and social justice activities.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16129
GOSPEL & MEDITATION: He Loved Us Before the Foundation of the World
Father Paul Campbell, LC
John 17:20-26
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe in you and all that you have revealed for our salvation. I hope in you because of your overflowing mercy. Every single act of yours on this earth demonstrated your love for us. Your ascent into heaven before the eyes of the Apostles inspires my hope of one day joining you there. I love you and wish you to be the center of my life.
Petition: Lord, increase my faith in your love.
1. God Is Love In his first epistle, John tells us that God is love. Before the foundation of the world, the Father loved the Son. Within the Trinity there is a perfect sharing of life and love. Even after the Incarnation, Jesus remained in his Father’s love. At Christ’s baptism, the Father spoke of his love for his Son. “This is my beloved son” (Matthew 3:17). At the Transfiguration he repeated this sign of love: “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5). These moments manifest God’s inner life.
2. God Calls Us to Share in His Life God created us to share in the loving relationship of the Trinity. The Father’s plan is to love us, to bring us into Trinitarian love. He wants to love us in his Son with a Father’s eternal love. If we could catch a mere glimpse of the reality of this love, it would transform our lives. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son into the world (see John 3:16). Love is at the heart of the universe.
3. God’s Love in Us God is love, and if he is in us, it is as love. God pours his love, himself, into our hearts. As he shares his life, he shares his love. This is the love that he wants us to give to others. Jesus gave his disciples the love he had received from his Father, and sent them forth to continue his work of sharing that love with all of humanity. Think of the people today who are lonely and lost, starving for love and attention. They have no clue that God loves them with an eternal love or that he has loved them intimately, deeply and perfectly from all eternity. They do not know that this love has given them life and maintains them in existence. People need to hear the good news of God’s love. This is our mission.
Conversation with Christ: Jesus, help me to share your love with those around me. Don’t allow me to remain focused just on myself and the circumstances in my life. I need you. I need your love, as do so many others. I need to love in order to give myself to your work, but I also need your constant help and support.
Resolution: I will let someone know that God loves them.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
SAINT OF THE DAY: BLESSED ANTONI JULIAN NOWOWIEJSKI
Archbishop Antoni Julian Nowowiejski was beatified by Pope John Paul II June 13, 1999, along with another 107 Poles who were martyred during World War II.
He was born in 1858. The late archbishop of Plock, Poland, was arrested by the occupying Germans in 1940. He refused the chance to escape, saying he wouldn’t desert his flock. He also refused to profane Christian symbols. He died, after countless beatings, at the Nazi’s Dzialdowo death camp in 1941.
INSIGHT FROM PATRIOT POST
Wednesday Chronicle – Vol. 09 No. 21
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”
–author Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
“The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.”
–French political philosopher C. L. De Montesquieu (1689-1755)
“The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.”
–English cleric and writer Charles Colton (1780-1832)
A GOVERNOR WITH SENSE! Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) Unwilling to Gamble on Marriage
Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, May 26,2009
More good news on marriage abounds in Nevada, where Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) respected the consensus of state voters and vetoed a bill that would have allowed homo- and heterosexual couples to become “legal domestic partners” with all the benefits of traditional spouses. In his veto message, Gov. Gibbons said that he rejected the bill because it contradicted the state’s marriage protection amendment, which Nevadans passed in 2002. “…[B]ecause the voters have determined that the rights of marriage should apply only to married couples, only the voters should determine whether those rights should equally apply to domestic partners.” The bill, S.B. 283, fell two votes shy of the majority to override Gibbons’ veto in both chambers.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could stand to learn a thing or two from Governor Gibbons. Reports are circulating that Secretary Clinton will buck federal law and force taxpayers to fund the travel, medical care, retirement, and moving costs for “partners of” unmarried homosexual and heterosexual diplomats.
Her decision not only flies in the face of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) but also the U.S. House, which voted last week to strip the perks from the State Department reauthorization bill.
In a message that has not yet been released, Clinton says the new policy “is the right thing to do.” These benefits “are increasingly the norm for world-class employers,” the statement says. They may be “the norm” in some countries, but violating federal law is a slap in the face of taxpaying Americans. Her decision is a costly one not only from an economic standpoint but also from a cultural one. Expanding these privileges to cohabiting couples fundamentally undermines marriage. It sends the message that unlike average Americans, government employees don’t need to take on the responsibility of marriage to enjoy its benefits.
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Gibbons vetoes domestic partner bill
My Fellow Americans: We’ve Been Putting (and Continue to Put) Clowns in the Cockpit!
…..Read the U.S. constitution, and you’ll see that our country’s “cockpit” isn’t the White House; it’s Congress. It’s the Congress, not the President, which controls the money by raising taxes and enacting the federal budget. It’s the Congress that makes our laws and oversees the executive departments and agencies that implement these laws and write the regulations that support them . . . My fellow Americans: We’ve been putting clowns in the cockpit . . . I don’t mean this to be rude — and I certainly don’t mean this to be partisan — but isn’t it obvious that most of the people we’ve elected to the House and Senate haven’t got the technical knowledge and the intellectual firepower to guide our country safely through the turbulent skies? And isn’t it obvious that most of these preening buffoons spend nearly all their time lining their own pockets, showboating, raising money for their re-elections or running for higher offices — in short, concentrating their energies and attention on everything except doing the jobs for which we’ve elected them?…..
Excerpt from: “Clowns in the Cockpit”
By Herbert E. Meyer September 27, 2008
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/clowns_in_the_cockpit.html
MR. WAXMAN THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER AND AMERICA IS NOT A BANANA REPUBLIC….YET!
Waxman clueless about his cap&trade bill: “You’re asking me?!”
Democrat Henry Waxman, primary sponsor of the radical cap&trade/national eco-tax bill in the House, can’t answer basic questions about the legislation’s details. And his speed-reader wasn’t around to bring old Waxy up to speed in time to rescue him from this gasbaggy gaffe.
“You’re asking me?”
Democrats Hire ‘Speed Reader’ To Stop Republican Stalling Tactics
Catholic Obama Campaign Adviser Wants to Replace All Legal ‘Marriages’ with ‘Civil Licenses’
Defeating a Hitler With Nukes: Nothing Else Matters
….Like it or not, we are being dragged into the Second Age of Nuclear Terror. Obama is the worst person to have in the White House at this time . . . we have no hint whatsoever that Barack Hussein Obama is intellectually or morally equipped to cope with the nuclear proliferation we are seeing today. Just the opposite. We are seeing the most foolish, ignorant, and self-obsessed administration since Jimmy Carter. ….
“I’m one who believes that Iran getting a nuclear weapon is calamitous for the region and for the world … neighbors … (who) feel exposed, deficient (will) then develop or buy the capability themselves … (it) is absolutely disastrous.”
ust haven’t been nice enough to malignant regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang. That isn’t even for grown-ups; it should have been left behind long ago in summer camp. But Bill Clinton’s SecState Madeleine Albright was photographed toasting Kim Jong Il, the pudgy tyrant of North Korea, who starved a million of his own people to death to divert 
resources to a gigantic army and nuclear program. For his part, Obama has already bowed down abjectly, in public, to the medieval King of Saudi Arabia. The symbolism is unmistakable.
How often does Ahmadinejad have to threaten genocide for us to take it seriously?
How many Sudanese Africans have to be killed by their jihad regime for us to take that seriously?
How many North Koreans have to be starved to death by their own government for us to see?
Eight years after the jihad assault of 9/11, 2001, on New York City and Washington, D.C., we are back to national life or death. Americans were suckered into believing that the world was suddenly a safe place, and elected a grossly unqualified Chicago pol to lead the nation, because he looked good on TV. That is a mistake we may come to bitterly regret.
Obama Supreme Court Pick Lacks Abortion History, but Criticized for Judicial Activism, Racism
…(Tony Perkins said) “Judge Sotomayor’s failure to premise her decisions on the text of the Constitution has resulted in an extremely high rate of reversal before the high court to which she has been nominated. President Obama promised us a jurist committed to the ‘rule of law,’ but, instead, he appears to have nominated a legislator to the Supreme Court.”….
By Kathleen Gilbert, May 26, 2009, LifeSiteNews.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Obama today announced his selection of U.S. Appeals Court judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by retiring justice David Souter. While Sotomayor has no significant background concerning the abortion or same-sex “marriage” debate, some conservatives are gearing up for a battle over her reputation for judicial activism, as well as statements suggesting that her gender and Hispanic background ensure that she will be a superior judge to her white male colleagues.
Despite eighteen years’ experience on the bench, the nominally Catholic Sotomayor has yet to directly address the abortion issue. Sotomayor’s most significant ruling on abortion came in 2002, when she denied claims issued by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy alleging that the Mexico City Policy violated its First Amendment, due process, and equal protection rights.
Because of Sotomayor’s lack of a paper trail on the issue, some abortion promoters have taken a reserved, wait-and-see approach to the nominee on the question of abortion. “We look forward to learning more about Judge Sotomayor’s views on the right to privacy and the landmark Roe v. Wade decision as the Senate’s hearing process moves forward,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in a statement released today. Keenan, however, praised the pick for her “distinguished record of professional accomplishments as a judge, prosecutor, and community leader.”
The pro-abortion National Organization for Women (NOW) also said it would “celebrate” the nomination. “Judge Sotomayor will serve the nation with distinction. She brings a lifelong commitment to equality, justice and opportunity, as well as the respect of her peers, unassailable integrity, and a keen intellect informed by experience,” NOW president Kim Gandy said. Gandy pledged the support of NOW for Sotomayor’s nomination.
However, the appeals court justice is not free from controversy, and the announcement of her nomination was heavily criticized by conservatives on a number of counts. Conservative commentators have pointed to a Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California-Berkeley Law School in 2001, in which Sotomayor said she disagreed with a quote attributed to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor that “a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.”
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Sotomayor.
American Life League president Judie Brown told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) today that she was “horrified” at Sotomayor’s statement.
“It is a racist and a sexist comment, there’s no question about it,” said Brown. “As a Latino woman who has been very blessed by the advances in her profession that she has experienced, she should be grateful to men and women of every nationality, rather than assaulting white men.”
In a press release today, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins agreed that the comment was “troubling – if not offensive – on many levels.”
Conservatives also fear that Sotomayor, who has had several of her opinions reversed by the Supreme Court, will bring an activist judicial philosophy to the Supreme Court.
“Judge Sotomayor’s failure to premise her decisions on the text of the Constitution has resulted in an extremely high rate of reversal before the high court to which she has been nominated,” said Perkins. “President Obama promised us a jurist committed to the ‘rule of law,’ but, instead, he appears to have nominated a legislator to the Supreme Court.”
One of the most controversial of Sotomayor’s cases occurred in 2003, when she wrote the Second Circuit Court of Appeals majority opinion against Connecticut firefighters who had complained that the city of New Haven had racially discriminated against them.
In the case, a firefighter named Frank Ricci and 17 others complained of reverse discrimination, after the city had thrown out results of two promotion tests because none of those who passed were African-American. Ricci and the others had been among those who were expecting promotion based upon the tests. New Haven attorneys said the city acted in order to comply with federal anti-discrimination law and cited fear of political retribution from activist groups.
Colleagues heavily criticized Sotomayor for apparently ignoring the constitutional questions behind the case, saying the one-paragraph ruling was inadequate to address over 1,800 pages of testimony.
In his dissent, Judge Jose Cabranes wrote that Sotomayor’s opinion “lacks a clear statement of either the claims raised by the plaintiffs or the issues on appeal.” “Indeed, the opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case,” he said.
Sotomayor has also come under fire for a 2005 video in which the judge declared at Duke University Law School that “the court of appeals is where policy is made.” The video has been making the rounds on the Internet following news of the nomination this morning.
Upon making the comment, the Latina judge immediately appeared embarrassed, adding: “and I know this is on tape, and I should never say that, because we don’t make law, I know. … I’m not promoting it, I’m not advocating it, I’m – you know.”
Jenn Giroux, the founder and executive director of Women Influencing the Nation, expressed “grave concern” over the Sotomayor pick to LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) today.
Given Sotomayor’s record, said Giroux, “she looks like she is very comfortable trying to deliberately change the law from [the bench].”
Americans United for Life (AUL) President & CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest responded to the nomination, saying, “For all the President’s talk of finding ‘common ground,’ this appointment completely contradicts that hollow promise. Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy undermines common ground.”
“She believes the role of the Court is to set policy, which is exactly the philosophy that led to the Supreme Court turning into the ‘National Abortion Control Board,’ denying the American people the right to be heard on this critical issue,” continued Yoest. “This appointment would provide a pedestal for an avowed judicial activist to impose her personal policy and beliefs onto others from the bench.”
The nomination will now be sent to the Senate for confirmation.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Souter to Leave Open Seat in June
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09050102.html
Politics: Climbing Down the Ladder of Success
….The men who wrote the Constitution understood the incredibly corrupting power of big government. So they developed a system to push power DOWN the ladder of power, putting decision-making authority in the lowest level of government that could actually make and carry out an effective decision….
By Peg Luksik, Ph.D., Catholic Exchange, May 27th, 2009
Is America one major corporation, with 50 branch offices spread across the land, or is she a system of franchises, each of which is separately “owned and operated”?
The federal government believes that America is the former. All policy decisions should be made in Washington, from energy to education to welfare to health care.
An increasing number of states are beginning to insist that the proper model for governing America is the franchise. Washington has a limited and defined authority, but outside of those limits, the states should be determining and implementing policy. The voice of the states asserting this is still small, but it is growing.
The dissenting states cite the Tenth Amendment as their basis for disagreement with the federal corporation model. What exactly does the Tenth Amendment do?
The men who wrote the Constitution understood the incredibly corrupting power of big government. So they developed a system to push power DOWN the ladder of power, putting decision-making authority in the lowest level of government that could actually make and carry out an effective decision.
Those last three words mirror the first words in the Constitution, “We, the People”. The intent is consistent –- the structure of the government should ensure that the voices of the people being governed are heard. For that to happen, the business of governing should be conducted as locally as possible.
A citizen can attend a local government meeting with minimal effort. He can visit his county officers as well. He can reach his state capital, visit his representative and senator there, and return home in the same day. But for most of the country, a visit to Washington is a major undertaking, so the average citizen does not ever make the trip. So the higher up on the ladder of power the decision-making rises, the less likely those in authority are to be visited by a citizen.
If that citizen does decide to speak out on an issue, the same backwards relationship between the voice of the citizen and the responsiveness of the government applies. At the local level, a citizen might be one of several hundred, but by the time we get to the US House of Representatives, that citizen is one of 360,000.
And if the citizen decides to get involved by running for office, the differences are almost overwhelming. She can successfully run for local office by visiting her neighbors one-on-one and listening to their concerns and suggestions, making government “by the people” a working reality. But at the federal level, the enormous amounts of money and media required today keep most citizens from even attempting the effort – concentrating power in the hands of an elite, and unresponsive, few.
The words are simple: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.The states are simply the implementation offices of those federal policies. They may be provided with some of the funding necessary to accomplish the implementation, at least for the start up period, but funded or not, their duty to implement what Washington mandates does not change.
Novak Fed Up with Vatican Newspaper: “We Asked Rome for Bread They Give Us Stones”
By Hilary White, May 26, 2009, LifeSiteNews.com
NEW YORK – A recent string of “star struck teenage” articles praising US President Barack Obama by the Vatican daily newspaper is scandalizing Catholics around the world, according to a prominent American conservative commentator. Michael Novak, a US Catholic writer, philosopher and diplomat, wrote on the website of the National Review magazine today that the editors of L’Osservatore Romano have failed to grasp either “the full threat Obama poses for the American Catholic conscience” or the “immense scandal” they are causing the Church by praising him.
Novak, regarded by many as a “moderate conservative,” wrote in an editorial titled “All the Confusion Fit to Print,” that “L’ Osservatore Romano seems not to grasp the fundamental realities of abortion politics in America.”
In the last month, the Vatican’s daily newspaper, largely in its Italian daily edition, has produced a set of articles about President Obama that have downplayed his pro-abortion and anti-family policies, ignored his 100 per cent pro-abortion voting record and reported with little criticism his appearance at Notre Dame University.
One article, published May 12th, compared Obama to the biblical Joshua who led the people of Israel to the Promised Land and said that he is the “fulfilment” of Rev. Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights movement. But the greatest criticism has been levelled against a political editorial published last month titled, “Obama in the White House: 100 Days that Didn’t Shake the World,” by Giuseppe Fiorentino.
Many pro-life leaders have voiced their concerns at the recent kid-glove treatment of Obama in the newspaper, that is known to be vetted by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Their criticisms became even more vocal last week when the paper’s editor-in-chief said that he does not believe Obama is a pro-abortion politician. Giovanni Maria Vian, in an interview with Italian political analyst, Paolo Rodari, praised Obama’s Notre Dame speech, a speech labelled “mendacious” by Novak. Vian said it had been “respectful toward every position.”
Vian said, “He [Obama] tried to engage the debate, stepping out from every ideological position and outside every ‘confrontational mentality.’ To this extent his speech is to be appreciated.”
In its reportage of Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame University last weekend, Novak identified five “crucial facts” of which Vian’s newspaper, “like a blind observer of faraway events,” seems “completely ignorant.”
Novak said that the paper ignored the fact that the US bishops had issued a public declaration that no politicians who oppose “fundamental moral principles” were to be honoured by any Catholic institution in the US. It has also failed to distinguish between the 40 percent of practising US Catholics who support the Church’s teaching on abortion, and the US Church’s barely practising members who support legal abortion. This failure to distinguish, Novak said, put L’Osservatore Romano into the same ranks as the mainstream liberal secular press.
The L’Osservatore Romano coverage also failed to note, he said, that Barack Obama has gone “farther than any president in American history in supporting abortion.” This includes supporting legal infanticide, “euphemistically called ‘partial-birth abortion,’” and opposing legislation that would protect children born alive after an attempted abortion. In this latter case, Novak pointed out, Obama is “virtually alone in U.S. politics” in his attempt to please the abortion lobby, since many other “pro-choice” politicians voted in favor of the measure.
The paper, he wrote, has also failed to grasp the subtleties of the euphemistic language, the “code” of “doublespeak,” that has grown up in politics around the abortion issue in the US. While L’Osservatore Romano claimed that Obama promised at Notre Dame to put in place legal protections for doctors, Novak points to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), for which Obama has promised his support. FOCA proposes to repeal all previous legislation that put any restrictions whatever on abortion. This would effectively force all medical practitioners in the US to participate in abortion.
FOCA, Novak wrote, would change the law so that “anyone who would stand in the way of abortion could be recognized as a criminal.”
Novak concludes by asking, “Why on earth, then, does L’Osservatore Romano side with the abortionists, and against the besieged, struggling minority of churchgoing Catholics who find abortion abhorrent, and an intrinsic and unrationalizable evil?”
He laments, “We ask Rome for bread, and L’Osservatore Romano gives us stones.”
To read Novak’s editorial:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGFiYWE3OTc1MjRkN2IyMWFhMTM4NTY4NmU4NjkzNDg=
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
“Obama not Pro-Abortion” Says Editor in Chief of Vatican Newspaper
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09052101.html
Obama is “Joshua” to Martin Luther King’s “Moses”: Vatican Newspaper Article
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09051204.html
Why the Vatican Newspaper Said Obama’s First 100 Days Wasn’t All that Bad
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09050113.html
Pro-Life Leaders Worldwide Concerned About Weakening of Vatican’s Pro-Life Stand in Wake of Uncorrected Vatican Newspaper Article
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09050104.html
THIS ARTICLE: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09052603.html
GOSPEL & MEDITATION: Sent into the World
Father Paul Campbell, LC
John 17:11b-19
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe in you. I believe that you are here with me. I thank you for your loving presence in my life. I place all of my hope in you. I humbly offer you the love in my heart and my desire to continue your mission in the world.
Petition: Lord, strengthen my resolve to serve you.
1. He Protected His Own in the World Jesus completed his mission of protecting those entrusted to his care. He fulfilled his vocation as a man; not one of his apostles was lost except the son of destruction. We have his protection still. He sits at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us. We have the help of his mother, Mary, and all the saints in heaven. We are surrounded by a great crowd of saints, who support our efforts to live as God wants us to live. They are God’s gift to protect us on our pilgrimage in life.
2. He Does Not Take Them Out of the World As Jesus was leaving the world, he prayed for his disciples. He did not pray that they would be taken out of the world, but that they be kept from the evil one. Sometimes we can feel beaten up and broken, and we seek to flee the battle. Jesus needs us in the combat and entrusts us with the fight. He doesn’t keep us from the battle, instead offers us the strength of his help. He is with us, fighting at our side. He is within us, giving us the interior strength to do his will.
3. In the World, but Not of the World Although we are in the world, we are here as pilgrims. We are passing through on our way to heaven. We have a mission: to save the souls that God has entrusted to our care. It is easy to get distracted, to begin to look for calm, ease or a more comfortable resting place for our weary souls and bodies. The world remains attractive to our fallen nature. Alluring advertisements can leave their mark on us, and we can desire the things of earth more than the treasures of heaven. This is why we must give priority to prayer in our life and contemplate life from the perspective of eternity.
Conversation with Christ: Jesus, protect me from the evil one. He is battling me on many fronts. Keep me strong in your love. Don’t let me give in to discouragement or despair. I have the protection of your love and your intercession. Increase my hope in you. Help me to continue your work in the world.
Resolution: I will speak to someone about Christ today, sharing with them the love he lavishes upon us.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
SAINT OF THE DAY: ST. AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY
Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine and his 40 monks to evangelize the British Isles in 596. He and his fellow monks had considered returning to Rome when they heard terrifying stories of the Celts, but Pope Gregory would hear nothing of it.
They arrived in 597 and were successful at Christianizing large parts of England. Augustine established the first diocese of Canterbury, and later the dioceses of London and Rochester.
He served as the first archbishop of Canterbury and helped to re-establish contact between the Celtic churches and the Church of Rome.
He died in England May 26, 605.
In California, Justice–and Marriage–Prevail
Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, May 26, 2009
At every opportunity, the people of California have voted to protect marriage. Nine years, two ballot initiatives, and two lawsuits later, the state’s Supreme Court finally respected that decision, upholding Proposition 8′s ban on counterfeit marriage in a 6-1 ruling. A year after imposing same-sex “marriage” on the state, the same court that initiated the controversy surrendered to the more than seven million voters who, on November 4, upheld the historical definition of marriage as the union of a man and woman.
In FRC’s amicus brief, we argued that the effort to overturn Proposition 8 “strikes directly at the heart of California’s system of government.” The court acknowledged its limitations in today’s opinion, stating, “Regardless of our views as individuals on this question of policy, we recognize as judges and as a court our responsibility to confine our consideration to a determination of the constitutional validity and legal effect of the measure in question.”
That said, the Court did ignore the meaning of the law it upheld by recognizing the 18,000 same-sex “marriages” performed last year. By grandfathering in these “marriages,” the justices are seeding the ground for a possible legal battle in the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite that disappointment, FRC continues to be optimistic. In the face of its toughest challenge, the state’s marriage protection amendment withstood its fiercest test. We are determined to fight until marriage enjoys this same protection in all 50 states. In the meantime, be encouraged, knowing that same-sex “marriage” is not inevitable if we refuse to stand by and allow it to happen.
CNN: California high court upholds same-sex marriage ban
Why Catholics (Stupidly) Support Obama
….Notre Dame’s embrace of the president reflects a broader watering-down of the Church’s traditional doctrines….
The booing and then chants of “Yes, we can!” by graduates of the nation’s premier Catholic university in response to a protester’s shout of “Abortion is murder!” during President Obama’s commencement address sent a chill through me.
The president of Notre Dame rationalized inviting a speaker upholding — and in effect promoting — what the Church defines as murder. On the other hand, Bishop John M. D’Arcy protested the invitation with 70 other bishops and refused to attend the commencement. But his remarks, like a lay group’s open letter to Obama, revealed tunnel vision on the evil represented by his election.
The change in style from high liturgy to the whiny adolescent voice accompanying the plucking of the guitar string of the new folk mass in the 1960s was accompanied by the change in content, reduced to a one-note protest against abortion. Perhaps that is why Obama received 54% of the Catholic vote.
Obama’s faux hip style would likely appeal to those who go for today’s kumbaya forms of worship, such as the holding of hands during the “Lord’s Prayer” in many masses. Or the priest I heard in Holley, New York, who had come off the altar and into the aisle to talk in a confidential, folksy manner to the congregation who looked like they had just stopped into mass between their other activities that required no more sartorial effort than stepping into a pair of jeans. In the flattering soft tones that Flannery O’Connor would have zinged, he went on about the “Father, Son, and Mother Spirit.” To my horror, he explained this new feminine conception to the approving nods of the congregation’s Eves.
In many homilies, the themes of “social justice” and multiculturalism echo the lessons of the classroom. Rare is the Sunday when a priest does not caution his parishioners about the evils of “prejudice” — directed of course only at the white people who make up the overwhelming majority of the congregation. Like Julian of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” they salve their consciences through superficial displays of “tolerance.” In this way, the Church promotes people as groups, not individuals.
And yet the Church expects her young to condemn a leader — who comes from the dark-skinned group they have been taught to uphold — on the basis of one issue: abortion. Is it any wonder then that those at the commencement applauded Obama’s statement that both sides can “join hands in a common effort” on abortion?
Why fault 22-year-olds who have grown up in a religious tradition that says very little, if anything, about the increasing power of the state? Does the Church say much about other violations to personal freedom, like the seizure of business, the breaking of contracts, and the breaking of promises about campaign funds and informing the public about legislation? The coming rationing of government health care? The ridicule of those who “cling” to their “religion”?
To the contrary, the Church seems to be in agreement with Obama and his homeland secretary, Janet Napolitano, that entering the country illegally is not a criminal offense. Nor did the Church loudly condemn the Department of Homeland Security memo that claimed Christian faith a characteristic of right-wing extremism. And rather than invoking Aquinas’ theory of “just war,” the Church sided with the leftist peaceniks during the Iraq liberation. And where is the condemnation of Obama’s statist plan that includes, so far, taxing charitable gifts and subsidizing a government youth corps in “community service”?
If, say, a president took the measures that Obama did for abortion, but instead applied them to ensuring the rapid execution of black men on death row, the hue and cry from college students would be overwhelming.
But the ideologue is selective in his outrage over murder and injustice, and can rationalize everything, from denying employment to certain races to the starvation and murder of millions of bourgeois — all for the larger good, by one’s own lights or the lights of his party.
The common denominator of utopian ideologies is the substitution of particular men’s wisdom for God’s wisdom as passed down through the generations. Because the Church condemned such diabolical ideologies, communists murdered priests and nuns. The Church provided assistance to those escaping communist regimes, like my parents.
But rather than providing a firewall of faith against Marxist ideologies, Notre Dame, by its academic offerings, seems to have succumbed. The department of “diversity” gives a class devoted to “gender and peace studies”; the English Department represents postcolonialism, Latino/Latina literature, and cultural studies; and history offers classes focusing on the new trinity of race, class, and gender. Such a capitulation to fifth-column initiatives seems to have also infected Catholic high schools. St. Pius in Atlanta puts on a recommended reading list Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, known for her pro-abortion stance and communist affiliations. And I have talked to an English teacher at a Catholic high school who unapologetically explained that she did what many of my colleagues do in the secular classroom: promote feminism.
The pro-life position then must come across as an anomaly within the race-class-gender classroom environment.
What resonates more is the black dude who could have been the cool guy teaching the “gender and peace studies” class.
So, is it any wonder that young people put their “hope” in a charismatic political leader? Is it a surprise that college-educated Catholics shouted in cult-like unison a slogan from a Marxist labor movement: “Yes, we can!”?
Back in 1931, Pope Pius XI in an encyclical rebuked a government that had put “out of existence socialism and anti-religious organizations,” but had permitted them to be “readmitted.” The government, charged the pope, “made them even stronger and more dangerous, inasmuch as they are now hidden and also protected by their new uniform.” “We find ourselves,” continued the pontiff, “in the presence of a party, of a regime … which clearly resolves itself into a true and real pagan worship of the state.” Part of this “statolatry,” he accused, involved the attempt “to monopolize completely the young, from their tenderest years up to manhood and womanhood.”
The Church, which back then seemed to be sure of her moral authority, of course, was condemning Mussolini’s fascists.
Mary Grabar earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia and teaches in the Atlanta area. She is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and published fiction writer. Visit her website and get on her mailing list at MaryGrabar.com. Mary blogs at the TheLiterateCitizen.com.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-catholics-stupidly-support-obama/2/
Republicans Take Note! Here’s What a Counter-Attack Looks Like
Dick Cheney is giving the Republican Party a demonstration of how to fight a popular president. Stake out defensible high ground, do not surrender an inch, then go onto the attack.
The ground on which Cheney has chosen to stand is the most defensible the Republicans have: homeland security. In seven-and-a-half years after 9-11, not one terrorist attack struck our country.
And, unlike Obama’s position, Cheney’s is 100 percent reality based. He was there. He lived through this. He made the decisions to use the harsher techniques on the worst of the enemy who could yield the greatest intelligence to save American lives.
“The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do.” And they “prevented the violent deaths of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”
Having defended every decision he took, Cheney then counterattacked. He charged The New York Times with virtual treason in exposing the program to intercept calls from al-Qaida and mocked its Pulitzer Prize. He accused liberals and Speaker Pelosi of “feigned outrage” and “phony moralizing,” asserting they were fully briefed on “the program and the methods.” He charged Obama with endangering national security by “triangulating,” adopting a policy designed less to secure America than to unite and appease his political coalition.
“There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.”
Cheney comes to this quarrel armed with credibility, certitude, consistency and conviction born of eight years of success. Listening to Obama’s disquisition, one gets the sense his homeland security policy is the collective view of the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review, with a sign-off by the local chapter of the ACLU.
That Cheney is winning seems undeniable.
Not only has his approval rating risen to 37 percent, probably higher on national security, Obama’s coalition is cracking apart.
Speaker Pelosi’s credibility has been shredded over what she knew and when she knew it regarding waterboarding. Her comrades are all howling that the CIA lied, but no one wants an investigation.
The left wing of the party believes Obama double-crossed them when he refused to release the photos of abused prisoners, kept the military tribunals and sent 22,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
And Harry Reid and a Democratic Senate voted 90 to 6 to humiliate Obama by denying him the funds needed to close Guantanamo until he comes up with a plan to hold the 240 hard-core inmates somewhere other than in the United States.
Again, Cheney is winning because he has been there and his position is reality-based. For, while the use of harsh interrogation techniques is a legal question, it also presents a moral dilemma. A moral case can be made that, given the murderers we confronted, the prospect of more U.S. dead, the non-lethality of the techniques and the value of the intelligence acquired, it was the right thing to do.
And the Democrats are losing because, with few exceptions, they have been neither consistent nor honest.
Their key leaders were read in on the interrogation techniques. Few protested. They went along when America seemed in imminent peril. Recall: Democratic Sens. Dodd, Daschle, Edwards, Kerry, Reid and Clinton all voted to authorize war in Iraq.
But, by the time the primaries of 2008 came around, they had all moved — some 180 degrees — to get right with the Democratic base. And this is Obama’s problem.
He ran to the left of Hillary and pledged to close Guantanamo, as the prison camp had come to be twinned, though unfairly, in the liberal mind and Muslim world with the sadistic abuses at Abu Ghraib.
Obama never thought through what he would do with the hard-core al-Qaida housed in Guantanamo.
This is a recurring problem of liberals. They are forever into posturing, assuming heroic moral stands, but rarely consider the consequences in the real world. It was brave to denounce the Shah, Anastasio Somoza and Ian Smith. But when they fell, we got the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Sandinistas and “Comrade Bob” Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Cheney deals with the concrete. We remember that scene in the White House bunker, with that plane headed for the Capitol, and we remember Khalid Sheikh Mohammad saying he will talk after he gets to New York and sees his lawyer.The Republican Party needs to get off the psychiatrist’s couch, and stand up and fight for what it believes. You don’t need a moderate with a pretty face to deliver a moderate message. The former vice president with the crocodile grin has just shown the way.
Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, “The Death of the West,”, “The Great Betrayal,” “A Republic, Not an Empire” and “Where the Right Went Wrong.”
Louisiana Senate Committee to Consider Pro-Life Medical Conscience Clause Bill
By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com Editor, May 27, 2009
Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) — A Louisiana state Senate committee on Thursday will consider HB 517, a conscience bill that would protect the right of all health care workers, from physicians to pharmacists to nurses, to object from participating in any health care service that violates their conscience.
The bill extends to abortions and practices like human cloning, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research.
The state House has approved the bill, but, when it did, it added an amendment that Ben Clapper with the Louisiana Right to Life Federation tells LifeNews.com he opposes.
“When HB 517 left the House floor last week, a bad amendment was added to the bill that made it only apply to public employees, thereby leaving out the conscience rights of all private health care professionals in Louisiana,” he explained.
Louisiana Right to Life is calling on pro-life state residents to contact members of the Senate Health & Welfare Committee urging them to support the bill but also to vote for an amendment by the author of the bill to remove the problematic language.
The bill comes on the heels of the Louisiana Supreme Court declining to hear an appeal in a medical conscience case.
A Louisiana nurse won her battle at the state Supreme Court when it refused to hear a hospital’s appeal of a lower court decision siding with her. The nurse, Toni Lemly, sued St. Tammany Parish Hospital in 2005 after it refused to grant a reasonable accommodation for her religious beliefs.
Lemly informed hospital staff that she objected to administering the morning after pill because of her religious beliefs.
In response, St. Tammany Parish Hospital fired Lemly from her full-time position and reduced her to part-time status, working only three days a week. Her demotion resulted in a significant reduction in pay and the loss of employee benefits.
The conscience clause bill is one of several measures the pro-life group supports.
It is also backing SB 115, sponsored by Senator Danny Martiny (R-Metairie), that would ban the creation of human animal hybrids in Louisiana.
That measure has passed the Senate Judiciary C Committee and is waiting to be heard on the Senate floor.
The group is also supportive of a bill, SB 289, that streamlines the Choose Life License Plate program in order to more efficiently distribute funds to pro-life pregnancy centers across the state.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Right to Life opposes SCR 7, the ERA bill to ratify the 1972 ERA which could be used to force the state to pay for abortions.
Related web sites:
Louisiana Right to Life – http://www.prolifelouisiana.org
http://www.lifenews.com/state4178.html