Brown Pelican Society of Louisiana

SOURCE: Patriot Post http://content.patriotpost.us/img/legacy/broadcasts/humor/020210.html

Despite President Obama’s feigned concern about sky high federal spending, escalating budget deficits and mounting government debt, all three are expected to grow much worse under his new budget proposals.

Overall spending will be approaching a record $4 trillion in fiscal 2011, which begins this October, the deficits will still be in the trillion dollar range by the end of this decade and the government’s national debt will continue to climb exponentially as a result of persistent overspending.

“Last year’s budget was historically irresponsible and yet this year’s budget would spend $1.7 trillion more and run deficits $2 trillion greater over the same 10-year period,” Heritage Foundation’s chief budget analyst Brian Riedl told Human Events.

“It’s getting worse. By 2020 we’d still have trillion dollar deficits. It’s quite an amazing budget of fiscal irresponsibility.The national debt would double over the next decade,” Riedle said.

“If this budget is fully enacted, it would drive debt levels to a point where it would seriously risk a financial crisis,” he said. Top economists agree.
     
The most dramatic manifestation of the administration’s inability, or rather, unwillingness, to reduce spending to more responsible levels, can be seen in the budget’s growing gap between spending and tax revenues which this year will approach an unprecedented $1.6 trillion in red ink. This, despite the White House’s claim that the economy is coming out of its recession when tax revenues begin to rise.

The reason the deficit numbers are getting worse: Obama and the Democratic Congress are spending money faster than the economy and beleagured taxpayers can earn it.

The government’s unprecedented spending under Obama has become a major political issue in the midterm congressional elections that’s driven independents away from the Democrats in droves, plunging Obama’s job approval numbers into the 40s and threatening to flatten the Democrats’ majority in Congress.

But Obama’s budget shows little if any sign of wanting to scale back his big spending agenda, or his proposals to raise taxes on investors, banks, businesses, uninsured Americans who do not purchase health care plans, and upper income taxpayers.

“If you’re in business now and you’re trying to figure out what the future is, you’re looking at health care taxes, you’re looking at capital gains taxes going up, dividend taxes going up.So, is that a great environment in which to expand employment? I think the answer is no,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union program. Continue reading →

— G.K. Chesterton

 “You Don’t Need a Washington Task Force to Understand the Middle Class” -  By Joe ‘The Plumber’ Wurzelbacher

It was kind of hard to stop laughing when I read that Joe Biden is leading a Task Force to study what’s on the mind of middle class Americans. Give me a break.

It would be funny if it were not so sad that those in Washington need a special commission to figure out what America thinks. How can we be represented in the first place if the people we hired to carry our hopes and fears are so clueless?

Here’s my suggestion Mr. Biden—take a trip to any town or city and sit down for an early breakfast in a coffee shop. Stop talking long enough to listen. Try a barber or beauty shop for the same lesson. Have a beer in a tavern. The key here, Mr. Biden—and all you folks from Washington, D.C. who have become so frightened that people are expressing their independent will at the polls—is to stop pontificating long enough to actually hear what we are saying.

Here’s another clue that could save us all the cost of a task force to find out (what you really should already know)—we don’t like being lied to about the size of the national debt or the fact that you have been taxing coming generations of Americans to secure more loans from foreign countries today. We know that you are mortgaging our future, so just admit it. Admit that spending our money gets you elected.

Try telling us the truth about the influence of lobbyists on public policy. Start with the indecipherable and unimaginably corrupted tax code. Be honest about Congress selling off two or three pieces of the tax code every day they’ve been in session for the last 25 years. Admit that the income tax system requires more than $300 billion a year from us just to fill out all the forms and obey the 67,500 pages of tax code regulations. Fess up that lobbyists spend more than $1.5 billion a year to get what they want for the aleardy rich and powerful from the House Ways and Means Committee–and that we end up paying the difference. Admit these are the reasons you hate the FairTax.

Maybe being truthful and actually listening will then lead you to the plain and obvious fact that we are mad as hell that you and the rest of the political class in Washington can barely disguise your contempt for those of us who live outside Washington . We lost a lot of our retirement savings in this economic meltdown because of government fumbling and a whole lot of us lost the jobs that we depend on to feed our families because you think raising money for government is more important than letting it work in the economy. We don’t think that cutting special deals with plaintiff lawyers, reluctant Senators, unions or big banks with our money just so you can buy their votes has helped us as much as it has helped you. And, for Pete’s sake, we don’t think that the answer to every problem we face is shifting more of our earnings to the 40% of the population who don’t pay any income taxes at all

Just for good measure you might explain again how wrong it was to ridicule those of us who clutch our “guns and bibles” and admit that the people you seem to so despise are the very same people who win our wars, build our cities and yes, pay your salary. Admit to us that you’ve spent too much time listening to others in Washington and too little time listening to us. Stop scheming and stop treating us like sheep that can be ever more efficiently sheared to advance your own ambitions.

If you really want to understand, however, what the middle class and most of the rest of us really think, go get some ham and eggs and save the money of the commission. I’m sure that we could make better use of those funds—another thing you need to come to understand.

http://biggovernment.com/2010/02/01/you-dont-need-a-washington-task-force-to-understand-the-middle-class/

POTENTIAL 2012 GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES RAISE BIG MONEY, BACK PRO-LIFERS
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates all raised significant amounts of money for their political action committees last year. Each of the potential challengers to pro-abortion President Barack Obama not only received hefty donations but also doled out money to pro-life candidates.

NFL FOOTBALL PLAYERS SUPPORT TIM TEBOW, PRO-LIFE SUPER BOWL AD WITH MOM
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Current and former football players are weighing in and they support college football superstar and his family in their television commercial that will run during the Super Bowl. Focus on the Family has purchased time for an ad that will focus on how Tebow’s mother Pam refused to have an abortion.

ANALYSTS SAY PRO-ABORTION DEMOCRATS COULD LOSE SENATE AFTER 2010 ELECTIONS
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Political analysts looking ahead to the 2010 mid-term elections have said for months that there is an outside chance pro-abortion Democrats may lose their control of the House. Now, top experts suggest there is a remote possibility they could lose their hold on the Senate as well.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD ABORTION BIZ PRESIDENT BECOMES FORD FOUNDATION TRUSTEE
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Unable to earn the backing of grassroots Americans, the pro-abortion lobby has held close relationships with foundations — from which it has drawn millions for its advocacy work. Cementing those ties, the president of the Planned Parenthood abortion business has been named a trustee of the Ford Foundation.

ABORTION ADVOCATES: PRO-ABORTION GROUPS WRONG ON TEBOW AD, PRO-LIFERS WINNING
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – The campaign by pro-abortion groups to get CBS to reverse its decision to run the Focus on the Family commercial featuring Tim Tebow is causing so much backlash that two former leaders of prominent pro-abortion groups are calling on abortion advocates to call off the dogs.

NEW STUDY FINDS ABSTINENCE EDUCATION EFFECTIVE, COMPREHENSIVE SEX-ED FLOPS
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – A new study released today finds abstinence education effective in reducing sexual activity among youth while comprehensive sexual education flops. Students participating in an eight-hour abstinence program showed a one-third decrease in their rates of sexual activity compared to non-participants.

PRO-LIFE GROUP SAYS CATHOLIC BISHOPS’ OFFICIAL HAD POST IN PRO-ABORTION GROUP
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – A pro-life organization contends a top official at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pulled double duty with a leadership role in a group that promotes abortion. The American Life League charges concern John Carr, of the USCCB Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development.

THE NOTRE DAME 88 NEED CONTINUED SUPPORT FROM THE PRO-LIFE COMMUNITY
by Brian Simboli, Ph.D. – Many persons who attended the March for Life last Friday saw banners asking that charges against the Notre Dame 88 be dropped. The ND 88 protested the University of Notre Dame’s conferral of an honorary law degree on a politician with great political power to promote his pro-abortion agenda.

GALLUP POLL SHOWS BARACK OBAMA GOT NO BUMP FOLLOWING STATE OF THE UNION
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – The Gallup daily presidential approval tracking poll shows pro-abortion President Barack Obama received no bump in his approval ratings following his State of the Union speech. In the three days following the speech, Gallup shows Obama with a 48 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval rating — unchanged from before the address.

 By Publius,  Big Government 

So, do you think Punxsutawney Phil reads IPCC Global Warming reports? Actually, Phil is probably verifiably more reliable.

http://biggovernment.com/2010/02/02/tuesday-open-thread-groundhog-edition/

Collect: All-powerful Father, Christ your Son became man for us and was presented in the temple. May he free our hearts from sin and bring us into your presence. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Presentation of the Lord

The feast was first observed in the Eastern Church as “The Encounter.” In the sixth century, it began to be observed in the West: in Rome with a more penitential character and in Gaul (France) with solemn blessings and processions of candles, popularly known as “Candlemas.” The Presentation of the Lord concludes the celebration of the Nativity and with the offerings of the Virgin Mother and the prophecy of Simeon, the events now point toward Easter.

“In obedience to the Old Law, the Lord Jesus, the first-born, was presented in the Temple by his Blessed Mother and his foster father. This is another ‘epiphany’ celebration insofar as the Christ Child is revealed as the Messiah through the canticle and words of Simeon and the testimony of Anna the prophetess. Christ is the light of the nations, hence the blessing and procession of candles on this day. In the Middle Ages this feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or ‘Candlemas,’ was of great importance.

“The specific liturgy of this Candlemas feast, the blessing of candles, is not as widely celebrated as it should be, except of course whenever February 2 falls on a Sunday and thus takes precedence. There are two ways of celebrating the ceremony, either the Procession, which begins at a ‘gathering place’ outside the church, or the Solemn Entrance, celebrated within the church.”

— Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year

More startling evidence has been unearthed about the Catholic Campaign for Human development that shows a disturbing pattern of cooperation between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and groups that advocate abortion and same-sex marriage.

Two reports, released yesterday by the American Life League (ALL) and Bellarmine Veritas Ministry (BVM), reveal that the Center for Community Change (CCC), an organization recommended for support by the USCCB, has consistently taken positions opposed to the bishops’ teachings on abortion, marriage, contraception, and sexuality.

Our bishops tell us to “lend our support” to CCC. Here is only a partial list of what these reports have revealed about the Center for Community Change:

1. CCC’s executive director, Deepak Bhargava, states that they are fighting for “lifting restrictions on women’s access to health services.” (Bhargava was also a featured speaker hosted by the USCCB at a three-day conference.)

 2. CCC joined the “Stop Stupak” coalition through its “Campaign for Community Change” arm, explaining, “Of course, no issue is more critical to women’s economic opportunity than the ability to choose when and under what personal circumstances to raise children.”

 
3. CCC is a member of the National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights (NCIWR). NCIWR requires all members to sign an agreement supporting, among other things, “Reproductive health care coverage financed through public funds provided to all immigrant women regardless of legal and economic status,” as well as “equitable access to confidential and non-coercive family planning services and contraceptive equity.”

 
Sean Thomas-Brietfield, Director of CCC’s Taproots Project, wrote an article promoting consensual “polyamory,” or “relationships where there is no expectation of fidelity.”

 
4. CCC developed leaders for same-sex marriage advocacy and homosexual activists through its Generation Change program. In 2008, CCC received a $50,000 grant for leadership training from one of the chief funders of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) causes, the Gill Foundation.

6. Ralph McCloud, the current Director of the CCHD, participated in a December 2008 event cosponsored by CCC and the Gamaliel Foundation, “Realizing the Promise Forum,” celebrating the election of Barack Obama. McCloud is reported to have proclaimed, “Very soon we will see a New Jerusalem.” The conference video suggests the CCC is engaged in “partisan political activity” in violation of the CCHD grant guidelines.

This is the second round of incriminating evidence presented by ALL and BVM about the CCC. Three months ago, they issued a press release and supporting research regarding 31 CHDD grantees with a relationship to CCC — all of which was ignored by the USCCB.

As ALL’s Michael Hichborn points out, these reports have “revealed no less than fifty organizations (one fifth of all CCHD grantees from 2009) that are, in some capacity, engaged in pro-abortion or pro-homosexual causes (www.all.org/cchd). The sad thing, however, is that these recent revelations manifest a pattern of cooperation stretching back for decades.”

These latest findings make it impossible for the USCCB not to sever its ties with the CCC. However, the situation is made more difficult by the news that John Carr — who oversees the CCHD as the USCCB’s Executive Director of the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development — served on the CCC board from 1999 to 2006 and on its executive committee from 1999 to 2001. Carr was hired by the USCCB in 1987, but his involvement with the CCC goes back to 1983.

ALL research shows that in 2000, while Carr served on its executive committee, CCC itself received a $150,000 grant from the USCCB. Carr’s resume at the USCCB Web site does not mention his service at the CCC, while other published versions of his resume do.

As Hichborn comments, “The omission is odd and, given the new information, quite suspicious.” Hichborn also thinks the “cozy relationship” between Carr and the CCC may be the reason the USCCB did not respond to the troublesome findings published last November. The ties between CCC and the USCCB remained close after Carr left the board. (Tom Chabolla, Carr’s associate director at the USCCB, replaced him.)

In response to these reports, Carr issued a statement to Our Sunday Visitor, explaining, “I left the board of the Center for Community Change in February of 2005, and I had no involvement in or knowledge of the actions alleged in the press release.”

Carr does not deny the charges but claims to have no knowledge of them, including the one that alleges CCC’s partisan activity. But one speech Carr gave mentioned being in a CCC board meeting with a John Kerry campaign strategist who stated his political views quite plainly:

I remember being told on a board meeting for the Center for Community Change. One of the Kerry strategists, who shall remain nameless, that the strategy was to go after singles, seculars, and gays. And my reaction was, that’s a great way to carry Berkeley and midtown Manhattan. It’s not a way to win Ohio.

The overwhelming evidence about CCC’s positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception make it difficult to believe that Carr was, after six years on its board, unaware of these attitudes among CCC staff.

Rob Gaspar, the founder of BVM, summarizes the issue facing the USCCB:

While it may seem that the interests of the Church and the CCC intersect on several important issues such as health-care and immigration reform, a cursory examination shows that Church social teaching and the CCC’s guiding principles are, in fact, two separate roads leading to fundamentally different destinations.

Deal W. Hudson is the director of InsideCatholic.com and the author of Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States (Simon and Schuster).

http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7604&Itemid=48

Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Feb. 1, 2010

Several governors decided to turn down federal abstinence funding just as new research is demonstrating how effective the message is. Today, Dr. Geoffrey Fong from the University of Waterloo and Drs. John and Loretta Jemmott from the University of Pennsylvania released a groundbreaking study on the impact of abstinence-only programs on African America students over a two-year period. While 48.5% of the sixth and seventh graders in the control group were sexually active during the 24 month period, only 33% of those who participated in the abstinence education course were sexually active in this same time period. As the authors concluded, “[T]he results of this… trial are promising. They suggest that the theory-based abstinence-only interventions can have positive effects on adolescents’ sexual involvement.” In light of this research, the administration should reconsider its strategy of slashing abstinence funding in favor sex-ed curriculum that does little more than encourage high-risk behavior.

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU10B01&f=PG07J01

Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Feb. 1, 2010

The President has indicated he doesn’t want to debate health care now, the Democrats lost a Senate seat in Massachusetts over it, and a solid majority of Americans oppose the plan. So why is the liberal leadership plowing ahead on this kamikaze path? For that, we need only to look at the special interest groups pushing them in that direction, as well as those who funnel millions of dollars to Democratic candidates. Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is the granddaddy of them all. With a $40 million budget, HCAN is a coalition of unions, pro-homosexual and pro-abortion groups that are housed in the heart of high dollar lobbyists at 1825 K St, NW in Washington, D.C. for the sole purpose of getting ObamaCare passed.

Many of the organizations in HCAN, including Planned Parenthood, AFL-CIO, and the YWCA, receive millions in taxpayer dollars to subsidize their lobbying. Others in the coalition, such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), were also behind the thuggish attacks on the Tea Party movement and people opposing health care on the local level. Many more filled the seats at various stages of the “health care” townhall meetings that starred President Obama. Another recurrent theme of several of the groups that comprise HCAN is that they’ve received money from liberal billionaire George Soros and his friends. With so much invested, is it any wonder HCAN doesn’t want the health care overhaul bills to go away?

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU10B01&f=PG07J01

Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Feb. 1, 2010

The President’s new 2011 budget may have slashed money for NASA, but this administration is still on the verge of a new frontier in federal debt. His $3,800,000,000,000.00 proposal is the largest in U.S. history and–without significant changes–would add $8.5 trillion in American I.O.U.s by 2020. Of that, $1.3 trillion would be “new borrowing.” For all of his talk about tightening America’s belt, this President is adding more elastic! A “domestic spending freeze” makes for good television, but in the end, that’s all it is: political theater.

To offset the spending, the White House promised across-the-board cuts. Unfortunately for taxpayers, they only amount to $20 billion in savings–which barely cracks 1% of the total bill. Instead, the President plans to raise the money by slashing tax cuts for families, including the child tax credit (conceived by FRC) and the death tax. Although the average American will be swimming in red ink, the President’s budget still includes billions more in education initiatives, Title X funding (which subsidizes groups that perform abortions), D.C. abortions, and the United Nation’s Population Fund (which has been tied to coercive abortion). Using the President’s own numbers, taxes would increase by $2 trillion under this budget in 10 years.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a key player on the House Budget Committee, is gearing up for a congressional showdown. “Regrettably, the budget the administration… submitted to Congress is… a very aggressive agenda of more government spending, more taxes, more deficits, and more debt- with just [enough] cosmetic maneuvers to give the illusion of restraint.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the entire package would push the debt as a percentage of the GDP to 77% from 53%.

And that doesn’t begin to cover the second stimulus bill, which President Obama has threatened to ram through Congress this spring. The cost for Stimulus II? A cool $100 billion. Not surprisingly, the leadership is warning the Democrats not to call it a “stimulus bill”–a strategy that was lost on Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who spilled the beans on a “telephone townhall.” “…[W]e’re told not to call it another stimulus bill. We’re calling it a jobs bill.” Of course, the $787 billion “stimulus” bill was supposed to be about jobs too. Even if the plan did save or create 2.5 million jobs, as the White House claims, it still adds up to a whopping $315,000 per job. As FRC warned last spring, not every job was worth saving. Last Friday, a conservative blogger broke the story that the President’s first recovery package hid a $387,000 grant for Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts. Democrats can call it a jobs bill or a stimulus package–but in the end, it’s nothing more than a Left-wing bailout with taxpayer money.

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU10B01&f=PG07J01

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski, February 1, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com

KELOWNA, B.C. – Kelowna Right to Life is running a pro-life video ad entitled “Everyone Against Abortion, Please Raise Your Hand” on the local TV station, CHBC, starting today.

The ad features what the local media is calling a “graphic anti-abortion image” of adult fingers holding the outstretched hand of a baby killed by abortion.

Everyone Against Abortion Please Raise Your Hand

“This is the hand of a child that was aborted,” the ad says, “Let us mourn for these children. May our hearts be broken enough for God to enter and stir us to action to defend their lives.”

Kelowna Right to Life executive director Marlon Bartram said the airing of the advertisement, which was created by Priests for Life in New York, will likely mark the first time a body part from an aborted child has been shown on television in Canada.

“I am sure there will be people saying that the ads should not be allowed to be run on TV,” he told LSN, saying “there is nothing the pro-abortion side would like better than to prevent people from seeing these ads.”

However, CHBC’s new director, Derek Hinchliffe, told The Province that the ad has been approved by the Television Bureau of Canada. “It has met with their approval, so if we were to say, ‘No, we’re not going to run it,’ we would have been offensive,” he said.

Bartram said he hopes the ad will show the truth about abortion and encourage people to react in the same manner as people have reacted to the disturbing images of the Haitian earthquake aftermath .

“This is similar to what has been happening since the earthquake in Haiti two weeks ago,” Bartram said in a Kelowna News report. “We’ve been bombarded with images, very real images of what’s been happening there. It’s hard to look at, but it’s important to get the truth out there so we can react appropriately.”

Bartram told LSN that the “Raise Your Hand” ad is one of several the group is funding that are aired in rotation and will be broadcast for as long as Kelowna Right to Life has the funds to pay the fees.

The ad may be seen on YouTube here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql_7jnp–UE) and on the Priests For Life website (http://www.priestsforlife.org/images/index.aspx)

Please contact Kelowna Right to Life for more information:
Pro-Life Kelowna
241-1889 Springfield Road
Kelowna, BC Canada V1Y 5V5
Phone: (250) 862-8202
Email: kelownarighttolife@telus.net
Website: http://www.prolifekelowna.com/

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10020104.html

Rove: Only Carter Has Approached Obama’s ‘Weak and Whining’ Attitude

“It is beneath the office that he now holds. I mean, think back – we don’t like weak, whiny people in that job because we know – every American instinctively knows, regardless of party – that it is important we have a strong leader there.”

Click on title to listen….

“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.”

–Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775

http://patriotpost.us/