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This Makes Obama Pro-Abort

Posted in American, Obama, Political, Politics, Reflecting on the news, Roe vs. Wade with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2009 by Joann

Our President Obama has a way with words, but his actions make him a pro-abort President, a pro-abort Senator and a pro-abort inhumane being.

This from Steven Ertelt Life News. com:

November 5, 2008 – Obama selects pro-abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel has a 0% pro-life voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 19, 2008 – Obama picks pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as his Health and Human Services Secretary. Daschle has a long pro-abortion voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 20, 2008 – Obama chooses former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of his Department of Justice Review Team. Later, he finalizes her appointment as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel in the Obama administration.

November 24, 2008 – Obama appoints Ellen Moran, the former director of the pro-abortion group Emily’s List as his White House communications director. Emily’s List only supported candidates who favored taxpayer funded abortions and opposed a partial-birth abortion ban.

November 24, 2008 – Obama puts former Emily’s List board member Melody Barnes in place as his director of the Domestic Policy Council.

November 30, 2008 – Obama named pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Clinton has an unblemished pro-abortion voting record and has supported making unlimited abortions an international right.

December 10, 2008 – Obama selects pro-abortion former Clinton administration official Jeanne Lambrew to become the deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform. Planned Parenthood is “excited” about the selection.

December 10, 2008 – Obama transition team publishes memo from dozens of pro-abortion groups listing their laundry list of pro-abortions actions they want him to take.

Pro-Abortion Presidential Record – 2009

January 5, 2009 – Obama picks pro-abortion Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as the chairman of the Democratic Party.

January 6, 2009 – Obama chooses Thomas Perrelli, the lawyer who represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to kill his disabled wife, as the third highest attorney in the Justice Department.

January 22, 2009 – Releases statement restating support for Roe v. Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions and has resulted in at least 50 million abortions since 1973.

January 23, 2009 – Forces taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. Decison to overturn Mexico City Policy sends part of $457 million to pro-abortion organizations.

January 26, 2009 – Obama nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, James B. Steinberg, tells members of the Senate that taxpayers should be forced to fund abortions. Nominee erroneously says limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional.

January 29, 2009 – President Obama nominates pro-abortion David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General.

February 12, 2009 – Obama nominates pro-abortion Elena Kagan to serve as Solicitor General.

February 27, 2009 – Starts the process of overturning pro-life conscience protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions.

February 28, 2009 – Barack Obama nominates pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius to become Secretary of Health and Human Services.

March 5, 2009 – The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, made the invitation list as did other pro-abortion groups.

March 9, 2009 – President Barack Obama signed an executive order forcing taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.

March 10, 2009 – Obama announces the creation of a new foreign policy position to focus on women’s issues. He names Melanne Verveer, an abortion advocate, to occupy the post.

March 10, 2009 – Reverses an executive order to press for more research into ways of obtaining embryonic stem cells without harming human life. The order Obama scrapped would have promoted new forms of stem cell research.

March 11, 2009 – Obama signed an executive order establishing a new agency within his administration known as the White House Council on Women and Girls. Obama’s director of public liaison at the White House, Tina Tchen, an abortion advocate, became director of it.

March 11, 2009 – Obama administration promotes an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nations meeting.

March 11, 2009 – Obama administration officials deny negative effects of abortion at United Nation’s meeting.

March 17, 2009 – President Barack Obama makes his first judicial appointment and names pro-abortion federal Judge David Hamilton to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

March 26 – President Obama announced $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that has been criticized for promoting abortion and working closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.

April 7 – The Vatican has rejected three Obama ambassador nominees because of their positions in favor of abortions.

April 7 – Obama has named pro-abortion law professor Harold Hongju Koh as the top lawyer for the State Department.

April 7 – Put more abortion advocates on his White House advisory council for faith-based issues.

April 8 – Obama nominee for assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, Ron Weich, is pro-abortion.

April 14 – Obama administration releases document that claims pro-life people may engage in violence or extremism.

April 17 – Obama administration releases the proposed guidelines that implement his decision to allow taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research that involves the destruction of human life.

April 23 – Refused to appeal a ruling requiring the FDA to allow 17-year-old girls to purchase the morning after pill without either a doctor visit or parental involvement beforehand.

April 27 – Obama’s women’s ambassador Melanne Verveer touted Obama’s decision to send $50 million to the United Nation’s Population Fund.

May 5 – Details emerge about a terrorism dictionary the administration of President Barack Obama put together in March. The Domestic Extremism Lexicon calls pro-life advocates violent and claims they employ racist overtones in engaging in criminal actions.

May 8 – President Obama releases a new budget that allows the Legal Services Corporation to use tax dollars to pay for pro-abortion litigation.

May 8 – President Obama’s new budget calls for taxpayer funded abortions in the nation’s capital.

May 8 – President Obama’s budget eliminates all federal funding for abstinence-only education.

May 15 – Appointed pro-abortion New York City health commissioner Thomas Frieden as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

May 17 – During his commencement speech at Notre Dame, Obama deceived listeners into thinking he wants a conscience clause, promoted embryonic stem cell research and misstated his pro-abortion record.

May 26 – Appoints appeals court judge Sonia Sonotmayor as a Supreme Court nominee. Sotomayor agrees that the courts should make policy, such as the Roe v. Wade case. Sotomayor is later opposed by pro-life groups and supported by pro-abortion groups and those who know her say she will support abortion on the high court.

July 2- Calls for an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nation’s meeting.

July 7- The Obama administration admits it ignored the majority of Americans who opposed the proposed guidelines that would implement Obama’s decision to force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research.

July 14 – Obama science czar nominee John Holdren is revealed to have written before that he favors forced abortions.

July 30 – Awards several pro-abortion activists with the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

July 31 – Tells the National Institutes of Health to adopt rules that allow embryonic stem cell research.

August 4 – Information becomes public that Ezekiel Emanuel, an Obama advisor at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research, supports rationing health care for disabled Americans that could lead to euthanasia.

August 6 – Obama criticized for asking for people to “snitch” on groups and people who oppose the pro-abortion health care bills in Congress.

August 13 – Obama wrongly said a senator backed the pro-euthanasia components of the health care bill.

August 23 – Said pro-life advocates were making “phony claims” about the health care bills. Also said the claims were false.

August 24 – Releases veterans guide promoting euthanasia.

September 13 – Misleads on the federal conscience clause in a health care speech and misleads on abortion funding.

September 13 – Obama waits two days to comment on shooting of pro-life advocate whereas he commented immediately on shooting of abortion practitioner.

September 15 – Senate confirms Obama’s new regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, who is pro-abortion.

October 5 – Selected pro-abortion lawyer and Georgetown University law professor Chai Feldblum for the EEOC.

October 5 – Announces he will give the keynote speech for pro-abortion group Human Rights Campaign

Go here for links: Steven Ertelt Life News. com:

What can we do?  PRAY for our President! Here is a powerful prayer from St. Gertrude the Great:

Jesus, Savior of the World, have mercy on me.  You to Whom nothing is impossible, bestow mercy to the wretched. O Christ, Who by Your Cross, hast redeemed the world, hear us.

The Lord is my strength and my glory; He is my salvation.

Hail Jesus, my loving Spouse.  I salute You in the ineffable joys of Your Divinity; I embrace You with the affection of all creatures, and I kiss the Sacred Wound of Your love.

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The Age of “Just Hope It”

Posted in Charles Krauthammer, Obama, Opinions, Politics, Reflecting on the news with tags , , , , , , , , , on October 16, 2009 by Joann

“Amen” to what he said.  Charles Krauthammer commenting on the Nobel Prize Surprise supposedly heralding the shining future of Obama the Peacenik and Flower Child ushering in the Age of “Just Hope It!”

“What’s come from Obama holding his tongue while Iranian demonstrators were being shot and from his recognizing the legitimacy of a thug regime illegitimately returned to power in a fraudulent election? Iran cracks down even more mercilessly on the opposition and races ahead with its nuclear program.

What’s come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking human rights off the table on a visit to China and from Obama’s shameful refusal to see the Dalai Lama (a postponement, we are told). China hasn’t moved an inch on North Korea, Iran or human rights. Indeed it’s pushing with Russia to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

What’s come from the new-respect-for-Muslims Cairo speech and the unprecedented pressure on Israel for a total settlement freeze? “The settlement push backfired,” reports The Washington Post, and Arab-Israeli peace prospects have “arguably regressed.”

And what’s come from Obama’s single most dramatic foreign policy stroke — the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection.”

Krauthammer hopes too, in the form of a question:

Surely we got something in return for selling out our friends?

Ahh, you guessed it, did you?!

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, talk it up President Obama. “Peace,peace” and prizes for peace! So there is no peace to speak of, only talk and the shifting sands of duplicity beneath our feet.

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Year of the Priest

Posted in Pope Benedict XVI, Priesthood, Reflecting on the news, Religion, Spiritual, Vatican, Video with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2009 by Joann

Pope Benedict XVI inaugurates a special Year of the Priest starting on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

H/T Deacon Greg

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Tell it to Napolitano, Move on, Winter Soldiers Fakers, Penn State & Columbia

Posted in President Obama, Reflecting on the news, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2009 by Joann

Michelle Malkin took umbrage at President Obama’s use of the word “we” in Obama’s weekly radio and Internet address (as though America needed to be reminded who her heroes and defenders were in a world gone mad and with wa President turned would-be prosecutor.)   Malkin says:

Tell it to Janet Napolitano.

Tell it to the Gen. Betray Us smear merchants at Move On.

Tell it to the anti-military academics at Penn State and Columbia and every other ivy-covered institution.

Tell it to the anti-military recruiter thugs on campuses across the country.

Tell it to all the Winter Soldier fakers and phonies .

On this Memorial Day Weekend, Malkin  makes the point:

More to the point: Does Obama know the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day?

Reader RJD e-mails: “I do believe that Obama means well, but Memorial Day is a day to remember our fallen. We have Veterans Day and Armed Services day to thank the currently and past service members. Memorial Day is specific to thank and remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. Why then does Obama ask us to thank service members on the street? While I think this is a good thing to do anyway, I am not sure he understands what the whole day is about!”

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Obama Going Bush

Posted in American, Obama, Politics, Reflecting on the news with tags , , , , , , , , , , on May 22, 2009 by Joann

Charles Krauthammer writes Obama’s Deeds Vindicate Bush:

Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech on Thursday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.

The rhetoric is like cosmetic magic making superficial changes while making the Bush policy his own.

Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: “The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e. slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e. the surge) — and now Guantanamo.”

There is something much larger at play — an undeniable, irresistible national interest that, in the end, beyond the cheap politics, asserts itself. The urgencies and necessities of the actual post-9/11 world, as opposed to the fanciful world of the opposition politician, present a rather narrow range of acceptable alternatives.

The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. When the new guys, brought to power by popular will, then adopt the policies of the old guys, a national consensus is forged and a new legitimacy established.

That’s happening before our eyes. The Bush policies in the war on terror won’t have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.

If only Obama weren’t so joined at the hip with NARAL and Planned Parenthood, the unborn might have a chance of getting a Bush-Life policy retained to keep them alive along with the other Bush policies finding new life in this administration.

Read it all here.

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Notre Dame- “Intellectual Vanity”- Archbishop Chaput

Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Catholic, Christian, Church, Culture, Reflecting on the news, Spiritual with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2009 by Joann

Archbishop Chaput on Notre Dame - “Notre Dame’s leadership has done a real disservice to the Church.”


“I have found that even among those who did not go to Notre Dame, even among those who do not share the Catholic faith, there is a special expectation, a special hope, for what Notre Dame can accomplish in the world.”
~ Reverend John Jenkins, C.S.C., May 17, 2009

Most graduation speeches are a mix of piety and optimism designed to ease students smoothly into real life. The best have humor. Some genuinely inspire. But only a rare few manage to be pious, optimistic, evasive, sad and damaging all at the same time. Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president, is a man of substantial intellect and ability. This makes his introductory comments to President Obama’s Notre Dame commencement speech on May 17 all the more embarrassing.

Let’s remember that the debate over President Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame was never about whether he is a good or bad man. The president is clearly a sincere and able man. By his own words, religion has had a major influence in his life. We owe him the respect Scripture calls us to show all public officials. We have a duty to pray for his wisdom and for the success of his service to the common good — insofar as it is guided by right moral reasoning.

We also have the duty to oppose him when he’s wrong on foundational issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research and similar matters. And we also have the duty to avoid prostituting our Catholic identity by appeals to phony dialogue that mask an abdication of our moral witness. Notre Dame did not merely invite the president to speak at its commencement. It also conferred an unnecessary and unearned honorary law degree on a man committed to upholding one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history: Roe v. Wade.

In doing so, Notre Dame ignored the U.S. bishops’ guidance in their 2004 statement, Catholics in Political Life. It ignored the concerns of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Notre Dame’s 2009 Laetare Medal honoree – who, unlike the president, certainly did deserve her award, but finally declined it in frustration with the university’s action. It ignored appeals from the university’s local bishop, the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, more than 70 other bishops, many thousands of Notre Dame alumni and hundreds of thousands of other American Catholics. Even here in Colorado, I’ve heard from too many to count.

There was no excuse – none, except intellectual vanity – for the university to persist in its course. And Father Jenkins compounded a bad original decision with evasive and disingenuous explanations to subsequently justify it.

These are hard words, but they’re deserved precisely because of Father Jenkins’ own remarks on May 17: Until now, American Catholics have indeed had “a special expectation, a special hope for what Notre Dame can accomplish in the world.” For many faithful Catholics – and not just a “small but vocal group” described with such inexcusable disdain and ignorance in journals like Time magazine — that changed Sunday.

The May 17 events do have some fitting irony, though. Almost exactly 25 years ago, Notre Dame provided the forum for Gov. Mario Cuomo to outline the “Catholic” case for “pro-choice” public service. At the time, Cuomo’s speech was hailed in the media as a masterpiece of American Catholic legal and moral reasoning. In retrospect, it’s clearly adroit. It’s also, just as clearly, an illogical and intellectually shabby exercise in the manufacture of excuses. Father Jenkins’ explanations, and President Obama’s honorary degree, are a fitting national bookend to a quarter century of softening Catholic witness in Catholic higher education. Together, they’ve given the next generation of Catholic leadership all the excuses they need to baptize their personal conveniences and ignore what it really demands to be “Catholic” in the public square.

Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George has suggested that Notre Dame “didn’t understand” what it means to be Catholic before these events began. He’s correct, and Notre Dame is hardly alone in its institutional confusion. That’s the heart of the matter. Notre Dame’s leadership has done a real disservice to the Church, and now seeks to ride out the criticism by treating it as an expression of fringe anger. But the damage remains, and Notre Dame’s critics are right. The most vital thing faithful Catholics can do now is to insist – by their words, actions and financial support – that institutions claiming to be “Catholic” actually live the faith with courage and consistency. If that happens, Notre Dame’s failure may yet do some unintended good.

Read Catholic Online for Deacon Keith Fournier’s  take on Archbishop Chaput: ‘Notre Dame, the Issues that Remain’

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Crappy Economy – Metaphorical “Influshion”

Posted in Reflecting on the news, United States with tags , , , , , on May 17, 2009 by Joann

H/T AllahPundit

In the tank with Obama, National Economy Primer from Zo the Plumber making it real simple for the White House boys and girls needing a Toilet Tutorial.

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Right to Life National Awareness Day- Today!

Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Catholicism, Christian, Politics, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Spiritual, St. Bernadette, United States, Video with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2009 by Joann

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Link – Around – Pelosi

Posted in American, Charles Krauthammer, Conservative, Culture, Government, Opinions, Politics, Reflecting on the news, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2009 by Joann

Ashes, ashes…the truth will out Pelosi!

The Torture Debate-Continued – Charles Krauthammer

“So what happened? The reason Pelosi raised no objection to waterboarding at the time, the reason the American people (who by 2004 knew what was going on) strongly reelected the man who ordered these interrogations, is not because she and the rest of the American people suffered a years-long moral psychosis from which they have just now awoken. It is because at that time they were aware of the existing conditions — our blindness to al-Qaeda’s plans, the urgency of the threat, the magnitude of the suffering that might be caused by a second 9/11, the likelihood that the interrogation would extract intelligence that President Obama’s own director of national intelligence now tells us was indeed “high-value information” — and concluded that on balance it was a reasonable response to a terrible threat.

And they were right.”

The Wall St Journal Time-line-intelligence trail:

What Pelosi said she knew

  • August 2002: Justice Department authorizes waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques (EITs). The CIA uses the technique.
  • September 2002: Nancy Pelosi, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, is briefed on the techniques.
  • February 2003: A Pelosi aide attends a briefing with the new ranking member on the committee, Jane Harman. Pelosi later says that she learns after this meeting that the techniques have already been used, and that she ‘concurred’ with Harman’s letter to the CIA protesting the decision to use them.
  • December 2007: A news report quotes two officials who say Pelosi was briefed on waterboarding and raised no objections. Pelosi issues a statement confirming she was briefed on one occasion in the fall of 2002 ‘on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.’
  • April 23, 2009: After the Obama administration releases four memos approving the use of waterboarding, Pelosi says that in September 2002, ‘We were not …told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used.’
  • May 5, 2009: Intelligence officials send lawmakers a list of 40 congressional briefings on EITs, saying lawmakers ‘will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened.’ The list says Pelosi was told that some EITs had been employed, but doesn’t specify waterboarding.
  • May 8, 2009: Pelosi repeats that she was briefed on techniques that would be used in the future
  • May 14, 2009: Pelosi says she wasn’t told in September 2002 that waterboarding was being used, and says ‘the CIA was misleading Congress.’

In case you missed it and hadn’t already guessed: “Pelosi: Utterly Contemptible” – here’s Charles Krauthammer, impeccable on the subject, if reason still matters?

Nancy Pelosi Explains What She Knew About Waterboarding

In her own words, you decide!

HotAir on Ed’s Post and More : Pelosi goes nuclear on CIA over torture as Cheney’s memo request is denied:

Meanwhile, as this soap opera’s playing out, Dick Cheney’s request to declassify the two CIA memos which he claims prove that torture works has been denied. Surprise. Exit quotation: “President Obama has the legal authority to declassify the documents ‘with the wave of his hand,’ according to one expert.”

Update: I want to highlight this bit from Ed’s post because it really is the million-dollar question:

And if the CIA really had lied to her in the briefings, why didn’t Pelosi start out with that explanation? In fact, why didn’t she mention that in 2005 when both the EITs and the briefings were made public? Coming four years later, this explanation lacks any kind of credibility.

The killer quote from today’s presser is “they mislead us all the time,” a reference to the CIA’s bad intel on Iraq’s WMD. If there really is a pattern of deception going on, why would she wait until there’s a Democrat in the White House to complain when she could have pinned the whole thing on Bush by screaming about it earlier?

New Majority: Former CIA Sources Respond to Pelosi: Congress Knew Everything

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Cogs Won’t Work in Galt’s America, Obama

Posted in American, Economy, Government, In a nutshell, Opinions, Politics, Reflecting on the news, Santelli, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2009 by Joann

Updated.

Keep your eyes open America.  It can happen here. A power wielding and hungry White House is preaching to America fiscal responsibility as it did today at Rio Rancho High School in New Mexico.  The President blames you Americans for your extravagant ways while spending not only money we, Americans,  don’t have, but money the next generation of American won’t have.

Beside printing money to pay the bills, Obama has other irons in the fire, forging a workers’ paradise.  Meanwhile, countries living socialism’s dream, England, comes to mind, are mired in mediocrity and living off the glory of the past.   The talent of the country is worried and some think of “going Galt.’  According to Michelle Malkin, the talented have problems staying with England’s tax ladened Ship of State. As socialism takes it’s toll across the Pond, taxes bring fresh tears, and sneers, and have the talented crying foul.  Malkin quotes the manifesto of renowned composed Andrew Lloyd Webber, who fearing a talent exodus, writes of the punitive taxes.

Here’s the truth. The proposed top rate of income tax is not 50 per cent. It is 50 per cent plus 1.5 per cent national insurance paid by employees plus 13.3 per cent paid by employers. That’s not 50 per cent. Two years from now, Britain will have the highest tax rate on earned income of any developed country.

I write this article because I fear the inevitable exodus of the talent that can dig us out of the hole we find ourselves in. It is inevitable, given that other countries are bidding for entrepreneurs. The Government must modify its proposals.

Will entrepreneurs be there when we want and need them.  Don’t count on it.  With ground rules being written by government bureaucrats, the inventive and ingenious may look elsewhere to plant their talent

‘Going Galt’ is an alternative option to emigration to lands of lower taxation. Eric Etheridge writes: ‘Going Galt’: Everyone’s Doing It! With Tristero of Hullabaloo’s help, Etheridge explains ‘Going Galt’ in a nutshell:

John Galt is the copper-haired, white-boy protagonist in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Galt leads a revolutionary movement in which all the top leaders of the banks and corporations forsake their corporate jets and perks to work in diners or as subway repair guys. No they weren’t fired by Galt. Rather, Galt urged them to go on strike and withdraw their expertise from an increasingly socialist world. Deprived of the genius of their genius, the world economy collapses.

Who exactly is thinking about Going Galt? Lisa Schifferen at The Corner has the rundown:

The doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, serious small-business owners, top salespeople, and other professionals and entrepreneurs who make this country run work considerably harder than pretty much anyone else (including most of the chattering class, and all politicians). They are not robber barons, or trust-fund babies, or plutocrats, or even celebrities. They are mostly the meritocrats who worked hard in high school and got into the better colleges and grad schools, where they studied while others partied. They pushed through grueling hours and unpleasant “up or out” policies in their twenties and thirties at top law firms, banks, hospitals, and businesses to earn salaries in the solid six figures (or low seven) today — in their peak earning years. Their work ethic is prodigious, and . . . in their spare time they sit on the boards of most of the complex charities and arts institutions that provide aid and pay for culture in America. No group of people contribute more to their community. And now the president, who followed a path sort of like that, and who claims that his wife’s former six-figure income was a result of precisely such qualifications and efforts, is demonizing them. More problematically, he is penalizing their success and giving them very clear incentives to ratchet back on productivity.

My take: “We the People” aren’t cogs in a machine, even a great machine, that our dear leader can fit to his purposes.  We began this experiment of nationhood in revolution due to unresponsive tyranny: “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” Decaration of Independence.

We are America and the America of our Founders is precious to the hearts of the American People, our people.  We must seek better options than going Galt or conforming to Obama’s social  socialist dream, never forsaking freedom and free enterprise.

Our problems were caused not by free enterprise but by poor governance.  We can not expect government to fix us.  We must fix ourselves with the help of a good God.  Our Founders formed a nation that depends on a morally healthy people.  We are a people awaiting our transformation; seeds breaking open, falling into the ground and bringing forth healthy, holy new life.  This is the American dream.  It is the dream of the broken but more importantly, the gifted, the resourceful, the ingenious and the industrious, empowered by God to be a blessing to our Nation and the world. The is an old saying that says, ‘Without God we can’t do it; but without us, God won’t do!” Together as one People, let’s do it!

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The Silent Spring: Feminism – Planned Parenthood – The Pill

Posted in American, In a nutshell, Just Thinking Out Loud, People, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Religion, Spiritual with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2009 by Joann

Humanae Vitae could be called, “Truth and Consequences.”  With prophetic clarity, Pope Paul VI, in his Encyclical Letter on the Regulation of Birth, delineated the changes that would overtake society with the  artificial control of birth.

In 2008 the German Federal Statistics Office’s vice-president,Walter Rademacher, was quoted by Agence France-Presse saying: “The fall in the population (of Germany) can no longer be stopped.” Life Site News reported “The population losses faced by Germany reflect a trend occurring across Europe–The European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat has predicted an overall drop in Europe’s population of 7 million people by 2050.

The Population Reference Bureau’s 2008 World Population data sheet and its summary report offer detailed information about country, regional, and global population patterns.”Nearly all of world population growth is now concentrated in the world’s poorer countries,” said Bill Butz, PRB’s president. “Even the small amount of overall growth in the wealthier nations will largely result from immigration.”

Some points of interest: NoSpeedBumps writes :

… Germany has one of the largest populations of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe, with a Muslim community of over 3 million. That trend is expected to continue, leading some demographic trend-watchers to warn that the country is well on the way to becoming a Muslim state by 2050, Deutsche Welle reported.

The Brussels Journal reported last month that one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025. There are an estimated 50 million Muslims living in Europe today–that number is expected to double over the next twenty years.

With the fanaticism of religious zealots, Feminism and Planned Parenthood, continue to preach their doctrines that would set mankind free to just “be” without the hindrance of Faith, God, or social pressure.  Am I paranoid wondering how free or tolerated, non-muslims will be in a world with the new demographics of 2050. Even One World enthusiasts might wonder, can the nations hold their own, their own identity or posterity and even faith?

The next generation faces many decisions and morality matters.  Truth and consequences oblige even those who are disinterested, too busy to care, or otherwise engaged in life pursuits.

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Unarguably Founded On Christian Principles

Posted in American, Conservative, Constitution, Culture, Culture of Death, Government, In a nutshell, Just Thinking Out Loud, My Journal, Opinions, People, Political, Politics, Reflecting on the news, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2009 by Joann

I needed solid footing and balance after the bombardment of an aberrant President and press. Stephen Prothero writing for USA Today says:

Now comes President Obama, who in January in his inaugural address spoke of this country as “a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.” On April 6 in Turkey, Obama added that the United States “does not consider itself a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation” but “a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

It was just such that drove me in search of visual confirmation in Washington D.C.  Now home from our Nation’s capital, I feel again on the cutting edge of a clandestine warfare coming of age and to light.  Washington D.C. did indeed confirm that the United States of America was unarguably founded as a Nation established on Christian principals as document after document, monument of monument, Statesmen and heroes alike, testify to, in stone, and marble,valor and blood, recorded there for posterity, dramatically and historically.  Homecoming, however, is returning to the fray.  It is waking up each day to being unceremoniously attacked by the daily news of the madness that is Obama.

However, it not just Obama, that drives me to distraction, it’s the incessant kowtowing menagerie of his Orwellian Animal Farm. George Orwell, to his chagrin, aside from being proved right, can now see his book lived out in the American experiment.  Eric Blair’s (George Orwell’s) satire is on parade for all to see and most of the animals are oblivious to the part they are playing in the threatening demise of our Nation as a Republic” of the People, by the People and for the People.

Americans are not perfect people.  We are like all people, flawed; and, as foreseen by the Founding Fathers, we need our checks and balances to curtail our greed and self- centeredness, to keep an eye open and watch our backs as a People.  Our checks and balances are gone. Our press is the servant of the President, our Congress is the servant of our President and our people seem content to worship at his feet.  So much for balance.

Our weaknesses as individual’s who are capable of resenting one group or another within the American system are being used against us.  We are being set against imagined “masters” despite the fact that our nation is the free-est on earth. All the “animals” set free by Obama’s Hope Machine, with childish idealistic and idyllic dreams can now High Five one another in the name of justice and progress, oblivious to the new chains being forged for their piggy hands and feet.  Yes, power-hungry pigs, like Orwell’s, Napoleon, are on the prowl ready to become their new totalitarian dictators. The little happy piggies will some learn on their Animal Farm that “All Animals Are Equal  But Some Are More Equal Than Others.” Oppression, call it what you will, even “the Audacity of Hope” is no less oppression. Martin Luther Jr.’s “I have a dream.” is being replaced by Obama’s dream which it best described as, “I have a nightmare.”

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Crunching the Numbers-Iraqi Lives Saved

Posted in American, George W. Bush, Political, Reflecting on the news, United States, Video with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2009 by Joann

The Gateway Pundit has an interesting take on American success in Iraq, lived out in lives saved.  He writes in:

Bush Saved Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis From Saddam’s Reign & Clinton’s Embargo

So how do Bush’s numbers compare to the slaughter during Saddam Hussein’s reign or the deadly embargo kept in place during the Clinton years?
Scott Thong crunched the numbers:

Saddam Hussein’s reign: From the 285 months of Saddam Hussein’s reign from 16 July 1979 to 9 April 2003, using just six of the war crime events listed by U.S. War Crimes Ambassador David J. Scheffer, a total of 865,000 Iraqis civilians died as the result of Saddam’s ethnic cleansing, political oppression and ‘arrests’. That is a rate of 3035.088 deaths per month… 1.75 times greater than Bush’s death rate. This figure does not count the deaths of non-Iraqis, nor the casualties suffered during the wars against Iran and Kuwait, nor the countless other documented human rights abuses Saddam committed.

Bill Clinton era embargo: From the 108 months of 6 August 1990 to 6 August 1999, using the United Nations estimate, a total of 1 million Iraqi civilians died as result of the sanctions. Of these, as many as 567,000 of the casualties were children. That is a rate of 9259.259 deaths per month… 5.337 times greater than Bush’s death rate. Justify that, anti-war liberal Democrats. (Clinton actually only gained the Presidency on 20 January 1993, but the sanctions also lasted past the date of the UN estimate – to 22 May 2003, while Clinton stepped down on 20 January 2001.)

Back in 1996 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that Clinton’s policy that may have resulted in 500,000 dead Iraqi children was worth it.
In a much forgotten exchange between Lesley Stahl and Madeleine Albright on “60 Minutes” back on May 12, 1996:

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Liberals Want to See Shameful Photographs

Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Christian, Conservative, Culture of Death, Government, In a nutshell, Just Thinking Out Loud, Media, Opinions, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Spiritual, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2009 by Joann

Our President seems bent on shaming America before the world with pictures.  Not for the faint of heart, but here are the pictures that should shame the President and the world.

Priests for Life reports:

Baby Body Parts

Priests for Life has known for some time of the grisly trade in baby parts taking place in abortion facilities throughout the nation. Through the efforts of our friends at Life Dynamics, Inc., the details of this trade have come to light. You may obtain from Life Dynamics (1-800-401-6494) copies of the actual order forms used. Some of the forms request that there be no abnormalities. Many mistakenly think that abortions in later stages of pregnancy are performed only in cases of fetal abnormality.

Fetal tissue wholesalers are companies which place employees in abortion clinics to harvest tissue, limbs, organs, etc. from aborted babies. This material is then shipped to researchers working for universities, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies. Although it is against federal law to sell human tissue or body parts, these organizations have devised a system to circumvent this restriction. Technically, all fetal material they harvest is “donated” to them by the clinics. However, they do pay a “site fee” to the clinics for the right to access the tissue. The tissue is then “donated” to the researchers who in turn pay the wholesalers for the cost of retrieval. Profit is realized by the wholesalers’ ability to set their own retrieval fees.

As to the harsh realities of keeping our country safe, the Gateway Pundit says Fox reports:

The release of the photos along with Obama’s decision last week to release CIA memos has federal agents feeling dispirited.
Jake Tapper reported:

Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs “prurient” and “reprehensible,” Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

“They should have fought it all the way; if they lost, they lost,” Lowenthal said. “There’s nothing to be gained from it. There’s no substantive reason why those photos have to be released.”

Lowenthal said the president’s moves in the last week have left many in the CIA dispirited, based on “the undercurrent I’ve been getting from colleagues still in the building, or colleagues who have left not that long ago.”

“We ask these people to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong,” Lowenthal says. “They don’t believe they have that cover anymore.” Releasing the photographs “will make it much worse,” he said.

Along the same lines of disclosures that hurt our country, Michelle Malkin points to the Rasmussen report in her, “Public to White House”:

Results from the latest Rasmussen poll show a public more in tune with Dick Cheney than George Soros:

Fifty-eight percent (58%) believe the Obama administration’s recent release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangers the national security of the United States. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 28% believe the release of the memos helps America’s image abroad.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of voters now believe the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights when national security is at stake. But 21% say the legal system is too concerned about protecting national security. Thirty-three percent (33%) say the balance between the two is about right.

This reflects a significant shift over the past couple of years. In several surveys conducted during 2008, Americans were fairly evenly divided as to whether our legal system worried too much about individual rights or too much about protecting national security…

…Forty-six percent (46%) of voters disagree with Obama’s decision to close the prison camp for terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, while 36% agree with the president’s action. Support for the decision has fallen since the president announced it in January.

Ed Morrissey says more:

Instead of the headlines being about what the Bush administration sanctioned, they became about Nancy Pelosi’s denial and then non-denial of her knowledge on waterboarding interrogations, the success of the interrogations in preventing an attack, and Obama’s lack of testicular fortitude in sticking with his original position to let sleeping dogs lie. Small wonder that he began backtracking in earnest yesterday when meeting with Congressional leaders.

Now we have confirmation that Obama planned this all along as a political attack against a man who hardly matters on the national political scene any longer – or at least he didn’t until Obama decided to pick a fight with him. Just as with his strange attack on Rush

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Real Clear Krauthammer

Posted in American, Charles Krauthammer, Conservative, In a nutshell, Media, Opinions, Political, Politics, President Obama, Reflecting on the news, United States, Video with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2009 by Joann

As usual Obama sounded great speaking of how America and the world needed to respond to N.Korea.  As usual his response to the launch didn’t match the rhetoric and reality, as real clear Krauthammer, Fox News contributor, posted by Town Hall blog, makes crystal.  Here’s Charles on the N. Korean missile launch and the weak response from President Obama :

h/t Greg Hengler

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Obama Calling America “Arrogant” Update

Posted in American, Charles Krauthammer, Conservative, Government, Obama, Opinions, Political, Politics, Reflecting on the news, Ronald Reagan, United States, Video with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2009 by Joann

Update:

I’m sorry. I was in a hurry and didn’t do Obama’s comments justice.  In referring to America Obama said we’d “shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive…” Charles Krauthammer fills in the blanks for me with regards to a fuller history on the subject.

Commenting on President Barack Obama’s lack of grace in dissing his country on the world stage, Steven Forbes says, President Obama should take a day off. Go to Camp David. Watch some old tapes of Ronald Reagan, and learn what it’s like to be a real President.“

Charles Krauthammer says more:

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Obama – What’s His Endgame?

Posted in American, Charles Krauthammer, Conservative, Culture, Economy, Government, Just Thinking Out Loud, Opinions, People, Political, Politics, Reflecting on the news, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 4, 2009 by Joann

Charles Krauthammer thinks President Obama’s endgame is “Leveling“:

Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission.

Fairness through leveling is the essence of Obamaism. (Asked by Charlie Gibson during a campaign debate about his support for raising capital gains taxes — even if they caused a net revenue loss to the government — Obama stuck to the tax hike “for purposes of fairness.”) The elements are highly progressive taxation, federalized health care and higher education, and revenue-producing energy controls. But first he must deal with the sideshows. They could sink the economy and poison his public support before he gets to enact his real agenda.

The “side shows” are the credit crisis, which , and the collapse of the U.S. automakers. Tim Geithner now wears the credit crisis as an albatross around his neck while Obama may come to rue his despotic intervention into the car business. Krauthammer doubts that this intrusion will leave lasting effects on our nation saying only, “Some find in this “descent into large-scale industrial policy a whiff of 1930s-style fascist corporatism.”

Obama’s real agenda is another matter in Krauthammers view:

Bizarre and constitutionally suspect as these interventions may be, the transformation of the American system will come from elsewhere. The credit crisis will pass and the auto overcapacity will sort itself out one way or the other. The reordering of the American system will come not from these temporary interventions, into which Obama has reluctantly waded. It will come from Obama’s real agenda: his holy trinity of health care, education and energy. Out of these will come a radical extension of the welfare state; social and economic leveling in the name of fairness; and a massive increase in the size, scope and reach of government.

I mention Charles Krauthammer’s observation because I find it very troubling that as busy as constitutional scholars were during the Bill Clinton impeachment days, we hear little from them now.  History should have taught us what times of national crisis especially collapse have wrought in a nation which has been otherwise civilized. For example, Richard J Evans who wrote of Hitler’s endgame in his just released The Third Reich at War states that in of a previous book of his trilogy, The Coming of the Third Reich :

“I’m trying to be comprehensive, to show Nazi Germany and Nazi society at war in every aspect. In addition to the much better known military aspects, I try to deal with culture, literature, the arts. And I have human experiences — diaries, letters, personal testimonies.

In “The Coming of the Third Reich,” I try to say that it was not inevitable while pointing out that the Weimar Republic did, in fact, bring Nazism. The crucial point to remember is that in the 1928 elections, Nazis scored less than 3% of the national vote. By 1932 they were by far the largest party, with one third of the vote. So it’s the Depression. More than one third of the work force is unemployed by the middle of 1932. Businesses have crashed; banks have bankruptcies; people are disoriented by terrible inflation. It’s a desperate situation. And in that situation, the sense of activism, dynamism, youth, vigor, and radicalism that Hitler and the Nazis conveyed, tapping into nationalist resentment about the Treaty of Versailles with vague but vehement promises to restore Germany to its greatness…. All that had an irresistible appeal.

In “Can it happen here” (read the comments too!) Bookworm writes:

“…it’s worth noting that, when Hitler came to power in 1933, he did so with just barely more than 50% of the popular vote.  There was never a time when the majority of Germans were members of the Nazi party.  For most Germans, right through the end of the War, their crime wasn’t active complicity with Nazi atrocities, it was passive complicity.  From a mixture of fear and brain washing, they just went along.

The Anchoress writing of lost freedom and persecution, wonders how much American will tolerate before realizing that freedom “is lost in increments and inches.”

As the magic that unleashed a relatively unknown Barack Hussein Obama onto the political scene and now world scene, do we really know what we have unleashed.  Changes has come so quickly and gone unchallenged by any in a position to slow them down or investigate them such as our Congress who should be the voice of balance for the Nation.  As I asked before where are the voices of our constitutional gurus? For that matter, where is our Congress and its role of checks and balances. What will the out to lunch Congress cost us?

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Power Hungry and Out of Balance

Posted in American, Charles Krauthammer, Conservative, Culture, Economy, Government, Just Thinking Out Loud, News, Opinions, Political, Politics, Reflecting on the news, Republican, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2009 by Joann

Ace of Spades calls it a good piece:

Charles Krauthammer can’t write fast enough to keep up with all the crap he can’t believe is happening. “We are now so deep into government intervention that constitutional objections are summarily swept aside.” Seizing every opportunity to seize, seize, seize power for the government from the people, Geithner “seeks yet broader powers.”

Obama’s goal, writes Krauthammer,

“is to rewrite the American social compact, to recast the relationship between government and citizen. He wants government to narrow the nation’s income and anxiety gaps. Soak the rich for reasons of revenue and justice. Nationalize health care and federalize education to grant all citizens of all classes the freedom from anxiety about health care and college that the rich enjoy. And fund this vast new social safety net through the cash cow of a disguised carbon tax.

Our President seems naive about the goodness and fairness of Big Government.  Our founders  were not so naive about the weakness of men and statesmen, hence checks and balances.  The present disproportionate numbers in the Congress of Republicans to Democrats cripples that system.  We are off kilter and in trouble.

While Capitalism needs corrective checks and balances, with a heavy dose of scrutiny, to cure it’s ills, Big Government isn’t the one to take over for the patient. Share holders are more invested and intuitive than this generation of gobbling government bureaucrats.  We can’t trust our lawmakers to steer clear of side line profit-making or taking as the scandalous last years have shown. (You know the names.)

President Obama’s medicine is to level field by cutting the growth producers in this nation off at the knees.  Good luck Mr. President a crippled America will not fill your coffers for the Big Dole.

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Count the Blessings? of Abortion: 50,000,000

Posted in American, Catholic, Christian, Culture of Death, Defending Life, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Religion, Spiritual, Spiritual Things, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2009 by Joann

When you think you’ve heard it all, Amy Welborn tells you that the unanimously elected a new dean, Dr. Katherine Ragsdale of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge is preaching Abortion is a Blessing!

As quoted by Chris Johnson of Midwest Conservative Journal:

And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing

and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

I want to thank all of you who protect this blessing – who do this work every day: the health care providers, doctors, nurses, technicians, receptionists, who put your lives on the line to care for others (you are heroes — in my eyes, you are saints); the escorts and the activists; the lobbyists and the clinic defenders; all of you. You’re engaged in holy work.

Can there be anything sadder ? Convenience over conscience, money over morals, sex over sacredness, what are those Doctors of Divinity thinking.  Dr. Katherine Ragsdale is their unanimous choice.  I can better understand why questions of the true Presence of Christ in the Eucharist are at issue when these people cannot recognize the true presence of a child in the womb.

Pursuing Holiness has this: [UPDATE: Ms. Ragsdale deleted the sermon, but on the intarweb things have a zombie-like way of coming back to get you. Cached copy is here. And for posterity, here's a PDF of the cached page with Our Work Is Not Done.  Why do you think she deleted it?

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The Question That Won’t Go Away

Posted in American, Conservative, Government, Just Thinking Out Loud, People, Political, Politics, President Obama, Reflecting on the news, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2009 by Joann

Where was Obama born?

Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States of America, but was he legally eligible.  In other words, is Obama really our President or are we in a period of Interregnum?  By requirement of the United States Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, no one can be sworn into office as president of the United States without being a natural born citizen.

Why has Congress and the Electoral College been so sloppy with procedure.  Is obtaining the complete birth certificate of the man in the White House somehow Classified or a Top Secret issue? The question is a serious one.

Hawaii at the time of Obama’s birth allowed births that took place in foreign countries to be registered in Hawaii.  There is no reference to a hospital associated with Obama’s birth.  African relatives claim that they were present at the Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya for his arrival? No answers here;  only questions as to the sealing of his birth certificate records by Govenor Linda Lingle of Hawaii.  Her stated reason; fear of Identity theft.  Give me a break!

Obama’s autobiography states that his mother was a minor and his father a citizen of Kenya. The actual hospital records on a long-form birth certificate can establish Constitutional legitimacy and certainty that Obama Hussein Obama is indeed our President. Is it too much for a citizen to ask?

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