O Happy Day! Dropping a Bombshell on Notre Dame

April 27, 2009 by Be Holy

Thank You, Jesus! I could kiss her, Mary Ann Glendon that is! This morning she dropped some hot coals on the head of Notre Dame’s President, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

(Mary Ann Glendon is Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A member of the editorial and advisory board of First Things, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican from 2007 to 2009.)

Rod Dreher, Crunchy Con and First Things , and Father Raymond J. de Souza report and Happy Catholic says “Putting her money where her mouth is”:

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision–in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops–to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Ed Morrissey notes Notre Dame has lost their “token pro-lifer”. He also has a nice photo of the lady after my own heart.

Unarguably Founded On Christian Principles

April 27, 2009 by Be Holy

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.”

Crunching the Numbers-Iraqi Lives Saved

April 24, 2009 by Be Holy

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:

Liberals Want to See Shameful Photographs

April 24, 2009 by Be Holy

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

Napolitano Apology to American Legion

April 24, 2009 by Be Holy

Ed Morrissey’s exclusive interview today with Commander David Rehbein of the American Legion after Janet Napolitano fills out an previous attempt at an apology to the American Legion for the DHS report that dissed veterans linking them to Timothy McVeigh and potential homegrown terror attacks without an ounce of statistical proof. (Actually statistics proved just the opposite of the reports implications.):

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Napolitano Apology to American Legion“, posted with vodpod

Michell Malkin adds that Ja-No is scheduled to testify about DHS immigration enforcement policies (or rather, the lack thereof) on May 6.

Pro-Choice Isn’t Pretty

April 21, 2009 by Be Holy

It was a good day for Life at the Capitol today. It wasn’t that Congress did anything to protect the human life growing in a mother’s womb. Congress it seems is insensitive to Truth these days. However, ordinary Americans continue to demonstrate for Life. Young and old found their voice and pleaded with those who listened to hear the cries of the unborn. Children distributed life calling-cards proclaiming the truth of abortion and pro-choice. Someone dies and it isn’t pretty. The consequence of pro-choice is blood and tears. A banner photograph of the aborted infant offended some who is seems aren’t offended by the act of abortion. Strange sensitivities that allow the actual infant to die but want to spare their consciences, I must think.