Tag Archives: President Obama

Lady Justice Winks – No Blindfold!

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Hot Air writes concerning Sotomayor inconvenient statement of her judicial stance:

And so the retreat begins, as predicted yesterday in Politico’s story about Democratic strategists nudging The One to walk back her comment and make it go away. Obama weighed in on this himself just a few minutes ago, saying he’s sure she would have “restated” what she said if she could do it again; Gibbs makes essentially the same point. Nice try, but their problem here is that she wasn’t speaking off the cuff at the time. It came in the course of a speech, something to which a federal judge would devote care in composing. Either she’s a sloppy writer, even on matters of great cultural sensitivity like race, or she meant exactly what she said. And somehow I find it hard to believe she’s a sloppy writer.

Lady Justice no longer wears a blindfold, but the American people must, not to see the irony and pathetic stance of this kind of justice and this administration. For Obama appeals to the great American heart in his heralding the success story of Sotomayor.  However, there is another classic American story, as engaging as Sotomayor’s for true grit, that the American people should get to heqr at the Senate confirmation hearings and that is the story of Frank Ricci.

Charles Krauthammer hopes for a moment of illumination for America’s voters,  just to be clear:

Ricci is a New Haven firefighter stationed seven blocks from where Sotomayor went to law school (Yale). Raised in blue-collar Wallingford, Conn., Ricci struggled as a C and D student in public schools ill-prepared to address his serious learning disabilities. Nonetheless he persevered, becoming a junior firefighter and Connecticut’s youngest certified EMT.

After studying fire science at a community college, he became a New Haven “truckie,” the guy who puts up ladders and breaks holes in burning buildings. When his department announced exams for promotions, he spent $1,000 on books, quit his second job so he could study eight to 13 hours a day, and, because of his dyslexia, hired someone to read him the material.
He placed sixth on the lieutenant’s exam, which qualified him for promotion. Except that the exams were thrown out by the city, and all promotions denied, because no blacks had scored high enough to be promoted. Ricci (with 19 others) sued.

Case dismissed by the three-member circuit court panel including you guessed it Sotomayor.  Ricci promotion denied thanks in large part to ‘empathetic’ Sotomayor.  No American success story for the white guy, because he’s white.

Krauthammer: On the Ricci case. And on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats’ enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.Sotomayor shares President Obama’s vision of empathy as lying at the heart of judicial decision-making — sympathetic concern for litigants’ background and current circumstances, and for how any judicial decision would affect their lives.Since the 2008 election, people have been asking what conservatism stands for. Well, if nothing else, it stands unequivocally against justice as empathy — and unequivocally for the principle of blind justice.Empathy is a vital virtue to be exercised in private life — through charity, respect and lovingkindness — and in the legislative life of a society where the consequences of any law matter greatly, which is why income taxes are progressive and safety nets built for the poor and disadvantaged.But all that stops at the courthouse door. Figuratively and literally, justice wears a blindfold. It cannot be a respecter of persons. Everyone must stand equally before the law, black or white, rich or poor, advantaged or not.Obama and Sotomayor draw on the “richness of her experiences” and concern for judicial results to favor one American story, one disadvantaged background, over another. The refutation lies in the very oath Sotomayor must take when she ascends to the Supreme Court: “I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich. … So help me God.”When the hearings begin, Republicans should call Frank Ricci as their first witness. Democrats want justice rooted in empathy? Let Ricci tell his story and let the American people judge whether his promotion should have been denied because of his skin color in a procedure Sotomayor joined in calling “facially race-neutral.”Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds — consistently violated by the Democrats, including Sen. Obama — that a president is entitled to deference on his Supreme Court nominees, particularly one who so thoroughly reflects the mainstream views of the winning party. Elections have consequences.Vote Democratic and you get mainstream liberalism: A judicially mandated racial spoils system and a jurisprudence of empathy that hinges on which litigant is less “advantaged.”

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

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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!”

Cheney – The Lone Ranger -Silver Bullets?

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I hope Dick Cheney keeps the pressure on Obama.  He’s a Lone Ranger with silver bullets hitting their mark.

AllahPundit writes of Cheney:

Dour though his Darth Cheney persona may be, he projects gravitas and speaks with understated eloquence. He’s bound to persuade at least a few fencesitters.

The Pundit points to Toby Harnden in Telegraph.co.uk who notes Cheney’s 10 punches:

1. “I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that, but I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.”

Anyone who was in New York or Washington on 9/11 (I was here in DC) was profoundly affected and most Americans understand this. Obama was, as far as I can tell, in Chicago. His response – he was then a mere state senator for liberal Hyde Park – was startlingly hand-wringing and out of step with how most Americans were feeling. This statement by Cheney reminds people of the tough decisions he and Bush had to make – ones that Obama has not yet faced.

2. “The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law- enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact: arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed.”

This was the pre-9/11 mindset, much criticised after the attacks. Many sense that this is the approach Obama is increasingly taking.

3. “By presidential decision last month, we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know. We’re informed as well that there was much agonizing over this decision. Yet somehow, when the soul searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth.”

The release of the documents was a nakedly political move by Obama and Cheney called him on it. This passage from Obama’s speech today came across as completely disingenuous: “I did not do this because I disagreed with the enhanced interrogation techniques that those memos authorized, and I didn’t release the documents because I rejected their legal rationales — although I do on both counts. I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush Administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods.”

Read the full article here.

AllahPundit Update:

Update: In hindsight, wasn’t it awfully stupid of The One to rush out a national security speech to try to preempt Cheney? If he’d kept quiet, this still would have been a hit on righty blogs and Fox News but nowhere else. By jumping in, he created the sensational “terror duel” storyline that’s forcing the media to magnify this. At the very least, he should have waited a week or so and then given his speech as a rebuttal to Cheney’s. For someone so message-savvy, he crapped the bed this time.

Open Letter-Fr.Jenkins/Notre Dame by Arrested Women

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An Open Letter to Fr. John Jenkins
President
University of Notre Dame

Dear Fr. Jenkins,We are writing this letter to you in hopes that you can clear something up for us.

We are two Catholic women who reside in the State of Colorado. We made tragic mistakes in our younger years by having abortions. We came to the University of Notre Dame last Friday, May 8, to witness to the harm caused to us by our “choice.” We held signs that say “I Regret My Abortion”. We also gave our testimonies and prayed the Rosary with other Catholics who supported us.

We did this in hopes of saving young women years of pain, shame and guilt. We did this because college aged women have the most abortions. We did this because we wanted these young women to know that women deserve better than abortion and that women can achieve the things that they want without having their babies killed. We did this because we believe in the fundamental right to life of all human beings who are created in the image and likeness of God which is a dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church.

We have both attended Project Rachel and Rachel’s Vineyard retreats – both Catholic healing programs for those suffering from abortion. We then joined “The Silent No More Awareness campaign”, a program sponsored by a Catholic Priest – Fr. Frank Pavone.

In all of these programs we were taught about the acceptance and mercy of God and our fellow Catholics. Also, in these programs we were encouraged to seek the counsel of a Catholic Priest – that they would help us to find redemption in the sacrament of reconciliation. We were also encouraged to share our stories so that the Catholic community and the greater community at large could hear first hand of the devastating effects of abortion.

While speaking these truths on Friday we were issued a Trespass Notice by security officers hired by the University that in part states “The University has the right to tell us that we are not wanted on University property.”

Imagine our shock after receiving this notice and being barred from speaking further, we were arrested and thrown in jail. We spent the day in a holding cell until we posted a $250 bond. As we now understand things, we are awaiting news as to whether the charges against us will be misdemeanor trespassing or a felony. This happened all because we wanted the students to know through our stories how devastating abortion is to women.

We are confused, Fr. Jenkins. Why would a Catholic University bar Catholic women from speaking the truth about a fundamental Catholic teaching, under the signage of a healing program that is sponsored by a Catholic priest, while praying the Rosary? Yet, the University would welcome, honor and have a person speak at Commencement who is virulently opposed to this same fundamental Catholic teaching?

Fr. Jenkins can you please explain this to us?

We look forward to your response.

Jane Brennan, MS
Laura Rohling
Centennial, CO
www.motherhoodinterrupted.com

Obama’s Talk Doesn’t Match His Walk

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Amy Welborn responding to Obama’s speech at Notre Dame doesn’t see a real opening here for true dialogue.  However, referring to the Catholic Church’s long  “and vibrant history of engagement with political philosophy from Augustine on,” Welborn strains to get beyond Obama’s words, catchphrases and code phrases for ambiguity (e.g.”sound science” = a dismissal of ethical considerations.) Discussion on a goal to decrease abortions, which Obama says he wants, without an openess to core Church teachings on life and recognition of the humanity of the unborn in little more than an expansion of birth control availability and continues to circumvent the moral dimension of abortion.

Here are some excerpts from her response:

Obama – and Jenkins – both emphasized dialogue. Obama said, “But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.”  I agree. And when those supporting Obama and Obama at Notre Dame stop referring to those standing in opposition as “GOP hacks,” “ultraconservative minority” and “Catholic Sharia” – and actually engaging the arguments instead – we know we’re getting somewhere.

The political realities are this, and have been forever: Self-described abortion “moderates” accuse pro-lifers of being “all or nothing” in their approach. The reality is that smaller measures to limit and regulate the abortion license are never proposed by abortion proponents, but by pro-lifers, and, further, are always opposed to the death by abortion-proponents. Have you ever heard of an parental notification law or laws requiring abortion facilities to be regulated at the same level as medical clinics being co-sponsored by a state branch of NARAL and the NRLC?

To put it bluntly – until we are ready to “dialogue” about the possibility that law might play a role in decreasing the number of abortions, as is the work that goes on in Crisis Pregnancy Centers and in front of abortion facilities on Saturday mornings, the dialogue is extremely limited. Until those who are actually working with the stated, explicit goal of discouraging women from having abortions are included in the dialogue, there is really no dialogue.

Meanwhile check out this ACLU blog to see just how ecstatic President Obama is making the ACLU. “It’s been a whirlwind, but rewarding, three months.”

“The first 100 days of the Obama administration have brought us more victories than we had in the eight years of the previous administration.”

“On his first Friday in office, President Obama rescinded the Global Gag Rule, restoring U.S. funding to international organizations that use their own, non-U.S. dollars to provide, refer for, and/or advocate for safe and legal abortion in their countries.”

Welborn writes:

And one more nod to reality – here’s a subject for dialogue based on as much evidence as we can muster, rather than platitudes: how is expanded funding for abortions both in the United States and overseas contributing to the cause of “reducing the number of abortions?” If we’re dialoguing, those are the questions that must be asked.

Hot Air adds:

The perfect ironic conclusion to yesterday’s paean to tolerance and dialogue at Notre Dame: The leader of a Catholic school sneering at student protesters for practicing freedom of speech in defense of Church teachings. Rarely have liberal Catholicism and campus Orwellianism meshed more beautifully.

Quoting Trinity President Patricia McGuire, AllahPundit reports:

McGuire continued, “The religious vigilantism apparent in the Notre Dame controversy arises from organizations that have no official standing with the church, but who are successful in gaining media coverage as if they were speaking for Catholicism. . . . They have established themselves as uber-guardians of a belief system we can hardly recognize. Theirs is a narrow faith devoted almost exclusively to one issue. They defend the rights of the unborn but have no charity toward the living. They mock social justice as a liberal mythology.”

Civil Rights At the Heart Of Abortion

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A question of truth, a question of conversion; the Anchoress asks can Obama be converted on abortion?  I ask, and I think posterity will ask, how can this black man, who knows the Black Man’s pain of Slavery, the history of popular resistance to change, who knows the history of  a Stephen Douglas ignoring an Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln who finally pricked Douglas into debate by clubbing him verbally, until, as Edward T. Oakes, S.J. says, “Douglas finally had to take notice of Lincoln’s ceaseless hammering away at Douglas’ ‘pro-choice’ platform (which said, in effect, ‘I’m personally opposed to slavery but can’t impose my choice on other states, including other Norther states.’),” not only ignore but side against so utterly defenseless a part of American humanity? ” How can such a man, now President of a country, founded on the principal that all men are created equal, now consent in his heart of hearts to  discriminate against the obviously created human person growing from day to day, as all men grow, just because he/she is still under the protection of a mother’s womb.

How can this President, the citizen of the greatest free nation, ever, be content while people conspire to deprive the weakest most dependent members of their civil rights; when to steal or negate life, black,white, red,yellow, male, female,old or young, is intrinsically evil and morally wrong?  How can this be-gifted man standby, a blind, deaf, and mute creature, while this glaring, screaming, appealing and appalling issue of Civil Rights is left to cry in the arms of Lady Justice?

The questions continue, nagging and still unanswered.  How can a professor, a teacher, a sworn defender of the Constitution, forget the cries of these similarly beleaguered, disenfranchised, these who endure discrimination, these forgotten and forbidden human beings? Is it simply that they have no power, but the power to be, while Obama,  himself, who knows the benefits of life, and the gifts of God and has sworn an oath in the Creator’s Name, forsake his power refusing just consideration? Could he not use his powers of rhetoric to acknowledge our posterity and his power of intellect to comprehend their potential? How can such a man claim his “pay grade” justifies the “choice” not to chose life or engage his own reason and heart and soul?

The buck Mr. President not only stops here but demands you at least use the means you possess; ears, eyes and brain to watch a simple, state of the art and science, video of life in the womb. The thumb-sucking, kicking, jumping, hiccupping creature you see before you may well declare the reality; “I am here, now.  I am alive, unless you allow my life to come to naught.”

What price freedom; what price honesty? History begs you not to hide behind polls and politics.  Don’t ask people with vested interests in the abortion industry, or who purchase human parts for research, who like slave owners count it lose if right prevails. Ask Martin Luther King, Jr. when you should stand for the civil right SIMPLY TO BE!