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President Obama Ironically Defends the Lives of Children
USCCB Responds To Inaccurate Statement Of Fact On HHS Mandate Made During Vice Presidential Debate
This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain “religious employers.” That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to “Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,” or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served. Read More
What Do Puss in Boots and Obama Have in Common?
Stop Islamization of Nations – 9-11-12 “Freedom is a Process”
Please re-post this. The media doesn’t report the truth anymore. You are the new media!
How’s that Change Working out for You?!
Injustice is Always Unjust
Martin Luther King Jr.’s teaching on injustice anywhere by Mrs. Naomi Barber King
Wife of the late Rev. A.D. King (brother of Martin Luther King, Jr.):
The Beloved Community and the Unborn
As our nation pauses to recommit itself to fulfilling the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we invite our fellow citizens to reflect on how that dream touches every human life. Dr. King taught that justice and equality need to be as wide-reaching as humanity itself. Nobody can be excluded from the Beloved Community. He taught that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
In his 1967 Christmas sermon, he pointed out the foundation of this vision: “The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. …Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such….And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won’t exploit people, we won’t trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won’t kill anybody.”
The work of building the Beloved Community is far from finished. In each age, it calls us to fight against poverty, discrimination, and violence in every form. And as human history unfolds, the forms that discrimination and violence take will evolve and change. Yet our commitment to overcome them must not change, and we must not shrink from the work of justice, no matter how unpopular it may become.
In our day, therefore, we cannot ignore the discrimination, injustice, and violence that are being inflicted on the youngest and smallest members of the human family, the children in the womb. Thousands of these children are killed every day in America by abortion, throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
We declare today that these children too are members of the Beloved Community, that our destiny is linked with theirs, and that therefore they deserve justice, equality, and protection.
And we can pursue that goal, no matter what ethnic, religious, or political affiliation we have. None of that has to change in order for us to embrace Dr. King’s affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. It simply means that in our efforts to set free the oppressed, we include the children in the womb.
We invite all people of good will to join us in the affirmation that children in the womb have equal rights and human dignity.
Congress Thinks He Does Not See
Will God forget? Will lives lost to abortion be as forgotten to God as they are in the halls and votes of Congress? Do they even now cry out from beneath the altar? (see Revelation 6:9-11)
Psalm 10
Lord, why do you stand afar off
and hide yourself in times of distress?
The poor man is devoured by the pride of the wicked:
he is caught in the schemes that others have made.For the wicked man boasts of his heart’s desires;
the covetous blasphemes and spurns the Lord.
In his pride the wicked says: “He will not punish.
There is no God.” Such are his thoughts.His path is ever untroubled;
your judgment is far from his mind.
His enemies regard him with contempt.
He thinks: “Never shall I falter;
misfortune shall never be my lot.”His mouth is full of cursing, guile, oppression,
mischief and deceit under his tongue.
He lies in wait among the reeds;
the innocent he murders in secret.His eyes are on the watch for the helpless man.
He lurks in hiding like a lion in his lair;
he lurks in hiding to seize the poor;
he seizes the poor man and drags him away.He crouches, preparing to spring,
and the helpless fall beneath his strength.
He thinks in his heart: “God forgets,
he hides his face, he does not see.”
Patrick Kennedy Called to Order
As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops continues to lobby forcefully against including federal financing for abortion in the health care legislation, Bishop Tobin, takes the fight of the City of God to the world of the day-to-day and the politics that mask secular world views with phony compassion and outright attempts to blind the faithful with fancy verbal confusion and misrepresentation. We have all seen it and know it well. Finally, a clarion call to fidelity and truth!
Bishop Thomas Tobin’s public rebuke of Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy continues to speak with Church authority and honest discretion, no mealy-mouthed kowtowing here:
Abby Goodnough of the New York Times writes:
Bishop Tobin stepped up his public rebuke of Mr. Kennedy, accusing him Wednesday of “false advertising” for describing himself as a Catholic and saying he should not receive holy communion because he supports using taxpayer money for abortions.
“If you freely choose to be a Catholic, it means you believe certain things, you do certain things,” Bishop Tobin said on WPRO, a Providence radio station. “If you cannot do all that in conscience, then you should perhaps feel free to go somewhere else.”
Reagan vs. Obama's Attacks on American Freedoms
American freedom’s are under attack and the enemy is within. From efforts to transform our nation into a welfare state to President Obama’s continuing tactics to constrain freedom of speech, the attack is unrelenting. American’s have never needed to be more vigilant and pro-active. Michelle Malkin warns that even our language is used to wage war against us. Words and phrases, high-sounding camouflaged rhetoric, manipulate us, while masking the word crafters’ dark intent. Michelle Malkin in Obama’s FCC, liberal churches, and the “media justice” mob points to the phrase “transformative change” meaning: “Transformative change” = a media landscape purged of the Right’s most powerful voices.”
Here is a voice we can’t ignore for America does have a “Rendezvous with Destiny”.
This Makes Obama Pro-Abort
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.
Veterans Fight to Keep Mojave Cross Memorial
Congressman warning reported by Raymond Arroyo:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a case concerning whether a cross on federal park land in California which memorializes World War I veterans violates the U.S. Constitution. One congressman warned that the case could have an enormous “ripple effect” on memorials across the country including Arlington Cemetery.
Defending the American Dream-Newt Gingrich
Soldier Explains Constitutional Republic
H/T Ed Morrissey for this:
'Jane Roe" Arrested
Todd J. Gillman reports:
Norma McCorvey – the Dallas woman known as Jane Roe in the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade – was among the protesters arrested today for disrupting the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
The case that bears McCorvey’s court-picked pseudonym – and that of longtime Dallas district attorney Henry Wade, her legal adversary in the case – has been a central issue in judicial nomination fights for years. But McCorvey herself long ago decided that she regretted her role in the fight to legalize abortion, and has worked with anti-abortion activists as a potent symbol of the effort to overturn the Roe decision.
McCorvey, 61, is being charged with unlawful conduct/disruption of Congress, said Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider.
86% of Americans Want Abortion Restrictions
NewsMax.com reports the numbers:
Among the key findings:
86% of Americans would significantly restrict abortion. 60% of Americans would limit abortion to cases of rape, incest or to save the life of a mother – or would not allow it at all. 53% of Americans believe abortion does more harm than good to a woman in the long term. 79% of Americans support conscience exemptions on abortion for health care workers. This includes 64% of those who identify as strongly pro-choice. 69% of Americans think that it is appropriate for religious leaders to speak out on abortion. 59% say religious leaders have a key role to play in the abortion debate. 80% of Americans believe that laws can protect both the health of the woman and the life of the unborn. This includes 68% of those who identified as strongly pro-choice. Additionally, the data showed that since October nearly every demographic sub-group had moved toward the pro-life position except for non-practicing Catholics and men under 45 years of age.
Independents and liberals showed the greatest shift to the pro-life position since October, while Democrats were slightly less likely to be pro-life now than they were in October.
“The data shows that the American people are placing an ever increasing value on human life,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. “Far from the great divide that most people think exists when it comes to the abortion debate, there is actually a great deal of common ground. Most Americans are unhappy with the unrestricted access to abortion that is the legacy of Roe
vs. Wade, and pundits and elected leaders should take note of the fact that agreement on abortion need not be limited to the fringes of the debate and issues like adoption or pre-natal care. The American people have reached a basic consensus, and that consensus is at odds with the unrestricted access to abortion that is the legacy of Roe.”
The survey of 1,223 Americans was conducted May 28 – 31 and has a margin of error of +/-3%.
Death Knell for Affirmative Action?
eCharles Krauthammer sounds the death knell for reverse racism with the Supreme Courts Ricci decision:
Ricci left Sotomayor relatively unscathed. But not affirmative action. Ricci raised the bar considerably on overt discrimination against one racial group simply to undo the unintentionally racially skewed results of otherwise fair and objective employment procedures (in this case, examinations).
Krauthammer notes (bemoans?) Sotomayor’s survival:
While overturned on Ricci, she is protected by the four dissenting justices who upheld the side of the case she had taken as an appeals court judge. Sotomayor was additionally helped by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s insistence on reading her dissent from the bench, as if to emphasize the legitimacy of her position — and, by implication, Sotomayor’s.
Link Around
H/T Michelle Malkin: Story you won’t hear
White House spinning again: Ed Morrissey
5 Fingers-5 Toes
You had better have 5 fingers and 5 toes and the right genetics, or in this Orwellian Age you may not make it into this world. The Hippocratic oath of “Above all, do no harm” is blatantly hypocritical in this day of abortion run amuck
Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler envisioned a world of perfection according to their norms. Intrinsic Evil was still recognizable at that day. Today we have progressed. We euphemize our speech and thought and allow our consciences to waste away unformed by the pursuit of virtue and Truth. We call this progressive and liberal.
Without thunderbolts from heaven, we think we are home free, after all, can God hold the whole world accountable? In the word of the day, “Dah!” Yes He can! In scripture God asks:
“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”
“When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
What a person chooses to do in life makes him virtuous or not. It is not the fact that a person has a choice or chooses. All people choose. All people are not virtuous.
There is a day of reckoning; it is unstoppable. In the meantime, people eat, drink, play, marry and do mischief, just as before the Flood. The wise do not think God is asleep, blind or forgetful. The wise know God knows and remembers who He creates. There are no accidents with God. He remembers our beginnings and our end. He remembers the end of the unwanted and emptied wombs.
This is still the time of mercy. This is still a time for choosing God and turning from the idol we’ve made of “Choice.”
Pvt. Long vs Dr. Tiller Murders – In Obama-speak
Obama is said to be a master of the word and speech. If this is true, then we must suppose his limp response to the murder of Pvt. William Long is very meaningful. The President had at his disposal all the elegant and convincing verbage we have come to expect from him (whether he means it or not.) It is due from the Commander-in- Chief, when one of his troops is murdered. Contrasting Obama’s response with the response he gave when George Tiller, a late term abortionist (with much blood on his own hands,) was murdered; using words like “heinous” and expressing “anger” and “outrage,” Obama was quick to respond and dramatically vocal. The absence of such sentiment, and the three day delay in any response, speaks volumes. We have to ask: Where do Obama’s loyalties lie?
Obama’s passive voice, the dispassionate euphemism, the blameless, faceless, semantic nicety; that is a far cry from a cry of truth. We get abstractions from a man avoiding the reality of a jihadist convert killing one of our troops, one of Obama’s own charges serving loyally and dutifully. No calling out his killer here, just “a sensless” act. By who? and why? we may ask? Obama doesn’t seem to want us to notice that someone, a jahadist, pulled the trigger killing one soldier and gravely wounding another, 18-year-old Private Quinton Ezeagwula.
Michelle Malkin puts it in words for all of Obama’s failure to react.
The Anchoress writes:
And yet, here we are, watching thousands of words being written about the grotesque murder of George Tiller, all of which dutifully identify his killer by name, race, religion and ideology, (Scott Roeder, white, Christian, anti-government, and anti-abortion) while the sad story of Pvt. William Long is quietly put to rest, with little-to-no-mention of the shooter:
[NPR's] news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have “religious motivations.” She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian.
The story about Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad grows more interesting by the day:
A joint FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment…said officers found maps to Jewish organizations, a child care center, a Baptist church, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia.
And:
An FBI joint terrorism task force based in the southern U.S. reportedly had been tracking Muhammad after he traveled to Yemen and was arrested and jailed there for using a Somali passport, an official told The Associated Press. The probe had been in its early stages and based on Muhammad’s trip to Yemen, ABC News reported.
…At Tuesday’s court hearing, Deputy Prosecutor Scott Duncan said Muhammad told investigators that “he would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot.”The press duly (and briefly) reports, then re-focuses on Tiller, and the evil “Christianists” who are all responsible for his murder. Meanwhile, Obama is keeping silence, even foregoing the perfect opportunity to memorialize his soldier.
When George Tiller was murdered, Obama spoke out, and then he mobilized his justice department, to deploy guards at abortion clinics. Sort of like a Commander-in-Chief might do, if he feels his beloved country is under attack. When Pvt. William Long was murdered, Obama said and did…nothing.
Tianamen Remembered
What I Saw at Tianamen by Claudia Rosett
It’s now 20 years since I ran through a cross-fire of tracer bullets, heading into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4 to witness the end of the uprising in which millions of Chinese, in the spring of 1989, peacefully seized control of their own capital and demanded democracy.
In a long career as a reporter, which has included both tanks and gunfire elsewhere, there is no story I have covered that has been more haunting, inspiring and important than that Tiananmen uprising. And there is no story that, in its plotline, has been more heartbreaking.
During the protests, on one of those warm spring evenings just before the crackdown, I was wandering around Tiananmen, notebook in hand, and came across a young man sitting in a beach chair on the monument where the demonstrators were soon to make their last stand. He had a question about what happens when you get your dream of democracy: What then? As he put it: “I know what China is dreaming. What is America dreaming?”
The answer of free societies, the old American dream, is that you may choose for yourself. Freedom, in the framework of a true democracy, allows individuals to weigh their own talents, skills and ambitions, choose their own trade-offs, and chart their own dreams. That gives rise to innovation, exuberance and prosperity of a kind that no government can plan or centrally command into existence.
Focus On Life – Audacious Hope
Michelle Malkin rightly and vociferously condemns the murder of Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller. Malkin quotes Princeton University professor Robert P. George:
“Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence.”
The area of abortion is already stained with the blood of millions of the unborn, adding to the bloodshed by taking any human life will not vindicate those lost to abortion or prevent the future from being likewise drenched in “little murders” as Archbishop Chaput of Denver writes.
Malkin realistically warns that pro-choice and pro-choice forces will use this sad event to muddy the waters with rhetoric. Malkin knows from experience what lies ahead:
Prepare for the continuing redefinition of any and all sharp political disagreement as “hate” — a ruinous trend that inevitably comes back to haunt the hysterical accusers decrying “hate” the loudest.
“Prepare for whitewashed hagiographies of Tiller’s career as an abortionist.
Prepare for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s defenders to gloat about vindication.
Prepare for collective demonization of pro-lifers and Christians — and more gratuitous attempts to tar talk radio, Fox News, and the Tea Party movement as responsible for the heinous crime.
The only people is this country allowed to use “hate” speech on a regular basis is the Left when speaking of Christians, Pro-life advocates and any friend of Conservatism. It is hard not to pick up the same brush and paint with flaming rhetoric. However, ‘Life’ is at issue here. It is precious whether possessed by the innocent and the heinous. Let’s not lose focus.
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” require self-knowledge and self-control. They are goals and well worth suffering to achieve, not for one group, but for all. Prayer comes before self-knowledge and self-control. Pope Benedict XVI has and is working tirelessly with Peoples of all Faiths and all Nationalities to recognize and protect our common humanity. It is the work of a lifetime for all of us. Building a world of peace makes room for audacious hope in the true sense. Hope lies in the human heart, and enables us to forgive the past to build a truly human future.
Lady Justice Winks – No Blindfold!
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.”
Cheney – The Lone Ranger -Silver Bullets?
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
An Open Letter to Fr. John Jenkins
President
University of Notre DameDear 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
My Day at Notre Dame – Fr. Pavone
Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests For Life writes:
My Day at Notre Dame-
There was an eerie stillness and silence across the Notre Dame campus as my colleagues, a few of the seniors and I walked across the campus very early on the morning of Commencement Day. It was the calm before the storm of what we knew was an historic day. I started with a national Fox News interview along with Fr. Richard McBrien. We were asked our views of the Commencement. My message was: Everyone can imagine people they would protest speaking at a commencement: an avowed racist, anti-Semite, or advocate of terrorism. So the failure to object to one who is unwilling to call for an end to abortion is the failure to see that abortion is as bad or worse than those other evils. We have to stop trivializing abortion. Moreover, the university gave the President an honorary law degree. Law exists to protect human rights; but this president has admitted that he doesn’t know when a child receives human rights. How can he defend human rights when he doesn’t know who has them? After speaking to various media, I greeted people on campus who were coming from all over the country to stand with the courageous students who boycotted their own commencement and invited me to lead them in an alternate ceremony. After I greeted and blessed the demonstrators who were at the campus entrance, and concelebrated a special Mass for Life, I led the Class of 2009 Vigil for Life. We meditated on the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, on the victory of life over death, and on the fact that Jesus is King over every nation, over the courts, the Congress, and the White House. As I gave the students and their families reflections on these truths, the current occupant of the White House was calling the graduates to have “open minds, open hearts” and a spirit of dialogue. Now dialogue with our opponents on this issue is something we at Priests for Life specialize in. I maintain friendships with abortion advocates and practicing abortionists. The clarity of our own convictions never means we despise, demonize, or shut out other people. And yes, we are willing to collaborate with others in morally legitimate ways to reduce the numbers of abortions. But the President’s remarks had a glaring omission. While willing to dialogue and to promote adoption, he gave no indication of any willingness to protect the children in the womb. And that’s the crux of the issue. In his remarks, he referred to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation. Certainly, his call for open minds does not include openness to reconsider the segregation issue. There’s a right answer to it, period. So it is with the protection of the unborn. And as quiet again descended on campus at the end of the day, I reflected… Open minds, yes, but for the purpose of eventually firmly closing upon the truth! And isn’t that supposed to be the purpose of Catholic universities?
Priests for Life Podcast
Notre Dame- "Intellectual Vanity"- Archbishop Chaput
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’
Fruit of Notre Dame Outcry & Demonstration
Listening on Ave Marie Radio to Teresa Tomeo proved encouraging. Tomeo and her guest, Dr. Monica Miller, one of those arrested to pro-life demonstration on the Notre Dame campus, had very positive outlooks on how the outcry against Notre Dame’s invitation to pro-choice, abortion-supporter, President Obama would bear fruit . Dr. Miller said a corner has been turned as a hundred or more, bishops voiced their opposition to the event, and young people turned out in great numbers to protest President Obama being honored at this Catholic University. The scutiny with which Catholic parents choose a university to prepare their children has been elevated and made a primary concern for those wanting a Catholic identity and moral stance.
A caller to the show noted that while President Obama wouldn’t deny the Holocaust, yet here is a Holocaust of even greater magnitude which he does, indeed, deny or, otherwise, willfully endorses. Has he not seen the pictures of abortion or videos of life in the womb?
Listen here.
The Lighter Side of Economic Disaster
Thanks Fox Nation and the GOP ad creators.
Priceless!
Obama's Speech at Notre Dame Commencement
This is the part of Obama’s speech at the Notre Dame commencement that I found interesting:
“But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived.“
Who, indeed, do we recognize in the disturbing graphic image of an aborted child, if not ourselves? Unfortunately, this poor one and the millions of other unknowns will never know “love of family” or “fulfillment of a life well-lived” to quote President Obama. Known but to God, they witness to the cold reality of a heart-dead age, that now scoffs at those who protest the dying of the unborn. The sensitivities of this Age are roused not by the reality of abortion, flesh and blood, but by images that witness to the loss of generations. In truth, the unborn are born, but not in the way that God intended. They are born, burned by saline, curated, crushed. They come forth without breath or cry. We see and hear them always before us in our future reckoning.
President Obama makes pretty speeches that belie the horror underlying benign sounding words such as Choice.
For pithy Michelle Malkin has the pithiest summation by Greg Mueller.
