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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category.
I saw this a few years ago, actually, but I had forgotten about it! It’s making the rounds lately due to Steisand’s support for Obama, of course, but it’s funny no matter what your persuasion is.
Gotta love a candidate with a sense of humor!
Obama has been trying to soften his stance on abortion by trying to talk about reducing the number of them. But he can’t hide from his record.
Since Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 million babies have been murdered in the womb. Abortion is awful in general, but partial-birth abortion represents humanity at it’s worst. In this “procedure,” a baby is brought a out of the birth canal, except for the head, and then the “doctor” sucks that baby’s brains out while their arms and legs are wiggling, so that they are dead before they are “born.”
The idea of partial-birth abortion reminds me of capital punishment by having someone drawn and quartered, which was the most likely influence of the phrase “cruel and unusual punishment” found in the bill of rights. It is reminiscent of the kind of techniques used by Vlad the Impaler in the 15th century, who enjoyed coming up with more and more brutal ways of slow, torturous ways of killing people.
Bill Clinton vetoed a federal partial-birth abortion ban, twice. Bush signed one into law in 2003. It was upheld by the conservative wing of the Supreme Court in 2007, very narrowly. Guess which type of justices Obama would nominate, and which type of justices a Democrat senate would confirm – those who would uphold such a ban, or those who would strike it down as “unconstitutional,” even though no “right to abortion” exists anywhere in the constitution?
Beyond just his support for relativist judges, Obama’s record of support for abortion is on the extreme liberal side of politics. Obama voted against an Illinois partial-birth abortion ban in 1997. He voted to preserve state-funded abortions in 2000. He voted against parental notification when taking teenagers across state lines in 2006. He has received a 100% rating from NARAL, indicating that his voting record is completely consistent with someone who supports unrestricted, government-funded access to abortion, INCLUDING for teenagers.
Michelle Obama once described partial-birth abortion as a “legitimate medical procedure.” Their support for and defense of abortion has few equals in the history of presidential candidates.
To make matters worse, Obama voted against the Born Alive Infant Act in Illinois, which would have required doctors to provide medical care to babies who survived an abortion. Today he tries to spin this and make it sound respectable, but the reality is he voted to kill the bill in committee and spoke against it on the senate floor. His claims today that he supported the federal version of the bill are provably false.
I understand why someone wouldn’t vote on abortion alone. But we’re not talking about voting for someone who supports abortion in a *moderate* sense. We’re talking about someone who has, 100% of the time, voted against any abortion restrictions, who has indicated his support for Supreme Court justices who take a dynamic, relativist view of the Constitution (which is required to support the continued existence of the Roe v. Wade decision), and, in particular, who has defended the most brutal, violent practice ever devised by mankind against a child.
If you can, in good conscience, vote for someone who supports a mother’s right to bring a baby out of the birth canal, except for the head, and then suck that baby’s brains out while their arms and legs are wiggling, so that they are dead before they are “born”, or worse, to deny that child medical care if they happen to survive an abortion, then so be it. Personally, if a candidate can’t even find these two things so heinous, so brutal, and so depraved as to say that they should be illegal in any and all circumstances, then that candidate will never, EVER get my vote. And they (including Obama) shouldn’t get yours, either.
I covered this last year, and I’m glad it’s getting press again.
Despite Obama’s claims that it’s all lies cooked up by McCain, it’s all true. One of the few “accomplishments” Obama has while a Illinois state senator was voting to Teach Sex Ed to Kindergartners. Topics covered from K5 to 3rd Grade include:
These are all “Level 1″ topics to be taught from ages 5 through 8. Go here to see more. Or download the full PDF. Disturbing.
I wholeheartedly reject the notion that tax cuts shouldn’t be made across the board. Liberals have turned “trickle-down economics” into something you’re not allowed to say, even though it works. Even on an anecdotal level, this is obviously true. As an example, if your taxes were cut enough or if you got enough of a raise, you might have enough money to pay someone else to cut your grass so you could spend your weekends with your kids rather than with your yard. That kind of thing fuels job creation.
But this is a hard thing to prove in an anecdotal fashion. But there is some data to back this up. This column is one I’ve been hoping to see.
Since 1983, living standards for the lowest fifth has increased 25%.
The column also lists several reasons why income gains are commonly underreported. One reason is that more poor people are filing tax forms today than 25 years ago, due to increases in the Earned Income Tax Credit program. In 1983, 19% of filers had no tax to pay. In 2005, that number was 33% – and it is expected to be 40% in 2008. When you offer people free money, they’ll fill out a tax form. The side effect is that the IRS has more data on low income households – not because there are more of them, but because they end up getting paid to fill out a tax form.
The other issue is one of mobility. People move in income ranges over time – and usually people move up. Only one-third of filters who paid zero tax in 1987 were still in the zero tax income bracket in 1996.
When you hear liberal politicians talk about the “poor getting poorer,” question how they measure this. Because there are many measurements that show the poor are doing much better now than they were 25 years ago.
I blogged about the awful treatment of Gov. Palin the other day. Now ABC News joins in the fray, taking a Palin quote completely out of context and trying to pin her down on it. SHAMEFUL.
Here’s the quote Charlie Gibson kept repeating:
Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God
And here’s the full quote:
Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.
So now ABC News joins the AP in taking on the style of DailyKos and Huffington Post. SHAMEFUL.
Obama is appealing to many voters, originally unlikely to vote Democrat, on a couple of things. Most notably, government charity and war.
Britt has posted some history lessons (see part 1 and part 2), dealing with government charity and its roots in socialism. There’s a lot more detail that we could go into, but I think his treatment was the right approach to summarize it. I’m still seriously thinking about a Matthew 6 parody site of the Matthew 25 Network. If I had a lot of spare time I probably would have taken it on by now.
On the war, there’s a great article at American Thinker by James Lewis called Would Obama have given up after Pearl Harbor? In it, he does a great job comparing the similarities between all of America’s most challenging moments.
The United States has experienced devastating setbacks in every major war. Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, and Reagan were all told to quit and cut our losses. They didn’t — even when the newspapers and their political enemies screamed and yelled, walking a fine line near treason. George W. Bush’s experience with Iraq has been absolutely straight down the mainstream of American history, including all the setbacks, the gut-punching pain of losing good soldiers, the military turnaround once we found the right leaders, the betrayals by our political class, and the victory we are seeing today.
Judging by his words Obama would have given up at all the crisis points in the past: Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge, the Berlin Airlift, Bull Run, the British burning the White House in 1812, and Valley Forge.
While it is possible that Obama could develop this kind of leadership, the way he talks about foreign affairs, and the way he has approached Iraq and his desire to simply pull out without considering the consequences (and until Friday, never even admitting that the surge worked in Iraq), makes me believe otherwise.
“Leadership” is not some mystical quality that only highly educated WaPo journos can spot. Leadership is what allows you to win against huge opposition from all the Bob Woodwards of the media, from the Demagogue Party, from al Qaida, from Saddam and his minions, the Iraqi militias, the opportunists and corrupt Iraqi politicians, the worldwide Left, the academics, the demoted generals, the do-nothing CIA chairwarmers, and all the other saboteurs.
Leadership is what George W. Bush has demonstrated in spades. And he’s been abused for it just like Truman was, and Lincoln and all the others.
What would Barack Obama have done? Obama just thought it was all a miracle. “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated … I’ve already said it succeed beyond our wildest dreams.”
But it wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t beyond our wildest dreams. It was just the same grueling learning process that Lincoln had to go through, and FDR and all the others. The Petraeus strategy didn’t just happen. It was the product of years of hard, slogging, bloody, and finally victorious efforts. It was extremely painful, but in the end, it worked.
For McCain, the success of the surge was not beyond his “wildest dreams.” He had been fighting for the right strategy, and was the most vocal supporter of a surge, against the advice of political strategists, for years. Obama claimed that it would make things worse. Even today, when he finally admits that it has worked (and only because he has to), he refuses to admit that he was wrong about it.
When Russia invaded Georgia, Obama’s first statement was ambiguous. McCain’s first statement condemned Russia for their actions, and stood with Georgia, who was being trounced. It took Obama three days to come up with a statement that looked a lot like McCain’s.
America can’t afford to have a president that takes three days to figure out the right answer about Russia invading Georgia. America can’t afford a president that refuses to admit that he was wrong about whether a surge of troops would make a huge difference in Iraq.
Now compare the great presidents of American history, who successfully navigated America through difficult times – Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Reagan – and tell me which candidate today has demonstrated the ability to assess the situation and accurately come up with solutions that will make a difference. Obama comes up awfully short in that comparison.
Take care! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired, because then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give a gift to someone in need, don’t shout about it as the hypocrites do – blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I assure you, they have received all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone, don’t tell your left hand what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.
And now about prayer. When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I assure you, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly. Then your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered only by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! (Matthew 6:1-8, NLT)
Kind of puts Matthew 25 into a different perspective, doesn’t it? I ask you – how does campaigning for public charity fit with the private, secret approach to charity commanded us in Matthew 6?
I’ve had many conversations with liberal friends over the past year about war. Many of these friends are Christians, though not all of them. But I’m hearing a common theme about war and violence – the idea that it is never appropriate to respond to violence with violence, and particularly that it is never right to kill someone to prevent violence, for the basic belief that “killing people is wrong.” For Christians, it is usually rooted in the example of Jesus’ nonviolence, his exhortation to “turn the other cheek,” etc. Sometimes it includes variations on the “war cannot produce peace” argument. In many ways, this is the new pacifism, though it is really not that different from the old.
My response to this is usually that I can totally understand, appreciate, and even identify with this on a personal level. But that applying that kind of mentality towards government is dangerous and suicidal.
I usually try to take the argument towards this one question: why do cops carry guns?
I have had people refuse to discuss that point – outright claiming that it was silly of me to ask the question. But I bring it up because it is crucial to understanding the effects of pacifism.
Cops carry guns because without the credible threat of authorized, deadly force, it would be impossible to keep society from descending into anarchy. To understand this, you have to have a basic understanding of the sinfulness and depravity found in a fallen world. That while most people will obey most of the laws, there are always some who will disregard as many of society’s rules as they possibly can.
Take your typical hostage scenario, for instance. If the police do not have the authorization to use deadly force, then what is to prevent the criminal from shooting all the hostages, and then come out with guns blazing and shoot all of the cops? Nothing. It is the credible threat of deadly force, coupled with the desire on the criminal’s part not to die, that prevents the worst-case scenario.
Note that it is not enough that deadly force is authorized. It must also be credible. That means that the criminal must believe that he will be killed if he comes out with guns blazing. In order to believe that, he must have a basic understanding of police that they will fire if fired upon. And that if hostages are seriously endangered, they will do what they can to neutralize the person responsible, including killing them.
The exact same logic applies to global affairs. It is not enough that other countries have the power to stop an imperialist from invading another country. They must believe that other countries (and particularly, their leaders) have the will to do so if necessary. That means the possibility of a response must be credible.
The only reason Hitler felt able to pursue his imperialism was because he judged the nations of Europe to be too weak to stop him. The threat of other countries stopping him was not credible. He had rightly judged that few nations in Europe could withstand his attacks, and he had rightly judged that America would stay out of it (until Japan tipped us over the edge).
Bin Laden saw America’s response to issues in Somalia in the 1990’s and judged us to be weak. He felt that he could attack, and stay safe in Afghanistan because he judged us to be a “paper tiger.” So plans were prepared to attack targets on US soil. The threat of force was not credible to him.
The UN had authorized the use of military force on Iraq if Saddam did not comply with the weapons inspections, based on the cease-fire from the 1991 Gulf War. But this threat was not credible – the UN was incapable of action. So Saddam threw the inspectors out.
More recently, Russia watched as the world, and particularly America, debated these issues in the aftermath of Iraq. Russia sensed America’s growing pacifism, and knew that there was little an American president could do to stop them.
Do you think Russia would have invaded Georgia if America had been showing a more unified sense of support regarding sticking it out in Iraq? Personally, I think not.
Now take a look at this year’s presidential election. You have two men, neither of whom want to go to war with anybody. But one represents a position of strength, the other represents a position of weakness. My pacifist friends prefer the weaker candidate, as far as how our enemies would view him.
Now let me ask you – based on the understanding of the credible threat of force, which president would prevent enemies from attacking us, just because of their presence in the oval office?
You can stick to your pacifism out of a sense of principle, but you should do so understanding the inevitable result. If cops without guns leads to anarchy, countries led by pacifism leads to fascism. History gives us plenty of proof for that.
From J.R. Dunn at AmericanThinker.com:
The situation today involving the Palin family is a High Noon moment, a moment where you must make a choice. A choice between taking a stand or remaining with head forever bowed. You will not find a line drawn clearer — you can stand with the Governor Palin and her family (and only secondarily with John McCain, who almost despite himself represents the political aspects of decency in our time), or you can join the other side, the side that excuses the public destruction of a young girl for the sake of political power.
I don’t care whether you’re liberal, conservative, or something else. There’s one thing you should agree with me on.
The media’s treatment of Sarah Palin, and her family, has been outright shameful.
And while Obama himself rightly declared Palin’s family as “off-limits,” he has encouraged shameful attacks against Palin (making disparaging remarks about her experience as a mayor, without any reference to her experience as a governor), and his campaign has been making some outrageous arguments against her. But his die-hard supporters – those who brought him to where he is now, including the left-wing bloggers – have been perpetrating some of the worst smears and lies ever thrown at a major political candidate. And this is saying a lot, given their hate and contempt for George W. Bush.
If you’re voting for Obama this year, you need to understand the kind of awful stuff found on the left that is being used in support of him. Read the kind of stuff the DailyKos has and then compare it to the truth. And whatever you do, don’t go over to the Huffington Post and poke around. Some of the worst blog posts I’ve ever read were posted over there, about Sarah Palin – including things taking existing sexual innuendo about moms and turning them into sexual innuendo about vice presidents.
My overall point it is – conservatives have their wackos, but they are quite marginalized. When have you ever heard of an immensely popular conservative blog, full of comments from people who wanted to bomb abortion clinics, make fully automatic weapons legal, or arrest homosexuals? It just doesn’t happen. But if you pay attention to the left, they are truly angry, and they are truly vindictive. They are truly ready to push for massive tax increases, stoke wealth envy, eliminate corporate profits, and use fear of global warming as a tool to destroy capitalism.
Most importantly, they will save their most vile vindictiveness for any Jew, African-American, or woman that stands in their way. If you understand the history of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and now see the parallel with Sarah Palin, you need to understand the devilish liberal wing that Obama is reliant upon to have any life in the political arena.
Then, when you understand the nature of Obama’s relationships and dealings with figures such as Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and others – DailyKos and Huffington Post are on the Obama campaign’s official Google Reader list of sites, by the way – you start to understand that Obama is perfectly comfortable with such atrocious human behavior.
It’s high noon. Will you do the research to understand this, and make an informed decision based on character, as well as ideology? Or will you vote for the uninformed, nebulous vision of “change?”
I knew this would be a great election year – lots of good stuff to look forward to. But even I underestimated this, in particular, I underestimated John McCain.
I think Palin is a phenomenal choice for VP. And that is true regardless of gender. Her record of being the outsider and confronting corruption is the perfect pairing for McCain’s “maverick” image.
The other great thing is how foolishly the Obama campaign walked right into McCain’s trap – and started scrutinizing Palin’s experience.
On Hannity & Colmes last night, there was this little gem:
Alan Colmes: Do you believe that Sarah Palin is ready, Day One, if God forbid something happens to John McCain?
Mike Huckabee: I think she’s far more ready to be President if something happens to McCain than Barack Obama would be if something doesn’t happen to McCain.
I already liked Huckabee. But that retort just put him off the map.
Comparisons between Palin and Obama are just awesome. If you read nothing else about Palin, make it Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama by Jeff Emanuel at redstate.com. It’s actually quite factually accurate. Which is what makes it all the more hilarious.