Politics

The Beginning of the Gospel of Barack Obama, the Son of God (According to Mark Shea)

In other news Jill Stanek has a fundraiser letter by Michelle Obama saying the partial-birth abortion ban is unconstitutional.

In other Obama news.

From CNN to the New York Times, the media hyped Barack Obama’s Portland, Oregon rally on Sunday, some comparing him to a rock star.

Unmentioned in national reporting was the fact that Obama was preceded by a rare, 45-minute free concert by actual rock stars The Decemberists. The Portland-based band has drawn rave reviews from Rolling Stone magazine, which gave their 2005 album Picaresque four and a half stars (out of five), and another four and a half stars for 2007’s The Crane Wife.

How many of the people showed up to hear Obama, and how many to hear the band?

Hugh Hewitt also mentions that the Decemberists normally start of their set playing the Soviet National Anthem. Whether it happened in this case is not currently known, but it would be appropriate. It is though an interesting question on how many showed up for Decemberists specifically. I grew up in Portland which has more "Free Tibet" and liberal bumper stickers per capita than anywhere else I have seen so I would not be surprised at the large turnout if it was mainly for Obama. It is just interesting that the press failed to mention this at all.

CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars.

In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’ On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children’s children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature."

I usually have an odd chuckle when a pro-abortion Democrat once again appeal to doing it for the children. I guess ministering to the needs of God’s creation doesn’t include children in the womb.

I  have to admit I find it rather
funny the way the media has now turned on Hillary Clinton especially
over her Bosnia sniper story.  I guess the Senator has not yet
realized that she has lost her charism of incuriosity.
 Normally when a Democrat makes a statement on faith, morals,
or pretty much any subject their charism of incuriosity protects them
in all that they say and that there is a freedom from
reporters looking into their error.  The incuriosity of
reporters around Democrats is well established by the scriptures in the
New York Times and Washington Post and was made a dogma by the First
Viacom Council.

What Sen. Clinton does not realize is that
while normally the charism of incuriosity would protect her from
reporters perceiving error and that the Wholly Spirit of the Times would
guarantee this gift even among competing Democrats, that this
charism can be lost when a majority of reporter electors select
another to fully receive this gift.

 Political strategist Donna
Brazile said she will quit her position with the Democratic National
Committee if superdelegates decide who gets the Democratic presidential
nomination.

The superdelegate vote should reflect the will of the people,
Brazile, who managed Al Gores 2000 presidential campaign and is
herself a superdelegate, told National Public Radio. 

Help me out here.  Exactly what is the point of the Democrat’s
superdelegates if they can’t trump popular vote? If they always go
along with the popular vote then it is a rubber stamp and serves no
purpose.  Donna Brazile was made a superdelegate by Bill
Clinton so certainly she has had time to figure out what the role is
all about.  I guess she likes having two votes more than
actually quitting this position now.

I think the superdelegates are exactly like the pigs in Animal Farm.

Well with today being Super Fat Tuesday it seems to me that this
confluence of events is appropriate since the continuing political
season is sure to be quite penitential and unfortunately goes way
beyond forty days.  With the candidates available I feel like
saying “Bless me Father for I have voted.”  There are of
course never any perfect candidates and they are all flawed in one way
or another.  With the internet us political wonks certainly
suffer from too much information as to these flaws.  Though it
is much better to go into the voting booth with your eyes wide open and
being able to take this into account to best promote the culture of
life.

Now I had already voted in the Florida
primaries and I voted for Gov. Huckabee, but without much enthusiasm.
 Gov. Giuliani was out of the question and McCain and Romney
both support embryonic stem-cell research at least in regards to frozen
embryos.  Since Fred and Duncan Hunter had already bowed
out.  I was left with Gov. Huckabee and Ron Paul who are both
fully pro-life.  I simply didn’t trust Ron Paul to pull our
troops out of Iraq without a subsequent massacre and think we owe it to
the Iraqi people to fix the situation we helped to create.  I
have lots of caveats on Mike Huckabee but it doesn’t really matter
since Huckabee and Paul are not going to get the nomination and it will
be either Sen. McCain or Gov. Romney. They  both support ESCR
– John McCain voted for ESCR twice though has since narrowed his
support to not allow cloning  which makes his position
seemingly now identical to Romney’s.

I kind of like the positions of Romney 2.0
for the most part.  The question is is Romney 2.0 a firmware
upgrade or to extend the software metaphor has he selected a
conservative skin to pretty up his conservative interface?
 No doubt Romney 2.0 is much better than Romney 1.0 in pretty
much all the right directions and I certainly like to give people who
become pro-life the benefit of the doubt.  I find it quite
strange just how many conservative talk radio pundits and other
conservatives buy into Romney 2.0 without and spoken qualms.
 Though I guess that is part of human nature in the political
process is that you ignore or diminish the doubts or faults of the
person you end up supporting.  Can’t say though I am very
impressed by his actions as governor and when it came down to really
doing something about their court ruling on same-sex marriage, making
Catholic hospitals use Plan B, and forcing homosexual adoption on
Catholic Charities. I don’t see how he says he “stood up” against
same-sex marriage.  

Now I put Senator McCain at version 1.1
since with the Senator what you see and hear is mostly what you get.
 He has had some slight changes in positions such as now he
supports the fence first, before addressing immigration, as I mentioned
has tightened his view on ESCR, and he now has a different reason for
why he opposed the Bush tax cuts (class warfare before and now because
spending wasn’t reduced).  The problem with John McCain 1.1 is
that I didn’t much like 1.0 and the minor upgrade isn’t much better.
 Though there are some things I do like about the Senator.
 If it wasn’t for ESCR his pro-life voting record would be
perfect.  His view on torture and not being one of the people
to think that water boarding is “enhanced interrogation” also knocks
him up for me.  His consistent fight against government
spending and earmarks also gives him a checkmark in my book.
 He was willing to take a strong stand on the surge during a
time when many had written off Iraq.  There is not doubt that
McCain sticks to his principles, my problem with him is often that
these are not conservative principles and the reason he is so often
called a Maverick and so loved by the press at times is because
Maverick principles go all over the map.

He is running a commercial saying he was a
foot soldier for the Regan revolution. Well considering his support for
global warming hysteria and carbon caps, restriction of free speech,
 voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment, comparing
drilling in Anwar with drilling in the Grand Canyon,  saying
Its not social issues I care about and I have no doubt Senator
Clinton would make a great president.,  his diatribe against
“greedy” corporations and seeing profit as something less than good, I
think that he is a foot soldier in the Ron Reagan revolution, if
anything.  If John McCain has made a negative comment about
someone you can be sure it was against a fellow conservative and not
someone in the Democratic Party.  There is good evidence that
he considered jumping ship in 2001 ala Jumping Jim Jeffords and that he
also considered running with Sen. John Kerry.  Considering his
falling ACU rating I am not sure how he can be considered a Ronald
Reagan foot soldier.  He certainly has shown no leadership in
regards to social conservative issues and the trend of bills he
sponsors like McCain-Lieberman, McCain-Fiengold, McCain-Kennedy don’t
exactly help him make his case.

Though I am not like Ann Coulter
or James Dobson and would certainly vote for Sen. John McCain over
Hillary or Barack.  John McCain is much more likely to appoint
a judicial conservative (though I have my worries) and you know the
Democratic nominee will certainly pick judges who will ensure that Roe
v. Wade will continue to be the unjust law of the land.  There
is also no doubt that a President McCain would not veto pro-life
 legislation (except possibly on aspects of ESCR).

Unfortunately judicial activism has made Supreme Court nominations so
vitally important and an issue and requires a high trust level.
 I don’t have a high trust level on nominees for either McCain
or Romney.  Mitt Romney does not have a good record of
judicial appointments in Massachusetts and while McCain backed all of
the judges appointed by Republican presidents, he did the same for
Democratic presidents.  Though when it comes down it to I
would want Romney or McCain and part of that is because I prefer
governors over senators as candidates and maybe part of it is that I
have disliked McCain longer than I have had mixed feelings about Mitt
Romney.

Though I am not like some pundits who say a vote for one candidate is a
vote for another one.  If you can’t vote your conscience in
the Primaries exactly when are you allowed to?  While someone
can prudently select a candidate for electability or in a close race to
try to support one over the other, one can choose to not make their
decision on this criteria.   I have certainly in the past
during the primaries supported Quixote candidates like Alan Keyes who I
knew were never going to get the nomination.

All I can say is whoever sold Mayor
Giuliani on the Florida strategy or whether it was his own idea – good
job! Anything that keeps a culture of death Republican from being the
nominee is for me a good strategy.  I do wish though that the
reason he failed was that he was not personally opposed to abortion and
was not any kind of social conservative.  Though I think that
was part of it, but most of the Republican establishment was not all
that worried about breaking a pro-life precedence just as long as he
promised to do what they want on national security and gave assurances
about his judicial picks. The only talk show I have listened to that
was actually worried about Rudy splitting the party and ending the
Republican party as the party of life was Laura Ingraham.

As a critique of a campaign strategy and
it easy to say now – what a maroon!  It seems to me that if
you are going to run for President you need to run as president in all
fifty states because even if you don’t win the primaries at least you
will have already set up networks and contacts when it comes to the
general election.  Skipping states and concentrating on ones
later on in the primary cycle also keeps you from getting all of the
free press coverage and keeps your name out of the news. I am just glad
in Rudy’s case that he decided to put all of his eggs in one basket.

As a side issue it is also nice that we
won’t have a cafeteria Catholic being a nominee this time around.
 We won’t have the Communion wars as we did with Sen. Kerry
since reportedly the Mayor does not go to Communion because of his
current “marriage.”

has a good article in The American Spectator
on the divide between religious coverage of reporters on candidates for
the two parties.  There is an intense curiosity by reporters
regarding faith when it comes to Republicans that is totally missing in
coverage of the Democrats that will never get cries of theocracy no
matter how many church pulpits they speak from.

MIAMI (AP) With his plan for winning
the GOP presidential nomination riding largely on a Florida victory at
the end of the month, Rudy Giuliani asked an evangelical congregation
for prayers instead of votes Sunday and quoted scripture to evoke a
message of hope and perseverance.

“I’m not coming here to ask for your
vote,” he said. “That’s up to you
and it’s not the right place. But I am coming here to ask you for
something very special and more important: I’m asking for your prayers.”

Well I am already praying that he doesn’t get the GOP nomination thus
bringing in the Moloch contingent into the “Big Tent.”

Mark Shea

With Sen. McCain’s win in New Hampshire there have been a bunch of posts in St. Blogs about McCain’s suitability from a pro-life perspective. Christopher Blosser posting at Catholics in the Public Square blog has another one of his good round-up posts on the subject.

As many know Sen. McCain’s pro-life voting record is quite good except for the glaring example of voting for and supporting embryonic stem-cell research. Christopher posts the following from McCain’s site.

Addressing the Moral Concerns of Advanced Technology

Stem cell research offers tremendous hope for those suffering from a variety of deadly diseases – hope for both cures and life-extending treatments. However, the compassion to relieve suffering and to cure deadly disease cannot erode moral and ethical principles.

For this reason, John McCain opposes the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes. To that end, Senator McCain voted to ban the practice of "fetal farming," making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes. Furthermore, he voted to ban attempts to use or obtain human cells gestated in animals. Finally, John McCain strongly opposes human cloning and voted to ban the practice, and any related experimentation, under federal law.

As president, John McCain will strongly support funding for promising research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research and other types of scientific study that do not involve the use of human embryos.

Where federal funds are used for stem cell research, Senator McCain believes clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress, and that any such research should be subject to strict federal guidelines.

Some have said with the very pro-life Sen. Brownback supporting Sen. McCain that the Senator now has a more restrictive view on ESCR than what he once held. The question is what does the above statement mean in the real world. If he is actually against human cloning and the intentional creation of human embryos than how does this effect actual research?

One of the reasons that cloning has become the grail for promoters of embryonic stem-cell research is that there are immunological issues associated with putting cells derived from one person into the body of another. These are not minor considerations and one easily solved and are the primary reason that so-called "therapeutic cloning" from the patients own tissue is the primary focus. You don’t have immunological issues if a clone is made of yourself and they kill your twin to get embryonic stem-cells. Using large scale genetic engineering to modify embryonic stem-cells from other sources is highly dubious, if possible at all, and could very well introduce genetic mutations The other possibility is as in organ transplants is finding a good match for the patient and would obviously require a large supply of embryos to make practicable.

So if the Senator is against both cloning and creation of embryos then where exactly are the embryos suppose to come from that he can approve research from? If the statement is actually represents his belief the only alternative is so-called "leftover" embryos from In Virtro Fertilization. If this is the case why doesn’t he just say so. If this is his position it would make it identical to Gov. Mitt Romney’s in that he specifically only supports ESCR with embryos from IVF.

This is a position that has been staked out by other politicians and one that I think makes not only no moral sense, but also no practical sense. Leaving aside moral concerns of using these embryos, say for example that there were sufficient human embryos that were released by the parents for use in research and that this research actually led to actual cures using embryonic stem-cells. This would then create a instant demand for human embryo’s that could not be met by the supply provided from research as a result of IVF. So by supporting use of these human embryos for research you are really automatically supporting the demand for human embryos from other sources.

As a side note it really is I think surprising how IVF seemed to fly in under the moral radar in the first place with very little outcry over it. Once again is is only the Catholic Church that is consistent and she publicly condemned the use of IVF while for the most-part Protestants have no problems with it. I think it is unfortunate the the pro-life community has hardly touched on this issue and I have never heard of demonstrations outside of clinics where IVF is done. Here we have a case where multiple embryos are created and then several embryos are implanted into the womb in the hope that one survives. When too many (by their standards) survive than "elective fetal reductions" are performed. Then of course there are also the other human beings that aren’t implanted who are placed into the "freezer." It is because of IVF that we have had part of the temptations to use these persons. The argument being that they are going to die anyway so I guess we should harvest the organs of prisoners about to be executed or experiment on people with terminal cancer since they are also all going to die anyway. Though of course all of us are going to die anyway.

As for myself I have a host of issues with Sen. McCain, though if he was the GOP nominee is would support him against the Democratic candidate who will be not pro-life at all. For the primaries though I will vote for someone much more pro-life even if they are a Don Quixote candidate.

Sen. McCain on his site also says he will protect marriage though he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, though he defends this as a state’s rights issue. He did support Arizona’s proposition to outlaw same-sex marriage which was narrowly defeated.

This is another issue that annoys me among some of the GOP’s nominees. For example not supporting changes in the Constitution in regards to abortion and marriage. They say these are state’s rights issues only and should be left to each individual state to decide. It seems rather dumb to me that you could get married and then go across a state lines and have a marriage not recognized. But even if you could make the case for this when it comes to abortion we need to ultimately have Federal action done to protect life. Nobody now would accept a situation where slavery was once more condoned depending on the state. This was the situation before where slavery was legal in some states and outlawed in others. As a moral issue abortion is much worse than the great evil of abortion and to say it is only a states-rights issue is quite problematic. On a prudential level I will be quite happy if Roe v. Wade is overturned and the legality abortion once again be determined by each state since it is so much easier to fight against abortion at a state level. Ultimately thought anybody against abortion should see that the protection of life needs to be done at the Federal level. We amended the Constitution to outlaw slavery and we should do the same for abortion. Murdering children is not a states rights issue.

Paul at Thoughts of a Regular Guy writes:

…My analysis is that crying didn’t get Sen. Clinton more than just a few new votes. What put Clinton over the top in New Hampshire yesterday was that she cast doubt on Sen. Obama’s pro-abortion credentials. Less than with Republicans, abortion is the still THE litmus-test issue for Democrats. They may forgive a vote for "Mr. Bush’s War", but they’ll never forgive a lapse in promoting or defending abortion.

No doubt that among so many Democrat voters that protecting abortion is such a major concern for them. I for one would like to see this as an issue between Senators Hillary and Obama in the primaries since what they say can hurt themselves in the general election. Sen. Hillary has already started making this an issue with push calls and bringing it up in her stump speeches. Though I guess a stump speeches is an ironically important place for referring to the right to dismember babies.

Over the last two years Sen. Hillary has tried to move to the middle on abortion by saying such things as "abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many" and holding to her husbands line about wishing for the day "when abortion is truly safe, legal, and rare." They never explain though how a "right" can be tragic and should be made rare. Though there has never been much frankness in support of abortion in the Democratic Party with much obfuscation such as "personally opposed", etc. Out of the current slate of Democratic Presidential Candidates only Bill Richardson is "personally opposed" to abortion this time. I guess it is only Catholic Democrats that have to add the "personally opposed" caveat which in itself is rather interesting that other candidates who say they are Christian feel no need to use such a modifier. This election though we have a strange switch with a Catholic who is a Democrat saying that he is personally opposed but will support abortion and a Republican who is Catholic saying he is personally for, but will vote against it.

In the general election though ardent support of abortion is an albatross so I say let the Democrats knock themselves out in portraying their loyalty to abortion in the primaries.