Brutally Honest

"Computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause"

Don Surber is airing some most inconvenient facts:

16 actual scientists have joined 1973 Nobel-winning physicist Ivar Giaever in calling global warming concerns overblown. In a letter published in the Wall Street Journal today, the scientists called for everyone to remain calm — and mocked the alarmism by UN bureaucrats over global warming and carbon dioxide.

They recommended that the world do nothing about global warming for the next 50 years.

“The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant,” the scientists wrote in their letter, which the Wall Street Journal headlined: “No Need to Panic About Global Warming. There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.”

The letter went on to explain that warming may actually benefit life on Earth: “CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere’s life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.”

The scientists did not dismiss entirely the idea that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases may be increasing temperatures. The scientists simply said there is no proof that the globe is warming.

“The lack of warming for more than a decade — indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections — suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause,” the scientists wrote. “Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.”

The scientists made many of the same points skeptics such as Anthony Watts and cynics like me have made: Global warming alarmism is an industry that has enriched many, many people.

The 16 scientists made a grand suggestion: Do nothing.

There's more and it's worthy.

Doing nothing however is something I'll disagree with vehemently.  What needs to be done is being done but we need more rigor and vigor.  

What must be done is the continued unmasking of the fakery that is the global warming movement.  May many more scientists have the courage to stand as these 16 have done.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"Rejecting the reality of sin,we have ended up abandoning the hope of repentance"

As I've shared before, I'm part of our parish's RCIA leadership team and as such, have been asked to prepare a couple of presentations to date, the first being on the Holy Spirit and more recently, on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, more commonly called Confession.

I had originally put something together on this latter presentation I had thought was decent enough and as I've done in the past, shared it with my priest and other members of the team to solicit their feedback.  In doing so, I had received kudos from team members but had been asked by Father Mike to come and pay him a visit to discuss the presentation further.  He liked the content overall and said so but also suggested that I spend more time setting up the need for the Sacrament.  He said that I needed to unpack the reality of sin.  And so with his help and guidance, I rewrote it.  The presentation and accompanying guide to confession prepared can be found here and here respectively (PDF versions) for those interested but they're not the reason for this post.

It's Mark Shea who has put up something expounding on this reality of sin, and how the culture's rejection of same is having an impact:

Lest we moderns gloat over the foolish Pharisees too much, however, we should note that postmodernity has contributed something new but not improved to this ancient evil of spiritual laziness. Postmoderns have added to the ancient tribalism of the Pharisee another very significant reason for the abandonment of admonishment: our rejection of the reality of sin.

Rejecting the reality of sin,we have ended up abandoning the hope of repentance.When you reject the idea of common truth, prattling that “truth is whatever is true for you,” you reject the basis for reason and argument. But you don’t (and can’t) reject the reality of your anger over sin. You can’t ignore it when somebody steals your wallet or beats up your child. But you can pretend that the sinner was an irrational animal acting solely on the influence of genes or environment and not to sin of which he can repent. So we increasingly treat sinners as we treat animals: diagnosing, caging, or killing them like rabid dogs, but never talking about sin or repentance.

The old idea of the penitentiary is almost entirely gone. It is no longer, as the name suggests, a place for penance. It is a state-run warehouse (and slaughterhouse) for human animals who have, as the saying goes, “forfeited their humanity.”

It is, of course, possible to laugh off the notion of repentance as hopelessly Pollyanna and caricature it as the naïve belief that hardened thugs will melt into saints if you talk nice to them. But that’s not my point or my claim. It is, rather, that in abandoning our understanding of the human person to the secular state instead of having the courage of our convictions as Catholics, we are laying the foundation for treating all human beings as animals and potential criminals rather than as citizens of a free society. One need only note the changes in our security state over the past ten years. Big Brother has eyes everywhere. In airports and public facilities across America, Boy Scouts, nuns, and little old ladies from Lake Wobegon are expected to endure invasive searches that, in any other context, should result in an arrest for sexual predation. An eighty-six-year-old bedridden woman is tasered (twice) while the cops stand on her oxygen hose and her protesting grandson is cuffed and frog-marched out of the house. The cops explain that it was all justified because she “took a more aggressive posture in her bed.” The idea that she was a human being never entered their heads.

The curious result of our culture’s growing abandonment of the notion of sin is (as Faustian bargains tend to be) a loss of our humanity. As we become coarser and our belief that humans are made in the image of God fades to a theory of humans as animals shaped by heredity and environment, our faith in the power of moral suasion goes with it. So, for instance, a majority of Americans (including, alas, Catholics) forget our successful use of conventional interrogation with Nazis and Communists and embrace the lie that intelligence can best be gained from enemy combatants via “enhanced interrogation” (a euphemism for torture). This is a complete rejection of the Church’s teaching on human dignity and is founded on the assertion that human beings are, at bottom, beasts. Eventually it occurs to Caesar that if “enhanced interrogation” may be used on perceived foreign threats, then why not on domestic ones too? Enhanced interrogation begins to be deployed to interrogate not merely suspected terrorists abroad but also suspected criminals at home.

In short, as a culture embraces the view that men are brutes, it is not possible to keep that genie in the bottle of a CIA black site. Caesar inevitably starts to treat his subjects that way too. He abandons the language of a ruler maintaining ordered liberty for a free people and speaks more and more like a bureaucrat barking threats at contemptible servants—or cracking whips at beasts. So, for instance, where there used to be public-service announcements saying “Every litter bit hurts,” we now get “Litter and it will hurt.” “Buckle up for safety!” has been replaced with “Click it or ticket!” “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk” is replaced by “Drive hammered. Get nailed.” Threats, not admonishment, are the order of the day.

The apotheosis of such contempt-based social control in media (so far) is the infamous “No Pressure” ad sponsored by 10:10, an organized campaign to reduce carbon emissions. There was no attempt to admonish by saying, “Even if you are skeptical about anthropogenic global warming, it couldn’t hurt if everybody pitched in and cared for the environment as best they can.” That would respect human dignity. Instead the ad (which its makers actually imagined was funny) shows an elementary-school teacher urging her class to reduce their carbon footprint. When two children express reservations, the teacher mildly says, “No pressure,” and then pushes a large red button on her desk, whereupon the nonconforming kids explode in bloody chunks, splattering the other screaming children in the classroom. This revolting gag is repeated a few more times to drive home the message: Submit to the Religion of Anthropogenic Climate Change or be slaughtered like animals.

If Christ is to be believed, all this violent contempt for human dignity is foreign to what we actually are. Why do we prefer to treat people like animals when, in fact, admonishing the sinner and not stampeding the herd is truer to our nature as rational beings? Answer: because admonishing the sinner is hard. Christ did it, and it got him nailed to a cross.

For admonishment means looking somebody in the eye rather than imposing bureaucratic solutions from three thousand miles away. It means addressing a fellow human being as an equal, not a lab rat, sheep, or contagion. It means stating truly unpopular opinions, not to peers who share them but to enemies who don’t. It means the risk of losing friends, family, job, and reputation. It means speaking about things that are awkward and uncomfortable. And in our post-Christian world, it often means doing it in a grammar and terminology that members of our culture know, if at all, only in a sort of pidgin.

That challenging and thought provoking excerpt comes from Mark's book called The Work of Mercy and was in reaction to something that occurred in LA recently, something we should rightly be alarmed about.

Check out Mark's post and see if you agree.

"We'll give you a flack jacket and a helmet. You'll be fine."

This movie is going to be something to see:

Act of Valor - Real Bullets Featurette

With props to BlackFive. who's got an intriguing thing or two to say about the flick.

'The discussion revealed a testy side of the president’s personality that is at odds with his public image as “no-drama Obama,”' (UPDATED)

That from the Washington Post as they cover the recent public exchange between Obama and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer:

President Obama’s raw exchange with the governor of Arizona on an airport tarmac this week did more than overshadow his carefully stage-managed road trip to trumpet his State of the Union goals.

The discussion revealed a testy side of the president’s personality that is at odds with his public image as “no-drama Obama,” reviving criticism that he is unwilling to be second-guessed — or to even entertain another point of view.

Shortly after stepping off Air Force One on Wednesday in Phoenix, Obama challenged Gov. Jan Brewer (R) over characterizations she made of him in a recent book. His reaction, coming one day after he used his State of the Union address to call for a renewed spirit of political bipartisanship amid the nation’s economic woes, has exposed him to accusations that he is not interested in working with Republicans.

Brewer, whose “Scorpions for Breakfast” faults Obama for pandering to Hispanic voters in his immigration policy, said the president mentioned the book, unprompted, after she invited him to meet with her to discuss “Arizona’s comeback.”

“He was somewhat thin-skinned and a little tense to say the least,” Brewer told Phoenix radio station KFYI on Thursday. “I went there with good intentions . . . talking about Arizona and how I could give some assistance to him.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney scoffed at the notion that a deeper meaning was to be gleaned from the brief exchange, calling it “political theater.” And Obama told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer in an interview that it was a “classic example of things getting blown out of proportion.”

Denying that he was “tense” during the encounter, as Brewer described, Obama said, laughing, that he is “usually accused of not being intense enough.”

“I think it’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me. But this was really not a big deal,” he said.

According to Carney, the president told Brewer that her description in the book of a meeting they had in 2010 in the Oval Office “was not accurate.”

At the time, Brewer had told reporters that her meeting with Obama was “cordial,” but in the book she described him as “patronizing” and said he lectured her.

Over the past year, as his relations with congressional Republicans have soured, Obama has tried to cast the GOP as rigid ideologues whose allegiance to tea party conservatives has nearly caused financial catastrophe — first when House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) “walked away” from Obama’s “grand bargain” offer during summer debt ceiling negotiations and again when Republicans grudgingly adopted the president’s proposed extension of a payroll tax cut at the 11th hour.

But Republicans have painted a different picture. During the debt-ceiling fight, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) told reporters that the president snapped at him in a negotiating session, saying “Don’t call my bluff” and abruptly walking out.

Republicans have more recently cast Obama’s “We can’t wait” campaign of taking executive action without congressional approval as evidence that he has chosen to ignore lawmakers. They characterized his appointment of Richard Cordray to head a financial consumer watchdog agency, even though the Senate rejected the nomination, as the act of an imperial president intent on imposing his will.

At the same time, White House officials have pushed back hard against two recent books — one about Obama’s economic advisers and the other about the president and first lady Michelle Obama’s relationship — that portray an insular administration.

On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Obama’s 2008 presidential rival, suggested that Obama’s reaction to Brewer revealed a well-known “prickly personality.”

In the mean-time, some can't help but play the only card they seem capable of playing when their beloved President is confronted or criticized:

Despite the President being the person who walked away from Jan Brewer while she was still speaking, she's the disrespecter.

And, obviously, a racist to boot.

Weak.

Seriously freakin' weak.

And when your argument is weak...

UPDATE:  Tom Elia sent along this pic which I think best illustrates the shallowness of those who continue to defend this President. 

Of course, they can at least lay claim to being young, impressionable, starry-eyed idol worshippers.  What the hell is the excuse for everybody else?

"I accuse you, Mr. President"

Michael Sean Winters:

I come at this issue as a liberal and a Democrat and as someone who, until yesterday, generally supported the President, as someone who saw in his vision of America a greater concern for each other, a less mean-spirited culture, someone who could, and did, remind the nation that we are our brothers’ keeper, that liberalism has a long vocation in this country of promoting freedom and protecting the interests of the average person against the combined power of the rich, and that we should learn how to disagree without being disagreeable. I defended the University of Notre Dame for honoring this man, and my heart was warmed when President Obama said at Notre Dame: “we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity -- diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief. In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.”

To borrow from Emile Zola: J’Accuse!

I accuse you, Mr. President, of dishonoring your own vision by this shameful decision.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of failing to live out the respect for diversity that you so properly and beautifully proclaimed as a cardinal virtue at Notre Dame. Or, are we to believe that diversity is only to be lauded when it advances the interests of those with whom we agree? That’s not diversity. That’s misuse of a noble principle for ignoble ends.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of betraying philosophic liberalism, which began, lest we forget, as a defense of the rights of conscience. As Catholics, we need to be honest and admit that, three hundred years ago, the defense of conscience was not high on the agenda of Holy Mother Church. But, we Catholics learned to embrace the idea that the coercion of conscience is a violation of human dignity. This is a lesson, Mr. President, that you and too many of your fellow liberals have apparently unlearned.

I accuse you, Mr. President, who argued that your experience as a constitutional scholar commended you for the high office you hold, of ignoring the Constitution. Perhaps you were busy last week, but the Supreme Court, on a 9-0 vote, said that the First Amendment still means something and that it trumps even desirable governmental objectives when the two come into conflict. Did you miss the concurring opinion, joined by your own most recent appointment to the court, Justice Kagan, which stated:

“Throughout our Nation's history, religious bodies have been the preeminent example of private associations that have ‘act[ed] as critical buffers between the individual and the power of the State.’ Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 619 (1984). In a case like the one now before us—where the goal of the civil law in question, the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities, is so worthy—it is easy to forget that the autonomy of religious groups, both here in the United States and abroad, has often served as a shield against oppressive civil laws. To safeguard this crucial autonomy, we have long recognized that the Religion Clauses protect a private sphere within which religious bodies are free to govern themselves in accordance with their own beliefs. The Constitution guarantees religious bodies ‘independence from secular control or manipulation—in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.’ Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 344 U.S. 94, 116 (1952).”

Pray, do tell, Mr. President, what part of that paragraph did you consider when making this decision? Or, do you like having your Justice Department having its hat handed to it at the Supreme Court?

I accuse you, Mr. President, as leader of the Democratic Party, the primary vehicle for historic political liberalism in this country, of risking all the many achievements of political liberalism, from environmental protection to Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid, by committing a politically stupid act. Do you really think your friends at Planned Parenthood and NARAL were going to support the candidacy of Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich? How does this decision affect the prospects of Democrats winning back the House in districts like Pennsylvania’s Third or Ohio’s First or Virginia’s Fifth districts? How do your chances look today among Catholic swing voters in Scranton and the suburbs of Cincinnati and along the I-4 corridor in Florida? I suppose that there are campaign contributions to consider, but really, sacrificing one’s conscience, or the conscience rights of others, was not worth Wales, was it worth a few extra dollars in your campaign coffers?

I accuse you, Mr. President, of failing to know your history. In 1978, the IRS proposed a rule change affecting the tax exempt status of private Christian schools. The rule would change the way school verified their desegregation policies, putting the burden of proof on the school, not the IRS. By 1978, many of those schools were already desegregated, even though they had first been founded as a means to avoid desegregation of the public schools. But evangelical Christians did not look kindly on the government’s interference in schools they had built themselves and, even though the IRS rescinded the rule change, the original decision was the straw the broke the camel’s back for those who wished to separate themselves from mainstream culture. They formed the Moral Majority, entered that mainstream culture, and helped the Republican Party win the next three presidential elections. You, Mr. President, have struck that same nerve. Catholics built their colleges and universities and hospitals. They did so out of religious conviction and, as often as not, because mainstream institutions did not welcome Catholics. It is one thing to support a policy with which the Catholic Church disagrees but it is quite another to start telling Catholics how to run their own institutions.

Mr. Winters, though I appreciate your coming to your senses now, I wonder where you've been.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of never really checking into this candidate in the first place.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of being someone likely focused more on Obama's skin color than the content of his character or his history as a radical.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of being bamboozled by Obama and his willing accomplices in the media.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of coming to the Obama-is-no-where-near-the-man-we were-told-he-was party way too late.

I accuse you Mr. Winters, and those who were (and still are) as gullible, of putting Obama in a position that allows him to step on Catholic conscience.

Perhaps before you vote again Mr. Winters, in any election, you would look beyond the shallowness that led to your past support of Obama and to your own conscience, that which Obama today desires to crush.

You Mr. Winters, and people like you, brought us to this point.

Your accusations Mr. Winters ring hollow.

Crosspsoted at Wizbang.

Dole cuts Gingrich down for CNN

By Locutisprime

I respect Bob Dole for his service to this country during WWII, but I have never liked his politics. I didn't like him in 1996 when the GOP closed ranks much as they are doing presently and decided that Dole was the guy to run against Bill Clinton.

The same thinking that orchestrated Bob Dole's loss to Clinton in 1996 is now steering the Romney bus to the same conclusion. And if you listen closely at the end of the interview, you will hear Doles say. "It's Romney's time." 

That is the way the party machine thinks. Damn the realities, it's this guy's time. That was their thinking in 1996. It was Dole's time. Well we see how that worked out didn't we.

Are Republicans really going to blow this opportunity?

H/T to Mark.

Has Newt's campaign just been derailed... by Newt's own words?

It's a little hard to think otherwise at this juncture.  

These are the links up currently at Drudge:

NEWT FLASHBACK 1983: REAGAN RESPONSIBLE FOR NATIONAL 'DECAY'... 

NEWT 1986: 'The Reagan administration has failed, is failing...

NEWT 1988: 'If Bush runs as continuation of Reaganism he will lose'...

VIDEO...

INSIDER: GINGRICH REPEATEDLY INSULTED REAGAN

And then there's this from Politico:

After nearly a week on the defensive, CNN's John King reports tonight that Newt Gingrich'sclaim about offering witnesses to ABC News in his defense — to rebut the network's interview with his second wife, Marianne Gingrich — was not true.

"Tonight, after persistent questioning by our staff, the Gingrich campaign concedes now Speaker Gingrich was wrong — both in his debate answer, and in our interview yesterday," King said on tonight's edition of John King USA. "Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond says the only people the Gingrich campaign offered to ABC were his two daughters from his first marriage."

Not good people.

Not good at all.

Will Mr. Santorum reap the benefit of Newt's apparent derailment?

God only knows.

God's help is needed.

Because an Obama re-election is beginning to look more and more likely from my corner of the world.

Oh how I hope I'm reading the tea leaves wrongly.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"The president seemed very earnest..."

Archbishop Timothy Dolan gets a bit of an education as to this President:

In the wake of Presdent Obama's controversial decision to mandate that religious groups pay for contraceptives for their employees, much of the coverage focused on how the president had disappointed progressive allies by giving religious groups an extra year to comply.

But the decision also had New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, feeling personally betrayed.

"I have to say, there's a sense of personal disappointment," Dolan said Tuesday after he gave a lecture on "Law and the Gospel of Life" at Fordham Law School.

Last November, amid deepening tensions between the bishops and the administration over the pending contraception mandate and other issues, Obama invited Dolan to the Oval Office, where the two men shared what Dolan called a productive and "extraordinarily friendly" meeting.

"The president seemed very earnest, he said he considered the protection of conscience sacred, that he didn't want anything his administration would do to impede the work of the church that he claimed he held in high regard," Dolan recalled on Tuesday. "So I did leave a little buoyant."

That optimism ended last Friday, however, when Obama phoned Dolan to tell him that he was not expanding the conscience exemption to include religious institutions — such as Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. In a bid to appease critics like Dolan, the White House gave church organizations an extra year to find a way to comply with the mandate that all health insurance plans provide free contraceptive coverage.

"I had to share with him that I was terribly let down, disappointed and disturbed, and it seemed the news he had given me was difficult to square with the confidence I had felt in November," Dolan said.

I have tremendous respect for Archbishop Dolan.

I hope he uses this as a teachable moment.

"Obama’s curt treatment of Brewer came the day after he used his State of the Union speech to call for a reduction in partisan rancor" (UPDATED)

What?!  Obama as hypocrite-in-chief?  If you think as much you must be a racist:

A day after he called for an end to perpetual political confrontation, President Barack Obama and his deputies publicly snubbed Arizona’s Republican governor when she welcomed him at the Pheonix airport.

Gov. Jan Brewer met him at first stop of his five-state campaign swing with a hand-written letter asking him to visit the state’s southern border, which is a hotbed of illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

But Obama suddenly turned cold, claiming that her Nov. 2011 book mischaracterized their previous White House meeting in June 2010. He then quickly walked away.

Shortly after, Obama’s press aides released a statement claiming Obama said she “inaccurately described the meeting.” The three-sentence statement ended curtly, saying that “the President looks forward to continuing taking steps to help Arizona’s economy grow.”

...

Obama visited Arizona as part of his re-election campaign. His campaign officials say he may be able to win the state in 2012 because of the state’s growing Hispanic population.

The president’s decision to snub Brewer may help him spur Hispanic support, partly because Brewer championed the state’s immigration reform law. In 2010, polls showed the law was supported by more than 70 percent of Arizonans, but only by a quarter of Hispanics.

Since then, the law has been loudly slammed by Obama’s lawyers at the Department of Justice and their allied Hispanic ethnic lobbies, immigration law groups, and various progressive groups.

Obama’s curt treatment of Brewer came the day after he used his State of the Union speech to call for a reduction in partisan rancor.

Better government can’t “happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town.” he declared. “We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common-sense ideas.”

Brewer’s book is titled “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border.”

In the book, she described Obama as patronizing during their 2010 meeting when she asked for his help in curbing illegal immigration. His reaction, she wrote, “was though President Obama thought he could lecture me, and I would learn at his knee.”

At the airport, Obama said he “didn’t feel that I had treated him cordially. I said I was sorry he felt that way but I didn’t get my sentence finished” before he walked away, Brewer said.

“He was a little thin-skinned,” Brewer said during an later interview on a local radio station, News/Talk 92.3 KTAR. “I was a bit taken aback by his stance and his attitude” on the tarmac, she said, adding that Obama walked away from her “[as] I was trying to make a point that I thought that my book was right and correct.”

Let there be no mistake.

A reduction in partisan rancor means agree with Obama.  Period.

He is The Won... until November.

UPDATE:  As if on cue, the race-baiters appear.  This from a guy named Stephen over at Wizbang:

Damn uppity negro. Who does he think he is, lecturing a white woman...

Yeah, I guess to bigots like her a conversation with a black man would feel foreign.

Did she ask him for his papers?

Predicted.

Then again, it's like predicting water to be wet.

Monica Crowley: Alinsky Dedicated Book to Lucifer and Obama Taught Alinsky

By Locutisprime

And for those who might question...

This is the dedication page (click to enlarge) of Rules for Radicals, excerpted from the online view available through Amazon.

Hope and change the SOTU speechwriter

Please:

AP blasts SOTU speech

Calvin Woodward is going to pay a price for this one:

It was a wish list, not a to-do list.

President Barack Obama laid out an array of plans in his State of the Union speech as if his hands weren't so tied by political realities. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies - something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today's divided Congress, much less in this election year.

And there was more recycling, in an even more forbidding climate than when the ideas were new: He pushed for an immigration overhaul that he couldn't get past Democrats, permanent college tuition tax credits that he asked for a year ago, and familiar discouragements for companies that move overseas.

A look at Obama's rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances:

OBAMA: "We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising."

THE FACTS: This is at least Obama's third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Back when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request. He called again to end such tax breaks in last year's State of the Union speech. And he's now doing it again, despite facing a wall of opposition from Republicans who want to spur domestic oil and gas production and oppose tax increases generally.

---

OBAMA: "Our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program."

THE FACTS: That's only half true. About half of the more than 30 million uninsured Americans expected to gain coverage through the health care law will be enrolled in a government program. Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, will be expanded starting in 2014 to cover childless adults living near the poverty line.

The other half will be enrolled in private health plans through new state-based insurance markets. But many of them will be receiving federal subsidies to make their premiums more affordable. And that's a government program, too.

Starting in 2014 most Americans will be required to carry health coverage, either through an employer, by buying their own plan, or through a government program.

---

OBAMA, asking Congress to pay for construction projects: "Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home."

THE FACTS: The idea of taking war "savings" to pay for other programs is budgetary sleight of hand. For one thing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been largely financed through borrowing, so stopping the wars doesn't create a pool of ready cash, just less debt. And the savings appear to be based at least in part on inflated war spending estimates for future years.

There's more, all leading to a conclusion many of us have known for years.

Obama is a charlatan.  And those who support him are fools.

Welcome to the truth AP.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Seal Team rescues American hostage in Somalia

MSNBC:

In a daring nighttime raid Tuesday, U.S. Navy SEALs rescued two hostages, including one American, who were being held by kidnappers in Somalia, U.S. officials tell NBC News.

American Jessica Buchanan, 32, and a 60-year-old Dane, Poul Thisted, were working for a Danish relief organization in northern Somalia when they were kidnapped last October. U.S. officials described their kidnappers as heavily armed common criminals with no known ties to any organized militant group.

According to the U.S. officials, two teams of Navy SEALs landed by helicopter near the compound where the two hostages were being held.  As the SEALS approached the compound on foot gunfire broke out, the U.S. officials said, and several of the militants were reportedly killed. There is no word that any of the Americans were wounded.

The SEALs gathered up Buchanan and Thisted, loaded them onto the helicopters and flew them to safety at an undisclosed location. The two hostages were not injured during the rescue operation and are reported to be in relatively good condition.

The two had been working for the Danish Refugee Council on a demining project in northern Somalia. The humanitarian group has been providing relief to some 450,000 refugees in the Somalia-Kenya border region.

No word yet if Obama suffered any injuries in rushing to make sure the rescue becomes fodder for his re-election campaign.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

A happy update to my step-daughter's hospitalization last fall

By allyHM

Some of you may remember Mr. BH posting about my oldest step-daughter when she nearly died this past September. She is fully recovered now, and today, her 8-year-old son was honored by Fire Station 30 that responded when he called 911 for his mother.

Our local paper already has the story up:

When Stephen Flanner's mother suffered a severe asthma attack in September, the 7-year-old boy ran to his grandmother's home nearby, but not before he called 911.

His mother, Kristin Metcalf, spent the next four days on a respirator in a drug-induced coma and has since recovered. But the outcome, authorities say, would have been catastrophic if not for Stephen's actions.

"He called and actually told them what was going on. We knew what to expect when we got there," said Rob Smiley, one of the Marion County Fire Rescue paramedics who responded to the call in Summerfield.

Stephen, now 8, was recognized by firefighters Tuesday at a ceremony at Spruce Creek Station 30. That station, along with South Forest Station 6, responded to his 911 call.

We are very proud grandparents (and very thankful parents).

Nancy Pelosi on Newt as President: "That will never happen... there's something I know" (UPDATED)

By Locutisprime

Well....I for one can't wait to see this.

UPDATE: Gingrich responds:

Newt Gingrich, responding Wednesday to comments from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that he has no shot at winning the presidency, said his campaign makes his former House colleague and other Democrats “hysterical.”

“As my campaign has gotten stronger, the attacks have become more hysterical and more factually incorrect,” Mr. Gingrich said in an interview Wednesday with The Washington Times-affiliated “America's Morning News” radio program.

...

Mr Gingrich challenged Mrs. Pelosi to “put up or shut up.”

“I have no idea what she’s talking about, I don’t think she has any idea what she’s talking about. But bring it on,” the GOP presidential front-runner told hosts John McCaslin and Dana Mills. “When you’re a left-wing Democrat, the prospect of a Gingrich presidency is really sort of like a nightmare. And they’re right. My goal is to go to Washington to change it, not just to get along with the old order.”

Dear God, please send missionaries to Washington, DC

By BroKen

I heard a story years ago about missionaries working with tribal peoples in, I think it was, Papua New Guinea. There was a time when missionaries sought to bring, not only the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also the culture and customs of Western Civilization. For several decades now, missionaries seek to avoid that kind of cultural influence. They work hard to avoid the imposition of western styles of dress, or language, or political systems.

So, the story goes, that the converts in a jungle village decided that they should have a meeting house, a church building, a large hut in which they could gather to sing and pray and worship. But the people were poor and didn't have the resources to build such a structure. The missionaries were supportive and could have perhaps raised the money themselves to build what was wanted. Yet both the missionaries and the people thought it best if the people could find a way to do it themselves.

The people decided to take up an offering among themselves each week for the purpose of building a building. They appointed a treasurer who would hold the money for the church until they had enough to build. Even though the first offering was not nearly enough to build what they wanted, it was still much more than the treasurer had ever had in his possession. At the next meeting when the church asked for an accounting from the treasurer, he apologized because he had spent all the money on gifts for his family and friends. No one condemned the treasurer. Generosity was a value deeply embedded in their hearts. They all understood why he had done what he had done. They all felt they would have done the same thing. Still, they wanted a church building and now they had to start all over again.

They appointed another treasurer and took up another collection for the building. Once again the new treasurer, with access to more money than he had ever had, spent it all on gifts for his family and friends. And again, no one accused the treasurer of stealing because they knew they would have done the same thing if they had had access to such a large sum of money. But now they had to start again with nothing.

After the third treasurer spent all the money on gifts for his family and friends, the people came to the missionaries. They asked if the missionaries would hold the money for them because they couldn't find anyone who, with access to so much money, could resist the urge to be generous to their family and friends.

I think about that story when I read how Congress spends the people's money. I wonder where we could find some missionaries in Washington who would hold the money for us instead of blowing it all on their friends. If we ever did find those missionaries, would the people be wise enough to ask for their help?

Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas thumbs nose at traditional White House visit

Via the LA Times:

In what he says will be his only comment on the matter, Thomas wrote:

I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.

This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.

Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.

This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic. TT

Here's a thought: At the next Republican debate, let Thomas moderate. He's a goalie, so nothing should get by him.

Clearly, Tim Thomas is a racist.

Just wait, that charge will come from your usual list of mouth-breathing suspects.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Hello

Need a smile?  See if this'll do it for ya:

Thanks Gerard.

"I happened to read it, and was struck by this brazen bit of Obama BS"

John Hinderaker on Obama's comments commemorating the 39th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Superme Court decision: 

Obama’s proclamation was not widely noted, except in circles that take (as Scott put it long ago) the sacramental view of abortion. But I happened to read it, and was struck by this brazen bit of Obama BS:

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.

If that doesn’t provoke hollow laughter, you haven’t been paying attention. Do President Obama and his fellow Democrats seriously believe that “government should not intrude on private family matters?” Let us count the ways! First, compare Obama’s declaration today with what he said when Michelle Obama announced her anti-childhood obesity project. Did you think that how much your kids weigh is a “private family matter,” in which “government should not intrude?” Don’t be silly:

I have set a goal to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight. The first lady will lead a national public awareness effort to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity. She will encourage involvement by actors from every sector — the public, nonprofits, and private sectors, as well as parents and youth — to help support and amplify the work of the federal government in improving the health of our children.

So the future weight of your minor children is a “goal” of the federal government. Of course, that is just one example out of many. For example, do you think it is a “private family matter” whether you feed your children Cheerios and corn flakes for breakfast? Think again.

Is it an imposition on “private family matters” when a pediatrician cross-examines your child about whether you own a gun? The liberals don’t think so.

You might be so silly as to believe that teaching your children about sex is a “private family matter.” I won’t even bother to provide a link for this one.

The subject of Obama’s declaration was abortion. But suppose your teenage daughter can get an abortion without your even finding out about it: is that a government intrusion on “private family matters?” Sure, but one that liberals like Obama favor.

He's got more and it's well worth your time.

As is this excerpt of a most righteous rant on the same Obama quote from she who knows how to give righteous rants:

Let’s spell this out; let’s clarify this vague, euphemistic line, for the sake of transparency, shall we? Because this dual-mouthed president is all about transparency — he even won an award for it, which he received without press — the fulfillment of our daughter’s dreams lie in the freedom and ease with which a sucking hose or a scraping curette may introduce violence and slaughter within their wombs, at the very core of their beings, in order to shred their children to pieces. For this 100% NARAL-approved president who passed up every opportunity to show even a scintilla of mercy for a baby born alive during an attempted abortion, our daughter’s dreams depend on their being able to find someone who will burn their baby in utero, or shove a pair of scissors into the partially-delivered child’s skull, or toclose the lid on the garbage pail until the bothersome crying ends.

In Obama’s world, our daughter’s happiness depends upon having these options at their disposal, literally and figuratively. Because love, and the sneaky way it has of showing up whenever a baby is born and then complicating everything, (because it is meaningful and real) is an insufficient vehicle for the fulfillment of women, and their self-actualization.

Arise, daughters of America, and build your dreams upon the slaughter of your progeny;some say the fullness of our humanity was built upon the flesh and blood of one woman who said “yes” to a daunting and difficult proposal, but I say your fulfillment, your dreams and your future are better built upon the garbage heaps of “no” we’ve encouraged you to form out of your own flesh-and-blood in the empty landfills of government compassion, hope and change.

Because “yes we can,” is all about the hope and change that’s built on our emphatic “noes”. No, to life. No, to conscience. No, to compassion that is not mandated. No, to assistance givenby any but government. No, to any power greater than ourselves and our glorious government.

“I don’t want them punished with a baby”

Moloch couldn’t have said it more cunningly.

Nicely done.  So nicely and righteously done.

Yesterday I happened to stumble across a site I should've known is out there but was surprised nevertheless when I found it.

It's called Catholics for Obama.  And there are other similar Catholic organizations. Many apparently having been out there since the 2008 campaign.

Listen, you can choose to support whomever you want.  It's what America is known for.  

Freedom.

But as a Catholic who has somewhat recently re-embraced the faith of his childhood, as someone who has decided to return but not first without checking (hopefully thoughtfully) on what Catholics believe and what tenets of the faith to adhere to as best I can, I'm shaking my head.  

It's next to impossible to understand how a Catholic could remain in support of someone who... well... speaks as cunningly as Moloch.

It simply does not compute.

Perhaps one of you Catholic Moloch supporters could leave a comment and enlighten me.

Perhaps.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Rand Paul detained by TSA

You know... if this had been his father Ron, then perhaps it would've made a little sense... I mean, some people think Ron Paul is off his rocker... but Rand?

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s press secretary Moira Bagley tweeted on Monday that Transportation Security Adminstration officials were detaining her boss in Nashville, Tenn.

“Just got a call from @senrandpaul,” Bagley tweeted at about 10 a.m. on Monday. “He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

Texas Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul – Sen. Rand Paul’s father – placed a post on Facebook about the news as well. “My son Rand is currently being detained by the TSA at the Nashville Airport,” Ron Paul posted. “I’ll share more details as the situation unfolds.”

Ron Paul adds, via Twitter, that the TSA detained his son “for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner.”

As I'm posting this, the situation is still ongoing.

Fascinating.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"We're the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along, you know, in a long time ago"

This is so cool... you know what I'm saying? For real... yo.

Via Tom Elia.

"Today there is no social norm, so it's every man for himself"

Mark Steyn on societal decay in the wake of the Concordia sinking:

In the centenary year of the most famous of all maritime disasters, we would do well to consider honestly the tale of the Titanic. When James Cameron made his movie, he was interested in everything except what the story was actually about. I confess I have very little memory of the film except for Kate Winslet's lush full breasts and some tedious sub-Riverdance prancing in the hold, but what I do recall traduced the memory of honorable men: In my book, I cite First Officer William Murdoch. In real life, he threw deckchairs to passengers drowning in the water to give them something to cling to, and then he went down with the ship – the dull, decent thing, all very British, with no fuss. In Cameron's movie, Murdoch takes a bribe and murders a third-class passenger. The director subsequently apologized to the First Officer's hometown in Scotland and offered £5,000 toward a memorial, which, converted into Hollywood dollars, equals rather less than what Cameron and his family paid for dinner after the Oscars.

On the Titanic, the male passengers gave their lives for the women and would never have considered doing otherwise. On the Costa Concordia, in the words of a female passenger, "There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboat." After similar scenes on the MV Estonia a few years ago, Roger Kohen of the International Maritime Organization told Time magazine: "There is no law that says women and children first. That is something from the age of chivalry."

If, by "the age of chivalry," you mean our great-grandparents' time.

In fact, "women and children first" can be dated very precisely. On Feb. 26, 1852, HMS Birkenhead was wrecked off the coast of Cape Town while transporting British troops to South Africa. There were, as on the Titanic, insufficient lifeboats. The women and children were escorted to the ship's cutter. The men mustered on deck. They were ordered not to dive in the water lest they risk endangering the ladies and their young charges by swamping the boats. So they stood stiffly at their posts as the ship disappeared beneath the waves. As Kipling wrote:

"We're most of us liars, we're 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest of us rank as can be,

But once in a while we can finish in style (which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me)."

Sixty years later, the men on the Titanic – liars and thieves, wealthy and powerful, poor and obscure – found themselves called upon to "finish in style," and did so. They had barely an hour to kiss their wives goodbye, watch them clamber into the lifeboats, and sail off without them. They, too, 'ope'd it wouldn't 'appen to them, but, when it did, the social norm of "women and children first" held up under pressure and across all classes.

Today there is no social norm, so it's every man for himself – operative word "man," although not many of the chaps on the Titanic would recognize those on the Costa Concordia as "men." From a grandmother on the latter: "I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls."

Whenever I write about these subjects, I receive a lot of mail from men along the lines of this correspondent:

"The feminists wanted a gender-neutral society. Now they've got it. So what are you complaining about?"

And so the manly virtues (if you'll forgive a quaint phrase) shrivel away to the so-called "man caves," those sad little redoubts of beer and premium cable sports networks.

We are beyond social norms these days. A woman can be a soldier. A man can be a woman. A 7-year-old cross-dressing boy can join the Girl Scouts in Colorado because he "identifies" as a girl. It all adds to life's rich tapestry, no doubt. But I can't help wondering, when the ship hits the fan, how many of us will still be willing to identify as a man.

Where have all the men gone?

"We have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences"

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement over the weekend denouncing the Obama Administration decision to mandate contraceptive coverage within a year's time for all:

The Catholic bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today's announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

The HHS rule requires that sterilization and contraception – including controversial abortifacients – be included among “preventive services” coverage in almost every healthcare plan available to Americans. “The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs,” added Cardinal-designate Dolan.

At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

“This is nothing less than a direct attack on religion and First Amendment rights,” said Franciscan Sister Jane Marie Klein, chairperson of the board at Franciscan Alliance, Inc., a system of 13 Catholic hospitals. “I have hundreds of employees who will be upset and confused by this edict. I cannot understand it at all.”

Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, voiced disappointment with the decision. Catholic hospitals serve one out of six people who seek hospital care annually.

“This was a missed opportunity to be clear on appropriate conscience protection,” Sister Keehan said.

Cardinal-designate Dolan urged that the HHS mandate be overturned.

“The Obama administration has now drawn an unprecedented line in the sand,” he said. “The Catholic bishops are committed to working with our fellow Americans to reform the law and change this unjust regulation. We will continue to study all the implications of this troubling decision.”

I'd like to think the American people are paying attention to this.

I'd like to.

Gabby Giffords retires from Congress

The moving video announcing her resignation follows.  Classy lady.  Gutsy lady.  I wish her the best.

Gingrich wins in SC

I've been supporting Newt, tepidly I'll confess, for some weeks now, largely because I see no other candidate making the kinds of arguments I think need to be made to defeat Obama. 

The news from last night ought then to make me happy:

Propelled by voters who were heavily influenced by the pre-primary debates, and a strong evangelical showing, Gingrich claimed a landslide victory, winning virtually every county in the Palmetto State save for a handful that went to Romney.

"It's not that I am a good debater," Gingrich said in his victory speech tonight, surrounded by his family and an enthusiastic crowd of supporters. "It's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people."

Praising all three of his rivals, Gingrich, who made more than $3 million in 2010, per his tax return, repeatedly berated Washington and New York "elites."

In his concession speech, Romney congratulated the former House speaker but not without some underhanded jabs.

"When my opponents attack success and free enterprise they are not only attacking me, they are attacking every person who dreams of a better person. He's attacking you, I will support you I will help you have a better future," Romney said, hinting at a new line of attack that the campaign is likely to adopt going into Florida.

While Gingrich was never mentioned after Romney's opening line, a good chunk of his speech referred to the former speaker.

"The Republican Party doesn't demonize prosperity. We celebrate success in our party," he said. "And let me be clear, if Republican leaders want to join this president in demonizing success and disparaging conservative values, then they're not going to be fit to be our nominee."

The enthusiastic crowd chanted "We Need Mitt! We Need Mitt!" as he spoke.

I'm convinced we don't need Mitt.  And I'd like to be more enthused about saying we need Newt.

What we really need and the country I think knows this, is Obama to be gone.

Will Newt be able to win the nomination and then the general election?

I'm left unsettled by the question.

"We understand that you are no longer a press that is free, but one that is enthralled to its own ideologies"

The Anchoress, post Newt Gingrich's evisceration of CNN's John King and his cohorts in bias, reacts as only she can:

The standing ovation for Newt’s remarks were not an endorsement of his behavior — many conservatives are troubled by Gingrich’s past and character does matter to them, while other conservatives are remembering their own sins and falling back on what they know of mercy, for the time being. No, that ovation was an endorsement of Gingrich’s disdain for the mainstream media, which they share, and a declaration to that same media that their playbook is played-out. It said:

“We are done responding like Pavlovian dogs to your bells; we no longer trust you; we understand that you are no longer a press that is free, but one that is enthralled to its own ideologies and agendas. From this point on, a candidate is going to rise or fall on the substance of their ideas and abilities, not on your prosy gushes about his brilliance, or stern warnings about her stupidity. You savagedGeorge W. Bush you savaged Sarah Palin and you got away with it. You carried your own preferred, utterly inexperienced, passionate ideologue into the White House with over-effusive rhetoric and you have buffeted him from inquiry (tax returns? Hell, we’d just like to see Obama’s college transcripts!), or what you perceive to be damaging stories, but you elevated your favorite at the cost of your own credibility, and now it comes back to bite you. Because a press with no credibility has nothing to offer us. It has nowhere to go, now, except into the arms of the political machine it has loved. Just like Pravda, actually.”

The mainstream press does not want to discuss last night’s standing ovation because it shakes their worldview. They were supposed to be able to control the narrative; they were supposed to be able to corral the sheep. And last night, the sheep indicated that they’re no longer willing to be herded, no longer going to allow their own moral judgments to be exploited in a time when the nation is facing serious issues. They’ve decided they’re going to make up their own minds, thank you, about who they think is up to dealing with those issues. They’re looking at the press and saying, “Scallywags, heal thyselves!”

In my quick post after Newt's rant, I wrote:

I'll admit to wishing that it was someone with less baggage than Newt who could and would take the fight to a media so blatantly biased against conservative thought but I'll also admit that Newt seems to be the best equipped at this time to do so. Battle on Newt.

Newt's got his problems.  He's not the perfect candidate.  And only God knows how the rest of the country might react to him in the general election but he does seem to be the candidate who is best articulating what many of us on my side of the ideological aisle are feeling.  

Whether or not the country will embrace him as an answer to Obama's follies is undoubtedly the question of this election season.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"America is so racist!"; "Everything is racist!"

That and other Stuff Liberals Say, brought to us by Tom Elia at The New Editor:

I especially like the "I'm really very moderate" line. 

"They want us to tolerate them but they don’t want to tolerate us"

Washington State is looking to change the religious liberty landscape:

A Gay Marriage Equality bill (read bill) has been introduced this month in Washington State. The measure is deceptive and exceedingly dangerous. It represents a radical shift in the definition of marriage, and it would pose a serious threat to religious freedom.

The bill’s introduction says it would not force clergy or churches to marry gays. However, it adds to state marriage law a section dealing with discrimination. To date, there have never been discrimination provisions in the Washington Marriage Code.

...

All the hype on this bill says it protects religious freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bill says a church can refuse to marry gays without being subject to “a civil claim or cause of action unless…. When someone says we are not going to have a problem “unless…” we already have a problem. More than that, when they add a section to the marriage laws covering “discrimination” they are telling you how this will eventually go down. They intend to come after churches and clergy using discrimination as their weapon. Section 7 merits a very careful read: 

Consistent with the law against discrimination [RCW 49.60], no religious organization is required to provide accommodations, facilities, advantages, privileges, services, or goods related to the solemnization or celebration of a marriage unless the organization offers admission, occupancy, or use of these accommodations or facilities to the public for a fee, or offers those advantages, privileges, services, or goods to the public for sale.

They want us to tolerate them but they don’t want to tolerate us. They want to use the power of the state and civil rights laws to force the church into accepting homosexuality. They give lip service to religious freedom while at the same time setting up the legal system to empower homosexual coercion of the church. This is not marriage equality. It is the setup for a knockdown. They already have equality but that is not what they actually want. They want to force the church to accept homosexuality.

H/T to Mark Shea who adds:

Tolerance is not enough. You. MUST. Approve!

Crossposted at Wizbang.

AmericanIdol-in-Chief

Let's talk the guy into giving up his current gig, auditioning at the popular show where I'm sure he'll receive lots of support, and get him the hell out of Washington DC.

Who's with me?

Crossposted at Wizbang.