Biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Compares Obama Contraceptive Mandate to Nazi Germany
Hattip to Matthew Archbold at Creative Minority Report. Eric Metaxas, biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Protestant minister and theologian martyred by the Nazis, compares the contraceptive mandate to steps taken by the Nazis against the churches in the thirties.
“I met the president. I gave him a copy of my book on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which he said he’s going to read,” Metaxas said during the interview. “In that book, you read about what happened to an amazingly great country called Germany…”
“In the beginning, it always starts really, really small. We need to understand as Americans — if we do not see this as a bright line in the sand — if you’re not a Catholic, if you use contraception — doesn’t matter. Because eventually, this kind of government overreach will affect you.” Continue reading
Santorum Rising
Last night in Missouri Rick Santorum finally got to go one on one against Romney, since Gingrich did not bother to get on the ballot, and the results were devastating to the Weathervane. Santorum won two to one, garnering 55% of the vote to 25% for Romney, with Ron Paul bringing up the rear with 12%. Santorum won every county in the state. The Romney camp will claim that since this was a non-binding beauty contest and that Romney did little campaigning in the state, this is meaningless. Rubbish! What does it say about the Romney campaign and its appeal to Republican voters that they lost this badly in a state that has been a bellweather of the nation in most Presidential elections?
However, Missouri was not the end of the bad news for Romney last night. In the Minnesota caucuses Santorum came in first with a stunning 45% and second was, wait for it, Ron Paul with 27%. Romney, who won the caucuses by 20 points in 2008, came in third at 17% with Gingrich being Tail-end-Newt with 11%
To complete the trifecta of woe for the Weathervane last night, we turn to Colorado, a state Romney was supposed to win according to the polls. In the caucuses, Santorum came in first with 40%, Romney took second at 35%, Gingrich a very distant third at 13%, just edging out Paul at 12%.
So, the night couldn’t have been better for Santorum or worse for Romney, but what does it all mean? Continue reading
Looks Like A Two-Man Race to Me
Rick Santorum has won two of the three election contests tonight, and as of the time I write this is dead even with Mitt Romney in a state that had been all but conceded to Romney before this weekend. Santorum has now won three of the eight primaries/caucuses that have been held thus far, and possibly four. That puts him about even with Romney, and comfortably ahead of Gingrich and Paul in states won.
Admittedly he will be behind Romney in the delegate count, especially considering that no delegates were up for grabs in Missouri. But 200,000 people went to the polls in Missouri, and a majority of them voted for Santorum (and again, I’ll admit that Gingrich was not on the ballot there). He drubbed Romney in Minnesota as well.
This primary season has been a wild one, and who knows what will happen in the coming weeks. The Romney sleaze machine* is already out in full force hitting Santorum. Santorum is radically underfunded compared to Romney and even Newt, although that makes his victories thus far that much more impressive. Right now it is looking like a two-man race, but it’s not between Newt and Romney but rather Romney and Santorum.
*: I wrote a post a few weeks back in which I said that Newt was and perhaps still is a jerk. For the record, Mitt is kind of a jerk, and over two election cycles has proven himself to be a rather despicable campaigner. For those of you who would vote for Romney in the general election, I suppose the silver lining is that the man is willing to fight dirty. So at least he’s got that going for him. Which is nice.
Real Hypocrisy
President Obama’s decision to accept Super PAC funding is neither surprising or even all that upsetting. Even though he railed against the Citizens United decision, going so far as to call out the Supreme Court Justices during his State of the Union address in a pique of feigned outrage, nobody who actually has any understanding of who Barack Obama is (meaning people smarter or at least less naive than, say, Doug Kmiec and Kathy Dahlkemper) ever doubted for one moment that he would completely reverse course on yet another promise.
Honestly, there is nothing wrong with Obama’s decision. Not only did the Supreme Court get it right in the Citizens United case, I think that most of the campaign finance restrictions in this country are either unconstitutional or are simply bad policy choices that actually exacerbate the problems with how campaigns are financed. Every new regulation only creates some other entity that further eliminates transparency from the process and merely complicates things unnecessarily.
What is amusing is the blatant hypocrisy, and this is one of those rare times when the term actually applies. The word hypocrite is often thrown around incorrectly. Jonah Goldberg has been one of the foremost crusaders against the incorrect usage of the term. A hypocrite is not someone who claims to uphold a certain principle and then falls short of meeting the ideal. If that were the meaning of hypocrisy, then all sin is hypocrisy. No, a hypocrite is one who pretends to have certain virtues but who, in fact, does not posses said virtues. We all fail to live up to our own moral standards from time to time, but the point is that we are at least trying. Does anyone for one second really believe that Barack Obama truly doesn’t want to receive funding from corporations or wealthy donors? Of course not. It was a populist front meant to distract attention away from the failings of his own administration. He was absolutely insincere at the State of the Union, and he’s been insincere on this issue from day one. This is a guy who raked in more money from Wall Street and other financial institutions than his Republican competitor in 2008, who still collects a hefty amount from this sector, and yet who pretends to be absolutely appalled that these groups have the temerity to influence elections through their campaign contributions.
Yet there are still going to be those who act shocked – SHOCKED! – that Obama could betray his stated principles. As the examples of Doug Kmiec and Kathy Dahlkemper show, never discount the blindness of those who just want to believe. Darwin’s already covered this ground earlier, so I won’t belabor the point. It just astounds me that a man can be so transparently dishonest time and time and time again, and yet there will always be obedient lapdogs ready to be fooled again.
The “Food Stamp Diet” and How It’s Different From Being Poor
Every so often one hears about people doing the “food stamp diet” in order to see what it’s like to be poor in America. The idea is to subsist for some period of time (often a week) on the amount typically given to members of the “food stamp” program. Here’s one example, prepared by the Food Research and Action Center back in 2007. That one challenges you to live on $21/week. Here’s an annual challenge run by the San Francisco Food Bank. There the amount is $33.04 per person per week.
These amounts vary not only due to region and inflation over time (food inflation has actually been pretty high over the last five years, grocery store prices are up 6% from last year) but also because these are different attempts to model how the food stamp program works. Food stamp benefits are based on the idea of supplementing a family’s income so that the family can (according to the program’s rationale) afford to consume the amount of food budgeted according to the “thrifty plan” from the USDA “cost of food at home” guidelines. Of course, since food stamps can’t be used for anything other than approved food items, and they’re given to people who are already very short of money, the effective result is that people are often trying to get all their food off just the food stamp amount, even if the program is assuming it’s only a supplement.
What got me thinking about the topic is that I saw one of these “hunger challenges” linked to some time ago, via some Catholic organization which was encouraging people to take part “in solidarity with the poor”. I saw the amount mentioned in the San Francisco challenge of $33 per person per week and thought, “Wait a minute, for our family of seven that would be $231. That’s more than we spend per week on food, and we’re around the top 20% line in family income.” In normal times, we were spending around $200/wk on food. Since we’ve been on a tight budget paying off the boiler, we’ve managed to get that down to $100-$150 depending on the week (including household cleaners, diapers, toilet paper, paper towels, etc.)
So, is being on food stamps really cushy? Are these challenges just designed wrong? Being a chronic number cruncher, I had to get into it a bit. Continue reading
Abusing the Constitution and shoring the women’s vote all wrapped up in one tidy package…
Some commentators have been opining that the White House is feeling the heat fanned into flame last week after President Barack Obama basically told the U.S. Catholic bishops to fall into line by next year with his administration’s new healthcare regulations. In support of this opinion, those commentators are now pointing to the appearance of President Obama’s political adviser, David Axelrod, on MSNBC. (The relevant portion begins at 3:45.)
If this opinion is accurate, the U.S. Catholic bishops’ response—focusing upon the free exercise of religion and First Amendment rights—cut to the bone. That’s why Axelrod said during the interview that the Obama administration didn’t intend to “abridge anyone’s religious freedom” with its regulation requiring church-affiliated employers to cover sterilization, birth control, and abortofacients for their employees. Yet, defending the administration, Axelrod said:
The bottom line is, this was a decision made with the interest of the health of millions around this country in mind.
Unrepentant and somewhat contrite, Axelrod noted: “We have great respect for the work that these institutions do, and we certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedom. He then added that when making the decision, the Obama administration was struggling to strike a balance between a policy that “guarantees women the preventive care they need and one which respects the prerogatives of religious institutions.” Axelrod then went back to his political defense:
There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of women who work in these universities who are not Catholic. The question is whether they’re going … to have the same access to basic preventive care.
Acknowledging the dispute has caused a rift between the White House and the Roman Catholic Church, Axelrod extended an olive branch to the nation’s bishops, adding:
I’m less concerned about the messaging of this than finding a resolution that makes sense. I think we need to lower our voices and get together.
The Motley Monk doesn’t buy the opinion that the White House has been feeling the heat precisely because of what Axelrod said during the MSNBC interview. With 70%+ of self-identified Catholics disagreeing with Church teaching about sterilization, contraception, and abortion, Axelrod doesn’t fear losing “the Catholic vote.” No, his appeal to all of those women who work in Catholic institutions is meant to shore up their vote. That’s why Axelrod said:
This is an important issue. It’s important for millions of women around the country. We want to resolve it in an appropriate way and we’re going to do that.
Under the disguise of “protecting” all of those women who work in Catholic institutions, Axelrod and his boss, President Obama are willing to do exactly what the U.S. bishops have said they are doing, namely, trampling upon religious liberty and First Amendment rights.
But The Motley Monk’s opinion is that these two men are up to something else as well: Using all of those women to achieve what they really want, namely, agents of the federal to use the government’s regulatory powers to dictate that religious employers must violate their consciences if their organizations are to provide public services.
The logic is pretty clear: Beat the U.S. Catholic bishops on this issue and the rest of the dominoes will fall. All it will take is for all of those women to vote for the President who is protecting their so-called “freedoms.”
To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, click on the following link:
http://themotleymonk.blogspot.com/
George Will: Historians Will Marvel
On This Week on ABC last Sunday, George Will gave a concise, and devastating, explanation of what modern liberalism in this country is all about:
This is not about women’s health. This is about providing 300,000 abortions a year. Planned Parenthood cleverly cast this saying, ‘We are in the mammogram business.’ They’re not in the mammogram business — they are in the referral of mammograms. This showed two extraordinary things, George. First, the American left cares about ending wars and they care about poverty and they care about the environment, but they really care about — when they’re not perfunctory — is when you touch abortions. And historians will marvel that American liberalism in the first part of the 21st century is defined as defense of abortion.
Second, all these people describing themselves as pro-choice said it is illegitimate to choose not to be involved in abortion. And a much more important decision politically that was taken this week was the Obama administration saying that Catholic institutions have no choice — and this was applauded by pro-choice people — have no choice but to provide contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization. Continue reading
February 6, 1862: Surrender of Fort Henry
Fate has a way of picking unlikely material,
Greasy-haired second lieutenants of French artillery,
And bald-headed, dubious, Roman rake-politicians.
Her stiff hands were busy now with an odd piece of wood,
Sometime Westpointer, by accident more than choice,
Sometime brevet-captain in the old Fourth Infantry,
Mentioned in Mexican orders for gallant service
And, six years later, forced to resign from the Army
Without enough money to pay for a stateroom home.
Turned farmer on Hardscrabble Farm, turned bill-collector,
Turned clerk in the country-store that his brothers ran,
The eldest-born of the lot, but the family-failure,
Unloading frozen hides from a farmer’s sleigh
With stoop-shouldered strength, whittling beside the stove,
And now and then turning to whiskey to take the sting
From winter and certain memories.
It didn’t take much. A glass or two would thicken the dogged tongue
And flush the fair skin beneath the ragged brown beard.
Poor and shabby–old “Cap” Grant of Galena,
Who should have amounted to something but hadn’t so far
Though he worked hard and was honest.
A middle-aged clerk,
A stumpy, mute man in a faded army overcoat,
Who wrote the War Department after Fort Sumter,
Offering them such service as he could give
And saying he thought that he was fit to command
As much as a regiment, but getting no answer.
So many letters come to a War Department,
One can hardly bother the clerks to answer them all–
Then a Volunteer colonel, drilling recruits with a stick,
A red bandanna instead of an officer’s sash;
A brigadier-general, one of thirty-seven,
Snubbed by Halleck and slighted by fussy Frémont;
And then the frozen February gale
Over Fort Henry and Fort Donelson,
The gunboats on the cold river–the brief siege–
“Unconditional surrender”–and the newspapers.
Stephen Vincent Benet
The taking of Fort Henry by Ulysses S. Grant on February 6, 1862, was important for a number of reasons:
1. It opened the Tennessee River to Union gunboats and transports down through northern Alabama, effectively allowing the Union to outflank Confederate
defenses in Memphis and throughout eastern Tennessee. Continue reading
Doug Kmiec Says HHS Policy May Cause Him To Oppose Obama
In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes, however in the mean time, you can always try to get a reprise of your brush with newsworthiness. Self anointed high-profile Obama supporter (and now former ambassador to Malta) Doug Kmiec seems to be trying for this dubious honor by getting back into the national political scene to announce that unless he hears a very good explanation out of the Obama Administration for their HHS policy refusing religious conscience exemptions to Catholic institutions, he may not be able to support Obama in 2012.
Douglas Kmiec, Obama’s former ambassador to Malta, is strongly opposed to Obama’s new mandate that Catholic hospitals and universities provide contraception in their employee health plans.
Kmiec, who served in the Reagan administration, noted that he urged Obama last year to grant an exemption, explaining that such a move “would be an opportunity to be more sensitive to religious freedom than the law requires.”
Asked whether he will back Obama in 2012, Kmiec replied in an email, “Until I have an opportunity to speak with the president, I am for now (unhappily) without a candidate.” Continue reading
Face Palm Political Ad of the Year
Courtesy of the Right Scoop comes this political advertisement for Pete Hoekstra, who is challenging Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow.
“Your economy get very weak, ours get very good.”
Your Super Bowl Champions: the New York Giants
So there evidently this game last night . . .
A random bunch of observations about the Giants victory.
- It would have been completely awesome had Eli Manning announced in his post-game interview that Payton was coming to the Giants as his backup.
- Speaking of post-game celebrations, the NFL’s attempts to mimic the Stanley Cup celebration comes off as so incredibly lame. The NHL might be the red-headed stepchild of North American professional sports, but it has the one championship celebration that every other pro sports league tries to imitate, but none of them are as cool and as genuine as the hoisting of the Stanley Cup and the parade around the ice.
- People will point to the Giants 9-7 record as a condemnation of the NFL regular season, but does anybody who watched that game think that the Giants weren’t the better team? The Pats had touchdown drives immediately before and after halftime, but the Giants basically dominated just about every other second of that game. So many teams in the NFL are either all defense and or all offense, and the Giants are one of the very few who play well on both sides of the ball. On top of that, the Giants beat the Packers (really, they mauled them), the 49ers and the Patriots on the way to a championship. That’s not a fluke.
- I’m probably in the minority but I was happy when Bradshaw slipped into the endzone. Sure, the odds slightly favor going for the chip shot field goal over letting Brady have the ball with 50 seconds, but too many things can go wrong. Just one game ago the Patriots saw a kicker miss a sure-fire field goal that would have sent the AFC championship game into overtime. It’s the Super Bowl, and you take the points and the lead when it is being offered to you, and then trust that the defense can hold.
- The Manning to Tyree play is probably still the superior one when you factor in Manning escaping a sack, but Manning to Manningham is a close second.
- Oh, and did I mention the Giants are the champions of the world:
Reagan and Me
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
Ronald Reagan
Today is my 55th birthday and the 101rst birthday of Ronald Reagan, the man who gets my vote as the best president of my life time. As the video clip above indicates, Reagan was a liberal Democrat for the first half of his life. He often referred to this, sometimes humorously:
Sometimes seriously:
The classic liberal used to be the man who believed the individual was, and should be forever, the master of his destiny. That is now the conservative position. The liberal used to believe in freedom under law. He now takes the ancient feudal position that power is everything. He believes in a stronger and stronger central government, in the philosophy that control is better than freedom. The conservative now quotes Thomas Paine, a long-time refuge of the liberals: ‘Government is a necessary evil; let us have as little of it as possible.’
I of course lived during the time of Reagan’s life after he had become a conservative. When I was seven years old I watched on television a speech, often referred to by Reagan biographers as The Speech, that Reagan gave in support of Barry Goldwater. That speech led me to become a conservative. The clip below is from a section of the speech that I have recalled all of my life:
Continue reading
Ross Douthat’s Readers Prove his Point
I can easily imagine from their comments how much it galls the typical readers of the New York Times to read opinion pieces by Ross Douthat. Today he explains to his reader the extreme media bias on the issue of abortion.
Conservative complaints about media bias are sometimes overdrawn. But on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudices are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable. In many newsrooms and television studios across the country, Planned Parenthood is regarded as the equivalent of, well, the Komen foundation: an apolitical, high-minded and humanitarian institution whose work no rational person — and certainly no self-respecting woman — could possibly question or oppose.
Go here to read the rest. To pro-lifers this is very old news. It is hysterically funny however to read the comments to his piece: Continue reading
Government Health Care Mandate Awakens The Faithful From Their Slumber
Occasionally the haughty and arrogant become so full of themselves, they are deluded into thinking that by their sheer will and intellect they will convince a sizeable part of the populace to give up their beliefs. The current administration illustrated this very point when they announced last month that every group will be forced to abide by the dictates of the governmental health care plan. All employers must provide birth control coverage in their health care plans as well as the morning after abortion pill. (Churches were given an exemption but churches are a small part of church related institutions, such as hospitals, schools, universities etc.)
The prairie fire started by President Barack Obama’s Administration wasn’t immediately reported by the mainstream media. Surely some in the mainstream media must have thought few Catholics would care if a bunch of old bishops read a letter from the pulpit that would go in one ear and out the other. Well of course, at least the “enlightened Catholic populace” who voted for President Obama would surely come to this conclusion. Those who would care wouldn’t vote for the President anyway, the liberal talking heads surmised. This shows how ill informed many in the mainstream media have become; for since the last 20 years or so increasing numbers of newly appointed bishops and cardinals have been far more orthodox in their beliefs and far less willing to appeal to the whims of the political world.
When I first heard the news, I thought there must be some sort of mistake; surely any freshman majoring in Political Science would realize that rankling the feathers of any major swing state voting bloc especially that of Catholics would make little sense. Yet even after some in the mainstream media awoke from their militant secular slumber, the White House insisted that this dictate would remain because of the “deeply held beliefs of the President.”
This created an opening for the Republican Primary candidates who pounced on the issue, none more than former Speaker Newt Gingrich who called it, “President Obama’s War on The Catholic Church.” Traditional and conservative minded people of all faiths immediately expressed shock at the decision of the White House. Even liberal columnist EJ Dionne wrote a scathing column saying, “The President had thrown him and his fellow Progressive Catholic allies under the bus.” Naturally the liberal media and the likes of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi rushed to the President’s defense. MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, seemingly unaware of the White House decision, wondered what on earth Newt Gingrich was talking about with “Obama’s War on the Catholic Church,” which Gingrich stated in his concession speech following the Florida primary. Former Speaker Pelosi did her best Richard Rich imitation saying she “stood firmly with the Obama Administration.” Continue reading
Komen as an Example of Liberal Tolerance for Diversity
One of the key ironies of the times in which we live, is that those who prate most about tolerance tend to be the most intolerant. A recent example is Komen and the hysterical reaction of the pro-aborts to the news that Komen was going to be neutral here on out in the abortion debate and would no longer be giving their annual tribute to Planned Parenthood a/k/a Worse Than Murder, Inc. This was absolutely intolerable to almost all left-thinking liberals everywhere. It could not be allowed to stand and they screamed and stamped their feet until the decision was reversed. Nothing is so much of a “high-worship word” on the left in this country as abortion, and Planned Parenthood is the guardian of this holiest of holies. Such blasphemy against this sacred constitutional rite right could not be tolerated, and Mark Steyn explains why:
Until the other day, Komen were also generous patrons of Planned Parenthood, the “women’s health” organization. The foundation then decided it preferred to focus on organizations that are “providing the lifesaving mammogram.” Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, despite its president, Cecile Richards, testifying to the contrary before Congress last year. Rather, Planned Parenthood provides abortions; it’s the biggest abortion provider in the United States. For the breast-cancer bigwigs to wish to target their grants more relevantly is surely understandable.
But not if you’re a liberal enforcer. Senator Barbara Boxer, with characteristic understatement, compared the Komen Foundation’s Nancy Brinker to Joe McCarthy: “I’m reminded of the McCarthy era, where somebody said: ‘Oh,’ a congressman stands up, a senator, ‘I’m investigating this organization and therefore people should stop funding them.’” But Komen is not a congressman or a senator or any other part of the government, only a private organization. And therefore it is free to give its money to whomever it wishes, isn’t it?
Dream on. Liberals take the same view as the proprietors of the Dar al-Islam: Once they hold this land, they hold it forever. Notwithstanding that those who give to the foundation are specifically giving to support breast-cancer research, Komen could not be permitted to get away with disrespecting Big Abortion. We don’t want to return to the bad old days of the back alley, when a poor vulnerable person who made the mistake of stepping out of line had to be forced into the shadows and have the realities explained to them with a tire iron. Now Big Liberalism’s enforcers do it on the front pages with the panjandrums of tolerance and diversity cheering them all the way. In the wake of Komen’s decision, the Yale School of Public Health told the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff that its invitation to Nancy Brinker to be its commencement speaker was now “under careful review.” Because God forbid anybody doing a master’s program at an Ivy League institution should be exposed to anyone not in full 100 percent compliance with liberal orthodoxy. The American Association of University Women announced it would no longer sponsor teams for Komen’s “Race for the Cure.” Sure, Komen has raised $2 billion for the cure, but better we never cure breast cancer than let a single errant Injun wander off the abortion reservation. Terry O’Neill of the National Organization for Women said Komen “is no longer an organization whose mission is to advance women’s health.” You preach it, sister. I mean, doesn’t the very idea of an organization obsessively focused on breasts sound suspiciously patriarchal? Continue reading
Marco Rubio Gives Passionate Pro-life Speech
This is an issue that, especially for those that enter the public arena and refuse to leave our faith behind, speaks to more than just our politics. It speaks to what we want to do with the opportunity we have been given in our life, to serve and to glorify our Creator.
Marco Rubio
Video of Senator Marco Rubio (R. Fla.) delivering the keynote address on February 1, 2012 at the Susan B. Anthony List Fifth Gala for Life. If Rubio isn’t the Republican vice-president nominee this year, despite his disclaiming of any interest in the office, the GOP leadership is crazy. He is eloquent, youthful and a brilliant defender of life. His nomination will seal up Florida, gain the Republicans a larger share of the Hispanic vote than they have ever garnered before in a Presidential race and bring enthusiasm and hope to the ranks of social conservative voters.
Tying this speech in with his sponsorship of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012 this week, Rubio is clearly signaling that if he is placed on the ticket he intends to champion issues near and dear to the hearts of Catholics. Obama decides to use the Church as a punching bag in order to appease his leftist base. Rubio counters with a defense of the Church and Life to draw a stark contrast. Obama will soon have his Yamamoto moment:
Unelectable
Santorum 45, Obama 44 according to Rasmussen.
Doesn’t exactly sound like Johnson-Goldwater to me.
I should add, by the way, that it’s just a snapshot of the current mood, and by no means indicative that Santorum would have a free and easy path to a general election victory. It does show that the grave concerns about Santorum’s ultimate electability are overwrought to say the least.
So, to sum up, Santorum polls better than Gingrich against Obama, is more conservative than Gingrich, and has certainly far less personal baggage than Gingrich. For those of you still clinging to Gingrich as the anti-Romney of your choice, why?
One Picture Says It All
Hattip to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. The cartoonist Michael Ramirez neatly encapsulates why the Obama administration seethes with hostility against the Church. Governments that decide that they are the True Faith inevitably come into conflict with the actual True Faith, as the history of the Church constantly illustrates. I doubt if President Obama has studied that history yet. Let us give him ample opportunity in retirement to do so, beginning in 2013.
Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat
Something for the weekend. Stubby Kaye gives a show stopping performance of Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat from the film adaptation of the play Guys and Dolls (1955). My daughter’s high school is putting on the Guys and Dolls play this semester and my daughter has the role of the Salvation Army General Matilda B. Cartwright. My wife and I viewed the film a few weeks ago. It had been decades since I last watched it and I had forgotten just how much fun it is. A better time in America’s cultural life. Continue reading
This is Still America, Isn’t It?
In my mispent youth I wore Army green for a few years. My main contribution to the nation’s defense was when I was discharged, but I have always retained a fondness for the Army. Therefore I have very strong feelings about the attempt by the Obama administration to censor Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the Catholic Archbishop for the military services in the US.
On Thursday, January 26, Archbishop Broglio emailed a pastoral letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit at Sunday Masses the following weekend in all military chapels. The letter calls on Catholics to resist the policy initiative, recently affirmed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception, because it represents a violation of the freedom of religion recognized by the U.S. Constitution.
The Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains subsequently sent an email to senior chaplains advising them that the Archbishop’s letter was not coordinated with that office and asked that it not be read from the pulpit. The Chief’s office directed that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.
Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants.
Following a discussion between Archbishop Broglio and the Secretary of the Army, The Honorable John McHugh, it was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop’s letter. Additionally, the line: “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law” was removed by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.
The AMS did not receive any objections to the reading of Archbishop Broglio’s statement from the other branches of service. Continue reading
Susan G. Komen Foundation Did Not Reverse Course, But It’s an Epic P.R. Disaster on Their Part
The Susan G. Komen Foundation did not reverse course as many have thought, suggested, or commented all over the Interwebs today.
Even Austin Ruse President of C-FAM is not sure and has issued this press release:
Statement by Austin Ruse on the Susan G. Komen Foundation
“Today the Susan G. Komen Foundation made an announcement that appears that they have reversed themselves on funding of Planned Parenthood. While I do not believe they have reversed themselves, it may turn out to be the case. We do not know.
What happened this week was nothing short of a Mafia shakedown campaign by Planned Parenthood against the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Planned Parenthood told the Komen Foundation “either give us money or we will destroy you.” They were aided and abetted in this hostage taking by the mainstream media.
At this point, pro-lifers should cease their support of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. We should wait and see what happens. We know there are five more Komen grants to Planned Parenthood in the pipeline. If any more come up, we will know we have lost and Planned Parenthood has won.
I do not regret the work I did over the past days on this issue, neither should any pro-lifer. I only regret we could not have done more to make Komen strong and able to fight off the thuggish abortion giant, Planned Parenthood.
What the week has shown is that Planned Parenthood, an organization that is under criminal investigation all over this country, will stop at nothing to maintain their stranglehold on organizations like the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
We should continue to pray for Nancy Brinker and all of her colleagues at the Susan G. Komen Foundation.”
The American Papist and Steven D. Greydanus agree with me on this one.
Look at it from Komen’s perspective, they’re taking a public relations hit by the punks and thugs from Planned Parenthood and their allies. It’s a war, a Culture War out there!
“Catholics of the Pelosi-stripe”: A “Catholic” by any other name is a “Protestant”….
At her weekly press briefing, a reporter asked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA):
The administration has issued a regulation that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions. This would force Catholic individuals and institutions to act against their consciences. All across the nation, Catholic bishops are saying….”
Pelosi interjected:
Is this a speech, or do we have a question in disguise as a speech?
The reporter continued:
We cannot—we will not–comply with this law. Catholic bishops are saying they will not comply with this law. Will you stand with your fellow Catholics in resisting this law or will you stick by the administration?
Irked, Ms. Pelosi responded somewhat tartly:
First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.
With that said, Ms. Pelosi has vowed her support for the Obama administration’s efforts in defending the new Obamacare regulations against the U.S. Catholic bishops.
As “Catholics of the Pelosi-stripe” continue to advocate their support for federal healthcare regulations that will require Catholics individuals to buy, and Catholic institutions to provide, health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and artificial contraceptives, including those that induce abortions, how long will it be before the nation’s bishops call out these so-called “Catholics” for what they are?
What’s that?
In short: Protestants.
To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, click on the following link:
http://themotleymonk.blogspot.com/
Komen Foundation Reverses Course, Promises to Keep Funding Planned Parenthood [UPDATED AGAIN]
UPDATED AGAIN: Susan G. Komen Foundation Did Not Reverse Course, But It’s an Epic P.R. Disaster on Their Part – Tito Edwards, The American Catholic
The last two days have been a huge publicity storm for the Komen Foundation as supporters and opponents of abortion squared off over the foundation’s decision to stop providing grants to Planned Parenthood to fund breast cancer exams. Today, Komen apparently decided that offending the pro-abortion half of the country wasn’t enough, and decided to offend the pro-life half as well by reversing their decision and pledging to continue funding Planned Parenthood:
“We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligiblity to appy for future grants,” Nancy G. Brinker, the agency’s ambassador, said in a statement.
“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.”
In addition to disgust that the pro-aborts got their way on this one, I have to say that I’m simply staggered by the utter PR incompetence of this whole circus. Perhaps the hope on Komen’s part had been that they could drop Planned Parenthood quietly and thus widen their support base without offending pro-aborts. Whatever the thinking that led to this high profile flip-flop, the result is not merely the appearance of lacking principle but also that those with strong feelings on both sides are now deeply distrustful of the organization.
Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, who has been very closely following the Komen decision-making process, told LifeNews that the statement is not really a change in position but he says the sentence “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities” is “troubling” for pro-life advocates.
“This represents nothing new. We have known and have reported that they are continuing five grants through 2012. This is a reference to that. The second clause about eligibility is certainly true. Any group can apply for anything. It does not mean they are going to get anything,” Ruse told LifeNews.
“What this is is an effort to get the mafia off of their backs. As James Taranto said in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, this is a classic shakedown operation. Give us money or we will destroy you. This is Komen’s attempt to save their organization, which we should know is in peril. Our side should know that nothing has changed.”
Jill Stanek, a pro-life blogger, also says pro-life advocates should not give up on Komen yet.
“If Planned Parenthood is found guilty of criminal investigations, several of which are ongoing around the states (Medicaid fraud in Texas and California; fraudulent reporting and illegal abortions in Kansas, and yes, the federal Congressional investigation, etc.), Komen’s criteria will still disqualify Planned Parenthood from receiving grants, as it should,” Stanek says. “This is Komen’s attempt to get the abortion mafia off their backs. Planned Parenthood and its thugs have engaged in typical shakedown: Give us money or we will destroy you.”
…
Ruse responded to that saying those grants will very likely be the last Komen makes to the abortion business.“Komen has five outstanding grants going out this year to Planned Parenthood. We have known about them all along. After that, the door is shut,” Ruse said. “Nothing has changed since the decision was made in December to defund Planned Parenthood after these grants are finished.”
“Could these Planned Parenthood groups apply for future grants? Of course they could. Anyone can apply for anything. Will they get them? Highly unlikely for two reasons,” Ruse added. “First, Komen’s new policy says they do not fund groups that are under investigation or groups that do not provide primary care of women or research.”
“Second, Planned Parenthood’s vicious attacks against Susan G. Komen for the Cure has engendered a great deal of hurt and anger inside the organization,” Ruse told LifeNews. “Quite simply, Planned Parenthood is utilizing a scorched earth policy against Komen and burning all their bridges. Funding will never come back to them. Keep in mind also, that Nancy Brinker may be trying to make conciliatory gestures to her former friends. But she is discovering what we have known all along, that Planned Parenthood are dishonest thugs.”
Frankly, I don’t know whether I buy this or not, and even if it’s true it seems to me that the double talk is only going to hurt them more. However, one can only wait and see.
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