Tag Archives: author

2016: Obama’s America

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This afternoon I went to the first showing of the above mentioned movie at Wolfchase. A line for tickets had already formed, which was surprising since we got there 20 minutes early, and this was the 1:10 showing, not usually one where you have to wait to purchase tickets.

Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative writer born in India, narrates the film. D’Souza felt a strange sort of kinship with Obama. His life follows, in an odd way, Obama’s. He was born in the same year, 1961; graduated the same year as Obama; and even got married the same year as Obama and Michelle. Both had exposure to life in the third world during their childhoods. But this is where the story diverges.

In a very fair way, D’Souza examines the background of Obama, especially his father. As he says, Obama’s “autobiography” (after numerous accounts, I share the belief that the true author is Bill Ayers), Dreams From My Father, is from his father and not of. It’s an important distinction.

So he goes in search of what Obama Sr.’s dreams were. D’Souza explains and shows that they are not dreams from America’s Founding Fathers. The dreams of Obama Sr. concerned getting the British out of his native Kenya. He hated all colonial nations and even suggested 100% income tax on the wealthy. The idea is to bring down the colonial powers by bringing them down to the level of the third world so that they suffer as he did.

Bus aside from his real father, Obama’s spiritual fathers are examined because they provided guidance his absent father did not. They are Bill Ayers, Edward Said, Jeremiah Wright, Frederick Unger, a Harvard professor from Argentina, and Communist Frank Marshall Davis.

For Americans, the dreams these men have are nightmares. Reducing our nuclear stockpiles until we are powerless, a United States of Islam in the Middle East, halting our energy production so that other powers like Brazil can overtake us are on the list and fast becoming realities. So is the scary scenario of a tipping point brought on my our debt. David Walker, U.S. comptroller from 2000-2008 paints a dire situation. We are near Greece in our debt situation. If we fall, it will have repercussions for us, but the whole world, too.

Throughout the movie, D’Souza interviews great thinkers, among whom Dr. Shelby Steele is one of the best and most enjoyable.

At the end of the movie, an unusual thing happened. The lights dimmed and a ripple of applause broke out and got louder. How many movies have you gone to where that happened? I can’t recall one. And this for a documentary – something Americans aren’t supposed to tolerate.

Go see the movie and see it quickly. Hard to say how long it will be here, but it’s a must see.

Uncivil War Waged on South

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When I first saw the title of this book, “Better Off Without ‘Em”, about the North vs. the South, I thought yes, we probably are better off without the North.

Then I saw the subtitle: “A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession.” Nice, eh? Seems the author, Travel writer and former Maxim editor, Chuck Thompson, has a different perspective than we do.

Maetenloch at Ace of Spades blog suggests the title should be “Rednecks in the Mist: Those Horrible Horrible People”.

Yes, that’s Thompson’s belief. The Wall St. Journal’s Barton Swaim reviewed the book which,

On the first page, the author wonders why the American electoral system must be “held hostage by a coalition of bought-and-paid-for political swamp scum from the most uneducated, morbidly obese, racist, morally indigent, xenophobic, socially stunted, and generally ass-backwards part of the country.” You expect him to let up, to turn the argument around, to look at the other side of question. But he never does. For more than 300 pages, Mr. Thompson travels through the South observing customs, outlooks and people and subjecting them to an unremitting stream of denunciations.

Yes, that’s why in Memphis we have a black mayor, black police chief, black school superintendent, black councilmen and a Democrat member of Congress representing us who is white, but longed to get into the Black Congressional Caucus.

Swaim continues:

In six essay-like chapters—on the South’s religion, politics, race relations, public education, economic policies and its obsession with, as he thinks, the region’s overrated college football teams — Mr. Thompson tries to show that the American South is so culturally detached from the rest of America as to constitute what really ought to be its own country. He deserves some credit, in these days of lazy punditry, for actually traveling to the places he writes about: Memphis; Columbia, S.C.; Athens, Ga.; Mobile, Ala.; Little Rock; and a lot of little places in between. But typically he just makes a beeline for some small-town gathering, a church or a bar, finds someone with cranky opinions, gets into an argument about politics or religion, and—at least in his own retelling—slays his opponent.

It would be interesting to read his report on our fair city, although the book review gives us a glimpse of Thompson’s impression.

Places like Little Rock and Memphis, he says, “are arranged along the lines of Third World horror shows; wide streets lined with opulent, plantation-style homes sitting just around the block from apocalyptic Negro wastelands.” Leave aside Mr. Thompson’s rather too superior descriptions of poor black neighborhoods (did he really use the term “Negro”?). More disturbing is his refusal to take seriously any evidence that Southern racism has diminished, even when that evidence comes from African-Americans themselves…

He describes visiting two black neighborhoods in Memphis, Hollywood and Chelsea:

“In Watts, Roxbury, Harlem, South St. Louis, I’d felt the angriness in the air … It wasn’t so in Hollywood and Chelsea… They must have been angry; they had every excuse for anger. Yet it was an anger which hadn’t yet crystallized into that automatic hatred of the white stranger which I had met in the ghettos of the North; or at least, the hatred was elaborately masked. I received the odd curious glance, accompanied by a faint smile, as if I’d lost my way and needed street directions to get me home. Several times people went out of their way to make me welcome. Stay and talk. Stay and see.”

Swaim continues his review:

You begin to sense that something is seriously awry when the author, evidently unable to find enough cranks and simpletons to fill out a whole book on the South, keeps looking beyond the Confederacy’s borders for material. First he zings House Speaker John Boehner for some offense. Isn’t Rep. Boehner from Ohio? Yes, from Cincinnati, but that’s just across the Ohio River from Kentucky, so he counts as a Southerner. We hear about a public-school teacher who urges his students to believe the Bible infallible. This takes place in Cleveland, but because the teacher had once attended a seminary in Kentucky, it’s an instance of Southern “biblical literalism” infecting the entire country. Mr. Thompson derides U.S. Rep. John Shimkus for citing Genesis as a reason not to worry about global warming. Isn’t Mr. Shimkus from Illinois? Yes, but he is from “an area of southern Illinois settled almost entirely by farmers from Kentucky.” By the book’s halfway point, it’s clear that Mr. Thompson’s problem with Southerners isn’t that they are insular, angry or prone to illusions. It’s that, with exceptions, their political views are insufficiently left-wing…

He is aware of reports in the New York Times and elsewhere that black Americans are moving to the South in record numbers. A black New York native living in Oxford, Miss., tells him, “I love it here.” But Mr. Thompson dismisses what he calls “breathless predictions of a post-racial South.” They just make him look harder for racism—and of course he finds it.

We are sadly used to this kind of thing. Anytime anyone on TV wants to indicate that a character is a simpleton, that character suddenly sports a Southern accent. Immediately the audience connects. It doesn’t matter how many brilliant people we contribute to the U.S., this stereotype stands and is indoctrinated.

Obviously the author of this book is obsessed. Want to bet that if the South was exactly the way it is, but the politics were Left, he would have found another outcome?

This Looks Like a Must Read

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On August 21, Richard Miniter will debut his new book: “Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him.” It should be a bombshell.

Miniter is the author of two top-ten New York Times bestsellers, Losing Bin Laden and Shadow War, as well as Mastermind, the first biography of 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He knows what he’s talking about.

The book looks like it will confirm a scenario other than the one the media spun on the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden. This is in line with other reports I’ve read. Amazon describes it:

Barack Obama has never been fully vetted—until now.

In Leading from Behind, New York Times bestselling investigative journalist Richard Miniter presents the first book to explore President Obama’s abilities as a leader, by unearthing new details of his biggest successes and failures. Based on exclusive interviews and never-before-published material, Leading from Behind investigates the secret world of the West Wing and the combative personalities that shape historic events.

Contrary to the White House narrative, which aims to define Obama as a visionary leader, Leading from Behind reveals a president who is indecisive, moody, and often paralyzed by competing political considerations. Many victories — as well as several significant failures — during the Obama presidency are revealed to be the work of strong women, who led when the president did not: then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and Valerie Jarrett, his closest adviser and an Obama family confidante, whose unusual degree of influence has been a source of conflict with veteran political insiders.

In Leading from Behind, you will learn:

· Why Obama’s relationship with Israel was poisoned years before he met Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu

· The real reason for Valerie Jarrett’s strong hold over both Barack and Michelle Obama

· ObamaCare wasn’t Obama’s idea. It was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s. And the real reason he danced to her tune.

· Obama delayed and canceled the mission to kill Osama bin Laden three times and then committed an intelligence blunder that allowed dozens of high-level members of al Qaeda to escape.

· Why Obama destroyed a secret budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner that would have reformed entitlements, slashed spending, and reduced the national debt—without raising taxes

· Why Obama is determined to save Attorney General Eric Holder, even though he has mislead and stonewalled Congress about “Operation: Fast and Furious”

· Why Obama decided to defy the Tea Party and ditch his plans to end earmarks

In Leading from Behind, Richard Miniter’s provocative research offers a dramatic, thoroughly sourced account of President Obama’s White House during a time of intense domestic controversy and international turmoil.

Film About Obama to Debut

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On July 27, a movie called “2016: Obama’s America” will be released nationwide. In it, author Dinesh D’Souza, author of “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” tracks down parts of Obama’s life that have been hidden. Here’s how the website describes the movie:

2016 Obama’s America takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the world’s most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man’s past will redefine America over the next four years. The film examines the question, “If Obama wins a second term, where will we be in 2016?”

Across the globe and in America, people in 2008 hungered for a leader who would unite and lift us from economic turmoil and war. True to America’s ideals, they invested their hope in a new kind of president, Barack Obama. What they didn’t know is that Obama is a man with a past, and in powerful ways that past defines him–who he is, how he thinks, and where he intends to take America and the world.

Immersed in exotic locales across four continents, best selling author Dinesh D’Souza races against time to find answers to Obama’s past and reveal where America will be in 2016. During this journey he discovers how Hope and Change became radically misunderstood, and identifies new flashpoints for hot wars in mankind’s greatest struggle. The journey moves quickly over the arc of the old colonial empires, into America’s empire of liberty, and we see the unfolding realignment of nations and the shape of the global future.

Emotionally engaging, 2016 Obama’s America will make you confounded and cheer as you discover the mysteries and answers to your greatest aspirations and worst fears.

Love him or hate him, you don’t know him.

One thing many people don’t know is Obama’s close relationship with avowed Communist Frank Marshall Davis. Some have even believed that Davis is Obama’s real father. The Blaze got this interesting clip from the film:

Whether we will be able to see the film in Memphis is not clear yet. For now it is playing in Houston.

Holder Out in the Cold?

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Jim Geraghty in National Review online’s Morning Jolt asks: “Does someone in the White House not want Eric Holder to hold on?” And concludes “So . . . Attorney General Eric Holder could end up having a bad, bad week next week.”

He explains:

House Committee and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa told BuzzFeed today that he expects 31 Democrats will join Congressional Republicans in finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents relating to a botched gun-running investigation.

Issa, who has risen to national prominence as the point of the Republican spear in investigating alleged Obama administration wrongdoing, called for a committee vote on contempt next week in advance of a full House vote on Holder’s conduct in the so-called “Fast and Furious” operation, in which a federal agent was allegedly killed with a gun the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allowed to be trafficked.

For what it’s worth, I’m hearing rumblings that Republicans in both the House and Senate think that Attorney General Eric Holder is . . . well, lying through his teeth in his testimony on Fast & Furious, and that this is worth going to the mattresses over.

Another interesting observation came from a second look at this anecdote that came out last week
:

The Axelrod-Holder battle is described by author Daniel Klaidman in the forthcoming Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency.

“After the session ended, Axelrod made a beeline for the attorney general. Obama’s senior adviser was incensed. It had gotten back to him that Holder and his aides were spreading the word that he was trying to improperly influence the Justice Department.

Axelrod, who knew all too well that even the hint of White House meddling with Justice Department investigations could detonate a full-blown scandal, had been careful not to come close to that line. ‘Don’t ever, ever accuse me of trying to interfere with the operations of the Justice Department,’ he warned Holder after confronting him in the hallway. ‘I’m not Karl Rove,’ he added, referring to George Bush’s political consigliere, who had been accused of pressuring Justice to fire politically unpopular U.S. attorneys.

Holder did not appreciate being publicly dressed down by the president’s most senior political adviser. Determined to stand his ground against Tammany Hall, the A.G. ripped into him in full view of other White House staffers. ‘That’s bull—-,’ he replied vehemently.

The two men stood chest to chest. It was like a school yard fight back at their shared alma mater, Stuyvesant, the elite public high school for striving kids from New York City. White House staffers caught in the crossfire averted their eyes. Jarrett, whose office was nearby, materialized as things got hot. Petite and perfectly put together as always, she pushed her way between the two men, her sense of decorum disturbed, ordering them to ‘take it out of the hallway.’”

Boy, that’s an unflattering portrait of Holder, isn’t it? And not that much more flattering of Axelrod, although he at least can come across as the indignant victim of Holder’s campaign of leaks and lies.

Say, who comes out looking best in that anecdote?

Oh, Valerie Jarrett, huh? One of the Obamas’ closest and most trusted friends, huh? Say, author Ed Klein, just how close are the Obamas and Jarrett
?

“We haven’t seen anything like this in modern presidential history,” said Klein. “One person who is the best friend of the First Lady and the soulmate of the President, who is the last person to leave the Oval Office after a meeting, goes upstairs to the family quarters, has dinner with the President. Goes on vacation with them. Has his ear. Is de facto president of the United States.”

Hmm. So just as it appears that Eric Holder might be in real trouble on the Hill — and that the DOJ internal investigation increasingly looks like a joke, still no word of its completion a mere 15 months after it was announced — a story that makes the attorney general look bad leaks, and that same story just happens to make the “de facto president/soulmate of the president” look good.

Think somebody within the administration wouldn’t mind seeing Holder go?

What Gay Marriage Is Really About

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The American Thinker has an excellent piece that lays out all the problems with gay marriage.

Author Victor Volsky observes, “Not a single society in the long history of mankind has ever attempted to substitute homosexual relationships for traditional marriage.”

He then asks, “Where do you direct the blow so it will do the most damage? In his Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx provided the answer: destroy the traditional family.

True to the teachings of their prophet, socialist revolutionaries have placed the destruction of matrimony high on their list of priorities…There is a strong correlation between the rise of homosexual marriage and the weakening of traditional matrimony. David Blankenhorn observes, ‘The deep logic of same-sex marriage is clearly consistent with what scholars call deinstitutionalization — the overturning or weakening of all of the customary forms of marriage, and the dramatic shrinking of marriage’s public meaning and institutional authority.’

“Just as the radical leftists started out on their Great March through the Institutions with schools and colleges as their primary targets (“We’ll get you through your children,” the radical leftist and gay poet Allen Ginsberg warned his erstwhile friend Norman Podhoretz), gay militants have children in their cross-hairs.”

Read the whole piece at: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/gay_marriage_the_hidden_agenda.html#ixzz1w4J027dP

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

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Yesterday the popular blog Lucianne.com featured an article from Forbes magazine.

It was, as Jim Hoft of Gatewaypundit notes, “an excerpt from the book ‘Hope Is Not a Strategy’ by John Mariotti and D. M. Lukas. The author provided an excerpt from the book for the article where he describes Barack Obama as a ‘manufactured candidate’ whose history remains sealed. Mariotti then calls Obama the ‘Manchurian candidate.’

I read it and didn’t find anything shocking. It wasn’t pushing the birther issue or any far flung conspiracies. Yet it disappeared after a few hours.

Hoft was able to retrieve it and here is what was published:

“There is something very wrong when the sitting president refuses to divulge huge pieces of information about his background. What is he hiding? Maybe the “birthers” were a little extreme, but is there something wrong with this “manufactured candidate,” whose history remains sealed from public view? What is he hiding?

Could the “Hawaii birth certificate” be a forgery? Is there something much worse—like “sponsorship” by an unnamed special interest? I don’t know. I do know that the man in the White House now is an imposter. The only question is which kind of an imposter: an incompetent “pretender” or a genuine phony, a “Manchurian candidate,” who is a liberal, ½ black and ½ white, and an obvious Muslim sympathizer.

Will this campaign expose him as the imposter, and the pretender his behavior has revealed? Will it expose his hidden history and murky background. We know about his failures and mistakes.

For those who don’t, here is another in this series of revealing excerpts from Hope Is Not A Strategy: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency.

Excerpt from the chapter: Beware the Pretender:

…”No matter how many times President Obama refers to the “problems he inherited,” he has now been in office three years. Certainly many of the current problems can be traced back to events that happened during the eight years that Bush held the top office, and some can be traced back to even earlier presidencies — but far from all of them.

Many of the problems are newly created (or made worse), and Barack Obama owns them. Candidate Obama stepped up and essentially said, “I want the job, and everything that comes with it” by running for president. After three years in office, the problems now belong to him and his presidency. He caused them, made them worse, or didn’t solve them. Either way, they are his now.

…In leadership, you cannot “pretend” to be a leader. You either are — or you aren’t — a leader. One or the other will become apparent very quickly.
If you want the leadership job, you must step up and take full ownership of it. A “pretender” or “poser” is like an actor who has learned all the right lines, but has no idea what they mean. Once the script has been followed (or deviated from), the actor is clueless about what to do next. This is the job of the leader. Unfortunately, in this government, the “directors” often seem clueless, having learned in academia where results and wins/losses are theoretical, or in politics where success (at getting elected) is more a matter of rhetoric than results.

If you are not ready for a position, or do not believe that you have what it takes to rise to the challenge (or clean up the mess even if you believe it is not your mess), then do not take the job. This was Barack Obama’s fundamental mistake. He grossly underestimated the difficulty of the position he was running for, and overestimated his preparedness to actually do the job. Just because he could “talk a good game” (thanks to a phalanx of speech writers and the omnipresent teleprompters) does not mean he actually knew what to do or how to do it. The presidency of the United States of America is not a place for heavy OJT (On-the Job-Training)….”

After the first three plus years of the presidency, it is painfully clear that Barack Obama was a “pretty face,” and “glib speaker” and a lightweight liberal politician with a community organizer/radical background. The American people should be outraged at this man’s behavior and even his candidacy. Why are they not? Because of the misinformation delivered by sympathetic liberal/mainstream media who loves his nonsensical form of governing.

…”Obama’s perceived preparedness for the presidency is a terrible delusion, from which it is difficult to escape. Mistakes build upon each other and result in even more complex problems. Difficult problems that are mishandled become even more difficult to fix. When you have too little experience, lack substance (other than the words of your latest speech), then leading, managing and problem solving simply don’t happen. And that is what has occurred. When you compound the problem by surrounding your self with like-minded theorists, lacking in real-world experience, things become worse yet. The theoretical solutions to problems often don’t work due to the messiness of the real world — and the reasons are almost unfathomable to these rookie executive/politicians. …”

What should Americans think about this “imposter?” Will he divulge his true background so we can all see who he is and where he came from — really? If not, is this just a man who should never have been sworn into the office of President in the first place, and who has crippled Americans miserably during his term?

Will we continue to believe his misstatements (the politically correct term for lies)? Can he simply use the media to “erase and forget the past three years of misery and missteps?” Or will we learn from his imperialistic behavior and terrible results and throw him out in November?

It’s getting scary that someone is manipulating things behind the scenes. I think sometimes we have even forgotten what freedom of speech means. Political correctness is strangling it.

It will be instructive to see how much play this book gets on TV and in the newspapers. Why do I think they won’t touch it?

Local Priest Has Me Seeing Red

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While glancing at this morning’s issue of our local newspaper, I saw red. Red as in Communism and red as in anger when I saw this headline: “Economic disparity calls for leveling.” It wasn’t from a news story and it wasn’t on the editorial pages. It was on the Saturday weekend section.

What? Someone here’s spewing Marxist rhetoric, I thought.

Then I saw the author’s name and almost choked. It was the priest at the cathedral I used to attend. That headline – and his strays from Catholic doctrine – are why I no longer attend the church where I was married and where my children were baptized and confirmed.

A little background. The first Sunday he preached he criticized the parish for prejudice against gays. It stuck out because there never seemed to be any such action taking place. In Midtown, you don’t find much interest in that topic. It’s not a big issue. We are a tolerant community. No one really knew what he was even talking about. Then, he tried to convince us that no actual miracle occurred with the loaves and the fishes. No, Jesus didn’t actually make more food; he just inspired the community that came out and shared with everyone else. That was shocking.

Next, he tried to take over the approved renovation of the cathedral built and paid for by Italian immigrants in the 30s. He wanted to replace the painting above the altar with a picture of Our Lady rejected by the Los Angeles cathedral depicting her as a young Mexican woman. Parishioners were flaming mad that they had donated money with certain images to remain, then were told they would not. Ultimately, the parishioners won that fight, but it showed the social justice side of the man.

Meanwhile in the school, his liberal teachings were causing a drop off in enrollment. At a meeting one parent complained that the whole semester did not see a Mass for the children except on Ash Wednesday. I noticed how the stance on abortion was pushed aside during elections to favor the Democrats. And, I know for a fact, that this priest voted Democrat in primaries when the platform of that party is pro abortion. I know this because I worked at the polls and saw his request for that ballot.

But back to his article. He praises the Occupy Wall Street protestors (yes, those who raped, attacked and caused economic hardship wherever they landed) for bringing “to our nation’s consciousness the widening income disparity between the wealthiest 1% and the remaining 99%.”

He continues that the U.S. is the most economically unequal nation in the advanced world. “Why have religious leaders been so silent about this economic disparity?” he asks. Well, maybe because it isn’t any of their business. Remember that “render to Caesar” quote? And, by the way, many haven’t been silent like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakan, Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson. They mount a podium every day – with press coverage – don’t they?

“The Scriptures – especially Jesus in the Gospels – speak much more about money and the disparity between the rich and poor than they do about other important issues being raised in our nation these days,” he continued. I guess Jesus didn’t directly address abortion, the national debt, high gasoline prices or the attempt by the government to take over every aspect of our health care, so we should just chuck those.

He goes on to pooh pooh fasting, especially the Catholic practice of not eating meat on Fridays in Lent. Somebody email Pope Benedict and tell him to tuck into meat on Fridays. Father says it’s OK.

He outdoes himself with this next logical pirouette, however: “‘Glad tidings’ are truly the reversal of good fortune. Those at the bottom of the ladder find freedom and hope, Jesus says. And by mentioning ‘a year of favor from the Lord,’ Jesus was speaking of the Jubilee Year, spoken of in the Book of Leviticus. It teaches the Chosen People that every 50 years, all debts are to be erased. All land has to be returned to the original owner, and those trapped by financial bondage need to be released.”

Where to begin? At the dig to the Jews and the stereotype of them as mercenaries? In practical terms he’s calling for amnesty for illegal aliens, a forgetting of student loans, freeing deadbeats from paying mortgages and all the other giveaways we have. It struck me in particular since I had just heard from a friend who with her husband is buying homes and refurbishing them for rentals. They are doing it to have some income to supplement the pittance and maybe even doubtful existence of Social Security. The first house they renovated and rented procured one month’s rent for them and a tenant who refuses to pay the rest. A judge sided with the renter and is allowing her to live there for as long as she likes. Another court date awaits, but in the meantime they have lost money they could not afford. How can this be just? Another prospective tenant thought she was a good renter because she and her husband had enough welfare checks connived from the government to rent the house.

But, no, the Father insists that a “leveling” take place. “The rich are to give away their wealth to those who are poor.” I believe Jesus meant voluntarily and not, as he is suggesting, by a government redistributing it.

In fact, as he ends his piece, he writes “In Lent, we celebrate that Jesus truly ‘emptied’ himself and voluntarily put himself on the side of the alienated and broken.” Really? I thought Easter was about Jesus dying to free us from sin and showing that he was God by rising again. I don’t think it was a call for the redistribution of wealth. Maybe he needs to be a follower of Marx or Lenin instead of Our Savior.

It’s shocking to me to see a priest so obsessed with material goods. Since when does Social Justice take precedence over the spiritual needs of the flock?

I guess it has since the 60s when the whole movement gained ground. Like the War on Poverty, mankind will never produce equality and justice. Those will only occur in heaven. It is presumptuous of him to believe he can force people to do it.

Somewhere free will and God just got thrown under the bus.

You can read his article here:http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/mar/17/guest-commentary-economic-disparity-calls-for/

For It, But They Don’t Want to Pay It

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As orthodox Catholic author Steve Kellmeyer points out (in americanthinker.com):

On the one hand, the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) is attacking Obama for forcing them (the bishops) to pay for contraception. On the other hand, the USCCB is pushing forward the idea that taxpayers should pay to extend unemployment insurance (again).

And that’s just the beginning of the rich irony. You see, almost none of the parishes in the United States pay unemployment insurance. They get dispensed from the mandate to do so because they are religious organizations. So, if you are employed by a Catholic parish and you get laid off, so long, sucker. You can’t collect unemployment because your bishop hasn’t paid into unemployment for you….

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/02/the_us_bishops_pushed_unemployment_benefits_extension_which_theyre_exempt_from.html#ixzz1mjdR8s00

Thoughts on the Debate

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Although pundits last night said Gingrich didn’t help himself in the debate and Romney did, they seemed about equal from my viewpoint. Neither one hit it out of the park. Santorum did, at times. Ron Paul had his charm, but he still looks like the one you’d X out when asked who doesn’t belong in this picture.

There is talk today that Wolf Blitzer, the CNN host, “blitzed” Newt, especially when it came to the Romney tax issue. He might have thrown Newt off his game a little, but he didn’t score. Blitzer followed John King in giving lengthy prologues to questions; when the moderator inserts himself like that it is off putting.

The scuffle between Newt and Mitt began right away. Blitzer asked Romney about an ad he’s running which has Gingrich saying Spanish is a ghetto language. Mitt denied it and Blitzer quoted the ad’s tag line “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message.” Ding.

Romney later accused Gingrich of promising everyone in each state a goody to get votes. That’s rich coming from Romney who someone described as a “bartender. He’ll give anyone whatever they want.”

When talk came to the home mortgage crisis, Paul gets credit for mentioning the Community Reinvestment Act that many consider the root of the problem.

I liked Newt’s idea about taking Social Security out of the budget. It should operate alone so as not to be held hostage to government financial battles.

The real and most important exchange came mid debate when they got on the topic of Obamacare. Santorum excelled. He hit Romney well on Romneycare, criticizing that there are 15 things the same in both it and Obamacare. He said that the “free ridership” Romney said was avoided in Massachusetts in actuality increased it five fold. Then Santorum emphasized that we cannot give the issue to Obama. Exactly.

Romney shocked me when he replied “it’s not worth getting angry about!” In that sentence he epitomized everything wrong with his candidacy. If there is any issue we all are angry about – and have a right to be angry about – it’s Obamacare. It gets to the heart of what’s wrong with the country today – constant government interference in our lives. And in this case, it’s a life and death issue.

That was the most important takeaway in the debate.

I was amused that when Ron Paul was asked about Hispanic interests he said, “The Hispanic community is especially attuned to the foreign policy of non intervention. Hispanics are more opposed to war than other communities.” That was a surprise, wasn’t it? You think of Mexican gangs and South American cartels and they do not seem averse to war.

Blitzer then went on to ask Paul what he would say if he were president and Fidel Castro called. “I’d ask him what he called about.” The doctor took the logical answer and smacked Blitzer down.

A woman in the audience asked the candidates’ views on Puerto Rican statehood. Strangely, Blitzer only asked Santorum who in essence said it was up to Puerto Ricans.

It got weird when Blitzer went on to ask why their wives would be the best First Lady. I didn’t know that was such a pressing issue. Ron Paul said because she had many children and was the author of the Ron Paul cookbook. That seemed a little demeaning, especially since he didn’t even give her name. Romney talked about his wife’s compassion after her MS and breast cancer. Newt went weird, too, saying that Callista wasn’t better than any of the other wives up there. If my husband said that, I’d say fine; anyone of them would have made just as good a wife as me? Take one. It wasn’t smart considering his previous wives.

Santorum said Karen was a nurse, got a law degree, had 7 children, lost one, wrote a book and has a special needs child. No one could top that.

The final question was why are you the one on stage most likely to beat Obama?

Ron Paul pointed to his civil liberties position and that he was not as bellicose as Obama.

Mitt said it’s because it’s a critical time and more or less everyone appreciates my greatness. He then appropriated Rick Perry’s position of being a Washington outsider for his own. Then he talked about the need for change, change especially in Washington. Now where have I heard that before, this time minus the hope?

Santorum pointed to his opposition to TARP, government health care and cap and trade. He said he was the only one who could win the industrial heartland and made that the centerpiece of his campaign. Santorum said he could win those critical states.

If I were a Floridian and not yet voted, the debate might have changed my mind. Santorum won the day.