Sometimes editorialists and commentators have such fixed agendas that they activate their keypads before activating their minds and then don’t take a second look before publishing.
Case in point: these statements in the lead editorial of the Lexington Herald-Leader of 29 March: “Or the government [concerning House Bill 279, the so-called religious freedom bill passed by the Legislature and vetoed by the governor] must prove that there is a compelling public interest in restricting the religiously-inspired action. To take just one example of where this could cause nightmares, consider county jails. Individuals held in them could assert that their religions don't allow them to be housed with people of the same sex, or of different religions or on some day of the week. Or, they could assert that their religious beliefs demand special diets or clothing. In every case, it would be the county's legal obligation to prove those beliefs aren't sincere or establish that there is a compelling public interest for not honoring them, or else meet the person's demands.”
A worst example could not be imagined. The government, using taxpayer money, is responsible for both the best use of it and the safety of the entire public, including jailbirds; therefore, the government has a COMPELLING PUBLIC INTEREST in this case and can deny the silly claims noted in this excerpt. The only question the government (jail) would have to consider is the physical well-being of the prisoner, as well as his effect on other prisoners, and not what the prisoner believes about anything. The government would be obligated to remove a prisoner’s diseased appendix, whether or not the prisoner believed his appendix too divine to touch.
The writer confused the matter vis-à-vis the public-versus-private aspects of virtually everything. The paper’s position is that there can be no allowances in ANY SITUATION for what it considers discrimination, never mind the preferences of the people, whether regarding religion or anything else, with regard to what they own and believe. In other words, the paper believes that the government has a compelling public interest in everything and the right to FORCE its will on everyone.
A good example was the paper’s position last year about this time regarding the Hands On Originals matter when a printing company refused service to a homosexual group account religious beliefs of the owner, who nevertheless found a printer who would do the job at no extra cost. The local government had absolutely no COMPELLING PUBLIC INTEREST in this private and resolved matter, but HOO has been subjected to an ethics investigation (and lost) and is still bearing the expense of answering insane questions about its right to decide who its customers will be…on any basis.
The objective of the paper and the city fathers/mothers was simply – after the fact – to put the printing company out of business, mainly through convincing perfectly reasonable people to boycott it. The mayor, himself a homosexual, inveighed mightily as did, of course, the paper, in encouraging people to have a magnificent protest downtown against the company, located a couple or so miles away. The protest was a monumental flop and HOO is still in business. Perhaps now, all the supposed offended ones will just shut up and mind their own business.
The First Amendment protected HOO on religious grounds, but the paper’s position, as well as that of the government, was/is that HOO’s religious beliefs stopped at the point where it harmlessly intersected not the religion but the lifestyle of the homosexual outfit. In this case, the government had a COMPELLING PUBLIC INTEREST, if any interest at all, in protecting HOO’s right to legally do business its way. The city fathers/mothers failed woefully, as did the paper, and sent the message that folks had better watch out because Big Brother will make all decisions and punish those who don’t comply with its directives, assuming no laws are broken.
The group screaming the loudest about the legislation was, of course, the homosexual outfit, insisting that its perversion must be accepted by people who do not approve of it and want nothing to do especially business-wise with those who engage homosexual behavior, the latter being a religious matter for many Christians since it is biblically condemned vehemently, as well as filthy biologically. For that matter, a property-owner (especially furnished apartments), disregarding any religious belief, should not be forced to rent to people who perform anal or oral sex (or other unnatural practices) on each other for reasons that should be perfectly obvious.
The legislation/veto-override was good and proper. The paper made sure to point out the very few “good-guys” who voted not to override the governor’s veto. This may not help them as much as thought in the next election.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
States Losing Rights
The Obama tenure, past and future, is the bellwether of tension between states’ rights and federal areas of responsibility. Obama has made it plain that he’s for having an impregnably strong central government to which the citizens and states will bow the knee, personally and institutionally, never mind any state law or state constitution.
This is being played out now in the two cases before the Supreme Court. The will of the people in California was expressed a short time ago in the referendum approving Proposition Eight, the constitutional defining of marriage as ONLY between a man and woman. Obama has already quite publicly expressed his opinion (that of a “constitutional law” lecturer) that the California amendment is un-Constitutional, federally; therefore, it should be struck down, as it was by the squirrelly Ninth Circuit. The state, in his view, has no right concerning marriage definition.
The SCOTUS is at the same time deciding the fate of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress in 1996 defining marriage federally as between ONLY a man and woman. This law was passed by the elected representatives, surrogates of the citizens to protect the nation’s interests. Clearly, the people have spoken on the federal level in this way. Additionally, in the vast majority of states, laws and/or constitutions define marriage as between ONLY a man and woman.
The president has declared publicly that his Judicial Department will not enforce this law merely upon his disagreement with it, notwithstanding his sworn oath to carry out all the laws of the land. This is an impeachable offense far more serious that that of Bill Clinton in 1999, when he was impeached for lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The Senate did not convict, notwithstanding that Clinton was guilty as sin.
With the addition of cabinet-level departments to the federal government has occurred concomitantly a diminishing of states’ rights. The federal government has some distinct responsibilities, to wit, national defense, international affairs, a universal system of financial instruments, interstate commerce and transportation, management of government assets such as lands, buildings, parks and highways, federal court system and appropriate law-enforcement (not a national police force, as Obama recommended in 2008), and little else.
Practically all other things should be left up to the states, none of which fits a one-pattern-for-all schema. Indeed, the feds can ruin a good thing, such as is the case with the Department of Education, which since its entry into that area has presided over a decline in educational achievement. The “no child left behind” effort has been a fiasco and a monumental headache for states, not to mention its outrageous cost, much of which due to excessive regulation and record-keeping.
The best eye on the money is that which is closest to its collecting and spending, making the states and their legislatures and courts better procurers and auditors of public funds than the federal government, having as a premier attribute the elements of wastefulness and far-off corruption on a grand scale. States should be responsible for healthcare concerns, for instance, not the Congress, president, or detached bureaucrats in Washington who have no idea of local/state situations in a nation of 314 million people spread over 3.8 million square miles.
There are 15 federal departments presided over by secretaries appointed on the basis of patronage mostly – often people who have no training or background for handling their departments. For instance, the current education-secretary came from Chicago—surprise, surprise—where he presided over one of the worst public-education systems in the country. The director of homeland security was a governor and legal-system bureaucrat, not an expert in terrorism, military affairs, or espionage. Remember the official replacement of the term “terrorism” with “man-caused-disaster,” like a car-wreck? Egad!
States can be at the mercy of the Department of Housing and Urban Development instead of sensibly handling their own preferences and establishing their own regulations. HUD should be rescinded, as should Health and Human services, with the exception of the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. There’s no Department of Enterprise so there should be no Department of Labor.
There’s no need for a Department of Energy, the states being able to take care of that area locally much better than the feds can do it. A state can, for instance, define the gasoline formula by season if it so desires. That partly explains why gas is so expensive in California. States can trade energy back-and-forth to guard against brownouts without the federal government messing up such arrangements with its endless and useless regulations. Left to their own devices, states would have approved the Keystone Pipeline years ago, with no harm to any entity.
The federal government is way too big, corrupt, wasteful and costly. It has steadily co-opted the rights that states should have. All the furor over gun-control has been for nothing…the states can handle this. The states can decide whether or not men should marry men, a ridiculous proposition, but in Iowa, a state that hopefully will be entirely ignored in the next election-cycle, they can do that already…so why should SCOTUS be tied up in something that ridiculous?
Voters should decide in the 2014 and 2016 elections whether or not they want to be part of a federal monarchy presided over by a king posing as president. States’ rights are too important to be frittered away in the interest of turning the country into a huge welfare state, which is what is happening now.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
This is being played out now in the two cases before the Supreme Court. The will of the people in California was expressed a short time ago in the referendum approving Proposition Eight, the constitutional defining of marriage as ONLY between a man and woman. Obama has already quite publicly expressed his opinion (that of a “constitutional law” lecturer) that the California amendment is un-Constitutional, federally; therefore, it should be struck down, as it was by the squirrelly Ninth Circuit. The state, in his view, has no right concerning marriage definition.
The SCOTUS is at the same time deciding the fate of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress in 1996 defining marriage federally as between ONLY a man and woman. This law was passed by the elected representatives, surrogates of the citizens to protect the nation’s interests. Clearly, the people have spoken on the federal level in this way. Additionally, in the vast majority of states, laws and/or constitutions define marriage as between ONLY a man and woman.
The president has declared publicly that his Judicial Department will not enforce this law merely upon his disagreement with it, notwithstanding his sworn oath to carry out all the laws of the land. This is an impeachable offense far more serious that that of Bill Clinton in 1999, when he was impeached for lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The Senate did not convict, notwithstanding that Clinton was guilty as sin.
With the addition of cabinet-level departments to the federal government has occurred concomitantly a diminishing of states’ rights. The federal government has some distinct responsibilities, to wit, national defense, international affairs, a universal system of financial instruments, interstate commerce and transportation, management of government assets such as lands, buildings, parks and highways, federal court system and appropriate law-enforcement (not a national police force, as Obama recommended in 2008), and little else.
Practically all other things should be left up to the states, none of which fits a one-pattern-for-all schema. Indeed, the feds can ruin a good thing, such as is the case with the Department of Education, which since its entry into that area has presided over a decline in educational achievement. The “no child left behind” effort has been a fiasco and a monumental headache for states, not to mention its outrageous cost, much of which due to excessive regulation and record-keeping.
The best eye on the money is that which is closest to its collecting and spending, making the states and their legislatures and courts better procurers and auditors of public funds than the federal government, having as a premier attribute the elements of wastefulness and far-off corruption on a grand scale. States should be responsible for healthcare concerns, for instance, not the Congress, president, or detached bureaucrats in Washington who have no idea of local/state situations in a nation of 314 million people spread over 3.8 million square miles.
There are 15 federal departments presided over by secretaries appointed on the basis of patronage mostly – often people who have no training or background for handling their departments. For instance, the current education-secretary came from Chicago—surprise, surprise—where he presided over one of the worst public-education systems in the country. The director of homeland security was a governor and legal-system bureaucrat, not an expert in terrorism, military affairs, or espionage. Remember the official replacement of the term “terrorism” with “man-caused-disaster,” like a car-wreck? Egad!
States can be at the mercy of the Department of Housing and Urban Development instead of sensibly handling their own preferences and establishing their own regulations. HUD should be rescinded, as should Health and Human services, with the exception of the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. There’s no Department of Enterprise so there should be no Department of Labor.
There’s no need for a Department of Energy, the states being able to take care of that area locally much better than the feds can do it. A state can, for instance, define the gasoline formula by season if it so desires. That partly explains why gas is so expensive in California. States can trade energy back-and-forth to guard against brownouts without the federal government messing up such arrangements with its endless and useless regulations. Left to their own devices, states would have approved the Keystone Pipeline years ago, with no harm to any entity.
The federal government is way too big, corrupt, wasteful and costly. It has steadily co-opted the rights that states should have. All the furor over gun-control has been for nothing…the states can handle this. The states can decide whether or not men should marry men, a ridiculous proposition, but in Iowa, a state that hopefully will be entirely ignored in the next election-cycle, they can do that already…so why should SCOTUS be tied up in something that ridiculous?
Voters should decide in the 2014 and 2016 elections whether or not they want to be part of a federal monarchy presided over by a king posing as president. States’ rights are too important to be frittered away in the interest of turning the country into a huge welfare state, which is what is happening now.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, March 22, 2013
Pathetic Professorial Punditry
In a 19 March column in the Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.), Mike Rivage-Seul, emeritus professor of peace and social justice (whatever that is) at Berea College, vented his spleen upon Pope Francis, citing his misbehavior during the so-called “Dirty War” in Argentina 1976-83, in which lots of folks just disappeared, not that folks didn’t disappear routinely in that part of the world. He described Francis as a (gasp) “compassionate conservative,” about as lethal an attribute as one can imagine on most college campuses these days.
Describing the divine bearing on the pope’s election, the professor wrote, “Evidently, she [the Holy Spirit] concluded, ‘I’ll let them elect a clone of John Paul II if they like. But then I’ll take over and allow the scandalous crimes of that clone to become evident. As a result, he’ll have to resign.’” FYI, the going thing on college campuses and gaggles of seminaries these days (a gender-diversity thing) is the designation of the biblical Holy Spirit as feminine (named Shekina), not masculine, as documented in the Bible…a sort of spiritual glass-ceiling response.
This gives professors a warm/fuzzy feeling, perhaps something like “fellow-feeling,” mentioned by the professor in a February column, in which the he wrote, “The 20th century, once so full of promise, turned out to be the bloodiest in the history of the world. And the West was responsible for it all… .” The U.S. just didn’t have the same degree of “fellow-feeling” that the Nazis and the Japanese had, thus all the carnage by the corrupt West. An example of fellow-feeling might accrue to the 200,000 Korean “comfort women” enslaved and raped by Japanese soldiers during WWII to keep them from having sex-deprived headaches during their butcheries.
Rivage-Seul is carrying out an assignment by the Holy Spirit, just making those “scandalous crimes” become evident, presumably with a view toward getting a pope, as he noted, with a “feminine spirit” and “outside the ranks of the College of Cardinals,” never mind that the “oldest profession” is carried out with a “feminine spirit.” Okay, a lot of folks have harped on the pope’s lackluster performance vis-à-vis Hitler’s treatment of the Jews in the 1930s-40s, so why not slam Francis for not taking a bullet in Argentina?
Also in the 19 March issue was a piece by Michael F. Cairo, associate professor of political science at Transylvania University, who claimed that the Iraq War was/is responsible for the turmoil, trials and troubles in the Middle East today, meaning that Francis was innocent but George Bush was the culprit, never mind that Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have been butchering each other for a thousand years. Indeed, Saddam spent the 1980s gassing the Iranians and his own people (okay, Kurds) and then invaded Kuwait long before the Iraq War, with a view toward taking over the whole oil-rich Arabian Peninsula.
Cairo wrote, “The Bush administration destroyed any chance of negotiation with Iran by including it in the Axis of Evil… .” He claimed that Bush scared the Iranians into thinking he was about to do a number on them. This got Obama off the hook. Obama claimed back in 2008 that he would have a tete-a-tete with Amadinejad and they would make things all better. He never did that but it was Bush’s fault and Cairo knows it.
Cairo also didn’t mention that Obama was gung-ho for the Arab Spring and even wasted a bunch of Libyans to prove it…bombed ’em for seven months, but that didn’t affect the turmoil in the Middle East…did it? He also told Mubarak, Saleh, Qaddafi and Assad they had to go…or else, but the “or else” never came through (except for hopelessly weak Libya); therefore, more turmoil…all Bush’s fault, naturally.
Cairo did mention one thing Obama has done—the DRONES. Now that might just upset some Middle Easterners enough to make them cast aspersions at this country and shoot each other more intensely in the bargain. Remember how they shot each other in Pakistan when they heard that a Koran had been (gasps-s-s-s) flushed. It wasn’t, of course, but the deed was done. The perpetrator of that BIG LIE, Michael Isikoff, now works for NBC, where all “progressives” like the professors are welcome. Revising history is such fun.
Cairo said that Saddam’s reign of terror kept the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds manageable. Yeah…and he only had to kill off 400,000 (mostly Shiites and Kurds) for that excellence. Egad! Progressive professors are a real laugh.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Describing the divine bearing on the pope’s election, the professor wrote, “Evidently, she [the Holy Spirit] concluded, ‘I’ll let them elect a clone of John Paul II if they like. But then I’ll take over and allow the scandalous crimes of that clone to become evident. As a result, he’ll have to resign.’” FYI, the going thing on college campuses and gaggles of seminaries these days (a gender-diversity thing) is the designation of the biblical Holy Spirit as feminine (named Shekina), not masculine, as documented in the Bible…a sort of spiritual glass-ceiling response.
This gives professors a warm/fuzzy feeling, perhaps something like “fellow-feeling,” mentioned by the professor in a February column, in which the he wrote, “The 20th century, once so full of promise, turned out to be the bloodiest in the history of the world. And the West was responsible for it all… .” The U.S. just didn’t have the same degree of “fellow-feeling” that the Nazis and the Japanese had, thus all the carnage by the corrupt West. An example of fellow-feeling might accrue to the 200,000 Korean “comfort women” enslaved and raped by Japanese soldiers during WWII to keep them from having sex-deprived headaches during their butcheries.
Rivage-Seul is carrying out an assignment by the Holy Spirit, just making those “scandalous crimes” become evident, presumably with a view toward getting a pope, as he noted, with a “feminine spirit” and “outside the ranks of the College of Cardinals,” never mind that the “oldest profession” is carried out with a “feminine spirit.” Okay, a lot of folks have harped on the pope’s lackluster performance vis-à-vis Hitler’s treatment of the Jews in the 1930s-40s, so why not slam Francis for not taking a bullet in Argentina?
Also in the 19 March issue was a piece by Michael F. Cairo, associate professor of political science at Transylvania University, who claimed that the Iraq War was/is responsible for the turmoil, trials and troubles in the Middle East today, meaning that Francis was innocent but George Bush was the culprit, never mind that Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have been butchering each other for a thousand years. Indeed, Saddam spent the 1980s gassing the Iranians and his own people (okay, Kurds) and then invaded Kuwait long before the Iraq War, with a view toward taking over the whole oil-rich Arabian Peninsula.
Cairo wrote, “The Bush administration destroyed any chance of negotiation with Iran by including it in the Axis of Evil… .” He claimed that Bush scared the Iranians into thinking he was about to do a number on them. This got Obama off the hook. Obama claimed back in 2008 that he would have a tete-a-tete with Amadinejad and they would make things all better. He never did that but it was Bush’s fault and Cairo knows it.
Cairo also didn’t mention that Obama was gung-ho for the Arab Spring and even wasted a bunch of Libyans to prove it…bombed ’em for seven months, but that didn’t affect the turmoil in the Middle East…did it? He also told Mubarak, Saleh, Qaddafi and Assad they had to go…or else, but the “or else” never came through (except for hopelessly weak Libya); therefore, more turmoil…all Bush’s fault, naturally.
Cairo did mention one thing Obama has done—the DRONES. Now that might just upset some Middle Easterners enough to make them cast aspersions at this country and shoot each other more intensely in the bargain. Remember how they shot each other in Pakistan when they heard that a Koran had been (gasps-s-s-s) flushed. It wasn’t, of course, but the deed was done. The perpetrator of that BIG LIE, Michael Isikoff, now works for NBC, where all “progressives” like the professors are welcome. Revising history is such fun.
Cairo said that Saddam’s reign of terror kept the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds manageable. Yeah…and he only had to kill off 400,000 (mostly Shiites and Kurds) for that excellence. Egad! Progressive professors are a real laugh.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Pope Francis
Now that the glitter and glamour (strangely out of place) of his election is wearing away, Pope Francis can get down to trying to resurrect a total train-wreck called the Catholic Church. Claiming a membership of some 1.2 billion may not be as significant as it seems, especially since Catholics are born into the church, not necessarily converted, as is the case in Protestant and other denominations, such as the Baptists and Pentecostals. Thus, all the Pope’s talk about converting non-believers is in order.
According to TIME magazine, the major growth area for the church in the last five years has been Africa, particularly the sub-Equatorial area. Angola, for instance, is 57% Catholic, although the World Almanac indicates 38%. There perhaps is a difference between Catholic and “nominally Catholic,” as seen in the figures for Argentina, with TIME claiming a 77% rate and World Almanac, “nominally 92%.” Brazil has dropped from a one-time 99% to the current 65%, largely due to evangelical adherents sort of “converting” Latin American Catholics.
The recent election and celebrations were almost nether-worldly in that Catholics seem to worship the Pope more than God, not hard to understand since the attribute of “infallibility” (at least in spiritual matters) has been accorded the Pope. It would be interesting to test this attribute if Pope Francis and the retired pope Benedict 16 should publicly disagree, even though unwittingly.
This may explain why evangelicals, who insist that a believer stands on his own feet before God, are becoming quite successful in Latin America, where Catholics are taught to confess to a priest (though this seems out of fashion now), who in a way stands between the congregant and God, in a way acting as Christ.
There are 206 Cardinals, the “ruling” cadre of the church, though the Pope by definition has the final say on everything. The Cardinals, other than electing a Pope when necessary, are responsible as Archbishops for the operations of dioceses or collections of dioceses throughout the world. Nearly half the Cardinals (92) are past age 80, with only those below that age eligible to elect the Pope, 114 in the case of Pope Francis. The average age of the 117 Cardinals when they elected Pope Benedict 16 in 2005 was 71. Benedict 16 was 78 that year. Pope Francis will be 77 this year.
The church is its own worst enemy in a way. Transparency is almost totally absent in its affairs. This may be part of the reason that evangelicals are making significant inroads in Latin America. The unbelievable effort at total secrecy, even the penultimate cloistering of the Cardinals during the election, is a good example of how not to gain the trust of the people. Other denominations have open elections and even politicking goes on. This may be good or bad but at least it’s observable.
So…the Papacy is an “old guard” thing. The Pope appoints the Cardinals and the appointees have been around awhile before taking office, meaning that little change will take place soon, especially with regard to abortion, same-sex marriage, ordination of women to the priesthood, toleration of homosexuality, even though the latter is a genuine problem in the priesthood. There was a horrible well-publicized homosexual orgy involving priests in Rome prior to the recent election.
The worst disgrace for the church in recent years, of course, has been perpetrated by priest-pedophiles, who have molested no telling how many children for no one knows how long and for which the church has been paying tens of millions to satisfy both the victims and the courts. Some 10 million dollars were paid in California to four victims just prior to the papal election. The pedophile is a different creature from the homosexual, but the church leadership must rid itself of both if it’s ever to have credibility.
Allowing the priests to marry might assuage the homosexual problem, though that would need a decision by an infallible Pope negating a decision by another infallible Pope, but it’s been done before. The pedophiles and the bishops/cardinals who “moved them around” should all go to jail.
The recent Vatican bank-scandal is a good example of no one being at home to take charge. The church has much to offer but it must “purify” itself. There are “irregularities” (sin, whatever) in all denominations but one hopes that Pope Francis can set things straight in his church.
Disclaimer: I am not a Catholic.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
According to TIME magazine, the major growth area for the church in the last five years has been Africa, particularly the sub-Equatorial area. Angola, for instance, is 57% Catholic, although the World Almanac indicates 38%. There perhaps is a difference between Catholic and “nominally Catholic,” as seen in the figures for Argentina, with TIME claiming a 77% rate and World Almanac, “nominally 92%.” Brazil has dropped from a one-time 99% to the current 65%, largely due to evangelical adherents sort of “converting” Latin American Catholics.
The recent election and celebrations were almost nether-worldly in that Catholics seem to worship the Pope more than God, not hard to understand since the attribute of “infallibility” (at least in spiritual matters) has been accorded the Pope. It would be interesting to test this attribute if Pope Francis and the retired pope Benedict 16 should publicly disagree, even though unwittingly.
This may explain why evangelicals, who insist that a believer stands on his own feet before God, are becoming quite successful in Latin America, where Catholics are taught to confess to a priest (though this seems out of fashion now), who in a way stands between the congregant and God, in a way acting as Christ.
There are 206 Cardinals, the “ruling” cadre of the church, though the Pope by definition has the final say on everything. The Cardinals, other than electing a Pope when necessary, are responsible as Archbishops for the operations of dioceses or collections of dioceses throughout the world. Nearly half the Cardinals (92) are past age 80, with only those below that age eligible to elect the Pope, 114 in the case of Pope Francis. The average age of the 117 Cardinals when they elected Pope Benedict 16 in 2005 was 71. Benedict 16 was 78 that year. Pope Francis will be 77 this year.
The church is its own worst enemy in a way. Transparency is almost totally absent in its affairs. This may be part of the reason that evangelicals are making significant inroads in Latin America. The unbelievable effort at total secrecy, even the penultimate cloistering of the Cardinals during the election, is a good example of how not to gain the trust of the people. Other denominations have open elections and even politicking goes on. This may be good or bad but at least it’s observable.
So…the Papacy is an “old guard” thing. The Pope appoints the Cardinals and the appointees have been around awhile before taking office, meaning that little change will take place soon, especially with regard to abortion, same-sex marriage, ordination of women to the priesthood, toleration of homosexuality, even though the latter is a genuine problem in the priesthood. There was a horrible well-publicized homosexual orgy involving priests in Rome prior to the recent election.
The worst disgrace for the church in recent years, of course, has been perpetrated by priest-pedophiles, who have molested no telling how many children for no one knows how long and for which the church has been paying tens of millions to satisfy both the victims and the courts. Some 10 million dollars were paid in California to four victims just prior to the papal election. The pedophile is a different creature from the homosexual, but the church leadership must rid itself of both if it’s ever to have credibility.
Allowing the priests to marry might assuage the homosexual problem, though that would need a decision by an infallible Pope negating a decision by another infallible Pope, but it’s been done before. The pedophiles and the bishops/cardinals who “moved them around” should all go to jail.
The recent Vatican bank-scandal is a good example of no one being at home to take charge. The church has much to offer but it must “purify” itself. There are “irregularities” (sin, whatever) in all denominations but one hopes that Pope Francis can set things straight in his church.
Disclaimer: I am not a Catholic.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, March 15, 2013
Pathetic White Males
Finally, two of the more recognizable “special times” have passed for another year, to wit, Black History Month and International Women’s Day. It’s at these times that both the African American community and the Distaff Side can express with absolute impunity a castigation of the white male, surely the most evil influence in the Creation.
Accused of everything from outright racism and discrimination by the former to overbearing arrogance and…yes…discrimination by the latter—not to mention brutality, of course—the white male is indeed a pathetic creature. One wonders if there ever will be an International Men’s Day, not that the average white male would notice, tied up as he is in riotous living of one kind or another or just plain corruption, whether in government, business or even the church.
To check out racism and discrimination, one might have noticed the entire front page of the SWEET SIXTEEN SECTION of the Lexington Herald-Leader of 09 March, on which was found a photo of the Madison Central/Holmes contest featuring all ten players (five from each team), only one of whom was white, not to mention the referee, also, who was black. Or, check out UK coach Calipari’s six current signed-scholarship players and three hopefuls, of whom there is only one white guy, but he counts double because he’s the only Kentucky resident in the group.
This is not to say the best basketball players, regardless of ethnicity, should not be chosen for either participation or scholarships; rather, it is to say that racism and discrimination are two-edged swords, with plenty of both blame and credit to go around. With respect to scholarships regarding all races, however, UK should recruit in Kentucky, with the coach actually coaching instead of riding herd on a gaggle of high-school super-stars from wherever.
The ladies have lobbied for and just been granted by the dear leader (or, as he would insist, the commander-in-chief…WE WON) the opportunity to become combat grunts in the military, shooting off the guns and carrying those 70-pound backpacks, living in the desert and dodging enemy bullets and land mines. Hurrah! He’s not a bigoted white male…far too sophisticated for that, understanding that girls should have the right to be killed or mutilated and, if taken prisoner, gang-raped like the 200,000 Korean “comfort” women at the mercy of Japanese soldiers in WWII.
The ladies have arrived, at last, but separate battlefield bathrooms can be a problem, at least where they exist, which is just about nowhere. The bigoted white-male field commanders were very publicly against nullifying “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and it’s a sure bet they hate to see the gals platooning along, but they’re just too insensitive…and don’t forget (drum roll, please) discriminating.
This comes at a time in Kentucky at which the Legislature has heaved heavily and delivered itself of…no, it got tied up somewhere…a “date-rape” bill of some sort, never mind that the state universities endorse and maintain coed dorms, in which students are practically encouraged toward hanky-panky on a 24/7 basis, with the possibility that an irate coed, whether on “Ecstasy” or drunk or not, can say “J’accuse,” whether or not something bad has happened. The poor guy, whether guilty or not, has nothing to say about it but gets his name in the paper.
So…it’s okay to send 110-pound girls into battle but laws have to be written to protect them on home turf in case they fall into a compromising circumstance. Why not just suggest they stay sober, give them boot-camp training as fresh-women and let them protect themselves from the creeps they hang with…a gun in every girl’s book-backpack? Imagine tying up the courts and law enforcement vis-à-vis protective orders accruing to guys the girls turn off, and then try to get even with, the sleazebags.
About this time last year in Lexington, Ky., folks were gearing up for the annual Gay Pride Day in June sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO), so that will be another “special day” during which the white straight male will be excoriated for being insensitive, the unfeeling thug. Last year, an employee of an outfit called Hands On Originals had contracted to print the T-shirts for the great day but its owner decided to break the contract account religious beliefs militating against homosexual behavior, euphemism for “unnatural acts using the sex organs and other body parts.”
HOO, self-described as Christian Outfitters, actually employed homosexuals and even found a substitute company at no greater expense but that was not good enough for the offended GLSO, so the business at hand became putting the business at hand out of business. HOO is still in business but has been put through the wringer, a recent decision, after a wasted year, going against HOO by the Human Rights Commission.
The paper editorialized against HOO last year and advertised a “grand protest” in a downtown park conveniently 2.5 miles from the HOO headquarters, which might have been hard for some folks to find. Sixty people showed up out of a population of 297,000 or so. HOO has also survived the paper’s attempt to deep-six it.
Yeah…there’s nothing like the “special days” to get the adrenalin flowing against the white male. Chances are that he’ll survive Mothers Day, or at least not be made to look like Lizzie Borden…oh wait, that was an alleged lady axe-murderer. Oh well…the white male usually gets a break on the fourth of July…for obvious reasons.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Accused of everything from outright racism and discrimination by the former to overbearing arrogance and…yes…discrimination by the latter—not to mention brutality, of course—the white male is indeed a pathetic creature. One wonders if there ever will be an International Men’s Day, not that the average white male would notice, tied up as he is in riotous living of one kind or another or just plain corruption, whether in government, business or even the church.
To check out racism and discrimination, one might have noticed the entire front page of the SWEET SIXTEEN SECTION of the Lexington Herald-Leader of 09 March, on which was found a photo of the Madison Central/Holmes contest featuring all ten players (five from each team), only one of whom was white, not to mention the referee, also, who was black. Or, check out UK coach Calipari’s six current signed-scholarship players and three hopefuls, of whom there is only one white guy, but he counts double because he’s the only Kentucky resident in the group.
This is not to say the best basketball players, regardless of ethnicity, should not be chosen for either participation or scholarships; rather, it is to say that racism and discrimination are two-edged swords, with plenty of both blame and credit to go around. With respect to scholarships regarding all races, however, UK should recruit in Kentucky, with the coach actually coaching instead of riding herd on a gaggle of high-school super-stars from wherever.
The ladies have lobbied for and just been granted by the dear leader (or, as he would insist, the commander-in-chief…WE WON) the opportunity to become combat grunts in the military, shooting off the guns and carrying those 70-pound backpacks, living in the desert and dodging enemy bullets and land mines. Hurrah! He’s not a bigoted white male…far too sophisticated for that, understanding that girls should have the right to be killed or mutilated and, if taken prisoner, gang-raped like the 200,000 Korean “comfort” women at the mercy of Japanese soldiers in WWII.
The ladies have arrived, at last, but separate battlefield bathrooms can be a problem, at least where they exist, which is just about nowhere. The bigoted white-male field commanders were very publicly against nullifying “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and it’s a sure bet they hate to see the gals platooning along, but they’re just too insensitive…and don’t forget (drum roll, please) discriminating.
This comes at a time in Kentucky at which the Legislature has heaved heavily and delivered itself of…no, it got tied up somewhere…a “date-rape” bill of some sort, never mind that the state universities endorse and maintain coed dorms, in which students are practically encouraged toward hanky-panky on a 24/7 basis, with the possibility that an irate coed, whether on “Ecstasy” or drunk or not, can say “J’accuse,” whether or not something bad has happened. The poor guy, whether guilty or not, has nothing to say about it but gets his name in the paper.
So…it’s okay to send 110-pound girls into battle but laws have to be written to protect them on home turf in case they fall into a compromising circumstance. Why not just suggest they stay sober, give them boot-camp training as fresh-women and let them protect themselves from the creeps they hang with…a gun in every girl’s book-backpack? Imagine tying up the courts and law enforcement vis-à-vis protective orders accruing to guys the girls turn off, and then try to get even with, the sleazebags.
About this time last year in Lexington, Ky., folks were gearing up for the annual Gay Pride Day in June sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO), so that will be another “special day” during which the white straight male will be excoriated for being insensitive, the unfeeling thug. Last year, an employee of an outfit called Hands On Originals had contracted to print the T-shirts for the great day but its owner decided to break the contract account religious beliefs militating against homosexual behavior, euphemism for “unnatural acts using the sex organs and other body parts.”
HOO, self-described as Christian Outfitters, actually employed homosexuals and even found a substitute company at no greater expense but that was not good enough for the offended GLSO, so the business at hand became putting the business at hand out of business. HOO is still in business but has been put through the wringer, a recent decision, after a wasted year, going against HOO by the Human Rights Commission.
The paper editorialized against HOO last year and advertised a “grand protest” in a downtown park conveniently 2.5 miles from the HOO headquarters, which might have been hard for some folks to find. Sixty people showed up out of a population of 297,000 or so. HOO has also survived the paper’s attempt to deep-six it.
Yeah…there’s nothing like the “special days” to get the adrenalin flowing against the white male. Chances are that he’ll survive Mothers Day, or at least not be made to look like Lizzie Borden…oh wait, that was an alleged lady axe-murderer. Oh well…the white male usually gets a break on the fourth of July…for obvious reasons.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The Pope & Catholicism
The Roman Catholic Church, claiming to have 1.2 billion adherents worldwide, is at the forefront of the news these days since it’s in the process of selecting its 266th pope. Like all other Judeo-Christian denominations, it’s in a struggle, especially in the “developed” nations, with regard to Christian faithfulness and behavior, not to mention a decrease in finances.
In Europe and North America, the church is in a desperate battle with secularism, i.e., indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations, according to the dictionary. Nowhere could this be more obvious than in the U.S., where parishioners pay little or no attention to church doctrine in areas such as homosexuality, contraception, abortion and marriage.
This doesn’t mean the church is wrong, only that it’s fighting a losing battle with secularism, automatically heavily vested in political correctness, which has hedonism as a driving force, defined as the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life. As seen graphically in Europe and well on its way in the U.S., the state is assuming cradle-to-grave responsibility for citizens, essentially taxing the producers and making non-producers the beneficiaries of their earnings and assets. Taking care of the “poor” used to be a church responsibility.
The history of the RCC is replete with brutality every bit as lethal and mindless as any seen today, things like the burning-at-the-stake of Bible-translator William Tyndale in 1536. The pope did not want the people to read the Bible, for obvious reasons. In it, they would have found direct contradictions to what they had been taught by the priests. They would not have found “indulgences,” for instance, a sort of passport-to-heaven scheme dreamed up by the hierarchy…for money.
This distinction can be seen in the settling of North, Central and South America. Settlers in the U.S. were relatively educated and mostly Protestant, so they could read the Bible and construct their own theologies, as well as establish government and business.
Catholic missionaries went into South and Central America to an illiterate people who could not read Latin, the language of the church, and simply accepted the clerical indoctrination. Actually, the idea of education was discouraged by the European empire-builders as well as the church, thus the difference in the living standards, for instance, between the Americas, even though South America is richer in natural resources.
The wonder is that Catholics continue to subscribe to the dogma of the Church. The current pope-election is done in complete secrecy by 115 Cardinals, men appearing as mostly old and chubby, wearing ridiculous outfits that probably cost small fortunes. They do in Masses (worship services) what one might expect in pagan rituals, such as waving incense and patrolling around an altar. They insist that the liquid used in the Eucharist is the actual blood of Jesus, too far-fetched for belief. This is not meant to be pejorative, just strange.
The Church has always been steeped in questionable actions, the most recent being the financial shenanigans of the Vatican bank-personnel, embezzlement (or maybe money-laundering) by an official who has nevertheless been pardoned by Pope Benedict XVI. The court actions and lawsuits of the last two or so decades practically bankrupting (or at least claimed, who knows?) some dioceses vis-à-vis the widespread and well-documented molestation of young people by priests is another example.
The penitentiaries in this and other countries should be full of these sleazebags but their bishops, who ought to be in jail, too, just kept moving them around. Even though the Church inveighs heavily against homosexuality, the evidence is that homosexual behavior is rampant in at least some parts of the priesthood and especially in some seminaries, among both students and faculty. Watching priests and others kneeling and kissing Pope Benedict’s ring the other day was sickening—one man bowing before another is just plain wacko.
In addition to the moral turpitude in the Catholic priesthood/hierarchy is the almost brazen display of the material riches of the Church, seen especially currently as attention is turned toward the glitter of churches and palaces in Rome. The Church is probably the single wealthiest entity in the world, when all its cash (has its own bank) and assets are counted—this while people in many Catholic-dominated countries go hungry.
Though not a member of the United Nations, the Vatican is considered a nation with a population of 836 souls located on 109 acres entirely within Italy, and has its own flag. To its eternal shame the U.S. has maintained an ambassador to the Vatican in total contravention of the U.S. Constitution regarding church and state. That post has been empty since November 2012, when U.S. Ambassador Miguel Humberto Diaz resigned to take a teaching position after 3.5 years in Rome representing President Obama, who had no trouble bowing to the Muslim head honcho of Saudi Arabia in 2009. Whether or not he would bow to a Christian Pope is problematic.
It’s fair to say that the RCC has probably done more than any organization to hurt Christianity because of both its sordid history and the current pathetic leadership and immorality in its priesthood and hierarchy.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
In Europe and North America, the church is in a desperate battle with secularism, i.e., indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations, according to the dictionary. Nowhere could this be more obvious than in the U.S., where parishioners pay little or no attention to church doctrine in areas such as homosexuality, contraception, abortion and marriage.
This doesn’t mean the church is wrong, only that it’s fighting a losing battle with secularism, automatically heavily vested in political correctness, which has hedonism as a driving force, defined as the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life. As seen graphically in Europe and well on its way in the U.S., the state is assuming cradle-to-grave responsibility for citizens, essentially taxing the producers and making non-producers the beneficiaries of their earnings and assets. Taking care of the “poor” used to be a church responsibility.
The history of the RCC is replete with brutality every bit as lethal and mindless as any seen today, things like the burning-at-the-stake of Bible-translator William Tyndale in 1536. The pope did not want the people to read the Bible, for obvious reasons. In it, they would have found direct contradictions to what they had been taught by the priests. They would not have found “indulgences,” for instance, a sort of passport-to-heaven scheme dreamed up by the hierarchy…for money.
This distinction can be seen in the settling of North, Central and South America. Settlers in the U.S. were relatively educated and mostly Protestant, so they could read the Bible and construct their own theologies, as well as establish government and business.
Catholic missionaries went into South and Central America to an illiterate people who could not read Latin, the language of the church, and simply accepted the clerical indoctrination. Actually, the idea of education was discouraged by the European empire-builders as well as the church, thus the difference in the living standards, for instance, between the Americas, even though South America is richer in natural resources.
The wonder is that Catholics continue to subscribe to the dogma of the Church. The current pope-election is done in complete secrecy by 115 Cardinals, men appearing as mostly old and chubby, wearing ridiculous outfits that probably cost small fortunes. They do in Masses (worship services) what one might expect in pagan rituals, such as waving incense and patrolling around an altar. They insist that the liquid used in the Eucharist is the actual blood of Jesus, too far-fetched for belief. This is not meant to be pejorative, just strange.
The Church has always been steeped in questionable actions, the most recent being the financial shenanigans of the Vatican bank-personnel, embezzlement (or maybe money-laundering) by an official who has nevertheless been pardoned by Pope Benedict XVI. The court actions and lawsuits of the last two or so decades practically bankrupting (or at least claimed, who knows?) some dioceses vis-à-vis the widespread and well-documented molestation of young people by priests is another example.
The penitentiaries in this and other countries should be full of these sleazebags but their bishops, who ought to be in jail, too, just kept moving them around. Even though the Church inveighs heavily against homosexuality, the evidence is that homosexual behavior is rampant in at least some parts of the priesthood and especially in some seminaries, among both students and faculty. Watching priests and others kneeling and kissing Pope Benedict’s ring the other day was sickening—one man bowing before another is just plain wacko.
In addition to the moral turpitude in the Catholic priesthood/hierarchy is the almost brazen display of the material riches of the Church, seen especially currently as attention is turned toward the glitter of churches and palaces in Rome. The Church is probably the single wealthiest entity in the world, when all its cash (has its own bank) and assets are counted—this while people in many Catholic-dominated countries go hungry.
Though not a member of the United Nations, the Vatican is considered a nation with a population of 836 souls located on 109 acres entirely within Italy, and has its own flag. To its eternal shame the U.S. has maintained an ambassador to the Vatican in total contravention of the U.S. Constitution regarding church and state. That post has been empty since November 2012, when U.S. Ambassador Miguel Humberto Diaz resigned to take a teaching position after 3.5 years in Rome representing President Obama, who had no trouble bowing to the Muslim head honcho of Saudi Arabia in 2009. Whether or not he would bow to a Christian Pope is problematic.
It’s fair to say that the RCC has probably done more than any organization to hurt Christianity because of both its sordid history and the current pathetic leadership and immorality in its priesthood and hierarchy.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, March 08, 2013
Obama & the Constitution
The filibuster (actual, not according to “Senate Rules”) by Senator Rand Paul on 06 March regarding the president’s or the attorney general’s apparent refusal for weeks to indicate whether or not the president could have a non-combatant American citizen assassinated on American soil has been the latest big news-item. When Obama had an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, wasted by drone in Yemen in September 2011, the question became of interest.
Shed no tears for al-Awlaki, a homegrown American in league with al Qaeda. Major Hasan of Ft. Hood-massacre fame was one of Awlaki’s pupils vis-à-vis the offing of Americans while in homicide/suicide mode. Strangely, even though the Ft. Hood atrocity took place 3.5 years ago in plain sight of a plethora of witnesses, the major has never been brought to trial, the current reason (at least as of last notice) being that he refused to shave his beard and thus be “religiously” defiled.
Army regulations (he’s still in the army) require that he shave but the army (meaning Obama, the commander-in-chief raised in childhood as a Muslim) seems to have caved. According to Hasan’s religion, murdering citizens in cold blood is spiritually correct but (gasp) shaving is not. Never mind that Hasan has been well-shaved all the years he’s been in the army, apparently without a thought of going to hell account of not being bewhiskered.
Obama could order the man tried immediately, shaved or not, and would not let any Baptist male take this line, particularly if the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright said to get on with it. This explains, however, the apparent disregard the president has of the U.S. Constitution. And, it explains Senator Paul’s mission, to wit, that the president cannot violate that document in any way. Currently, the president operates on the theory that he governs the United States of Monarchy, rather than the U.S. of A. Operative in this regard is the use of executive orders to bypass the Congress and the Courts.
Under the duress of his filibuster, Paul received a letter (after many weeks of requests for clarification) from the attorney general stating that the president may not commit such a murder, something that could have been done in five minutes back then. The episode, however, points up Obama’s disregard for the Constitution, starting in his first year in office, as well as the fact that he harbored the rationale that he could actually work his will on an American citizen in this country.
Flash back to 2008-09, when Obama and Illinois Senator Durbin (and a bunch of other democrats) decided that Roland Burris, the man appointed by Illinois then-governor Blagojevich to take Obama’s vacated Senate seat, would not be allowed to take the seat. Obama had favored Valerie Jarrett for that seat and Durbin is just a loose cannon, who once compared American GIs to keepers of the Russian Gulags, Hitler’s storm troopers and Pol Pot’s butchers of the “killing fields” in Cambodia. He proves that subversives can be senators.
According to the U.S. Constitution, a state legislature can determine how a vacant Senate seat can be filled. In Illinois, the legislature determined that the governor makes an appointment and the appointee will serve the remainder of the term at issue, in this case two years. It was Obama’s job to uphold that determination. In fact, Burris was “locked out” until days after the official swearing-in of senators took place. So much for Obama and the Constitution! Windbag Durbin didn’t matter, nor did Majority Leader Reid, who should have had the guts to do his job.
Obama’s role in the Burris matter comprised grounds for impeachment. Obama, reversing his position in 2008 regarding marriage, declared later that his Judicial Department (Holder) would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. The president is sworn to uphold the laws, so he committed an impeachable offense, made more egregious by the fact that most states, such as Kentucky, have laws and/or Constitutional amendments upholding the DOMA.
Obama’s Judicial department sued Arizona for essentially enforcing FEDERAL laws regarding immigrants – another impeachable offense account trampling states’ rights. Recently, the department has joined a matter before the courts in California that would nullify a referendum- approved Constitutional amendment banning “gay” marriage – another impeachable offense.
The most egregious impeachable offense was Obama’s unprovoked and Constitutionally un-approved attack on Libya in 2011, completely bypassing Congress and announcing the attack not in the U.S. but in Brazil as he began a vacation not including his presence as commander-in-chief in Washington. That malicious attack resulted in seven months of relentless bombing by the U.S. and NATO, with no telling how many Libyan civilians killed. No one in the administration has ever offered a number…and never will.
In addition, Obama approved the furnishing of weapons to the Libyan insurgents (it was a civil war like Vietnam in the 60s). Those weapons and their terrorist users are now in the Syrian conflict, while Libya was left in a massive quagmire divided into the West and East, with four Americans including a U.S. ambassador murdered in Benghazi on 11 September 2012.
Ostensibly, Rand Paul was all about the “droning” of Americans, but his real effort was applied to calling out the president and his lackeys vis-à-vis the requirements of the Constitution. In this, he was successful but it remains to be seen if Congress has the guts to make it stick. The guess here: NO.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Shed no tears for al-Awlaki, a homegrown American in league with al Qaeda. Major Hasan of Ft. Hood-massacre fame was one of Awlaki’s pupils vis-à-vis the offing of Americans while in homicide/suicide mode. Strangely, even though the Ft. Hood atrocity took place 3.5 years ago in plain sight of a plethora of witnesses, the major has never been brought to trial, the current reason (at least as of last notice) being that he refused to shave his beard and thus be “religiously” defiled.
Army regulations (he’s still in the army) require that he shave but the army (meaning Obama, the commander-in-chief raised in childhood as a Muslim) seems to have caved. According to Hasan’s religion, murdering citizens in cold blood is spiritually correct but (gasp) shaving is not. Never mind that Hasan has been well-shaved all the years he’s been in the army, apparently without a thought of going to hell account of not being bewhiskered.
Obama could order the man tried immediately, shaved or not, and would not let any Baptist male take this line, particularly if the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright said to get on with it. This explains, however, the apparent disregard the president has of the U.S. Constitution. And, it explains Senator Paul’s mission, to wit, that the president cannot violate that document in any way. Currently, the president operates on the theory that he governs the United States of Monarchy, rather than the U.S. of A. Operative in this regard is the use of executive orders to bypass the Congress and the Courts.
Under the duress of his filibuster, Paul received a letter (after many weeks of requests for clarification) from the attorney general stating that the president may not commit such a murder, something that could have been done in five minutes back then. The episode, however, points up Obama’s disregard for the Constitution, starting in his first year in office, as well as the fact that he harbored the rationale that he could actually work his will on an American citizen in this country.
Flash back to 2008-09, when Obama and Illinois Senator Durbin (and a bunch of other democrats) decided that Roland Burris, the man appointed by Illinois then-governor Blagojevich to take Obama’s vacated Senate seat, would not be allowed to take the seat. Obama had favored Valerie Jarrett for that seat and Durbin is just a loose cannon, who once compared American GIs to keepers of the Russian Gulags, Hitler’s storm troopers and Pol Pot’s butchers of the “killing fields” in Cambodia. He proves that subversives can be senators.
According to the U.S. Constitution, a state legislature can determine how a vacant Senate seat can be filled. In Illinois, the legislature determined that the governor makes an appointment and the appointee will serve the remainder of the term at issue, in this case two years. It was Obama’s job to uphold that determination. In fact, Burris was “locked out” until days after the official swearing-in of senators took place. So much for Obama and the Constitution! Windbag Durbin didn’t matter, nor did Majority Leader Reid, who should have had the guts to do his job.
Obama’s role in the Burris matter comprised grounds for impeachment. Obama, reversing his position in 2008 regarding marriage, declared later that his Judicial Department (Holder) would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. The president is sworn to uphold the laws, so he committed an impeachable offense, made more egregious by the fact that most states, such as Kentucky, have laws and/or Constitutional amendments upholding the DOMA.
Obama’s Judicial department sued Arizona for essentially enforcing FEDERAL laws regarding immigrants – another impeachable offense account trampling states’ rights. Recently, the department has joined a matter before the courts in California that would nullify a referendum- approved Constitutional amendment banning “gay” marriage – another impeachable offense.
The most egregious impeachable offense was Obama’s unprovoked and Constitutionally un-approved attack on Libya in 2011, completely bypassing Congress and announcing the attack not in the U.S. but in Brazil as he began a vacation not including his presence as commander-in-chief in Washington. That malicious attack resulted in seven months of relentless bombing by the U.S. and NATO, with no telling how many Libyan civilians killed. No one in the administration has ever offered a number…and never will.
In addition, Obama approved the furnishing of weapons to the Libyan insurgents (it was a civil war like Vietnam in the 60s). Those weapons and their terrorist users are now in the Syrian conflict, while Libya was left in a massive quagmire divided into the West and East, with four Americans including a U.S. ambassador murdered in Benghazi on 11 September 2012.
Ostensibly, Rand Paul was all about the “droning” of Americans, but his real effort was applied to calling out the president and his lackeys vis-à-vis the requirements of the Constitution. In this, he was successful but it remains to be seen if Congress has the guts to make it stick. The guess here: NO.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, March 01, 2013
Presidential Tomfoolery
Although President Obama has made a concerted effort for the last four years to bury both Congress and the Courts, basing his action on the “WE WON” theory, the chickens have come home to roost, as his mentor the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright might say. Although everyone should have known the “Sequester Act” passed by Congress a while back was the president’s baby, that fact is only now being recognized, mainly through the performance of the legendary Washington Post columnist Bob Woodward, noted for his part in the takedown of Richard Nixon’s presidency.
Woodward, as far left as the president (well, almost), has both written and taken to the talk-shows to decry the fact that Obama made the deal and signed the law with no intention of acting in good faith to do something constructive budget-wise at a time when the nation is existing on borrowed money. Instead, Obama has mounted Air Force One about every other day to fly off to some rendezvous with most likely a captive crowd, to which he spews in rank pomposity teleprompted rhetoric designed to intimidate Congress, especially the republicans, and make both look bad beside the “dear leader,” who’s got everyone’s back.
Sequester was designed as something so foolhardy that Congress would have to bend to the president’s will…or else. The objective was to forestall any likelihood that it would actually be enforced, i.e., across-the-board cuts in equal percentages. The current basis for his actions: “WE WON AGAIN.” He received only 52% of the vote so his win was more Pyrrhic than he understands. The big-city/state votes (welfare establishments) put him back in the White House. Taxpaying citizens who bother to know anything about anything have about had it.
As commander-in-chief, Obama took an action the other day that was plainly stupid and blamed the need for it on Sequestration, even though the act was not in force. Scheduled to deploy to the Persian Gulf, the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman’s crew had made arrangements – things like canceling apartments, selling cars or even houses, relocating families, etc. Then, on virtually the day before departure, Obama canceled the deployment, thus leaving thousands of crew members and/or their families just holding the bag.
Arrogant thoughtlessness! Even worse, the deployment was a measure used in defense of the nation, for which, according to the Constitution, the president is absolutely responsible. Granted that he was probably totally ignorant of the inconveniences he had caused, having no military acumen whatever (remember “corpse-man”), he actually let down the nation’s guard, and that’s intolerable.
For days now, illegal immigrant prisoners have been released from federal facilities, long before sequestration triggers, with Homeland Security honcho Napolitano (actually Obama) explaining that they can’t be afforded. The reason: Obama will not sit down with lawmakers and decide where the cuts will be made, not in spending but in just slowing the rate of spending. These are criminals being released into American neighborhoods. If something untoward happens, like robbery and rape, the responsibility will be the president’s but he’s too mentally challenged to understand that. Remember Willie Horton? But then, there’s the Latino vote!
A steady stream of scare-mongering has emanated from the White House for days—loss of child care, loss of teachers, loss of policemen, loss of Head-Start, loss of air-traffic controllers, long waiting lines at airports, for instance. None of this will happen. Obama and legislators will meet and come up with some kind of plan – probably cockamamie kick-it-down-the-road-stuff – and sweat out the next crisis at the end of the month, namely, the debt-ceiling catastrophe.
Obama and his czars have participated in the best example of bullying that can be found…literally trying to scare the bejesus out of the entire citizenry. People with even half-sense see these scare-tactics for what they are – tomfoolery and disingenuousness on a grand scale. The small amount of money (cuts in increases) in question is almost immaterial.
Probably at no time in modern history has this country been governed by both an administration and Congress with a greater degree of incompetence or self-serving. The Senate might as well have been in Philadelphia since 2010. It hasn’t even passed a budget in more than three years. It is in the back pocket of the president, though republicans have tried to get something – anything – done. Obamacare (about all the Senate has done), finally passed in a shady midnight Christmas Eve deal, is already responsible for soaring medical costs, and citizens haven’t seen anything yet.
House Speaker Boehner should long since have pointed out the sham that defines the president but he has allowed the House to be buried by the man. He should at least speak out now for those who pay the freight in this country, lest it actually go over the cliff.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Woodward, as far left as the president (well, almost), has both written and taken to the talk-shows to decry the fact that Obama made the deal and signed the law with no intention of acting in good faith to do something constructive budget-wise at a time when the nation is existing on borrowed money. Instead, Obama has mounted Air Force One about every other day to fly off to some rendezvous with most likely a captive crowd, to which he spews in rank pomposity teleprompted rhetoric designed to intimidate Congress, especially the republicans, and make both look bad beside the “dear leader,” who’s got everyone’s back.
Sequester was designed as something so foolhardy that Congress would have to bend to the president’s will…or else. The objective was to forestall any likelihood that it would actually be enforced, i.e., across-the-board cuts in equal percentages. The current basis for his actions: “WE WON AGAIN.” He received only 52% of the vote so his win was more Pyrrhic than he understands. The big-city/state votes (welfare establishments) put him back in the White House. Taxpaying citizens who bother to know anything about anything have about had it.
As commander-in-chief, Obama took an action the other day that was plainly stupid and blamed the need for it on Sequestration, even though the act was not in force. Scheduled to deploy to the Persian Gulf, the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman’s crew had made arrangements – things like canceling apartments, selling cars or even houses, relocating families, etc. Then, on virtually the day before departure, Obama canceled the deployment, thus leaving thousands of crew members and/or their families just holding the bag.
Arrogant thoughtlessness! Even worse, the deployment was a measure used in defense of the nation, for which, according to the Constitution, the president is absolutely responsible. Granted that he was probably totally ignorant of the inconveniences he had caused, having no military acumen whatever (remember “corpse-man”), he actually let down the nation’s guard, and that’s intolerable.
For days now, illegal immigrant prisoners have been released from federal facilities, long before sequestration triggers, with Homeland Security honcho Napolitano (actually Obama) explaining that they can’t be afforded. The reason: Obama will not sit down with lawmakers and decide where the cuts will be made, not in spending but in just slowing the rate of spending. These are criminals being released into American neighborhoods. If something untoward happens, like robbery and rape, the responsibility will be the president’s but he’s too mentally challenged to understand that. Remember Willie Horton? But then, there’s the Latino vote!
A steady stream of scare-mongering has emanated from the White House for days—loss of child care, loss of teachers, loss of policemen, loss of Head-Start, loss of air-traffic controllers, long waiting lines at airports, for instance. None of this will happen. Obama and legislators will meet and come up with some kind of plan – probably cockamamie kick-it-down-the-road-stuff – and sweat out the next crisis at the end of the month, namely, the debt-ceiling catastrophe.
Obama and his czars have participated in the best example of bullying that can be found…literally trying to scare the bejesus out of the entire citizenry. People with even half-sense see these scare-tactics for what they are – tomfoolery and disingenuousness on a grand scale. The small amount of money (cuts in increases) in question is almost immaterial.
Probably at no time in modern history has this country been governed by both an administration and Congress with a greater degree of incompetence or self-serving. The Senate might as well have been in Philadelphia since 2010. It hasn’t even passed a budget in more than three years. It is in the back pocket of the president, though republicans have tried to get something – anything – done. Obamacare (about all the Senate has done), finally passed in a shady midnight Christmas Eve deal, is already responsible for soaring medical costs, and citizens haven’t seen anything yet.
House Speaker Boehner should long since have pointed out the sham that defines the president but he has allowed the House to be buried by the man. He should at least speak out now for those who pay the freight in this country, lest it actually go over the cliff.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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