Tag: Barack Obama

The times are a changin’ when it comes to public opinion

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President Obama, barely in office four and one-half months, has brought tremendous change already. From Rasmussen Reports on Monday comes evidence:

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on six out of 10 key issues, including the top issue of the economy.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues, while 39% trust Democrats more.

This is the first time in over two years of polling that the GOP has held the advantage on this issue. The parties were close in May, with the Democrats holding a modest 44% to 43% edge. The latest survey was taken just after General Motors announced it was going into bankruptcy as part of a deal brokered by the Obama administration that gives the government majority ownership of the failing automaker.

Voters not affiliated with either party now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues by a two-to-one margin.

Separate Rasmussen tracking shows that the economy remains the top issue among voters in terms of importance.

Republicans now hold a six-point lead on the issue of government ethics and corruption, the second most important issue to all voters and the top issue among unaffiliated voters. That shows a large shift from May, when Democrats held an 11-point lead on the issue.

The campaign to bring change to national security

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From Jim Geraghty, at NRO, on President Obama’s campaign speech on national security Thursday:

Obama mentioned the conviction of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, but did not mention his sentence. Upon hearing that an admitted al-Qaeda sleeper-cell member who studied chemical weapons is free to leave prison in 9 to 15 years, this “try them all if we can” may not sound so reassuring to the American people.

Beyond that, there was this glaring contradiction in Obama’s speech. He lamented the past decisions — even half-sneering that the previous administration had left “a mess” — but then said that when all the reviews were finished, there would be some prisoners who could not be tried, who could not be shipped to another country, and who could never be released. And they . . . will be detained indefinitely, he admitted.  So it is okay to hold some people for the rest of their lives without trial, but only if the president has determined that they are a serious threat to U.S. national security. Thank goodness this administration’s approach is so different from Bush’s!

Mohler: Obama avoids the issue of abortion itself

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Alber Mohler says that President Obama, in his address at Notre Dame, talked about talking about abortion but never addressed the issue itself. Rather, he gave some evasive phrases:

Mr. Obama went on to call for “Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.” In the end, the President’s comments were entirely about how Americans should discuss or debate abortion. There was no serious consideration of abortion itself. President Obama merely talked about talking about abortion.

This was a moral evasion and an insult to the importance of the issue. If the President had actually addressed the issue of abortion — if he had actually even offered a defense or rationale for his own position — he would have dignified the issue. Instead, Mr. Obama issued what amounted to a call for civility.

When the President called for Americans to agree that, while differing on abortion, “we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually,” he failed to make clear why this is so. If the unborn baby is not a person who possesses an intrinsic right to life, why is the decision to abort so “heart-wrenching?” If the fetus is just a collection of cells, why the angst? Furthermore, does the fact that a decision is “heart-wrenching” make it right or rational?

Taking issue with Obama’s speech at Notre Dame

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Don’t worry, this isn’t demonizing. It’s just taking issue with some of the things the president said Sunday during his commencement speech at Notre Dame. From Wesley Smith at Secondhand Smoke:

President Obama spoke at Notre Dame today, an invitation that created divisions within the Catholic Church that are beyond our scope or concern here. But in reading about the president’s speech, I was reminded of how adept Obama is in saying one thing while doing just the opposite; such as claiming in his speech to support a conscience clause for health professionals on the issue of abortion (which would also apply to assisted suicide, etc.). From the story:

He called for an effort to “honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women,” Obama said.

Obama plans to revise a Bush-era “conscience clause,” which would cut off federal funding for hospitals and health plans that didn’t allow doctors and other health-care workers to refuse to participate in care they believe conflicts with their personal or moral beliefs. Women’s health advocates and abortion rights supporters say it creates a major obstacle to family planning and other treatments.

No, Obama–or at least his administration (is there a difference?)plans to revoke the Bush conscience clause, not revise it. That is hardly honoring heterodox thinkers’ consciences.

And if we are going to base policies on “sound science,” how about starting with the biological fact that embryos and fetuses are living human organisms? Alas, during the campaign, then Senator Obama said such determinations are above his “pay grade.” (Not anymore, they’re not.) Pretending that human embryos and fetuses are not “human life” (what are they, Martian?) may not resolve these contentious ethical issues, but if our policies are going to reflect “sound science,” so that we can create policies based on “clear ethics,” then the biological facts should quit being fudged.

Know what you’re buying: Judges who have empathy vs. rule of law

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Lady JusticeFrom Thomas Sowell in National Review Online:

That President Obama has made “empathy” with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much farther the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the Left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.

Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with “empathy” for groups A, B, and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y, or Z? Nothing could be farther from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.

Appoint enough Supreme Court justices with “empathy” for particular groups and you would have, for all practical purposes, repealed the 14th Amendment, which guarantees “equal protection of the laws” for all Americans. 

We would have entered a strange new world, where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law becomes meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.

Barack Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. If you believe in the rule of law, he will say the words “rule of law.” And if you are willing to buy it, he will keep on selling it.

Those people who just accept soothing words from politicians they like are gambling with the future of a nation. If you were German, would you be in favor of a law “to relieve the distress of the German people and nation”? That was the law that gave Hitler dictatorial power.

He was just another German chancellor at the time. He was not elected on a platform of war, dictatorship, or genocide. He got the power to do those things because of a law “to relieve the distress of the German people.”

When you buy words, you had better know what you are buying.

This is what compassionate liberalism looks like

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From an earlier post, we talked about how the White House — the Obama White House — stayed silent to help kill a D.C. program that helped poor kids — 90 percent black and 9 percent Hispanic — go to decent schools. Just recently the president talked about cutting wasteful programs. George Will talks about how that happens:

The president has set an example for his Cabinet. He has ladled a trillion or so dollars (“or so” is today’s shorthand for “give or take a few hundreds of billions”) hither and yon, but while ladling he has, or thinks he has, saved about $15 million by killing, or trying to kill, a tiny program that this year is enabling about 1,715 D.C. children (90 percent black, 9 percent Hispanic) to escape from the District’s failing public schools and enroll in private schools.

The District’s mayor and school superintendent support the program. But the president has vowed to kill programs that “don’t work.” He has looked high and low and — lo and behold — has found one. By uncanny coincidence, it is detested by the teachers unions that gave approximately four times $15 million to Democratic candidates and liberal causes last year.

Not content with seeing the program set to die after the 2009-10 school year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan (former head of Chicago’s school system, which never enrolled an Obama child) gratuitously dashed even the limited hopes of another 200 children and their parents. Duncan, who has sensibly chosen to live with his wife and two children in Virginia rather than in the District, rescinded the scholarships already awarded to those children for the final year of the program, beginning in September. He was, you understand, thinking only of the children and their parents: He would spare them the turmoil of being forced by, well, Duncan and other Democrats to return to terrible public schools after a tantalizing one-year taste of something better. Call that compassionate liberalism.

After Congress debated the program, the Education Department released — on a Friday afternoon, a news cemetery — a congressionally mandated study showing that, measured by student improvement and parental satisfaction, the District’s program works. The department could not suppress the Heritage Foundation’s report that 38 percent of members of Congress sent or are sending their children to private schools.

The Senate voted 58 to 39 to kill the program. Heritage reports that if the senators who have exercised their ability to choose private schools had voted to continue the program that allows less-privileged parents to make that choice for their children, the program would have been preserved.

And you thought Republicans were the mean, uncaring people.

Millions protest abortion. News? What news?

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Red Envelope Project World Net Daily got the scoop on The Associated Press and countless other “big” news organizations with this story which you probably didn’t hear about:

The White House mail office has confirmed it received a “deluge” of as many as 2.25 million red envelopes symbolizing the empty promise of lives snuffed out in abortion in a massive campaign that was larger than most White House mailing movements in the last 35 years.

White House mail worker “Steve” has handled letters for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for more than three decades. Every single package and letter destined for the White House goes through his office.

Asked if he has seen a flood of red envelopes bound for the White House, Steve chuckled.

“Uh, yes,” he said emphatically. “Believe me, they made it here.”

Steve said while Obama has been occupied in Europe, his administration has noticed millions of red envelopes on behalf of aborted children.

“Quite frankly, there was definitely a deluge of mail coming through,” he laughed. “I had to handle them all.”

“I’ve been here 35 years, so I’ve seen presidents come and go,” Steve told WND. “This campaign ranks up there with the big ones.”

The Red Envelope Project is an idea sparked in the mind and prayers of a Massachusetts man, Christ Otto, who envisioned in January thousands of red envelopes sent to the White House, a visual expression of moral outrage over the president’s position on abortion.

On the backs of the envelopes, senders wrote a message Otto composed: “This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.”

Time is running out to make your voice heard

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From Deirdre McQuade of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops comes this urgent message:

Doctors practice medicine to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness for their patients. They pledge to “do no harm.” Yet many face tremendous pressure to participate in abortion and sterilization.

Informed Catholic health professionals understand that such procedures are not authentic medicine. They are not therapeutic, as they treat no disease or pathological condition. An unborn child is not a disease to be “cured” through abortion; and sterilization stops a healthy reproductive system from functioning properly.

Medical personnel, like all citizens, have the right not to be forced to participate in practices that offend their deeply held moral and religious convictions. This is a fundamental human right long recognized in our democracy.

But the right of conscience is under serious attack. Pro-abortion groups are pushing hard to undermine conscience rights in health care so nothing will stand in the way of maximum access to abortion. They call abortion a “free choice” — but what is more coercive than forcing people to perform or refer for an act they find morally abhorrent? Such coercion strikes at the heart of medicine’s healing mission.

Existing federal laws forbid government bodies and federally-funded hospitals, medical schools and research programs to discriminate against health care providers for exercising their conscience rights on abortion and sterilization. Unfortunately, these protective laws are widely unknown and unevenly enforced. Those who experience discrimination often do not know where to turn. To protect medical personnel, health care institutions must be held accountable to existing law.

The Obama Administration has issued a proposal to weaken current legal protection of conscience in health care, rescinding a recent Bush Administration regulation that helps implement the protective laws. The public has until Thursday, April 9 to write to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) urging it to retain the regulation.

Our voice is needed right now! But what can we do? Go to www.usccb.org/conscienceprotection to get informed, take action, and spread the word.

To send your e-mail, go to the above link. Otherwise, you can send your message directly by e-mail to proposedrescission@hhs.gov or go online to www.Regulations.gov (check “Select to find documents” and then enter “Rescission Proposal”). Comments also can be mailed. See instructions in the March 10 Federal Register . In all comments, refer to “Rescission Proposal.”

 

Conscience Protection

New York Times: In the tank for Obama

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From a story by the Philadelphia Bulletin:

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”

It’s no surprise, really, but you can read the story here.