Tag: Barack Obama

Thinking of Roe v. Wade today and our new president

TBLeave a comment

Robert P. George doesn’t mince words in this essay for The Witherspoon Institute on the 36th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade  and Doe V. Bolton decisions legalizing abortion in this country. Specifically, he’s clear that he’s not wishing the new president success:

Barack Obama is trying to win over religiously serious Catholics and Evangelicals, without altering in the slightest his support for abortion, including late-term and partial-birth abortions, the funding of abortion and embryo-destructive research with taxpayer dollars, the elimination of informed consent and parental notification laws, and the revocation of conscience and religious liberty protections for pro-life doctors and other healthcare workers and pharmacists. He will ultimately fail. We must see to it that he fails.

To be clear, here is Obama’s stated agenda, from the whitehouse.gov site:

Reproductive Choice

  • Supports a Woman’s Right to Choose: President Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority in his Adminstration. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in that case.
  • Preventing Unintended Pregnancy: President Obama was an original co-sponsor of legislation to expand access to contraception, health information, and preventive services to help reduce unintended pregnancies. Introduced in January 2007, the Prevention First Act will increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. The Act will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims

And, to those evangelicals who got behind Obama, George has strong words for you as well:

In this project, Obama is being served and abetted by a small number of Catholic and Evangelical intellectuals and activists who have been peddling the claim that Obama, despite his pro-abortion extremism, is effectively pro-life because of his allegedly enlightened economic and social policies will reduce the number of abortions. This is delusional. The truth is that Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to serve in the United States Senate or seek the Office of President of the United States. The revocation of the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy, funding limitations on embryo-destructive research, informed consent laws, parental notification statutes—all of which Obama has promised to his pro-abortion base—will dramatically increase the number of abortions, and will do so for reasons that have been articulated by the abortion lobby itself. It is the pro-abortion side that tells us that the Hyde Amendment alone has resulted in 300,000 fewer abortions each year than would otherwise be performed—and that is why they so desperately want it to be repealed. Yet the putatively pro-life Obama apologists claim that the man who pledges to repeal it is going to reduce the number of abortions. Let me say it again: this is delusional.

The potential of life and the hand of God

TBLeave a comment

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

— Psalm 139:13-16

It’s hard to think clearly when you’re swooning

TBLeave a comment

This is what passes for editing at The Associated Press:

Headline writing is a dangerous job.
Headline writing is a dangerous job.

The president-elect: Open for (his kind) of questions

TBLeave a comment

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is asking you, the American public, what’s on your mind and to ask Mr. Obama about it. That’s all good, except when a good question gets marked as “inappropriate” and is withdrawn. What qualifies as inappropriate? When you ask, like Justin Taylor did,

“Would you consider rescinding your promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, given your desire to reduce abortions and to seek common ground, and in light of the fact that it would invalidate every measure and law intended to reduce abortions?”

Not all questions are created equal
Not all questions are created equal

Oh, and another thing about taxes

TBLeave a comment

Economy. War. Taxes? Here is one thing that Barack Obama has promised he will do as president as soon as he is inaugurated:

The smoke and mirrors of Obama

TBLeave a comment
Barack Obama's "tax cuts" would actually penalize low-income workers who earned more money.
Barack Obama

From the Wall Street Journal:

One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95% of “working families.” He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.”

Read the whole thing

Joe Biden: Confused, dazed and dead wrong

TBLeave a comment
Joe Biden betrays himself with his words.
Joe Biden betrays himself with his words.

Joe Biden, the man chosen by Barack Obama to serve as his vice presidential running mate, is a man who is not afraid to let his mouth run and say what’s on his mind. And, to be honest, when you hear what’s on his mind it’s not just amusing but more often disturbing.

Of course there is plenty of talk about his gaffes (like referring to FDR going on TV after the 1929 stock market crash), but his thinking about an issue like abortion reveals not just muddled thinking but a man who wants to have it both ways.

John F. Cullinan, in an article on National Review Online, says Biden has often referred to himself as an “Irish Catholic kid from Scranton” as a way of ingratiating himself with voters who hold moral issues highly. But, because of his lack of discipline concerning his tongue, he often betrays himself as a person who holds views that are in fact in opposition. Cullinan gives an example:

One moment he’s wearing his Catholic faith on his sleeve, the next he’s thumbing his nose at basic Catholic teaching. For Biden, faith has long served as sword and shield: “The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious,” he once vowed, “I’m going to shove my rosary down their throat.”

Such calculated bravado has long helped Biden to obscure the radical inconsistency between what he says and what he does, especially regarding the basic human right to life. “My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion,” Biden wrote in his 2007 autobiography, “but I don’t think that I have the right to impose my views on the rest of society.”

Never mind that Biden has otherwise shown no such reluctance to impose his views; that his personally opposed, publicly supportive dodge applies solely to life issues; or that this intellectual and moral muddle is wholly inexplicable other than by political expediency and political partisanship.

While there is talk about Obama somehow replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket, the truth is that Biden’s faux religion serves the purpose of somehow softening Obama’s extreme liberal views. The problem is, however, that Biden continues to put his foot in his mouth and thus makes his religious ruse all too obvious. More people, hopefully, are paying attention.

Barack Obama: Not looking out for the little guy

TBLeave a comment

UPDATE: So now Barack Obama is attacking Gianna Jessen for what his campaign is calling “sleazy ads” that are “anti-choice.” Jessen responds:

“Mr. Obama is clearly blinded by political ambition given his attack on me this week. All I asked of him was to do the right thing: support medical care and protection for babies who survive abortion – as I did 31 years ago. He voted against such protection and care four times even though the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of a bill identical to the one Obama opposed. In the words of his own false and misleading ad, his position is downright vile. Mr. Obama said at the recent Saddleback Forum that the question of when babies should get human rights was above his pay grade. Such vacillation and cowardice would have left me to die if his policies were in place when I was born. Thank God they were not.”

Jill Stanek also weighs in:

“It is despicable, repulsive and beneath contempt that Barack Obama would attack Gianna Jessen. She is a courageous abortion survivor and living miracle who would not be with us today if Obama’s policies had been in place when she was born. Mr. Obama continues to mislead the American peopleon this issue, he voted four times against medical care and protection for babies who survive abortions in the Illinois State Senate, while the U.S. Senate was voting 98-0 to pass an identical bill. Mr. Obama needs to come forward and tell the American people that he understands people like Gianna Jessen, and that he will support and enforce Born Alive Infant protections — that these are living, breathing human beings who have come into our world and deserve protection in the law and should receive medical care at health care facilities. These babies have the same rights as the rest of us.”

Here is Obama’s ad:

HT: Michelle Malkin

Gianna Jessen, who I highlighted on this blog in June, is doing an ad for BornAliveTruth.org, a 527 organization that will be highlighting Barack Obama’s extreme views when it comes to abortion. The National Review Online interviewed Jill Stanek recently about the ad and why the group put it together. Stanek, a former nurse at Christ Hospital in Illinois, watched children left to die after surviving botched abortions. Her testimony led to the legislation in the Illinois statehouse that Obama passionately argued against.

Read the interview with Stanek and then watch the ad with Jessen below.

Obama calls out McCain on abortion

TBLeave a comment

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! — Isaiah 5:20

The Associated Press is reporting that Barack Obama is attacking John McCain for being too adamantly pro-life:

Obama is calling out McCain in ads that say the GOP nominee takes an “extreme position on choice” and “will make abortion illegal.” He is spreading his message through low-profile radio ads and campaign mailings, though, hoping to avoid being tagged as too liberal on a woman’s right to choose to end a pregnancy.

The article, written by the AP’s Liz Sodoti, says that each of the candidates are dancing around perceived “extreme” views in order to woo voters. But, if you listen to the candidates, I would disagree. In fact, the only “dancing” I’ve heard this election season is Obama’s “it’s above my pay grade” and Sen. Joe Biden’s “good people disagree” statements. McCain has been clear about what he believes, and we know where Gov. Sarah Palin stands. Let’s be clear here: McCain is pro-life and has voted that way. Obama is not and has voted that way. I’m not sure what a “moderate” position on abortion is just like I’m not sure what a “moderate” position on murder is. Honestly, I will give both candidates credit for not trying to occupy that ridiculous ground.

Last-minute VP substitution for Obama?

TB1 Comment

It may be just the usual Biden crazy talk or is he positioning for Hillary to jump onto the Obama ticket?

SEN. JOE BIDEN: Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. She is say close personal friend and qualified to be president of the United States of America. She is easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me, but she is first-rate. I mean that sincerely.