. . . an encouraging word:
Of course, if Romney were a corpse as yet unburied on the model of Bob Dole and John McCain, he would lose. If you do not all that much care whether you win or not, you will lose. But Romney wants to win. He is a man of vigor, and he has a wonderful case to make. He is a turn-around artist, and this country desperately needs turning around.
This fellow sees a Literary Digest moment in our future, taking polls as the too certain trumpets in each case, 2012 and 1936.
Oh brother (where are thou when we need thee?), not only must we wonder if Harry Reid’s parents were married, pending production of a wedding certificate, but now a worse allegation has arisen, in the much-acclaimed or at least -consulted Urban Dictionary:
“Harry Reid,” the dictionary now says, is defined as “[a]n unofficial rap sheet of alleged pederasty and sexual abuse of minors by anonymous sources that may not exist.”
The definition emerged, the dictionary notes, “after an explosion of reports surfaced online and on the airwaves, that [Reid] is a serial pederast. The outlets reporting the allegations all protected the anonymity of their sources, and no one knows if the allegations are true, but they’re out there. A spokesperson for Reid declined to deny them.”
Come onnnnn! A majority leader about whom such important matters are uncertain? We can’t have it, I say. We simply can’t have it!
(Mature readers only)
Baaaad Marky Brown here. None of the cool, calm, collected columnist he usually demonstrates — more like his 2008 primary campaign against racist Dems who did not vote for Obama.
Mitt Romney on Tuesday reclaimed welfare as a central issue for Republicans this campaign season based on a specious and cynical claim that President Barack Obama has “dismantled” Clinton-era welfare reform.
Specious and cynical: the issue is joined, gloves off, aiming at jugular.
It’s been 16 years since former President Bill Clinton led a bipartisan effort to fix the nation’s welfare laws, most notably by requiring recipients to work or go to school.
And ever since, Republicans have rued the loss of one of their favorite red-meat issues on the campaign trail. It’s tough to rail against “welfare mothers”— long a favored target of political panderers of all stripes — when you’ve already taken credit for fixing the welfare system
Oh gosh, those old welfare mothers and political panderers. Go Mark! (At this point the careful reader went to the next thing, unable to deal for the moment with the baaaaad Marky B.
Very important work here, getting students when young. It’s been the winning strategy for decades of tenured radicals coast to coast.
Mayor Bloomberg, on a visit yesterday to a Sikh community in Queens, turned a moment that called for the delivery of condolences to magnificent, patriotic population of immigrant Americans into yet another opportunity for posturing and double-speak on guns.
His one-track mind:
The mayor’s hysteria on this issue is pushing him into a territory where, if he goes much further, his integrity is going to be questioned.
Says crime not guns is his concern, but:
he keeps talking about illegal guns. To the Constitution, he feigns fealty. “Guns,” he said yesterday, “you have a right to carry by the Second Amendment. The courts have said that municipalities, states, and the federal government have the right to enact reasonable protections to the public.” In fact the Supreme Court has left only a little leeway to the states and municipalities — schools, hospitals, government buildings — and the Mayor doesn’t agree with the court.
Turn him off.
Have some inspiration with our coffee or tea or beer:
One of the most highly decorated chaplains of World War II, Father Elmer W. Heindl used to joke that his decorations were simply due to him being in the wrong place at the right time. Born on June 14, 1910 in Rochester, New York, the oldest of six children, Heindl decided at an early age that he was meant to be a priest and was ordained on June 6, 1936. He said that being born on Flag Day indicated to him that during his life he would do something to honor the Stars and Stripes.
In March of 1942 he joined the Army as a chaplain. Assigned to the 2nd Battalion of th 148th infantry attached to the 37th Division, he served on Guadalcanal, New Georgia and in the Philippines. He quickly gained a reputation for utter fearlessness under fire, giving the last Rites, tending the wounded and rescuing wounded under fire. In regard to the Last Rites, Father Heindl noted that he did not have time to check dog tags to see if a dying soldier was a Catholic. “Every situation was an instant decision. You didn’t have time to check his dog tag to see whether he was Catholic or not. I’d say, in Latin, ‘If you’re able and willing to receive this sacrament, I give it to you.’ And then leave it up to the Lord.”
Put the coffee etc. aside now and keep reading. You won’t stop until the end.
To this by Krauthammer, slamming Harry Reid et al. for coming out of nowhere with accusation of Romney that he’s paid no taxes in last 10 years, add this by Steve Huntley in Sun-Times:
Another bad jobs report, so it’s time to demagogue Mitt Romney’s tax returns, or so President Barack Obama’s campaign and his supporters believe.
It’s a masterpiece of controlled (righteous) anger, or so it seems to me, at least indignation, rivalling what Krauthammer showed on Fox last night. Both call Reid’s claim and his support from Nancy Pelosi and others willing to use Reid’s stuff for campaign gain for what they are. Both get it.
Huntley:
Their hope is that Americans care more about how much taxes Romney paid than they do about their own economic well-being after nearly four years of his failed economic policies. Such is the contempt the Obama camp holds for the voters.
Obama loves it, of course. It’s reminiscent of the Oxford debater’s ploy of many decades ago, asking an opponent if his parents were married, hearing yes, asking further if the opponent had their marriage certificate with him. No? Then until you produce it, the debater said, do you mind if I call you a bastard?
Does Harry Reid mind?
Try this on for size as cogent argument vs. legalizing gay “marriage”:
FIRST-PERSON: Why not legalize gay ‘marriage’? (part 1)
By Glenn T. Stanton
May 10, 2012EDITOR’S NOTE: This column originally was posted in Baptist Press in March but is being re-posted in light of President Obama’s support for gay “marriage.” Read part two athttp://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=37509
Glenn T. Stanton COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (BP) — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank infamously asked a question earlier this decade that has become one of the central questions surrounding the same-sex “marriage” debate: “How will my same-sex marriage harm your marriage?”
It gets asked constantly and is meant to be a discussion-stopper. But the problem is that it sees marriage as purely a private relationship, hermetically sealed off from all other parts of community life. It reveals a complete lack of understanding of what marriage actually is — not just in our country, or for people of faith, but across all human cultures. Marriage is what anthropologists call a “human universal” because it is found in all human cultures throughout time. And it exists as a heterosexual institution throughout the world and history, not in the majority, but exclusively.
But the real answer to Congressman Frank’s question is quite simple: “Your same-sex marriage will do nothing to impact my marriage. But your marriage is not what we’re debating in our nation. We are debating whether it is wise to radically and permanently redefine marriage in our nation for everyone. And that is quite significant indeed.”
First, same-sex “marriage” not only redefines marriage wholesale for everyone, but it actually deconstructs humanity itself. That’s a very strong and consequential assertion, but that is exactly what it does. Same-sex “marriage” essentially creates genderless marriage by saying 1), the fundamental male and female nature of humanity doesn’t matter in any way, and 2), the different parties to a marriage are wholly interchangeable. Male and female as the basic foundation of family — as well as society — simply become preferential, like your taste for Rocky Road or Butter Pecan ice cream. Solely a matter of personal taste.
But the way this really deconstructs humanity is that it says that you as a husband or father, or you as a wife or mother, have no real meaning or significance in your fundamental humanity — a humanity which always reveals itself as either male or female. In fact, same-sex parenting says your essence as a man or woman is found only in your reproductive material. What does a lesbian couple ask from a man in order for them to become parents? Only his sperm. In fact, this fact has been clearly admitted by lesbian activists in products they can purchase for the babies. A t-shirt or infant onesie proudly declares, “My Daddy’s Name is Donor.” No joke. And two men who want to become parents must go next door and borrow only an egg from the female half of humanity. “Want any help mothering your child?” the woman might ask. “No, we just got everything we need from motherhood thank you!”
Same-sex “marriage” and parenting reduces male and female/fatherhood and motherhood to microscopic reproductive material. How do you feel about that as man or women raising boys and girls to be good men and women? What kind of world will they enter adulthood in?
And because same-sex “marriage” declares humanity wholly genderless, it also redefines the family. If male and female are merely sentimental ideas, with no practical, essential qualities for family, then family, parenting and kinship radically change. An important 1996 essay in the gay magazine OUT makes this clear, admitting that legalizing same-sex “marriage” is “a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. … Our gay leaders must acknowledge that gay marriage is just as radical andtransformative as the religious right says it is.” (emphasis in original) They go on to say that same-sex “marriage” will be “one of the great social experiments in this nation’s history,” ensuring that “[r]ather than being transformed by the institution of marriage, gay men — some of whom have raised the concept of the ‘open relationship’ to an art form — could simply transform the institution itself, making it more sexually open, even influencing their heterosexual counterparts.”
Same-sex “marriage” would redefine parenting, transforming it from a biological into a legal institution. Even today, saying a child has a right to a mother and father has been deemed hate-speech.
” Even today, saying a child has a right to a mother and father has been deemed hate-speech.” But same-sex “marriage” is also threatening religious liberty. Activists have tried to comfort religious folks by saying “your pastor will never be forced to perform same-sex weddings” — as if that is as far as religious faith goes. But there is a growing list of real-life ways that citizens’ and organizations’ rights are being trampled. Here are only a few.
— Catholic Charities had to shut down their large-scale adoption work in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. because they refuse to place children in same-sex homes and because they believe orphaned children should get a mother and father.
— Wedding photographers in New Mexico were charged with violating state anti-discrimination laws because they refused to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony.
— The Salvation Army in San Francisco lost a $3.5 million contract providing important social services to the poor because it refused to provide domestic-partner benefits.
— Churches in Canada have been threatened because they refuse to allow same-sex wedding parties to use their social halls.
— A lesbian couple filed a discrimination complaint against a Methodist facility in New Jersey because it denied their request to use the group’s boardwalk pavilion for their commitment ceremonies. The couple won.
Chai Feldblum was recently appointed by President Obama as a commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). When asked what she thought about the intersection of religious freedom and gay rights, she bluntly said, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” She stunningly elaborated, “Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”
Same-sex “marriage” is not just about one’s personal marriage. It is fundamentally about how we define and understand marriage, family and humanity itself. And for the first time in the history of our nation, religious freedom is being asked to move to the back of the bus. And the reason is to make room for sexual and familial experimentation.
–30–
Glenn T. Stanton is the director for family formation studies at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo., and is the author of the new book, “The Ring Makes All the Difference: The Hidden Consequences of Cohabitation and the Strong Benefits of Marriage” (Moody, 2011).Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).
© Copyright 2012 Baptist Press Original copy of this story can be found at http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=37494
A compendium, actually.
On Sat, 8/4/12, Michelle Obama <info@barackobama.com>wrote:
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Blithe Spirit 