Posts Tagged ‘religion’

My thoughts on the Abortion deal… Update deep in debate..220-215 1 republican for it

Posted: November 7, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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reported today are divided into three sections each one is a different aspect .

Politically:

This had to be done by Nancy Pelosi. The bill was drowning and this was the only way for a chance to save it. Apparently there are a fair amount of Catholic lawmakers in the party who actually (unlike Pelosi) take their religion seriously. I haven’t read the amendment in question but by allowing the vote it accomplishes two things.

If the Amendment passes then it’s supporters not only have an excuse to vote for the Bill and a political win to take back to their districts but it removes a key talking point against it.

If it fails then the Squish Catholics can say they they tried and give themselves that excuse to vote for the final version. Or they can argue that they can see if it is re-amended in conference and fall back on the “Oh I’ll vote against it then” business.

It also tangentially gives Harry (“Pro life”) Reid some cover in his re-election.

The question if it passes really becomes will Pro-Abortion legislators support the bill as amended? It is unlikely that they would not be a majority in the conference so they can try to strip it there

I suspect Pelosi’s ideal solution is the Amendment is voted on and fails, then she keeps the pro-abortion side while grabbing the squishes, that would likely be the Maximum amount of votes available.

On strictly a political basis it is a win for Pelosi and a smart move, it might not be a derisive win but she needed one badly.

Religious:

It can not be overestimated how important this is in a religious sense. People don’t realize just how many Catholics in particular would vote democratic if they were not so stoutly in favor of Abortion. My parish priest for example is extremely liberal but extremely Catholic and (unlike many) the Catholic trumps the liberal.

On a simple moral basis removing Abortion funding improves the bill incredibly. It is also a big win for Catholic groups and Anti-abortion people in general. If a final bill has the endorsement of the Conference of Catholic Bishops over abortion then you can’t get a better imprimatur (religiously speaking) than that.

Substance:

In terms of the bill itself, it changes very little. The bill will still be a disaster for health care both in America and the world. Forgetting that it would be run by the gang that can’t shoot straight, the costs, the death of private health care, the erosion of quality and the drop in the profit motive (the US is where the profit exists in healthcare, it that is gone then Europe and Canada can say goodbye to their cheap drugs) I believe it will also cause best and brightest to decide that the years and expense of a medical education are not worth it for the return.

That isn’t even talking about the budget busting aspect of this bill, none of that has changed.

My verdict: If the Amendment passes it means the bill will for now meet the “not funding murdering children” standard. That’s a pretty low hurdle. That raises the bill from “Evil” to “Absolutely Disastrous”. I’d have to say absolutely disastrous just doesn’t meet my threshold of support.

Will it pass, the odds are better than 24 hours ago. I would have said no yesterday, today I say perhaps.

Update: The American Papist is with me, and I agree with his advice:

Please continue to email and call (202-224-3121 ) your representatives to demand that they vote YES on the pro-life stupak amendment, and then vote NO on HR 3962.

Works for me.

Update 2: Politico says the pro-abortion congressmen and woman are going to play along:

Most Democratic advocates of abortion rights appear likely to swallow hard and vote for a health care overhaul even though it is likely to include an amendment that would effectively bar insurers that participate in a public exchange from providing most abortions, according to several lawmakers who attended a private meeting on the topic Saturday morning in the Capitol basement.

Asked whether her allies in the pro-choice movement would support the bill with the language offered yesterday by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a one-word answer: “Yes.”

It may in fact simply be a tactical one:

But the lawmakers said they would work hard to whip the Stupak amendment in hopes of keeping it out of the final bill, and several said they weren’t ready to declare how they would vote if Stupak’s language made it in.

“We’re nor conceding that,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Blue NC is unhappy:

Whatever the reason, conservatives are getting their vote and progressives have been shut down.

Firedoglake is very angry:

Thank you, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, from the bottom of my heart, for sitting on your hands and enabling this shit. Hope you have fun at all those Common Purpose meetings, those cocktail parties at the Pelosi’s.

You own this one.

It’s not like they haven’t been perfecting this act for a long time. Helping the Democrats stay in power by giving them the Official Good Gyno Seal of Approval even when they do things like — oh, I don’t know, voting for Samuel Alito and tell rape victims to take a cab to another hospital if they want to get Plan B contraception.

Could they whip the pro-choice women to block the rule if they want to? Of course they could. Yank their endorsements and they could cause havoc in the Democratic party. But they won’t, because Nancy Keenan and Cecile Richards value their own personal position in the veal pen pecking order WAY too much for that.

Well Jane I suggest you call your people and make sure they vote against this bill then.

Update 3: Be aware of course that if this DOES pass it will pass with no more than 225 votes if even. Nancy will give as many of her Blue dogs the ability to vote “No” as she can for appearances sake.

Update 4: The Debate is going on the floor but the fight is going on out of sight. A great pol doesn’t call for a vote unless they know they have the votes. Pelosi is not a great pol but she continues to play the cards she has. The idea of playing the Obama card considering the results of the election seems humorous. I’d think he would have other things to do but then again he has George and Barbara Bush to visit Ft. Hood instead.

Apparently said president is assuring Pro-Abortion democrats that he will make sure the language is killed in conference. For some reason the left is convinced:

No Progressive Block, apparently due to Obama reassurance. To my knowledge, no pro-choice Democrats have threatened to vote against the bill as a result of this. Apparently, this is because of a rumor going around Congress that President Obama promised Henry Waxman that he will “personally” work to remove the language in conference. I feel so reassured.

And the footsoldiers of the left are determined to fight:

If the Stupak language survives the conference committee, it is incumbent on those of us who support reproductive rights to pull our support, and actively campaign for defeat of the bill. For today, I’ll grit my teeth and make note of which Democrats to lean on when the vote for final passage comes. But that’s for today. Tomorrow starts the fight to make sure that the bill that ultimately is passed is a bill that supporters of reproductive rights can support.

Remember Abortion is the first and most important sacrament of the left.

Robert Stacy meanwhile says a basic truth:

Without regard to policy, the political question is simple: Whose analysis do you trust? Should Democrats in purple districts trust Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that passing this bill will not have disastrous electoral consequences for Democrats in the 2010 midterms? Or should those Democrats trust their GOP rivals, who appear ready to bet that there will be no downside to a “no” vote.

These purple-district Democrats are being asked to take a gamble, and I would not want to be in their shoes. The “no” vote is the safest bet for any Democrat unsure of his re-election chances in 2010. By voting “no,” the Democrat “takes the issue away” from his Republican opponent, and will be able to point to his health-care vote as evidence of his bipartisanship, thus deflecting any charge of being a rubber stamp for the “Pelosi agenda.”

Update 5: The public Whip count is meaningless. Allahpundit says:

It’ll be razor thin.

That’s just silly, if Pelosi had 50 votes in her pocket the vote would be razor thin. She is going to let every blue dog she can vote no. If she doesn’t she is a fool and the fact that she is having this debate suggests that she is NOT a fool.

If I was Cantor and I had the votes to kill it I would be VERY quiet about it. They can’t take the chance of the democrats pulling the bill if they see it is about to die.

Ironically if I’m Pelosi and I have the votes I’m keeping it quiet too and letting one or two blue dogs off the hook at a time to give the other side the perception that they can win. So this story is a bad idea:

Hours before an expected vote on a sweeping health care bill, House Democrats believe they’ve secured the 218 votes they need to approve the bill, several party insiders said.

Let’s see what actually happens, I think the odds are much better then they were but I’m not prepared to make a prediction.

Update 6: The Stupak amendment is about to pass. With 2 min to go 46 dems have voted for it. If the rest of the Republicans vote for it then it will make it.

Update 7: One Republican has voted “present” on the amendment (Shadegg) but it is passing by a comfortable margin. 240-194

Update 8: 176-258 against the Republican alternative one Republican voting against (Paul?) Tim Johnson was the vote against.

Update 9: On the motion to re-commit there are three republicans voting with Democrats no idea who they are. I presume it is Johnson of Ill (what does Obama have on him?) and Cao but that’s just a guess Motion to re-commit is flaming out only 13 dems voting to re-commit That’s a real bad sign, the Abortion amendment must have meant more than I thought.

Update 10: Final vote, nitty gritty time. All the cable networks are now following the vote. Republicans need 41 plus one extra for any republican who might cross over, at the moment 26 Dems have voted against with 12 min to go…29 dems left to vote 30 dem votes against…34 against 18 left on the dem side…36 against 14 left…36 against 10 left to vote…36/9…36/7 not looking good. I think she has the votes and are just figuring who she can let go…37//4…39 dems against, that is exactly what is going on. 5 min left and 1 dem left plus 2 republicans. Right now 218-214 will anyone change?…One republican has voted for. 219-215 with one not voting (presumably Pelosi as tradition dictates). 220-215 Pelosi’s gambit pays off big. Joseph Gao of La is the lone Republican.

Congratulations to the Republican Party for their almost certain election victory coming in 2010.

Islamic Terror? What Islamic Terror?

Posted: November 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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As the media continues to beat their breasts over the motives of Islamic Killer Major Malik Nadal Hasan. Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of a little history:

…one could instead see Hasan in a long line of killers and would-be murderers of the last decade that in some loose way express an Islamic anger at either American culture or the United States government or both, as a way of elevating their own sense of failure into some sort of legitimate cosmic jihad.

Prior to 2009, there have been at least 20 terrorist plots broken up after September 11, 2001—aimed at subways, malls, military bases, airports, bridges, and synagogues. Those foiled cabals are in addition to more common scattered murdering by freelancing angry killers, who in some very general way either evoked radical Islam, their own faith, the Palestinian cause, al-Qaedistic Islamism, or solidarity with worldwide Islam (from the Beltway sniper to the UNC and the San Francisco car murderers), and a number of lethal attacks on Jewish centers and temples resulting in numerous deaths (from the LAX attacks to the San Francisco and Seattle shootings).

In 2002, long ago, I wrote an article in which I called this al Qaedism and updated it with more recent examples in 2007.

In this year alone, aside from the recent mass murdering at Ft. Hood, there have been four more terrorist plots uncovered. Colorado resident Najibullah Zazi was recently indicted for conspiring to use explosives in the U.S., apparently as part of a plot to let off a bomb in New York on the anniversary of 9/11. In addition, North Carolina residents Daniel Patrick Boyd and Hysen Sherifi were arrested and charged with conspiring to murder U.S. military personnel at Quantico, Virginia. In Texas, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi—a 19-year-old Jordanian citizen who was in the U.S. illegally—was arrested and charged after he placed a would-be bomb near Fountain Place, a 60-story office tower in downtown Dallas.

Most recently in Boston, a Massachusetts man was arrested in connection with terrorist plots that included attacks on U.S. shopping malls and on two White House officials. Tarek Mehanna, 27, of Sudbury, Mass, was charged with plotting with other terrorists from 2001 to May 2008 to carry out overseas and domestic terrorist attacks— including killing shoppers and first responders at malls.

Time and time again we hear of this stuff, and lets give the Obama administration credit, they have foiled every one until this one so far. We are constantly being told how afraid people are of a backlash against Muslims in America, Hansen talks about it, or rather the lack thereof:

the narrative after 9/11 largely remains that Americans have given into illegitimate “fear and mistrust” of Muslims in general, rather than there is a small minority of Muslims who channels generic Islamist fantasies, so that we can assume that either formal terrorist plots or individual acts of murder will more or less occur here every 3-6 months.

At some point, if both these organized plots (see the most recent in Boston) and isolated acts of lone gunmen and homicidal drivers continue, and if the prevailing theme continues to be fears of American intolerance and unfairness to Muslims after 9/11, I think the public will resent the disconnect between what they are told to think and what they believe, on the basis of some evidence.

I’m going to go much farther. Simple mathematics suggests that sooner or later one of these plots are going to succeed and it will be a target where average Americans rather than soldiers gather. When Americans perceive that they are in danger anywhere they are the mood is going to change and it is going to be ugly.

If however we forthrightly acknowledge that there is a jihad problem and that there are those who are attempting to radicalize Muslims in America from within and take steps private and public to prevent it we will do several important things:

1. We will of course prevent attacks

2. We will put people planing attacks on the defensive rather than on the offensive, their focus will be on preventing capture and arrest.

3. It will become easier to compromise those less “devout” in order to catch the hardcore jihadists.

4. It will embolden actual moderate Muslims who want no part of this and came to American to escape Sharia law in the first place. They will no longer be cowed.

5. It will forestall much harsher measures that could come in the wake of an attack on the general public.

Kicking the can down the road for the sake of political correctness is a disservice to everyone. Until we take this seriously we will pay.

Update: Michelle Malkin and Robert Stacy and at least one Jag officer say the same thing.

MSNBC bump of the day:

Posted: November 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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Motive a mystery after Fort Hood Rampage

 

 

I had some weird dreams last night but I didn’t dream anything that weird.

Wasn’t this the same MSNBC that made fun of Pelosi yesterday over calling Tuesday’s election a win? (And did so today on Morning Joe)

I can’t imagine why some of us might think Jihad would have been the motive.

Doris Kerns Goodwin on Morning Joe says she can’t figure out what could drive to this. This is a Historian?

Gee maybe if she talked to the military friend I talked to last night she might get a clue from the earlier case of Sgt Hasan Akbar.

Its avoidance of reality has real consequences, increasing the dangers Americans face. “This country’s officials are in a state of denial and confusion that is almost as frightening as the terrorism they are supposed to be fighting,” observes Dennis Prager, only slightly exaggerating.

Second, the Akbar incident points to the suspect allegiance of some Muslims in government. The case of Gamal Abdel-Hafiz recently surfaced: an FBI agent whose colleagues say he twice refused to record conversations with suspected financiers of militant Islamic terrorism (“A Muslim does not record another Muslim”). [The Seattle Times reports three witnesses recalling that John Allen Muhammad, the man accused of the Washington, D.C.-area sniper murders last fall, had thrown a grenade into a tent during the 1991 war against Iraq.] Other cases are under investigation.

All of which reinforces what I wrote in January: “There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism, as do Muslim chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Muslim visitors and immigrants must undergo additional background checks. Mosques require a scrutiny beyond that applied to churches and temples.”

Hasan now sits on death row.

BTW if you want to know how far LGF has fallen, none of his posts on the subject mention Islam or the fact that he is Muslim. So for the benefit of LGF readers who are convinced that this is another case of the Flemish Menace striking again, here is how you identify them.

know the flemish menace

Your guide to the Flemish Menace!

I guess Charles has joined the MSM, after all it was the same MSM that was ready to tag tea party sympathizers for the Bill Sparkman… Murder … suicide?

Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said no final conclusions have been made in the case. In recent weeks, however, investigators have grown more skeptical that 51-year-old Bill Sparkman died at the hands of someone angry at the federal government.

The officials said investigators continue to look closely at suicide as a possible cause of Sparkman’s death for a number of reasons. There were no defensive wounds on Sparkman’s body, and while his hands were bound with duct-tape, they were still somewhat mobile, suggesting he could have manipulated the rope, the officials said.

That still seems a stretch to me but I’ll defer for now to Robert Stacy who actually reported from there.

That article had a dateline from Washington, D.C., where Barrett is based, so you can bet money that it was Barrett’s unauthorized source at the Justice Department — and not McMurray’s sources in Kentucky — who leaked the tidbit about “fed” scrawled on the chest and the “anti-government sentiment” motive.

OK, so here’s the deal with anonymous sources: The source who gives a reporter bad information automatically forfeits his right to anonymity. Barrett’s source misled him, so that the entire premise of that Sept. 23 article was bogus.

Remember the same papers (and Charles) who were POSITIVE that this was a tea party murder has no idea why Islamic Killer Major Malik Nadal Hasan did it.

Al-Qaeda got a win yesterday, the media is trying to give them a second one. It is an insult to our intelligence. As via Glenn Phillis Chester says:

The Jihadist Is Always the Victim

 

Update: MSNBC jumped away from the new conference to talk to Jim Miklaszewski. He is reporting that he shouted “Allah Akbar” while shooting. Mika looks like someone just peed in her cereal. They now bring up the possibility that is it a “political” killing…and immediately jump to the AARP endorsing Obamacare. That’s the story of the day apparently.

Update 2: Yes I know I can’t spell to save my life, but while I’m fixing that spelling error let’s link to the Newsbusters story that reminds us of some of the Sparkman speculation. You can find my coverage of it here.

I have a challenge for Emily Bazelon…

Posted: November 4, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, elections, opinion/news
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…via Glenn she contends that the reason why Gay Marriage lost is because “people didn’t give it a chance“:

But two years later, the poll numbers had flipped, and the backlash never came. That’s because reversing the court’s ruling was a long process, not a quick and hasty ballot initiative like the one that Maine passed in Tuesday’s election.

Balderdash Emily! The reason why in Massachusetts people let it go is because we still have our fatalism, people are afraid to speak up publicly, cowed into silence so they just let things go. When people are willing to talk suddenly we are racist/bigot/homophobe/etcs. Who wants to deal with that stuff? Like the snow that comes every year and like baseball before 2004 we Massachusetts people shrug and deal with it because we assume we can’t do anything about it.

Tell you what, if you are so sure that the numbers are actually reversed why don’t you push for a referendum here? Let your one party state house let it go through instead of informing members that they will pay a heavy political price and let us vote. I’ll tell you why, because you know that like card check if people are allowed to vote the way they actually think without the stigma the media wants to put on them you would lose.

You can not do this because you so badly want not the rights of marriage (which could be done with civil unions or by legal contracts which I can support) you demand that I not only accept, but that I approve. You demand that I and millions of others abandon our Christian religious beliefs so that you can feel secure in your own skin. You do this for narcissism and you do this because you feel threatened by our disapproval as I once said last year:

The Gay marriage movement has all the trimmings of both a pop fad and a political movement by a loud group of elite people with money and clout; no different than the eugenics movements in the last century. I suspect beyond the core set of true believers the support is actually very thin. It is what the “enlightened” and “right” type of people support to show how good and tolerant they are. It allows people to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything. It keep them safe from that most dreaded charge of bigotry. In short it is an exercise in narcissism.

And like your counterparts in cinema and TV you challenge Christians because you have the courage of our convictions. Are you enforcing these “norms” in Islamic schools? Would you even dare?

And don’t give me this bigot nonsense, do you call believing Jews or Hindu’s bigots? I’ve never heard it in the media. Do you call Muslims bigots, HA! The legions in the media that look down upon us were the same gave us the lie 15 years ago that nobody was talking about marriage and that the defense of Marriage act was overkill and that a constitution amendment was totally unnecessary. To quote myself once again:

I’m 45 years old and I’ve always been a news junkie. I must have been the only kid in town to watch the impeachment hearings of Nixon in awe. I don’t recall any of our liberal stalwarts during the 70’s or the 80’s and VERY few in the 90’s (and then only in the late 90’s) argue for gay marriage.

Apparently by Mr. Cohen standards all of the people who lived in those days were cowards and bigots. Jimmy Carter must have been a coward and a bigot, Reagan, Clinton, Johnson. FDR and yes even JFK and RFK must have been the worst kind of bigots. JFK junior must have been one, Sam Rayburn, Barbara Jordan, Earl Warren and Martin Luther King bigots all.

Give me the intellectual honesty of my friend Dave. We were debating Gay Marriage and he has the honesty to say that yes polygamy, polyandry, group marriage and incest and every other combination of consenting adults should be legal and recognized by the state and laws altered accordingly. 10 out of 10 for consistency, 0 out of 10 for practicality but in a republic you make the rules you want and then make them work.

And before you give me the Ick, nobody is talking about that argument I’ll quote myself one more time:

And PLEASE don’t give me the “ick” factor argument about these other things being accepted. Ick is just an argument about culture. It is the same argument that one would have heard concerning gay marriage less that 20 years ago.

It’s the same Ick factor that our betters in Hollywood use to defend Polanski. If people only got used to it, and decided they didn’t want to fight it we would be OK.

Tell that to someone else, don’t tell it to me. I’ll take the arrows and the insults. If you are secure in your belief and are convinced it can win, give us a vote!

And tell me if we lose, do we get to vote again as you do? And if not why not? Why does the debate only end if you win?

Update: Slublog finds something odd:

What I find most interesting, based on comments at news stories and on social network sites is that yesterday, when the polls showed a narrow ‘No on 1′ win, I lived in an independent-minded, moderate state. Now it seems we’ve been transformed into a group of backwards, bigoted haters. Funny how that works.

No Slublog it’s not funny or shocker. Millions of dollars and media’s desire to stigmatize those who don’t believe in their 3rd sacrament of secular humanism (after abortion and global warming) can’t reach into the privacy of the voting booth and they can’t stand it.

Update 2: And I thought I was speaking metaphorically on the religion thing.

Forgot the links how lame was that?

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