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Saturday, January 31, 2009

“We Have A President With The Blood Of American Troops On His Hands”

By Pat Dollard
January 31, 2009



A comment on Sgt. Welsh’s “Big Hollywood” post yesterday:

I did my time in Iraq. I was wounded, I’m alive against all probability. I have several friends who died for America there.

We have a President with the blood of American troops on his hands. I will die not believing that, but knowing it. He did all he could to extend the killing, so we would leave, and the Democrats’ Vietnam II script, would have the ending they needed.

And when he couldn’t win by killing us, he tried to by insulting us, dishonoring those of us who were still fighting, those of us who had returned, those of us who who had been wounded, and those of us who were dead.

“The surge didn’t work.”

And when that lie was just obviously too big, and he had to acknowledge the success, he stole it from us, and handed it to our Sunni brothers-in-arms. The ones who fought with our weapons and our training, who’d we’d spent years winning over to our side, who lived in barracks with us, who fought shoulder to shoulder with us, whose wounds we treated, and whose dead bodies we carried from the field. In Obama’s mythology, we weren’t there. He now murdered us with his words.

And we soldier on, his lies gone with the wind, but etched forever in the history books. We willingly and happily absorb more blows and cuts, all that we must, from all enemies foreign and domestic.

As for Obama, if Rush Limbaugh merely criticizes, he weeps and gnashes his teeth with the pain.

There’s a reason why boys like Barack Obama don’t join the military.

I know for sure there’s one thing we’re going to learn, and that is what it’s like to have a President with absolutely no conscience, absolutely no sense of decency, absolutely no sense of honor.

- The Ghost Behind You

A Letter From Gold Star Mom Debbie Lee to the President

H/T Pat Dollard

Howie @ Chandler’s Watch 

Written by Howie   
Friday, 30 January 2009

An Open Letter From Gold Star Mom Debbie Lee To President Obama

It is with a heavy heart for my country that I write to you today. I pray that you will be inspired, challenged, and that you will reconsider decisions that you have made in the past week since you took the oath to preserve, protect and defend our constitution.

Many in my family have taken a similar oath in the military including my sons Kristofer & Marc, my son-in-law Chris, my brother Jim and my Father.

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

They along with every other Veteran have paid for my freedoms and the freedoms of every American. They have given and sacrificed so much. Some have paid the ultimate price as my son Marc Alan Lee did on Aug 2, 2006. He was the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq. He made the choice to stand up into the direct line of fire three times that day fighting for the rights of those who couldn’t fight and bravely defending the defenseless. He told me we were making a difference in Iraq and he knew it was the right thing to do. He fought the terrorists over in Iraq so that we would not have to fight them on American soil or fear another attack on our homeland.

We have heard the success stories in Ramadi and the Al-Anbar province where Marc fought. He directly impacted the history of the world. My son successfully completed his mission that day but it required the sacrifice of his life to save others. He chose to do that, he was a young man who valued others lives more important than his own.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with him, just two weeks after a divorce from his abusive Father. I had a 3 year old son and an 18 month old daughter and didn’t get support from their Father. How would we ever survive? I could barely afford food for the two little ones I had, let alone another baby. There were those who told me that abortion was the solution. I already had an abortion at 17 and it would have been easy to do that again, but I had learned the hard way that abortion was taking the life of an unborn child and wasn’t a solution.

As a single parent for most of their life, I struggled - sometimes working 3 jobs to take care of them. It wasn’t easy and there wasn’t any light at the end of the tunnel, but by God’s grace and mercy I have three amazing children.

Can you imagine how different this world would have been without Marc? I still hear amazing stories of lives that have been inspired and touched by this amazing man who gave his life away so that others may live. It could even be your life that Marc spared as he fought the terrorists and brought them the justice they deserved. Marc and others just like him have fought and given you and me the gift of life by defending us against enemies foreign and domestic.

This past week a nation watched as you signed Executive Orders that have horrific consequences.
You didn’t waste any time signing an order to close Guantanamo Detention Camps. My son gave up his life fighting the terrorists so we wouldn’t have to face them in America ever again, and now your actions will bring these vile radical terrorist to American soil and give them the same rights as citizens of America have?

I know any major decisions that I make I get the facts first hand, I research the information, I weigh the outcome or consequences and I have a plan that I implement. You have not even been to GITMO. You have no plan what to do with the terrorists. I just returned from a trip to Guantanamo. I saw first hand that we are taking the moral high ground. At times the terrorists have more than our brave troops do.

While visiting the detention camps, I looked into the eyes of a terrorist who glared at me while motioning he was going to cut my head off. Please DO NOT bring these self admitted murders to the land of the free and home of the brave. These cold hearted killers willingly confess that they are “still in Jihad.”

You also reversed the Mexico City Policy and in a time of economic disaster in the US are allowing our tax dollars to be sent to international organizations that provide abortions. We are losing our homes, our jobs, and our nation is in financial crisis and you’ve decided to use our finances to kill babies in other nations?? You’re concerned about the higher moral ground with the terrorists who murder for “Allah” and yet you won’t honor and obey Christ and defend the defenseless unborn baby?

My son took a stand and gave up his life defending the defenseless. He knew it was the right thing to do. He made a moral decision and displayed his courage and character and laid down his life for what he believed in. PLEASE Mr. President display courage and a noble character and do what is right! Don’t yearn for the praises of the liberals, the media, or European and Middle Eastern nations, yearn for the praises of the one who created us, our Lord Jesus Christ.

You have taken an oath to defend and protect me and this nation. PLEASE reconsider your decision on closing GITMO and honor our troops by acknowledging that dangerous, terrorists have been captured and try them according to military law in GITMO. Honor the sacrifice of my son and all of those who have given their very last breathe for you and for me.

Protect and value the life of every unborn child, they are a gift from God no matter what the circumstances were at the time they were conceived. They could grow up one day and change the history of the world. I’ve seen it happen before my very eyes through Marc’s life. I have felt God’s forgiveness for the life I took but I often wonder what God had intended for that precious life.

Please know that I pray for you and for this nation. My prayer comes from II Kings 18:
(6)“That you would hold fast to the LORD, that you would not depart from following Him, that you would keep His commandments; which the LORD commanded Moses.”

And Mr. President as a result of doing that;
 (7a) “The LORD was with Him; he prospered wherever he went.”

Marc left his indelible mark on the world, and impacted history. Mr. President, what mark will you leave and how will you impact history. What are you willing to selflessly give so that others may live?

Standing in the gap,

Debbie Lee

Friday, January 30, 2009

Operation Valentine - Today on Blog Talk Radio!


About Operation Valentine

OPERATION VALENTINE is about showing the troops just how much we love them. At Valentines Day and beyond.

The object is to send greetings to our troops overseas with messages of love and your heartfelt thanks and appreciation for the sacrifices they make for all of us every day.

Soldiers are your brothers and sisters, your mothers and fathers, your cousins, friends, aunts and uncles. They are what makes this country great. So let's TELL them.

To kick off OPERATION VALENTINE this year bloggers and Blog Talk Radio hosts are banding together to get this party started.

On THURSDAY JANUARY 29TH, 2008 11 Blog Talk Radio hosts will hold a 11 hour marathon to raise awareness of the waning attention being given to our troops. There will be special guests and great music. You bring the food and soda's!

The Goal? To send Valentines to troops all over the world. Especially those serving at GITMO.

BLOG TALK RADIO OPERATION VALENTINE MARATHON SCHEDULE:
(PACIFIC TIME/EASTERN TIME)

10:00am/1pm: Jenn of the Jungle and Friends
Call in number-(646) 478-5334

11:00am: Take Our Country Back
Call in number-(646) 716-8742

12:00/3pm: Spin This
Call in number-(347)884-9291

1:00/4pm: Isn't That The Stuff You Put In Spaghetti
Call in Number-(347) 884-8261

2:00/5pm: Do The Right Thing
Call in number-(347)324-5417

3:00/6pm: Halls Of Valhalla
Call in number- (646) 478-4654

4:00/7pm: Richard Dean for Radio Active Online
Call in number-(347) 215-6105

5:00/8pm: Freedom Radio
Call in number-(646) 478-5613

6:00/9pm: Jungle Politics
Call in Number-(646) 478-5334

7:00/10pm: Chandler's Watch
Call in Number-(646) 929-0416

8:00/11:00: Political Vindication
Call in number-(646) 652-4598

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Chalk up one for the Good Guys!

The Associated Press: Judge rejects Obama bid to stall Gitmo trial
Judge rejects Obama bid to stall Gitmo trial

By MIKE MELIA and ANDREW O. SELSKY – 1 hour ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A military judge at Guantanamo on Thursday rejected a White House request to suspend a hearing for the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, creating an unexpected challenge for the administration as it reviews how America puts suspected terrorists on trial.

The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, said his decision was difficult but necessary to protect "the public interest in a speedy trial." The ruling came in the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The bombing of the Navy destroyer in 2000 in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, killed 17 U.S. sailors.

It seemed to take the Pentagon and White House by surprise.

"We just learned of the ruling ... and we are consulting with the Pentagon and the Department of Justice to explore our options in the case," said White Press secretary Robert Gibbs, adding that he doubted the decision would hamper the administration's ability to decide how to move forward from Guantanamo.

The Department of Defense is reviewing Judge Pohl's ruling, said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

Geoff Morrell, another Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that there were "no ifs, ands or buts" about adhering to the president's executive order and that there would "be no proceedings continuing down at Gitmo with military commissions."

"The bottom line is, we all work for the president of the United States in this chain of command, and he has signed an executive order which has made abundantly clear that until these reviews are done all of this is on hiatus," Morrell said.

President Barack Obama has ordered the detention center in Cuba to be closed within a year. The administration asked last week for a 120-day suspension in proceedings against some 20 detainees as it considers whether to continue trying alleged terrorists in the military commissions, revamp them or try suspects in other courts.

Obama signed an executive order directing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ensure that "all proceedings of such military commissions to which charges have been referred but in which no judgment has been rendered ... are halted."

But Pohl wrote in his ruling that "on its face, the request to delay the arraignment is not reasonable."

The American Civil Liberties Union urged Gates to put a halt to the proceedings by withdrawing the charges against al-Nashiri.

"Judge Pohl's decision to move forward despite a clear statement from the president also raises questions about Secretary of Defense Gates — is he the 'new Gates' or is he the same old Gates under a new president?" ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said. "Secretary Gates has the power to stop the military commissions and ought to follow his new boss' directives."

The Cole's former commanding officer, retired Navy Cmdr. Kirk Lippold, said the case "needs to go forward" at Guantanamo. He said Pohl's ruling validated the war-crimes trials by demonstrating the independence of the military judges.

"The families involved want to see al-Nashiri held accountable for his heinous acts," Lippold said in an interview.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, the Pentagon-appointed attorney for al-Nashiri, said the decision gives the Obama administration few options.

"The next step, if the government wants to halt the proceedings, is to withdraw the charges," Reyes said.

"Now it's in the government's hands," he said. "I have no idea what they're going to do."

Pohl is the chief judge at the tribunals at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At least two other judges have already granted the continuance sought by the president, with the defense and prosecution agreeing in both cases that they should be suspended.

Pohl noted that no substantive legal issues would be litigated at al-Nashiri's arraignment, scheduled for Feb. 9, meaning that "nothing will be mooted or necessary for relitigation" if Obama scraps the tribunals.

The war crimes court came to an abrupt halt Jan. 21 after two other military judges granted Obama's request for a suspension. His executive order came the following day in Washington.

Those cases were against a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks.

In all, war crimes charges are pending against 21 men at Guantanamo. Before Obama became president, the U.S. said it planned to try dozens of detainees in a system that was created by George W. Bush and Congress in 2006 and has faced repeated challenges.

Associated Press writer Lara Jakes contributed to this report from Washington.

How to Get Involved


How to Get Involved

Here are 15 ways you can support the troops through the Military BibleStick Project:

  1. Sponsor a soldier for $25.
  2. Organize a collection to donate BibleSticks to troops.
  3. Forward the Military BibleStick email you recieved from FCBH to a friend..
  4. Post a story or message on your Facebook or MySpace page.
  5. Write about this outreach on your blog or webpage.
  6. Contact a chaplain at a nearby installation about these valuable, life-changing resources.
  7. Contact your local VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) about this project.
  8. Contact your local chapter of Blue Star Mothers about this project.
  9. Contact a pastor or church leader in the community surrounding a nearby military installations.
  10. Schedule a talk with local Family Support Group leadership.
  11. Speak at a local business organization’s luncheon (Please contact us for additional information).
  12. Contact your state’s National Guard community relations officer.
  13. Take a friend through these webpages.
  14. Contact your local American Legion chapter about this project.
  15. Ask a local business to sponsor a squad for $300 or platoon for $1,200.


Posted using ShareThis

Call to Action from the Susan B. Anthony List


Support the Mexico City Policy in the U.S. House

January 28, 2009

Dear Pastor and Mrs Ed,

Just a few days ago, I had the misfortune of telling you that President Obama had signed an executive order rescinding the pro-life Mexico City Policy.

Today an amendment to reinstate the Pro-Life Mexico City Policy, introduced by Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, was defeated in the Senate.

Despite these bitter defeats, hope still remains to keep the Mexico City Policy as the law of our land.

Thanks to great pro-life Congressmen, like Chris Smith (R-NJ) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) we have the chance to pass a Mexico City Policy bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Mexico City Policy, which President Bush enacted on his first day in office, was originally established by President Reagan to keep your money from overseas abortion providers.

Please write to your Representative now and tell Congress to support our pro-life heroes as they fight for Life in Congress.

President Obama has already spoken on the Mexico City Policy and we had no voice. Now we have the opportunity to support the Mexico City Policy through the legislative process.

Let your voice be heard in the democratic process and take a legislative stand against President Obama and his pro-abortion policies!

Please sign your letter today!

For Life,

Marjorie Dannenfelser
Susan B. Anthony List President
703-875-3370
www.sba-list.org


Check out the SBA blog: www.suzyb.org


P.S. Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, please consider giving a small gift to the Susan B. Anthony List. With your help, we can make a difference for Life!

P.P.S. Don't miss a thing -- add information@sba-list.org to your safe senders list.

Americans For Limited Government



For Immediate Release Contact: Robert Romano

January 28th, 2009 Phone: (703) 383-0880


“[I]nstead of fixing the problems government created,

the House has voted to make things worse by adding

another $1.2 trillion to the debt when interest and other

considerations are calculated.”—ALG President Bill Wilson


ALG Condemns the House for
Voting for $819 Billion “Boondoggle”

January 28th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today strongly condemned Congress for voting in favor of the $819 billion spending bill, H.R. 1, in the House of Representatives “that is certain to consign future generations to permanent debt to foreign creditors.”

“Congress is only adding to the national debt, now totaling $10.7 trillion,” said Wilson. “And they do so knowing full well that the money to pay for their extravagant spending spree needs to be borrowed from elsewhere.”

The national debt of $10.7 trillion includes $4.3 trillion owed in the form of unfunded obligations to Social Security, Medicare, and other commitments, and $6.4 trillion held privately, $3 trillion of which is held overseas.

Forty percent of the debt held privately comes due this year, and most economists agree that the only way for the government to pay it is to borrow more money.

“The problems with the economy started in large part because of government excesses: too much credit, too much borrowing, too much spending, and too much debt,” Wilson said. “Only a madman would now suggest that borrowed money on this sort of scale—which needs to be paid back—would provide any long-term economic stimulus,” Wilson added.

“Instead, because of this $819 billion boondoggle, paying down the national debt will eat up an ever-larger share of the overall economy in the years to come, diverting capital from creating new jobs and enterprises,” Wilson explained.

“And, instead of fixing the problems government created, the House has now voted to make things worse by adding another $1.2 trillion to the debt when interest and other considerations are calculated,” Wilson noted.

The House voted 244 in favor, and 188 against.

Wilson believes that extraordinary government interventions to date have discouraged savings, investment, and capital creation. According to the Congressional Budget Office, even without the $819 billion spending bill, the federal deficit will rise to $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP, in 2009, an all-time high.

“Markets will not recover any time soon unless the government generates a real plan to pay off the debt and get rid of wasteful spending,” said Wilson.

“Instead, the House voted to increase the deficit, increase all of our children’s and grandchildren’s financial burden, increase future interest rates and taxes, and once again shackle the American taxpayer to a mountain of debt,” Wilson concluded.

###

Americans for Limited Government is a non- partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms,private property rights and core American liberties. For more information on ALG please call us at 703-383-0880 or visit our website at www.GetLiberty.org.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Lila Rose Wins an Award

Undercover activist awarded for pro-life work
Charlie Butts
OneNewsNow
1/27/2009 7:00:00 AM

The Gerard Health Foundation has awarded $600,000 in prizes to six individuals for their work in the pro-life movement.

Lila RoseOne such recipient of the Life Prizes award is college student Lila Rose, president of Live Action, who had this response.

"Well, I was very surprised to hear I had been chosen as there are many others that have done such wonderful work alongside me in the pro-life movement, but it's definitely an honor," she notes, "and I'm very thankful to the Gerard Foundation and Mr. [Raymond] Ruddy for the generous gift so I can use it to continue to keep up the pro-life activism and the pro-life work."

Rose is well-known for her undercover work in exposing illegal practices at abortion clinics. "I pose as young as a 13-year-old girl in need of help, pregnant by a much older man," she explains. "And we've done other investigations like this to illustrate the abuses and the lawlessness that goes on inside these clinics regularly."

Her videos have revealed clinic personnel advising her on getting an abortion without getting the older man in trouble with the law. This week Rose will be releasing yet another revealing video of an undercover probe at an abortion clinic.

Another Crazy Comment from the Left!

Pelosi: Fewer babies = stronger economy

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown -
OneNewsNow - 1/27/2009 6:00:00 AM

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stirred up a hornet's nest by promoting the idea of spending of millions of dollars on birth control and abortion as part of the economic stimulus package.

"Contraception," argued Pelosi, "will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government." Her comments came on ABC's This Week when asked by host George Stephanopoulos how expanding "family-planning services" to the tune of millions of dollars will stimulate the economy. OneNewsNow sought reaction from Susan Fani, director of communications for the Catholic League.

"It's quite shocking, actually, that the Speaker of the House -- who claims to be Catholic -- would go on national television and claim that contraception would reduce the cost to the government," exclaims Fani. "It's just beyond words, really."


Pelosi has five children and six grandchildren. Catholic League president Bill Donohue finds her comments revealing. "We have reached a new low when high-ranking public office holders in the federal government cast children as the enemy," he offers in a press statement. "But at least it explains their enthusiasm for abortion-on-demand."

pregnant womanWill the spending on "family-planning services" help dig America out of its economic doldrums?

"That's not going to help grow the economy," Fani responds. "It doesn't even make sense as a prospect for helping this country through our economic crisis. So it's wrong on so many different levels, and just shows...a very flawed thought process."

American Life League calls Pelosi's remarks "a betrayal" of her Catholic faith, and the Christian Defense Coalition says it is "unthinkable" that she would try to stimulate the economy by "seeking to reduce the number of children."

America needs to produce 2.1 children per couple to keep up with births to support the population -- and that rate is not being maintained. Economies in Europe have been especially hurt by a drop in birth rates.

Read "Pelosi should abstain from social engineering"

(Wall Street Journal)

Latest Email from Move America Forward

MAF ENLISTS PROMINENT AYERS OPPONENT TO

CONFRONT HIM AT UPCOMING SPEECH


FBI AGENT WHO INFILTRATED AYERS' GROUP JOINS MAF





Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn of The Weather Underground

Wonderful news today as MAF enlists the aid of the Larry Grathwohl, whom you may have heard of. Larry is a Vietnam veteran, a former FBI Agent and an American hero, who successfully infiltrated The Weather Underground organization led by Bill Ayers.

William Ayers, a despicable admitted domestic terrorist, has been asked to come speak at St. Mary’s College of California in the San Francisco Bay area. The theme for the college’s speaking series this year is “Against the Grain” and the topic of Ayers’ speech is called “Trudging Towards Freedom: Building a Movement and Living Our Lives for Peace and Justice”. Bombing for Peace and Justice might be a more appropriate title as the only ‘movement’ Ayers ever helped to build was expressly for the purpose of destroying America and its primary tool was senseless violence.


Move America Forward is one of the leading groups in the

Simple Justice, Not Social Justice coalition.










We are organizing a protest to oppose that Ayers

is being given a platform to speak to students.



We are bringing in Larry Grathwohl, who knows many of Ayer’s dark secrets, to confront Bill Ayers at the protest. Please donate to this effort sowe can fly Larry out to California for this flashpoint event!

President of St. Mary's College Responds to Protest Plan



The President of the College, Ronald Gallagher,
posted this message up at the College’s website to try and explain a little about their decision to invite Ayers, presumably to cool the environment and avoid the direct confrontation they KNOW they will face from MAF, the Simple Justice Coalition, and many Alums of St. Mary’s College.


In his message, Gallagher writes:

“For students, faculty members and the public, colleges provide a special opportunity to step away from the often overheated and polarized rhetoric of contemporary culture and examine difficult and controversial issues in the somewhat cooler light of reason.”

Mr. Gallagher seems to be forgetting that The Weather Underground, and Student’s for a Democratic Society, the radical organization that the Weathermen splintered off from, began in the universities.

While one has to respect the idea that college provides a marketplace of ideas, we cannot forget that history can repeat itself.

The radical domestic terrorists who ended up bombing targets all over the country, whose goal was to bring down this society, CAME FROM the colleges and universities. It was liberal faculty indoctrinating youth and inviting militants to speak out that CAUSED the ‘movement’ that led to such violence before.

Should we now invite the same evolution of leftist militancy because it is the tradition of college campuses to do so?


Former Weatherman Joins MAF to EXPOSE AYERS




Larry Grathwohl, former Weather Underground member and FBI informant

Larry Grathwohl knows only too well how The Weathermen started and grew, he infiltrated the group in 1970 and was very close to the group’s ‘Central Committee’ led by Ayers and his future Wife Bernadine Dorn.

This inner circle of the Weather Underground issued orders to cells all over the country and Agent Grathwohl , whose job it was to carry messages between, was in on several of these inner circle meetings.

Larry has been on many television and radio programs discussing his experience with the Weather Underground, and in particular Bill Ayers. He was featured on Bill O’Reilly’s show recently discussing the real nature of Ayer’s character and the truth that the Weathermen DID intend to hurt people. See it here!

Even more chilling was Larry’s account of one particular Weather Underground meeting that was featured in a documentary about terrorism, where he recounts the Weathermen actually proposing the deaths of 25 Million Americans who could not be suitably re-educated!


Please make a donation today so that we can afford to bring

Larry out here to St. Mary’s on Wednesday.








If we can arrange it, former Weatherman and FBI Agent Larry Grathwohl will confront Bill Ayers who he has not seen in person since the 1970s!


Ayers knows that former Agent Grathwohl has the secrets to the true nature of Ayer’s leadership of the Weather Underground. That’s why he has been avoiding Larry like the plague for the last thirty years. Please make a donation so that we can get Larry to St. Mary’s College and expose Ayers at our protest.




Monday, January 26, 2009

It Isn't Easy Being a Saint

Pajamas Media

By Victor Davis Hanson
January 25, 2009

All of you readers have had this odd experience. Just remember a bit. Someone you know, even know well, whom you thought was reasonably conservative, if perhaps at least a centrist, who would have welcomed a McCain “moderate” campaign, rather than a hard-core conservative candidacy, suddenly, without warning in a conversation, perhaps over the phone, confesses that he was voting for Obama!

And he was not just voting for Obama, but doing so in almost teen-aged hysterical fashion. I’m not talking of a Colin Powell phenomenon, but someone who had no political interests or career concerns, or need for psychological remissions of sins, someone whose entire political philosophy was seemingly antithetical to Obamism.

It made no sense, you thought, given that the apostate’s previous protestations about being conservative, but not a Bush conservative, would have led naturally to an affinity for McCain. After that you had the weird feeling, perhaps as you remember in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that anyone at anytime could wake up and almost zombie like not seem like he was before, but apparently docile, happy, and eager to join an entirely new centrally-guided paradigm that would prove for us new automatons to be in our best interests.

This occurred to me on at least ten occasions, with long-time friends, some familiar pundits, and a few in government no less. So I came to appreciate the power of the Obama rhetoric. And there was power too in the desire for change after eight years, and an understandable yearning for our first African-American President.

I was writing a TMS column today on Obama’s soaring rhetoric and the impossible expectations that he imprisoned himself in, and began thinking back on the last two years. What explains his near miraculous rise, when pros had almost coronated Hillary and assured us she would trounce Giuliani?

I suppose Barack Obama made the nation giddy when he proclaimed there were no red and blue states, just Americans. He promised to unite us across political, racial, and religious lines. And for the age of cynicism there was something admirable to returning to the age of belief. For some in one fell swoop they were given exemption for all racial sins and now could continue to live as before-but relieved of white guilt. So we overlooked the racialist sermonizing from Michelle Obama, Barack’s occasional promises for reparations in deed not mere word, and the odd things that a Joseph Lowery said on Inauguration Day that were acceptable for a Civil Rights veteran but would have sent a white professor, journalist, or politician into the Don Imus stocks for a week or two.

Of course, during the campaign, some of us—dismissed as old and in the way, hoped and changed away white guys—suspected Obamania in part was a result of mere political rhetoric of the Huey Long or JFK sort. We remembered instead that his pastor Rev. Wright’s venom was not evidence of indiscretion but proof of clear serial hatred. We read carefully his platform and saw at best Carterism and at worse some half-baked European socialism that we now see imploding in Greece, Italy, or Spain.

Obama’s career in Chicago politics was all too familiar in such a landscape—friends acquired like convicted felon Tony Rezko and rival election candidates dropping out through law suits, or mysteriously being forced off the ballot due to leaks about their divorces. Only the genius of David Mamet could write its Chicago script.

And for all the talk of bipartisanship, candidate Obama had the most partisan record in the US Senate, and serially trashed right-wingers like Sean Hannety (and by extension his audience of 10 million) during the campaign. In fairness, I think he proved the nastier gutter fight than ambivalent Hamlet-like John McCain, who seemed at times he wished to lose nobly than sandbag the nation’s historic chance for a gifted African-American healer.

But then Obama was elected and as President promised, as most Presidents do, to bring us together. He met with conservative pundits, reappointed Bush’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and brought in scores of Clinton centrists to manage his administration. Bravo to all that.

Yet the old Obama is starting to appear as most of you astute readers knew he would. Not a word from him about what can, without hyperbole, be called a dishonest Charlie Rangel, a reprehensible Chris Dodd, and the inexplicable Barney Frank who goes barking from one mortgage/banking ethical lapse to another, confident that no Democrat will dare take him on (he enjoys the exemption accorded to the proverbial raving but glib street-corner prophet who accosts you, flips you off on the street, and shouts in your ear and in public all the way to the car before trying to mount the hood and grab the windshield wipers).

Obama loftily talked about a new ethics law outlawing lobbyists, even as he tried to get an exemption for Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn. The problems that surrounded Treasury-Secretary designate Timothy Geithner, or the “troubles” with Attorney General Eric Holder, and Gov. Bill Richardson border on old-style greed, careerism and conflict of interest—in other words, the normal sort of controversies that a politician routinely overcomes if he’s not a saint.

For all the talk of bipartisanship, Obama like Lord Xerxes on his throne nevertheless has got down and dirty and trashed Rush Limbaugh (and by extension his 20 million listeners) and boasted to the Republican opposition. “I won. I am the President”—in braggadocio that exceeded the “decider” George Bush’s. I suspect if the Blago tapes are ever released in their entirety Rahm Emanuel will sound more like Nixon to Halderman than earnestly discussing the rising oceans with St. Obama.

The problem with all this is not that Obama’s trying to wheel and deal and talk out of both sides of his mouth like Bill Clinton and others, but, far worse, is staring to appear ridiculous like Jimmy Carter, divinely talking down to us as mere mortals as he acts like a mere mortal.

So what for others might be written off as the usual hypocrisy and small-mildness—No More Lobbyists in Government—Just One More in Mine! / I’m Zeus on Olympos above mortal cares—but Sean and Rush really piss me off and I want to get even with both! /I’m a radical egalitarian, but please appoint Caroline Kennedy who endorsed me but otherwise seems dyslexic—proves toxic even if it comes out as hexameter verse from St. Obama. The wages of prophethood are heavy, and those who walk on water, and proclaim Vero Possumus! can endure no mortal sin. Will the media that was made to look foolish with tingling legs and tearing cheeks get fooled twice, as Obama the Saint and Obama the Chicago Politician begin to bifurcate?

You readers remember that sometime around mid 2007, Obama made a Faustian bargain. Without much national name, without a legislative record in Illinois or the US Senate, but with quite a lot of Chicago baggage, Obama gambled on the hope and change new persona (soon to be followed with the soaring FDR/MLK/JFK prose, Latinate seal, Greek architraves, Victory Column /Sermon on the Mount speeches, Father Abraham’s arrival to DC by slow-moving rail car (after flying back to Illinois by jet)). For much of the campaign, he either hoped that Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, Father Pfleger and the other assorted Dailey/Blago baggage would not surface, or, if it did, he could hope and change them all away. And he did—brilliantly . And now they are history and those who dredge them up little more cranky sore-losing has-beens.

But as President, no matter how historic a candidacy (more astounding than any in American history), no matter how calm in the face of continuous pressure, no matter how brilliant in prepared and set oratory, one can’t get away with that disconnect forever. There is a reason why a plodding Ike and blunt Harry Truman were greater Presidents than even JFK—and why in 2-3 years even George Bush will begin to seem in retropect honest, sober, and straight-talking rather than word-mangling.

As a novice politician without an Arkansas, or Plains, or Crawford mafia, even, or rather especially, Obama, had to import the hardest of the hard core Clintonistas—Emanuel, Podesta, Panetta, Hillary herself—and he had to pay off some overdue IOU’s to the left with symbolic gestures and appointments (more rhetoric and symbolism and task forces to come on Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, Gay Marriage, Cap and Trade, Kyoto redux, etc.).

Again, the backtracking on the issues, the tough centrist appointments, and the seeming continuance of a Bush (III?) foreign policy, once demonized now quietly embraced, are fine for Bill Clinton, Al Gore or Harry Reid, but in aggregate ever so insidiously they become finally problematic for the redeemer. As stated, even the Left-wing media won’t like looking foolish twice. And even the smug Europeans will turn on those who prod them to be reasonable and honest after serenading them with prose set to Mozart. Yes, he can halt the messiah act and we will forgive him for not being a messiah—or continue it in lieu of honest governance and I assure you in time even Newsweek and NPR will turn on him, in fear that they are not merely gullible, but looking ridiculous.

So even now, Obama need not play any longer the hypocrite and can recover if he mans up to the past hypnosis of the campaign, cools the Lincoln talk, reads about Nemesis, and admits that he is a mere mortal, an inexperienced one at that, matches his deeds with honest words, and seeks to govern in human rather than divine fashion from on high. That way a William Lynn or Timothy Geithner are just political landmines that one steps over rather than proof that the Wizard turns out to be a little man with levers and dials behind the curtain.

Americans can and will forgive almost anything other than hypocrisy.

The Future of Abortion

National Review Online

Roe v. Wade at 36

How will future generations judge us on abortion?

By Frederica Mathewes-Green

Just two days after the inauguration, another crowd filled Washington’s streets: pro-lifers who gather each year for the March for Life. January 22 marked the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and, after so many years with little change or improvement in abortion law, the nation has grown a bit blasé about this annual demonstration. We still say abortion is a hot issue—but it’s not as hot as it used to be. The abortion controversy used to command cover space on magazines, while TV networks hosted hour-long debates. You don’t see that any more.

Maybe people just got tired of hearing about it. Year after year, the two sides said mostly the same thing—and nothing much changed. Eventually, public attention was bound to sidle off to some new, more exciting topic (gay marriage, anyone?). When attention drifted, it was the pro-choice side that had command of the status quo.

And you could say that settles that; from now on there will be less and less talk about abortion, and we’ll just get used to things the way they are.

But I can imagine things going a different way. Not soon—maybe not till the baby boomers have passed from the scene—but it’s possible that a younger generation will see abortion differently. With abortions now running around 1.2 million per year, the total number of abortions since Roe v. Wade is about 49 million. That’s a big number—about a sixth of the U.S. population. It’s an especially big number if you’re not absolutely sure that it’s not a real loss of human life.

After all, if you see a little girl hit by a car, you’re going to yell, “Get an ambulance!” not “Get a shovel!” It’s in the very fabric of humanity to be on the side of life if there’s the faintest hope that life exists. We don’t throw children away when we’re not sure whether they’re alive or not. And, as the pro-choice side never stops saying, it’s not that they’re positive a fetus is not alive—it’s that they’re not sure. As the cliché goes, “Nobody knows when life begins.”

When I was a young, fire-breathing college feminist in the early 1970s, we didn’t see abortion as a melancholy private decision—it was an act of liberation. By choosing abortion, a woman could show that she was the only person in charge of her life and bowed to no one else’s control. But this formulation soured as the grief felt by post-abortion women began to accumulate. The flip side of autonomy is loneliness, and, for many women, their abortion decision was linked to emotional abandonment.

And then there was the advent of ultrasound technology, enabling us to see live images of the baby moving in the womb. In 1989, word went round the pro-life movement to order the tape of pollster Harrison Hickman’s presentation at that year’s NARAL convention. On it he said, “Nothing has been as damaging to our cause as the advances in technology which have allowed pictures of the developing fetus, because people now talk about that fetus in much different terms than they did 15 years ago. They talk about it as a human being, which is not something that I have an easy answer how to cure.”

So there are some reasons to think that the abortion question has not been settled, but has merely gone underground. That might be a necessary step. It has to go away so that it can be rediscovered and seen in a fresh light.

I don’t expect that reconsideration soon: My boomer generation will never see abortion as anything other than the wise and benevolent gift we bestowed on all future generations. We still control the media, the universities, and so forth, and it will take time for all of us to topple off the end of the conveyor belt.

But the time is coming when a younger generation will be in charge, and they may well see abortion differently. They could see it not as “a woman’s choice” but as a form of state-sanctioned violence inflicted on their generation. It was their brothers and sisters who died; anyone under the age of 36 could have been aborted, and somewhere around a fourth or a fifth of all babies are. A younger generation might feel a strange kinship with the brothers and sisters, classmates and coworkers, who are missing.

And I’m afraid that if they do see things that way, they aren’t going to go easy on my generation. Our acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. The next generation can fairly say, “It’s not like they didn’t know.” They’ll say, “After all, they had sonograms.”

Even in my generation, people who think of themselves as defenders of the weak and the oppressed may occasionally have a quiet moment when they wonder, “How, on this one issue, did I wind up on the side that’s defending death?”

There's a lot of ambivalence out there, and a lot of unspoken grief too, I think. Our pro-choice generation may have won the day—but sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. When that time comes, another generation will sit in judgment on ours. And they may judge us to be monsters.

Note: While I applaud Frederica for writing this, I have to say that I am less concerned about what future generations might think of my pro-choice generation and much more concerned about how God will judge us all, including those that come after us. For in the end we will ultimately be held accountable for our actions by Him.

The legacy we leave behind will have far reaching effects on future generations including our iniquity in the present.

Few on the pro-choice side consider the ruined lives of both mothers and fathers who have gone through the trauma of abortion and the lasting consequences of that choice. There are alternatives, education being one of them, but perhaps that is a discussion for another day.

I fear the wrath of God much more than I fear the label "monsters". The suffering of future generations because of our own self interests and allowing this abomination to continue is a real concern.

Abortion is murder of the innocents. Catholics have it named correctly. "The Crimson Holocaust".

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Special Request from Pastor Ed

I have a request for all those who post and comment here at Do The Right Thing, but first a little information on why this post is being done.

Do The Right Thing the blog and the BTR radio program is first and foremost a Christian site and winning souls for Christ is our number one priority.

We also discuss politics from a Christian perspective. Sometimes those views don't go over so well with everyone - that's life and I'm prepared for the ramifications that come with that.

I've been getting quite a bit of negative response in the last week or so, and again I am prepared to handle that as well -- but I thought I should do some self-examination and praying about the matter.

It's no secret to those who know my politics that I am no fan of our new president. I am not one of those people who think we should just sit back and give our new president a free pass while he goes about enacting policies that I feel are wrong (want two examples already - ok, how about reinstating funding for abortion abroad and closing "Club Gitmo").

That said, here is my request: Knowing that some people are looking for reasons to put Christians down and others are more than ready to trash those who follow Christian Conservative principles - I, Pastor Ed Boston, respectfully request that name calling not take place here and on our radio program.

Opposing positions are more than welcome, and I understand that many of you may not feel that President Obama is not "your" President. However, there are plenty of other places where you can go and say anything you please.

This isn't directed at anyone in particular and if it was, I would contact you personally -- unlike some who chose to just write smart alec remarks on public spaces and think it's ok.

My ministry is my first and foremost commitment, and I can't allow things with my online work to jeopardize that in any way. I hope you all understand!

Pastor Ed

Obama As God's Instrument

American Thinker

By Miguel A. Guanipa
January 25, 2009

I first endeavored to write this essay in order to validate for myself what I believed - from an inescapably finite vantage point - to be a most salient principle behind God's unsearchable providence. The principle I speak of is embodied in the Almighty's own caveat that he aims to exalt those who humble themselves, and humble those who exalt themselves.

I had hoped that this principle would be more aligned with the opposite of what virtually every media outlet had already declared as a sealed presidential election, notwithstanding the legion significant deciding factors which could have helped turn the recent presidential race to the opposing party's advantage.

There was the populist effect of the "Joe the Plumber" narrative, the eleventh hour unearthing of a video exposing Obama's undiluted wealth redistribution philosophy in his own words, and Obama's past liaisons with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to name a few. It is left to the discretion of future historians to decide how to exculpate the media for the many other, even more disturbing nuggets that it actively suppressed or simply chose not to report.

We may all remember that, tasting the prospect of being entrusted with the enormous responsibility that comes with being president of the U.S., Barack H. Obama was feverishly engaged in a campaign designed to cover a multitude of sins. In one instance, he even sarcastically owned up to an alleged "weakness" of being "a little too awesome". The quip was received with a few chuckles by a captive audience of media elite, and little indication that any of them stopped to wonder even for a moment, whether the young senator actually believed what was only meant as a self-deprecatory roast.

We may also remember that, armed with an unprecedented amount of capital at his disposal, Obama seized every last opportunity to flood the airwaves with up to 30 minute long infomercials extolling the presumed superiority of his vision

Who could forget the time Obama stood to speak to his followers behind a makeshift podium with a presidential seal bearing his name. In a move of defiant expectation, his campaign operatives were given the green light to begin preparations for a win, by constructing the grandiose platform from which Obama was slated to give his much anticipated victory speech, three weeks before the voters had even decided. In short, he tried to exalt himself. And worse, it seemed that the majority of Americans would not be swayed from casting a vote for a man of whom they knew so little about, other than the glorified portrait presented by an adoring media.

Conversely, John McCain displayed some measure of unwonted humility - despite his honorable standing as a patriot, a label fully merited by virtue of his personal sacrifice for this country.

Almost by default, McCain was left to play the role of the underdog. Even in the last debate he admitted that if he received the people's vote he would be humbled.

Whether by sheer default or personal choice, at least McCain's outward deportment showed a little more deference toward a humble spirit than much of Obama's behavior, though no one can truly read either candidate's heart.

Hence I deduced that if there was any truth in what I believed to be God's principle, then it stood to reason that Obama should have gone back to his senate seat, a humbled man, not so beset by the inordinate ambition of holding a position for which he was ill prepared to serve, and McCain would have been exalted to the position of President of The U.S.

My hope was to be able to prove whether or not the principle still stands in this our narcissistic age. But it is likely that I may have misunderstood God's principle - which nevertheless still stands true - and melded it with my own personal political beliefs to the point that it became distorted beyond recognition. Perhaps I grossly misinterpreted what God unequivocally stated in the scriptures concerning the folly of human pride.

In and of itself that would be a humbling realization, and God knows I am often in need of them. What is more, God has no need of anyone validating his principles; they are able to stand on their own.

But while I may have misapplied the essence of God's principle, it may be more the manner in which He himself plans to unfold it that I failed to capture.

In other words, perhaps it is not that God seeks to humble a leader who appears to be intoxicated with pride - not yet at least - but rather to enlist him as the vessel of His wrath against a country He has long intended to judge, in the hopes that we may perchance curve His judgment, by recognizing our many sins as a nation, and choose to bow before Him (God, not Obama) in humility. It is, after all, the standard method in which He has humbled other nations in the past.

Only time will tell if that is the case. But one must admit that many of the signs surrounding Obama's ascent to power, especially the decisions that await him concerning the many uncertainties in the economy, the ever present scourge of terrorism, and the current global instability, do seem to be pointing in that ominous direction.

From Mike Pence's Facebook Page


Our nation is confronted by a serious financial crisis. It's a crisis of confidence in our financial markets. And let's be honest, it's a crisis of confidence in our government. While many are anxious about how we'll confront these times many more face this moment with faith, not fear.

We'll get through this. We've confronted greater challenges than this. I'm confident we will restore our markets and renew our government. But as I said last fall in the original debate, we must do so in a manner that is consistent with the principles that make America great.

As the distinguished Chairman of this Committee said following last week's action in the Senate, 'No matter what happens here today the second half of the bailout funding will go forward,' adding $350 billion to the national debt and burdening future generations of
Americans with the mistakes of Wall Street and Capitol Hill during the present day.

Despite sincere efforts at reform. this legislation remains the largest corporate bailout in American history, forever changes the relationship between government and the financial sector and passes the cost along to the American people.

I did not come to Washington to expand the size and scope of government. I did not come to Washington to ask working Americans to subsidize the bad decisions of corporate America. Therefore, I did not support the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act last fall and I cannot
support the legislation before the Congress that would send good money after bad.

As I said then, while this bill promises to bring near-term stability to our financial markets, I ask my countrymen, at what price? The decision to give the federal government the ability to nationalize almost every bad mortgage in America interrupted a basic truth of our free market economy: Government can't control outcomes in an economy without eroding the independence and the integrity of our free market system.

When the government chooses winners and losers in the marketplace, every American loses. Now, some say this crisis was too acute to rely on what they call antiquated notions about the role of government in the private sector but I disagree. I believe the principles of limited
government, free enterprise and representative democracy and personal responsibility are as relevant today as they were in 1776.

Now, there are no easy answers to these times, but the American people deserve to know that there were and are alternatives. Last fall, House Republicans offered an alternative that would have required Wall Street, not Main Street, to pay the cost of this recovery. And today,
House Republicans are preparing fast-acting tax relief instead of more bailouts and more spending to get this economy moving again.

President Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘An American must face life with resolute courage. Win victory, if he can and accept defeat, if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.’

With this legislation we again - by second half - place upon the American public a responsibility which was not theirs, bailing out financial institutions after they made irresponsible business decisions. This we should not have done. This we should not do again.

Instead, we should confront this crisis with resolute courage, faith in God, faith in the American people and the ideals of freedom and free enterprise. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing further funding of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.



Obama condemned for expanding taxpayer funded abortions

H/T Snooper at Take Our Country Back.
Also posted at Pat Dollards.

It didn't take very long for the Vatican to condemn Obama's decision to finance the murder of the innocent - unborn children. We all know his stand on abortion. The record is clear - he is all for it.
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Vatican officials said Saturday they were disappointed by President Barack Obama's decision to end a ban on federal funding for international groups that perform abortions or provide information on them.
Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, urged Obama to listen to all voices in America without "the arrogance of those who, being in power, believe they can decide of life and death."

Fisichella said in an interview published Saturday in Corriere della Sera that "if this is one of President Obama's first acts, I have to say, in all due respect, that we're heading quickly toward disappointment." [...]

The Vatican has also proclaimed the American Democrat Party as a Party of Death. That is true in so many ways it boggles the mind where to start explaining. This marks the fourth post I have written on the Party of Death and I am sure many more will follow. ( see here)

There have been American Bishops saying that those that voted for Obama or that will be voting for Obama need to consider their position in the hereafter (audio below).



From Jamie Wearing Fool and Brietbart.

LifeNews.Com
By Steven Ertelt

LifeNews.com Editor

Officials with the incoming administration of Barack Obama have confirmed that he will indeed overturn a pro-life policy of President Bush on his first day in office. Despite campaigning on the rhetoric of wanting to reduce abortions, Obama will make one of his first actions promoting them globally.

Meanwhile, some 77 members of Congress have signed onto a letter asking Obama to back down from doing so.

President Bush used an executive order on his first day in office to reinstitute a pro-life policy that prevents forcing taxpayers to fund international groups that perform or promote abortions in other countries.

While U.S. law prohibits funding abortions directly, Bush's Mexico City Policy expands the law by also prohibiting the funding of pro-abortion groups that either do abortions overseas or lobby pro-life governments to sacrifice their abortion limits.

During the presidential election, pro-life groups issued a clarion call to voters telling them their tax money would be used if Obama were elected and saying he would likely reverse the Mexico City Policy immediately after taking office.

The capital publication Congressional Quarterly reports that top Washington officials tell it that the incoming president will reverse the pro-life measure on his first day as president, on Wednesday.

When Obama overturns the limits on global abortions, he will do so over the objections of dozens of members of Congress.

"As a new administration begins, it is our hope you will work, as you have pledged, to create a new era of bi-partisan cooperation. We urge you to continue the Mexico City Policy, which separates abortion and family planning in America's foreign aid programs," the bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote Obama on Friday.

They say the policy "ensures that United States family planning funds are not co-opted by groups who promote abortion as a method of family planning. Such activities would send a wrong message overseas that the United States promotes abortion."

The members, led by Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, also say it is "insulting" to other nations to promote pro-abortion groups that lobby them to overturn long-standing pro-life laws based on their culture and heritage.

"We also have a responsibility to respect the laws of many developing countries who have laws prohibiting or restricting abortion. It is an insult to fund organizations that are intent on overturning those laws by promoting the Western ideology of abortion on demand," they said.

Rep. Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat who sponsored legislation in Congress to reverse the provision, told CQ that somehow putting it in place endangers the health care people in third world nations receive.

But Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of National Right to Life, tells LifeNews.com the Mexico City Policy and Obama's reversing it is all about abortion.

Thus, it appears Obama's move will take money away from non-abortion groups that provide services to poor people in foreign nations.

"One effect of Obama's anticipated order will be to divert many millions of dollars away from groups that do not promote abortion, and into the hands of those organizations that are most militant in promoting abortion as a population-control method," Johnson explained.

"So, a president who not long ago told the American people that he wanted to reduce the number of abortions, is already effectively promoting the increased use of abortion as a means of population control," Johnson added.

Remember this day and may God have mercy on our souls especially those of you that voted for this leader of the "Party of Death."

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Tribute to my friend: Jim Tindell (1960 - 2009)

This tribute will be a work in progress and will be updated. - Pastor Ed

James R. Tindell, 48, Columbus

James R. Tindell, 48, of Columbus, Indiana died at 9:30 a.m. Friday, January 16, 2009, at his home.

Mr. Tindell was a Reserve Officer with the Hope Police Department, was retired as a deputy from the Bartholomew County Sheriff's Department and was a former Deputy Coroner. He also served as a paramedic for Athens Ambulance Service and as a security officer at Ceraland. For over 10 years he had coached Northside Middle School football and assisted coaching North High School football. He was a 1978 graduate of Columbus East High School and attended IUPUI and Ivy Tech.

Mr. Tindell was a member of Camon Masonic Lodge of Hope. He was a former member of East Columbus Volunteer Fire Department and Fraternal Order of Police. He was an avid fan of all sports, especially the Green Bay Packers, and loved to hunt.

The funeral will be Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. at Myers-Reed Chapel on 25th Street with Pastor Ed Boston officiating. Calling will be from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Monday and from 10:00 a.m. Tuesday to service time. Burial will be at Garland Brook Cemetery.

Memorial contributions may be made to Hope Shop with a Cop or James R. Tindell Trust Fund for Northside Middle School Football Program.

Online condolences may be made at www.mem.com.

Mr. Tindell was born April 2, 1960 in Seymour, the son of August and Sandra Albert Tindell. He married Julie M. Miller May 23, 1981 at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church.

Survivors include his wife, of Columbus; his parents, of Columbus; a son, James Ray (Lisa Madden) Tindell of Columbus; daughters, Anna Marie (Randy) Hammond of Columbus and Cassandra May Tindell, at home; a brother, Jeff (Kim) Tindell of Columbus; a sister, Penny (Ronnie) Ritter of Edinburgh; nine nieces and 10 nephews; and grandchildren, Peyton and Parker Hammond of Columbus.

He was preceded in death by Grandma and Grandpa Merrert, Grandma and Grandpa Albert, and mother-in-law, Joanne Miller.

www.mem.com

Friday, January 23, 2009

Breaking Exclusive: Firm With Deep Ties To Murtha Raided By FBI And IRS Agents

From Pat Dollard's.


So two local cronies of John Murtha, who have been kicked of dollars in defense contracts and earmarks by him through the appropriations committee, have been kicking money back to him. The company is called Kuchera industries, and is owned by brothers Bill and Ron Kuchera. It’s located in Windber, Pennsylvania. Here’s Kuchera’s website. I have an exclusive source inside the company who is feeding me information. The approximately 25 Federal agents rounded up the employees, took everyone’s social security number, and sent almost all of them packing. It is not known exactly who, if anyone, was detained. The Feds remained, poring through files, papers, and computers, and removed boxes stuffed with God knows what. Is Murtha a war profiteer and war criminal, bilking the Defense Department out of precious dollars? Developing…






Bill(left) and Ron(right) Kuchera.
 
 
From WaPo.

Murtha repeatedly intervened on behalf of PAID to help Kuchera expand.

After PAID’s founding, Scialabba approached Kuchera to get involved. Kuchera jumped, not only joining the group’s board but ramping up hiring of disabled workers, who now compose a third of the 200 employees in his company’s defense business. The federal government picked up Kuchera’s $7 million training bill. This year, Murtha earmarked $1.3 million for Kuchera’s chemical and biological weapons detection research.

Kuchera employees donated more than $31,000 to Murtha in the past three election campaigns, according to federal election records. Between 1990 and 2000, contributions totaled $1,000. And congressional lobbying disclosure forms tally $140,000 in payments since 2001 from Kuchera to Ervin Technical Associates, whose chairman is former representative Joseph M. McDade (R-Pa.), a close Murtha ally.

The Hill:

The company has been active in politics, with top officials donating more than $100,000 in campaign contributions over the past decade, to both Democrats and Republicans.

The majority of that money, according to Federal Election Commission filings, has gone to Murtha; company officials gave their hometown congressman more than $56,000 in contributions in recent years. Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), as well as Reps. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and David Hobson (R-Ohio) have taken money from Kuchera employees.

Kuchera has several Pentagon contracts that could be worth more than $100 million over a decade, including parts used in air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, and robots used in dangerous war zones to patrol vehicles for booby traps and bombs.

The company employs around 250 people.

Links between Murtha and top executives at Kuchera run deep. Chief Executive Officer Bill Kuchera served on the board of a nonprofit group that a Murtha aide founded, according to a 2006 article in The Washington Post. The group is dedicated to helping the disabled find jobs.

At the time the Post article came out, Kuchera told the paper his company did not rely on Murtha for federal business, and that the congressman is simply “supportive of everything you can think of around [Johnstown], from roads and sewers to defense contractors.”

Thursday, January 22, 2009

What we don't know about Obama

H/T Pat Dollard.

Politico:
By: John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei

AP

We know a lot more about Barack Obama than we did on Election Day. He wastes little time making big decisions. He was serious about surrounding himself with seasoned people, even if they are outsized personalities likely to jostle one another and unlikely to salute on command. He intends to move quickly to put his personal stamp on government and national life.

Yet much about how the 44th president will govern remains a mystery—perhaps even to Obama himself.

The stirring rhetoric witnessed on the campaign trail and in Tuesday’s inaugural address is laced with spacious language — flexible enough to support conflicting conclusions about what he really believes.

Only decisions, not words, can clarify what Obama stands for. Those are coming soon enough.

Until then, here are the questions still left hanging as the Obama administration begins:

DOES HE REALLY THINK AFGHANISTAN IS WINNABLE?

The new president has strongly signaled that he thinks the answer is yes. But neither his rhetoric nor his policy proposals so far have fully reckoned with the implications.

If he intends to win in Afghanistan, he is not going to be a Peacemaker President. To the contrary, he is committing himself to being just as much of a War President as George W. Bush, certainly for the first term and very possibly for a potential second.

Most military experts think a decisive win in Afghanistan — as opposed to a muddle-through strategy leading to a gradual withdrawal —will involve a major surge in troops and a willingness to tolerate high costs and high casualties.

In any event, the country and its unruly neighbor, Pakistan, will quite likely dominate Obama’s attention much more than Iraq.

Obama advisers say one of the biggest surprises of recent secret briefings on trouble spots around the globe was how unstable, exposed and dangerous Pakistan is. A nuclear neighbor that harbors terrorists injects all the more danger and uncertainty to the war on the other side of its border.

Joe Biden’s first trip abroad as vice President-elect included a stop in Afghanistan. When he returned home, he told Obama: “The truth is that things are going to get tougher in Afghanistan before they’re going to get better.”

If that’s true, Obama may in the end find muddle-through more attractive than victory.

DO DEFICITS MATTER?

In the short-run, Obama and his advisers believe, just like Bush and his advisers, that pumping up the economy is the top priority —budget deficits be damned.

But when does the short-run become the long-run?

Obama has said long-term, trillion-dollar deficits are “unsustainable.” His inaugural address warned about the need to cut programs that don’t work and make “hard choices.”

Does he really mean it? If so, the second half of Obama’s first term likely will be marked by austerity just as much as the first half is going to be marked by massive spending in the name of economic stimulus.

Embracing balanced budgets would also mean embracing steep cuts in weapons systems and entitlement programs, as well as curbing his ambitions for new initiatives in health care and energy. Tax hikes would also be part of the remedy.

With unpleasant medicine like this, Obama may instead find common cause with Democratic liberals and with Dick Cheney, who, according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, once dismissed GOP deficit hawks by saying that Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.

HOW FAST IS TOO FAST IN IRAQ?

The president says he still wants U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months. Tellingly, he always adds caveats that conditions and advice from commanders will dictate the pace. Defense Secretary Gates recently made this clear: “He also said he wanted to have a responsible drawdown. And he also said he was prepared to listen to his commanders. So, I think that that’s exactly the position the president-elect should be in.”

What if conditions change for the worse? Violence is way down and many of the most troubled areas are showing signs of stability. But this remains an extremely volatile region that could erupt in new bloodshed. Will Obama still cling to a speedy pull-out if it means the country could implode?

Obama met with his military commanders on Wednesday. But it’s anyone’s guess whose advice he’ll be listening to most closely, and which members of his heavyweight foreign policy team – within which there are significant disagreements over the Iraq war – will really have his ear.

WHAT’S IN THE FILES?

Any time someone criticized their policies on use of force, covert surveillance, or detention or interrogation of terrorism suspects, Bush and Cheney had an answer that was impossible for any outside critic to fully contend with: You don’t know what we know.

What they said they knew was top-secret intelligence showing how many people with murderous designs on the United States are roaming the planet, how imminent the threats are, or how effective controversial anti-terrorist programs had been in averting another attack. Since no one else could see the files, no one else could be on equal footing in deciding whether the administration was right or wrong.

Since Tuesday, Obama has all the same files, and all the same access to the nation’s top secrets, that Bush and Cheney ever did.

How will Obama react when he gets a constant morning diet of dire warnings? The president today moved to shut down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and end torture – and has surrounded himself with critics of both who are unlikely to tolerate backsliding. But it is not unfathomable that Obama has a “Few Good Men” moment and has to tell liberals and civil libertarians they can’t handle the truth – and that drastic steps sometimes need to be taken to avert disastrous consequences. What’s more, it is hardly a given that any president—no matter his philosophy—would wish to give up the expanded executive power that Bush claimed in the name of national security.

DO UNIONS WEAR WHITE HATS?

Obama, for the entire campaign, said all the right things when it comes to keeping peace with Big Labor. He praised the power and fairness of unions. He expressed skepticism about free trade agreements like NAFTA. Most of all, he proudly sponsored legislation to make it much easier for workers to unionize.

Lately, he sounds like a man rethinking his enthusiasm.

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, he suggested he would not aggressively push for legislation to free workers to easily unionize (the bill is known as the Employee Free Choice Act. “If we are losing half a million jobs a month, then there are no jobs to unionize.” Even Nancy Pelosi seems inclined to cut him some slack for a while on this one – but at some point the pressure will intensify and we will learn if this is truly a pro-union White House.

CAN U.S. POWER SAVE DARFUR?

Darfur will be the first test case - but almost certainly not the last one - in which we will learn just how strongly Obama believes his stated view that the United States should act aggressively when it can use its military power to stop genocide or other humanitarian catastrophes.

There is powerful momentum inside the Democratic Party to come to the aid of the suffering people of Darfur. Among the biggest advocates are two of Obama’s top advisers: Biden and U.N Ambassador-designate Susan Rice.

But with the military stretched thin, and with many others in his administration more skeptical about the use of force on problems that don’t directly threaten national security, nothing is likely to happen unless Obama puts his own influence and reputation strongly behind an intervention.

During the campaign, he signaled a willingness to intervene, but also cautioned: “There’s a lot of cruelty around the world. We’re not going to be able to be everywhere all the time.”

HOW MUCH DOES HE HAVE TO PLACATE THE LEFT?

In his inaugural speech, Obama spoke of tired ideologies and a time to think anew about policy and politics. That is easy to do if he simply means rejecting Bush’s idea. But he has suggested this rethinking will hit the left, too – that’s trickier.

Some times, Obama has been wiling to tick off the left. He picked Rick Warren, a Christian conservative, to deliver Tuesday’s opening prayer and filled his cabinet and staff mainly with centrists. Other times, he seems to bend to liberal frustration.

Obama nixed John Brennan’s appointment to be CIA director after anti-torture advocates expressed outrage over Brennan’s involvement in Bush-era interrogations. Brennan’s going to be working in the White House anyway, but not in any position that requires Senate confirmation. Obama also quickly moved to give a prime role to Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, an openly gay religious leader from New Hampshire, when liberals protested the choice of Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer.

Politically savvy liberal activists are an important reason Obama beat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic nominating contest, and a big reason he blew through all fund-raising records. It will be hard for Obama to govern without their enthusiasm, onthe other hand, it will be tough to reinvent politics if Obama is forced to routinely throw bouquets to the various factions of the Democratic Party.