Brutally Honest

The Obama Commandments

Brought to us by Mr. Vanderleun.

Palin rouses 'em at CPAC

The Note:

The most resounding speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference came not from a presidential candidate, or an elected official — but from Sarah Palin.

The screams and cheers that filled the spacious ballroom in which Palin spoke Saturday felt at times like they belonged at a Justin Bieber concert. A dozen times the conservatives at the conference leaped to their feet to applaud Palin, as she threw them line after line about beating President Obama and reclaiming “traditional values.”

“The president says small Americans, small-town Americans — we bitterly cling to our religion and our guns,” Palin said, referring to a comment Obama made in the last election, as the audience rose and cheered. “You say, I say, we say — keep your change. We’ll keep our God. We’ll keep our guns.”

For the first time at the three-day conference known as CPAC in Washington, protesters disrupted a speech. But the response from Palin’s loyal supporters was fierce. As protesters chanted at her from the back of the room at the Marriott, a man in the back row leaped over his chair, ran toward them and screamed, “Get the hell out of here, you asshole!”

The protesters were kicked out as others in the room began chanting “USA! USA!” followed quickly by “Sarah! Sarah!”

“See, you just won,” Palin ad-libbed to more cheers.

The GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee didn’t endorse a candidate for president, and she said that the drawn-out primary process can benefit the party — as long as Republicans don’t turn on each other.

“In America, we believe that competition strengthens us,” she said. “Competition relates to victory in 2012. We must stay true to our principles. I believe that the competition has got to keep going. But let’s make sure that the competition brings out the best in our party.

“We know that the far left and their media allies can’t beat us on the issues, so instead they’ll distort our records,” she added. “Let’s not do the job for them, OK, Republicans? OK, independents?”

Here's the video where she out mic' checks the mic' checkers:

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"I have never seen such a determination to divide"

Another Catholic responds to Obama's HHS mandate, and vigorously:

To whom it may concern, 

This response to our petition to remove the HHS mandate is an insult. Pardon my language and frankness, but you must really think that people like me are idiots. As disappointing as this may seem to you, I can actually read and understand the true intent of this letter...just as I understand the intent of this mandate. You can't hide your true intent behind the niceties of this letter. Your intentions are clear and they still threaten quite a few freedoms. 

This response proves to me that you are ignoring our concerns and simply going ahead with a plan that violates the consciences of many employers who will now have to choose between adhering to an unfair law and forgetting about religious freedom...or refusing to violate their conscience and face the legal repercussions. For an administration that sold messages of "hope" and unification in the last election, I have never seen such a determination to divide a nation for the sake of self-interests. I know exactly what sort of organizations support this mandate and who they supported during election time. You can't hide this between pleasant words and your futile attempts at relating to our cause and concerns are appalling. 

Your response to our petition is shameful. You should be ashamed of your condescending tone, your attempts to patronize the people behind the petition, the biased sources you used to justify your argument...and your inability to cooperate with those whose conscience you refuse to understand. I am ashamed that this country's history will be forever blemished by this unreasonable administration and forever tarnished by the lack of willingness on this administration's part to truly cooperate with people who simply cannot and should not comply with a law that violates consciences. America was not created for the rights of its citizens to be trampled upon by a government that refuses to genuinely address our concerns. It was created in defiance, in response to an unreasonable king and empire that refused to address the concerns of its colonies....a king that chose, instead, to impose restrictions and unfair laws on his "colonists."

Surely you must see how this mandate controversy parallels with the controversy that led to the formation of this nation. 

I was born into a country that prided itself in the freedoms held by its people. These freedoms made this nation great and they were a hope to the oppressed of nations ruled by tyrants. How dare you support a blatant violation to these freedoms? How dare you attempt to promote a known carcinogen as health care? How dare you quote Planned Parenthood in a matter of conscience and religious freedom...an organization that PROFITS from abortions, contraception, etc? 

How dare you mock us with such a rubbish compromise? Even if the burden falls on insurance companies to carry these "treatments," it is still the money of the employer (Catholic or otherwise) that pays for this coverage. NOTHING CHANGED WITH THIS COMPROMISE. Did you really think we were stupid enough to believe this "compromise" was actually a true compromise? YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED for attempting to pull the wool over our eyes. You should be ashamed for insulting our intelligence with your condescension. We are not fools. We are Americans who know our rights. We know what the word "freedom" truly means...even if the current administration is confused by this concept. 

America deserves better than this administration. America deserves better than this mandate. I will continue to protest against it. I will continue to make my voice heard.

Thank you,

Barbara Soares

I'm adding The Catholic Science Geek to the blogroll as a regular read.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"It is imperative for the blogosphere to make noise here"

And so Mark Shea is making some... righteously:

It is imperative for the blogosphere to make noise here, because the MSM is largely in the tank for Obama and is, with malice aforethought, deliberately lying to make it appear that this is merely some dumb bishops with hangups about sex trying to impose their will on defenseless people who just want health care coverage.

The amazing chutzpah of those who say, “Whether I contracept is none of your business” while holding a gun to our heads and demanding we pay for their contraceptives is truly breathtaking, particularly since they are not only robbing us, but forcing us to violate our consciences while they do it. Contraceptives are cheap as dirt and common as water. Let those who want them get them themselves and not gratuitously force those who think them immoral to pay for them. Painting this as “the Church imposing its morals” on them is like accusing the pistol-whipped victim of armed robbery of lack of charity. This is an act of war against Catholic conscience and religious liberty and a naked act of malice from the Obama Administration. There must be no compromise. It must be utterly defeated.

Question is... are you one to fight or are you one to sit on the sidelines?

Answer the freakin' question.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

“The federal government should do what it’s traditionally done..."

"... since July 4, 1776, namely back out of intruding into the internal life of a church...”

That and more from Archbishop Dolan yesterday:

There was a sharp rebuke Wednesday from Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan that put even more pressure on the president to calm a widening election year uproar. The issue at hand was the president’s insistence that Catholic institutions provide free birth control to their employees.

Dolan came to the South Bronx to bless a library, but he had no blessings — just harsh words — for President Barack Obama, who wants Catholic institutions to pay for birth control, the morning after pill and other services for people who work for them.

“The federal government should do what it’s traditionally done since July 4, 1776, namely back out of intruding into the internal life of a church,” Dolan told CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

The leader of the New York Archdiocese picked up support from Speaker John Boehner, who said either Obama reverses the policy or the House will.

“The federal government has drifted dangerously beyond its constitutional boundaries. This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country must not stand and will not stand,” Boehner said.

This will come to a head and Obama will lose.

Bring the battle on.

 

Yes, let’s talk about fairness, Mr. President

By tim, The Godless Heathen

Via Moonbattery comes this awesome piece by Stephen Moore at the WSJ:

President Obama has frequently justified his policies—and judged their outcomes—in terms of equity, justice and fairness. That raises an obvious question: How does our existing system—and his own policy record—stack up according to those criteria?

Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country's income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden?

Is it fair that American corporations pay the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all other industrialized nations but Japan, which cuts its rate on April 1?

Is it fair that Americans who build a family business, hire workers, reinvest and save their money—paying a lifetime of federal, state and local taxes often climbing into the millions of dollars—must then pay an additional estate tax of 35% (and as much as 55% when the law changes next year) when they die, rather than passing that money onto their loved ones?

Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?

Go read the rest, it's worth it.

Rush's Clint Eastwood "Halftime" Parody

By tim, The Godless Heathen

Via AD:

"Rescind this unjust decision"

Obama has united the Orthodox Christian Bishops with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, which is comprised of the 65 canonical Orthodox bishops in the United States, Canada and Mexico, join their voices with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and all those who adamantly protest the recent decision by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and call upon all the Orthodox Christian faithful to contact their elected representatives today to voice their concern in the face of this threat to the sanctity of the Church’s conscience.

In this ruling by HHS, religious hospitals, educational institutions, and other organizations will be required to pay for the full cost of contraceptives (including some abortion-inducing drugs) and sterilizations for their employees, regardless of the religious convictions of the employers.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for “contraceptive services” including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions. Providing such services should not be regarded as mandated medical care.  We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.

I believe it's a rare thing for the Orthodox Bishops to speak out against anything involving politics.  It should speak volumes to what Obama has wrought.

And they join other faith groups who've voiced their opposition weeks ago:

... more than 40 non-Catholic religious organizations including Protestant-affiliated colleges, National Association of Evangelicals, Focus on the Family, Assemblies of God, Northwest Nazarene University, and Eastern Mennonite University, sent a letter to the White House demanding religious protection against the newly issued HHS contraceptive mandate.

“We write not in opposition to Catholic leaders and organizations. We write in solidarity.” Says the coalition letter. “Leaders of other faiths are also deeply troubled by and opposed to the mandate and the narrow exemption.”

...

“We are all deeply concerned about the narrow exemption, including proposals made to expand it while still leaving unprotected many faith-based organizations.” The letter continues, “We believe that the Federal government is obligated by the First Amendment to accommodate the religious convictions of faith-based organizations of all kinds, Catholic and non-Catholic.”

Obama, a uniter, not a divider.

H/T to Phineas at Sister Todjah.

And if you're feeling inclined to do something about it, sign Frank Weather's petition.

"President Obama has bubble-wrapped himself in the White House"

Don Surber makes note of Obama's lack of prime-time pressers:

The only president to ever need a teleprompter to handle a press conference so his staff could feed him the answers held his last prime-time press conference in July 2009, which ended in disaster when he said the police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in arresting his friend Henry Louis Gates.

The New York Times broke the unwritten code among journalists that you never, ever complain about mistreatment from Barack Obama.

In a blog post, Brian Stetler wrote:

Mr. Obama has been interviewed a total of 408 times in his first three years as president, according to Martha Kumar, a professor at Towson University who works alongside reporters at the White House. President George W. Bush had given 136 interviews at the same period in his presidency, and President Bill Clinton had given 166.

However, Mr. Obama has comparatively avoided Q.&A.s with scrums of reporters, according to Ms. Kumar, answering questions at 94 photo opportunities and other such sessions in his first three years. Mr. Bush had spoken at 307 such sessions after three years in office, and Mr. Clinton, 493.

Those 408 interviews include appearances on Jay Leno, You Tube and Twitter questions from sycophants, and the like.

President Obama has bubble-wrapped himself in the White House. His press staff reflects his attitude of disdain toward the press, as Brian Stetler noted:

Daniel Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, responded in an e-mail, "The idea that interacting with the public through social media is somehow going around the White House press corps is a prehistoric notion."

"The media has become so diffuse that communicating ones' message requires a lot more work than it used to," he wrote. "You have to be willing to go where the viewers are, because they now have so much choice in where they get their information."

Bizarre. The imperial presidency rises. No one in that "prehistoric notion" called the White House Press corps is willing to call Obama out on this. Not even Jake Tapper.

Once again, imagine the gnashing of teeth, the clamoring, the noise that would be generated if a President with an "R" beside his name had not had a prime time press conference in 20 months.

The imperial presidency indeed.

"The president isn't leading. The president isn't being truthful..."

Paul Ryan is being brutally honest about Obama:

President Obama's claims of wanting to give people a fair shot, make everyone do their fair share and have everyone play by the same set of rules may be the making of a great slogan, but his policies will lead to "debt, doubt and decline," a top Republican said Sunday.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said that Obama uses the rhetoric of the right to make a case about fairness and equality, but produces policies that lead to "crony capitalism" and result in giving the government more power. 

"The outcome of these policies is to consolidate power in Washington where you have crony capitalism, which his rhetoric tries to decry," Ryan told "Fox News Sunday." "The president isn't leading. The president isn't being truthful with the American people about what kind of fiscal train wreck is coming."

...

Ryan said Obama has no plan to tackle the nation's weighty debt and isn't even planning to include his own tax reform proposals in the budget he will submit to Congress next month.

"What we have learned with the president time and again is he is going to put some kind of poll-tested line in the State of the Union address and have no follow-up whatsoever," Ryan said. "We have learned already that the president who's had three years to try and propose real solutions to fix our fiscal crisis is ducking it. He hasn't put a plan on the table yet. He formed commissions and super committees, so he sort of outsourced the leadership only to decry their results."

Will this administration's lack of leadership and dishonesty end in November.

It's hope and change we'll need to make come true.