What happened here? Did some folks fail to get the message from their Dear Leader that there would be no abortion funding in his health care reform proposal? Inquiring minds want to know, particularly the indomitable Bill Donohue of Catholic League:

DEMOCRATS ON COLLISION COURSE WITH CATHOLICS

September 30, 2009

The amendments by Sen. Orrin Hatch that would ban abortion funding in the health care bill and ensure conscience rights protections for health care workers were defeated today by a margin of 13-10. Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed its implications:

The Democrats are on a collision course with the nation’s bishops, and the Catholic faithful in general. They cannot expect Catholics to pay for child abuse in the womb without reprisal. Nor can they expect Catholics to sit back and watch while Catholic doctors and nurses are punished for failing to cooperate in evil.

More than any group in America, Catholic bishops have been at the forefront of the movement for universal health care. But they never signed on to a health care reform package that made them violate their professed beliefs. Nor will they.

President Obama has said he will not support a bill that provides funding for abortion or denies conscience rights for health care employees. If he is honest, then he should issue a public statement condemning what happened today. If he makes no attempt to change the outcome, then the only logical conclusion for Catholics to draw is that they have been lied to. One thing we know for sure: If all along Obama had shown a fraction of the interest on this issue that he is currently showing about winning over the Olympic Committee in bringing the games to Chicago, the Hatch amendment would have passed today.

larger view

No sooner did this bishop, Raymond Lahey, announce a settlement with sex abuse victims of other priests did he announce his resignation and was arrested after a search of his computer allegedly yielded some naughty images: http://www.google.com/hoste...

Now before anyone starts foaming at the mouth about the Catholic Church, you have to realize that there are some liberals infecting it -- the types that would think the world of the Obamas http://people.bakersfield.c... and the Roman Polanskis: http://people.bakersfield.c...#-

And those who would finance the ACORNs and other left-wingers: http://www.youtube.com/watc...

I may be wrong and this guy could turn out to be a right-winger (if so, he has no sympathy from me), but a rather thorough search of the Internet has failed to yield anything to suggest that could be the case. In fact, I did come across at least one tidbit that'd suggest otherwise: http://www.catholicnewsagen...

To bad Fr. Marcel Nault is no longer around. Folks like this bishop could benefit from his preaching like the one he did about hell back in 1992 in Fatima, Portugal: http://www.holysouls.com/he...

Stay tuned.

Here's a long read but a masterful one that touches on everything that can account for our ever-coarsening society going down the path that is wide and easy but leads to destruction. The emphases in bold are mine, with those in red being my comments.

I'm hoping Archbishop Burke will soon be made a cardinal so he can be in position to be the first American to be pope, perhaps after Benedict, which could make him the final pope if St. Malachy's vision of the future popes is fulfilled:

An Address by Archbishop Raymond Burke

Editor: Archbishop Raymond Burke is the former archbishop of Saint Louis who now serves as prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. (Like serving as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.)

This article is adapted from remarks he delivered at InsideCatholic's 14th Annual Partnership Dinner, on September 18, 2009.

It is clear that we are experiencing today a period of intense and critical struggle in the advancement of the culture of life in our nation. The administration of our federal government openly and aggressively follows a secularist agenda. While it may employ religious language and even invoke the name of God, in fact, it proposes programs and policies for our people without respect for God and His Law. In the words of the Servant of God Pope John Paul II, it proceeds "as if God did not exist" (Pope John Paul II, post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles laici, "On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World," 30 December 1988, no. 34).

At the same time, there is a lack of unity among those dedicated to advance a culture which respects fully the gift of human life and its origin in procreation, that is, in the cooperation of man and woman with God through the conjugal union and through education in the home which they have formed by marriage. Recent statements, occasioned by the Rites of Christian Burial accorded to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, have manifested profound disagreement and even harsh criticism among those who are publicly committed to the Gospel of Life.

As we share the same commitment to foster respect for human life and the integrity of marriage and the family, I wish to offer some fundamental reflections on how to advance the culture of life in our nation. The reflections are not comprehensive. It is my hope that, in some small way, they may help us both to address more effectively the Gospel of Life to the political leadership of our nation and to draw together in greater unity with all who are truly dedicated to promote the respect for human life and the integrity of the marital union and its fruit, family life.

Finally, by way of introduction, I have tried to relate these reflections to the encyclical letter Caritas in veritate, "On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth," of Pope Benedict XVI, given on June 29th of this year. It seems to me that the development for which God has created man is achieved in the establishment of the culture of life. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI:

Hence charity and truth confront us with an altogether new and creative challenge, one that is certainly vast and complex. It is about broadening the scope of reason and making it capable of knowing and directing these powerful new forces [in the development of peoples], animating them within the perspective of that "civilization of love" whose seed God has planted in every people, in every culture (Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in veritate, "On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth," 29 June 2009, no. 33; hereafter, Caritas in veritate).

Our tireless promotion of the culture of life, in fact, responds to the deepest longing in every man, and in every society. It anticipates and prepares "a new heaven and a new earth," which Our Lord Jesus Christ will inaugurate at His Final Coming (Rv 21:1).


The Context

The context of my reflections is the truth that the struggle against the total secularization of our nation is, by no means, futile, that is, ultimately destined to failure. Notwithstanding the grave situation, in our nation, of the attack on innocent and defenseless human life and on the integrity of marriage as the union of man and woman in a bond of lifelong, faithful and procreative love, there remains a strong voice in defense of our littlest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters, without boundary or exception, and of the truth about the marital union as it was constituted by God at the Creation. The Christian voice, the voice of Christ, transmitted by the Apostles, remains strong in our nation. The voice of men and women of good will, men and women who recognize and obey the law of God written upon their hearts, remains strong in our nation.

Living outside of the United States of America, living in Europe, I can say, without hesitation, that many who recognize the human bankruptcy of a secularized culture are looking with hope to our nation, with hope that our people will claim anew the God-fearing and Christian foundations of our democracy. God has created us to choose life; God the Son Incarnate has won the victory of life for us, the victory over sin and everlasting death (cf. Dt 30:19; Jn 10:10). We, therefore, must never give up in the struggle to advance a culture founded on the choice of life, which God has written upon our hearts, and the victory of life, which Christ has won in our human nature. In fact, we witness every day the commitment of God-fearing Americans in advancing the cause of life and the family in their homes, in their local communities and in our nation.

With regard to the foundations of our democracy, it is sometimes said that, although the founders of our nation used religious language, their faith was not truly Christian in the sense that it was profoundly influenced by the secularist philosophy of the Enlightenment. In other words, if they believed in God, they understood God to be remote from man and the world, leaving man to his own designs, to his own making of himself and the world. In a particular way, the position that our country is not really founded on faith in God is said to be verified in the language of the Constitution of the United States of America, in which neither the name of God nor reference to His Law ever appear. Such a position is used to assert that the foundation of the union which is our nation does not rest ultimately upon the natural moral law but upon what a majority of the citizens wish at any given time, in accord with a rationalist and secularist philosophy.

Whatever may have been the philosophy of particular founders of our nation, it seems clear that the inspiration for the founding of the nation came from a declared faith in God and in the inalienable rights with which He has endowed man, as expressed in the Action of the Second Continental Congress, that is, The Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence makes it clear that government exists to safeguard the inalienable rights of man, which have their origin in God and are safeguarded by His Law. The representatives of our nation, at its beginning, concluded The Declaration of Independence with an appeal to "the Supreme Judge of the World" and, "with a firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence," pledged their "Lives", their "Fortunes," and their "sacred Honor" to each other in support of everything which they had declared. The citizens of our nation, notwithstanding the persistent and strong influence of secularist philosophy, have consistently manifested belief in God and trust in His Providence, which faith and hope also have disposed them, as they disposed the founders of our nation, to give their lives to safeguard the God-given rights of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." To deny the Christian foundation of the life of our nation is to deny our very history.

Articulating the context in which I place my reflections, I do not, in any way, deny the contribution which other religions and persons of good will have made to the life of our nation. To acknowledge the Christian faith which inspired the foundation of our nation and has sustained our nation is not a declaration of intolerance toward persons who are not Christians. It is, in fact, of the very nature of the Christian faith to love all men, without boundary or exception. The Golden Rule, taught to us by Our Lord Jesus, expresses the Christian embrace of all men, without boundary or exclusion (cf. Mt 7:12). For Christians, the acceptance of others who are not of the Christian faith is not a matter of tolerance, but of love which adheres to the truths of the faith while respecting the beliefs of those who are not Christian, as long as those beliefs are coherent with the natural moral law, that is, coherent with the respect for the "inalienable rights" with which God has endowed every man. Christian love does not have its foundation in blind tolerance of others and of what they think and say and do, but rather in the profound knowledge of others and their beliefs, and the honest acknowledgment of differences of belief, especially in what may compromise the life of the nation.

A second context of my remarks is the essential relationship of the respect for human life and the respect for the integrity of marriage and the family. The attack on the innocent and defenseless life of the unborn has its origin in an erroneous view of human sexuality, which attempts to eliminate, by mechanical or chemical means, the essentially procreative nature of the conjugal act. The error maintains that the artificially altered conjugal act retains its integrity. The claim is that the act remains unitive, even though the procreative nature of the act has been radically violated. In fact, it is not unitive, for one or both of the partners withholds an essential part of the gift which is the essence of the conjugal union. The so-called "contraceptive mentality" is essentially anti-life. Many forms of so-called contraception are, in fact, abortifacient, that is, they destroy, at its beginning, a life which has already been conceived.

The manipulation of the conjugal act, as Pope Paul VI prophetically observed, has led to many forms of violence to marriage and family life (Pope Paul VI, encyclical letter Humanae vitae, "On the Proper Regulation of the Propagation of Offspring," 25 July 1968, no. 17). Through the spread of the contraceptive mentality, especially among the young, human sexuality is no longer seen as the gift of God, which draws a man and a woman together, in a bond of lifelong and faithful love, crowned by the gift of new human life, but as a tool for personal gratification. Once sexual union is no longer seen to be, by its very nature, procreative, human sexuality is abused in ways that are profoundly harmful and even destructive of individuals and of society itself. One has only to think of the devastation which is daily wrought in our nation by the multi-million dollar industry of pornography. Essential to the advancement of the culture of life is the proclamation of the truth about the conjugal union, in its fullness, and the correction of the contraceptive thinking which fears life, which fears procreation.

It is instructive to note that Pope Benedict XVI, in his most recent encyclical letter on the Church's social doctrine, makes special reference to Pope Paul VI's encyclical letter Humanae vitae, underscoring its importance "for delineating the fully human meaning of the development that the Church proposes" (Caritas in veritate, no. 15). Pope Benedict XVI makes clear that the teaching in Humanae vitae was not simply a matter of "individual morality," declaring:

Humanae vitae indicates the strong links between life ethics and social ethics, ushering in a new area of magisterial teaching that has gradually been articulated in a series of documents, most recently John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium vitae (Caritas in veritate, no. 15).

He reminds us of the essential part which a right understanding of our sexuality has in true human development. In treating the whole question of procreation, he underscores the critical nature of the right understanding of human sexuality, marriage and the family. He declares:

The Church, in her concern for man's authentic development, urges him to have full respect for human values in the exercise of his sexuality. It cannot be reduced merely to pleasure or entertainment, nor can sex education be reduced to technical instruction aimed solely at protecting the interested parties from possible disease or the "risk" of procreation. This would be to impoverish and disregard the deeper meaning of sexuality, a meaning which needs to be acknowledged and responsibly appropriated not only by individuals but also by the community (Caritas in veritate, no. 44).

The respect for the integrity of the conjugal act is essential to the context for the advancement of the culture of life. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, it is necessary "once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person" (Caritas in veritate, no. 44). Correspondingly, he notes that "States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character" (Caritas in veritate, no. 44).


Faith and Political Life

Regarding the faith and political life, there has developed in our nation the false notion that the Christian or any person of faith, in order to be a true American citizen, must bracket his faith life from his political life. According to such a notion, one ends up with Christians, for example, who claim personally to be faithful members of the Church and, therefore, to hold to the demands of the natural moral law, while they sustain and support the right to violate the moral law in its most fundamental tenets. We find self-professed Catholics, for example, who sustain and support the right of a woman to procure the death of the infant in her womb, or the right of two persons of the same sex to the recognition which the State gives to a man and a woman who have entered into marriage. It is not possible to be a practicing Catholic and to conduct oneself politically in this manner.

Such conduct is also not true to the founding principles of our nation and its government. While the clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees the free-exercise of religion, prohibits the imposition of purely confessional practices on the general population, it fosters the teaching and upholding of the moral law, common to all men, which is at the heart of every true religion. What kind of government would require that its citizens and political leaders act without reference to the fundamental requirements of the moral law?

While true religion teaches the natural moral law, the observance of the moral law is not a confessional practice. It is rather a response to what is inscribed in the depths of every human heart. Religious faith plainly articulates the natural moral law, enabling men of faith to recognize more readily what their own human nature and the nature of things demand of them, and to conform their lives to the truth which they recognize. For that reason, the founders of our nation acknowledged the importance of religious faith for the life of the nation. The free exercise clause, in fact, aims to protect the teaching and practice of religious faith for the sake of the common good. In his encyclical letter Caritas in veritate, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us:

The Christian religion and other religions can offer their contribution to development only if God has a place in the public realm, specifically in regard to its cultural, social, economic, and particularly its political dimensions. The Church's social doctrine came into being in order to claim "citizenship status" for the Christian religion. Denying the right to profess one's religion in public and the right to bring the truths of faith to bear upon public life has negative consequences for true development.... Reason always stands in need of being purified by faith: this also holds true for political reason, which must not consider itself omnipotent. For its part, religion always needs to be purified by reason in order to show its authentically human face. Any breach in this dialogue comes only at an enormous price to human development (Caritas in veritate, no. 56).

Presently, in our nation, the Christian faith has a critical responsibility to articulate clearly the natural moral law and its demands. Under the constant influence of a rationalist and secularist philosophy which makes man, instead of God, the ultimate measure of what is right and good, we have become confused about the most basic truths, for example, the inviolable dignity of innocent human life, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, and the integrity of marriage between one man and one woman as the first and irreplaceable cell of the life of society. If Christians fail to articulate and uphold the natural moral law, then they fail in the fundamental duty of patriotism, of loving their country by serving the common good. Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that the universal natural moral law "provides a sound basis for all cultural, religious and political dialogue, and it ensures that the multi-faceted pluralism of cultural diversity does not detach itself from the common quest for truth, goodness and God" (Caritas in veritate, no. 59). Referring to the fundamental moral defect of our culture, that is, "a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human," Pope Benedict XVI declares: "God reveals man to himself; reason and faith work hand in hand to demonstrate to us what is good, provided we want to see it; the natural law, in which creative Reason shines forth, reveals our greatness, but also our wretchedness insofar as we fail to recognize the call to moral truth" (Caritas in veritate, no. 75).


Reality of Scandal

Recognizing the responsibility of Christians and of all men of good will to enunciate and uphold the natural moral law, we also recognize the scandal which is given when Christians fail to uphold the moral law in public life. When those who profess to be Christian, at the same time, favor and promote policies and laws which permit the destruction of innocent and defenseless human life, and which violate the integrity of marriage and the family, then citizens, in general, are confused and led into error about the basic tenets of the moral law. In our time, there is a great hesitation to speak about scandal, as if, in some way, it is only a phenomenon among persons of small or unenlightened mind, and, therefore, a tool of such persons to condemn others rashly and wrongly.

Certainly, there is such a thing as pharisaical scandal, that is, a malicious interpretation of the morally good or, at least, morally indifferent actions of another. The term comes from the supposed scandal which Our Lord Jesus caused to the Pharisees by, for instance, healing the man born blind on the Sabbath (cf. Jn 9:13-34).

But there is also true scandal, that is, the leading of others, by our words, actions and failures to act, into confusion and error, and, therefore, into sin. Our Lord was unequivocal in his condemnation of those who would confuse or lead others into sin by their actions. In teaching His disciples about temptations, He declared:

Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin (Lk 17:1-2).

It is clear that Our Lord taught as a primary responsibility, with the gravest of consequences, the avoidance of scandal, namely, of any act or failure to act which could lead another into sin. Our Lord's words are nothing less than vehement.

To ignore the fact that Catholics in public life, for example, who persistently violate the moral law regarding the inviolability of innocent human life or the integrity of the marital union, lead many into confusion or even error regarding the most fundamental teachings of the moral law, in fact, contributes to the confusion and error, redounding to the gravest harm to our brothers and sisters, and, therefore, to the whole nation. The perennial discipline of the Church, for that reason among other reasons, has prohibited the giving of Holy Communion and the granting of a Church funeral to those who persist, after admonition, in the grave violation of the moral law (Code of Canon Law, cann. 915; and 1184, § 1, 3º).

It is said that these disciplines which the Church has consistently observed down the centuries presume to pass a judgment on the eternal salvation of a soul, which belongs to God alone, and, therefore, should be abandoned. On the contrary, these disciplines are not a judgment on the eternal salvation of the soul in question. They are simply the acknowledgment of an objective truth, namely, that the public actions of the soul are in violation of the moral law, to his own grave harm and to the grave harm of all who are confused or led into error by his actions. The Church confides every soul to the mercy of God, which is great beyond all our imagining, but that does not excuse her from proclaiming the truth of the moral law, also by applying her age-old disciplines, for the sake of the salvation of all.

When a person has publicly espoused and cooperated in gravely sinful acts, leading many into confusion and error about fundamental questions of respect for human life and the integrity of marriage and the family, his repentance of such actions must also be public (too bad Teddy seemingly failed in this regard). The person in question bears a heavy responsibility for the grave scandal which he has caused. The responsibility is especially heavy for political leaders. The repair of such scandal begins with the public acknowledgment of his own error and the public declaration of his adherence to the moral law. The soul which recognizes the gravity of what he has done will, in fact, understand immediately the need to make public reparation.

If there has always been the danger of giving scandal to others by public and seriously sinful actions or failures to act, that danger is heightened in our own time. Because of the confusion about the moral law, which is found in public discourse, in general, and is even embodied in laws and judicial pronouncements, the Christian is held to an even higher standard of clarity in enunciating and upholding the moral law. It is particularly insidious that our society which is so profoundly confused about the most basic goods also believes that scandal is a thing of the past. One sees the hand of the Father of Lies at work in the disregard for the situation of scandal or in the ridicule and even censure of those who experience scandal. Teaching about the relationship of human ecology to environmental ecology, Pope Benedict XVI underscores a contradiction in "the overall moral tenor of society," which leads us and especially our youth into serious confusion and error:

If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other (Caritas in veritate, no. 51).

One of the ironies of the present situation is that the person who experiences scandal at the gravely sinful public actions of a fellow Catholic is accused of a lack of charity and of causing division within the unity of the Church. In a society whose thinking is governed by the "tyranny of relativism" and in which political correctness and human respect are the ultimate criteria of what is to be done and what is to be avoided, the notion of leading someone into moral error makes little sense. What causes wonderment in such a society is the fact that someone fails to observe political correctness and, thereby, seems to be disruptive of the so-called peace of society. Lying or failing to tell the truth, however, is never a sign of charity. A unity which is not founded on the truth of the moral law is not the unity of the Church. The Church's unity is founded on speaking the truth with love. The person who experiences scandal at public actions of Catholics, which are gravely contrary to the moral law, not only does not destroy unity but invites the Church to repair what is clearly a serious breach in Her life. Were he not to experience scandal at the public support of attacks on human life and the family, his conscience would be uninformed or dulled about the most sacred realities.


Proportionalist Moral Reasoning

At the root of the confusion regarding the moral law is a form of distorted moral reasoning called proportionalism or consequentialism. The Servant of God Pope John Paul II addressed the error of proportionalist moral thinking in his Encyclical Letter Splendor veritatis. At root, the error places all moral issues on the same level, failing to distinguish between intrinsically evil acts, that is, acts which are always and everywhere wrong, and acts which may or may not be wrong, depending on the objective conditions required for the act to be morally right. It is also given to the confusion of ends and means, judging the goodness of an act by the end it achieves, without reference to the immorality of the means used to achieve the end. Pope Benedict XVI makes reference to the harm done in questions regarding technology, when ends and means are confused (cf. Caritas in veritate, no. 71). He also cautions us about the equivocal use of the term, ethics, in questions of development, observing:

Much in fact depends on the underlying system of morality. On this subject the Church's social doctrine can make a specific contribution, since it is based on man's creation "in the image of God" (Gen 1:27), a datum which gives rise to the inviolable dignity of the human person and the transcendent value of natural moral norms (Caritas in veritate, no. 45).

According to the proportionalist way of thinking, procured abortion, which is always and everywhere wrong, is placed on the same plane with acts of war which may or may not be wrong. A recent article in a Catholic journal of bioethics gives expression to the proportionalist way of thinking. The writer states that he voted for a particular candidate whom he knew was in favor of embryonic stem-cell research, which involves the deliberate destruction of a human life at its beginning, because he agreed with the candidate on other issues, namely "the war in Iraq, universal health care, the importance of diplomacy and dialogue, energy policy, concern for the environment, and global climate change" (W. Malcolm Byrnes, "Confessions of a 'Pro-life' Obama Supporter," the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 9 [2009], 241). The candidate for whom he voted was also in favor of procured abortion, including partial-birth abortion, and so-called "same-sex marriage." (tsk, tsk)

According to the proportionalist way of thinking, each of us has the right to choose what are the most important moral issues. Ultimately, it lacks any relationship to the objective truth of actions. It fails to realize that unless the fundamental moral goods are safeguarded, that is, human life and the sanctuary of marriage, other moral issues, while having an importance, lose their ultimate meaning. (WELL SAID!) In such a way of thinking, for instance, one can accept a program of universal health care, even if it includes the compulsory provision of abortion and the rationing of health care to the benefit of those considered to be "productive," while providing for the hastening of death for the aged, the weak and those with special needs, that is, for those considered to be "unproductive," according to the reasoning of whoever has political power.

In this regard, I find the language of values to be less than adequate to our moral discourse. Although I know it is common to speak of moral values, we must remember that the language of values, which comes to us from the world of economics, usually expresses a relative assessment of worth. What is a value to me may not be a value to another. What is really at stake are objective goods, created by God and participating in His own goodness, like human life and the union of man and woman in marriage. They are good in themselves, no matter how I may view them. Only when I am able to view them as they are, according to God's plan, am I able to do what is right and good. Only then I find happiness in a right relationship with others and with the world.

Whatever the good intention of using the image of a seamless garment to talk about the moral issues regarding human life, it has become identified with the proportionalist way of thinking in which, for example, acts of war, the use of the death penalty, procured abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, and euthanasia are viewed as matters of equal moral weight. In other words, the image covers over the distinction between intrinsically evil acts and acts which are not evil in themselves but can become evil, if unjustly taken. The moral questions pertaining to the safeguarding and fostering of human life are all related to one another but they are not of the same weight. To use the image of the garment, they are not all of the same cloth. The use of the metaphor of the seamless garment, while it may have been intended to promote the culture of life, has, in fact, been used to justify the acceptance of acts essentially contrary to a culture of life for the sake of attaining some seeming good. (AMEN!) Whatever good intention those who have developed the "seamless garment" argument may have had, it falsely places intrinsically evil acts, that is, acts which are always and everywhere morally wrong, on the same plane with acts which, according to prudent judgment, may not sufficiently safeguard human life.

In a similar way, the language of common ground is employed in the advancement of a proportionalist or consequentialist way of moral thinking. (YES!) Common ground, rightly understood, is the ground of moral goodness. It is established by what is objectively good. If, on the contrary, it is understood to be the compromise of certain moral truths for the sake of harmony with those who deny a moral truth, for example, the intrinsic evil of procured abortion or euthanasia, then it is a betrayal of the good and can only lead to the harm of self and others, and of society itself.

Sometimes, we hear that we as Christians or as apostles of the Gospel of Life must be careful to get along in society, not to separate ourselves or to appear to be counter-cultural. One wonders how such language squares with the essence of the Gospel, that is, to be "a sign of contradiction" (cf. Lk 2:34). At the same time, one cannot help but think of what Christians getting along and being politically correct has meant in other nations whose leaders had embraced an agenda of death and the totalitarianism which advanced it.

In some way, our consciences have become dulled to the gravity of certain moral issues. When insistence on the elimination of legalized abortion in our nation is dismissed as a kind of "single-issue" approach, as the obsession of the "religious right," which fails to take account of a whole gamut of moral issues, then we have lost the sense of the horror of destroying a human life in the womb. (EXACTLY!) In a similar way, when the denial of nutrition and hydration to the gravely ill is seen as a "single issue," then we have lost a sense of the horror of failing to give basic care to a brother or sister who has grown weak for whatever reason. (DITTO!) It is not a question of a single issue but of what is fundamental to life itself and to society. I recall the words of the Servant of God Pope John Paul II:

The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception (Pope John Paul II, encyclical letter Evangelium vitae, "On the Good and Inviolability of Human Life," 25 March 1995, no. 58).


Common Good

Finally, in advancing the culture of life, we must be clear about the objective meaning of the common good. The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council described the common good as "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily" (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, "On the Church in the Modern World," 7 December 1965, no. 26). The fulfillment of individuals and societies is not some subjective determination by those, for example, who are in power. It is the fulfillment which is written in the very nature of man, in nature itself. It is the fulfillment for which God has created us and our world, not the fulfillment which, at any given time, we may find attractive or useful. It is interesting to note that the English word, fulfillment, translates the Latin word, perfectio, that is, the perfection of the individual or group, according to man's proper nature and end. In The Declaration of Independence the objective fulfillment or perfection which the common good safeguards and promotes is described as "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

In advancing the culture of life, we must be clear about the objective nature of the common good and of the perfection which it makes possible. Not everyone who uses the term, common good, understands its true meaning. In a recent article, a well-known European Catholic theologian, commenting on the Commencement Address of President Barack Obama at Notre Dame University on May 17th of this year, declared:

In fact, the speech to the University of Notre Dame seems strewn with references taken from the Christian tradition. There is, for example, an expression which frequently returns, "common ground," which corresponds to a fundamental concept of the social teaching of the Church, that of the common good (Georges Cottier, O.P., "La politica, la morale e il peccato originale," 30Giorni, 2009, no. 5, p. 33).

The common good refers to an objective perfection which is not defined by common agreement among some of us. The common good is defined by creation itself as it has come from the hand of the Creator. (YOU GOT IT!) Not only does the notion of common ground not correspond to the reality of the common good, it can well be antithetical to it (for instance, if there should be common agreement in society to accept as good for society what is, in reality, always and everywhere evil).

In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, the common good "is the good of 'all of us', made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society" (Caritas in veritate, no. 7). The common good corresponds "to the real needs of our neighbors"; it is an act of charity which each Christian is to exercise "in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis" (Caritas in veritate, no. 7). Pope Benedict XVI consoles and urges us onward in seeking the common good:

God's love calls us to move beyond the limited and the ephemeral, it gives us the courage to continue seeking and working for the benefit of all, even if this cannot be achieved immediately and if what we are able to achieve, alongside political authorities and those working in the field of economics, is always less than we might wish. God gives us the strength to fight and to suffer for love of the common good, because he is our All, our greatest hope (Caritas in veritate, no. 78).


Conclusion

It is my hope that these few reflections will help us all to engage with new enthusiasm and new energy in the struggle to advance the culture of life in our nation. The struggle is fierce and the contrary forces are many and clever. But the victory has already been won, and the Victor never fails to accompany us in the struggle, for he is faithful to His promise to us: "[A]nd lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:20). We know that, if we speak the truth and live the truth, Who is Christ the Lord of heaven and earth, we will foster a culture of life in our nation, a culture in which "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is safeguarded and fostered for all, without boundary or exception.

Let us confide ourselves and our nation to the prayers of the Mother of God, under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, so dear to our continent. Through her ceaseless maternal care, she will not fail to bring us and our nation to the truth, to her Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. I conclude making my own the prayer with which Pope Benedict XVI concluded his latest encyclical letter:

May the Virgin Mary -- proclaimed Mother of the Church by Paul VI and honored by Christians as the Mirror of Justice and the Queen of Peace – protect us and obtain for us, through her heavenly intercession, the strength, hope and joy necessary to continue to dedicate ourselves with generosity to the task of bringing about "the development of the whole man and of all men" (Caritas in veritate, no. 79).

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Would the Hollywood elites and other schizophrenic liberals have been so quick to come to his defense if child rapist Roman Polanski had been a man of the collar? David Gibson ponders this question in a Politics Daily article: http://www.politicsdaily.co...

I don't know why, but the image of the man convicted in the Lockerbie air disaster being released to a cheering throng of Libyans comes to mind when I think of Polanski.

The double standard isn't lost on Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who has this to say:

MAD RUSH TO DEFEND POLANSKI

September 29, 2009

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the mad rush to defend Roman Polanski:

The Catholic League has long suspected that, in many quarters, the outrage over priestly sexual abuse has had more to do with the status of the accused than the crime itself. Now the evidence is indisputable: a child can be drugged, penetrated and sodomized—and the guilty can cut and run—and still maintain hero status. Provided he is a celebrity.

Actress Debra Winger showed up at the Zurich Film Festival “to honor Roman Polanski as a great artist, but under these sudden and arcane circumstances, we can only think of him today as a human being.” Either that or as a child rapist. She was not alone: the Zurich Film Festival jury proudly displayed red badges reading “Free Polanski.” It was also nice to know that Woody Allen, a man who speaks from experience, came to Polanski’s defense.

Whoopi Goldberg showed off her usual brilliance when she declared that Polanski’s crime “wasn’t rape-rape.” No, only priests are guilty of real rape. Noted photographer Otto Weisser agrees: “He made a little mistake 32 years ago.” That’s right—it’s only a big mistake when priests do it. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post also notes that it’s been “over 30 years” since Polanski molested the girl. Similarly, movie critic Tom O’Neil exclaims that it is “mind-boggling why they’re still pursuing this.” Yet there is no statute of limitations afforded priests—men long dead have been accused of crimes extending back to the 1920s.

Harvey Weinstein is so noble: “We’re calling on every film-maker we can to help fix this terrible situation.” The terrible situation, of course, isn’t what Polanski got away with—it’s his pursuit by the authorities.  “To put him on trial or keep him in jail does not serve society in general or his victim in particular,” says journalist Anne Applebaum. She, and others, would carry more weight if the “he” included priests.

No wonder so many Americans look upon the celebrity worshippers with utter disdain. Double that for Catholics.

Catholic League's president Bill Donohue wrote this back in April, but I thought I'd run it, considering the troubled times that have been spawned by the serpent whose head will eventually be crushed by the heels of the Queen of Heaven:

 Last December I wrote a president’s desk piece titled, “Culture War Ready to Explode.” I predicted that the election of Barack Obama would occasion a fierce battle between traditionalists and modernists, and that was because many of those in the latter category will “see in his victory a golden opportunity to wage war on traditionalists.” That is exactly what has happened.

We have been so busy at the Catholic League, and on so many fronts, that we could fill this issue of Catalyst many times over. We could also fill the entire issue with all the media hits we’ve had. So the bad news is the bigots are on the march; the good news is we’re taking them on, chalking up some big victories along the way.

The culture war has indeed exploded. I am of the 60s generation, the generation that witnessed a radical turn in our culture. Some good things happened in the 60s—such as the civil rights movement, giving black Americans rights long denied them. But overall, the 60s saw a coarsening of our culture. Radical individualism triumphed, something which by now is deeply ingrained in our society.

I was in the U.S. Air Force in the late 60s, stationed at Beale Air Force Base in northern California, not far from Marysville and Yuba City. On weekends, I would travel with friends to San Francisco. The Haight-Ashbury section was the epicenter of hippie America, a drug infested hell hole where anti-Americanism flourished. Many of those radicals wound up dead. Others turned the corner. Still others joined the establishment, but never really changed their thinking. It is this group that is now igniting the culture war.

The radicals who are fomenting the culture war see in Obama a chance to relive the 60s. As I said in December, “I am not blaming Barack Obama for all of what is about to happen.” But he is the catalyst, however personally uninvolved he may be. The fact is that many see in him a chance to finish what they started in their youth. And a big part of it is driven by anti-Catholicism. Consider the following.

In Maryland and New York, as this issue shows, bills have been introduced that take direct aim at the Catholic Church. The proponents say they are interested in protecting children, and that is why they want to suspend the statute of limitations allowing for those abused many years ago to get their day in court. But this is a ruse. They are not interested in protecting kids—they are interested in sticking it to the Catholic Church.

How do I know this? Because if they were truly interested in protecting kids and securing justice for those who have been molested, they would start where the action is, and that would be in the public schools. But, in fact, in every state where these bills have been introduced, the public schools have been shielded by special laws tailored to insulate them from the same kinds of penalties afforded private institutions. It is outrageous, duplicitous and bigoted.

Look at what happened in Connecticut. Two gay Democrats tried to engineer a takeover of the Catholic Church by the Connecticut legislature. They lost, but the fact that they even tried is incredible. To single out the Roman Catholic Church in an unprecedented power grab shows beyond any doubt that anti-Catholicism is alive and well in the United States. No other religion is ever targeted the way Catholicism is.

As I said on “Glenn Beck,” could anyone imagine what would have happened had Catholic bishops in Connecticut decided to lobby for a bill granting them the authority to run the administrative and fiscal affairs of the state legislature? The charge would be fascism. So why, aside from the Catholic League, didn’t others use this term to describe what happened?

And where was the ACLU, that great protector of separation of church and state? Americans United for Separation of Church and State was even worse: it took the occasion to lecture the Catholic Church on the meaning of separation of church and state! The best it could do was to say that the lawmakers who tried to stage this coup were “misguided.” It proves, once and for all, that Americans United is an organization that exploits the First Amendment for political reasons, not principled ones.

Not only is Catholicism singled out, when our side strikes back, we are bashed beyond belief. Our victory in Georgia, as this issue shows (and we could fill many pages with the hate mail we received), triggered a hate-filled stream of bigoted comments. Not to worry—we are thick-skinned at the Catholic League.

Radical secularists, many of them from the 60s generation, believe this is their last shot. That’s why they are in high gear. They can create so much damage because of where they are situated: They dominate higher education, the arts, the media, Hollywood, the publishing industry, the foundations and the non-profit advocacy organizations. And their lust for power is insatiable.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Fox News equivalent of the online media, World Net Daily, finally may have had the Washington Post's ears. Here's hoping it can have the cobweb of bias (rabble rousers, eh?) dusted off and be brought up to speed before it's too late:

Washington Post discovers America
Exclusive: Joseph Farah chuckles over decision
by newspaper to get up to speed on 'rabble rousers'

Posted: September 26, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

By Joseph Farah

My phones have been unusually busy lately with calls from major media.

It started just in the last week or so.

It's not that major media didn't reference me and my news organization frequently. It's just that previously they didn't feel the necessity of actually speaking to me before writing or broadcasting.

I guess they figured that would be like calling Hitler for his opinion about invading Poland.

Anyway, that's all changed. Today, they're calling.

Why?

Well, I suspect there is something of an awakening taking place in the Old Media. The tea parties, the town halls, the big Washington rally and the major stories they are forced to catch up on have all helped to give them a clue.

Some of the top editors and producers are actually telling their reporters it's time plug into other points of view.

Take Washington Post Editor Marcus Brauchli, for example. He is openly and publicly worrying "that we are not well-enough informed about conservative issues. It's particularly a problem in a town so dominated by Democrats and the Democratic point of view."

Joseph Farah's book "Stop the Presses: The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution" explains why traditional news sources are gasping for breath amid Internet, talk radio phenomena

He says he is now challenging his reporters and editors to look at what is going on across the political spectrum – "at the extremes, among the rabble rousers, as well as among policymakers."

I guess that's why I got a call this week from the Washington Post.

I'm only guessing because, at the time of this writing, I haven't returned the call from the reporter yet. Been too busy breaking news to fill in the competition on what's going on.

It's bugging the Post that readers are beginning to feel like they can't get the news in a timely way by turning to the paper. There wasn't a word about "green jobs" czar Van Jones until he had been forced to issue two public apologies and was chased from office mainly by the reporting of my little news agency. WND last April broke the first of more than 20 investigative reports that led eventually to his downfall.

The Post also did not report the astonishing ACORN undercover video reports by a pair of young journalists until two days after the first one was aired.

But not everyone is thrilled with this new sensitivity to actual news broken outside the so-called "mainstream" media gates.

The Columbia Journalism Review is apoplectic about the development.

The latest issue includes an interview with one of the gatekeepers, Rick Perlstein, described as "a liberal historian of the conservative movement."

"I read what Brauchi said, and what he was paraphrased as saying, and it almost suggests to me that Matt Drudge is becoming his assignment editor," said Perlstein. "I mean, why would a newspaper like the Post be training its investigative focus on ACORN now? Whether you think well or ill of ACORN, they're a very marginal group in the grand scheme of things – and about as tied to the White House as the PTA."

A marginal group? One that is funded by taxpayers to the tune of tens of millions from the federal government alone, not to mention the $8.5 billion it was in line to get in stimulus funds? One that was officially involved in conducting the Census? One that formerly hired the president as an attorney? One that formerly hired him to train its activists?

I guess Perlstein has a slightly different definition of the word "marginal" than I do.

All I can say is the Old Media better beware.

They should remember their bottom line.

If they start reporting on government fraud, waste, abuse and corruption the way we do, they just might not get that federal bailout some of them are counting on.

If so, then how about Jesse Dirkhising? Yes on the former and no on the latter? I can't blame you. I never heard of Jesse either until I read the following column by World Net Daily's founder, Joseph Farah, on the 10th anniversary of Jesse's death at the hands of a pair of homosexual lovers. Makes you wonder just how far back the mainstream media's double standards when it comes to news coverage go to. Wikipedia takes note of that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Now for Farah's commentary:

Joseph Farah marks 10 years since brutal homosexual rape, killing of teen
Posted: September 25, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

By Joseph Farah

Editor's note: The following column is not appropriate reading material for children. It is not for squeamish adults. It contains graphic details of a heinous crime.

In the news business, you've got to have a strong stomach.

It's like being a cop.

You get to see the darkest side of a dark world. And what you see, hear and read is often unforgettable – and not in a good way.

The case of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising continues to haunt me since I first wrote about it 10 years ago – before anyone else in the national press.

Jesse Dirkhising

The details of the crime in Prairie Grove, Ark., Sept. 26, 1999, were chilling enough before I read more than I cared to read in the affidavit filed the next day. This is not an easy story to write nor read about. Be warned.

Joshua Macave Brown and David Don Carpenter were found guilty in the murder and rape of Jesse Dirkhising. The pair were convicted of drugging the boy, raping him repeatedly and killing him by asphyxiation.

If you have the stomach for it, here are the shocking details of what the police investigation found.

About 5 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 26, two patrolmen from the Rogers, Ark., police department responded to a call to assist an ambulance crew at the home of Brown and Carpenter. When they arrived, they encountered Carpenter, who kept repeating: "He's not breathing!" Brown stood in a hallway, according to police, completely naked, holding a flashlight and a telephone.

The officers observed a young, naked male subject, later identified as Jesse Dirkhising, on the floor in the middle of the room, next to a mattress. His genitals and abdomen were covered with feces. His mouth was blue. He had a weak pulse, but did not appear to be breathing. One of the officers noticed that his right hand was wrapped in duct tape.

When Brown was asked about the tape, he explained that they were just playing a game.

An empty prescription bottle was on the mattress. Some pills and a razor blade were spotted on a mirror at the front entrance. Paramedics took Jesse to the emergency room where he was pronounced dead at 5:30 a.m.

During police questioning, Brown explained that he and Jesse frequently tied each other up, though not for sexual purposes. But on this one occasion, he said, he decided to sneak up on the boy, tie his hands behind his back, shove underwear in his mouth and bind him with duct tape. He then placed a T-shirt over the boy's head, but checked to ensure his nostrils were not blocked. After all, this was only a game.

He placed belts around Jesse's knees and ankles to hold his legs together. He then untied his wrists and secured them to opposite sides of the mattress. He positioned Jesse on his stomach, placing pillows under him before penetrating his anus with various items, including three fingers of his hand, his penis, a cucumber, a sausage and a douche bottle. Brown told police he also prepared and administered an enema for the victim, using his own urine as a liquid.

Brown then positioned a cucumber so that it was slightly penetrating Jesse's anus and secured it with tape. He went to the kitchen where he took a lunch break from his fun and games. When he returned to the bedroom, he found Jesse was not breathing. Brown says he pulled the T-shirt off Jesse's head, cut the tape and a bandana used to secure his gag and removed the underwear from his mouth.

Before calling 911, Carpenter says he attempted to administer CPR.

A search of the premises later turned up numerous small green pills, various forms of prescription medicine, including the controlled substance amitryptilene, a heavy sedative used to treat depression. Two cucumbers, one covered in petroleum jelly, the other in feces were found in the bedroom. A tube-shaped sausage, a crushed banana and a plastic disposable douche bottle with applicator secured in place with duct tape were found among numerous items used in bondage – belts, more duct tape, strapping tape, handcuffs, nylon rope, a rubber jump rope and electrical cord.

In the living room, detectives found a computer and related equipment still running. When the monitor was turned on, a program entitled "Medical Drug Reference 4.0" was running. A note written to "Baby" was found. "Baby," detectives learned, was a term of endearment Carpenter used to refer to Brown, his live-in lover. The note listed three types of prescription pills, advice on forcing someone to take them, positioning pillows beneath a male subject in a certain way and a threat to sexually assault someone for the next 14 hours. The note included a diagram depicting a person on a bed, face down, bound in tape.

And this is where it really gets interesting. It appears Jesse Dirkhising was not the only victim of these fiends.

Another letter describes seeing "Baby's little 10-year-old blond whore" at her bus stop in the morning. The note graphically describes how "Davie" can envision "Baby" engaging in various sexual acts with her. Another handwritten text describes a man giving a 9-year-old girl a glass of milk with a drug mixed in and laughing out loud about it, knowing that, in 20 minutes, the drug would render her helpless. It then describes in detail the man having the girl masturbate and perform oral sex on him.

Brown says when he had sex with Jesse, Carpenter stood in the doorway naked and masturbated.

Just so you don't think you're safe from such monsters outside of Arkansas, consider that the pair previously lived in three other states in the previous two years and that Carpenter lived in 26 different states and boasted of having friends in all 50.

But, fear not. This is just a homosexual rape and murder – not a "hate crime." No. This was just fun and games that got a little out of hand.

I thought perhaps the attention the Jesse Dirkhising story received in 1999 might lead some people to have second thoughts about our nation's embrace of the homosexual lifestyle. I'm sorry to say it did not.

The last decade has witnessed the capitulation of America to the "queer agenda." We're headed for a moral collapse that will make our economic downturn look like a cakewalk by comparison.

Ten years ago, I wrote: "Remember how the nation stood riveted to the details of a hideous murder that took place in Wyoming when a homosexual was tortured to death? Never mind that the crime had little or nothing to do with the victim's sexual proclivities. Uh-uh. That didn't matter. This was a hate crime. New laws were needed. New brainwashing programs must be introduced into the schools. New sensitivity outreach projects were required by all media outlets. Bill Clinton sounded off. Janet Reno chimed in.

"And then there was Jesse Dirkhising. There was no hand wringing, no candlelight marches, no national news coverage for the 13-year-old victim of homosexual rape and murder. No presidential proclamations – even though the heinous crime took place in his home state."

Jesse Dirkhising was brutally raped, tortured and murdered – for fun, for thrills, for the hell of it, because it felt good, maybe even because a certain politically protected lifestyle has been elevated to virtual sainthood.

But that wasn't a "hate crime" – not under the law. Jesse Dirkhising was just a 13-year-old boy, not a member of a politically protected class of Americans. And that's the way so-called "hate crimes" work.

I don't know how many more Jesse Dirkhisings there have been since 1999, but I do know a day doesn't go by any longer that there isn't news of adults having sex with children.

I also know a day hasn't gone by when I haven't thought about the suffering and humiliation that poor boy experienced at the hands of those animals.

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The Catholic Medical Association released an open letter that doesn't bode well for ObamaCare. Among other things, it raps the Obama administration's track record so far when it comes to dignity of human life, what with its reveral of the ban on the Mexico City Policy and opening wide the gates of hell in funding embryonic stem cell research. To hear Catholic League's Bill Donohue tell it in summarizing the letter:

CATHOLIC MEDICAL ASSOC. DELIVERS: SUPPORT URGENT FOR HEALTH CARE STATEMENT

September 22, 2009
 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue strongly supports the statement released yesterday by Louis C. Breschi, M.D., president of the Catholic Medical Association [CMA]:

Catholic physicians who are loyal to the Magisterium are in a unique position to guide the Catholic community on health care reform. Led by Dr. Breschi, the statement just released, “Open Letter to Catholics and Catholic Organizations,” deserves wide support and dissemination. It is a model of Catholic thought and insight.

The letter urges reform, but does so cautiously: it explicitly recognizes a “real danger that misguided legislation could make our current problems even worse.” (Breschi’s italics.) Furthermore, the CMA warns that a “government-controlled approach is flawed in principle and ineffective, if not dangerous, in practice.” It implores us to affirm the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, noting that the government “has a very poor track record of managing large programs in a cost-effective manner.”

Central to Breschi’s concerns is the lack of respect the Obama administration has shown for respecting “the dignity of human life.” It concludes by calling upon “all Catholics and Catholic organizations to reaffirm their support for the foundational ethical and social teachings of the Church which provide a framework for authentic health care reform, and to unite as one in an uncompromising commitment to defend the sanctity of life and the conscience rights of all providers as essential parts of health-care reform.”

It is impossible to quarrel with this formulation from a Catholic perspective, and that is why the Catholic League stands behind it without reservation. We urge others to do so, and to do so publicly.

For the full letter: http://www.cathmed.org/asse...

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Remember that Hawaiian official ("I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino ... ") who in two public announcements would have us believe that she had seen the "vital records" and, by her own authority, declared that Obama aka Soetoro meets the natural born citizen requirement to serve as president?

Well, attorney and pro poker player Leo Donofrio informs us in his latest postings on his blog, Natural Born Citizen, that he will be representing one of his readers in her legal action against the state for not only allegedly amending those vital records but also for circumventing its own laws in not releasing information to show how it reached its conclusions and for not informing her of her rights to appeal its decision: http://naturalborncitizen.w...

Now before anyone gets all bent out of shape in branding Donofrio as a conspiracy-mongering kook, let it be known that he actually believes that Obama aka Soetoro was born in Hawaii and just wants to prove that so we can get on to the other issue of his father's British citizenship that he thinks poses a real dilemma: http://naturalborncitizen.w...

But if it turns out he indeed was not born in Hawaii as some claim, then we do have a problem. So when can we expect our undocumented president to show the  transparency that he pledged?

Smile of the day: http://www.lifesitenews.com...

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After being in the dumps the past few days watching my favorite teams in baseball and football suffer tough losses, it was great watching the Chicago Cubs pull out a victory tonight against the Cards in 11 innings in a nationally televised game on Fox. Most folks were probably watching the Cowboys-Giants game that was a thriller as well, but the Cubs-Cards game was as exciting a baseball game as one could hope to watch.

First, I should tell about the other losses. No doubt the Cubs have all but missed the playoffs, especially after the Cards won back-to-back heart-breakers on the final play of the game. Then the Nebraska Cornhuskers, whom I followed while growing up in that state, blew a sure win when Virginia Tech used an 81-yard passing play in the final minute to pull out a 16-15 win. Then I went to the Rose Bowl to watch my alma mater, Kansas State, play UCLA tough for all but the last few minutes when the Bruins pulled away for the win.

Finally I got something to cheer about in tonight's Cubs-Card game, which went into extra innings when Matt Holliday tried to break up a double play with the bases loaded only to be called for interference for going way off the base path. It looked at first that the Cards pulled out a third straight win on the final play of the game, but the umpires shouted down the celebration and sent the game into extra innings. Jake Fox's two-run bomb in the top of the 11th won it for the Cubs and kept their flickering playoff hopes alive.

Yep, this one was a classic, starting off with the news that Milt Bradley was suspended by the Cubs for the rest of the season for badmouthing the Cubs and their fans and ending in a hard-fought game with a few lead changes and a strange turn of events.

Hope this open letter makes him realize that he better have more pressing issues than having his mom jeans pressed to keep him from regularly attending church: http://www.onenewsnow.com/P...

And while we're on the subject of the presidency, it'll be interesting to see if the L.A. judge who allowed a lawsuit challenging Obama's eligibility to proceed will permit the plaintiffs to depose the lawmakers to see if they had any objections during the electoral vote count being conducted by Congress as well as depose Vice President Cheney for failing to call for any objections as part of his duty. This should provide the loophole the plaintiffs would need to immediately seek discovery now that the defendants have brought up this issue in seeking to dismiss the lawsuit.

The Right Side of Life blog explains all: http://www.therightsideofli...

How shifty convenient of the DOJ to leave out the key passage in challenging the lawsuit.

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Still too many Democrats who think it's OK to keep funding this group in the wake of the scandals caught on video, but at least the House vote to block the funds was resounding enough that President* Obama will have no choice but to sign on to cut off the blood feeding the cancer.

And in case you wonder whether he had anything to do with this group: http://www.wnd.com/index.ph...

Circle Oct. 17 as the date that the tea'd-off folks will be all too happy, as the organizer of "Operation: Can You Hear Us Now?" put it, "to put a nail in the mainstream-media coffin."

See what patriots think about Obama's 'Minion Media'
Limbaugh: 'Dare them to cover what is right under their noses!'

By Chelsea Schilling

In the wake of the massive 9/12 march on Washington, American citizens outraged by President Obama and the actions of Congress are now setting their sights on a new target – the so-called mainstream media.

On his Sept. 14 show, talk show host Rush Limbaugh urged citizens who are frustrated by a media blackout of the nation's growing movement against Obama administration policies to bring their protests to the front doors of major media outlets.

9/12 march on Washington photo (Flickr)

"The media [are] no longer reporters. They are repeaters," Limbaugh said. "There have been hundreds and thousands of protests by conservative groups that haven't been covered, and tiny turnouts by the left that are covered."

He continued, "What about this? We're looking for a force multiplier. Yeah, the protest in Washington on Saturday was great, two million people, but imagine what a force multiplier would be if the next one were held outside of local and national television networks and their headquarters where they can't miss it?"

Limbaugh suggested citizens host tea parties "on or next to the properties housing the TV networks."

"Dare them to cover what is right under their noses!" he said.

"Put the media in the spotlight and on the hot seat. Don't make them the protest. Continue to protest Obama. Protest health care. Protest the loss of liberty. Protest the coming tyranny. Just do it on their property or as close to it as you can get being law-abiding and all that. … Just show up where they can't miss it. Show up in numbers where they can't escape it."

Limbaugh suggested leaders of the media rallies present a list of grievances to each individual station.

"Make the challenges substantive and adult and challenge their journalistic ethics," he said. "… I want this all to happen spontaneously."

It's not just Obama who's lying. It's his minion media, too!

Now, one group has launched "Operation: Can You Hear Us Now?" The website declares, "Thanks to an American hero for the idea. We can take it from here."

The webmaster of the operation website asked to remain nameless.

"Who wants to be the target of national media attention?" he asked.

He told WND he longed to go to D.C. but couldn't make it since it's a 1,000 mile-plus trip.

"I surfed all channels Sunday looking for the big story on the D.C. march and found none – save Fox News," he said. "I was infuriated. How can anyone who calls themselves a journalist ignore this?"

The mainstream media didn't croak over night. Find out what led to their amazing demise!

As WND reported, the major news media also failed to cover the extremist background of "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones – even after he was forced to resign as a result of that background.

WND was also first on the scene when major news media failed to report in the scandal involving tax-supported ACORN leaders who were videotaped encouraging undercover operatives on ways to subvert the law and exploit under-age girls they believed were being used in a prostitution ring.

WND was on the scene yet again when major news media failed to report and downplayed attendance on Sept. 12 after the capital was rocked by the taxpayer march and rally in protest of excessive spending, bailouts, growth of big government and soaring deficits.

(Story continues below)

The "Operation: Can You Hear Us Now?" webmaster said he launched his website Tuesday morning.

"Now I'm getting thousands of hits," he said. "I've sent a few e-mails. It's catching legs. I hope the idea catches fire!"

He said several people are already planning rallies at CNN in Atlanta, Ga., and another in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area.

"Imagine: There was a million plus person march on Washington, and no one reported it," the website states. "It did not happen."

9/12 march on Washington photo (Flickr)

The website asks citizens to rally outside "left-wing media outlets" on Oct. 17 and lists the following locations as suggestions on where to begin:

• CNN – One CNN Center, Atlanta, Ga.

• NBC's "Nightly News with Brian Williams" – 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.

• ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" – 7 West 66th St., New York, N.Y.

• ABC News' "Nightline" – 7 West 66th St., New York, N.Y.

• ABC News' "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos – 7 West 66th St., New York, N.Y.

• CBS' News' "Evening News" with Katie Couric – 524 West 57th St., New York, N.Y.

• CBS' "The Early Show" – 524 West 57th St., New York, N.Y.

• ABC News' "Good Morning America" – 7 West 66th St., New York, N.Y.

• MSNBC's "Today" Show – 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.

• "Dateline NBC" – 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.

• MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" – 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.

• MSNBC's "Meet The Press" – 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.

• New York Times – 620 Eighth Ave., New York, N.Y.

• Los Angeles Times – 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, Calif.

• Atlanta Journal Constitution – 72 Marietta St. NW, Atlanta, Ga.

• Seattle Times – 1120 John St, Seattle, Wash.

Get ready for Oct. 17! Visit the one and only "tea party store" now.

He said citizens should connect through tea party groups, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and message boards to spread the word. He also said organizers must pick the best times and local media locations for the Oct. 17 events.

"Some people messaged me and asked why not a more symbolic day," he said. "I say, why shouldn't we be the ones to make it a symbolic day, a day in history the press will never forget?"

Washington march photo by Barbara Hauchter

He encourages attendees to bring signs, banners, flags and voices to the events. However, he warned tea partiers not to leave litter behind.

"We're not liberals," he said.

Make no mistake, he said, there is no "Astroturf" springing from his website – it's just another grassroots movement catching fire.

"I'm just one guy, not an activist," he told WND. "I have no sponsors, no bankroll, no agenda – except to help put a nail in the mainstream-media coffin."

Since I'm still blocked from commenting on thin-skinned Djembe's blog, I'm forced to create a post to refute his crapola.

But before we get to the commentary that points out that it's the sickening bias and not capitalism that is killing newspapers as Michael Moore thinks (although we can hope for capitalism to thwart his future propaganda films), I should post a link to an article in which Moore delivers his diatribe for your humor and for the benefit of those who couldn't understand what he was saying in the video posted by Djembe: http://network.nationalpost...

One other thing before we get on to Farah's piece: The state-run media curled on the lap of President* Obama finally has come around to admitting the 9/12 rally in D.C. was in the neighborhood of 1.5 million to 2 million, not the "thousands" initially reported: http://www.therightsideofli...

The shameful non-coverage of 9/12
Exclusive: Joseph Farah warns, media won't be able to ignore popular uprising

Posted: September 14, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

By Joseph Farah

I knew the media were out of touch with the American people.

I've known it for 25 years.

It's why I do what I do.

It's why I created WND.

It's why I wrote the book, "Stop the Presses: The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution."

It's why I have devoted my life to reminding my colleagues and others about the critical role of the free press in a free society.

Nevertheless, even I was shocked at the abysmal, inexcusable non-coverage of the massive rally and march in Washington this weekend to protest government's abusive and unconstitutional excesses and power grabs.

How many people have to march on Washington before the major news media take notice?

How many tea parties and town halls does it take for the major news media to recognize the American people are peacefully voicing their concerns and deserve to be heard?

Why are the major news media, which are supposed to serve as a watchdog on government waste, fraud, abuse and corruption complicit in those things and betraying their mission to maintain a free and open society based on the principle of self-governance?

As an American, I'm proud of the hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens for getting off their duffs and protesting their government's shameful power grabs. As a journalist, I am grieving at my industry's pro-government, anti-liberty bias.

I don't know exactly how many Americans gathered in Washington this weekend, but I know the numbers were massive by any standard. I've covered many big demonstrations in Washington over the years, and, there is no question in my mind, this was one of the biggest and most overlooked rallies ever.

Keep in mind, the 9/12 march received almost no prior publicity from the news media – unlike events like the much-hyped "Million Man March," which received massive wall-to-wall coverage before, during and after.

When average Americans take off from their busy schedules and travel to Washington just to make their voices heard and those voices are ignored, it can lead to a dangerous sense of frustration – the kind of frustration that persuades some that it's time to try other, more disruptive, tactics.

Let's face it. You know and I know that demonstrations by people demanding more government intrusion into our lives get more coverage. If 10,000 Americans gathered in Washington this weekend to call for a government takeover of the health-care industry, it would have received far more and far more sympathetic coverage by the major news media than did the massive 9/12 rally and march.

This is a glaring and irresponsible double standard by the major news media that is dividing our country, squelching debate, controlling the national dialogue, paving the way for more loss of freedom, rolling out the red carpet for excessive government power.

This is a double standard we see every day in smaller ways.

We witnessed it the week before when the major news media failed to cover the extremist background of "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones – even after he was forced to resign as a result of that background.

We witnessed it in the last two weeks when my own independent news agency was smeared day after day by major news media outlets by critics who seek to shut us down.

We witnessed it also in the astonishing lack of coverage by the major news media of the scandal involving tax-supported ACORN leaders who were videotaped encouraging undercover operatives on ways to subvert the law and exploit under-age girls they believed were being used in a prostitution ring.

This kind of bias needs to be exposed.

But do not be discouraged.

In fact, be encouraged by the glimpses of this past weekend's inspiring show of force by the American people.

America is waking up.

The tide is turning.

Soon, even the hapless, twisted major news media will no longer be able to ignore this popular uprising.

Sniff, sniff ... do I detect the odious smell of election fraud wafting from Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi that could have grave implications for our Dear Leader's constitutional eligibility to serve as president?

It would be interesting to hear her answer to the following question as the result of what a Canadian writer uncovered: Why would the Democratic National Committee’s political heads sign off on two legally distinct documents but then send the one with lesser verbiage to be formally accepted by the States?

Click here for the Right Side of Life's report on this

Click here for World Net Daily's version

Tick ... tock ... tick ... tock ...

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Looks like it's not just the pro-lifers who are committing the kind of violence that claimed the life of George "The Baby Killer" Tiller.

Thought I'd post these in case the mainstream media is looking the other way as the pro-abortion folks are:

Suspect Charged with First-Degree Premeditated Murder of Michigan Pro-Lifer

"Jim the Sign Guy": Slain Pro-Lifer, Father of Two, Remembered by Friends as Cheerful, Peaceful Activist

Pro-Life Leaders Lament the Violent Death of a Friend and Ally - Jim Pouillon

Maybe we should honor Jim by participating in the upcoming local 40 Days for Life campaign, running from Sept. 23 through Dec. 1:

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Let's see if our Dear Leader lives up to his promise to the Holy Father that he will work to reduce abortions, starting with the vow that ObamaCare will not publicly fund abortions. He will need the bishops' blessings, otherwise he can count on it being given the 9-months-and-under treatment on the altar of Moloch: http://www.zenit.org/articl...

To ensure that our Dear Leader doesn't do an end run around his pledge are "a minimum of 39" Democrats: http://www.lifenews.com/nat...

Should he fail in that regard, as some pro-lifers fear he will, he will have some serious confessing to do: http://www.onenewsnow.com/P...

Djembe not only has a chicken crap of a problem with me since he's blocked me from commenting on his posts, particularly the one in which he accuses Sean Hannity of telling a lie when our Dear Leader has been gaining quite a rep for his "serial dishonesty," something that even the Associated Press has noticed: http://www.onenewsnow.com/C...

And for those who badmouth Fox News, would they care to explain why its ratings are soaring while our Dear Leader's has taken a preciptious nose-dive? http://jammiewearingfool.bl...

Wouldn't you think that's indicative of who's better at telling the truth?

And why is that, you ask? Former reporter Michael H. Brown, who now is a Catholic author and speaker and has his own website called Spirit Daily (www.spiritdaily.com) gladly explains in his commentary as follows. Considering our Dear Leader has surrounded himself with the kind of folks who harbor such a Culture of Death mentality -- some of whom have had a hand in drafting Obamacare -- it should come as no surprise that many of us are leery of it:

HEALTH-CARE FEAR: GOVERNMENTS HAVE LONG SOUGHT TO PUT 'PRICE' ON HUMAN LIFE

By Michael H. Brown

Any health-care bill that rations medical attention based on a person's age or wellness or wealth or that funds abortion would be evil, while any claims that such a bill would do so if it would not would be equally nefarious.

It is a time when we must be fair and even-minded. The enemy has created a fog of anger and confusion and even absurdity around current politics.

Properly implemented, a health-care bill that allows all Americans to be treated for serious disease would be "pro-life." Is it Christian to deny a person?

But there is the issue of "rationing" -- and deeper than that, the idea that a price would be put on life.

The greatest touchstone of fear in the controversies over healthcare has been whether the elderly or terminally ill would be shortchanged expensive treatments and thus given a shove toward the grave.

This is what is propelling much of the anger (when politics, insurance lobbyists, medical interests, and race are not factors): Folks are simply concerned that one day -- and perhaps soon -- they will be marginalized.

Translation: the concern (and it is a legitimate one) is that government will in the future create a system that classifies certain members of society as expendable and not worth the health care it would afford the more fit, wealthier, or young. In a way, this is euthanasia.

Thankfully, the president, thus far, has not moved in this direction. He also claims abortion will not be federally funded under health care.

But fears were sparked when there were even hints of evaluation based on viability and when he made remarks such as one in which he said we needed to hold a conversation over whether a terminally-ill cancer patient should be given, for example, a hip replacement.

On the surface, it seems very rational -- pragmatic. But it is a slippery slope that reminds us we must simply and always help each person in all ways reach the fullness of years (letting God judge when it is our time). This goes, of course, for the unborn especially.

The trend to putting a price on life (called "risk assessment") is hardly new to government, and is neither Democrat nor Republican. It is simply heartless. As a reporter, I once discovered that the New York State Health Department was discussing a formula for deciding which toxic-contamination problems the state should spend money correcting and which they should not based on how many people would be saved -- and how much each person was worth.

I wrote an article about it for New York Magazine.

It should have caused an outrage. That was back in 1980.

It was greeted by silence.

Entitled, "The Benefit of Reducing Risk," the incredible report from Albany contained six empirical estimates of what life means financially to a society -- figures culled in large part from other government literature (including at the federal level).

Let me repeat: this was 1980. Actually, the report was issued the year before my article. "Estimates range from $49,226 to $1 million with most values between $200,000 and $300,000," it said coldly. "These estimates will be used later to describe the benefit of reducing the risk of death."

Humans were worth as little as $49,226 (in 1979 dollars, which today would be $146,017), the state, which otherwise did an excellent job protecting humans, was implying. The average person would be at $250,000, or what is now $741,566.

It should chill us all that for more than a quarter of a century American government -- or at least its scientists -- has been thinking this way.

Again, there is no indication of any of this in President Obama's plan, and there should be no false claims that it is. Indeed, a good health-care system that includes those who currently cannot get proper care (there are millions of these) would save lives. It is evil for our society to allow the wealthy better care and longer lives.

That too is putting a price on life.

But we must be vigilant.

Incredibly enough, the report -- out of liberal Albany (where Roe v. Wade first got its big push) -- based the value of one's life on an individual's present "production." Here was what it looked like mathematically: B=(r1/70)xv where B stood for per capita benefit in dollars a year, v for economic value of saving the life, r1 the lifetime cancer risk of contamination for a person, and 70 average life expectancy.

A second formula was: r1=.95 C X V X r, where C was the amount of contamination and for example r the lifetime risk of ingesting polluted water.

A weakness of the methodology, admitted the New York State report, was that it would "undervalue lives of housewives, elderly, unemployed, and underemployed."

The researchers fashioned such calculations based on a person's income, productivity, and what it would cost to treat the ailment.

They were going to base decisions on whether to clean up toxic chemicals based on the "worth" of potentially affected individuals!

This is the danger of a health-care system if the government becomes sole source of funding (although insurance companies do the same thing, and doctors, who somehow escape the current health-care controversy, also silently make similar calculations).

And so, without vigilance, can it be a danger with health care.

From this, we must stay away.

Let not science dictate life.

It is not the politicians who are doing it so much as the researchers.

Most of them do not believe in God, and those who don't should have no role in a health debate.

Ask God, Who says every life is priceless.

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For all the flak that jill-of-all-trades Orly Taitz had to put up with, she has gone further than any other challenger of our Dear Leader on his constitutional eligibility to serve as president, convincing a judge to order a scheduling conference between the parties to the case and set up tentative trial dates, assuming that the court finds reasons to go so far: http://radiopatriot.blogspo... 

I can't tell you how good it feels for the "birther fringe" to gain judicial traction on this issue that has been as slippery as the icy slopes near the top of Kenya's Mount Kilimanjaro.

Tick ... tock ... tick ... tock ...

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Gimme a "W." Gimme an "N." Gimme a "D." Whazzat spell? "WND!" Yeah, the very and virtually only news agency that is that is relentlessly haranguing The Anointed One over his eligibility to be president, World Net Daily, is the one that first exposed Van Jones' commie background. To hear its founder, Joseph Farah, tell it:

WND brings down the 'red czar'
Exclusive: Joseph Farah touts news site as 1st to break Van Jones story
 

Posted: September 06, 2009
1:47 am Eastern

By Joseph Farah

WorldNetDaily

When the White House press corps finally grilled White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones last Friday, a reporter asked how the administration could reject "conspiracy theories" about his birth certificate while employing someone who previously charged the U.S. government with masterminding Sept. 11.

I found that to be an interesting juxtaposition.

Could the answer be as simple as the White House has no respect for truth? Will reporters and even some clamoring to position themselves as respectable "conservatives" and critics of Barack Obama figure out that deception and deceit are at the very core of this regime?

Do you expect those so ferociously attacking WND as a "conspiracy site" to recognize it was this news agency that first broke the Van Jones story in April and relentlessly pursued it for five months to the bitter end?

That's right.

It was the dogged reporting of WND's Jerusalem bureau chief who brought down the first high-ranking member of the Obama administration. And despite all the chatter you've seen and heard about this story, not one major competing news outlet has even bothered to invite Klein on to discuss the Jones story.

In April, Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for WND.com, broke the first major story on Jones who was identified as a self-described radical communist and "rowdy black nationalist" who said his environmental activism was actually a means to fight for racial and class "justice." That was followed by many other revelations from WND about Jones:

• Jones previously served on the board of an environmental activist group at which a founder of the Weather Underground terrorist organization is a top director.
  
   
• Jones was co-founder of a black activist organization that has led a campaign prompting major advertisers to withdraw from Glenn Beck's top-rated Fox News Channel program. The revelation followed Beck's reports on WND's story about Jones' communist background.
  
  
• Jones and other White House appointees may have been screened by an ACORN associate.
  
  
• One day after the 9/11 attacks, Jones led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the victims of "U.S. imperialism" around the world.
  
  
• Just days before his White House appointment, Jones used a forum at a major youth convention to push for a radical agenda that included spreading the wealth and "changing the whole system."
  
  
• Jones' Maoist manifesto while leading the group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, was scrubbed from the Internet after being revealed by WND.
  
   
• Jones was the main speaker at an anti-war rally that urged "resistance" against the U.S. government – a demonstration sponsored by an organization associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party.
  
   
• In a 2005 conference, Jones characterized the U.S. as an "apartheid regime" that civil rights workers helped turn into a "struggling, fledgling democracy."
  
  
• Jones signed a petition calling for nationwide "resistance" against police, accusing them of using the 9/11 attacks to carry out policies of torture.

While talk radio and cable television picked up WND's reporting and increased the pressure on the administration to cut Jones loose, there was no significant coverage of the scandal by the major U.S. news media until last week!

It wasn't necessary for the New York Times to cover this story for a top administration official to be ousted. The Jones story is bigger than a mere political development. It's also a giant media story – illustrating just how profoundly our media landscape has changed as a result of the Internet.

Once there was a story of a blue dress. Now there's the story of a red czar.

That's the power of a truly independent press.

I strongly suspect that the recent fusillade of attacks on WND – from the left and the right – over our unrelenting coverage of the missing birth certificate and other Obama papers was actually orchestrated as much by those who saw us closing in on Van Jones as over our pursuit of the eligibility story.

Of course, if you know me and WND, the relentless pursuit of the truth and our focus on all government waste, fraud, abuse and corruption won't end here. This is what we do. This is what we have always done. This is what we will continue to do no matter from which direction the brickbats fly.

As the commentary below shows, it looks like the voters of Massachusetts will be denied the opportunity to chose Teddy's replacement if the Democratic governor has his way in changing the rules once again -- unless they insist on keeping enthroned the monarchy they fought against a couple of centuries ago.

But even if they do wake up and had enough of the Kennedy Syndrome, they might not be able to do anything about it should the Democrats exemplify the attitude of Rose Schlossberg and the Owebama administration: http://catholic-caveman.blo...

The Kennedy line of succession
Exclusive: Joseph Farah considers 'choices' Democratic junta could give Massachusetts
 

By Joseph Farah / World Net Daily

Democrats talk about democracy.

But they don't mean it.

The proof of the pudding is in the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Massachusetts, where the ruling junta is considering who should succeed Senator-for-life Ted Kennedy.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that the people of the late great state of Massachusetts, once the home of the Sons of Liberty, won't let the people have their say. Not at all.

The way things look, the people of Massachusetts may not have the opportunity to choose the candidate of their choice, but they will have the opportunity to vote for the Kennedy of their choice.

The choices now seem to be Kennedy's widow, Vickie, who has not yet expressed her desire for the seat, and his nephew Joseph, a shill for Venezuelan potentate Hugo Chavez, who is also playing it coy.

Back when Mitt Romney was the Republican governor of the state in 2004, the Democratic legislature changed the law on senatorial succession because they did not want him appointing a senator in their state if Sen. John Kerry won the presidential election. So, as the law stands now it requires the seat to remain open until an election can be held in five months.

But that was then and this is now. Now that a Democrat, Deval Patrick, is back in control of the executive branch, the party is considering changing the law to permit him to appoint a senator. There's talk of bringing back former Gov. Michael Dukakis for the assignment – temporarily, of course, until a Kennedy can be chosen for the seat occupied by a Kennedy since 1952.

However, even handing a Kennedy a seat is no guarantee they can take it and hold it.

Remember, in New York the Democrat establishment tried to give Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg a Senate seat and she self-destructed.

The fix was also in a few years ago for Robert F. Kennedy's daughter Kathleen for a Maryland Senate seat. She, too, proved unable to win the race in a heavily Democratic state.

But, again, this is Massachusetts – and, for some reason, the name Kennedy here still means something.

My personal choice for the seat, however, is Barney Frank. That's the guy I think Massachusetts deserves – a man completely without morals, brains and the ability to articulate a coherent thought. To me, though not a Kennedy, he has most in common with Ted Kennedy.

Isn't it interesting how in the most heavily Democratic state in the country, democracy means so little.

In fact, Massachusetts, one of two states that led the fight against the monarchy two centuries ago now finds itself very comfortable with royal lines like the Kennedy family.

No amount of shame and disgrace and scandal by that family could ever be enough for Massachusetts to say enough is enough. Or could it?

Wouldn't it be something if Massachusetts voters, if permitted to do so by their ruling Democratic junta, provided the first early warning of what I anticipate will be a major electoral revolt next year?

Could the people of Massachusetts be happy about the direction of our country under Democratic control?

Is it possible that even they can see the destructiveness of the policies of the Barack Obama administration and the Democratic Congress?

Am I dreaming?

I don't know.

But I suspect the Democrat establishment in Massachusetts won't wait to find out. I think they'll want to get this matter resolved as quickly as possible – before all the hysteria and emotion over Ted Kennedy's death has time to wane.

By next year, even Massachusetts voters may come to their senses and realize the future of America is literally hanging in the balance.