Monday, September 15, 2008

Here is a list of legitimate questions that should, but won't be asked of Senator Obama during this Presidential election. They were posted in a forum that I participate in and felt the need to pass them along. This list is also good for a little chuckle. :-) I'm only going to post the first few because there are 447, but you can visit http://www.colony14.net/id4.html for a complete list.

Questions the media should (but won't) ask Obama during the debates

1. Senator Obama, you’ve said "We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times...” Why should an American who works hard and pays his bills on time not be able to decide for himself what kind of car he drives, how much food he eats, and where he should set his thermostat? And if he can’t decide those things, who are you proposing should do it for him?

2. Senator Obama, if getting billions of barrels of oil from ANWR and offshore won't lower the price of oil, why does Nancy Pelosi believe the price will go down if we release only a few million barrels from our strategic oil reserves? Do you believe she wrong? If you think she is correct, do you not believe in the law of supply and demand?

3. Senator Obama, if we have to save the oil and the trees for our children, then don't they also have to save it for their children? And their children's children? At what point would anyone be allowed to drill for oil or cut down a tree? Who should make those decisions?

4. Senator Obama, it has been widely reported that ExxonMobil made $1,500 in profit per second in the second quarter of 2008. But during the same period, it also paid $4,100 per second in taxes. As a percentage of revenue its profit was just over seven per cent, yet you’ve called for a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. Don’t you think that $4,100 per second is enough to pay in taxes? And if you believe a seven per cent profit is a “windfall,” don’t you, to be fair, also have to apply such a tax to all American businesses whose profits exceed seven per cent? Have you any idea how many businesses such a tax would apply to, or how much the economy would suffer if that much revenue was extracted from it?

5. Senator Obama, will you promise that if elected you will not support any slavery reparations legislation, and will veto any such legislation that makes it to your desk? If not, why not?

6. Senator Obama, you've said you'll increase the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour. A small business with a few minimum wage janitors may have to fire one of them and make the others work harder in order to absorb your mandated increase in wages. No doubt those who receive the raise will be happy, but what would you say to the unskilled laborer who loses his job because of the increase?

7. Senator Obama, do you believe that anyone who would vote against you is a racist?

8. Senator Obama, polls show approximately 90-95 per cent support for you among black voters. Does that suggest that many black voters are racist?

9. Senator Obama, a woman who serves as one of your campaign precinct captains and who is the co‑chair of the Houston Obama Leadership Team had a Che Guevara poster prominently displayed in one of your campaign offices. After you learned of the incident, did you advise all your offices to remove such posters? Your campaign issued a statement that it was “disappointed” to see the media account of the poster “because it is both offensive to many Cuban‑Americans, and Americans of all backgrounds.” Many people sport Che Guevara T-shirts, probably without knowing much about that revolutionary communist or the murderous atrocities he committed. Can you enlighten some of those uneducated now, by giving us your opinion of Che Guevara?

10. Senator Obama, you were one of the Illinois politicians cited in the indictment of your long-time friend and fund-raiser Tony Rezko for having received political contributions from his kickback funds. Although you reportedly returned $85,000 in political contributions you received from Rezko and his family, inasmuch as there would appear to be a conflict of interest, if elected President, will you promise not to pardon Rezko, who was convicted of corruption charges for trading clout as a top advisor to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich?


Click here for the rest of the list.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Very Interesting...

http://onenewsnow.com/Election2008/Default.aspx?id=204974

Obama receives illegal funds from 'terrorist hotbed'
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 8/6/2008 6:00:00 AM
var addthis_pub = 'onenewsnow';

According to Federal Election Commission filings, Barack Obama has received illegal donations from Palestinians living in Gaza, a hotbed of Hamas terrorists.

Obama received more than $24,000 in campaign contributions over a period of two months last fall from three Palestinian brothers from the "Edwan" family in Rafah, Gaza, which is a Hamas stronghold along the border with Egypt. The story was uncovered by Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog. (see Federal Election Commission report)

Attorney and conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel notes foreign nationals are barred from making contributions in connection with any election -- federal, state, or local -- and an individual is allowed to give only $2,300 per election to a federal candidate or the candidate's campaign committee.

"The donations are basically through and through illegal -- that's number one. And number two is how the Obama campaign tried to conceal it," Schlussel chides. "They listed the campaign contributions as coming from Rafah, Georgia. They used the 'GA' from Gaza so it makes it look like it's legal; and then for the zip code it says '972,' which is actually the area code to dial over to Gaza," she contends.

The attorney comments that if the Obama campaign is willing to "accept thousands of dollars beyond the legal limit and they're also going to flout [Federal Election Commission] restrictions...that's very indicative of what kind of president [Obama] is going to be."

"They're not going to be worried about the details and they won't mind if they break the law to get to the final result that they want," adds Schlussel. She believes it is a "major news story when a presidential candidate receives money from 'a bastion of Islamic terrorism.' And Schlussel argues that the media is "bending over backwards to help Barack Obama and cover up any negative news about him."

Schlussel says Pamela Geller will likely file a Federal Election Commission complaint against the Obama campaign for violating restrictions and limits on campaign contributions.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Jim Adkisson is no Conservative

Jim Adkisson has single-handedly damaged the lives of the hundreds of men, women and children that were in attendance at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday, July 27, 2008. He attacked them where they worship, during a children's program, in a place where they should feel the safest, in their church. Those men, women and children will never forget that day and it will be a long time before they will feel safe in their place of worship again, if ever. The damage that Jim Adkisson did alone that day is long lasting and far reaching. What Jim Adkisson did to the people of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, the victims and their families is completely unjustifiable.

The shooting at TVUUC has also rocked this community to the core. We are all a little on edge, things like that don't happen in Knoxville. Jim Adkisson has damaged this community as well. He has brought national attention and judgement on our town. Across the country, Knoxvillians and Tennesseeans are being judged. Are Tennesseans really the backwards, uneducated, barefoot, barbaric, stereotypical rednecks that they all thought we were? No, we're not. Jim Adkisson does not represent Knoxvillians, or Tennesseans, he is one man who committed a terrible crime. He is responsible for his own actions, we should not be judged on this one man's actions.

And his alleged excuse for the atrocities that he committed, hatred of the liberal movement and gays. The liberals are just seething at this information. This is the ammunition they've been waiting for to go after the Conservative movement, namely Conservative talk radio. Adkisson is no more a representative of the Conservative movement as an abortion clinic bomber is representative of the pro-life movement. They are both a disgrace to the movements that they claim to be acting on behalf of.

The Conservative talk radio and the Conservative literature found in Adkisson's home are not to blame for his actions. I've heard it said that Conservative Radio "insights hate." Well, that's bull, I've heard more hateful things come out of the mouths of such liberals as Randi Rhodes than I've ever heard on Conservative talk radio. Besides, everyone knows that Conservatives stand for personal responsibility and accountability. The only person responsible for Adkisson's actions is Adkisson.

And for the record, Adkisson, himself is a poor example of a Conservative. He supposedly has said that much of his anger and hatred of liberals that led up to the shooting was because he blames liberals for his not being able to find a job. Well, sir, true Conservative do not sit around on their rear ends and blame others for their misfortunes. True Conservatives make the best of what they have and they take responsibility for their own lives. Adkisson blamed others so much for his own short comings that he chose to take the lives of others. That is not evidence of a Conservative, that is evidence of a psychopath. No one should be blamed or punished for Jim Adkisson's actions, but Jim Adkisson.

To all of the members of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, to the victims, and to the victim's family members, you are in my thoughts and prayers. May the Lord bless you and bring you through this tragedy.

To read the full story of the events of Sunday, July 27, Please visit http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/27/church-shooting-leaves-several-injured/.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Why Obama Cannot Win in 2008

Since Obama was on his "World Tour" this week, trying to gain foreign "street cred," I thought it was a good idea to unearth this video. It's just a few seconds of exactly why Obama should absolutely not win the 2008 election.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

A Man of Great Character

This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on April 30, 2008 (Click here for the full article). It was written by Karl Rove and gives insight into the character of John McCain. This information about John McCain's life is not widely known, nor does he use it for political expediency as some politicians would do. I think it says a lot about the man that John McCain is and they kind of integrity he would bring to the White House.

It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris
Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor
recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi
Hilton.

As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things about
Sen. McCain that were deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because
they told me things about him the American people need to know. And troubling
because it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to
run for president in history.

When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know
more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character,
the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to
know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.

Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It
involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison
during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and
said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in
prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able
to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out
of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would
heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would
have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe
punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison
courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell
and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from
the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in
place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the
treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr.
McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain
serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point,
after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the
most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help
administer religious services to the other prisoners.

Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's
sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "and sounded like
a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons took as its text Luke
20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what
is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn't ask God to free
them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as
POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out.
Their task was to act with honor.

Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese
practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms
behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his
shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can't raise his arms over his head.

One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end
of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on
Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and
drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he
returned to Vietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really
wanted to meet was that guard.

Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept
special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill.
Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and
grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn't corruptible
then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptible today."

The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime
valor.

For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's
orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The
orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs.
McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by
her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years
of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr.
McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from
Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up
being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.

"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five
days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only
clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the
Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me,
"I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.

A few, but not many, of the stories told to me by the Days have been
written about, such as in Robert Timberg's 1996 book "A Nightingale's Song." But
Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign trail. There is something
admirable in his reticence, but he needs to overcome it.
Private people like
Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason. Candidates who are uncomfortable
sharing their interior lives limit their appeal. But if Mr. McCain is to win the
election this fall, he has to open up.

Americans need to know about his vision for the nation's future,
especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn
about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a
biography-only campaign – but he can't afford to make it a biography-free
campaign either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the
experiences of his life that show his character, integrity and essential
decency.

These qualities mattered in America's first president and will matter
as Americans decide on their 44th president.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

How about a little 'Law and Order?'

As a FredHead, I am very proud and encouraged to share the news that Senator Fred Thompson will play a key role in choosing Supreme Court nominees should John McCain become our 44th President. This information comes from Human Events:

"In a McCain administration, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson would play a
dominant role in selecting Supreme Court nominees and other judicial
appointments, sources close to the McCain campaign and to Thompson tell us.

And why is Fred suddenly everywhere? These sources say that the
agreement between McCain and Thompson is behind Thompson’s resurgence in the
national media in recent weeks. In a McCain campaign conference call with
reporters yesterday on last week’s Supreme Court decision on terrorist detainees
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Thompson -- without claiming such status -- played the
role of a prominent McCain adviser."

I know that there are many Conservatives that have been concerned with McCain, especially concerning what kind of Supreme Court Justices that he could appoint, considering his involvement in the Gang of 14. Knowing that Senator Thompson will be advising on this issue brings me much peace of mind.

One of the many reasons that I strongly supported Fred Thompson for President during the Primary season was his promise to appoint strict Constitutionalist judges to the Supreme Court. I expect that he would keep that promise in advising John McCain. Fred would certainly recommend judges that would uphold the Constitution and interpret the law, rather than legislate from the bench.

Fair, balanced Constitutionalist judges are exactly the kind of judges that are needed in the Supreme Court. We've all seen what can happen when Liberal activist judges take the wheel--we end up with catastrophes like Roe V. Wade, overturning of the Gay Marriage Ban in Californina, and the California Supreme Court ruling that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children."

I miss Fred as a candidate and still believe that he would have made a great President. He's a true Reagan Conservative and is truly an asset to the McCain team in any capacity.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Gay Marriage is about more than Adam and Steve

As far as gay marriage is concerned, I used to be in the "live and let live" camp. I didn't really care what gay people did because I didn't think that it had any effect on me. I mean, as a Catholic, I've always known that homosexual behavior is a sin, but that it wasn't up to me to judge other people's behavior. In the past few years, I have become more politically involved and informed and I have come to believe that being against homosexual marriage isn't about judging other people's behavior, it is protecting my own family's rights and the rights of other traditional families. Our freedom of religion and parental rights are truly at stake.

The following is from an article that was sent to my by one of my CafeMom friends. It is an excellent article that explains why the homosexual movement is about so much more than "equal rights." They will not stop until they have perpetrated our churches, our schools and families. The article by Maggie Gallagher can be read here in it's entirety.

"When Andrew Sullivan tentatively suggested in the early Nineties that gay
couples have a thing or two to teach heterosexuals about the rigid presumption
of sexual fidelity, the public outcry lead him to recant (and today, he gets mad
at you if you point out that he actually did say it).

Less than a decade
later, Eric Erbelding from the perch of his legally recognized Massachusetts gay
marriage, is quite comfortable explaining to the New York Times that “Our rule
is you can play around because, you know, you have to be practical.”

Eric elaborates why he think it works for gay men: “I think men view sex
very differently than women. Men are pigs, they know that each other are pigs,
so they can operate accordingly. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Still, Mr.
Erbelding said, in what to the old-fashioned ear is the most astonishing single
sentence in the whole piece: most married gay couples he knows are “for the most
part monogamous, but for maybe a casual three-way.”

For the most part .
. . except for the casual three-way?

But hey, if the word “marriage” can
be redefined as a civil-rights imperative, why balk at lesser ideas like
“monogamy” or “fidelity”?

I am in no position to confirm or deny Mr.
Erbelding’s judgment about what the men he knows in gay marriages do. But David
Benkof, a gay columnist who gave up sex with men when he adopted a
Torah-observant lifestyle, recently made the same point in his intellectually
fecund new website Gays Defend Marriage.

Problematic kinds of
relationships that are “commonly found in the LGBT community but virtually
unheard of among opposite-sex couples” Benkof warns, “will have every right to
use the word marriage.”

He goes on to point out these differences: “I
have never been at a soiree with multiple straight “committed” couples in which
someone suggests we take off our clothes and see what happens, but I’m sad to
say it’s happened with gay friends in long-term relationships. Of course, I
know, many men cheat on their wives. But they almost never define their marriage
as something that accommodates adultery.”

What about polygamy? Is that the natural next step? When people ask me this, my stock answer has become, “I don’t know, go ask the guys in the Harvard Law School faculty lounge.” Because if the California decision stands, there simply is no longer any case to be made we have begun to win the war for judicial restraint. If a court can rule that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right (i.e., one deeply rooted in our nation’s traditions) then it can make up anything. Elite legal minds get to figure out what they think and break it to the rest of us once they’ve decided.

The Washington Blade, one of the nation’s leading gay newspapers, took up this question more thoughtfully than I do in its June 6 issue. The experts they consulted are somewhat divided on the question. But Prof. Jonathan Turley, for one, calls on gay-marriage advocates to make a clean breast of what the new “right-to-marry” principle means: Adult polygamists who “do not believe in child brides,” he told the paper, should be allowed to formalize their relationships.

“I don’t like polygamy but that’s not what’s important here,” Prof. Turley said. “[T]here will have to be a new definition of marriage because it’s disingenuous to say that gays and lesbians should be included in marriage but then for them to exclude others.”

I don’t know how the polygamy debate will end up. But if fidelity in marriage is culturally optional, and we’ve now got a fundamental human right to have the government confer dignity on all our family choices (which is what California supreme court ruled), the case for monogamy will surely be weakened as well.

But don’t worry: By the time it happens, culture will have shifted far enough that you won’t care anymore. That’s the progressives’ promise.

And the newly resurgent cultural liberalism we face has no compunctions about using the law to impose its morality on the rest of us.

When I first raised the question of what same-sex marriage will mean for traditional faith groups in The Weekly Standard cover story “Banned in Boston: The New Threats to Religious Liberties” in 2006, many people were shocked and astonished. Surely this was just hysteria?

For no dogma has been more thoroughly promoted by same-sex marriage advocates than the idea that gay marriage is harmless; there’s no real reason to oppose it, even if you don’t exactly agree, because it will only affect Adam and Steve — so why should you care?

That was a good line for a few years, but with the California court victory, it is being replaced in gay newspapers with more open acknowledgements of what Adam and Steve’s right to gay marriage will really mean for the rest of us.


For example, a May 30 Washington Blade story asked,
“what about religious adoption agencies or daycare centers? Will they be forced to accommodate gays?”

“Experts say organizations that receive state and federal funding will not be allowed to oppose working with gays for religious reasons,”
the Blade forthrightly reports, “Some, most notably Catholic Charities of Boston (gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts), have opted to get out of the adoption business rather than be forced to allow gays to adopt.”

What about the next step:
“Could churches in time risk their tax-exempt status by refusing to marry gays?”

Here’s the official answer from a leading gay paper, “That remains to be seen and will likely result in a steady stream of court battles.” Are those the same courts that decided same-sex marriage is a constitutional right?

This week National Public Radio similarly highlighted the coming religious-liberty conflicts, opening with a remarkably frank and open admission of how serious the implications are: “As gay couples in California head to the courthouse starting Monday to get legally married, there are signs of a coming storm” — as NPR put it in their written version —
“Two titanic legal principles are crashing on the steps of the church, synagogue and mosque: equal treatment for same-sex couples on the one hand, and the freedom to exercise religious beliefs on the other.”

“The collision that will play out over the next few years will be filled with pathos on both sides,” NPR says. But the story also acknowledges: “So far, the religious groups are losing.”

Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to after four-plus years of active participation in the same-sex-marriage debate: Gay marriage is not primarily about marriage. It’s also not about Adam and Steve and their personal practical legal needs. It is about inserting into the law the principle that “gay is the new black” — that sexual orientation should be treated exactly the same way we treat race in law and culture.

Gay-marriage advocates say it all the time: People who think marriage is the union of husband and wife are like bigots who opposed interracial marriage. Believe them. They say it because they mean it.

The architects of this strategy have targeted marriage because it stands in the way of the America they want to create: They hope to use the law to reshape the culture in exactly the same way that the law was used to reshape the culture of the old racist south.

Gay-marriage advocates are willing to use a variety of arguments to allay fears and reduce opposition to getting this new “equality” principle inserted in the law; these voices may even believe what they are saying. But once the principle is in the law, the next step will be to use the law to stigmatize, marginalize, and repress those who disagree with the government’s new views on marriage and sexual orientation.

Ideas have consequences. This is what “marriage equality” means."