Anti-War Democrat John Murtha Dead at 77

This was unexpected.

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha, the first veteran of the Vietnam war to enter Congress and one of the House’s most powerful lawmakers, died Monday afternoon at Virginia Hospital Center after complications from gallbladder surgery. Murtha was 77.

Statement from his office on his passing.

Sarah Palin Speaks at Tea Party Convention (Video of Speech)

Former Republican vice-presidential nominee and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin spoke at the Tea Party Convention over the weekend.  Here is here speech:

Sarah Palin Speech - PART 2

Sarah Palin Speech - PART 3

Sarah Palin Speech - PART 4

Sarah Palin Speech - PART 5

U.S. Bishops Reiterate the Church's Unchangeable Teaching Against Abortion

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a reiteration of the Church’s timeless and unchangeable teaching that abortion is a grave sin: (the USCCB report)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law” (No. 2271).  

In response to those who say this teaching has changed or is of recent origin, here are the facts: 

Click to read more ...

Obama Orders Military Hospitals and Clinics to Carry 'Morning After' Abortion Pill

Late Thursday, the Obama administration issued a new order for the U.S. military requiring all military hospitals and health centers to stock the morning after pill. The Department of Defense will soon begin having military medical facilities stock the Plan B drug, which can sometimes cause an abortion.

The Obama administration’s decision came after the Pentagon’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, an advisory panel, made the recommendation to stock the drug.

The PPTC suggested stocking both Plan B and the Next Choice generic of the morning after pill.

The decision is the latest to have President Barack Obama overturning pro-life policies during the Bush administration and follows him forcing Americans to pay for abortions and embryonic stem cell research with their tax dollars.

 As the Obama administration continues to push it’s pro-abortion agenda on America, it is complicit in the problems it’s liberal ideology creates in the ranks of the military:  moral shortcomings, lack of professionalism, the idea that sex is a right and not a sacred privilege, sexual assault and abortion.

The morning after pill, or RU-486, is not a contraceptive but an abortive measure.  The message this initiative sends to our soldiers is that it’s okay for our men to be slobs, our women to be sluts, and both to be complicit in the murder of the unborn.

The Family Research Council responds.

North Korea Reportedly Ready to Release American Missionary

Korean American Robert Park, who prophetically entered North Korea through the Chinese border on Christmas day with a Bible and a message of repentance for Kim Jung-Il and love for the North Korean people, is reportedly being released from North Korea on an unknown date.

Park entered North Korea to bring attention to the human rights atrocities by the North Korean regime and to suffer along with the North Korean people in an effort to become a martyr on behalf of the people.

The North’s state run propaganda news agency, or KCNA (Korean Central News Agency), issued this very odd and obviously false report that Robert Park repented for misunderstanding that North Koreans have guaranteed human rights, freedom and happy, stable lives:

“The relevant organ… decided to leniently forgive and release him, taking his admission and sincere repentance of his wrongdoings into consideration,” Yonhap News on Friday quoted North Korea’s official KCNA news agency as saying.

Park, an evangelical missionary, on Christmas Eve crossed the frozen Duman (or Tumen) River in what he apparently believed was a divinely inspired mission to persuade the North Korean regime to mend its ways, carrying a letter addressed to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He was reportedly severely beaten by security forces when they picked him up.

KCNA separately quoted Park as saying in an interview that he had a “wrong understanding” of North Korea because of “false propaganda” by the West. “I would not have committed such crime if I had known that [North Korea] respects the rights of all the people and guarantees their freedom and they enjoy a happy and stable life,” he said according to the agency.

The North did not say when Park would be released.

Baghdad Bob, anyone?  KCNA reported that Park now even wants to serve in the North Korean Army.  Yyy……eah.

KCNA’s SUPPOSED INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT PARK

Update on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 08:04AM by Amy Proctor

Park Released in Bejing, China

Looking demoralizedwith head lowered and eyes closed, Robert Park was released from North Korea.

The question is, what the hell happened to him?  Did he sign the statement of repentance after being tortured or was it fabricated?  Is he not speaking because perhaps some Christian North Koreans are being threatened with torture and death if he does deny his renunciation of his entrance into North Korea?  Is he humiliated?  Did he make a huge mistake? 

Obama's Claim that Bush Left $1.3 Trillion Budget Deficit is Disingenuous

From Dick Morris:

THESE ARE THE TRUE DEFICITS: BUSH $800B, OBAMA $1.4T

President Barack Obama is being disingenuous when he says that the budget deficit he faced “when I walked in the door” of the White House was $1.3 trillion. He went on to say that he only increased it to $1.4 trillion in 2009 and was raising it to $1.6 trillion in 2010.

Here are the facts:

In 2008, George W. Bush ran a deficit of $485 billion. By the time the fiscal year started, on Oct. 1, 2008, it had gone up by another $100 billion due to increased recession-related spending and depressed revenues. So it was about $600 billion at the start of the fiscal crisis. That was the real Bush deficit.

But when the fiscal crisis hit, Bush had to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the final months of his presidency, which cost $700 billion. Under the federal budget rules, a loan and a grant are treated the same. So the $700 billion pushed the deficit — officially — up to $1.3 trillion. But not really. The $700 billion was a short-term loan. $500 billion of it has already been repaid.

So what was the real deficit Obama inherited? The $600 billion deficit Bush was running plus the $200 billion of TARP money that probably won’t be repaid (mainly AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). That totals $800 billion. That was the real deficit Obama inherited.

Then … he added $300 billion in his stimulus package, bringing the deficit to $1.1 trillion. This $300 billion was, of course, totally qualitatively different from the TARP money in that it was spending, not lending. It would never be paid back. Once it was out the door, it was gone. Other spending and falling revenues due to the recession pushed the final numbers for Obama’s 2009 deficit up to $1.4 trillion.

So, effectively, Obama came close to doubling the deficit.

Justice Clarence Thomas Defends Supreme Court Ruling

Conservative Clarence Thomas, who skipped the President’s State of the Union address because it has become so partisan, defends the Supreme Court ruling that Obama criticized during his speech: 

“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company. These are corporations.”

“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation. Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

“It is thus a mistake to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as some sort of beatific action.”

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association. If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

On why he didn’t attend the State of the Union address:

“I don’t go because it has become so partisan and it’s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there,” he said, adding that “there’s a lot that you don’t hear on TV — the catcalls, the whooping and hollering and under-the-breath comments.”

“One of the consequences is now the court becomes part of the conversation, if you want to call it that, in the speeches. It’s just an example of why I don’t go.”

Obama Bows To.... Tampa Mayor?

I defended past bows by the President as culturally sensitive, especially as one living in Asia I know the importance of showing respect to elders.  But apparently I was wrong.  Obama bows to anyone, or should I say everyone, but the American people.

Picture of the day:

U.S. President Barack Obama bows to Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio at MacDill Air Force Base on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 in Tampa, Fla

Obama Says "We Cannot Continue to Spend" Like There are No Consequences and Sends $3.8 Trillion Budget to Congress

We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences; as if waste doesn’t matter; as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money; as if we can ignore this challenge for another generation. We can’t.    -Barack Obama on the Budget, 1 Feb 2010

 So said President Obama as he talked about the Budget for fiscal year 2011 and sent his $3.8 TRILLION dollar budget to Congress. 

The fiscal year 2011 budget….is projected to add nearly $1.3 trillion in deficit spending on top of the current year’s projected $1.6 trillion deficit.

Obama on Monday blamed much of the nation’s budget woes on tax cuts passed under the prior administration.

Obama is also seeking $1.1 TRILLION in tax hikes.

The budget …. would impose nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 by not renewing tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush. Obama would extend Bush-era tax cuts for families and individuals making less.

The Associated Press called the Obama budget record spending and record deficit.

Meanwhile, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip, is saying:

“We’re not going to save our way out of this recession. We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.”

After a year of this warped philosophy set in motion, with an increasing unemployment rate and out of control national deficit and debt, how’s that working for us, folks?

UN Climate Change Panel Based Claims on Student Dissertation and Magazine Article

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here’s the thing — even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future - Barack Obama, State of the Union Address

There’s a reason people were laughing at the President’s remark during the speech.   

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.

The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.

It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC’s report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.

 PREVIOUSLY:

U.N.: Data Doesn’t Support Global Warming Finding that Himalayan Glaciers Will Be Gone by 2035

Global Cooling Over Next 20-30 Years Called Mini-Ice Age

Winter Grips the Globe with Record Breaking Cold and Snow

Global Warming Ravishes U.S. as “Wicked Snow-pocalypse” Slams 2/3rds of Country for Christmas

Al Gore Cancels Speech at U.N. Climate Change Conference…and other global warming news

Gibbs: ‘No Dispute’ on Global Warming Despite 31,000 Scientists Challenging the Science

Climatologists Baffled by Warming Stand Still; Researchers Efforts to ‘Hide Temp Decline’ Exposed by Hacker; Gore Photoshops to Sell Global Warming

“What Happened to Global Warming?”

Study Finds Global Warming Models ‘Fundamentally Wrong’

Alan Carlin on EPA Suppressing His Findings Contradicting Global Warming

South American Glacier Grows Despite Global Warming