I couldn’t pass posting the link to this one. Obama, the pro-infanticide candidate, gets drilled in this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCm8a5e47Kw

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The Supreme Court just handed down its decision in the Heller gun case. A 5-4 decision, it is a strong affirmation of the right to keep and bear arms. While directly addressing Washington, DC’s un-Consitutional ban of handguns, it will impact all 50 states. One cannot underestimate the impact of this decision.
A few snippets from the majority decision written by Justice Scalia, as straightforward as one would expect from someone who does not believe the Constitution is a “living, breathing document.”

“We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.”

“the most natural reading of ‘keep Arms’ in the Second Amendment is to “have weapons.”

“The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.”

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Planned Parenthood lost big this week. After aggressively pushing for language to be inserted in the War Supp that would have given them a bigger discount on their prescription drugs (which they mark up by as much as 1400%!), the language was stripped out. While it is hard to put a definitive number on how much money PP lost when that happened, it is in the millions of dollars.
On the heels of that defeat comes this story. It is fantastic and if you have not yet read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, go buy a copy today. He covers this extensively in Chapter 7.
From World Net Daily:
“Black pastors led by Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., and Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union will stage a march in Washington tomorrow to demand that candidates for public office refuse money from Planned Parenthood.

Marchers are urging political candidates not to accept any of the $10 million that Planned Parenthood has pledged to contribute to elections this year because the organization, the largest provider of abortions in American, targets minorities for its abortion services.

ABC News has reported the $10 million primarily will go to congressional races.

The group will begin its protest at the Democratic National Convention headquarters at 10 a.m. where members will hold a press conference and then march to the Republican National Convention headquarters where a second press conference will be held.

The group originally banded together after videos were released earlier this year that showed Planned Parenthood officials eagerly accepting money from a racist donor who only wanted the money to be used to abort black babies.

Its procedures have been documented on YouTube.

The pastors have reported that 62.5 percent of all Planned Parenthood’s clinics are in African-American communities, and the number rises to 70 percent when Hispanic communities are included.

The pastors have demanded Planned Parenthood stop targeting residents of those communities.

Last year, about $350 million, or nearly one-third of Planned Parenthood’s budget, was from taxpayer funds.”

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There is a lot of buzz today about Jim Dobson taking Obama’s misuse of Scripture to task. Good for Dobson. Coupled with Cal Thomas’ article from the other day, there are some strong voices questioning Obama’s “Christian” faith. Like I said the other day, Thomas said it best. Obama is not a Christian. He is a Universalist. There is a lot of theological real estate between those two terms.
And if some of you out there think Dobson is wrong, I know, I know-you’re in the young progressive “Evangelical” community that Pew Research would have us believe is representative of the younger Evangelical community as a whole. You probably think Obama is quoting Scripture correctly. It’s an easy mistake to make when either you 1.) simply have no idea what’s in the Bible or 2.) pick and choose what you want to believe in the Bible.
As for Obama’s statement the other day that the United States is “no longer just a Christian nation,” I’ll bet that is news to a large majority of Americans who believe that we are a Christian nation (see the First Amendment Center’s poll from last September). Not that we aren’t a pluralistic society and that we don’t believe in freedom of religion. We do. Absolutely.
Yes, I may have strong theological differences with other people’s faiths, but that is the beauty of being a citizen of this great nation. We can have different belief systems, we can disagree-and best of all, we have the freedom to do so.
But Obama needs to get his facts straight. From the writings of the Founders to recent poll numbers by the First Amendment Center, it’s pretty clear-the United States was founded as, and still is, a Christian nation.

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As I watched Morning Joe this morning, I listened in amazement as an Obama spokesman, with a straight face, said, “Joe, the reason we have opted out of public funding is because if we hadn’t, we would have opened ourselves to attacks from Republican 527s.”
Joe Scarborough was incredulous. He responded, “Even the New York Times says the Democrats benefit far more from 527s than Republicans do (think MoveOn.org).” The Obama spokesman wandered on for a few more minutes, saying the campaign is asking all outside groups to start giving through the campaign and not attack from the outside (which is why, of course, Obama made this exact point at the AFL-CIO meeting yesterday when the labor leaders committed to spending $50 million from the outside to attack McCain [I kid-Obama did no such thing]). The icing on the cake was that just as Morning Joe went to commercial break, MoveOn.org’s smarmy new Iraq war ad started running.
This morning the Politico called Obama on the carpet for his doublespeak.
“Ghosts in the GOP attack machine

By JONATHAN MARTIN | 6/20/08 5:23 AM EST Text Size:

Obama’s alarmist prophecy is wildly at odds with the flatlined state of conservative third-party efforts.
Photo: AP
In a web video emailed to supporters Thursday, Barack Obama explained that he was opting out of the public financing system because John McCain is “not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.”

Republicans can only wish that were the case.

Obama’s alarmist prophecy — a bit of typical campaign rhetoric meant to scare his own donors into reaching for their credit cards — is wildly at odds with the flatlined state of conservative third-party efforts.

The truth is that, less than five months before Election Day, there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group.

Conversations with more than a dozen Republican strategists find near unanimity in the belief that, at some point, there will be a real third-party effort aimed at Obama.

But not one knows who will run it, who will pay for it, what shape it will eventually take or when such a group may form.”

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I don’t always agree with Cal Thomas, but the article below is fantastic. According to Pew Research, and even guys like Mark DeMoss, 30-40% of Evangelicals are thinking of voting for Barack Obama.
Serious differences with his political worldview aside (his stance of abortion, marriage, property rights, etc.) comes this article by Thomas that addresses Obama’s theology. Bottom line according to Thomas? Obama is no Christian. He is a Universalist.
Cal Thomas writes:
“OBAMA IS NO JOSHUA

By Cal Thomas

Tribune Media Services

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign plans to strike at the heart of the Republican base by attempting to woo Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics to his side.

The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody first broke the story on his blog “The Brody File.” Obama’s campaign for the conservative Christian vote, which has largely gone to the Republican presidential candidate in recent elections, has been dubbed the “Joshua Generation Project.” Joshua, Moses’ successor, led the Israelites into the Promised Land. It wasn’t the group that fled Egypt in the Exodus, though. They died in the wilderness, lacking faith in God’s promise. It was the next generation that Joshua led into Canaan. Apparently, if we have enough faith in Obama, he will lead us all into a new America, but if we vote for John McCain, we will demonstrate a lack of faith (in Obama) and die in the political badlands.

Obama is better at biblical language and imagery than any Democrat in modern times. He certainly beats Howard Dean, now the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who once offered Job as his favorite New Testament book. This is cynical manipulation of the devout and it is no better when Democrats do it than when Republicans use religious language for partisan advantage.

Obama has declared himself a committed Christian. He can call himself anything he likes, but there are certain markers among the evangelicals he is courting that one must meet in order to qualify for that label.

Some insight into Obama’s “Christianity” comes from an interview he gave in 2004 to Chicago Sun-Times religion editor Cathleen Falsani for her book, “The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People.”

“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition,” said Obama. He then adds something most Christians will see as universalism: “I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

Falsani correctly brings up John 14:6 (and how many journalists would know such a verse, much less ask a question based on it?) in which Jesus says of Himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That sounds exclusive, but Obama says it depends on how this verse is heard. According to Falsani, Obama thinks that “all people of faith — Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone — know the same God.” (Her words.)

Evangelicals and serious Catholics might ask if this is so, why did Jesus waste His time coming to Earth, suffering pain, rejection and crucifixion? If there are many ways to God, He might have sent down a spiritual version of table manners and avoided the rest.

Here’s Obama telling Falsani, “The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.” Falsani adds, “Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell. But he’s not sure he’ll be going to heaven, either.” Again, that is contrary to what Evangelicals and most Catholics believe.

Here’s Obama again: “I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.”

Any first-year seminary student could deconstruct such “works salvation” and wishful thinking. Obama either hasn’t read the Bible, or if he has, doesn’t believe it if he embraces such thin theological wisps.

Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called “false prophets.”

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From a TV station in Connecticut. Note the last paragraph. When the leftwing group, CREW, files a complaint against a Democrat, you know something is terribly wrong. I would have loved to heard the internal debate among the CREW. . . .crew. When, I wonder, does the next shoe drop on the remaining Democrats caught up in the Countrywide scandal?
“(WTNH) _ Senator Chris Dodd’s nearly 28 years as Connecticut’s United States Senator is being seriously tested. He says he thought the VIP treatment he got from Countrywide Financial was just because he was a good customer, and not because he was a United States Senator who chairs the senate banking committee. It appears some people in Connecticut are having a hard time buying that.

W-T-I-C AM Radio’s Jim Vicevich has been fielding calls about Senator Chris Dodd’s mortgages since Friday. But, since Dodd finally addressed the issue in public Tuesday, it appears many are not buying his explanation.

“As anyone’s been through this, you negotiate, you shop around, you negotiate points and other matters, it’s really commonplace,” Senator Dodd said. “So we were, obviously, trying to get the best deal we could but not a deal based on the job I held.”

Tony, a talk show caller, replied, “Does this really surprise anybody? I’m starting to believe that not only do the Democrats and all politicians in general think that everybody’s stupid.”

Meanwhile, Jim, a talk show caller, added, “This man is the chairman of the Senate Banking Commission and he says he doesn’t know that he got a good deal? Then he’s incompetent, he should step down from his position immediately.”

But just like your comments since Friday on Connpolitics.tv, there is a minority of reaction defending the longtime senator or, at least giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Scott, a talk show caller, said, “If he can show, in evidence, the fact that he was courting other or soliciting other lenders, I don’t think there’s a huge problem, unless there’s other evidence to show otherwise.”

But, Dodd also appears to be receiving some of the pent up anger that many feel about all politicians in general. “Even if he didn’t know, what else has he not known?” George, a talk show caller, said. “He’s spending our taxpayer money and he doesn’t even know his own finances. But, we’re supposed to trust him with our tax dollars?”

What’s described as a liberal watchdog group, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’ has filed a complaint and the Senate Ethics Committee has begun a preliminary investigation of Dodd’s mortgages.”

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I couldn’t pass up posting this clip from the editors at National Review Online.

“The U.S. Senate is about to enact a massive subsidy for Countrywide Financial less than a week after revelations that the company’s “Friends of Angelo” sweetheart-loan program included two U.S. senators. It seems unthinkable, but it’s true. What’s worse? One of the two senators sponsored the bill.

The principal author of the Dodd-Shelby housing-bailout bill is Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over the mortgage market. Last week, Portfolio magazine revealed that Dodd was one of two U.S. senators who benefited from a program under which Countrywide Financial gave loans at favorable terms to the influential and the powerful. The other senator was Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota.

The allegations against Conrad are damning enough. Though he denies having known he received preferential treatment, Conrad admitted to a Wall Street Journal reporter that he called Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo to ask for a loan on the advice of former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, another beneficiary of the program. (Johnson resigned from Barack Obama’s running-mate vetting team after his involvement in the program was revealed.)

But as powerful as Conrad is, the allegations against Dodd are more disturbing because he wields so much power over Countrywide’s fortunes and because he has used that power to benefit Countrywide.”

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There is a quiet fight going on right now in the House of Representatives. It revolves around a piece of legislation co-sponsored by Congressmen Mike Pence (IN) and Greg Walden (OR) called the Broadcaster Freedom Act. A short bill, it serves the purpose of permanently banning the Fairness Doctrine. For those of you unfamiliar with the FD, it is basically government regulated speech based on a “lack of spectrum” argument (which, in our day of the Information Age is now a non-argument).
It would directly impact talk radio and that is exactly where the Left is going with this one. They are hoping to use the government, specifically the FCC, to silence Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin. If the Fairness Doctrine is ever put back in place, it will take only one complaint to the FCC and stations will stop carry Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin because 1.) their content would be deemed as too “controversial” or 2.) stations will not carry shows with opposing viewpoints because the commercial appeal won’t be there. Which means they will not carry anything that could be remotely seen as controversial. I am with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on this one (odd, I know). The remedy for a free society is not less speech, but more speech.
The stark lesson in all this, though, is that when the Left fails in the marketplace of ideas, where does it turn? The government, so that their friends in Washington, DC can enforce parity and equality. I know, seems a little 1984-ish to me as well. Heck, lump in a little of Atlas Shrugged and you get the picture.
Back to the current state of play. Last year, Pence offered an amendment that served as a one year moratorium on the Fairness Doctrine. It passed with 309 votes. However, now that he and Walden are proposing a permanent ban on the Doctrine, a lot of Democrats are getting cold feet. In fact, all of them are. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is blocking the bill from receiving a floor vote in the House, so Pence and Walden have begun circulating a discharge petition.
For those of you unfamiliar with a discharge petition, if a member or members get 218 Members to sign a discharge petition, committee action can be circumvented and the Member sponsoring the bill basically takes charge of floor action. Meaning if Pence and Walden get to 218 signatures, they can bring the BFA to the floor anytime they want to. They are at 195 signatures right now.

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As I mentioned the other day, this story is picking up steam here in Washington, DC as more layers are peeled away. A few thoughts on this story. Among some GOP circles, there are whispers (ie anonymous aides speaking on the record) that, “Maybe we don’t want to make too much of this story because, after all, there might be a few Republicans involved as well.” That, my friends, is some of the worst logic I have seen expressed in recent times. It was this same logic that tried to protect Mark Foley and see where that got the GOP. Call hearings, open up the books, let the American people see what really took place.
From the American Spectator’s Washington Prowler today:
“Already caught in the web are Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd, both of whom have denied any wrongdoing in their attempts to refinance or obtain mortgages from Countrywide at favorable terms. Senate Ethics Committee staffers believe that there may be at least two other Senators — both Democrats — who had contacts with senior executives at Fannie Mae and Countrywide.

“It apparently was well known that Countrywide had a ‘VIP service’ through the senior management offices, and current and former senior executives at Fannie Mae were a conduit for those contacts,” says a House Ethics aide. “There is a Clinton/Democratic connection here that can’t be ignored.”

That reference is to attempts by the then-outgoing Clinton White House to place a number of loyalists in senior positions at potentially lucrative businesses, trade associations, law firms and lobbying shops around town. Fannie Mae was one where a number of former Clinton advisers ended up with jobs, whether it be as executives or consultants.

Press reports indicated that not only did Dodd and Conrad get special treatment, but former Clinton Cabinet members Donna E. Shalala and Richard C. Holbrooke received special treatment, as did several prominent Republicans.

Of the group, perhaps the most damaged is Holbrooke who, according to friends in New York, has been expending a great deal of energy positioning himself for a senior post in either an Obama or Clinton Administration. Holbrooke was said by friends to be hoping for a Secretary of State post should Clinton have emerged victorious. He has been attempting to ingratiate himself into the Obama camp for several months now. The running joke in New York circles was that through his contacts at the Council on Foreign Relations, he was building a shadow State Department for an incoming Democratic administration.

“You have to keep in mind that for folks like Shalala and Holbrooke there is nothing wrong with what they did. They just got a sweet deal that the great unwashed probably couldn’t get,” says the ethics aide. “It’s just interesting to see all these people who financially are well off by any standard getting caught up in something that was totally unnecessary. It’s nickel and dime stuff, but that’s usually what gets people into embarrassing situations.”

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