“Not true”, Obama.

Many of my good readers are aware that Justice Alito shook his head and quietly said, “Not true” when Obama accused the Supreme Court of opening the door to election campaign contributions from foreign corporations.

Alito is right (And he should know!). As Law Professor Bradley A. Smith points out, the Citizens United ruling in question did not affect the prohibition against foreign nationals and foreign corporations from making U. S. political campaign contributions. He concludes that Obama’s smear “is either blithering ignorance of the law, or demagoguery of the worst kind.”

There is a time and a place to confront the Supreme Court. But I heartily agree that to tell a big lie about them to their faces in a State of the Union address, no less, is out of bounds.


MORE: Prof. Bradley goes into more detail on the relevant law.

STILL MORE: Obama owes the Supreme Court an apology.

I am shocked.

I guess nothing should shock me after Massachusetts froze over and handily elected a Republican Senator. But, still, I am shocked by an NPR poll that has Republicans ahead by 5 points on a hypothetical generic congressional ballot. And the news is really worse than that for Democrats:

. . . that edge is more pronounced among people whose interest in the midterms is high.

“So while it’s a 5-point lead overall, among the most interested voters, that lead doubles,” Bolger says. “And we saw that take effect in Virginia; we saw it took effect in [the] New Jersey gubernatorial race; and we saw it take effect in the Massachusetts Senate race as well.”

This is like Pravda saying the Communists are going down.

Folks, unless there is some serious “change” between now and November, this year’s congressional elections could be a historic bloodbath. We shall see.

Obama’s Phony Freeze

Ed Whelan points out what we need to know about Obama’s so-called spending freeze. It does not apply to entitlements, does not restrain funding of the $787 billion “stimulus” package, does not apply to a new bill supposedly aimed at created jobs, and probably does not affect Obamacare.

That’s kinda like saying you are going on a diet while continuing to enter pie-eating contests.

This phony freeze is simply an attempt by Obama to appear responsible on spending while continuing to be utterly irresponsible on spending.

Video of How to Deal with Liberal Bishops

I never thought the French would show us how to receive – and send off – a liberal bishop. But the parish of Saint-Taurin, Thiberville in Normandy showed us – and Bishop Nourrichard quite well. (Note the news video is in French.)





Just wearing those rainbow vestments is enough reason to run off that “bishop.”

I agree with Damian Thompson that “the real highlight is the little altar server, who had earlier walked off the sanctuary, going back and telling Bishop Nourrichard that he’ll never be a server for him again.” God bless that kid!


UPDATE: Standing up to the bishop is paying off. After the international scandal and pressure from higher-ups, Bishop Nourrichard has backed down.

My Fool-proof 2010 Prediction for the Economy and Elections

As a close watcher of both the economy and politics, I got a prediction for you: 2010 will be a bad year for both the economy and Democrats.

What prompts me to predict this? Obama deciding to play populist by going after the banks.

Let’s see, we need to get the economy unleashed . . . so Obama openly tries to throttle the banks. Huh??

I think the near term fallout for the economy and, therefore, for the November elections is all too predictable.

And you can bank on that, pun intended.

Those Massachusetts Wimin-Haters!

What is the real reason eeeevil Republican Scott Brown just won a Senate seat from Massachusetts? Because Massachusetts is a bunch of wimin-haters.

Yes, that is only one example of the post-election denial coming from the Left. But be nice to them. Denial is part of the grieving process.

And it appears the New York Times, too, is grieving about the election: “To our minds, it is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency.”

*pats on head*

Yes, yes. I know it hurts.

After the Boston Tea Party

When Obama was anointed inaugurated one year ago this day, who would think that his policies would provoke so much anger that we wake up today to the world turned upside down, to Massachusetts electing a Republican Senator? And let us not engage in denial or even more blaming Bush the way some Lefties are. Last night was huge. What was unthinkable one year ago, nay, even weeks ago has happened.

So what happens now? First, Obamacare as we know it is dead. Yes, the Democrats still have the power to jam it down our throats. But that would be political suicide, and key Democrats will have none of that. Barney Frank . . . yes, Barney Frank has already made that clear:

I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process.


But last night actually does the Democrats a favor. Yes, it does not augur well for congressional elections this November. But, as Rich Lowry puts it, they “just had a 1994-like event without actually losing control of Congress.” They got a big reality check, but at the cost of only one Senate seat, not (yet) the whole Congress.

So now they already have the opportunity and the goad to do what a savvy Bill Clinton did after the 1994 wipe-out – run to the center. Clinton thereby saved his presidency and was easily reelected just two years later. (Republicans would do well to remember the post-1994 experience and not get overconfident or just plain stupid.)

Will Obama and the Democrats follow his example? Some Democrats certainly will. I think the Senate as a whole will. Harry Reid and a number of others will have to reinvent themselves and quick to get reelected. And being elected by states and not gerrymandered districts, the electorates for Senators are less partisan and more swayed by independents than the electorates for Congressmen.

Still, a number of House Democrats already are running to the center. But I doubt Nancy Pelosi will follow. Her partisan leftism is too much part of her nature.

And, maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don’t expect Obama to move to the center either. He is a committed Leftist with a totalitarian streak as I’ve frequently noted. And like most Leftists, he likes democracy only when it serves his ends. So I think this prediction will prove on target:

He will try to use executive orders, regulatory/bureaucratic edicts, and a corrupt Justice Department to force through leftist changes in all sorts of areas of daily life. In short, he will become more openly authoritarian. This means we are in for some rocky times. This man is playing for keeps, and he is not a small 'r' republican at heart. He is an Alinskyite. Power is everything to him. All who believe in limited government must gird up our loins, because (sorry for the cliches) Barack Obama will not go gentle into that good night.


We already see this with Cap and Trade. Once its death by democratic means was clear, Obama simply handed the task of choking our economy over to the most radical EPA ever. And now undemocratic regulations are on the way on the flimsy basis of carbon dioxide being a pollutant.

And don’t expect him to tone down the demagoguery so loved by totalitarians. He is engaging in more class warfare on TV as I type this, going after supposed “deadbeat” companies. Yes, they are the enemy. Totalitarians live on good enemies. Oh, and he’s signing a “memorandum.” The Dear Leader speaks! The Dear Leader acts!

What was I saying? Oh yeah. If Obama cannot get his way through democratic means, he will try to get his way through undemocratic means.

And that, my friends, means things will only get more *interesting*.

-------

Something that has not gotten much attention but should is that Scott Brown made national security and combating terrorism an issue. And it helped his campaign.

My personal favorite line of his victory speech was the following:

And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us: I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation. They do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.

Hear! Hear!

BOSTON TEA PARTY II: BROWN BEATS COAKLEY

Fox News reports Martha Coakley has conceded the Massachusetts Senate Special Election to Scott Brown. That roar you heard from South Texas was me.

As I post this, 82% of the precincts are in. Brown 52% - Coakley 47%, 934,045-837,684.

I will surely say more about this but at the moment I am semi-coherent with excitement.

FREEEEEDOMMMM!!

Acolyte

In the past few months, I’ve become the de facto back-up acolyte at my small parish. And I did indeed back up this past Sunday when all the usual acolytes (i.e. the rector’s older sons) were in New York as part of a choir tour.

I would not want to acolyte every Sunday, but I do enjoy it, and particularly did on Sunday. I enjoy worshipping in such a tangible, concrete manner.

And, yes, I try to keep my liturgical abominations to a minimum. But this acolyte is still a work in progress.

Conscience and the Democrats’ Rape Lie

An unsavory development late in the Massachusetts Senate Special Election between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley should concern all those who care about the freedom of conscience of medical workers. The Democrat Party has mailed out a vile flier claiming that Scott Brown wants hospitals to turn away all rape victims. Yes, incredible and desperate.


The flyer tries to make political hay out of Brown’s 2005 amendment to an emergency contraception bill. The amendment “sought to protect the consciences of hospitals and hospital personnel with religious objections to the medication, which sometimes works as an abortifacient. . . . The amendment would have referred rape victims at a hospital that would not dispense emergency contraception to another hospital that would, at no additional cost.”


Brown’s amendment was defeated. For better or worse, he then voted for the final bill, then voted to override Mitt Romney’s veto of it. That is hardly throwing rape victims out on the street as the Dean of Boston College Law School says more eloquently.


My concern about the flier extends beyond this race. I suspect this will not be the last time we see this gutter tactic of crying rape against those who defend the consciences of medical workers. Moreover, if, God forbid, Coakley comes from behind to win this election, we may see this tactic again and again.


All the more reason to pray for Coakley’s defeat. The latest polls do look good. But Brown will likely have to win by a substantial margin to survive the counting overseen by a corrupt Democrat machine.

Martha Coakley v. the Amiraults

Probably the most prominent and painstaking reporter on prosecutorial misconduct in cases where people have been falsely accused of child abuse is Dorothy Rabinowitz. A case she has followed closely is the prosecution, really persecution, of the Amiraults.

Ms. Rabinowitz is now putting the spotlight on someone involved in pushing the injustice against that family. Guess who it is. Martha Coakley.

It seems what we have here is a prosecutor who is easy on the guilty but goes after the innocent.

I could say more, but I do not trust myself when I am really angry. And I want to keep this blog printable. I will ask that if any reader lives in Massachusetts, please, please vote against this evil woman and get your friends to do likewise.


MORE: Even some at the Daily Kos can not stomach Coakley’s prosecutorial abuses.

Democrats Expecting to Lose Massachusetts Seat?

Hard to believe, but things are not looking good for Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election Tuesday for the Senate seat long held by Ted Kennedy. One report says her own polls have her behind and falling. And Democrat expectations are falling with the numbers:

Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. "I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers," says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. "If she's not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout," the Democrat says. "So right now, she is destined to lose."


Given (and this will be a likely Democrat excuse if she loses), Coakley is a poor, even nasty candidate. And now there are rumblings (which I cannot yet verify) that she has been easy on some horrific child abuse.

But, heck, we are talking about a state where some really sorry, nasty people have been elected and reelected because of the “D” after their names. It is Massachusetts, people. It’s not for nothing that Coakley is using “Republican” like a dirty word in her advertising.

So I reiterate, this is a potential political earthquake. I will be watching returns on Tuesday night with great interest.

Fr. Hunwicke Suggests a Plural Mass

Over on his blog, Fr. Hunwicke asks if it might be appropriate for a divided congregation to have a plural mass (if that is the correct term), e. g. one in which “Communion was given from the two different tabernacles by two different priests to two ecclesially separated congregations, one belonging to the [R. C.] Ordinariate and one to the Church of England.”

I’ve never heard of this, but the comments there indicate such has been done before.

Before anyone dismisses this possibility out of hand, consider a situation I may encounter in the future.

When I was studying in Oxford, I joyfully took Communion at Pusey House. Let’s say Pusey House crosses the Tiber. If they then only handled Mass the usual way, I sadly could not receive there without willfully violating R. C. practices. (I know there might be a loophole or two, but put that aside for the sake of argument.) But if Pusey House, on occasion at least, had a plural mass in which faithful Anglicans could receive, that would be better for Anglican square pegs like myself, even if slightly unwieldy.

I am not sure what to think just yet. But a big problem I have with the Roman Catholic Church is that their communions are closed to non-Roman Catholics. Perhaps, plural masses are a way for some Catholic parishes, particularly those which cross the Tiber but do not want to leave people behind, to get around that barrier.

“Stimulus” Cash Goes to Climategate Junk Scientist

Your tax dollars at work.

Someone please explain to me what funding a “scientist” implicated in Climategate has to do with stimulating the economy.

*crickets chirping*

An Election to Watch . . . in Massachusetts?!

Yes, the special election this Tuesday for the senate seat formally held by Ted Kennedy is actually competitive. Not only that, Republican Scott Brown raised well over $1 million in a day on Monday with the average contribution being $77.89. And the poll numbers are shifting in his direction with him now within single digits.

Redstate has gone so far as to predict doom for the Democrats. I am not so sure. But when one considers that Republicans are more motivated to vote at this time and usually tend to turn out in special elections more than the ignorant Democrats . . . well, it’s no wonder Democrats are a bit nervous.

I need not tell you what a political earthquake it would be for Massachusetts to elect a Republican senator.

Reid, Obama, and Democrat Double Standards

Other the weekend Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got in hot water for racially tinged comments from 2008 about Obama’s skin color and lack of a “Negro dialect.” Democrat politicos are immediately forgiving him, even Al Sharpton of all people.

Can you imagine what their response would be if it were a Republican majority leader? Well, we don’t have to.

During a 2002 100th birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond, then Majority Leader Lott made some light hearted laudatory remarks that were twisted into an endorsement of segregation. Lott neither mentioned nor endorsed segregation. Nevertheless he was crucified for his remarks. And none other than Barack Obama joined in:

“It seems to be that we can forgive a 100-year-old senator for some of the indiscretion of his youth, but, what is more difficult to forgive is the current president of the U.S. Senate (Lott) suggesting we had been better off if we had followed a segregationist path in this country after all of the battles and fights for civil rights and all the work that we still have to do,” said Obama.

He said: “The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party.”

And Harry Reid also said Lott should have resigned as Majority Leader. And that is not the only time he has engaged in racial posturing.

Now I do not think Reid should resign (although I pray for his defeat in this year’s elections). And I do not think Republicans should engage in the same sort of race-baiting that Democrats love.

Nevertheless, Democrat double standards surrounding Reid’s remarks are disgusting, to say the least.

Tinkering with BCP Prayers?!?

Those who know that I am a liturgical freak may be surprised to know that I sometimes venture to tinker with the prayers of the Book of Common Prayer in my personal daily office. I know! Horrors!

The first time I can remember doing this is with the confession. “There is no health in us” struck me as ignoring that the Holy Spirit indwells believers and works to conform them to Christ’s righteousness. In that respect, we do have health in us. So I changed it to “There is no health in us apart from you” for a time.

I’m more comfortable with the original now, but still throw in an “apart from you” from time to time.

More recently, I became so provoked by the direction of the federal government that I felt our situation and my concern was not adequately addressed by my usual prayer from Morning Prayer:

O LORD our Governor, whose glory is in all the world; We commend this nation to thy merciful care, that being guided by thy Providence, we may dwell secure in thy peace. Grant to THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and to all in Authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do thy will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness; and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in thy fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

So I added the following clause after “in thy fear”:

But as for those who stiffen the neck and continue to pursue evil, I pray that you would thwart their evil efforts, remove them from power, and replace them with better men and women.

This leaves room for repentance as well as honest mistakes since “stiffen the neck and continue to pursue evil” implies a continual refusal to repent or listen to God as one willfully pushes an evil agenda. And I think this addresses the issue of evil men in power without getting overly imprecatory about it.

I’ve been praying this for some months now.

Now I am not recommending that for public prayer (but am not discouraging it either). But this careful tinkering has enriched my personal prayer.

Don’t be too hard on me.

The (Demo)rats are fleeing the ship.

Overnight came news that Democrat Senators Dorgan and Dodd are retiring. These two have voted to push America into the pit of Socialism, but don’t want to be held accountable by the voters. Weasels.

Or perhaps (Demo)rats is a more appropriate metaphor. Instead of facing voter anger, Democrats are retiring. The Demorats are fleeing the ship.

I’m glad to see Dorgan go. His seat will now likely go Republican.

But I am not so happy about Dodd. Connecticut is stupid enough to elect another Demorat in his place. But more than that, I wanted Dodd to be crushed in the 2010 elections. This Leftist sided again and again with Communists when they were marching in Central America during the Cold War. He is a baby-killer, supporting even partial-birth abortion. He played a major role in pushing the policies that led to the recent financial crash. And he is a corrupt sleaze to boot.

In short, retirement is too good for that scumbag.

About the Manhattan Declaration and Rome

After I signed the Manhattan Declaration, I heard concerns that it is a tacit endorsement of the Roman Catholic view of justification and of the gospel. I greatly respect many of those who have that concern, which include a close friend.

My answer to that concern is simple. The Declaration does not at all demand that it be read as such an endorsement. Instead it acknowledges “ecclesial differences.” Further, the Manhattan Declaration is not at all intended to address justification and other doctrinal controversies. As I’ve posted, it is instead a document that states a manly resolve to resist and refuse to submit to attacks on religious freedom, particularly in the areas of life and marriage.

Therefore, I continue to heartily endorse the Manhattan Declaration.

Kevin DeYoung has also addressed this issue as has Al Mohler. And, if I may say so, neither are exactly Trojan horses for the Bishop of Rome.

Hat tip to Stand Firm.

Global Warming Climate Change Breaking Out All Over the Place

Think you are cold? You are not alone.

Global Warming, er, I mean, Climate Change activists have some more explaining to do as bitter cold hits . . . well, the world, from China to America to the UK and Europe.

Even here on the South Texas coast, we have three nights of near freezing weather in the forecast. I haven’t had a hard freeze in years. Now there will be three shots at one in a week. (Hope it doesn’t kill my landscaping.) Inland a few miles, it will almost surely freeze and hard.

Good thing I’ve gathered a lot of firewood.

Oh – nearly forgot – the wind as the cold first hits is predicted to gust to 48 MPH.

We tend to be slightly breezy around here, but still. . . .