Month: April 2009

Sarah Palin lives what she preaches, and that's a good thing..

You know there has been times, when I have criticized Sarah Palin, there have been times when I have voiced my disgust with this woman.

This, is not one of those times…. first the quote:

In front of an audience of nearly 3,000 anti-abortion rights advocates in Evansville, Ind., Palin described in detail how she struggled with her fifth pregnancy last year and choked up when she spoke about Trig’s birth.

“It was a time when I had to ask myself was I gonna walk the walk or I was gonna talk the talk,” Palin said.

She said she learned she was pregnant with Trig while she was out of the state at an oil and gas conference.

“There, just for a fleeting moment, I thought, I knew, nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy. It could be easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know.”

Ultimately, Palin said she realized she had to stay true to what she’d been saying for years — that “life is valuable because it is ordained.”

“I had just enough faith to know that trying to change the circumstances wasn’t any answer,” Palin said.

via Sarah Palin: I Had to ‘Walk the Walk’ – ABC News.

Let me be the first to say, that I publicly applaud Sarah Palin for sticking to the morals and values that she believes in. I may have criticized her in the past.  But this is one thing that I will not say anything negative about. There is nothing; at all, wrong with sticking to one’s convictions, despite the cost. Our country was founded by men that did this, The King James Bible was written by men, that did this. The protestant movement itself was started by men who did this.

In a day and age were loyalty and principles are considered a pleasant afterthought and by some, to be quaint, old hat, and outright outmoded. I say it is extremely wonderful of this fine woman to stand for her principles and convictions. Sarah Palin is one hell of a woman for this, and she deserves all the praise and accolades for it. I have often said on this blog, that I believed that Abortion was a moral issue, now legislatively, that’s another matter; but the point is, Sarah Palin stuck to her morals, and that my friends, is a good thing.

Now, if we could just work on that image just a little bit more, she’d be ready for 2012, maybe.

I'm not sure what to make of this…..

Honestly. I am totally at a loss. It is just that I am so conflicted about the issue, that I really don’t know what to say. On one hand, I like the idea of keeping America safe, on the other, the idea of torture makes me sick.

Here’s what I am talking about, this Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality of interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. Those techniques were applied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described in these opinions in detail, along with their limits and the safeguards applied to them.

The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy. Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001.

Proponents of the release have argued that the techniques have been abandoned and thus there is no point in keeping them secret any longer; that they were in any event ineffective; that their disclosure was somehow legally compelled; and that they cost us more in the coin of world opinion than they were worth. None of these claims survives scrutiny.

Soon after he was sworn in, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that suspended use of these techniques and confined not only the military but all U.S. agencies — including the CIA — to the interrogation limits set in the Army Field Manual. This suspension was accompanied by a commitment to further study the interrogation program, and government personnel were cautioned that they could no longer rely on earlier opinions of the OLC.

Although evidence shows that the Army Field Manual, which is available online, is already used by al Qaeda for training purposes, it was certainly the president’s right to suspend use of any technique. However, public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual.

Moreover, disclosure of the details of the program pre-empts the study of the president’s task force and assures that the suspension imposed by the president’s executive order is effectively permanent. There would be little point in the president authorizing measures whose nature and precise limits have already been disclosed in detail to those whose resolve we hope to overcome. This conflicts with the sworn promise of the current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who testified in aid of securing Senate confirmation that if he thought he needed additional authority to conduct interrogation to get necessary information, he would seek it from the president. By allowing this disclosure, President Obama has tied not only his own hands but also the hands of any future administration faced with the prospect of attack.

Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies. Somehow, it seems unlikely that the people who beheaded Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl, and have tortured and slain other American captives, are likely to be shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U.S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle of captured terrorists even to help elicit intelligence that could save the lives of its citizens.

Now, you all know that I was not a big fan of Bush Administration. But I cannot help but wonder, if the Obama Administration did pull a major bonehead move here.  One thing that is the source of the authority of the right to enhanced interrogation is, that these Terrorists are not subject to the Geneva Conventions. That being because they are not uniform combatants. While I might agree with that sentiment on a legal or a technical level, on a human and or diplomatic level that argument runs into bunch of problems. You see subjecting persons from countries where you are also importing oil from, to torture, does not do much for your Country diplomatically. The problem is, those who argue against the diplomatical arguement, come off sound like a bunch of Isolationists.

So, I am really not sure, did Obama screw the Country? You tell me? I’m open to opinions, as long as you don’t act like a troll.

A very thought provoking article

One more here, before I saunter off to bed.

William N. Grigg has a very interesting article of what our Republic is becoming.

Money Quote:

Transfixed by the demonic evil of Islamic terrorism, intoxicated by a sense of vindictive righteousness, the Republican Right eagerly collaborated in the effort to mow down legal protections for those designated enemies of the state. With the frustrated puzzlement of dimwitted children they now find themselves naked and shivering in the ill winds so memorably described by More.

For a long time, conservatives have extracted much undeserved pleasure from the aphorism that “A law-and-order conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.” Now they’re given an opportunity to learn the truth of its counterpart: “A civil libertarian is a law-and-order conservative who suffered an ass-beating at the hands of the police.” Perhaps this lesson could be learned — but, given the propensity of conservatives to miss the obvious and resist admissions of error, I’m not optimistic.

Man is he ever right. It’s a sad state of affairs here in America. 🙁

Even so, Come, Lord Jesus.

(H/T to Freedom’s Phoenix)


Quote of the Day

Supporters of the sexting law say it’s necessary so that teenagers will not be prosecuted as sexual offenders and have their lives ruined. There is some validity to that, as dopey kids do dopey things. However, the sane solution would be to categorize sexting as a misdemeanor breach of the peace, thus sending a message that it is unacceptable for kids to send other kids sexual images.

But secular-progressives are loathe to make that judgment. Remember, these are the same people who believe a girl has the right to an abortion without telling her parents. So if a kid can undergo a major life altering operation (especially for the fetus), why should it be a big deal to do a little sexting?

With a liberal federal government and media, there is little opposition being voiced to what is happening in Vermont and other secular-progressive enclaves. Culture war issues have been forced to the back room by the awful economy, and the S-P’s are taking full advantage. If American children are legally allowed to send explicit pictures of themselves to other kids, then say goodbye to traditional boundaries of behavior.

The slippery slope is here.

The Obligtory Obama Released the torture memos posting

Yes, I know about it.  Go make a video for a few hours and the world does the 360 and starts talking about something else.

I hate to be the one that says, “I told you so!”  But…

I did. I knew Obama would not prosecute anyone. Why? Because he knew that he would be hurting those who are keeping us safe. Well, are supposed to be anyhow.

Yes, I know what they did was wrong. Yes, I know the crap that they did was borderline crazy. Yes, I know they should be, but they won’t be, because President Obama fears the backlash. The problem with this, is that Obama will be castigated by the far left, and by many Libertarians that were stupid enough to vote for him, for not going through with the prosecutions.

Basically Obama said this:

The Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. These memos speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, and their release is required by the rule of law.

My judgment on the content of these memos is a matter of record. In one of my very first acts as President, I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer. Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past.

But that is not what compelled the release of these legal documents today. While I believe strongly in transparency and accountability, I also believe that in a dangerous world, the United States must sometimes carry out intelligence operations and protect information that is classified for purposes of national security. I have already fought for that principle in court and will do so again in the future. However, after consulting with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and others, I believe that exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release.

First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program – and some of the practices – associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

Going forward, it is my strong belief that the United States has a solemn duty to vigorously maintain the classified nature of certain activities and information related to national security. This is an extraordinarily important responsibility of the presidency, and it is one that I will carry out assertively irrespective of any political concern. Consequently, the exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities. I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States.

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again. – Via NYT

The major backlash has already started, and it will interesting to follow.

No posting for a while…Tea Party Video in Process

I will not be posting for a while today. I am in process of making a very nice Tea Party Protest Video, Honoring those who did go out yesterday and protest. I will be posting it to live leak and embedding it here on my site. Hopefully, someone over at the national tea party site will see it and put it on thier site.

If you have photos you’d like to send, please send them to tpblogeditor at gmail dot com. Please include your name and the City and State the Protest took place.

Okay back to the Movie making!

Quote of the Day, Part 1

Can I tell it like it is? Our Christian leaders are not fighters, they are authors. Osteen, Dobson, and Warren are more famous for what they have written, than for what they have done. They are more concerned with how they will be perceived by the enemy than they are with defending the Truth. While the enemies of God kill, steal, and destroy our children, our leaders are worried about the “tone” with which our message is delivered. They are more concerned with looking Christian than being Christian.

Compassion– a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

Compassionate conservativism shows more sympathy for those they are fighting than for those they are supposed to be defending.

So, has the Republican Party advanced Christianity or has Christianity advanced the Republican Party?

No King but King Jesus! Long live the King!

It is time to let conservatism die.