News

Barack Obama vows to veto any bill that cuts off funding for Planned Parenthood

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Barack Obama speaking to Planned Parenthood
Barack Obama speaking to Planned Parenthood

How radical are Democrats on making sure that pro-life taxpayers fund for-profit live-birth organ-harvesting operations? Very radical.

Life News reports on it:

The White House has issued a Statement of Administration Policy vowing to veto a new pro-life bill the House of Representatives will vote on tomorrow that would hold the Planned Parenthood abortion business criminally liable for harvesting body parts from aborted babies who are technically still alive.

The center for Medical Progress has released 10 videos catching and exposing Planned Parenthood officials selling aborted babies and their body parts. One of the most shocking videos caught the nation’s biggest abortion business harvesting the brain of an aborted baby who was still alive.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, sponsored by pro-life Congressman Trent Franks would make failure to provide standard medical care to children born alive during an abortion a federal crime.  It would also apply stronger penalties in cases where an overt act is taken to kill the abortion survivor.

But the Obama administration says President Barack Obama would veto the measure.

Before he was elected in 2008, Obama had a record of supporting abortions for babies who were born alive.

More:

As pro-life Congressman Chris Smith explains, this has Obama on record once again opposing care for babies born alive who survive abortions. Obama clearly either believes that killing babies after they are born is a reasonable part of an abortion or he fears that abortion companies like Planned Parenthood would stop doing abortions before they would be willing to comply with a requirement to save the babies that survive them.

“Late yesterday the President demonstrated that his subservience to Planned Parenthood is absolute and without question,” said Smith. “Blindly following the orders of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country, the President issued an extreme unequivocal statement that he would veto the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that simply says a child that survives an abortion must be given the same care as any other premature baby born at the same gestational age and forbidding acts of lethal violence against such babies.”

Isn’t it strange how so many people who claim to be Christians could vote for a man who believes so strongly in abortion?

Look:

Which Religions Voted for Obama in 2008?
Which Religions Voted for Obama in 2008?

I guess we have to put these numbers down to the fact that for many people, religion is about feeling good, and not about surrendering one’s own selfishness in order to comply with the way the universe really is. “Thou shall not murder”. Do we believe that? I think we believe in going church for fun and feelings, but when it comes to restricting our own selfishness in sexual areas, it’s pretty clear that many people who claim to be Christians think that God’s moral rules are just garbage. Barack Obama certainly believes that.

What does Obama’s support for born-alive abortion and organ-harvesting say about his character? Well, it says that he is very comfortable with the idea of slavery, which is the idea that the strong should use and exploit the weak, and even kill the weak, if they get in the way of the strong enjoying themselves. He has no respect for the lives of other people if they get in his way, in short. Why did so many people who claim to be Christian for for such an extremist on abortion? If Obama had lived during the time of slaves, he would have owned slaves – it’s very much in keeping with his character of exploiting the weak for profit, up to and including harvesting their organs – while they are still alive – for profit.

Anyway, that’s interesting, but what’s even more interesting is that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton won’t watch the Planned Parenthood videos.

Barack Obama:

At last night’s Republican presidential debate, pro-life candidate Carly Fiorina dares pro-abortion President Barack Obama and abortion activist Hillary Clinton to watch the shocking expose’ videos showing Planned Parenthood selling aborted babies and their body parts.

“I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes,” Fiorina said, referencing the 10 undercover videos that showed how Planned Parenthood sells aborted babies and their body parts.

She continued: “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. This is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up in and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us.”

Today, White House spokesman Josh Earnest refused to say if Obama would watch the videos. Earnest says he has no reaction to the “dare” put up by Fiorina.

Instead, according to a transcript LifeNews.com received of his comments to the press, Earnest defended taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.

But he’s not the only one.

Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood
Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood

Hillary Clinton:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not say if she has watched the graphic videos from Planned Parenthood.

Clinton, appearing on “Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer” Thursday, instead dodged the question and insisted that Planned Parenthood “deserves not only our support but the continuing funding from the federal government so that these women and girls who are seeking the kinds of services that are provided will be able to achieve that.”

The other Democrats running for President are all strongly pro-abortion as well.

It’s important for us all to understand that Democrats are not nice people. They are nice to people who they want to vote for them, if you think that giving someone else’s money to Democrat voters is nice. But they are not nice to people in the womb, who have no value to them. If they can exchange the lives of unborn children for votes from those who value recreational sex without personal responsibility, they will do it.

News

Is Carly Fiorina conservative? How can you tell if a candidate is conservative?

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Carly Fiorina outperforms at first GOP primary debate
Carly Fiorina outperforms at first GOP primary debate

A lot of my friends are getting very excited about Carly Fiorina, and some of them are wondering why she is not on my list. Well, it’s because this is the primary season, and I am looking for someone who 1) is as conservative as me, and 2) has got achievements at advancing a conservative agenda. The key point being that just because a person is outraged at Planned Parenthood cutting into live-born babies, that isn’t the same as being pro-life through all 9 months of pregnancy, except for the case where the life of the mother is threatened.

To take one example, her view of religious liberty is not as conservative as mine, but it isn’t horrible either. Here she is on the Hugh Hewitt show explaining her view:

HH: And let me close our conversation by throwing a hard one at you. There’s a Kentucky county clerk today. She’s refusing to issue licenses to same-sex marriage couples. She’s in comtempt of court in essence. What would your advice be to her?

CF: First, I think that we must protect religious liberties with great passion and be willing to expend a lot of political capital to do so now because it’s clear religious liberty is under assault in many, many ways. Having said that, when you are a government employee, I think you take on a different role. When you are a government employee as opposed to say, an employee of another kind of organization, then in essence, you are agreeing to act as an arm of the government. And, while I disagree with this court’s decision, their actions are clear. And so I think in this particular case, this woman now needs to make a decision that’s [about] conscience:  Is she prepared to continue to work for the government, be paid for by the government in which case she needs to execute the government’s will, or does she feel so strongly about this that she wants to severe her employment with the government and go seek employment elsewhere where her religious liberties would be paramount over her duties as as government employee.

HH: You don’t counsel that she continue civil disobedience?

CF: Given the role that she’s playing. Given the fact that the government is paying her salary, I think that is not appropriate. Now that’s my personal opinion. Others may disagree with that, but I think it’s a very different situation for her than someone in a hospital who’s asked to perform an abortion or someone at a florist who’s asked to serve a gay wedding. I think when you’re a government employee, you are put into a different position honestly.

That’s a view that I can vote for if she is the Republican candidate, but not a view that I prefer when we are still in the GOP primary election. There are better candidates who have stuck their necks out further to champion causes I care about, like religious liberty and natural marriage.

I took a look at Carly’s record using this “On the Issues” web site and was surprised to see that Carly advocates positions more to the right than expected, but still to the left of my favored candidates. She is definitely a Republican, and her stated views are “good enough” for me to enthusiastically support her against any Democrat.

She’s definitely more conservative on same-sex marriage, taxes, abortion, gun control, health care, energy policy than I thought, but not quite as conservative as Jindal, Walker, and Cruz on some of those issues. The only real red flag I saw was supporting the DREAM Act. But she is definitely a Republican, and much more so than people like Romney, Kasich, McCain,, Lindsay Graham.

I really wish that more Republican voters would look at sites like On The Issues, and other sites that grade conservatives like Club for Growth, National Taxpayer Union, the National Rifle Association, and the National Right to Life Committee (PDF), in order to see who the best candidates are from their actions – not from their words during debates, campaign ads, campaign stump speeches, etc. Even a libertarian site like the Cato Institute, which embraces immorality on social issues, has good ratings of governors on fiscal issues (PDF). A person is defined by how they engage in enterprises, not by what they say when asked. Where do you put your money and time? What have you fought for? What have you achieved? You can’t judge a candidate by words and how the words are stated in campaign ads, campaign speeches, or debates – although debating and speaking are important for winning in the general election.

So, where do I stand? I am looking for conservatives who have won long, drawn out fights to get conservative reforms passed. That’s why Carly Fiorina is not on my list of candidates – because I have not seen her leading and achieving in the areas I care about. Her stated views are conservative enough, but now is the time for me to push for the candidates I really want. I have nothing bad to say about her, though, and will support her if she is the GOP candidate. But for now, I’m pushing for Jindal, Walker, and Cruz. I am also OK with Rubio, mostly because, like Santorum, he is so good on foreign policy.

Commentary

How Christianity shaped Margaret Thatcher’s conservative politics

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Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan

This is from the Daily Signal, and is really recommended for Christians who are tempted by the policies of the left.

Check it:

Few people are aware that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, one of the foremost politicians of the 20th century, was a lay Methodist preacher before she entered politics.

There has been very little examination into the role that her Christian faith played in her politics.

“Economics is the method; the object is to change the soul,” Thatcher once declared, revealing that the way she conceived her free-market ideology was as much about transforming values as about improving Britain’s ailing GDP.

More profoundly, there was a strong religious basis to Thatcher’s politics—one that stemmed from her strict Methodist upbringing and, more specifically, the chief influence in her life, her father, who was a greengrocer, councilor, and Wesleyan lay preacher.

In sourcing the origins of her free-market ideology, it is not in the pages of Frederick von Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” or Milton Friedman’s monetarist theory where we find the answer, but in the sermon notes of her father, Alf Roberts.

Contained within his sermons, one finds the theological basis of what would later become the cornerstones of Thatcherism: an individualistic interpretation of the Bible, a nod to the spiritual dangers of avarice, praise of the Protestant work ethic, virtues of thrift and self-reliance, and finally, a divine justification for individual liberty and the free market.

In short, Thatcherism always owed more to Methodism than to Monetarism.

Thatcher herself was a preacher before she formally entered politics while a student at Oxford University. Even though she later transferred this missionary energy from the pulpit to the podium, her religious values remained an underlying core.

Indeed, on becoming leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, Thatcher (much like Ronald Reagan) saw it as her chief mission to completely undermine the moral credibility of socialism and communism and reconnect the broken link between Protestant and capitalist values in Britain.

Preaching from the pulpit on several occasions, Thatcher unashamedly asserted the Biblical case for the sovereignty of individual liberty and the “invisible hand.”

“Do not be tempted to identify virtue with collectivism,” she preached from the pulpit of St. Lawrence Jewry Church in London in 1978. “I wonder whether the State services would have done as much for the man who fell among the thieves as the Good Samaritan did for him.” According to Thatcher, “[i]t was to individuals that the Ten Commandments were addressed.” She continued, “We are called on to repent our own sins, not each others’.”

“What mattered,” in her words, “was Man’s relationship to God.”

Thatcher’s interpretation was that as Christianity was a call to men individually, so it should follow that political choices reside with the citizen rather than the state.

“The Road to Serfdom” and “Free to Choose” are two of my favorite economics books, and very suitable for laymen. If an understanding of the free enterprise system isn’t yet part of your Christian worldview, it might be a good idea to get studying! After all, Christians are not concerned with policies that make us feel good regarding the poor. We are concerned with policies that actually do good for the poor. There is a big difference.