Tag Archives: Barack Obama

News

Hysterical Hillary Clinton shrieks out her victimhood over Benghazi cover-up

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It’s all a vast right-wing conspiracy:

Who cares about whose fault it is that four Americans are dead? Not her. Stop asking her questions, she has a headache!

Here’s the UK Telegraph assessment of Hillary’s performance at the hearings.

Excerpt:

It was not exactly a bravura performance today from the Secretary of State, who testified this morning before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Hillary Clinton came across as defiant, evasive, blasé,and at times hugely unconvincing when answering questions from Republican Senators about the death of four Americans at the hand of Islamist terrorists in Benghazi last September, including the assassination of the US Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. After listening to several hours of Mrs. Clinton defending her administration’s handling of the Benghazi debacle, including UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s preposterous suggestion on Sunday morning talk shows that this might not have been a terrorist attack, the American public will only be left with the impression that this is a presidency that doesn’t take any responsibility for its actions, is highly incompetent, and remains firmly in denial over the scale of the al-Qaeda threat.

[…]With an eye on a possible 2016 presidential bid, Hillary Clinton did herself no favours with today’s testimony, just a few days before she steps down from high office. It underscores the fact that Clinton has been a less than impressive Secretary of State, whose leadership on an array of foreign policy matters, from Syria to Egypt and Iran, has been underwhelming. Some of her initiatives have been disastrous, including the much-hyped and weak-kneed Russian “reset,” which now appears to have sunk without a trace after Moscow decided not to cooperate. And who can forget Mrs. Clinton’s decision to stand alongside Cristina Kirchner in Buenos Aires, and support the Argentine president’s call for UN-brokered negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands? Or her department’s extraordinary attempts to intervene in the internal British debate over membership of the European Union.

The last four years have been a period of marked U.S. decline, coupled with a sneering disregard for America’s key allies such as Britain and Israel. The Secretary of State floundered today before the Senate, struggling to defend a feeble foreign policy that has undercut American leadership and projected weakness in the face of America’s adversaries. The Obama administration’s blundering response to Benghazi is symbolic of its wider failure in the Middle East and beyond, one that does not bode well for the next four years.

Remember, Hillary’s focus as Secretary of State is not what you would expect.

She has other priorities:

 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  said last week that she has stood up for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and and Transgender rights all around the world.

“Memories are short, and we can’t afford to rest on the laurels of the past,” Clinton said Thursday at an event co-hosted by the State Department and Foreign Policy Magazine. “So it’s our job to reintroduce a post-Iraq generation of young people around the world to principled American leadership.”

“That is part of why I’ve logged so many miles over the last four years going to something on the order of 112 countries, holding town hall meetings with young people from Tunis to Tokyo, shining a spotlight on the concerns of religious and ethnic minorities from the Copts in Egypt to the Rohingya in Burma, putting down a clear marker on internet freedom, going to the UN Human Rights Council to stand up for the rights and lives of the LGBT people around the world, advancing a new approach to development that puts human dignity and self-sufficiency at the heart of our efforts, and pushing women’s rights and opportunities to the top of the diplomatic agenda,” Clinton continued.

National security? What’s that? The State Department’s job is to promote abortion and gay rights.

Rand Paul sums up my response to our affirmative action Secretary of State:

The question that this shrill shrieking suggests to me is this: is the feminist “blame men for the glass ceiling” attitude compatible with competence and accountability? Should you put a feminist in charge of something and then expect her to take responsibility for mistakes and be transparent?

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News

Obama pushes for gay marriage at second inauguration

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From Life Site News. (links removed)

Excerpt:

 President Barack Obama forcefully advanced the homosexual agenda in his second inaugural address this afternoon, saying redefining marriage must be enacted “by [God’s] people here on earth.”

[…]“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” the president said.

Although the president trumpeted his support for redefining marriage during the presidential campaign, he promised to leave the issue to be settled by the states. However, his decision to include gay ‘marriage’ in an inaugural address alongside issues such as green energy, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and robust entitlement programs, which he has pledged to actively champion, suggests it may be part of the president’s legislative, or administrative, agenda.

The president wove homosexual activism into multiple aspects of the inaugural ceremonies.

A clergyman who supports the homosexual movement gave the benediction in place of a pastor who supports the traditional family.

Luis León, the rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church just across the street from the White House, has been described by MSNBC as a “pro-gay Episcopal priest.”

[…]Leon replaced Rev. Louie Giglio, who was pressured out of giving the benediction by homosexual activists who had discovered a sermon he delivered in the 1990s offering a “Christian response to homosexuality.”

[…]At another juncture in the inaugural festivities, poet Richard Blanco earned the distinction of becoming the first gay Hispanic poet ever to read a poem during an inauguration.

If gay marriage is legalized, then speaking and acting like an authentic Christian ill be much harder. Dr. Robert P. George explains why that’s so in Public Discourse.

Excerpt:

Since most liberals and even some conservatives, it seems, apparently have no understanding at all of the conjugal conception of marriage as a one-flesh union—not even enough of a grasp to consciously consider and reject it—they uncritically conceive marriage as sexual-romantic domestic partnership, as if it just couldn’t possibly be anything else. This is despite the fact that the conjugal conception has historically been embodied in our marriage laws, and explains their content (not just the requirement of spousal sexual complementarity, but also rules concerning consummation and annulability, norms of monogamy and sexual exclusivity, and the pledge of permanence of commitment) in ways that the sexual-romantic domestic partnership conception simply cannot. Still, having adopted the sexual-romantic domestic partnership idea, and seeing no alternative possible conception of marriage, they assume—and it is just that, an assumption, and a gratuitous one—that no actual reason exists for regarding sexual reproductive complementarity as integral to marriage. After all, two men or two women can have a romantic interest in each other, live together in a sexual partnership, care for each other, and so forth. So why can’t they be married? Those who think otherwise, having no rational basis, discriminate invidiously.

[…]Thus, advocates of redefinition are increasingly open in saying that they do not see these disputes about sex and marriage as honest disagreements among reasonable people of goodwill. They are, rather, battles between the forces of reason, enlightenment, and equality—those who would “expand the circle of inclusion”—on one side, and those of ignorance, bigotry, and discrimination—those who would exclude people out of “animus”—on the other. The “excluders” are to be treated just as racists are treated—since they are the equivalent of racists. Of course, we (in the United States, at least) don’t put racists in jail for expressing their opinions—we respect the First Amendment; but we don’t hesitate to stigmatize them and impose various forms of social and even civil disability upon them and their institutions. In the name of “marriage equality” and “non-discrimination,” liberty—especially religious liberty and the liberty of conscience—and genuine equality are undermined.

The fundamental error made by some supporters of conjugal marriage was and is, I believe, to imagine that a grand bargain could be struck with their opponents: “We will accept the legal redefinition of marriage; you will respect our right to act on our consciences without penalty, discrimination, or civil disabilities of any type. Same-sex partners will get marriage licenses, but no one will be forced for any reason to recognize those marriages or suffer discrimination or disabilities for declining to recognize them.” There was never any hope of such a bargain being accepted. Perhaps parts of such a bargain would be accepted by liberal forces temporarily for strategic or tactical reasons, as part of the political project of getting marriage redefined; but guarantees of religious liberty and non-discrimination for people who cannot in conscience accept same-sex marriage could then be eroded and eventually removed. After all, “full equality” requires that no quarter be given to the “bigots” who want to engage in “discrimination” (people with a “separate but equal” mindset) in the name of their retrograde religious beliefs. “Dignitarian” harm must be opposed as resolutely as more palpable forms of harm.

[…][T]here is, in my opinion, no chance—no chance—of persuading champions of sexual liberation (and it should be clear by now that this is the cause they serve), that they should respect, or permit the law to respect, the conscience rights of those with whom they disagree. Look at it from their point of view: Why should we permit “full equality” to be trumped by bigotry? Why should we respect religions and religious institutions that are “incubators of homophobia”? Bigotry, religiously based or not, must be smashed and eradicated. The law should certainly not give it recognition or lend it any standing or dignity.

The lesson, it seems to me, for those of us who believe that the conjugal conception of marriage is true and good, and who wish to protect the rights of our faithful and of our institutions to honor that belief in carrying out their vocations and missions, is that there is no alternative to winning the battle in the public square over the legal definition of marriage. The “grand bargain” is an illusion we should dismiss from our minds.

You can read about some examples of attacks against proponents of traditional marriage in my secular case against same-sex marriage.

Videos

Post-1960s progressivism: a lecture from Hillsdale College

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Tom sent me this excellent bird’s eye view of the progressive agenda. It’s very direct, and it does NOT shy away from moral standards and social issues. It squarely hits on feminism and gay rights as it relates to marriage and family. (H/T Tom)

The lecture: (37 minutes)

Here’s a snippet from a summary of the lecture from the Hawaiian Reporter:

The natural man-woman-children family was considered the only way to structure healthy family life by both the Founders and Old Progressives.  The Founders believed strong families arose from the natural law and were an essential building block to a virtuous and productive society.  They expected states to pass laws to support the family structure.  The Old Progressives believed similarly that social science required government support of the natural family.  Part of this “support” included the need for trained experts in “home economics” to assist families in the scientific practice of family life.  From both traditions we had laws that made divorce difficult, usually requiring serious grounds like adultery, and placing children in the custody of the father to further discourage frivolous divorce.  Both traditions stressed sexual activity within the family structure.  Both traditions understood the centrality of the natural family to the strength of the society.  Churches and schools supported this traditional morality.

New Progressives adopted sexual liberation as a main value.  They have been indifferent to the natural family as merely one option of how to live, and, in many cases, with a sneering belief that it is not all that good an option.  Sexual liberation contradicts both the natural law of the Founders and the scientific ethical ideal of the Progressives.  Rather than supporting the natural family, the government of the New Progressive does its best to undermine it.  Welfare goes to unmarried women, reducing motivation to marry, replacing fathers with government.  No fault divorce has exploded the divorce rate, with actions brought overwhelmingly by women who are more likely to benefit from it.  “Self expression” of the New Progressives trumps “self control” of natural law.  57% of college students are now women, and Title 9 (that wrought so much damage to men’s smaller sports in college) is now beginning to be applied to STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) studies in academia.  Hiring preferences for women exist throughout government.  There has been no similar concerns about the status of men.  Exploding out of wedlock births (over 40% of all births now) demonstrate the destruction of the natural family.  Now gay marriage is the new cause, an attempt to place such relationships on the same plane as the natural family.  Social health requires children, and children require a father and mother in the same household.  Gay marriage can lead to no procreation, and anti-family policy ensures an underclass of angry, neglected children.

Justice Douglas had embraced sexual liberation as a form of self-expression that frees us from rigid traditional morality of self-control.  Hence first amendment protection of nude dancing.  In Lawrence v Texas, the 2003 Court decision that found state sodomy laws unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy had this to say:  “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” A libertarian might well find criminalizing such conduct as unwise and unjust, but unconstitutional in a document that celebrates natural law?  And we have gone far beyond decriminalization to government celebration of gay alternative life styles.

Even in our foreign policy.  Secretary Clinton considers gay marriage and other aspects of sexual liberation a priority in our foreign policy:  “The Obama Administration defends the human rights of LGBT people as part of our comprehensive human rights policy….The President has directed all U.S. Government agencies engaged overseas to combat the criminalization of LGBT status and conduct.”  The Founders believed that American foreign policy should be about the protection of unalienable rights of Americans.  The Old Progressives that it should be about spreading Progressive ideas of freedom and the uplift of less advanced peoples.  The New Progressives that its should be about spreading sexual liberation throughout the world.

It does discuss fiscal issues, but it does not ignore moral and social ones, since sexual liberation and the breakdown of the family is what drives a lot of the fiscal issues anyway.

The full index to the “Constitution 201” series is on Youtube in this channel.