Stop Bein' Greedy

Bobby Rush on the floor of the House looked like DMX in the video for "Stop Bein' Greedy."  It is so typical for a Chicago legislator to resort to cheap theatrics.  Which may explain why Illinois is the most broke state in the union.  "Two glowin' red eyes/everything else is black."

A liberal legal blog now bemoans the fact that unelected SC justices are poised to overturn a democratically created law.  Which is a fine objection, had the same liberals been consistant enough to feel the same way about courts overturning laws (pornography, traditional marriage, etc.) that their opponents created.  The fact of the matter is that liberals are fine with courts overturning democratically created laws, so long as those laws are "prudish," "heterosexist," or "patriachal."  The same people that created a constitutional right to privacy out of thin air now object to the Supreme Court they have used to their own ends since the FDR years.  "Y'all have eaten long enough now/stop bein' greedy."

Kicking and Screaming, Part Two

Nicholas Hahn claims that being a good executive won Romney the Catholic vote.  Mr. Hahn also says Santorum caught "Potomac fever," whatever that is.  Well, Mr. Hahn, if being a Catholic means loving good executives, they must be mightily displeased with the ecclesiastical politicians calling themselves bishops.  The bishops put their weight behind Obamacare only to have the Contraceptive Mandate shoved down their throats.  If Santorum has Potomac fever, what disease do the other presidential candidates have?  After all, if wanting public office is wrong, then Mitt the Shit and Newt Gingerich have the same defect.  Estase has already given up on 2012.  He voted for Santorum, and the rest of the Illinois GOP chose someone who forced Catholic hospitals to hand out Plan B.  Mitt then lied about it, claiming that this provision of Romneycare was voluntary when it wasn't.  Like Lisa Graas, I see absolutely no difference between Obama and Romney when it comes to freedom for the Catholic Church, and if the Catholic vote went with Romney, that shows how stupid Catholics are. Petasus tip to Kresta in the Morning.

My thought is that if the water is too poisoned between Romney and Santorum for the latter to be his VP, Romney might gain some creditablity as a pro-lifer (where he has none now) by making Michele Bachmann his VP.  I might actually give a damn about whether or not Romney wins in that case.

Update: Justice Stephen Bryer sees nothing wrong with the government forcing people to buy burial insurance.  The 1930s threw most of the freedom to make contracts out the window--vide Wickard v. Filburn, the Social Security Act.  The 30s also were the decade that killed Common Law, and replaced it with an infinitely flexible constitution.

Reading the Riot Act About Burke

The following is from The House of Commons in the Eighteenth Century by P.D.G. Thomas (Oxford, 1971):

His{Hartley} rising always operated like a Dinner Bell. One day, that he had thus wearied out the Patience of his Audience, having nearly cleared out a very full House which was reduced from three hundred to about eighty persons, half asleep;  just at a time when he was expected to close, he unexpectedly moved that the Riot Act should be read, as a document necessary to elucidate, or to prove some of his foregoing assertions.  Burke, who sat close by him. . . laid hold of Hartley by the coat, "The Riot Act! my dear friend, the Riot Act!  To what purpose!  Don't you see that the mob is already completely dispersed?"(p221)

That Burke was a natural target for interruptions can be seen from Wraxall's pen-portrait of him in action:  'Burke constantly wore spectacles.  His enunciation was vehement, rapid, and never checked by any Embarrassment:  for his Ideas outran his Powers of Utterance, and he drew from an exhaustless Source.  But his Irish Accent, which was as strong as if he had never quitted the Banks of the Shannon, diminished to the Ear, the enchanting Effect of his Eloquence on the Mind.  The dazzling oratory of Edmund Burke, adorned with metaphors and similes, makes magnificent prose:  but it must often have been incomprehensible to a large part of his audience.  He spoke too long as well as too fast, and it was part of his practice to speak late in debates.  He lacked the personal or social stature to command respect.  His views were often predictable, and usually unpopular with the majority of members present.  Attempts to stop him were therefore frequent, and sometimes mentioned by Burke himself.  On 10 December 1770 he made this comment during his speech:  'I must address myself to some gentlemen, and I will do it with humility, that they have a disposition, when any gentleman gets up, they don't choose to hear speak, to endeavor the best they can, to drown him with noise, and clamour.  I never knew it was formed into a regular system till today.' Later in the same session Burke reported to Rockingham that on 13 February 1771 he had 'waited for the general reply, until after twelve;  a detachment of Macaronies endeavored to prevent me from speaking, but they did not succeed.'  During his speech Burke remarked, 'I am very glad that the House is full;  but there is another point not so easy to gain--a patient attendance, a very full and patient House.'  Even age and experience did not give Burke immunity from such treatment.  Carl Moritz noted this incident during a speech by him on 9 July 1782 in praise of the recently deceased Lord Rockingham:  'As he did not meet with sufficient attention, and heard much talking and many murmors, he said, with much vehemence and a sense of injured merit, "this is not treatment for so old a Member of Parliament as I am, and I will be heard!"  On which there was immediately a most profound silence.(p225-226).

Edmund Burke was not always popular with his contemporaries, and it is nearly certain that the superficial over at Fox News would have zero use for an Edmund Burke today.

I Coulda Been a Contender!

First article of illogic:  The claim that if polls show that religious freedom isn't at issue with the Contraceptive Mandate, that no such problem exists.  I am sure that if you ran a poll on racial justice in Mississippi in 1920, the poll would have shown that black people there were treated just fine.  Civil rights by opinion poll, anyone?

Second article of illogic: The other blogger, who supports Ron Paul, who called Rick Santorum a crazy right wing extremist.  OK, people, you need to get your story straight.  Either Santorum is a big government Republican, or he is a right wing extremist.  You cannot have it both ways.  By the way, Ron Paul has an isolationist, Pat Buchanan foreign policy, so I think most people would consider him a strong contender for right wing extremist of the current election cycle.

Gutting the Catholic Church

Gary Gutting, philosophy professor at Notre Dame, says that since Catholics often contracept, the Catholic Church no longer teaches that contraception is wrong.  Which sort of implies that any sin, if practiced commonly enough, ceases to be a sin.  How I long for Ralph McInerny to come back from the dead and beat some sense into this guy!  Petasus tip to Cardinal Newman Society.

ATTENTION WAL-MART!  You need to stop selling Jane Fonda workout videos--now!  Sam Walton would spin in his grave if he knew Hanoi Jane was being peddled in his store.  The following is from Robert Coram's book American Patriot:The Life and Wars of Bud Day,
While near Hanoi, Fonda put on the helmet of a Vietnamese soldier and sang antiwar songs.  She sat in the gunner's seat of a AAA battery to "encourage" North Vietnamese soldiers fighting against "American imperialist air raiders."  She made numerous broadcasts over Radio Hanoi--broadcasts the POWs were forced to listen to over "CBS" {Camp Bull Shit} as she denounced Richard Nixon as a "true killer" and lamented his "crimes" against the Vietnamese and said he was "lying" when he said the war was winding down.  Over "CBS" the guards played a tape of Fonda and a group of women outside an army base in New Jersey singing a song called "Fuck the Army." 

Fonda came to Hoa Lo and met with seven POWs.  One of them, Navy lieutenant commander David Hoffman, was tortured until he agreed to appear.  (McCain says he was "knocked around" in an unsuccessful effort to make him meet with Fonda.)  Among the POWs who showed up voluntarily were Lieutenant Colonel Edison Miller {collaborator of the infamous "Bob and Ed Show" the camp inmates were forced to listen to} of the Marines and Commander Walter Eugene Wilber of the Navy.

The legal definition of "treason" includes a phrase about providing "aid and comfort to the enemy." Bud Day and, for that matter, almost all of the POWs say that Fonda had done just that and should have been tried for treason.

They would never forgive her.

Nor should Wal-Mart.

Petasus tip to Gateway Pundit.  They actually have the temerity to cast Hanoi Jane as Nancy Reagan.  Hollywood is shameless.

BEAR TO THE RIGHT

BEAR TO THE RIGHT
Aminoff really outdid himself here.  I especially liked his comment about the KKK, which also was aligned with labor unions in the Herrin, IL riot in 1924.  The people who act as though the Klan was somehow unlinked with Democrats are revisionists, although it is unfortunately true that Governor Len Small coddled the Klan in those same 1920s.

Fake Issues: 1996 and 2012

State Senator Judy Eason McIntyre poses with a sign saying "If I wanted government in my womb I'd F**k a Senator" at a rally against the Oklahoma personhood bill.  Ha ha. If I wanted government in my church, I would vote for Mitt Romney.

Petasus tip to the Clue Batting Cage.  Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill is now claiming that she is supporting the Contraceptive Mandate and opposing the Blunt Amendment because she wants to reduce the number of abortions.  Hilarious!  And I'm sure that's why Dick Durbin, Kirsten Gillibrand, and all the rest of the pro-aborts want to make the Church violate her own teachings too!  It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Obama and the liberals have made birth control the star issue of the 2012 election, and want to pretend that anyone who doesn't want government to force the Catholic Church to pay for contraceptives really wants no one to have contraceptives at all, would it?  Just like how the liberals made cigarettes the fake issue of 1996, and kept acting as though Bob Dole's whole raison d'etre was to make elementary schools hand them out like candy?  No, changing the subject from real to fake issues is never a liberal tactic!

Ask Pepsi to stop contracting with Senomyx!

Restore-DC-Catholicism: Some Thoughts Regarding The Archdiocese's Disgusting Treatment Of Father Guarnizo

Restore-DC-Catholicism: Some Thoughts Regarding The Archdiocese's Disgusting Treatment Of Father Guarnizo
In addition to this link, Estase includes the following quote from Mark Steyn's NR column entitled "The Church of Big Government":   The Catholic hierarchy's fawning indulgence of the Beltway's abortion zealots and serial annullers is not reciprocated:  The Church of Government punishes apostasy ever more zealously.  The state no longer criminalizes a belief in transubstantiation, mainly because most people have no idea what that is.  But they know what sex is, and, if the price of Pierre Trudeau's assertion that "the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation" is that the state has to take an ever larger place in the churches and colleges and hospitals and insurance agencies and small businesses of the nation, they're cool with that.  North of the border, motoring around the once-Catholic bastion of Quebec, you'll pass every couple of miles one of the province's many, many churches, and invariably out front you'll see a prominant billboard bearing the slogan "Notre patrimoine religieux-c'est sacre!"  "Our religious heritage-it's sacred!"  Which translated from the statist code-speak means:"Our religious heritage-it's over!"  But it's left every Quebec community with a lot of big, prominantly positioned buildings, and not all of them can be, as Montreal's Saint-Jean de la Croix and Couvent de Marie Reparatrice were, converted int luxury three-quarter-million-dollar condos.  So to prevent them from decaying into downtown eyesores, there's a government-funded program to preserve them as spiffy-looking husks.

Apparently, Cardinal Wuerl wishes for his diocese to be like these Canadian Catholics-- a quaint and accomodating anachronism.  Steve Kellmeyer blogged last week http://www.skellmeyer.blogspot.com/ "Snips and Snails and Rattlesnake Tails" that the only reason American Cardinals are upset about the Contraception Mandate is because it means none of them will have any chance at being Pope now.  The treatment of this parish priest lends support to this theory.

George Neumyer at The American Spectator says Fr. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit (insert joke here) called for Wuerl to send Fr. Guarnizo to the Gulag.  Cardinal Wuerl is influential in Rome, and according to Neumyer, he reports unfavorable press to the Vatican.  Mommy, make the mean people stop saying bad things about me!  Waaah!  This is the kind of guy the Pope gave a red hat to!

Freedom From Religion Foundation Trots Out Bertie

The Freedom From Religion Foundation thinks Contraception is like using an umbrella(?), says liberal Catholics are "better" than their "antidiluvian, ignorant" church, and trots out pacifist commie philosopher Bertie Russell in a vitriolic ad aimed at getting liberal Catholics to leave.  Frankly, any stupid enough to fall for this should have left long before. Petasus tip to Gateway Pundit

McCaskill Rejects Blunt Amendment

Putative moderate, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, joined with radical liberals like Dick Durbin and Kirsten Gillibrand in supporting the Contraception Mandate by rejecting the Blunt Amendment.  Senator McCaskill represents a state which would reject the kind of politics she espouses if she were up front and honest about who she is, which is emphatically not a moderate.

HEK 293:  Pepsi Cola--Now featuring the great taste of aborted baby!

Reliapundit Goes Anti-Catholic

The Astute Bloggers must be the most mis-named pile of garbage on the internet.  The mental state of Reliapundit can be accessed from the fact that he writes everything in capital letters.  I left a comment with him (which I assume they won't allow) complaining about their latest stunt, a graphic which mockingly depicts Rick Santorum as a Catholic Saint, the kind of cheap character assasination usually reserved for Daily Kos.  Reliapundit is deep in the hole for Romney, a pro-choice liberal whose ego seems to be such that he's had the delusion for ten years that he should be the Republican candidate for President.  The current controversy about the Contraception Mandate in Obamacare is a perfect example of why Romney is unsuited for the presidency--Romneycare forced Catholic hospitals to provide abortifacients.  So for Romney to condemn Obama for doing the same thing he himself did is the height of hypocrisy.  Is Santorum perfect?  Did he support earmarks?  Like Romney, he did.  But for a Romney booster to attack Santorum as too far to the left is risable.  Romney is a liberal in conservative's clothes, and no one but Ann Coulter and the rest of the establishment morons thinks anything different.

Joey Fishkin at Balkinization claims that the latest compromise on said Contraception Mandate is that insurance companies will mythically give free contraception to policy holders, and that no Church money will pay for contraception.  That is logically impossible.  If the Church pays for the policy, it necessarily pays for any service offered by that company.  Unless of course pharmaceutical companies intend to produce their product free of cost?  That seems impossible too.  So this "compromise" is nothing but the kind of logical make-believe casuistry that used to give Jesuits a bad name, before they started doing the things that currently give them a bad name.

Sandy Levinson at the same Balkinization questions Santorum's position on onanism, an odd question meant to equivocate between the types of onanism (right hand and contraception).  Of course, the right hand type of onanism costs nothing, and hence Catholic organizations could never be expected to pay for it.  Maybe Ms. Levinson wishes for Oh Blah Blah to now make the Church buy strokers and magazines for their employees?  It seems just the sort of all/nothing red herring that pro-aborts, and secondary liberals in general are so fond of.

Update:  On his site, Reliapundit calls me "an asshole" and "a fucking moron."  This is the mentality of Romney supporters.  The fact that Politico is reportedly the source does not change the fact that The Astute Bloggers used this piece of anti-Catholic mockery.

Just Another Loony Blog

This goes out to the Odd William Oddie, who called Q.E.D. "just another loony blog," and claimed I made up all I said about his hit piece on Rick Santorum.  Mr. Oddie can claim that his claim that Santorum cannot win is based on the political buzz of the mainstream media, which studiously claims that only Romney can be the nominee.  He backtracked on saying that Santorum was "demented" on NHS, retreating to the position of Santorum being grossly uninformed about the wonders of socialized healthcare.  Mr. Oddie used the socialist-speak of calling Santorum a "neo-liberal," something he seems now to have forgotten in his calling Q.E.D. "another loony blog."   No, Mr. Oddie, I don't make it all up.  I can read and I can also remember what you said in your original hit piece.

The problem with Chesterton, who was the inspiration of so many like Oddie, is that it is based on the Tory Radical William Cobbett, and like all Toryism, Cobbettry is odious to those of us who style ourselves Whigs.  Am I making that up too, Mr. Oddie?  You know, Mr. Oddie, you have a much bigger audience of readers than I do, and you probably have better things to do than berate my blog. 

Postscript:  The Navy is going to name a ship after Congresswoman Giffords?  Huh?  Was Ms. Giffords ever even in the Navy?  It would be better to name a ship after M.C. Hammer--at least he was in the Navy.  It says something about the Oh Blah Blah administration that being a crime victim entitles you to having a combat vessel named after you.

Who Will Rid Me of This Meddlesome Priest?

Sarah Posner in Salon.com defends the undefendable by claiming Catholic bishops want "a special deal," and that Obama cannot give a conscience exception to Catholic institutions because that would "harm everybody else."  First of all, how would it harm non-Catholics for Catholics to be excepted from contraception and abortion in Obamacare?  After all, these people love the bumper sticker philosophy of "If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one."  Well, if Catholics don't believe in contraception and abortion, then why do they have to participate in them?  The first argument doesn't hold water either, because Obamacare was created through several "special deals," everything from the Cornhusker Kickback for Ben Nelson to special exemptions for companies like McDonalds, who otherwise would have been liable for health care for their employees.   According to Ms. Posner, the effort to go along and get along with religious leaders was a bad idea, and stabbing liberal bishops in the back simply good politics.

On a different subject, a new Caterpillar plant will not be located in the People's Republic of Illinois, yet another testament to the fiscal management of Governor Pat Quinn, the Chicago machine, and complacent Republican insiders. 

Tip of the petasus to Stop FOI Censorship.  The University of Victoria deestablishes its pro-life group.  Pro-lifers are public enemy one on many university campii, and my own alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign did much the same thing, ironically while giving Campus for Choice their own room in the SRO complex.

What Did You Expect, Part Two

Irony is a word that comes to mind when I read the nun who writes at Te Deum Laudamus about the deafening silence of the Church on contraception, as she has a sidebar encouraging prayer for Archbishop Viguron of Detroit.  OK, so you're saying that the Church needs to speak out about what it believes vis a vis the Contraceptive Mandate?  But then you are also supporting the Bishop who is trying to silence Michael Voris?  Call me crazy, but if the bishops of the United States would occasionally listen to Voris instead of demanding he stop calling himself Catholic, we might not be faced with a problem like the Contraceptive Mandate.  Follow your bishop, even as he advocates a program that compels you to pay for contraception and abortion!  And then act surprised!

Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: Anti-Catholic Bigtory: A Rant

Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: Anti-Catholic Bigtory: A Rant
The motivations of the administration are just as Father Powell so eloquently states.  The Army forbid the reading of the Military Archbishop on the Contraception Mandate, showing that Army chaplains do not even have the right to speak for their own Church anymore.  I think the First Amendment is sick unto dying when it comes to religious freedom.

Hurwitz Nomination to Ninth Circuit

One of the intellectual parents of Roe v. Wade, Andrew Hurwitz, is reportedly being nominated for the Ninth Circuit Court.  ATTENTION MARK KIRK!  I know you think that approving judicial nominees is "a waste of time," but it is also YOUR JOB!  I don't know why the milquetoast RINOs who run the Illinois Republican Party foisted you on us, but you might redeem yourself by keeping this pro-abort extremist from legislating from the bench.  Unless you think it's a waste of time.

Occupy Your Church

Tip of the petasus to LifeSiteNews.  Occupy Providence attacks a pro-life rally in the Rhode Island capital, throwing condoms onto Catholic school girls, shouting down speakers, and refusing to let a priest close the event with a prayer.  OWS is not just about rich people anymore.  Go to Salon.com, those slimeballs have seen fit to devote a whole section of their website to these Stalinists.  They want abortion as much as redistribution of wealth.  I remember reading an article by a priest defending OWS as having legitimate grievances.  I hope the Catholic clergy wakes up on OWS.  It reminds me of a Industrial Workers of the World poster which showed a rich person with the caption "They Eat for You," and then showed a Catholic priest with the caption "They Fool You."  The Wobblies also had a song deriding religion called "Long Haired Preacher Man." 

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post says the GOP is brain dead, giving as evidence. . . .well, don't worry about why.  But the fact that Republican candidates are different in outlook than Teeth-Clicker means they're yahoos.  I wonder what he thinks of the people who elected Bachmann Congresswoman?  Or the people who elected Santorum Senator?  Bumpkins, dolts, morons all.  The really enlightened people are we Illinoisians, who not only elected Teeth-Clicker to the Congress and Senate, but have proven our mettle with a wide variety of distinguished statesmen.  Jim Thompson, the son of the fabulously corrupt Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson.  Paul Simon, who knew about as much about government as the singer of the same name.  George Ryan, he of the bribed DMV workers.  Dick Durbin, the Special Olympian of the Senate.  And last, but not least, Rod Blagogevich, the seller of Teeth-Clicker's Senate seat.  Yes, compared to Illinois, the people of Pennsylvania and Minnesota are indeed bumpkins, dolts and morons.  Thanks for pointing out their anti-intellectualism Mr. Cohen!

What Did You Expect?

At Mass yesterday, a letter was read from Bishop Jenky of the Peoria Diocese strongly condemning the fact that no exemption from Obamacare's contraception mandate would be given the Catholic Church.  The bishop said that destroying Catholic institutions may well have been the intention of this action.  My reaction was something along the lines of "What did you expect?"  I watched with increasing nausea as various bishops welcomed Obamacare, often complaining it didn't go farther by including illegal aliens.  Cardinal Martino from the Vatican praised Obamacare.  And all the while lowly Estase with a blog nobody reads could see the writing on the wall.  Obamacare would necessarily fund contraception and abortion, and anybody who didn't anticipate this was willfully naive.  So for bishops to be entirely surprised by this development strikes me as nearly stupid.

As for the laity, I think the bishops had better give up.  One of the EMEs at my town's parish was a big Obama booster in 2008.  As Bishop Jenky's letter was read, the man in front of me shook his head, not in a "That's terrible!" way, but in a "Give it up!" way.  The days when people would die for the faith probably ended with Edmund Campion and Margaret Clitherow.  Now Catholics want to live the same jaded lives as everyone else.

Harpo Marx Doritos Commercial

The ad men who created the latest Doritos commercials are demented.  The ad shows a man pulling off another man's pants to suck off the cheese residue.  The camera then shows the subject's face in orgasmic glee as he exclaims "Doritos!"  The same man is then shown sucking the cheese residue off another man's fingers, a clear shorthand for oral sex used to great effect in the original "Hellraiser" by Clive Barker.  I haven't seen such an obvious sex joke since Quizno's showed a sub sandwich working up and down in a paper wrapper and an oven ordering "put it in me" with regards to a phallic sandwich.  Does anyone remember Harpo Marx sucking the black hose in "A Night at the Opera?"  Apparently, eating Doritos is like performing Clinton sex.

Of course, it is entirely possible to go to the other extreme, and find things offensive that really shouldn't offend anyone.  I recently saw a comment on the National Catholic Register website where some prude complained about the scene in "Alvin and the Chipmunks" where Simon pretended to eat his brother's bowel movement so Dave wouldn't realize he made it on the couch.  If anyone is on such a holiness and purity kick that that offends them, they need to be medicated.  In my German class in college, my grad assistant brought in a German children's book that makes the Alvin and the Chipmunks joke look restrained and tasteful in comparison.  It is one thing to find oral sex references too much, but a scat joke once in a while is all in good fun.

St. Joseph's College and Abortion

Tip of the petasus to Cardinal Newman Society.  St. Joseph's College in Indiana chooses to celebrate MLK day by bringing in Professor Adia Harvey-Wingfield, a pro-abort who says the Republican Party is racist!  It is no secret most Catholic organizations hate Republicans, but can't they find a Republican hater who isn't also a pro-abort?  Unless St. Joseph's College is unsure of how they feel about abortion.