Mulieris Dignitatem

13 June 2010

Hot Air » On The Table

On The Table

posted at 6:06 pm on June 12, 2010 by Doctor Zero

Some grim humor could be found earlier this week, in the spectacle of the President’s “deficit reduction commission” going over budget and running out of money. The entire premise of the commission is absurd. The deficit is not the problem. It’s a symptom. The disease is government spending. No administration or Congress dominated by Democrats has any chance of diagnosing this disease, let alone treating it effectively. There is some chance the Republicans will do better, but only if we keep on top of them.

Watching this Presidential commission discuss strategies for deficit reduction is like watching a pack of gluttons talk about getting in shape while they prowl up and down a buffet table. They linger over the deep-fried mortgage interest deduction caps, dip their spoons into the rich chocolate of the VAT tax, and lick their lips as they wait for the expired Bush tax cuts to pop out of the oven. They end up perched on the edge of creaking chairs, tittering at the wonderfully naughty idea of devouring everyone’s 401k plans for dessert. It’s a nauseating spectacle that will only end when they’re escorted from the restaurant by angry voters.

The President made some headlines when he reversed his campaign promises, and spoke of broad tax increases being “on the table.” This is an outrage, in light of the vast, corrupt, and wasteful government Obama presides over. It’s also dangerously foolish. The American economy has no more pounds of flesh to feed the government leviathan. From here on in, everything cut from us will be muscle and bone. Higher taxes will consume the wealth needed for investment and job creation, reducing the value of the economy… leading to calls for even higher tax rates, to maintain the government’s revenue stream.

President Obama was elected by an emotionally and morally exhausted populace, convinced it could find refuge from the rough battlefields of international prominence and free-market responsibility in the arms of maternal government. The automated growth of government requires the public’s continued fatigue. We are assured that every nickel of the bloated State is locked into place, protected by a permanent constituency, and every dollar of its future growth is a matter of destiny. Spending cuts are impossible, so if you want something done about that deficit, we’ll have to talk about some exciting new tax increases. As the 2010 campaign swings into high gear, the Democrats will be cautiously probing voters, to learn if they’re weak enough to believe the opponents of those “inevitable” tax increases are the deficit-busting spendthrifts.

I think the Democrats will be disappointed. The Tea Party movement is all about citizens re-discovering their strength, and rising to challenge a system that claims to be inescapable. There are a lot of things we want to put “on the table.” For starters, let’s not send almost half a billion dollars to fund a genocidal terror state dedicated to the destruction of our allies. We don’t want to eliminate all foreign aid, but we can certainly halt the madcap extravagance of checkbook capitulation to remorseless evil.

No politician has any business talking about tax increases until ObamaCare is repealed. It’s the most comprehensively failed legislation of the modern era. Like a taxi that runs on plutonium, it’s costing us a fortune, and making us sick, even while it’s sitting there and doing nothing. Sold with fanciful promises and fraudulent cost estimates, it’s another expensive scheme to buy votes with taxpayer money, ending with a planned crisis the government will be only too happy to step in and “solve” by seizing even more of our wealth and liberty. Its passage stymied serious attempts at real improvements to our health-care system, including tort reform and allowing the interstate sale of insurance plans to increase competition. As with so many other delusional Big Government programs, the opportunity cost of passing ObamaCare, and passing up on reasonable plans that enhance individual liberty, rivals its staggering price tag. We’ll come trillions closer to a balanced budget by shredding it.

Another item that must be on the table is the abolition of public-sector employee unions. The entire concept is ridiculous, a system that transforms taxpayers into serfs for a pampered aristocracy that hates them. Public employee unions produce a cycle of demand, despair, and violence that begins with fingers bitten off, and ends with murder by arson in the streets of Athens. Much of the loot from Obama’s $800 billion stimulus heist was used to pay off public unions. All talk of government “austerity” is meaningless babble until these organizations have been dissolved.

The titanic federal payroll surged with incredible speed under Obama, even as private sector employment crashed. This trend must be reversed, quickly and forcefully. A government reduced to playing Parcheesi with census workers to inflate employment figures has drained far too many resources from the private sector. Reducing government payroll will cause unemployment to rise in the short term, but releasing both workers and capital into the private sector is the only way to improve the long-term health of the economy. Those terminated government workers will have to live without their gold-plated benefit packages and bloated salaries, and they’ll need to make do with the same health-care options as the rest of us… but we will find good use for their talents, beyond the imagination of central planners.

The state religion of environmentalism goes on the table, too. The lawless, unelected bureaucracy of the Environmental Protection Agency must be dissolved. Further attempts to divert public funds into the global-warming fraud should be prosecuted. No more rogue government agencies with limitless power, bottomless budgets, and fanatical agendas. No more forced tithe to the primitive spiritual beliefs of our arrogant elite.

The time has indeed come to put many things on the table. All of them are dusty, overpriced relics of discredited statist theories and collectivist ideology. How long has it been since Americans were allowed to tackle anyserious problem by enhancing their liberty? Who can remember the last time we approached a situation by reducing the burden of regulation and taxation on our private citizens, unleashing their energy and creativity? When was the last time we were allowed to view a crisis as an opportunity for the private sector, rather than the State?

The government’s table covers thirteen trillion square yards, held together with platinum nails. It seats an exclusive clientele of top politicians and their allies, but there’s plenty of room beneath it, for the rest of us to fight over the scraps. We can fit an awful lot of garbage on that table, when we’ve dismissed the representatives who can’t suggest anything but tax increases as a solution to the deficit. After we complete that process in 2012, we can start chopping the table up for firewood, to fuel the unfettered forges of American industry and imagination. What happens after that will be unpredictable, uncontrollable, and exhilarating. We shouldn’t want it any other way.

Cross-posted at www.doczero.org.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
To see the comments on the original post, look here.

12 June 2010

Video: Homeless Man Praises Republican New Jersey Governor's Policies | NewsBusters.org

By EyeBlast.tv Staff (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 18:02 ET

A New Jersey man who lives out of his van appeared at a town hall in Roxbury, New Jersey, to voice his support for Governor Chris Christie (R-N.J.) and his policies. He says they will provide people like him the best opportunities to improve their situations.

Make sure you visit this post at the Eyeblast blog for more details on and discussion of the interaction.

Get a Free "I Don't Believe the Liberal Media!" Bumper Sticker!

10 June 2010

No Sheeples Here: WARNING: This Flag Is More Than A Piece Of Cloth

Call me a sentimental old fool. I happen to think that America’s history and the sacrifice of generations who fought for our flag and our country means more than just a piece of cloth at the end of a pole. It represents freedom and American ideals.

The American flag flies on the moon, hurtling out in space on a gravity-less lunar surface, planted there by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. It flew at Ft. McHenry in 1814 and was the inspiration for Francis Scott Key’s immortal “Star Spangled Banner”. It was raised at great peril on Mount Suribachi in 1945 on the godforsaken island of Iwo Jima. It sits atop Mount Everest, placed there by American mountaineer Jim Whittaker in May of 1963. When our Olympians stand victoriously on the podium, Old Glory is raised high above their heads. The flag is how America signs her name. The flag is the emblem of America’s collective character.

There’s a commotion going on about Wilder Productions adding a warning label on its reprints of the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation and the Federalist Papers.

It reads, in part: “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

Can someone please tell me why there must be a warning label on the only safeguard of our liberties? It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who is credited with saying that “the United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.”

As Flag Day, which is celebrated each June 14th approaches, let us remember the poignant words of John F. Kennedy, who on October 27, 1963 said, “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors; the men it remembers.”

As long as older gentlemen stand ramrod straight to salute Old Glory; as long a brave young men go to fight a war on distant soil so that the enemy doesn’t fight us in our homeland and until I am no more, I will stand guard over liberty. Will you join me?

The next time you catch a glimpse of the moon, remember, there’s a flag up there.

09 June 2010

Dorothy Rabinowitz: The Alien in the White House - WSJ.com

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

Getty Images

One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.

Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.

Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general, confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of the House Judicary Committee on May 13.

Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything negative about any religion."

And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."

He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."

Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.

Long after Mr. Obama leaves office, it will be this parade of explicators, laboring mightily to sell each new piece of official reality revisionism—Janet Napolitano and her immortal "man-caused disasters'' among them—that will stand most memorably as the face of this administration.

It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.

It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.

It was why this administration tapped officials like Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Among his better known contributions to political discourse was a 2005 address in which he compared the treatment of Muslim-Americans in the United States after 9/11 with the plight of the Japanese-Americans interned in camps after Pearl Harbor. During a human-rights conference held in China this May, Mr. Posner cited the new Arizona immigration law by way of assuring the Chinese, those exemplary guardians of freedom, that the United States too had its problems with discrimination.

So there we were: America and China, in the same boat on human rights, two buddies struggling for reform. For this view of reality, which brought withering criticism in Congress and calls for his resignation, Mr. Posner has been roundly embraced in the State Department as a superbly effective representative.

It is no surprise that Mr. Posner—like numerous of his kind—has found a natural home in this administration. His is a sensibility and political disposition with which Mr. Obama is at home. The beliefs and attitudes that this president has internalized are to be found everywhere—in the salons of the left the world over—and, above all, in the academic establishment, stuffed with tenured radicals and their political progeny. The places where it is held as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.

They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.

Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

» Paine vs. Jay: Patriots in Contrast - Big Government

Paine vs. Jay: Patriots in Contrast

by Alan Snyder

Thomas Paine. John Jay. Take a survey of current conservative/libertarian activists and you will probably find Paine’s numbers higher on the recognition scale. Everybody, it seems, likes to quote him. Even Ronald Reagan used Paine’s words when he said, “We have the power to begin the world anew.” Paine’s Common Sense was the catalyst as the American colonies reluctantly concluded that independence from Britain was necessary. His Crisis series of newspaper articles, begun at a low point in the American Revolution, are stirring. Even many of our poorly educated students probably can recall hearing these words somewhere: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Thomas Paine: Wordsmith

Yet this man who made such an impact on the early days of the Revolution was an utter failure in business back in England, was dismissed from his position as excise officer because of neglect of duty, and separated from his wife in 1774 just as he decided to emigrate to America. If not for Common Sense, in particular, his influence on the new nation would have been negligible. Some people are great with words and little else. Paine fit that mold.

When the American Revolution ended, he tried his hand at inventing, but being unsuccessful at that, he eventually traveled to France to take part in the Revolution stirring there. He became a French citizen, served in the Convention [legislature], though without distinction [he couldn't speak French], and ended up in prison when the Revolution took an even more radical turn. Only the intercession of the American ambassador James Monroe extricated Paine from that predicament.

He then wrote The Age of Reason, an attack upon Christianity that did not go over well with the American public. Upon returning to America in 1802, he was not well received because of his radical religious views. Poverty, poor health, and alcoholism dominated his final years; his funeral in 1809 was attended by six people.

The name John Jay is relegated to the dim recesses of this same time period, at least among those who have only a cursory knowledge of the beginnings of the United States. Those who have studied it in depth realize what a debt is owed this man.

John Jay: Indispensable

In many ways, he was the anti-Paine. A New Yorker who lived in the New World all his life [his family were French Huguenots who had to flee Catholic persecution], Jay was far more conservative than his wordsmith counterpart. He participated in many of the meetings prior to independence, always offering words of caution. He even helped draft the Olive Branch petition to the king as a last desperate effort to keep the empire from civil war.

Once the decision for independence was made, however, Jay threw himself into the fray with total dedication. He worked at both the state and national levels during the Revolution: Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, then president of the Continental Congress. The Congress appointed Jay as ambassador to Spain to try to get more European backing for the new nation. He spent three years working in an almost thankless task, joining Franklin and John Adams at the end of the war as one of the chief negotiators with the British government for the Treaty of Paris.

Upon returning to the new United States, Jay was elected Secretary of Foreign Affairs, a post he held from 1784 to 1789. In the push to amend the Articles of Confederation, he collaborated with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in authoring the Federalist Papers. He didn’t write many of them simply because he suffered an illness at that time.

In Washington’s first administration, Jay was called upon to serve as Chief Justice of the new Supreme Court. When Washington needed an experienced diplomat to deal with Great Britain, he called upon Jay. We would never today mix the branches of government the way Washington did in this instance, but he felt no one else had the experience to handle the British.

He then did something no one would do now: he resigned as Chief Justice to become governor of New York. In that capacity, he had the privilege of signing into law a bill leading to the gradual elimination of slavery in that state, a goal Jay had been working for his entire life.

After his governorship, Jay retired from public life, but he didn’t retire from activity. He later became president of the American Bible Society, another indication that he was the anti-Paine.

Activists today revere Thomas Paine, due to his strong words. Few know of John Jay. Paine’s contributions were primarily words; Jay’s contributions were actions that helped shape what the nation would be. In our desire to change what we currently see taking place in our government, it’s tempting to be a Paine [and some people are, in both senses], but wouldn’t it be better to be a Jay? Paines have their uses, but Jays are indispensable.

08 June 2010

No Sheeples Here: Picture Of The Day

No Sheeples Here: Picture Of The Day: "Day"

Some 215,000 Allied soldiers, and roughly as many Germans, were killed or wounded during D-Day and the nearly three months it took to secure the capture of Normandy.

Governor Christie: NJ Supreme Court and School Funding

07 June 2010

Le Fleur de Lys too: Oradour sur-Glane 10 June 1944...

Oradour sur-Glane 10 June 1944...

This post, originally written several years ago will return every year in June, because it is important to remember.

Two events among many from Second World War have become infamous for Nazis atrocities perpetrated by the SS. Both happened on the same day two years apart. The massacre of Lidice in Bohemia, and Oradour sur-Glane. Although Lidice is remembered by the renaming of towns across the world, Oradour-sur-Glane is only remembered by the French and by we too few historians...

Around 2 p.m. on 10 June 1944, four days after the Allied invasion of Normandy, approximately 150 Waffen-SS soldiers entered the tranquil village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the Limosin region of south central France. For no apparent reason, Hitler's elite troops destroyed every building in this peaceful village and brutally murdered a total of 642 innocent men, women and children, an unexplained tragedy which has gone down in history as one of the worst war crimes committed by the German army in World War II.

On that beautiful Summer day, the defenseless inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane were rudely dragged out of their homes, including the sick and the elderly, and ordered to assemble on the Fairgrounds on the pretext of checking their identity papers. After all had been assembled, they were forced to wait in suspense with machine guns pointed at them. Then the women were separated from the men and marched a short distance to the small Catholic Church, carrying infants in their arms or pushing them in baby carriages.

The men were then ordered to line up in three rows and face a wall that bordered on the Fairgrounds. A short time later, they were randomly divided into groups and herded into six buildings: barns, garages, a smithy, and a wine storehouse. Around 4 p.m., a loud explosion was heard which was interpreted by the men to be a signal for the SS soldiers to begin firing their machine guns. Most of the men were wounded in the legs and then burned alive when every building in the village was set on fire at around 5 p.m. By some miracle, 6 of the men managed to escape from one of the burning barns and 5 of them survived. They testified in court about this completely unjustified German barbarity against blameless French civilians.

The Oradour church only had a seating capacity of 350 persons, but 245 frightened women and 207 sobbing children were forced inside at gunpoint while the men were still sitting on the grass of the Fairgrounds, awaiting their fate. The women and children were locked inside the church while the SS soldiers systematically looted all the homes in this prosperous farming village. Then around 4 p.m. a couple of SS soldiers carried a gas bomb inside this holy place and set it off, filling the church with a cloud of noxious black smoke. Their intention had been to asphyxiate the women and children in the House of God, but their plan failed.

As the women and children pressed against the doors, trying to escape and struggling to breathe, SS soldiers then entered the crowded, smoke-filled church and fired hundreds of shots at the hapless victims, while other SS men stood outside ready to machine-gun anyone who attempted to escape. The soldiers fired low inside the church in order to hit the small children. Babies in their prams were blown up by hand grenades, filled with gas, that were tossed into the church. Then brushwood and straw was carried into the stone church and piled on top of the writhing bodies of those that were not yet dead. The church was then set on fire, burning alive the women and babies who had only been wounded by the shots and the grenades. The clamour coming from the church could be heard for a distance of two kilometers, according the Bishop's office report.

The fire inside the church was so intense that the flames leaped up into the bell tower; the bronze church bells melted from the heat of the flames and fell down onto the floor of the church. One SS soldier was accidentally killed by falling debris when the roof of the church steeple collapsed.

Only one woman, a 47-year-old grandmother, escaped from the church. Taking advantage of a cloud of smoke, she hid behind the main altar where she found a ladder that had been left there for the purpose of lighting the candles on the altar. Madame Marguerite Rouffanche, the lone survivor of the massacre in the church, managed to escape by using the ladder to climb up to a broken window behind the altar, then leaping out of the window, which was 9 feet from the ground. Although hit by machine gun fire and wounded 4 times in the legs and once in the shoulder, she was able to crawl to the garden behind the presbytery where she hid among the rows of peas until she was rescued, 24 hours later, at 5 p.m. the next day, and taken to the hospital in Limoges where she was admitted under an assumed name. It took a full year for her to recover from her wounds. In 1953, she testified before a French military tribunal in Bordeaux about the massacre of the women and children in the church.

After the war, the village received a citation from the Nation of France, which reads as follows:

"The methodical rounding up, the deliberate massacre of these 700 men, women and children, the systematic destruction of these 328 buildings, is the archetypal example of a French community that suffered under barbarism. A motiveless crime, an unthinking cruelty which did nothing but lift the patriotic fervour of the French people, stiffen their desire for liberation, and add to, if possible, the dishonour of Germany and the disgust it engendered."

The "fateful day" of the massacre was a Saturday. The villagers were looking forward to the Sunday Mass the next day, which was to be the First Communion day for some of the children. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article the 10th of June was also the date of the German destruction of the town of Lidice, two years earlier, in what is now the Czech Republic. At the trial of the perpetrators in 1953, the survivors of Lidice were invited to witness the proceedings, along with the survivors of Oradour-sur-Glane.

Oui, je me souviens...
Brantigny

Other photographs of Oradour sur-Glane may be found here...

V for Victory!: Corpus Christi

The richest, most beautiful, most gem-encrusted monstrance in the world is trash compared to what it contains. We can't make a monstrance that's really good enough or worthy enough. But we can do our best. And this...

...is a MONSTRANCE.

And not long after this picture was taken, the cardinal kneeling before the monstrance would become Pope Pius XII.

The Eucharist is not just a wafer. These Hosts are older than the United States: they were consecrated in Sienna, Italy, 36 years before the Declaration of Independence. Read more about them here.

Most famous, perhaps, is the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, Italy. 1,300 years ago, a monk offering Mass had a doubt about the Real Presence; after the consecration, the veils of bread and wine were torn aside. And are still torn aside.

Scientific studies confirmed that the Flesh that had been the Host is human cardiac tissue; the Blood (coagulated into five particles) is type AB.

Read about more Eucharistic miracles here. And here is a really good book about Eucharistic miracles.

V for Victory!: Ike's D-Day Address to the Allied Expeditionary Force

Ike's D-Day Address to the Allied Expeditionary Force

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

V for Victory!: June 6, 1944: D-Day

FDR's address to the nation on June 6, 1944.

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.

Saints.SQPN.com » Blog Archive » Saint Margaret of Cortona

Saint Margaret of Cortona

[Saint Margaret of Cortona]
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22 February

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Farmer’s daughter. Her mother died when Margaret was seven years old, and her stepmother considered the girl a nuisance. Margaret eloped with a young nobleman from Montepulciano, bore him a son, and lived as his mistress for nine years. In 1274 he was murdered by brigands, and his body dumped in a shallow grave.

Margaret saw the incident as a sign from God. She publicly confessed to the affair, and tried to return to her father’s house; he would not accept her. She and her son took shelter with the Friars Minor at Cortona. Still young and attractive, Margaret sometimes had trouble resisting temptation, but each incident was followed by periods of deep self-loathing. To make herself unappealing to local young men, she once tried to mutilate herself, but was stopped by a Friar named Giunta.

She earned her keep by tending to sick women. She later began caring for the sick poor, living on alms, asking nothing for her services. She became a Franciscan tertiary in 1277. Margaret developed an deep and intense prayer life, and was given to ecstacies during which she received messages from heaven.

In 1286 Margaret received a charter to work with the sick poor. She gathered others of like mind, and formed them into a community of tertiaries. They were later given the status of a congregation, and called the Poverelle (Poor Ones). With them she founded a hospital at Cortona. Margaret preached against vice of all sorts to any who would listen. She developed a great devotion to the Eucharist and Passion, and prophesied the date of her own death.

Though she worked for those in need, and though the poor sought her help and advice, the calumny of her earlier life followed her the rest of her days, and she was forever the target of local gossips.

Born

1247 at Loviano, Tuscany, Italy

Died

22 February 1297 at Cortona, Italy of natural causes

Beatified

1515 by Pope Leo X

Canonized

16 May 1728 by Pope Benedict XIII

Patronage

Images

Gallery of images of Saint Margaret

Additional Information

Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
Catholic Encyclopedia, by Father Cuthbert
Catholic Online
For All The Saints, by Katherine Rabenstein
Google Directory
New Catholic Dictionary
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints, by Matthew Bunson, Margaret Bunson, and Stephen Bunson

Readings

O Saint Margaret of Cortona, I too come today as a pilgrim and I pause to pray with you at the feet of the image of Christ Crucified and Risen, whom, as a penitent, you contemplated at length. Lord Jesus, crucified for us, in offering yourself on Calvary for all humanity, you have revealed to us the wellsprings of everlasting life. May the mystery of your Passion enlighten our life making us ready to follow you on the way of holiness and love. Rekindle our faith; teach us to recognize and welcome in our everyday life the plans of your mysterious Providence. Give us the courage to confess our sins and open our hearts to sorrow, in order to receive the gift of your mercy. Empower us to forgive our brethren following the example of your love that knows no bounds. Help us to be humbly disposed to repair the harm we have done by actively and generously serving the poor, the sick, and all who are marginalized and without hope. Give everyone the joy of persevering faithfully, in full harmony with the Church, along the way of the particular calling. Above all others, show the young the splendid plan of love that you intend to bring about for them and with them at the threshold of the new millennium. Enable us to be peacemakers, tenacious weavers of daily relationships of fraternal solidarity, artisans of reconciliation, witnesses and apostles of the civilization of love. O glorious Saint Margaret of Cortona, present this request to your Crucified Lord and ours. Guide us with the strength of your example, support us with your constant protection, be our companion we beg you, till we reach our Father’s house. Amen. - Pope John Paul II, 1999

Category: Beatified by Pope Leo X, Beatified in 1515, Born in 1247, Canonized by Pope Benedict XIII, Canonized in 1728, Died in 1297, Saints Beati and Venerables, Saints who were Franciscans, Saints who were Mothers, Saints who were Poor Ones, Saints who were Single Mothers, Saints who were Tertiaries, Saints who were Visionaries | Trackback

Catholic Archbishop Tries to Stop Pro-Gay Military Policy

By Cliff Kincaid | June 7, 2010

Reacting to passage of pro-gay military legislation in the Congress, the Catholic Archbishop for the Military Services says repeal of the Pentagon’s homosexual exclusion policy would sanction “immoral activity” and “jeopardize morale, good morals, unit cohesion and every other factor that weakens the [military] mission.”

In a late-breaking development that could imperil the ultimate passage of legislation to open the military to open and active homosexuals, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the chief shepherd of Catholics in the United States Armed Forces, has issued a powerful statement saying that the Bible demands disapproval of homosexuality and that “Under no circumstances can they [homosexual acts] be approved.”

Appointed as Archbishop of the Military Services on November 19, 2007, by Pope Benedict XVI, Broglio is in charge of certifying Roman Catholic chaplains to the United States government.

Refusing to beat around the bush in regard to the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, Broglio says in his statement that, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law.”

Broglio’s June 1 statement has been ignored by the pro-homosexual media, which want to create the public perception of overwhelming public support for the presence of homosexuals in the military. But his statement, issued just a few days ago, is starting to get the attention of Catholic news organizations and bloggers.

The authoritative statement not only has the potential to stop repeal of the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” (DADT) in its tracks, but it puts Catholic politicians such as Rep. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania on notice that they are promoting an immoral policy that jeopardizes their standing in the Catholic Church.

Murphy, the main sponsor in the House of the repeal legislation, has claimed that, as an Iraq war veteran, he knew gays who have served the military and that they should be able to do so openly.

But Broglio, issuing his statement in response to chaplains and commanding officers expressing “concerns about the effects of a change,” makes it clear that a vote for repeal violates church teaching and would put Catholic chaplains and troops in a situation in which their own rights to religious freedom would be violated.

The implication is that Catholic chaplains who remain true to the Bible and church teaching could be forced out of the services or silenced if DADT is repealed.

In this regard, Broglio is raising an issue that was highlighted in a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates from more than 40 retired military chaplains. Their letter asserts that DADT repeal would not only threaten the religious liberty of chaplains but service members as well.

We saw how the pro-gay policy would be exercised in practice when Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, an ordained minister and a Marine Corps veteran, was disinvited to a military prayer breakfast because of his opposition to homosexuals in the military.

Perkins asked, “If I was blacklisted merely for supporting existing law, what will happen to those who oppose the new, politically correct law?”

Despite what may be required under repeal of DADT, in terms of discrimination against Christians and the banishment of Biblical notions of morality, Broglio warns political authorities that “unions between individuals of the same gender resembling marriage will not be accepted or blessed by Catholic chaplains” and that “no restrictions or limitations on the teaching of Catholic morality can be accepted.”

He adds, “First Amendment rights regarding the free exercise of religion must be respected.”

The statement sets up a potential confrontation, if DADT repeal is ultimately adopted, with the 285 Roman Catholic priests serving the active-duty military service.

Broglio is extremely concerned about the impact on the troops themselves and raises concern in his statement about disruptions to military order and readiness if open and active homosexuals are forced into the ranks. He accuses members of Congress voting for repeal of putting the demands of a special interest group, the gay lobby, above the well-being and security of our soldiers.

“The effect of a repeal of the current legislation has the potential of being enormous and overwhelming,” he says, adding that “Sacrificing the moral beliefs of individuals or their living conditions to respond to merely political considerations is neither just nor prudent especially for the armed forces at a time of war.”

Those “political considerations” were an obvious factor when the House voted 234-to-194 on May 27 to repeal DADT. Only five Republicans, including libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, voted for gays in the military. In a flip-flop, Paul had previously been in favor of the ban on open and active homosexuals. He said calls from gay constituents had changed his mind.

In addition to sanctioning discrimination against Christian chaplains and soldiers, repeal of DADT would give special rights to homosexual, bisexual, and even “transgendered” military personnel. Indeed, there is a “Transgender American Veterans Association” in existence that is devoted to “educating the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense on issues regarding fair and equal treatment of transgender and transsexual individuals.”

Under repeal of DADT, transgendered soldiers could demand access to therapy, hormone treatment and sexual reassignment surgery.

Although some news organizations have suggested that repeal of DADT is a done deal, the repeal legislation has passed the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee but must still be acted upon by the full Senate. A vote there faces a possible filibuster, while the House bill with the repeal amendment still faces various difficulties in eventually being enacted into law.

Broglio’s powerful statement, if it is given the publicity it deserves, has the potential to turn the debate in favor of supporters of the current policy.

Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at cliff.kincaid@aim.org

06 June 2010

D-Day 6/6/44

D-Day, June 6th 1944

Ace of Spades HQ

Ace of Spades HQ
June 6, 1944

You know what I did this morning? Maybe it would be better if I told you what I didn't do this morning.

I didn't have to spend over 12 hours on a transport ship in choppy water, then clamber down a cargo net into a plywood landing craft, all while carrying up to 100 pounds of gear on my back. Then, I didn't ride through the rough surf in that little plywood target, only to have the steel ramp (the only part of the little plywood boat that was even remotely bullet-resistant) flop down and drop me into the cold ocean water in front of a beach filled with steel obstacles, mines, flying bullets & exploding artillery rounds.

I didn't fly over enemy occupied territory at 1000 feet in a C47 cargo plane and then jump out of the plane into the teeth of enemy anti-aircraft fire. I didn't have to worry about my bright white silk parachute making me a good target for troops on the ground who wanted to use me for target practice, and after I landed, I didn't have to worry about engaging a vastly superior force with only the gear I carried with me (providing that said gear wasn't ripped off by the turbulence I encountered exiting the plane) with whoever I could gather together from the other troops dropped behind enemy lines the same as I was.

I didn't march into a plywood glider (PLYWOOD, as we've already established, is NOT very resistant to gunfire and explosions) and sit quietly while I was towed into anti-aircraft fire, only to be released and experience a controlled crash into trees, buildings or apparently open fields that were booby trapped with wooden poles and steel cables by the enemy.

I wasn't asked to take my place in a McGyvered together amphibious tank, where I would most likely be swamped by the waves and sink to the bottom of the English Channel like....well, like a tank rigged for amphibious operations with lumber and canvas. And if I DID happen to get to the beach, I would have been the prime target of every enemy artillery piece for miles around.

I wasn't asked to sit in a command bunker deep beneath London looking at casualty projections that predicted that we would lose 60% of the airborne troops committed to this battle and a good chunk of the troops storming the beaches, and I also didn't prepare a letter taking full blame for the possible disaster in order to protect my political leaders.

You know what? Now that I've told you what I DIDN'T do this morning, what I actually DID seems pretty freakin' trivial. Veterans of the Normandy landing are becoming scarce now that we're sixty-five years down the road from that horrible day, but if you know one of them, make sure to thank them on this day. And don't limit yourself to D-Day vets - whether it was Normandy, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, the Tet Offensive, Grenada, Panama, Mogadishu, Fallujah, or just some godforsaken mountain road at the ass-end of Afghanistan, EVERYONE who served this country in uniform deserves a hearty handshake and our everlasting gratitude on this day.

And those veterans who never saw a shot fired in anger? Thank them too. As John Wayne once said in his last movie role, "It's not about being the fastest gun: Its about being WILLING." Everyone who wore the uniform was willing to "go see the elephant", and that willingness sets them apart from the rest of us.

God help any nation that cannot produce men and women like them. Remember that on this day.

Gateway Pundit

Tea Party Stunner: Marine Moves Crowd With 4th Verse to Star Spangled Banner

Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, June 6, 2010, 8:03 AM

The great conservative Herman Cain was answering questions at a tea party recently when a US Marine took the microphone and stunned the crowd with the 4th verse of the Star Spangled Banner.

Click on Photo for Video–

Here is that 4th verse:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Comments (18)

Normandy Speech: President Reagans Address Commemorating 40th Anniversar...

Normandy Invasion

No Sheeples Here: Lewis

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Herman Cain led a question and answer session at a Douglas County, Georgia Tea Party when a young woman asked him about the attacks by the Left on the Judeo-Christian heritage in America. He addressed her question, then went to the last question of the night. The crowd could not have anticipated what would happen next.

Lewis, a former Marine, brought tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat with his wondrous rendition of the fourth verse of the Star Spangled Banner. If you are not moved by his love of country, then you have no heart.

Here are the words to the fourth verse:

Oh! Thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Upon completion of the song, Lewis turned and hurried away, shaking a few hands that were thrust toward him as he walked. He quickly blended into the crowd, not to be seen again.