BluegrassBulletin.com

Rand Is Getting Some Very Bad Advice

Rand Paul got a standing ovation at Berkley University in California, one of the most liberal universities in the nation when he railed against government surveillance.  According to one report “That Paul decided to take his libertarian-leaning message to one of the most liberal campuses in the country is no mistake. He is actively making an effort to appear before crowds that have not been supportive of Republicans to demonstrate his ability to appeal to a broader electorate.” [Daily Caller]

Appealing to a ‘broader electorate’ is certainly a good November strategy, but I’m not sure the republican base that Rand needs to convince in the primary season are going to be impressed by some of the moves he has been making lately.

Rand has been widely quoted as saying

"I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues," Paul told vocativ.com. "The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues." [Washington Post]

I get it.  He sees a future where young people don’t want to be “festooned” by prohibitions against abortion for example.  But that sounds dangerously close to what Barack Obama said when he told an audience he wouldn’t want his daughter to be “punished with a baby.”

And Rand says that young people need to be embraced by the Republican party if it wants to win and that means accepting their moral standards on a variety of issues or face losing to the liberals who those same youth find more appealing.  In other words, to win as republicans we need to think and behave like liberals.

I get the whole notion of running a big campaign across a broad spectrum of American cultural differences and how the desire to be liked by everybody can be intoxicating.  And when you find a way to get that kind of adoration it is easy for those around you to convince you that you have found a populist appeal that will transcend the mendacity of politics, set you apart as a true visionary and lift you upon the shoulders of your countrymen into the White House.  And they may be right.  But you would be presiding over an Idiocracy.

Leaders lead.  Conservative leaders only qualify if they have a firm conservative core.  I doubt many of the kids a Berkely will be voting in republican primaries.  And I doubt that the social conservatives are the crippled elephants headed to the grave yard that the mainstream media would like to think we are.

If you think the TEA party folks get riled up when their principles are not met, think for a minute what those of us who place a very high value on life are capable of when compromise on that front is being urged by those who would have us choose them as leaders.

No, as much as I like and respect Rand, somebody is giving him some very bad advice.  Caving on social issues and courting liberals in California are not steps on the path to a republican nomination.  He needs to go into those places more like Reagan went to Germany, not the way Lord Chamberlain did.

Does Obama Want To Kill More Babies?

This rhetoric from President Obama is outrageous.

Today, as we reflect on the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, we recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health. We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to protecting a woman’s access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy, including the right to reproductive freedom… And we resolve to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, support maternal and child health, and continue to build safe and healthy communities for all our children. Because this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams. [GATEWAY Pundit]

Well just how many babies are being killed in this country?

If you are an American citizen, no doubt your greatest interest is in your own nation, as is mine. Let me break the abortions down to a national statistic: 1,600,000 babies are aborted in these United States every year. Per day, that’s 4,383; per hour, that’s 183; per minute, there are 3. [Bible.org]

Unfortunately the entire premise for the support of abortion in the United States is a fraud.  It is not a "woman's body" that is aborted, it is a baby's body.  "Reproductive Freedom" is a meaningless phrase at best, worse however it suggests that killing a baby is "reproduction" or even worse yet, it implies that a woman should be "free" to kill a child.

If indeed as the POTUS says "this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams" then how is a child to ever fulfill his or her dreams if he or she is killed by the mother before they even get started?

I could characterize the President's comments as merely meaningless if they weren't so evil.

Does Obama really want to kill more babies?

Has TEA Party Won The Battle Of Ideas In Washington?

POLITICO has a piece up on top of its website today that starts like this:

If this was a dud year in Washington, get ready for 2014 — the year to “go small.”

Lawmakers had already lost their appetite to “go big” this year, letting reforms of immigration, guns and the Tax Code slip away in the face of gridlock and dysfunction.

And now there’s a new problem. Lawmakers are reluctant to rely on the federal government to get anything done — a guilt-by-association consequence of Obamacare’s botched rollout. Republicans have called it an indictment of more than a website, but of Big Government itself.

While Democrats argue the problem is obstructionism — not ideology — the result will be the same: As Washington laments the end of a do-nothing year, lawmakers are fully prepared to do as little — or even less — in the new year.

“I think anything that has a significant expansion or role for the federal government is going to be problematic,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a top Republican message strategist, told POLITICO. “Because I just think there’s going to be such a cynicism and skepticism attached to any promises made with regard to the federal government’s role.”

Ron Paul, the Grand Poobah of the smaller is better ideology has been saying that the Republicans and Democrats are all the same, even saying on some occassions that they are all part of the same party.

Does this mean that his brand of governance which has usurped the TEA party movement has finally caught on?  The answer is no.

The reaction that POLITICO is predicting for 2014 is more a response to the ineffectiveness of the Obama administration and a growing uneasiness with what many used to dismiss, but now fear, are his nefarious plans for America.  In fact most of the anger and angst of the TEA party was born in reaction to Obama, has fed off of Obama's agenda and is still a reactionary movement rather than a pro-active one.

I saw this meme on Facebook sent out by a local TEA party group:

 

You have to ask yourself, what does this really say to people?  Is it some sort of rallying cry to keep the flames of discontent burning hotter than ever?

The phrase "More Constitution" means what exactly?  Lower taxes?  Taxes are undesirable no doubt, but they are certainly constitutional.  Does it mean more civil liberty?  We certainly have suffered in this area lately and numerous cases are working their way through the court system which ultimately decides, as the arbiter of these debates, what is and what is not constitutional.

How does this meme fit into the reality of political life?  What, no republican who wants more civil liberty and lower taxes can be trusted, and neither can any democrat?  Then who?  What other party is out there?  Aren't most of the TEA party candidates running as republicans?  And isn't it a fact that in places where they do, for the most part, they give democrats an added advantage of being able to run on their liberal agenda while republicans eat each other alive in primaries?

So just what does the observation of the POLITICO piece mean.  Has the TEA party won the battle of ideas in Washington?  Is there really some meaning to the concept of "More Constitution" that is controlling how elected officials act?

No, and no.

The fact is that even the proper role of government, as seen even by TEA party types, is considered dangerous territory.  Standing up in favor of building bridges and fixing roads, and repairing a half century or older infrastructure lights a match under the "big spender" accusers who have found a way, much like the protesters of the sixties did, to get attention in front of cameras and try to steer the policy of the nation.

Spend no money, collect no taxes, go to Washington, do nothing, dismantle the federal government, weaken our military, and withdraw into a kind of isolation that fools people into believing that the world will just leave us alone and allow us to prosper so long as we don't intervene in anybody else's business.

Foolhardy, reckless, ignorant thinking like this makes America vulnerable to the evil forces at work in the world.  If the worst happens it will be on the shoulders of those who failed to take charge in difficult times.  The blame will be squarely upon the heads of those who would give Israel over to the Palestinians, chemical weapons to Assad, control of Afghanistan to the drug cartels, who would remove border security and issue terms of engagement to our military that told them to stand up and take the first shot before firing back.

War is, as the saying goes, hell.  And hell is at our doorstep.  The last thing we need is a nation of bong hugging gamers driving the ship of state.

If the TEA party really wishes for an America that used to be, maybe they ought to be asking things like, where are the real men, the John Wayne's of our time, instead of asking that old time policy be implement by a bunch of impotent 'fraidy cats. 

Think about it.  America was strong, and stood up for itself in the days the Ron Paul folks wish they could return us to.  To get there might take a much tougher, rougher approach than the rally attending, flag-shirt wearing, malcontents and protesters can deliver on their own.

If a do nothing Congress is the result of a TEA party victory, then I think Merle might have asked the right question a long time ago: Are the good times really over for good?

 

17 Years In Prison For Fetal Homicide In Kentucky, Never For Abortion

Circuit Judge Fred Stine sentenced Charles Luke, 30 years old, to 17 years in prison after Luke pled guilty under Kentucky's Fetal Homicide law following a wreck in 2009 which resulted in the death of an unborn child.  Luke spent four years in jail before the final sentence was announced.

Kentucky is one of at least 38 states that have fetal homicide laws, according to a story by Jim Hannah with the Kentucky Enquirer.  Now consider this.

Kentucky has four specific statutes that provide punishment for "fetal homicide" which apply to any baby, from "conception onward, without regard to age, health, or condition of dependency." KRS 507A.010

If the killing was intentional, it is a capital offense (death or life without parole).  If it was intentional but while acting under "extreme emotional disturbance" it is a Class B felony (10-20 years in prison).

If killing an unborn child was done "wantonly" including by way of a motor vehicle, it is a Class C felony (5-10 years in prison).

If in killing an unborn child the actor was "reckless" it is a Class D felony (1-5 years in prison).

Now here's the real kicker.  No matter how it occurs, if the mother of a child kills her unborn baby, it is not a crime. 

If she stabs it, drives drunk and kills it, takes heroin and kills it, jumps out of window and kills it, nothing she does to kill her baby is a crime under the same chapter of the law that applied to Mr. Luke.

And here's the worst part, killing a baby during an abortion or any other "medical procedure" is never a crime, unless by malpractice.

In otherwords we are still so barbaric in this nation as to give the mother of a child the unfettered, unilateral right, to kill the baby without penalty.

May God forgives us.

With Obamacare Comes Up To 111,000 Abortions Per Year

From the National Review:

With all the attention focused on Ted Cruz’s attempt to defund Obamacare in the continuing resolution, some of the law’s parade of horribles are momentarily out of view. Come October 1, those horribles will resume their onward march as the law’s impact on subsidizing elective abortion will begin to become clearer.

Is all this a tempest in a teapot with little effect on publicly supported abortion? Far from it. An analysis by the Charlotte Lozier Institute published this week suggests that the number of abortions that will be heavily subsidized via federal premium tax credits and Medicaid expansion is likely to be between 71,000 and 111,500 per year.

In case you forgot, why were the early abortion supporters so dedicated?  Oh yeah, that's right.

At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the "black" and "yellow" peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood. [BlackGenocide.org]

I Have Been Trying To Warn You About Senior Care

Before you read this article from the Washington Post, remember, what I've been trying to tell you. In addition to the problem as they see it, we have a bunch of young Congressmen who think it's time to cut benefits to our senior citizens and some have even joked about euthanasia, equating it with killing dogs at the pound.  This isn't pretty.

Americans should expect an enormous shortage in caregivers for older people in the coming decades, with a dearth of friends and family members available to care for the baby-boom generation as it ages, according to a report released Monday by AARP.

The report, “The Aging of the Baby Boom and the Growing Care Gap,” projects that by 2030 there will be only four potential caregivers available for each person 80 or older, down from a high of more than seven in 2010.

“It’s a wake-up call for aging boomers,” said Lynn Feinberg, a senior strategic policy adviser at the AARP Public Policy Institute and an author of the report. “We’re really moving toward an uncertain future as . . . relying on our family and friends to provide long-term care isn’t going to be realistic anymore.”

“Our country is sort of a muddling-through country, and we tend to respond more to crisis situations than long-term planning,” she said. “We’re right now in the kind of halcyon days of caregiving because we have a lot of caregivers. . . . How do you get policymakers to respond to something that’s not till 15 to 20 years from now?”

Trade Offs: Cure For Down Syndrome On Horizon

To those who see Down Syndrome only at a distance it is a defect that inspires pity.  To those who know and love a person with Down Syndrome the world is a better place because of the unconditional love and happiness those with the extra chromosome teach us.  Now there is talk of a cure, and it is getting a mixed reaction.

In the 14 years since her daughter, Rachel, was born with Down syndrome, Jawanda Mast has always been clear that she’d change the condition if she could.

“I couldn’t love her more, but I would give almost anything to take away that extra chromosome,” the Olathe, Kansas, mom wrote on her blog. “While I may know she’s perfect, the world doesn’t.”

But when Massachusetts scientists announced recently that they’ve found a way to silence the chromosome that causes trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome, it rocked Mast – and the rest of the disability community.

“It’s so hard to imagine you could actually do that,” Mast told NBC News. “Yes, I would take away the challenges, I would take away the health risks. But now I also stop and say, ‘Oh my goodness, how would that impact the rest of her?’”

On one hand, almost everyone agrees there’s a need for treatments to help the 250,000 people in the U.S. living with Down syndrome, including the nearly 7,000 babies born with it each year.

On the other hand, it’s unclear what costs there may be to shutting down the mechanism that creates people who offer lessons in patience, kindness -- and what it means to be human.

"If Down syndrome were completely cured, the world would lose something from the absence of that culture," said Skotko, who has a sister with the condition. "There is something positive that people with Down syndrome contribute to the world." [NBC]

***THE ARMED CITIZEN*** An Every Friday Feature

Pharmacist Terrell Milby was working at Westside Jiffy Pharmacy when a young man entered and asked to speak with him about a list of medications. The man stood at the consultation window and handed Milby a napkin. On the napkin was a handwritten note requesting an unspecified number of painkillers and syringes. The list also included the warning, “I have a gun.” Milby said he didn’t believe the would-be robber actually had a gun and showed him his own firearm. Milby then ordered the man to get on the floor. Upon seeing the pharmacist’s firearm, the robber turned and fled. Milby called police and was able to later identify the man who attempted to rob the pharmacy. The suspect was then arrested and charged with first-degree robbery. “You can never be too careful,” Milby said of the incident. “You never know who’s going to walk in.” (The News Courier, Athens, AL, 5/14/13)

Reprinted with the encouragement of the NRA

***THE ARMED CITIZEN*** An Every Friday Feature

A man in his early 30’s entered Armen’s House of Music one afternoon, looked around and left. He returned just a few minutes later with a wooden club and began attacking the owner’s wife, Sylvia Armen, who was working in the store at the time. The owner, Alfred Armen, heard the commotion and ran to his wife’s aid. He tried to defend his wife and fought with the suspect before shooting him to death. Mr. and Mrs. Armen were later taken to a hospital with head injuries and are expected to recover. According to police, there was no motive behind the attack. (WTAE.com, Bethel Park, PA, 4/27/13)

Reprinted with the encouragement of the NRA

Satan Loses Again: Texas Passes Anti-Abortion Bill

Opponents of legislation in Texas outlawing late term abortions yelled "F#@% The Church" and chanted "Hail Satan" in protest to the measue designed to prohibit the intentional killing of babies after 20 weeks of gestation.  But those opponents, and their Satan, lost the battle.  The Texas house passed the bill which is expected to save the life of at least one baby a day.

It's an ancient story, but God always wins.