Obama, Notre Dame and Pro-Life

Gallup Poll: Obama Collides with Public Opinion on Abortion

05/15/09

Conservatives are buzzing about the new latest Gallup poll being reported on Drudge today. It offers a fresh angle on the Obama/Notre Dame controversy, and it may turn out to be a watershed moment for the pro-life movement. For the first time since 1995, a majority of Americans are pro-life. Gallup Poll 51% pro-life to 42% pro-choice, even better than the Fox News Poll of of 49% pro-life to 43% pro-choice.

And not only is this the first time that pro-life beats out pro-choice but also that the pro-life  are the highest ever for young people, a huge shift.  Young women are becoming over-whelming anti-abortion.

Of special interest to me is that Gallup attributes it to the President's overreach on abortion policy.

With the first pro-choice president in eight years already making changes to the nation's policies on funding abortion overseas, expressing his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, and moving toward rescinding federal job protections for medical workers who refuse to participate in abortion procedures, Americans -- and, in particular, Republicans -- seem to be taking a step back from the pro-choice position. However, the retreat is evident among political moderates as well as conservatives.

It is possible that, through his abortion policies, Obama has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be "pro-choice" slightly to the left, politically. While Democrats may support that, as they generally support everything Obama is doing as president, it may be driving others in the opposite direction.

Conservatives are seizing on this as proof that it would be not just wrong, but also imprudent, for the GOP to abandon its conservative message:

GOP leaders across the nation should take note of both this week's poll and last week's Pew research that show the pro-life position is strengthening the Republican Party," said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. "It's time to abandon the 'blame pro-lifers first' approach when the GOP loses. If Republicans want to improve their electoral performance, standing on the side of Life is one of the best decisions they can make."

The Gallup poll confirms another national survey by the Pew Research Center, which found that overall support for abortion is down and that the largest numbers of converts to the pro-life cause have been self-identified independents and liberal-to-moderate Republicans.

These poll results come at the same time that there is controversy over President Obama speaking at Notre Dame and receiving an honorary degree.  Obama is arguably the most liberal pro-choice president the United States has ever had.  He believes and has voted in favor of late term abortions; even procedures apposed to by most pro-life proponents.

Official Stop Obama at Notre Dame Site

Keyes, priest arrested at Notre Dame protest

 

Protesters Arrested at Notre Dame

Protesters opposed to President Obama's address to the graduating class of Notre Dame were arrested Friday after they disobeyed rules about staging their demonstration and walked onto the university campus.

Protesters opposed to President Obama's address to the graduating class of Notre Dame were arrested Friday after they disobeyed rules about staging their demonstration and walked onto the university campus.

Obama is also receiving an honorary law degree on Sunday, a decision that has upset abortion opponents who say the Catholic university is violating its own beliefs by honoring the president.

Protesters were told they could protest all they want in the town of South Bend, Ind., but once they stepped onto Notre Dame property, they would be arrested.

Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes, and a Roman Catholic priest were among the 21 arrested.

"Notre Dame is arresting a priest," the Rev. Norman Weslin, founder of the Lambs of Christ abortion protest group, said as Notre Dame security personnel put plastic restraints on his wrists. "Why are you arresting a priest for trying to stop the killing of a baby? You've got it all backward."

Weslin, 78, who has been arrested dozens of times at abortion clinic blockades, was carried off on a stretcher. He and two others were charged with resisting law enforcement.

All 21 arrested were charged with trespassing. Keyes and five others were ordered held in the St. Joseph County Jail until Monday because it was their second time being arrested on a charge of trespassing at Notre Dame, said Sgt. Bill Redman, St. Joseph County Police Department spokesman. Bond was set at $250 for the others.

None of those arrested were students.

The arrests marked the third straight Friday people were arrested as they protested the school's decision to give Obama, who supports abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research, an honorary degree and have him speak at commencement.

On May 1, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry and another man were arrested on campus while pushing strollers containing dolls covered in fake blood. On May 8, Keyes and 21 others, many of them pushing strollers containing dolls covered in fake blood, were arrested.

On Friday, there were no strollers or bloody dolls, but some of the protesters carried signs that read: "Defend her honor, rise and strike for the unborn."

About 35 people, many of them carrying anti-abortion signs, were standing on the four corners outside the school's front gate shortly before noon when a group of about 40 people led by Keyes and Terry marched up. They stopped briefly to say some prayers and to listen to Keyes, who lost to Obama in the Illinois Senate election in 2004.

"It is not consistent with God's love to honor those who have rejected that great gift of love in principle," Keyes said.

After speaking, Keyes then led a smaller group onto campus. They made it about 100 yards on campus before they were stopped by campus security. Keyes was taken into custody immediately, and the others were told to leave or they would be arrested.

Terry did not go onto campus, saying did not want to get arrested because he needs to remain free to lead more protests Saturday and Sunday.

"The reality is that if I get hung up in jail, I'm the only guy on the outside who knows how to keep this thing moving. It's strictly a leadership issue," he said.

St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Michael Scopelitis issued an order Thursday changing how bond is set for a person charged with a crime while already out on bond on a pending charge. Previously, such a person could have been released under a presumptive bond schedule. Now they must await a probable cause hearing, Scopelitis said.

The judge said county judges already were considering the change because of people being arrested multiple times and being released without appearing before a judge. He said the fact there could be numerous arrests this weekend surrounding Notre Dame's commencement brought the issue "into focus."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related Resources:

• Obama on Abortion and the Right to Life
  
• The Candidates
  

David Feherty shouldn't get pass for tasteless joke - but neither should Wanda Sykes

Double Standard - If a Conservative Made Jokes Even Half This Tasteless They Would Be Crucified By The Media!!

Simon/Pool

Comedian Wanda Sykes has President Obama in stitches as she performs at Saturday's White House Correspondents' dinner in D.C.

Mouths That Roared… Tastelessly!!  -  Since when are jokes about 9/11 and death okay??  It seems that the answer is when they are aimed at conservatives.

What did you think of the jokes made by David Feherty and Wanda Sykes?

Their comments were tasteless, and both should apologize.

Feherty deserves punishment, but Sykes' comments were fine considering the setting.

It was all in good fun - neither should be reprimanded.

Here is what David Feherty, a golf guy who poses no threat to the memory of Lenny Bruce, wrote in a Dallas magazine recently:

"If you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama Bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and Bin Laden would be strangled to death."

Not funny. An old joke, tastelessly retold. Feherty of CBS - who once wrote a book called "Somewhere in Ireland a Village is Missing an Idiot" - is drawing fire because of it. But you have to wonder how a similar joke might have played at the White House Correspondents' dinner on Saturday night, as long as it was about a Republican.

Because here are a couple of jokes Wanda Sykes wrote and then delivered to that crowd:

"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight. ...

"Rush Limbaugh hopes the country fails? I hope his kidneys fail, how 'bout that?"

Somehow Ms. Sykes got laughs with this material, and draws no fire. It is all supposed to be about the setting, or so we are told. President Obama was there, the dinner is always the Washington version of a Friars Club Roast, just without the Sopranos language.

So Sykes, a comedian, gets a pass because of where she was, and whom she was talking about. And maybe who she is. David Feherty, who fancies himself a bit of a comic himself, doesn't, at least not so far. As always, the rules on all this change from day to day like baseball's strike zone.

This isn't about condoning what Feherty wrote. It sure isn't about running interference for Limbaugh. He has become the clown at the right-wing circus and has had the bully pulpit for a long time, not just banging away at people who think like President Obama - or Wanda Sykes for that matter - for a long time.

Limbaugh is another gasbag in this country who has gotten rich on meanness, and so if he is getting a taste of his own medicine now, prescription or otherwise, that is probably just swell with the people he has trampled on the way to the buffet table. Then the bank.

But what if Limbaugh, white talk show host, goes on the air and says that Sykes, black comedian, is about half-a-terrorist and that, oh by the way, he hopes she dies? Is he allowed to say he's just an entertainer, and tell everybody to lighten up?

Feherty? He has been condemned by representatives from Pelosi and Reid and even the PGA Tour. CBS issued a statement that said, "Feherty's column for a Dallas magazine is an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned."

A poll was taken by the Daily News… 68% of the participants said both Feherty and Sykes’ comments were tasteless and both should apologize!

Double Standard - If a Conservative Made Jokes Even Half This Tasteless They Would Be Crucified By The Media!!

Updated Monday, May 11th 2009, 8:34 AM

Obamanomics: Naive, Or Intentionally Destructive?

According to such law, a company in bankruptcy must pay its debts to its “secured creditors” before it pays its unsecured creditors. Not only that, in most cases, secured creditors can demand to be paid in full.

In the case of Chrysler, several of the institutions to which it owes money are banks that accepted government bail-out funds last year and earlier this year. Those banks are now enslaved to whatever President Obama and the U.S. Treasury Department tell them to do. So when Obama tells, say, “bank X” to “accept twenty-eight cents on the dollar as payment of the debt Chrysler owes you,” well, those banks are obliged to obey Obama, whether or not it makes financial sense to do so, and whether or not bankruptcy law allows that bank to demand more.

But the private sector economy got in the way of Obama’s plans to save the world, because some of Chrysler’s secured creditors are hedge funds, that, unlike the “bailed-out banks,“ are NOT under Obama’s control. Several of the hedge fund managers involved in the situation did what they are permitted to do under bankruptcy law, and demanded more than the meager “pennies on the dollar” loan repayment that President Obama was ordering them to accept.

And this is when dear leader Obama moved in to “tirade mode.” Lashing out at the hedge fund “hold outs,” he succumbed to name-calling and insults, claiming that the “greedy” hedge fund managers were standing in the way of saving Chrysler.

Was it his naivety that prevented him from seeing the obvious - - that the hedge funds, and those Americans who had invested their personal money in those funds - - were the very thing that has kept Chrysler afloat in the first place? And is he so naïve to think that he will, to use his terms, “get credit flowing in America again,” while using his office to ruthlessly steamroll over the top of contracts, accounting rules, legal precedents, and law itself? Does he really think that he will “save” the U.S. economy and get banks lending again and get people with money to invest in new businesses and begin producing new employment opportunities, by denying legal rights to investors?

President Obama has now demonstrated to the world’s investors that rules and laws don’t matter - - his personal and political preferences are what matter, and he will get his way, even if investors are denied their rights and damaged in the process.

If Obama’s objectve is to weaken the U.S., so as to make a “more fair world,” he’s well on his way to achieving that goal. Yet if Obama actually wants something other than a weaker U.S., then his naivety is something America cannot afford.

According to such law, a company in bankruptcy must pay its debts to its “secured creditors” before it pays its unsecured creditors. Not only that, in most cases, secured creditors can demand to be paid in full.

In the case of Chrysler, several of the institutions to which it owes money are banks that accepted government bail-out funds last year and earlier this year. Those banks are now enslaved to whatever President Obama and the U.S. Treasury Department tell them to do. So when Obama tells, say, “bank X” to “accept twenty-eight cents on the dollar as payment of the debt Chrysler owes you,” well, those banks are obliged to obey Obama, whether or not it makes financial sense to do so, and whether or not bankruptcy law allows that bank to demand more.

But the private sector economy got in the way of Obama’s plans to save the world, because some of Chrysler’s secured creditors are hedge funds, that, unlike the “bailed-out banks,“ are NOT under Obama’s control. Several of the hedge fund managers involved in the situation did what they are permitted to do under bankruptcy law, and demanded more than the meager “pennies on the dollar” loan repayment that President Obama was ordering them to accept.

And this is when dear leader Obama moved in to “tirade mode.” Lashing out at the hedge fund “hold outs,” he succumbed to name-calling and insults, claiming that the “greedy” hedge fund managers were standing in the way of saving Chrysler.

Was it his naivety that prevented him from seeing the obvious - - that the hedge funds, and those Americans who had invested their personal money in those funds - - were the very thing that has kept Chrysler afloat in the first place? And is he so naïve to think that he will, to use his terms, “get credit flowing in America again,” while using his office to ruthlessly steamroll over the top of contracts, accounting rules, legal precedents, and law itself? Does he really think that he will “save” the U.S. economy and get banks lending again and get people with money to invest in new businesses and begin producing new employment opportunities, by denying legal rights to investors?

President Obama has now demonstrated to the world’s investors that rules and laws don’t matter - - his personal and political preferences are what matter, and he will get his way, even if investors are denied their rights and damaged in the process.

If Obama’s objective is to weaken the U.S., so as to make a “more fair world,” he’s well on his way to achieving that goal. Yet if Obama actually wants something other than a weaker U.S., then his naivety is something America cannot afford.

by Austin Hill