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If you ever had any doubt about how Christians view women, let a Christian scholar clarify it for you.

If you’re a Christian, you know that the Bible states:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord …For the husband is the head of the wife … so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. — Ephesians 5:22-24

So, what does this mean? A Christian Scholar clarifies (podcast mp3) it for us: Dr. Bruce Ware, Professor from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said Eve’s curse in the Garden of Eden meant “her desire will be to have her way” instead of her obeying her husband. What happens if a woman is not satisfied with her role?

According to the Christian Scholar, as he explained to the congregation of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, men have two choices:

“when women want to have their way instead of submitting to their husbands, and do what they would like to do, and really seek to work to have their husbands fulfill their will instead of serving them, the husbands …respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged, or more commonly, to become passive, acquiescing, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men…”

Dr. Bruce Ware cited First Timothy in stating that women need to know and except their place as child bearers instead of “bucking against it” - and should not want “to be in a man’s position, wanting to teach and exercise authority over men.”

“It means that a woman will demonstrate that she is in fact a Christian, that she has submitted to God’s ways by affirming and embracing her God-designed identity as–for the most part, generally this is true–as wife and mother, rather than chafing against it, rather than bucking against it, rather than wanting to be a man, wanting to be in a man’s position, wanting to teach and exercise authority over men”

Dr. Ware notes disdain for the feminist and egalitarian movement that “challenges accepted Biblical views.” Dr. Ware stated 10 reasons “for affirming male headship in the created order.” They include that man “was created first” and that woman was created “out of” Adam in order to be his “helper.” Even though the woman sinned first, Ware said, God came to Adam and held him primarily responsible for failure to exercise his God-given authority. Ware also said male/female relationships are modeled in the Trinity, where in the Godhead the Son “eternally submits” to the Father.

The authoritarian nature of his views of authority and submission were neatly summed up by his concluding statement:

“Women are called in various relationships… to submit to rightful male leadership, and this is for their good… It is as God-like to submit to rightful authority with joy and gladness…”

H/T: Ethics Daily

The history of the Iraq War is now being documented. Over 35 documentaries have already been filmed. One of the best: Frontline - Bush’s War is extremely well written and sourced.

But now, its time for the military official historians to write the official history of the Iraq War.

Before the Iraq invasion, Bush surrounded himself with “yes men” like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Tommy Franks. He got rid of those like Gen. Shinseki who warned that we needed many more troops than Rumsfeld proposed to secure Iraq in the aftermath. He ignored Col. Kevin Benson, a planner at the land war command, who developed a plan that called for using about 300,000 soldiers to secure postwar Iraq, about twice as many as were deployed. Colin Powell tried to dissuade Bush from the invasion. He told Bush, “you break it, you own it.” In essence - if you invade Iraq, the US will be responsible for the welfare of the country and it’s citizens. So what happened? Tommy Franks turned out to be a failure. According to the report, he assumed the fighting was over and put the military effort in the hands of a short-staffed headquarters over the objections of the Army’s vice chief of staff. “The move was sudden and caught most of the senior commanders in Iraq unaware,” states the history, which adds that the staff for the new headquarters was not initially “configured for the types of responsibilities it received.” Franks blamed the Defense Dept and the Pentagon leadership.

Bush failed miserably and now it is officially documented. Here we are today, an unstable Iraq where there is war with no end in sight, the US is still unilaterally paying the cost, Americans dying everyday, millions of Iraqis dead, maimed and/or displaced. The report has vindicated Gen. Shinseki whom the Bush administration marginalized and all the other Generals that came forward with complaints of incompetent leadership of the Bush Administration.

CNN Story

NYT Story

PDF Report

Too much temptation to resist, I just had to link this comment by Bruce Baugh at Obsidian Wings:

I’ve said this before and will again: the very heart of the “widespread gun ownership checks tyranny” argument has been tested and failed completely.

For twenty years or more, political discourse in a whole lot of online forums was swamped by people telling the rest of us how the US was getting ever more tyrannical, and that the day would come when on some flimsy pretext the government would abandon habeaus corpus, engage in unlimited surveillance of everyone it felt like spying on, arrest people on arbitrary grounds and then abuse them any way the captors felt like, and so on.

It turns out they were right about that part.

They also told the rest of us that when this happened, they would rise up en masse. They would free unjustly held prisoners, put terror into the hearts of agents of tyranny, maybe even overthrow the tyrant him/herself. (As the ’90s went on, the hypothetical tyrant was increasingly likely to be portrayed as a woman.) And did they? Did they hell.

There are no martyrs from the RKBA crowd. Their organizations sometimes join in efforts mostly initiated and staffed by others, but apart from objections to a handful of specific proposed restrictions on gun sales and such, one hears of no RKBA leadership on any of the rest. To the contrary, one hears a great deal of cheerleading for warmaking abroad and tyranny at home as long as all the right people get it, and one hears silence. Where are those freed prisoners? Nowhere. Where are those terrified agents? Nowhere. It was all the purest bloviation.

It’s really very rare for such ambitious claims about what one will do oneself and what one’s allies will do in a moment of profound crisis. But Bush/Cheney gave us all the chance. And all of you going on about how guns keep the republic safe and free are completely full of it. All the things you warned us about came to pass, and where are you? Right here with the bulk of us, and well behind some - there are individual posters here who as single people have done more actual good for American liberty than half the membership of the NRA and such groups.

It’s liberal lawyers, academics, journalists, and the like who are actually pressing the government, pretty much, and liberals at large funding them, while conservatives and libertarians (with way, way too few exceptions) either cheer and keep voting for the tyranny or sigh and shake a finger and then keep voting for it. The RKBA claims about guns’ role in society are demonstrably false for America at the beginning of the 21st century, and no amount of dithering over 18th century will change that. The Second Amendment as constituted is useless not because of then, but because of now, because of you its champions.

PS: It will of course be a glad thing if the bloviators ever do get serious about fighting tyranny, because tyranny is really bad and needs all the opposition it can get. But I’m not holding my breath waiting - it seems like we are instead well into the phase where all the loyal cheering section for the tyrant busily tries to pretend they didn’t say things. I fully expect lawsuits against Google, the Internet Way-Back Machine, and the like from right-wing legally minded folks who wish their embarrassing words better hidden.

But hey, always glad to see clues, if and when they break out.

Well, finally, John McCain says something that isn’t as sugar-coated as usual about his young, inexperienced colleague in the Senate. We knew from looking under The Bus™ that it’s never safe to be an associate of Obama’s and get in the way of political expediency; now his once-firmed positions on such political staples like NAFTA and Campaign Finance (public or private? Welcome, Uncle George Soros, back to funding Democratic leftism!) and seeing Obama’s changey mind on the 2nd Amendment (after the shellacking the leftists took in 2000 with Al Gore’s defeat, then underscored last week with the Heller vs. Washington D.C. win, most Leftists are leaving that one off the table…for now…) are but speed bumps on his Highway to Hopey-Dopey Changeyness.

McCain says no, I’m finally calling you on this…

June 29 (Bloomberg) — John McCain, in his sharpest attack yet against rival Barack Obama, said the Democratic presidential candidate’s word “cannot be trusted.”

“This election is about trust — trust in people’s word,” McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told several hundred donors at a $2 million GOP fundraiser in Louisville, Kentucky, yesterday. “And unfortunately, apparently on several items, Senator Obama’s word cannot be trusted.”

John McCain has changed his mind on issues that have changed over time and require re-evaluation…namely, the offshore drilling we so desperately need to stabilize these rising Oil prices. Obama would have us suffer these economy-destroying prices (with Al Gore’s approval, because, under their cloak of populism, these leftist Democrats actually despise all things capitalist and these pesky free-markets and our greedy economic superiority over the rest of the world just isn’t fair) as an expediency to his push for Socialism as America’s future political system.

An interesting Gallup Poll points out that most Americans do not favor wealth redistribution to ‘fix’ the economy…

“While, in the abstract, many Americans believe that the wealthy do not pay enough taxes, the forced-choice question reported on here shows that there is a strong feeling that taxing one group to give the money to another is not the favored approach to fixing the economy.”"In sum, free-market advocates can take considerable solace in Americans’ overwhelming belief that the government should not focus on redistributing income and wealth, but on improving the overall economy. And, to a lesser degree, Americans also believe government continues to do too much — not too little — to solve the nation’s problems.”

Those poll numbers are fascinating, but as you see from the one graph I imported, damning to the Democrats. Nealy 20% of Democrats favor Wealth Distribution (unfair taxation of the wealthy) in order to fund their New America based on socialism. The Dean legacy lives on.

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John McCain is the king of inconsistency, changing his position and sucking up to whoever he thinks will get him a vote.

*McCain supported the drilling moratorium; now he’s against it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20…

* McCain strongly opposes a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/18/mccains-offsho…

* McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15781.htm…

* McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15863.htm…

* McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/10/mccain-flips-o…

* McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15825.htm…

* He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion,he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15864.htm…

* McCain said he would “not impose a litmus test on any nominee.” He used to promise the opposite.
http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/now-mccain-is-flip-f…

* McCain believes the telecoms should be forced to explain their role in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program as a condition for retroactive immunity. He used to believe the opposite.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20…

* McCain supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/may/28/mccains-abo… /

* McCain supported moving “towards normalization of relations” with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15617.htm…

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15557.htm…

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Syria. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15564.htm…

* He argued the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party’s policy making. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15573.htm…

* McCain supported his own lobbying-reform legislation from 1997. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/20/mccains-97-lob…

* He wanted political support from radical televangelists like John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15633.htm…

* McCain supported the Lieberman/Warner legislation to combat global warming. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15699.htm…

*McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a“‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded.Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14761.htm…

* McCain is both for and against a “rogue state rollback” as a focus of his foreign policy vision.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/mccain-…

* McCain says he considered and did not consider joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14818.htm…

*In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15033.htm…

* McCain has changed his economic worldview on multiple occasions.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15337.htm…

* McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq on multiple occasions.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15370.htm…

* McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor at his former church.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15358.htm…

* McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off than they were before Bush took office.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/19/mccain-economy-bloo… /

* McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/06/mccain-earmark /

* McCain believes his endorsement from radical televangelist John Hagee was both a good and bad idea.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/21/hagee-flip-flop /

*McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting“irresponsibly.”His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15176.htm…

* McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/politics/16mccain….

* In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/10/emtimeem-has-m…

* McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/31/mccain-… /

* McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. Now he’s against it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/31/mccain-… /

* On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own legislation.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14447.htm…

*In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving“feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9658.html

* McCain said before the war in Iraq, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough.”
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral…

*McCain said he was the “greatest critic” of Rumsfeld’s failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as“a mission accomplished.” In March 2004, he said, “I’m confident we’re on the right course.”In December 2005, he said, “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/18/mccain-greatest-cri… /

* McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade http://mediamatters.org/items/200610310003 to saying the exact opposite.http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/mccain-abortion /

* McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/02/mcc…

* McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6988.html

* McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy, but he reversed course in February.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6731.html

* On a related note, he said 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and insisted he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/us/politics/03mccain….

*In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1880630&page=1

* McCain supported a major campaign-finance reform measure that bore his name. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.
http://www.nysun.com/national/campaign-finance-effort-r… /

* McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070115/pl_usnw/dnc__mcca…

* McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8313.html

* McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15637887 /

* McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200610310003

* McCain decided in2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/19/mccain-kissinger /

* McCain used to think that Grover Norquist was a crook and a corrupt shill for dictators. Then McCain got serious about running for president and began to reconcile with Norquist.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/19/mccain-kissinger /

* McCain took a firm line in opposition to torture, and then caved to White House demands.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/20…

* McCain gave up on his signature policy issue, campaign-finance reform, and won’t back the same provision he sponsored just a couple of years ago.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8066.html

* And now he’s both for and against overturning Roe v. Wade.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/mccain-abortion /

H/T: Doc Mercer

Speaking of victims from the sexual revolution, here’s an interesting perspective from Kathleen Parker concerning the Pregnancy Pact in Gloucester, Mass. From the article:

Here’s one [dangling question]: Where’s Dad? Not the “fathers” of these unfortunate pre-borns, but the fathers of these pregnant girls. Where, in other words, is the shotgun?

Back in the day when birth control and abortion weren’t readily available to high-school kids, fathers were pretty good deterrents to pregnancy. Boys knew they’d have kneecap problems if they got daddy’s little girl pregnant. If they were lucky, they’d be married by the morning after.

Girls, meanwhile, were less likely to risk pregnancy because alternatives to motherhood were few, adoption being the most likely.

It wasn’t a foolproof system, clearly, but the specter of lifelong consequences, combined with societal and parental disapproval, helped keep the illegitimate birthrate down.

Today, using the term “illegitimate” is more likely to spark disapproval than the activities contributing to the plague of unwed pregnancies. For sure there are far fewer fathers around to give young males The Eye. It is a fair guess, though not possible to confirm at this point, that at least some of Gloucester’s pregnant daughters are from fatherless homes.

That guess is founded on sound social science indicating a strong correlation between father absence and a high risk for early sex and unwed pregnancy. Not only do fathers provide the masculine affection so many girls seek elsewhere, but they teach their daughters how to handle male sexual aggression, as well as to understand their own role in stimulating that aggression.

Thus far, there’s been little mention of the family dynamic that often foretells the tragedy of children having children. Instead, most of the debate has centered on whether these girls and boys had enough access to sex education and contraceptives.

Other conversations have circled around the influence of movies, such as Juno, that glamorize teen pregnancy. In the movie, 16-year-old Juno is adorably pregnant and far wiser than the film’s adults.

Whatever happened in Gloucester, we know this much. Today’s girls and boys daily marinate in a culture that offers little instruction in responsibility and self-control — or the importance of marriage as antecedent to procreation — but celebrates single motherhood and encourages sex without strings.

The surprise isn’t that 17 girls are pregnant at one high school. The surprise is that there aren’t more.

It is absolutely stunning the ability of the authoritarian right to tout the “great presidency” of GW Bush in face of facts. It could only be one of two things: 1) authoritarian worship, or 2) a simple lack of knowledge and information.

It’s no secret that those who get their information exclusively from ‘conservative news sources’ are misinformed. This of course has been proven to be deliberate misinformation as been shown time and time again, most recently through the Pentagon military analyst scandal. The Bushies eat it up… hook, line and sinker - they swallow.

Question: On whose watch did 9/11 happen? What did Bush do when Tenet and Clarke and the entire intelligence establishment was telling him an attack was imminent? Answer: he went on vacation - for a month. And he’s now the big hero… the big protector? How can people thank Bush for “a safer America” because there haven’t been any ‘further attacks’ - especially after the influx of at least 12 million illegals on his watch? If the radical Muslims we’re supposedly “fightin’ over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em here” are such a threat, what is keeping them out? What… you think only Mexicans are capable of running across the border? But if we thought logically about this, neo-cons would not be able to use fear to support the war. Stay afraid! (40 some odd presidents can claim they kept America safe because of no attacks on the homeland. It’s absolutely ludicrous!)

A Government report flatly states that an al Qaeda attack is now likely because the Bush Administration has not met US security goals to destroy the terrorist threat, and we hear a few days ago a Pentagon report that states the Taliban are flourishing in Afghanistan 7 years after 9/11, and that coalition deaths reached an all-time high last month. Yet, believe it or not, there are actually people who are so delusional and in denial that they thank GW Bush for “winning two wars”!!

Is it amazing some people are so delusional that they actually believe that Bush has somehow “restored dignity to the White House.” How so? By committing war crimes and torturing people to death? By ignoring subpoenas , abusing power, repeatedly violating federal law and the Constitution? The GOP Culture of Corruption is a term that has made its way into posterity … like the Republican practice of smear - ’swiftboating’. So how did Bush restore integrity to the White House, by employing numerous convicted felons in his administration, lobbying and campaigning? David Safavian, Scooter Libby, and Ken Lay …. and Jack Abramoff, who met Bush a dozen times, was photographed with him 6 times … yet Bush says “I don’t know him”  ??  The White House lied about their contact with Abramoff.  Further, the White House tried to conceal meetings with Abramoff and other criminals by trying to hide White House visitor logs. Then, in violation of the Presidential Records Act - the White House loses millions of emails - specifically during the period of the run up to the Iraq War and the Plame outing.

…and this is just the tip of the iceberg, just a small fraction sampling of the corruption.

Is that YOUR idea of integrity ? It’s not mine.

And then there’s the economy … a mortgage crisis and reeling from high food and energy prices, the dollar is weaker internationally than ever, earnings down, and…

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I ran across a post that’s somewhat troubling. At least as far as descriptive attitudes towards what I believe, from the perspective of raging feminism (and when I say raging feminism, I mean full-throated hear me >ROAR! feminism).

I stumbled across this bit of (nearly) fresh frothmeat from a feminist near-feral over Hillary’s fall…

I think that non-feminist Obama supporters, and particularly male non-feminist Obama supporters, have this idea that we are just irrationally angry, our feelings are hurt and we should get over it or we’re just silly, don’t we know how bad McCain is, maybe they’ll just tell us one more time. The choice not to support Obama is a long-run rational choice. Right now, there is a party that hates women all the time, and a party that used to humor us, but hates us when it is convenient. It is our job to never, ever let it be convenient again, or there will be no one in government advocating for our rights.

We are not your sweeties, who just need candy and flowers to come around.

We are not your bitches, that is not a leash in your hand. Our bodily integrity is not a choke chain you may use to threaten us. If you think it is, you are no better than the Republicans. And yes, the “But! But! But!” Roe stick is just that - a threat. Politically involved women know exactly where we stand on Roe, and we know the Democrats haven’t been all that bothered to even look like they’re trying to protect it, these last seven years. We know what an anti-choice Supreme Court looks like, because we read Gonzales v. Carhart and our hearts broke in fear for ourselves and our sisters and nieces and daughters.

When you tell us that we’d better get in line and vote for Obama, OR ELSE ROE, you are holding our own bodies hostage against us, as if they were yours to take. You are actively, proudly, literally threatening us with our lives. Is that the change we should believe in?

(emboldenings mine)

I don’t think I would ever support a party that ‘hates women all the time’. Or any time, for that matter. And because I have concerns about unborn women that makes me hate all women? Don’t think so. Follow that logic straight down the drain. Along with the aborted humanity.

Sheesh. There’s absolutely no reason in that poor posting person’s head. She’s filled to the gills with mistaken identity.

by Alan Gable

I have to confess. I am one of the 6 people left in the nation who still “approve” of George W. Bush. Below, I plan to list and briefly explain my reasoning. Surely, there are lists of grievances against this President as there have been against each of his forebearers but a glimpse into the near future may tell a different story of ther 43rd President than his current 27% approval rating.

1. Thanks to George W. Bush, the Supreme Court has 2 strict conservative justices. The importance of Justices Alito and Roberts cannot be weighed or measured.

2. For 6 years, the American economy has shown incredible strength in every economic indicator including inflation rate, unemployment rate, and stock market strength. Much has been said about the current “recession” trend but this natural ebb of economic fluctuation is only a mild and temporary development. This economic stability came directly on the heels of the attack which could have and perhaps should have crippled our economic prospects for at least a decade.

3. 2 despotic tyrranical regimes have been toppled and replaced with governments with friendly intentions toward the West.

4. Our homeland has been free from attack since that one great tragedy in 2001. This is not coincidence. The Bush administration has been as vigilant as was promised.

5. Taxes are lower than they have been since Reagan. Everyone benefits from lower tax rates. Even the federal treasury.

6. Dignity has been restored to the office of the US Presidency. There is a dress code in the oval office and acts of innapropriate lewdness are a regretable distant memory. There is once again reason to rise to one’s feet when a US President enters a room.

Since the post on guns devolved into comments on abortion, and we’ve got some really really anti-woman rights people out there that like to comment, I decided to post on the topic everyone likes to debate - abortion rights.

This issue takes on considerable weight when you have people basing their political preferences and votes on this single issue. Can you imagine a few more judges like Scalia? Can you imagine womens’ abortion rights restricted to just a dozen or so ‘blue states’? Can’t they look past their Christian fetus fetish long enough to care about what overturning Roe v. Wade would do to American society? America would become the largest nation in the world where abortion was not universally safe and legal. These Christian fetus fetishists ignore and refuse to promote sex ed and contraceptives that would reduce abortion. Instead they promote ‘abstinence ed’ which has not only been proven a failure, but has been shown to promote anal and oral sex. The fetus fetishists refuse to acknowledge studies that show that instances of abortion declined the most where abortion was safe and legal. They also ignore studies that show outlawing abortion does not prevent it or lessen it’s instance. Abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it. But, because of their Christian fetus fetish, they consider it unimportant that studies showed that the result of outlawing abortion endangers women’s lives. The study indicated that about 20 million abortions that would be considered unsafe are performed each year and that 70,000 women die as a result of complications from those abortions, most in countries where abortion is illegal. Pro-life my ass. Pro-life is anti-women. Pro-life is an irrational contradiction, born most often out of religious conviction.

By all polls ever taken, America supports abortion rights and Roe v. Wade. Have you noticed? The vast majority of anti abortion rights commenters here are Christian conservative parents. You’ll find a much broader demographic on the pro choice side. These are the American Taliban, those that want to force their religious views on society. They are not just happy upholding their own moral compass, they want to force it on all others.

No, a fetus is not a person. Human life, yes, but not a human being, not a person. Big difference. It is a developing person. The science that determines human life from a legal perspective is that of brain waves, the standard by which we can remove a person that is ‘brain dead’ from life support.

Like ‘global warming deniers’ … much anti-abortion psuedo science has spouted fallacies like “At only 40 days after fertilization electrical waves as measured by the EEG can be recorded from the baby’s brain” as proof of life. Yes, it is proof of life but it is not a human being because it’s brain is not fully formed.

For a thorough discussion on this subject see this link.

From the article:

An EEG involves measuring varying electrical potentials across a dipole, or separated positive and negative charges. Any living cell has an electrical potential across its membrane, and any living structure is a dipole, which explains why people have been able to put electrodes on plants, hook them up to EEG machines, and get “evidence” that plants have feelings. But this has nothing to do with “brain waves,” which are a nontechnical term for a particular kind of varying potentials produced by certain brain structures that don’t even exist in an embryo and associated with consciousness and dreaming as well as the regulation of bodily functions.

To get scalp or surface potentials from the cortex requires three things: neurons, dendrites, and axons, with synapses between them. Since these requirements are not present in the human cortex before 20-24 weeks of gestation, it is not possible to record “brain waves” prior to 20-24 weeks. Period. End of story.

98% of all abortions are performed before the 20th week, before the fetal brain is fully functional. If you want to restrict abortions in the last trimester, I have no problem with that, but abortion should an option in cases of severe fetal abnormalities or a risk to the life of the mother.

John Fund has an interesting op/ed today concerning McCain v. Obama. Here’s the first paragraph:

Some pundits claim John McCain has no chance of beating Barack Obama. “The current bundle of economic troubles should doom any Republican hoping to succeed George Bush,” says NBC’s Chris Matthews. “It’s almost impossible to believe that another Republican could get elected,” insists Katty Kay, the BBC’s Washington-based correspondent. They need to better understand the rhythms of presidential campaigns and show more humility in a year that’s been chock full of political surprises.

I, of course, thought of William’s exuberant posts about his man Obama, but the most interesting thing for me was how readily debunk-able is William’s Inevitable Obama campaign is. Frankly, I haven’t even looked at the polls that William cited . . . November’s a long way off and the non-primary campaign is just starting. But how naive is it to rely on polls of “register voters” when forecasting a presidential race?

Here’s an insightful post on the growth of federal gov’t and one reason America was constitutionally more “republican” than “democratic.” The Corner on “Wronged states.”

Also posted at wisdomisvindicated.blogspot.com

My first thoughts, yesterday, after the congratulatory phone calls and celebratory uncorkings of virtual champagne bottles was, “This will cost John McCain the election.”

Because, you see, there are those (myself included) who believe John McCain to be untrustworthy, to be on many issues more Liberal than Conservative, to be a weak candidate because of his foot-tapping on the other side of the aisle. I contemplate supporting Bob Barr just to toss some of that bubbly in the face of the GOP elite who sneer at their Conservative base; those ‘Rockefeller’ blue-blood Republicans who turn their backs on those who got them where they are today: on the noblesse of the Party who spurn the ‘Bitter’ God-and-Guns sort. They who would let us ‘cling’ somewhere else, if they could, and go on about their almost-Democratic methods of spend and ignore common sense.

Then, that bubbly gave me a virtual headache; and I slept for 10 hours. And dreamt me some tremelous dreams.

This morning, I visit my favorite site, Protein Wisdom; and read Karl’s post on our victory. There are warnings there…as one ProggHero puts it…

Comment by ProggHero on 6/26 @ 10:20 am #Funny the patting of the back that is going on here considering that you guys are one justice away from having to join the National Guard to keep a weapon.

and

Cause the only stare decisis that matters is the ones we decide.

Well, there’s that. John McCain is back into consideration.

But just barely!

I mean, we have to weigh theese theengs. Do we really want John McCain to win, then have those BlueBloodNobleeseEliteRepublicans say, “look, we didn’t need you Conservatives after all…back to your Bitters!”

So, I’ll say this.

One more fuckup, John McCain, between now and the election; one more neo-liberal misstep, and I’ll throw your candy ass under our own version of Slippery Obama’s Bus.

I’m watching closely.

But for now…

WE WON!!!!ONE1ELEVENTY!!!

From the AP Supreme Court Wire:

The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

Isn’t that awesome? The supreme court says… Never mind that the Constitution has already been saying it for 200 years.

UPDATE: Other’s Reactions

Rustmeister’s Alehouse- “Chalk up one for the good guys.”

View from the Porch- “Heller affirmed. 2A is an individual right.”

American Front Porch- “Victory.”

SayUncle- “Heller Yeah.”

John Norris Brown- “ The fact that four justices voted to uphold the ban shows how far our courts have drifted from the Constitution.”

Nathan Moore- “I feel like a kid at Christmas - I can’t wait to delve into the thing.”

The Munchkin Wrangler- “That leaves us pretty much back at the status quo ante, except for the folks in localities like Chicago and D.C., who all owe Mr. Heller a beer or two.”

Post Politics (AC)- “The individual right to keep and bear arms is affirmed.”

Sean Braisted- “So long as reasonable restrictions on the buying and selling of firearms, as well as who can carry and where, are still in place, I say lock and load.”

R. Neal- “Let the parsing begin.”

Phil Ayers- “Gun owners everywhere must be stoked right now.”

Occasional Muse- “Antonin Scalia has torpedoed what little intellectual integrity he had left.”

Brendan Loy- “Individual right to bear arms vindicated.”

Stacey Campfield- “This should make things quite interesting when Rep. Frank Nicley and I bring up our bills to allow legal permitted hand gun owners to carry in parks and on campuses this coming year.”

Blue Collar Republican- “Today was perhaps the closet we have come to seeing the complete disregard for the Bill of Rights by the Supreme Court. However, by one slim vote, it affirmed in D.C. v. Heller….”

Cows and Graveyards-  “The interesting thing to me about Heller is that it seems to be a decision on principle which is entirely consistent with Boumediene, but the decisions share only one voter in common.”

Terry Frank

What a few other prominent Americans said. Perhaps they were finally consulted.

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” (James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244)

“The Constitution shall never be construed….to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms” (Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87) Read more »

It must be a generational thing. The man is in his 70’s. Or maybe it’s an intelligence thing? He did finish at the bottom of his class. Whatever the reason, can you imagine a president who can’t operate a computer?

McCain admits he is ‘computer illiterate’ and has to depend on his wife.

In the present day, how can one be fully informed if you do not use a computer?

You can just feel the palpable waves of disgust emanating from the Leftist Nutroot community that’s dominating the Democratic party nowadays. How can this be? We OWN the HOUSE and the SENATE! But FISA passes in the House, with a majority of Republicans and Democrats voting yes. And probably FISA will sail through the Senate as well.

But there’s no happiness in weirdville. From the leftist Seattle Post-Intelligencer, this editorial…

After a long and bitter battle over updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Bush administration ultimately prevailed when the House granted retroactive immunity to telecoms that provided private records to the feds sans warrants in passing House Resolution 6304. The opposition received a sound drubbing in the 293-129 vote. What a disappointment. And we don’t dare expect better from the Senate this week.

…

The Dems comfort themselves by saying the law requires warrants from FISA courts. Except that the 1978 FISA law already gave the government 72 hours to do so. They can spy on us for a week without a warrant. Worse yet, the bill legitimizes the administration’s spying program.

…

Sen. John McCain supports warrantless spying and voted in favor of granting telecoms immunity in February. Heck, he loves telecoms — he keeps hiring their lobbyists on his staff. And Sen. Barack Obama, who approves of the compromise, said that as president, he would “monitor the program.” Come again, sir? The last thing we need is another “just trust me” president.

Ha! And no support or false hope from their Messiah. Barack Obama realizes that FISA opposition is simply a manifestation of boundless and hateful BDS, and that the so-called ‘warrantless wiretapping’ Buscheneyrove (magnificent BASTARDS!!!~~!) enacted was not designed to deprive nutroots of their drug dealers; but instead to put needed teeth into our War on Terrorism: simply put, we have to have a steady stream of incoming intelligence in order to know what the bad guys are up to. Then we can (possibly) stop another terrorist attack.

Baracky, while soft on national defense (and dangerously naive and inexperienced in his dealings with foreign powers…Dinnerjacket can’t wait to get him in office in order to scheme around his ignorance…) has someone whispering in his ear on this one… ‘…let this one go. After all, there’s a good chance those will be our planes now…‘.

To deprive the intelligence community of the necessary tools it needs for ensuring national security just because of hateful and hurtful BDS is foolish, and only a simpleton would embrace such a boneheaded posture.

Luckily, Baracky has at least one good wormtongue. Who knew?

House Democrats put politics ahead of the Constitution.

105 House Democrats sold out the Constitution in an effort to take away a Republican talking point of fear if they opposed the FISA bill. Terrorists cannot overthrow the Constitution and establish a police state in America, only an American president enabled by an unprincipled Congress can do that.  (Of course nearly all Republicans voted for the bill).

However, Democratic Senate patriots like Russ Feingold, Barack Obama, and Chris Dodd are joining with a few Republicans like Arlen Spector who care about the Constitution, are standing up for the rights of Americans.

This bill will effectively and unjustifiably grant immunity to companies that allegedly participated in an illegal wiretapping program – a program that more than 70 members of this body still know virtually nothing about. And this bill will grant the Bush Administration – the same administration that developed and operated this illegal program for more than five years – expansive new authorities to spy on Americans’ international communications. … this bill doesn’t protect the privacy of Americans whose communications will be collected in vast new quantities. Under the bill, all that illegally obtained information on Americans can be retained and used. Once again, there are no consequences for illegal behavior.
– Russ Feingold [D - WI]

Summing up the jist of the bill - it “protects” the civil liberties of American citizens by acknowledging that those civil liberties were being violated — then declaring amnesty for the acts of the violators: the Bush Administration and the telecoms. The bill allows you to be prosecuted using secret evidence, presented secretly, banning review, explicitly banning judicial leeway to determine whether laws were violated, or civil liberties infringed upon. Of course you could be prosecuted by evidence is to be presented by the same people who broke the law and violated your rights to privacy in the first place.

As Senator Obama pointed out, there must be accountability where “someone’s watching the watchers, where you don’t have an administration that feels that it can make it’s own determination about when warrantless wiretaps are used without a FISA court…”

To accompany Serr8d’s post, check out this offering from Nathan of AFP.

Some of you have asked “what’s this Heller case that the Supreme Court is scheduled to rule upon this week?” Simply put, this case is about personal liberty. The 1939 US v. Miller decision was the last attempt at judicial review of the second amendment, and the interpretation of their ruling is still debated to this day. But here, 70 years later, it seems freedom might have a nose of a lead.

Read the rest here.

A government that fears it’s armed citizens, should be very afraid of it’s armed citizens. Our Government, if within check, needn’t fear an armed citizenry.

Hopefully, we will see our Government uphold the 2nd.

If not, then we’ll have proof that we don’t have the same government we had in the beginning, and that the powerful in Washington aren’t even trying to pretend anymore.

Labels: 2nd Amendment, Concealed Carry Works, Guns, NRA, Politics

John Stossel has written an excellent column that ends with the statement “It would be nice if McCain would finally learn some economics.”

Stossel points out several statements John McCain has made against oil companies who, gasp, make profits, and also speculators, the new “bad guy” on the block.

John McCain served his country in Vietnam, and he should be respected for his service. But this millionaire, who is only a millionaire because he married an heiress, has never served a day in the private sector. He has always been on the government payroll. No wonder he doesn’t know anything about economics. Government operates outside of profit. It just seems to have an endless supply of money to waste, waste, and waste.

And not unlike other taxpayer leeches just like him, he has the nerve to make ridiculous  demagogic statements. He is a disgrace. He is like the GOP’s version of John Kerry.

I will do my best to hold my nose and vote for him, but the stink is getting really, really bad. Who knows if I can stand it?

One more thing about future’s speculators. Isn’t it convenient how the government, which is the real villain in this mess, switched from harping on the oil companies, to harping on the speculators? After noticing that the public wasn’t buying into the oil company demagoguery, the government lovers switched to the speculators. They never cease to amaze me. I bet, or should I say, I speculate, that out of the 535 “public servants” occupying Congress, that not even 50 of them could explain how the future’s market works.