Moral Depravity Behind Abortions

abortion is not health care1 Moral Depravity Behind Abortions

Events of the past few months have exposed the grisly, hideous underbelly of the abortion mill in America. When faced with the harsh, gut-wrenching realities of the procedures, the “woman’s right to choose” transforms into nothing more than infanticide, at whatever stage it’s perpetrated.

Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell is now serving three consecutive life terms for convictions on three counts of first-degree murder of infants. He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the overdose death of a patient.

Conditions inside Gosnell’s infanticide mill led Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams to call the clinic a “house of horrors.” The crime scene investigator said that “The smells were just unbearable. You could tell there was death everywhere.”

His former employees testified during the trial, painting a picture of gruesome violence against babies that could rival any horror flick. They testified how they aided Gosnell in severing the spinal cords and gouging the heads of not just seven infants (as he was charged), but literally “hundreds” of live babies. Steven Massof, an unlicensed medical school graduate, testified that “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.”  Sherry West testified how one baby, born alive, was merely tossed into a glass dish like a piece of refuse, and the baby simply screamed until it died.

Crime scene investigator John Taggart testified that the employees would dispose of fetal remains in a garbage disposal. When examined, investigators found human infant bone fragments inside. Taggart testified that “They were shoving body parts down the garbage disposal, to the point where they plunged it one day and an arm popped out on Lancaster Avenue.”

As if to not be outdone, and proving that Gosnel is not as anomalous as we might otherwise believe, we learn of a Texas doctor who has been running his own house of horrors. Four former employees of Dr. Douglas Karpen have made a public record of the atrocities committed by Karpen at his three abortion clinics. In their taped testimonial, the employees revealed what they had personally witnessed from their boss. They described how he would deliver live babies during third-trimester abortions and kill them by snipping their spinal cord, or stabbing a surgical instrument into their heads or stomach. Revoltingly, he even killed them by “twisting their heads off of their necks with his bare hands.” Other times, he would “pull the baby out of the womb in pieces because of how big it was.”

The former employees claim that they observed these horrendous acts on a daily basis. They said that some days, there would be three or four babies born alive and subsequently killed by the doctor. As of this writing, charges have not been filed against the doctor, who continues to run his practices in the Houston area.

What seems clear from these “doctors’” practices is that they’re abortionists, and so it makes no difference to them whether a baby dies by their hands in the womb or out of it. If it’s legal to terminate an infant while still in the mother, why should it make any difference if the baby is either part way out of the birth canal or completely out of it?

Unwittingly, they validate the argument that there is no difference. Regardless of what statute says or what the Supreme Court may rule, if it’s murder to kill an infant out of the womb, it’s also murder to kill one inside the womb. What is it that happens mysteriously at birth that grants an infant rights and protection under the law that are denied it before birth? After all, is it not even more innocent, more vulnerable, and more in need of parental and societal protection before birth?

As grisly and unconscionable as these examples are, it’s crucial that we as a people awaken to the fact that our current laws and our currently “legitimate” abortion industry are immoral and pervert our assignation of value to human life.

We recoil in horror at the news of the Sandy Hook killing of 20 children. Why are we not equally horrified by the murder of over 1.2 million babies every year in this country? Why are those who denounce Adam Lanza’s weapon of choice in the murder of the Connecticut children always the first to defend the weapons of Gosnel and Karpen?

The fact that we allow such murder of innocents to occur on a daily basis in this country, without outrage and denunciation, speaks volumes to the moral depravity and bankruptcy of the nation. After all, one of our founding principles, one that we hold to be an inalienable right, is that of “life.” If we hold unborn innocent life with such low regard, life is not an inalienable right, but a relativistic morally compromised principle that is nothing more than a good idea in some instances.

 

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with degrees in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board.  He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.

Photo Credit: Planetrussell (Creative Commons)

Is There Hope For The GOP?

FRONT ROYAL, VA — In case Republicans haven’t noticed, Obama has declared war on them.

Perhaps he recognizes that the party of Reagan is defenseless these days, having abdicated the principles that built the modern GOP – principles that have long enjoyed the high regard of a majority of Americans, millions of them nominal Democrats.

All of this is hardly news: conservatives have been on the ropes for years, and no one else in the GOP ever had any principles to begin with. Even now, the Tea Party diehards are getting the back of the hand from an ungrateful establishment. Republicans have fallen far from the moral high ground that conservatives built for the party in the days when the Gipper united it.

The fact that the GOP is still around at all might reflect the sad fact that many people of principle simply think there’s nowhere else to go. But that negative is a far cry from a positive – and it shows.

Speaking of negatives, it goes without saying these days that Democrats have long since abandoned principle altogether – unless, of course, lust for power can be called a “principle.” Augustine calls this Deadly Sin the libido dominandi, and how timeless and tireless it is: today’s defiant Democrats have merely packed a gaggle of self-indulgent interest groups into their crowded corral of corruption, paying them off with taxpayer-funded benefits, preferences, affirmations of a stunning variety of sexual indulgences and prurient privileges, crony cash, and, when all else fails, the promise of a friendly wink from the Leviathan.

The makeup of this captive collective remarkably reflects Rousseau’s Volonté de Tous, that mélange of individual interests that the Sovereign rejects in favor of the absolute power conferred by the Volonté Generale – the General Will. That cynical concoction empowers the Sovereign to decide all by himself what is good and what is evil [viz. Genesis 3:5]. This deft sleight of hand allows the tyrant to exercise absolute power [kratos] over the people [demos] “for their own good.”

Thus is Lincoln’s famous formulation – “of the people, by the people, and for the people” – effortlessly hijacked (as Mel Bradford predicted long ago.)

And those who resist? Rousseau concedes with a sigh that, well, “they must be forced to be free.” Brandishing that ersatz seal of moral approval, aspiring tyrants can easily seduce a veritable ocean of do-gooders, unwitting accomplices in the extermination of liberty.

No wonder, then, that the Founders loathed Rousseau’s democracy and established its opposite, a constitutional republic – which, as Tocqueville and even the Supreme Court acknowledged, thrived because we were a “Christian nation.”

Today, channeling Rousseau and Lenin, the Democrat Left has hollowed out the republic, discarding its principles and turned the dessicated husk upside-down. And why not? Didn’t Lenin say that Marx stood Hegel on his head? Once one denies the realm of the spiritual altogether, the Party has all the Power of Pilate to determine good and evil.

Falsehood always brings violence in its wake, said Solzhenitsyn, and the victims of the Leftist Lie are legion. Consider the Christian (and also constitutional) principle of subsidiarity, which reserves to small communities the freedom to handle their own affairs without interference from the central government. For the Left (including the Republican Left and the Christian Left, by the way), this principle is anathema. But it is useful, so the Power Party has hijacked it and corrupted it, all without a fight: now power must flow from the top down, implemented by commissars and apparatchiks (ours wear suits) who oppress, rather than respect, a free people.

Those are the same free people whom the Founders regarded as the locus of authority in a constitutional republic.

For the Democrat Left, down is always up. All around us we see that cause and effect and other laws of nature still abide – defy them, and our political and social culture sinks into chaos. So the only things that work today are drones, iPads, and Obama’s Thought Police.

Do Republicans Have An Alternative?

Well, back to the GOP, that party of principle.

Oh, really?

You’d think Republicans would learn.

Remember Woodrow Wilson’s “War To End All Wars”? It didn’t. Instead, it launched a century of violence and lies, feeding on innocent blood.

In like manner, Franklin Roosevelt’s insatiable appetite for flattery at Yalta gave Stalin one hundred million Christians in Eastern Europe to suffer under Soviet rule for half of a century.

By the time LBJ’s war in Viet Nam – complete with Richard Nixon’s “Secret Plan” to end it – came and went, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Bob Dole could famously condemn “Democrat Wars” in 1976, underscoring the solidly Republican alternative of “Peace and Prosperity.” Dole wasn’t able to make that stick, but Ronald Reagan did, making him the most popular president in living memory.

And then along came George W. Bush, who was as uneasy his conservative platform in 2000 as FDR was with his in 1932. But “9-11 changed everything,” so the dialectic trumped principle, and “Big-Government Conservatism” quickly became the new normal. While Obama was still a no-show in the Illinois State Senate, the Bush-Cheney administration laid the ideological and legal groundwork for the campaign that is destroying the Republic today. Obama is only picking up where Bush left off.

The irony is cruel and unrelenting. Rejecting the Founders and resurrecting Wilson, Bush and Cheney decided to “make the world safe for democracy.” They stood Bob Dole on his head, turning the Republican Party upside down – celebrating power while ignoring the Constitution, Congress, and history.

Perhaps – especially for the profoundly Christian Bush – the most tragic consequence (yes, tragic, because hubris is indeed a tragic flaw) was the virtual annihilation of Christianity in the Middle East, especially in the countries that Bush’s invasions were said to “liberate.”

Alas, a “rump parliament” of Christian ”Happy-Talkers” in the GOP Hot Tub still celebrates Bush’s “triumphs,” even as Obama’s grim offensive against liberty continues to build on the fertile ground that Bush’s dialectic graciously, albeit perhaps mindlessly, bequeathed to him.

Why do they persist?

Principles – For Sale, Cheap!

Well, over the years, an increasing number of Republican Regulars have bought into the formula that the Democrats have used to destroy the GOP. The ease with which this well-heeled Hot Tub Herd has been tamed by baubles and banalities brings to mind another immorality tale, recounted in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.

There, England’s King Edward, known as “Longshanks,” faces Gibson in the role of William Wallace, who leads the Scots in the Battle of Falkirk. Longshanks is smug, having bought off Wallace’s allies, Lochlan and Mornay. The instructive scene is set as Longshanks calls for his Irish troops to engage the Scots.

General: Mornay, Lochlan?

Longshanks: I gave Mornay double his lands in Scotland and matching estates in England. Lochlan turned for much less.

Archers!

General: I beg your pardon, sire. Won’t we hit our own troops?

Longshanks: Yes, but we’ll hit theirs as well. We have reserves.

Attack!

In this exchange we observe venality in all its glory. Yes, the GOP’s ambitious nobility aspire to a payoff like Mornay’s, but, like Lochlan, all too many have “turned for much less.”

But Mel leaves a haunting message for the sellouts of our own age: the battle lost, Wallace tracks down Lochlan and Mornay, and kills them both.

 

From Under the Rubble is copyright (c) 2013 by Christopher Manion. All rights reserved. This column is sponsored by the Bellarmine Forum, and distributed by Griffin Internet Syndicate and FGF Books, www.fgfBooks.com

Christopher Manion is Director of the Campaign for Humanae Vitae™, a project of the Bellarmine Forum. He served as a staff director on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for many years. He has taught in the departments of politics, religion, and international relations at Boston University, the Catholic University of America, and Christendom College. This column is sponsored by the Bellarmine Forum.

Congressman Invites Obama To Join Him

Steve Stockman official portrait Congressman Invites Obama To Join Him

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Stockman (R-Texas 36) encouraged his Republican and Democrat colleagues to join him in signing a letter to President Barack Obama marking the 55th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic NAACP v. Alabama ruling, and condemning any unlawful harassment of political groups because of the content of their political speech.

The letter also asks Obama to prosecute any Executive Branch officials engaging in any attempt to unlawfully harass a political group or demand a list of its members.

“On June 30, 1958 the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear the Executive Branch has no lawful authority to target political groups based simply on the content of their speech.  Not only is it unconstitutional, it is a frontal assault on the very founding principles of this Republic,” said Stockman.  “History has a way of repeating itself and I urge Republicans, Democrats and President Obama to stand with me in defense of those rights protected from government officials by the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.”

Members of Congress have until June 29 to sign on to the letter, which will be sent to the White House on June 30.  The text of the letter to members of Congress, and the letter to Obama, follow.

 

Dear Colleague,

June 30th of this year marks the 55th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in NAACP v. Alabama.  In that ruling the Court struck down an attempt by state Executive Branch employees to harass a political group because they disagreed with the content of its speech.

Please join me in sending a letter to President Obama asking him to join us in marking this historic anniversary, as well as in condemning any similar unconstitutional attempt by the Executive to use its authority to target political groups for harassment.

To sign on to this letter, or should you have any questions, please contact Senior Communications Adviser Donny Ferguson at Donny@mail.house.gov.  The text of the letter follows.

Warmest wishes,

STEVE STOCKMAN
Member of Congress

June 30, 2013

President Obama:

Fifty-five years ago today the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark decision, NAACP v. Alabama, upholding Americans’ rights of free speech and free association.

As you recall, Alabama sought to enjoin the state’s NAACP from operating by declaring it in violation of the state’s corporate laws. The state then issued an order for a list of the group’s members.

Clearly, the state’s Executive branch was harassing a group because they disagreed with its political views.

The case was eventually brought to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled Alabama violated the NAACP’s rights of free speech and free association.

Justice John Marshall Harlan II, writing for the majority, declared that without an “overriding valid interest” any attempt by government officials to discourage groups from engaging in speech or political activity is unconstitutional.  According to the Court, the “advancement of beliefs and ideas” is protected from baseless harassment by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Executive Branch officials had no lawful authority to target the organization, or to demand it reveal its finances or membership.

We are sure you agree any action by a government employee to harass political groups, simply because they disagree with their speech, constitutes deprivation “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” as stated in the Fourteenth Amendment.

We encourage you to join us in honoring that historic fight to protect the freedoms of speech and association.  We hope you will demonstrate your commitment to a federal government that upholds those rights protected from government by the First and Fourteenth amendments.

History has a way of repeating itself.  In light of the Court’s NAACP v. Alabama ruling we also hope you will hold responsible any federal official or employee who attempts to chill the speech simply because of its content — including cooperation with any investigation or prosecution of such unconstitutional actions.

Warmest wishes,

STEVE STOCKMAN
Member of Congress

POTUS Protectors Blow Smoke, Spew Ink

Barack Obama American flag SC POTUS protectors blow smoke, spew ink

Critics say Obama not only knew; he participated.

The Leftwing Loons are flapping their wings like mad, attempting to beat back the scandal avalanche. They are not gaining altitude.  Doesn’t it seem they are admitting guilt by objecting so vehemently?  As investigations mount, nothing short of independent counsels will do. And already, there are reasons to believe the President knew about the IRS abuse of power long ago, did nothing to intervene (as in Benghazi), and may very well have directed aspects of the operation, at least through surrogates. *

Dem Senators like ‘Menendez the Corrupt’ blow smoke to cover Obama’s tail, saying the IRS was correct targeting conservative groups because those groups illegally participated in politics.  A number of ‘MS Lie if You Please’ vipers drooled similar venom, joining Obama’s IRS in attacking conservative groups.

There’s only one problem, boys.

Since most of these groups did not get IRS permission to operate, how can you accuse them of operating illegally?

Rounding out the smoke and mirrors crowd, Julian Bond of the NAACP and Bette Midler support IRS thuggery, saying it was justified since Tea Party groups are racist.  So in America, a mere accusation is sufficient to unleash federal power to persecute citizens?

And by the way, if and when you ever come up with proof the Tea Party is racist, let us know.  Meanwhile, by all means, keep playing the race card.  It is now so laughable that every time you play it, we see a Joker.

Recently, Obama deployed The Pfeiffer to huff and puff on all the Sunday shows, just like Susan Rice many moons ago.  He actually accused Republicans of doctoring documents to hurt his Boss.  He did not produce the doctored documents.  Perhaps they are in some IRS file in the ObamaCare central databank, aka Obama’s enemies list.

The Pfeiffer acted terribly offended when Fox’s Chris Wallace asked legitimate questions about Benghazi.  Imagine the insult of a reporter asking legitimate questions about a red hot controversy and scandal.  When Pfeiffer’s friends at NBC and ABC asked about the IRS, he casually claimed law breaking irrelevant, not as important as the appearance of White House corruption.  What?

In this light, we must add incoherence to charges of corruption and incompetence.

Hopefully, voters will see through all the octopus ink and the shuck and jive amplified daily by Obama’s apologists.

This is not a matter of the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United.  It’s a matter of Obot Radicals waging war against opponents.

It is not a matter of poor laws and loose regulations leaving the IRS unsure about how to proceed.  It’s about IRS higher ups deciding to intentionally harass and abuse anyone seeking exempt status from the conservative side.

This is not about trying to efficiently process a flood of tax exempt status filings by the Tea Party.  It’s about using the power of the IRS to stomp political opposition.

This is not about supposed illegality by groups trying to get legal permission to operate.  It’s about the government preventing legitimate groups from exercising their Constitutional rights, raw tyranny if truth be told.

This is not simply a series of hundreds of innocent mistakes targeting conservatives while liberal groups were fast-tracked.  It’s a glaring abuse of power used in a partisan way to forward an agenda specifically designed to crush conservatives and promote leftist groups.

*And now we see reliable sources calling out Obama, accusing him of direct involvement:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/irs-obama-tea-party/2013/05/14/id/504419?s=al&promo_code=137DF-1

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/05/more-evidence-emerges-that-administration-knew-of-irs-targeting-during-campaign-video/

For those who still trust this President, ask yourself: why is he consumed with covering up rather than doing his job?

Ultimately, this is about all the president’s men (and women) doing his bidding, using federal power to silence dissent, to discriminate against opponents, and to violate the God-given rights of American citizens.  What’s next: supplying IRS agents with drones?

Obama took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.  He must have had his fingers crossed behind his back at the inauguration.

 

Allan Erickson enjoyed an 11-year career in radio, television and print journalism as a reporter, talk show host, and operations manager. He then turned to sales and marketing for a decade. Twelve years ago he started a training and recruitment company. Allan & wife Jodi have four children and live in California. He is the author of the book “The Cross & the Constitution in the Age of Incoherence,” Tate Publishing, 2012. He is available to speak in churches addressing the topics of faith and freedom.  To contact him, email:  allanlerickson@gmail.com

IRS Smoking Gun Blows Hole In Obama’s Game Plan

kellapplausewm 0 300x163 IRS Smoking Gun Blows Hole in Obama’s Game Plan

The IRS has admitted to harassing conservative groups seeking tax exempt status, singling out for extra special scrutiny organizations which featured “patriot” or “tea party” designations in their name. We now know that a number of these groups were forced to withdraw their applications, being unable or unwilling to continue what in some cases had become a three year battle with the corrupt federal agency.

But few in the media have bothered to ask who directed the IRS to engage in this criminal behavior. It has been reported that Senators Chuck Schumer and Al Franken addressed a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman in early 2012, “…demanding the IRS target conservative groups or face legislation forcing them to do so.”

Yet Democrat demands that the IRS investigate conservative organizations were nothing new. Senators Dick Durbin and Max Baucus offered their own “suggestions” that the Service concentrate their efforts on such groups in 2010, (2) Durbin claiming his missive resulted from the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision which “…created a rush for organizations seeking tax exempt status…” (3) Of course that “rush” excuse was a lie as the number of organizations seeking tax exempt status actually declined both during the year of the Citizens United decision (2010) and the year after.

But it appears the IRS shoe has finally dropped, right on Barack Hussein’s head. The story has broken that National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen Kelley met with Obama on March 31st of 2010, exactly one day before the IRS began to target Tea Party and other conservative groups across the nation. As the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s report reveals, “April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit [of the IRS], suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.”

Oddly enough, neither Colleen Kelley, the NTEU or Barack Hussein want to talk about that coincidentally timed, 2010 meeting. Responding to a Washington Post inquiry via email, Kelley said the “NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time…”

And when Barack was asked about White House knowledge of IRS targeting, he did his best impersonation of Bill Clinton by ignoring the question that was asked and answering one that wasn’t. Bloomberg News asked Obama: “Can you assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the [IRS] actions before your Counsel’s Office found out on April 22nd?” Obama’s answer: “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press.”

The IG report? Bloomberg didn’t ask about the IG report. The News service asked if anyone at the White House had prior knowledge of IRS corruption! When in doubt (or guilty as Hell), just Duck, Dodge and Hide!

Of all the corrupt schemes engineered by the Obama Regime, this is the most dangerous to their future plans. If Republicans remain steadfast in their criticism of Obama and continue the political pressure, the One might be forced to play defense during much of his last four years. That is certainly NOT what he had in mind after the election.