WingRight
Politics
ComPost – The Washington Post Mocking @GovernorPerry
“It was all so aggressively, enthusiastically appealing to all patriotic impulses as to be very nearly cynical.”
Compost is right.And, look who did bring the cynicism, along with a nice dose of sarcasm. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t follow through with and explanation for her mocking, much less argue any differences she has with the facts and issues.
I wonder why the author puts herself through what mus have been and excruciating event for her. She could have been with the OccupyWhatever (Des Moines branch) or, better yet, the Ron Paul campaign.
Why “None of the Above” is not acceptable (Vote positive, vote @GovernorPerry )
I admit to voting for a “None of the Above” candidate in the Texas Republican Primary in 2008. However, by that time, my vote was no more than a protest against John McCain, who appeared to have been chosen by the Powers That Be (“PTB”) in the Republican Party, rather than the voters that I knew.
That’s not the case for voters in the Iowa Caucus, and the Primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida.
Today’s news includes the NBC News/Marist poll, which indicates that more than half of registered voters in Iowa don’t intend to show up on January 3 for the caucuses. That means that 47% of you will effectively cast 2 votes; votes that have the potential to determine who will become the Republican candidate for President and which will at least decide who stays in the race and who withdraws. You are in a position to tell the PTB who you want on the ballot in November, 2012. Please vote for the candidate that shares your values, not the most electable or not-Whomever.
If I may, I’d like suggest positive reasons to vote in the contests mentioned above and to vote for Governor Rick Perry:
- 11 years of experience governing Texas, with the second largest population of all the States, an economy that would be in the top 20 in the world if it were an independent Nation, and one of the most diverse populations in the United States.
- A proven Conservative record, including advocacy for pro-life laws and for traditional marriage.
- On the record in his books, Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington and On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For. You can read excerpts at Amazon.com and on this blog here and here.
- A strong record of action to protect the sovereignty of the United States, the individual States, and the border between Texas and Mexico, and
- a personal history of volunteering to serve in the United States Air Force, achieving the rank of Captain as a pilot, marriage to Anita for nearly 30 years, and an outspoken man of faith.
@GovernorPerry MSM Loves Abortion and Hates a Texas White House
Every time I convince myself that the MSM hates Governor Rick Perry because they don’t want to spend time a hundred miles from nowhere (or 200 miles from Dallas
), they remind me that the real problem is the Governor’s core values.
The fuss this time is due to Governor Perry’s statement recognizing that the children of rape and incest are human enough to deserve society’s protection from intentional, elective killing. Last night I wrote about Rachel Maddow’s mad rantings concerning abortion and the children of rape or incest. Today, (while breaking with the rest of the media in choosing to use the term, “pro-life,” rather than the usual “anti-choice”) WFAA-TV in Dallas made sure that we understand that the Governor “enjoys deep support among pro-life groups, and signed their favored sonogram bill into law earlier this year.” Not only that, but,
“Pro-choice groups and many Democrats say they will keep fighting the sonogram law.
“”This will probably lead to a law saying that if a 14-year-old victim of incest wants to get an abortion, she would then have to submit to a sonogram, which is one of the most invasive procedures this legislature has come up with,” said Andy Brown, chairman of the Travis County Democratic Party.”
via Perry’s tougher abortion stance: What does it mean for Texas? | wfaa.com Dallas – Fort Worth.
I would like to commend WFAA for using the term, “pro-life.” Thank you, WFAA!
Disclaimer: I’m on the Board of Directors of the Texas Alliance for Life, mentioned in the article. And yes, we’d like to see all children, including those of victims of rape and incest, protected at least as much as the eggs of birds on the Endangered Species List.
U.S. District Court in Virginia Expedites Rick Perry’s Ballot Access Lawsuit
Sounds like there may be a chance for more than 2 Republican candidates on the Primary ballot in Virginia. (That Rick Hasen mentioned below owns the “Election Law Blog.”)
U.S. District Court in Virginia Expedites Rick Perry’s Ballot Access Lawsuit, December 29th, 2011
U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney of Virginia has set a hearing in Rick Perry’s presidential primary ballot access lawsuit. He will consider Perry’s request for injunctive relief on January 13. In the meantime, he has established a briefing schedule, and also has instructed attorneys for Perry to communicate with all other Republican presidential primary candidates who had filed a declaration of candidacy, to explain to them how they may intervene in the lawsuit. This shows foresight and thoughtfulness on the part of the judge. The case is Perry v Judd, 3:11-cv-856. Judge Gibney is an Obama appointee. The issue is the state’s ban on out-of-state circulators. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news.
I’m a big believer in following the rules, but the rules shouldn’t be arbitrary and they must be published well in advance and offer equal opportunity. The Virginia GOP rules were evidently changed just last month, either to make it easier by encouraging padding the numbers to exceed 15,000 signatures submitted, or to make it harder for candidates to get in by introducing an unprecedented scrutiny for those who turned in less than 15,000 signatures. (There are even accusations that the number was pulled out of the air after Mitt Romney reached 15K.)
Matt Barber: “Ron Paul is dangerous”
I decided in ‘08 that Paul was more dangerous than Clinton. Paul refuses to acknowledge that jet planes and missiles make the world a different place than the one that George Washington knew. I agree with Mr. Barber’s latest essay on TownHall.com and laughed at his description of “Uncle Ronny:”
“He’s that affable – if not a little “zany” – uncle who has the whole family on edge at Thanksgiving. “Oh boy; what’s Uncle Ronny gonna say next?”
“Still, you wouldn’t give Uncle Ronny the carving knife for the turkey, much less less the keys to the Oval Office.”
Ron Paul is not a Conservative. He has run as – and is, still – a (Capital L)ibertarian, with skewed ideas about the world based on tunnel vision. By claiming that he is only following the intent of the Constitution, he seems unaware that the Founders did not have to contend with international travel or laws permitting abortion due to Supreme Court rulings that have the effect of a Constitutional Amendment.
Although he has a great personal testimony about the sanctity of life and did finally vote to ban partial birth abortion, for years he refused to vote against Federal limits on abortion as performed in military hospitals or when minors are transported across State lines without their parents consent. And it seems that he doesn’t understand that defense is so much better when you can take it to the aggressor’s back yard and keep him as far away from our home as possible.
I’m hoping that, beginning with the Iowa Caucus, voters will remember that Governor Rick Perry has always been consistent about securing our Borders, defending our Nation from external attack, and protecting the most defenseless among us.
Ethics, what’s that? Or how not to switch candidates.
Well, for one thing, I’m sure that it’s not ethical to make a public spectacle out of turning on your candidate just six days before the caucus. And it’s certainly not cool to break up via text message.
Kent Sorenson, an Iowa State Senator who endorsed Michele Bachmann back in March, and who became Chair of that State’s Bachmann campaign for President, evidently attended a Bachmann rally in his hometown of Indianola on Wednesday afternoon, hen let his former campaign know of his intention to switch his endorsement from his car on the drive to a Des Moines, Iowa Fair grounds rally for Ron Paul .
Seriously,how did he do it? With a “CUL8R MB”?
Sorenson then made a pretty spectacular announcement at the Paul rally (video, here).
We’re now seeing the “he said/she said” accusations that Sorenson betrayed Bachmann for money offered by the Paul campaign. Sorenson, Paul and Bachmann should all realize that we will eventually see any donations or payments made to Sorenson or his future campaigns by the Paul campaign.
Just to make sure that this is not about Romney, the Boston Globe dedicated the second part of the report on the defection to Bachmann’s criticism of Governor Rick Perry. Even if we Republicans didn’t “shoot our own,” the media will skew the story for maximum circular firing squad effect.
@GovernorPerry #Iowa Strike Force
The Rick Perry for President Iowa Strike Force loading up and heading out to deliver signs and t-shirts.
Just yuck! An evening with MSNBC
I’m tempted to say, “Never again!,” but I try to never say never.
I’m staying in a hotel while volunteering with the Rick Perry Iowa Strike Force, so I don’t know the local TV channels. While clicking through to see what was on, I paused at MSNBC. I’ve never watched at all except for clips on YouTube and assumed that both those clips and the Saturday Night Live parodies of Maddow show were atypical exaggerations. Nope, not if tonight is typical.
Every charge I’ve ever heard or read about Fox News is made concrete on this horrible channel. The Ed (Schultz) Show and Rachel Maddow (look ‘em up yourself, I refuse to link to them) are bitterly clinging to unions, abortion, and the far Left in all its forms.
For instance, Schultz featured a man who claims that Mitt Romney killed American Pad and Paper (AmPad) after Romney’s Bain Capital, purchased AmPad in 1992. The man, who now works for the United Steelworkers in Pennsylvania, also told ABC News in this interview that when the company started losing money, benefits for the “workers” were cut, so the union went on strike. He takes no responsibility for the damage that the strike might have had on a business under stress.
Maddow focused part of her rants on Governor Rick Perry’s recent comments about a change of heart on the ethics of abortion and the exceptions for rape and incest. She repeatedly claimed that Rick Perry would “force” pregnant women to have their rapist’s child. She ignores that the child is also that woman’s baby and seemingly doesn’t understand that government wouldn’t *force* anything on anyone. Instead, government would be preventing action on the part of licensed medical professionals using regulated and licensed material and procedures, not forcing action on anyone.
My two hours watching MSNBC reminded me of the line (variously attributed to Lenin and Sun Tzu), “Call your enemy what you are.”
Perry Campaign Volunteers
We’re starting to show up and getting to work.
Of Course, the bloggers – at least one of us – are goofing off.
Spare Parts for Humans: Tissue Engineers Aim for Lab-Grown Limbs, Lungs and More | PBS NewsHour | Dec. 15, 2011 | PBS
“Just because we don’t regenerate doesn’t mean that we can’t regenerate. It just means that we don’t.”
Public Broadcasting System’s PBS NewsHour had a segment on regenerative medicine, reviewing the very impressive progress we’ve made in the last few years. The mere fact that PBS and scientists will state these facts in public is almost as huge, in terms of world view change, as the fact that the matrices plus stem cells work.
I was at a American Bioethics and Humanities annual convention when Yamanaka’s induced pluripotent cells first made the news. The Powers That Be for that group were angry and refused to allow any hopeful conversation that the iPSC’s would replace the need for research on destructive, embryonic stem cells. Damage control included scolding world authority figures *on* the panels for daring to bring up the subject in any serious way.
I’m convinced that the whole embryonic stem cell mess was more about the need to prove that abortion is wonderful and that there is no Creator. In fact, that’s exactly what one of the Clinton/Obama “bioethicists,” Robin Alta Charo, said about cloning in at least one meeting I attended in July, 2006. (More, here.)
Ms. Charo who introduces morality and her anti-religion bias into the conversation, by making it a matter of personal opinion whether or not embryonic humans are humans. The species of human embryos is a matter of taxonomy, since it’s scientifically documented and verifiable that the offspring of a given species are members of that species. Discrimination between the amount of protection given to some members of a species is much more a “religious” or moral decision than whether or not a given individual is a member of that species.
I’ve said it many times before, but: Break the egg of a bird, turtle, or lizard on the Endangered species list and it won’t matter that the animal couldn’t survive or was an embryo or fetus. The Feds know that an embryonic pelican is a pelican. We don’t have the same protection for our own children of tomorrow that we give lesser species, although we are the only species having the conversation in the first place.
The Left’s *Class* Ceiling
From the public rhetoric and actions, it appears that the Left’s motto is “if I can’t have it, no one can.” In direct contrast to all the talk of protecting and preserving the middle class from the Obama administration, I’m convinced that their true goal is to control and limit the people who make it above lower middle class.
Their vision is so limited, they no longer see the American dream as “anyone can be President, a millionaire, etc. With this man in the White House, you’d think they’d be celebrating. But no! Since they have pinched little minds, and pinched little souls. they are consumed by class envy.
How else to explain the Occupiers? They
- trash parks and prevent the public from enjoying them (name any city),
- deface public monuments (spray paint on monument in Charlottesville, Virginia),
- obstruct traffic (name any city with impotent police),
- harass children on their way to school, and
- knock little old ladies down stairs.
The violence and destruction is just one step away from the anarchy the far Left commits repeatedly at IMF/World Bank meetings. Witness the shut-down of the shipping yards at Oakland Port, this week, or the Black Friday attacks on Walmart and their employees, which even spread to Hawaii, where “shop locally” would definitely limit choices and increase prices. Not to mention kill the economy built on taxes and fees on tourists.
Gives a whole new meaning to “Take back our Country,” doesn’t it?
CMS overturns Texas’ abortion provider exclusion @GovernorPerry
The Houston Chronicle article (not available when I wrote this earlier post) implies that the ruling from CMS is much more far-reaching than I’d thought. Our laws prohibiting State funds going to anyone who provides abortions may be overturned. This looks like it goes farther than simply disapproving of the priorities we placed on allocating our funds. It appears that Obama has decided that we can’t continue to make recipients of Texas funds sign a contract to not perform or refer for abortions.
If this is true, women can get prenatal care and teen girls can get their vaccinations in the same building where their neighbor is having her unborn baby killed! Or Texas can refuse Medicaid funds.
Texas will no longer be allowed to prohibit Medicaid recipients from receiving care at family planning clinics that perform abortions, the federal government informed the state Monday.
Arguing that the Social Security Act prohibits states from excluding such clinics, the federal agency that runs the program informed Texas that next year it will not approve an agreement like the one now in place in Texas.
“The issue is … whether a state can restrict access to a qualified health provider simply because they provide other services Medicaid doesn’t pay for,” Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, said in a phone interview with reporters. “The law does not permit this.”
Mann stressed that Medicaid “does not pay for abortions and will not pay for abortions.” She said the agency will extend Texas’ current agreement through March while negotiating a new one.
In a statement, Gov. Rick Perry responded that President Barack Obama is making women “pay the price for its pro-abortion agenda.”
“I am concerned the Obama Administration is playing politics by holding women’s health care hostage because of Texas’ pro-life policies, sacrificing the health of millions of Texas women,” said Perry.
Since 2006, Texas has provided low-income women 18 to 44 with family planning exams, related health screenings and birth control through the Medicaid Women’s Health Program. Last year, it provided services to more than 180,000 women, with 90 percent of its funds coming from the federal government and the rest from the state.
via Texas abortion provider exclusion blocked – Houston Chronicle.
Obama to Texas: Fund PP or no Well Woman money
The Obama Administration has told Texas that our State is not allowed to decide who will provide medical care under Title X Family Planning and Well Woman funds. The Administration has recently ruled in a similar manner for other States. (
This in spite of the fact that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) did give Texas a waiver allowing Texas to move all Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries to doctors in managed care plans. The managed care plans, along with cooperative coalitions between hospital systems and the doctors they will pay for seeing managed care patients, is consistent with the plans laid out in “Obamacare.” Evidently, so is Planned Parenthood’s survival.
CMS claims in this letter to Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission that we’re limiting the choices of the women because the State prioritized where to spend our money and who to pay for healthcare, beginning with county clinics and hospital districts, followed by doctors and clinics that provide comprehensive, continuing care. Since we only have so much money, our Legislature decided to support the most vital care givers. Even though we don’t specifically write in law that “Planned Parenthood, Inc., need not apply,” CMS doesn’t like our plan.
CMS was asked to give a “waiver” to Texas since the funding is outside normal Medicaid rules, because it funds care for adults who are not at the rock-bottom income levels. Texas also has a waiver in order to use funds for prenatal care, justified by counting the unborn child. (The pro-aborts have protested over and over that the mother, not her child, should be the one we count and that she should be allowed to use the money for any “reproductive services,” including abortion, that she wants.)
Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life have both issued statements opposing the CMS ruling.
From Joe Pojman, Ph.D., TAL’s Executive Director:
“We believe the State of Texas has every right to deny millions of tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, which is what the Texas Legislature and Governor Perry has chosen to do,” he said. “Senate Bill 7, passed last summer during a special legislative session, prohibits Medicaid tax dollars under the Women’s Health Program from going to abortion providers and their affiliated organizations.”
“This bill excludes several dozen Planned Parenthood sites from the Women’s Health Program, but it does not exclude any other hundreds of Women’s Health Program providers in Texas. Many of the other providers offer comprehensive primary and preventative care to low- income women in addition to family planning, which Planned Parenthood is unable or unwilling to provide,” he continued. “By threatening to cancel the Women’s Health Program in Texas, the Obama Administration is showing it would sooner deny tens of millions of dollars of medical services to low-income women rather than allow the State of Texas to cut off tax funding to Planned Parenthood.”
Addendum: this article from the Houston Chronicle (I quoted from it here) which implies that the ruling may go so far as to overturn our long-standing law that requires providers to sign a contract affirming that they don’t perform or refer for abortions.
@GovernorPerry Blogger Action Center
Bloggers can sign up for the Perry.org Blogger Action Center and get widgets for their blog here.
I like my button, seen at the right, but these are pretty! There are several State-specific widgets and these more general buttons:
” 
“
Conservatives on my mind (Revision of earlier post) @governorperry
Conservatives understand that we shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Personally, I’m reluctant to criticize Republican candidates before even one vote is cast in the Primaries. But Conservatives also know that if we ignore our principles for expediency, we risk losing both. if we learned anything in 2008, that is.
Even Erick Erickson of Red State says he’s ready to go “none of the above.” But “none of the above” won’t cut it this year. We are fighting an incumbent that is almost guaranteed the black, gay and pro-abort vote, not to mention all of the many people who can only survive by the redistribution of tax money!
We have an opportunity to vote our principles in Rick Perry. If you can’t bear Governor Perry or don’t believe his experience in governing Texas is indicative of his ability to govern the United States, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum are good options. In contrast, Gingrich or Romney would just be the latest version of “it’s his turn.” We need the consistency and the radical DC outsider that is Rick Perry.
I know that many Conservatives have either been divorced and remarried or have loved ones who have been divorced. Others have family members who are homosexuals. We might even have family members who have been convicted of crimes – and I’m not saying that either of the first two are crimes. However, we understand that messy personal lives are not the ideal, and we prefer that our leaders be someone that we can not only admire, but who will demonstrate that they hold – and live – our principles as their own.
The Newt is everything that we have been fighting since McCain was nominated. The ability to debate does not equate to the ability to govern.He has been selling himself as the next in line, ever since Obama’s inauguration, according to the report in the Real Clear Politics’ Election 2012: the Battle Begins. The story is that Gingrich hosted a dinner for Republicans on the night of the inauguration.
Worse, if Newt Gingrich is the Republican nominee, we won’t have the family values and principles that the base of the Conservative Republicans have rallied ’round. I’m not sure his history of serial adultery can stand up to opposition of same sex marriage. If marriage is plastic enough to support Newt’s history, then why not?
I’d like to believe the Catholic conversion that went along with this latest marriage is a good place to reset Newt’s sexual morality and ethical credentials. However, Gingrich can’t even stay on point on when life begins, telling us one thing on Friday and begging Catholics to tell us he meant something else on Sunday.
If Conservative bloggers are willing to go with pretty talk, will Conservative voters follow? I don’t think so. I believe that the TEA Party has proven that we are outside the influence of Party politics. We work from the Republican Party only as long as the Republican Party will honor our principles and at least appear to support *us.*
I am somewhat afraid that the TEA Party is too busy deciding whether personal lives and a true understanding of first principles – life, liberty, “first do no harm” – are important if their property is secured. I’ve watched in disbelief as uncertainty about the flavor of the month’s views on abortion, when life begins, true marriage and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is justified because of some mistaken idea that giving up ideology will give us the White House.
It’s indeed time to make the decision to support principles or not. But few of us will vote in New Hampshire, Iowa or South Carolina. Our choice of which candidate to support is only urgent if we are blogging, writing, advocating and donating money.
Whether your biggest fear is that Obama wins, or that Romney wins, the next 2 or 3 months are the time to support Conservatives. Don’t choose to advocate for or donate to the “electable” candidate long before your own before your primary, for pity’s sake!
Edited at 15:00, 12/8/11 to add last 3 paragraphs, and on December 25 to correct mispelling.
@GovernorPerry to Blitz: “You guys are a bigger pain than the back surgery.”
Governor Rick Perry was grilled by Wolf Blitzer on CNN‘s Situation Room on Wednesday, December 7, with frequent interruptions and repetitious questions. (Full transcript, here.) “Blitz” once again earned the nickname given to him by Herman Cain.
The Houston Chronicle, which leans far to the left, reported on the interview in a blog entry entitled, “Perry talks about pain meds, gay Scouts and the VP job”
[Perry] Asserted that his July spine surgery, which he noted involved the use of his own stem cells, was “incredibly successful.”
Blitzer’s question included the issue of pain medication, and Perry said, “I’m back running again, three to four miles, four to five times a week and I was off for 10 weeks. I probably took pain medication for the first 10 days, two weeks. And after that, the surgery has been awesome. … You guys are a bigger pain than the back surgery.”
But of course, the real problem for both Blitz and the Chronicle’s blogger is the Governor’s statements concerning pro-life, faith-based Catholic hospitals and adoption services, the lawsuits against the Boy Scouts who refuse to admit openly gay scout leaders and the limits on Catholic aide to victims of human trafficking. The Chronicle and Blitz each call these acts of “discrimination.” Blitz even asked Governor Perry whether “separation of church and state, does that mean anything to you?”
Perry pointed out the difference between “freedom *of* religion” and “freedom *from* religion. The question should be whether the First Amendment phrase “and the free exercise thereof” means anything.
Under the Bush Administration, Catholic Charities and hospitals weren’t forced to provide adoption services for homosexual couples or to pay for abortifacients like EllaOne or refer to abortionists in order to provide adoption assistance or prenatal care.
The Obama Administration is doing just the opposite. On top of the policies of the States of Illinois, Massachusetts, and others that are limiting Christian, pro-life adoption agencies, the Obama Administration is moving forward on regulations to severely restrict conscience.
Must every agency that receives tax money provide an absolutly full range of services? Lay aside the fact that adoption and abortion are not compatible with one another. It seems evident that birth mothers and and adoptive parents that go to Catholic charities and adoption agencies would have a pretty good idea about the philosophy of the group based on religious tenets.
That’s probably the fear of the prospective gay adopters: as the Governor says, “People will vote with their feet.” Why would a prolife Catholic girl who finds herself an unplanned pregnancy – who admittedly has most become pregnant by committing what she considers a sin – “choose” to have her baby raised in a home that doesn’t share her values? And why on earth would she ever “choose” to seek care for herself and her baby from a doctor who also kills the babies of other women?
The advocates for choice must, in fact, hate choice – they certainly fight to prevent it, even to demand that we act against our own “choice” and conscience.
@Governor Perry, @Freedom2Care: Abortion Ideology Trumps Aid for Victims of Human Trafficking
Regarding Governor Perry’s comments about the Obama Administration’s war on religion:
A grueling December 1 hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee revealed the disturbing answers to these questions, in the process infuriating Republican committee members and others concerned with aiding victims of human trafficking.
By the end of an over three-hour long grilling of U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials, one message had become clear about the Obama administration’s criteria for receiving the $4.5 million in federal grants for trafficking victims services:
Pro-life groups need not apply.
via Freedom2Care: Abortion Ideology Trumps Aid for Victims of Human Trafficking.
The regulations were written to prevent any pro-life group from receiving grant money:
The funding opportunity announcement for the “competitive” grant stipulated:
Translation: Participate in abortion or forget the grant.
Wentworth: redistricting to be fair to the Dems
Hey, Senator Wentworth! We don’t want a balanced consensus on the maps — we want Republican maps.(And we want Dr. Donna Campbell for Senate District 25.)
We don’t want activist judges, but neither are we willing to give up the right to draw our electoral maps just because it’s hard. We want Conservative Legislators, preferably Conservative, pro-life, pro-family Republican legislators – That’s why we sent 100 to the House this year, and won a 101st when he saw the light.
Earl Jeffrey has a column in the San Antonio Express News on Dec.6 th, begging us to cross the aisle and “all just get along:”
In addition to separating communities of interest, gerrymandering protects incumbents. Protected incumbencies discourage challengers, so voters’ choices are limited to a “token” challenger or to no choice at all.
Since both political parties have proven conclusively that they are unable to resist the gerrymandering urge, Senate Bill 22 would have created an independent, bipartisan citizens’ redistricting commission that I believe would bring more of a sense of balance and a semblance of fairness to redistricting.
via Federal judges redraw Texas redistricting maps – San Antonio Express-News.
Gingrich fails human ethics, human embryology
Even though we are the only species having this conversation, that doesn’t mean that we always get it right.
I was hoping that the recent Catholic conversion of Republican candidate for President Newt Gingrich would ensure that he is pro-life and would act correctly if he is ever elected to an office. Unfortunately, he doesn’t understand the basics of embryology. He fails human ethics and would end up charged with a Federal offense if he tried to make this argument to the Environmental Protection Agency about any animal on the Endangered Species List:
“Well, I think the question of being implanted is a very big question. My friends who have ideological positions that sound good don’t then follow through the logic of: ‘So how many additional potential lives are they talking about? What are they going to do as a practical matter to make this real?’
“I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life, because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions.”
“. . . In addition I would say that I’ve never been for embryonic stem cell research per se. I have been for, there are a lot of different ways to get embryonic stem cells. I think if you can get embryonic stem cells for example from placental blood if you can get it in ways that do not involve the loss of a life that’s a perfectly legitimate avenue of approach.
“What I reject is the idea that we’re going to take one life for the purpose of doing research for other purposes and I think that crosses a threshold of de-humanizing us that’s very very dangerous.”
via Gingrich Breaks from Some in Anti-Abortion Community on When Life Begins – ABC News.
Speaker Gingrich is absolutely wrong to say that we who hold the “ideological” position that human life begins at fertilization have not thought about the implications. If we hadn’t done so on our own, some utilitarian like the Speaker would have forced us to do so.
Just as with any other species, the mammal human embryo is the same species as the mother and father, and the one time when that life begins is at fertilization. What is it that implants? Would the technician in the in vitro lab or even the stem cell lab care what happened to the egg and the sperm if there is no fertilization?
Implantation is another step in that life that began at fertilization of the oocyte by the sperm.
Ectopic pregnancy is an event like cancer or heart attacks or kidney failure: when the normal process doesn’t go the way it should and people die. Because of the immediate and inevitable danger to the life of the mother and the unquestionable inability of human medicine to save the embryonic child, we don’t even count the procedures we do as “abortion.” when documenting abortion and maternal health statistics.
If we did call it abortion, it certainly would not be an “elective” abortion, but a procedure done to remove an eminent and known threat to the life of the mother who could die within minutes due to internal bleeding when the embryo grows too big for the fallopian tube at sometime between 6 and 8 weeks of age.
The sperm is not a life. Some do believe that any sexual act should be directly tied to and open to procreation, but not all Christians who object to abortion or other euthanasia agree agree on this point.
The least educated, lowest technician in the in vitro lab knows the difference between the sperm in the cup, the oocyte and the embryo. Within hours, they know whether the embryo is.
In vitro fertilization is an ethical problem when the embryos are not treated with the respect and care due the human dignity of all our children. The human embryo in the dish is the same species as the embryo in the fallopian tube. (See above.) Several countries have laws limiting in vitro fertilization, the numbers of embryos and some require that any embryo fertilized in the lab be implanted.
First, there is no way to obtain embryonic stem cells other than to destroy or endanger an embryo.The cells obtained from umbilical cord blood and the placenta are technically fetal, not embryonic stem cells. But, as the Speaker notes, no one has to die to obtain them.
And yes, our society has some tough decisions to make. Will we continue to refuse to provide the same protection for our own children that we give to a pelican or a sea turtle?
Legislator says stem cells helped » Times Record News
This is a wonderful story. I’m very glad for the Representative and for all the patients who receive their own stem cells and have good results. (My granddaughter, at 15 months old in 2001, received an anonymous little boy’s umbilical cord blood after her bone marrow completely failed. More here.)
Someday, I believe we’ll find the stimulating factors that make the body’s stem cells activate the way we want them. In the meantime, this is what our researchers – and Legislators – are finding out about ethical adult stem cells (not destructive embryonic stem cells.:
State Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, participated in a recent round of autologous adult stem cell treatments to help his multiple sclerosis, similar to what Gov. Rick Perry had done in July.
Although the stem cells are not embryonic, doctors in the U.S. are still skeptical of the procedure because it is not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Adult stem cells are taken from the patient’s fat, sent to a lab where they are developed, then reintroduced to the patient via intravenous therapy.
The treatments are used to treat patients with autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Hardcastle was diagnosed with MS almost 10 years ago and repeatedly said the treatments worked phenomenally for him.
“I’m walking on water and near bulletproof,” Hardcastle said from a casino in Las Vegas, where he was with his wife for the National Finals Rodeo. “Since I had the third treatment, I have fished in the river in Alaska. I have walked up and down stairs without having to hold onto the handrail like a goon. It’s just been phenomenal so far.”
Hardcastle said just having his balance is an amazing thing because since he was diagnosed, his balance was one of the first things to go. He spoke at length about how easily he was able to walk the stairs at the Las Vegas event.
“Eight years ago, I was having to literally … stop to step over a concrete barrier on a parking curb. I just walk across it now like I did 20 years ago,” he said.
Cloning pioneer urges shift away from embryonic stem cells
Universal Truth at work again. I would have loved to be there in order to watch heads explode and hear the susurus of “Did he say that?” buzzing around the room.
Newer and safer forms of stem cell therapy will likely overtake research into the use of human embryonic stem cells, the scientist whose team cloned Dolly the sheep told his peers at a stem cell conference in La Jolla.
Direct “reprogramming” of adult cells into the type needed for therapy is gradually becoming a reality, Ian Wilmut told an audience of several hundred at the Salk Institute at the annual Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa. Such a feat was once thought impossible, but in recent years it has been demonstrated in at least two publications, he said.
********
But it’s been unclear which types of stem cells would prove most useful: the “adult” kind that have a more limited potential to change, or the embryonic kind. The emergence of direct reprogramming provides a promising new option scientists should consider, Wilmut said.
“I’m not quite sure why this hasn’t been pursued more actively,” Wilmut said.
It is difficult to achieve purity in embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells because they are prone to forming tumors.
Direct reprogramming of cells from one type to the other avoids that danger, because the cells never enter the pluripotent stage to begin with, Wilmut said.
Direct cell reprogramming didn’t exist when California voters approved the stem cell program in 2004 with the passage of Proposition 71. That program was mainly aimed at funding embryonic stem cell research the federal government wouldn’t fund.
However, the program can also fund research with other types of stem cells, such as “adult” cells from umbilical cord blood.
The use and value of embryonic stem cells is an intensely controversial issue.
Many people object to their use because human embryos, which they consider human individuals, are killed to get the cells. Critics also point to the success of adult cells in approved therapies, while no therapy with embryonic stem cells has yet been approved.
Only one treatment with embryonic stem cells is in clinical testing in people. And that company, Geron Corp., recently ended its involvement in what was described as a business decision.
via Cloning pioneer urges shift away from embryonic stem cells.
More on the Geron decision to end embryonic stem cell research, here, and on the “Stimulus” funds awarded to Geron and the employees that lost their jobs, anyway, here.
Rick Perry Ad on “Faith” @TeamRickPerry
Rick Perry, “Faith” My Texas Governor Rick Perry is not ashamed of his faith.
Truth, Logic, Siri, and PCMag.com
The Lord does work in mysterious ways, but most of the time He just uses the laws of physics and the logic that He invented. Still, I was surprised to find an argument for pro-life versus abortion logic on a technology blog at PCMag.com. And the simple logic of pointing out that abortionists don’t use the word “abortion” when advertising their services is much more telling than I believe the author knew.
“”Siri is doing exactly what it was built to do—provide answers to questions like, “Where can I get an abortion?” using its own algorithms and the online resources it has available to craft answers.
***********
“”Consider the current kerfuffle. This is simplifying things a bit, but the gist of this story is that Siri is getting hung up on a word, “abortion,” because organizations that actually offer abortion services tend not to use the word as much as anti-abortion organizations do. So when Siri goes looking for where to get an “abortion” in the digital wordscape of the Internet, lo and behold, it returns addresses for Crisis Pregnancy Centers rather than Planned Parenthood.””
(via Siri is Dumb. There, We Said It. | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.)
Or, it could be Steve Jobs’ last word from beyond the grave reminding us of all we could have lost if his mother hadn’t chosen life rather than abortion.
For those who don’t use the iPhone: Siri is a voice-activated program that searches for answers to questions. Think of a “Google” that you can talk to.
Okay, I will admit to a lot of bias in favor of protecting the lives of our children of the future. I’m a pro-life advocate and serve on a couple of Boards for Pro-life advocacy: Texas Alliance for Life which lobbies for pro-life laws and regulations in Austin, Texas and even a “Crisis Pregnancy Center,” Options for Women in New Braunfels, Texas. But this irony is too rich.
There is no big conspiracy paid for by “anti-abortion” forces to influence us to “Choose Life.” Steve Jobs most likely didn’t set this up before his death in order to contrast his adoption by loving and nurturing parents with abortion and to remind us of what we lose by the death of every child whose life is intentionally ended before birth.
And this is not a “glitch.”
The Creator of the Universe didn’t have to break a single law of nature to point out the simple fact that abortionists don’t tend to admit what they do. Truth and Logic worked as they should in this case.
In call with Iowans, ‘Sheriff Joe’ endorses Perry for border security, opposition to illegal immigration | Iowa Caucus 2012
CEDAR RAPIDS — America needs to have a conversation about how to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants living in this country, but “it will not be amnesty in any form or fashion,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry promised Iowans Nov. 29.
The border state governor’s hard line on illegal immigration won him the endorsement of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has built a reputation for rounding up thousands of undocumented visitors to Arizona for deportation.
Arpaio, who is referred to as “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” called Perry “the only governor that really knows about the border.” He praised Perry’s commitment of $400 million in resources including deploying Texas Rangers, Department of Public Safety and National Guard troops along the Texas-Mexico border to stop trafficking in people, drugs and weapons.
Perry, who asked for Iowans’ support in the Jan. 3 first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses, said he is the “only candidate with a record of addressing border security.”
Arpaio went further, calling Perry “the only one running for president who knows where Mexico is.”
Arpaio, who campaigned with Perry in New Hampshire Tuesday, made his comments in a conference call with what the campaign said were 15,000 “likely Iowa caucusgoers,” both Republicans and independents.
Perry Appeals Congressional Map Fight to U.S. Supreme Court – Businessweek
The Court in San Antonio re-drew all of Texas’ Congressional Districts and even created a new one in Tarrant County. From my right wing perspective, it appears that the Judges were protecting the minor Party, rather than minor voters.
The judges ignored the true voting record of Comal County, at least, by leaving the Hispanic neighborhoods in New Braunfels in CD 21 and pulling out Schertz-Cibolo and the rural area between San Antonio and New Braunfels for a neighboring district. They protected Lloyd Doggett’ CD 25, for pity’s sake – just about as whitebread as you can get!
Perry previously asked the high court to block the use of judicially created election maps in Texas’s 2012 legislative races after a panel of lower-court judges in San Antonio refused his request. Today, Perry added the state’s races for the U.S. House of Representatives to his Supreme Court bid for emergency stay.
The San Antonio court that created interim election maps “went out of its way to give no weight whatsoever to the duly- enacted election map enacted by the Texas Legislature,” Paul Clement, the state’s appellate attorney, said in Texas’s Supreme Court filing yesterday.
“Legal, delayed elections are preferable to legally flawed, timely elections,” Clement said. Candidates began registering for Texas’s March 6 party primaries yesterday, based on the court-drawn maps.
Texas is fighting to implement new voter boundaries created this year by the Republican-controlled Legislature and approved by Perry after the state gained four new congressional seats on population growth. Texas added nearly 4.3 million new residents since 2000, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Roughly 65 percent of the new Texans are Hispanics.
via Perry Appeals Congressional Map Fight to U.S. Supreme Court – Businessweek.
Occupy Whatever!
Naomi Wolfe has written a screed for the UK’s Guardian, “The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy,” that is sympathetic to the OccupyWhatever movement, in response to several events where occupiers where pepper-sprayed or arrested. She claims to have received emails that list the wishes of the occupiers and to be privy to a government conspiracy to “suppress” the movement.
I believe that the wish list is Wolfe’s, and that she has inflated the cohesiveness of purpose around her favored agenda:
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
(The Wall Street Journal reports a much less focused OccupyWhatever, today.The demands among various New York State occupiers include reparations for slavery and local city political disagreements.College students from the New School, who have “occupied” an art gallery, are demanding gender-neutral bathrooms and no more tuition increases.)
Ms. Wolfe seems to miss the implication that it is her imagined “suppressors” are the powerful on the Left. She inflates the power of Congress, ignoring the true chain of command within the Department of Homeland Security, which is run out of the Executive Office of the Obama White House. Instead, she asks, “[W]hy on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents?”
But mostly, she ignores the fact that the Occupiers are not “peaceful,” innocent, or harmless activists. They are obstructing traffic, knocking down little old ladies and interfering with school children. They are incubating disease and violence among themselves, which spreads to anyone who comes near them. Private businesses in some of the cities have been harassed and shut down – for example, restaurants and food vendors who cannot give away their product and make a profit(horrors!) that allows them to stay in business and take money home to their families.
The video of the chanting at Walmarts on “Black Friday” are great examples of the ridiculous nature of the objections. Very young, well-dressed and -fed men and women (just look at those jeans and sweaters – where do you think they bought them?) telling the employees and the customers that they are slaves, and decrying consumerism is hypocrisy.
Civil disobedience has always carried with it the very probable risk of being arrested and prosecuted. Frankly, those of us who have avoided certain parks or who have been heckled while minding our own business are not sympathetic to those arrested or pepper sprayed.
The agenda that Ms. Wolfe reports is not pure, either. For example, the Citizens United opinion supports and protects free speech. Just as the occupiers join in a group on the street or in the aisles of Walmarts across the nation, those of us who wish to do so, voluntarily give our money to support Political Action Committees (PACs) that represent our desired political speech in ads and to pay lobbyists. The difference is that I have to give my name and occupation when I donate, the PAC must organize and file reports. The OccupyWhatevers refuse to do so and since they don’t like the speech that my money enables, they try to limit my freedom to walk down the street, in addition to my organizing with others in political speech.
However, what concerns me the most is the purposeful submission of individuality by the OccupyWhatever organizations. There is nothing normal or healthy in the chanting and parroting of the words of a leader as the protesters do. They voluntarily turn themselves into interchangeable units of the mob, automatons who apparently do not think for themselves. Watch the videos of a leader who speaks a few words, which are then repeated in unison by the group.
Tell me Occupiers: are these speeches worked out in advance in a truly democratic manner? What happens if one of you has an original thought in reaction to what is going on around you?
Here’s the new Texas Congressional Map
As I noted before, it appears that the Courts have drawn the map to protect the minority party, not the voters who belong to traditional voting minorities.
Click on Map to bring up interactive Map from the Texas Legislative Council.
Hat tip to the San Marcos Mercury for the link.
Fed court proposes Texas congressional districts
The “minority” the court maps protect is the minority Party. In the State Senate map, Wendy Davis’ seat is “protected.” In the Congressional Districts, it’s Doggett, with a split that separates his District 25 from the new District 34.
Texas Democrats were pleased with the proposed map.”We are pleased that Texas is on the road to fair elections in which the voters, rather than Republican mapmakers, will get to determine the outcome,” said Boyd Ritchie, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.
via The Associated Press: Fed court proposes Texas congressional districts.
Geron Awarded Grants (under ObamaCare Stimulus)
Just one more failed “stimulus” project? This past week, Geron announced they are no longer pursuing their research in embryonic stem cells. They laid off 66 employees.
The US government should never have been in the business of picking and choosing business winners and losers. We certainly shouldn’t be giving money for destructive embryonic stem cell research.
Included as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the QTDP program provided a tax credit to encourage investments in new therapies to prevent, diagnose, and treat acute and chronic diseases. Companies, such as Geron, that cannot currently use a tax credit were allowed to apply for a cash grant
in lieu of a tax credit.
To be eligible for the program, projects must show reasonable potential to result in new therapies to treat areas of unmet medical need; prevent, detect, or treat chronic or acute disease and conditions; reduce long-term health care costs in the United States; or significantly advance the goal of curing cancer within a 30-year period.
In addition, preference was given to projects that showed the greatest potential to create and sustain (directly or indirectly) high quality, high-paying jobs in the United States, and advance United States competitiveness in the fields of life, biological, and medical sciences.
Projects were selected jointly by the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.
via Geron Awarded Grants Under Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program.
Click here to get your “Choose Life” license plate
Rick Perry RickPAC
Yes, I'm still for Governor Perry!
RickPAC
SiteMeter
WingRight 