OBAMA ABORTION AGENDA LAUNCHED TODAY with order promoting abortion in U.S. population-control program

WASHINGTON – President Obama today signs an order that will put hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of organizations that aggressively promote abortion as a population-control tool in the developing world.

Obama’s order overturns the “Mexico City Policy,” under which funds in the U.S. “population assistance” program go only to overseas organizations that pledge not to “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.”

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), commented, “This is the first in an anticipated series of attacks on longstanding pro-life policies, as the new administration pushes Obama’s sweeping abortion agenda. That agenda includes repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which would result in tax-funded abortion as a birth control method in the U.S., and imposition of sweeping pro-abortion mandates on private employers through health-care reform legislation.

“One effect of Obama’s order will be to divert many millions of dollars away from groups that do not promote abortion, and into the hands of those organizations that are the most aggressive in promoting abortion in developing countries. President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control.”

Contrary to some misunderstandings, enforcement of the Mexico City Policy did not reduce the amount of money spent on the program, nor will Obama’s order increase the amount (which is $461 million in the current fiscal year). Rather, the policy affects what type of groups qualify for grants under the program. “Obama’s order will predictably result in a redirection of funds to groups such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which are ideologically committed to the doctrine that abortion on demand must be universally available as a birth control method,” Johnson said.

Although Obama’s order will result in major subsidies for organizations that promote abortion overseas, the direct use of the U.S. funds to perform abortion procedures will remain unlawful under the Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act. “The Helms Amendment can be changed only by an act of Congress, but because the Obama Administration is joined at the hip with the abortion lobby, we will be watching carefully for any evidence that the Administration is failing to enforce the Helms Amendment,” Johnson said.

The details of the Mexico City Policy are spelled out in an official handbook issued by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is available on request from NRLC (in PDF format). Basically, the policy required grantees to refrain from performing abortions (except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest), or lobbying to legalize abortion, or otherwise promoting abortion as a family-planning method. The policy explicitly allowed responding to questions about where abortions may be obtained, in countries in which abortions are legal.

The National Right to Life Committee is the nation’s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide. National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

http://www.nrlc.org/press_releases_new/Release012309.html

Press release from Judge Koschnick

JUDGE KOSCHNICK ENDORSED BY FORMER WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT JUSTICE WILLIAM G. CALLOW

Second Former Justice Believes Koschnick Best Choice for High Court

[Jefferson County, Wisconsin . . . ] The Koschnick for Justice Campaign today announced the endorsement of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice William G. Callow.

Justice Callow was a Waukesha County trial judge before twice winning state-wide election to Wisconsin’s high court. He served as a Justice from 1977 until 1992 with Judge Randy Koschnick’s opponent, Shirley Abrahamson.

“I am pleased to endorse Judge Koschnick for the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” said former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice William Callow. “In their wisdom, the people of Wisconsin established three separate but equal branches of government. The judicial branch best fulfills its role when it is populated by intellectually rigorous judges who display restraint in both their temperament and judicial philosophy. Judge Koschnick exhibits these characteristics, and I think he will make a great addition to the State’s highest court.”

Justice Callow joins former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Donald Steinmetz in endorsing Judge Koschnick for the high court. Judge Koschnick was grateful to have the support of another Justice who served with his opponent and thinks he is a better choice for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.

“This race is important to the future of our State, and I am honored to have Justice Callow’s support in my bid to give the people of Wisconsin the type of justice they prefer,” said Judge Koschnick. “As I speak with the voters of Wisconsin, they continue to make clear their preference for judges who display deference to their elected representatives and to the constitutions that underlie governance of our state and country. Justice Callow’s endorsement is a humbling indication that we’ve got the right message – a message that will carry us to victory in April.”

In addition to Justices Callow and Steinmetz, Judge Koschnick is endorsed by fellow Circuit Court Judges fellow Judges David C. Resheske, Patrick Faragher, Donald J. Hassin, Patrick C. Haughney, and Linda Van De Water.

Michelle Malkin

And Now, Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Spending Orgy
Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, January 21, 2009

“The time has come,” President Barack Obama told us in his inaugural address, “to set aside childish things.” He borrowed the line from Corinthians. With the Beltway bread-and-circus show over, President Obama will now get to work on borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from you, your children and your grandchildren for a doomed fiscal stimulus.

As President Obama basked in the inaugural glow, a dark cloud of reality moved in over the Democrats’ $825 billion plan to rescue the economy. The Congressional Budget Office crunched the numbers and concluded that a huge bulk of the federal spending orgy wouldn’t actually kick in until the recession is waning — if not already over.

The CBO analysis showed that “less than half of the $30 billion in highway construction funds detailed by House Democrats would be released into the economy over the next four years” and “less than $4 billion in highway construction money would reach the economy by September 2010,” according to the Associated Press. And those are generous time estimates given the reality of molasses-slow bidding and contracting processes — bogged down by the usual weight of political wrangling, racial bean-counting and assorted union grievance-mongering.

Just $26 billion out of the $274 billion set aside in the package would reach the economy by the end of the year, the CBO found. That’s a mere 7 percent. Moreover, the AP summed up: “Just one in seven dollars of a huge $18.5 billion investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would be spent within a year and a half.”

Like I said two weeks ago (”The Generational Theft Act of 2009, Jan. 7, 2009): It’s the timing, stupid.

The other incontrovertible truth about this massive wealth transfer is that Washington cannot stop the inevitable lard-up. The original concept of spending on “roads and bridges” has morphed into spending on anything and everything that moves or can be moved. Every moocher in the marketplace wants his grubby paws on the money. And if his or her provision isn’t already written into the Democrats’ legislation, it will get slipped in under the cover of night.

To wit: Public radio and public television — already funded with your money to the tune of some $400 million in direct federal handouts and tax deductions for contributions made by individual viewers, not to mention untold state grants and subsidies — are demanding a hugetastic chunk of the stimulus pie. That’s right: Government-supported NPR and PBS want even more of a bailout than they’ve lived off of for the last 40 years. According to Current.org, which covers public TV and radio, the two entities along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have petitioned Obama for $550 million in funding to help create more workers suckling on the public teat.

Watching TV is apparently critical to rescuing the American economy. Already stuffed into the Democrats’ package is a $650 million bailout — call it the Boob Tube boondoggle — to pay for $650 million worth of digital TV upgrade coupons in the wake of the official, government-mandated transition to digital television next month. Not to be left out, the National Endowment for the Arts is on the Santa stimulus list for an additional $50 million cash injection. Oh, and there’s another $50 million earmarked “to make up for a lack of philanthropic support for the arts.” A breakdown of the spending by House Minority Leader John Boehner’s office found an additional $6 billion in buried stimulus treasure for colleges and $166 billion in direct aid to states looking for taxpayers to save them from their profligate spending.

A few conservative Democrats have started murmuring about this looming fiscal nightmare. North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler expressed concern about the porkification of the bill: “This can’t be a Christmas tree.” Sen. Kent Conrad told Bloomberg News that “his committee projects the plan will reduce the unemployment rate by ‘maybe’ 1 percent, or about half of the 3 million jobs Obama has said the plan would generate.”

Wake up, taxpayers: This nearly $1 trillion plan is nothing but future-mortgaging ornaments and tinsel boxed in self-delusion. It is time, as President Obama lectured us, to put away childish things — starting with this epic fail.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

So what happens now?

Are we safer yet?

Guantanamo trial halted for 9-11 accused

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – A U.S. military judge on Wednesday halted the trial of five prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks, giving President Barack Obama the time he sought to decide whether to scrap the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals.

Obama has pledged to shut down the Guantanamo prison camp that was widely seen as a stain on the United States’ human rights record and a symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge under the Bush administration.

If Obama signs a draft order obtained by Reuters on Wednesday, the prison camp would close within a year.

Hours after taking office on Tuesday, Obama ordered prosecutors in the Guantanamo court to ask for a 120-day halt in all pending cases. He asked for time to review the cases and decide what forum best suits any future prosecution.

The move freezes proceedings against 21 prisoners at least until late May but was viewed by defense lawyers as the death knell for the special tribunals that the Bush administration established at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in southeast Cuba.

Self-confessed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants objected to the delay. They had said in previous hearings that they wanted to plead guilty to the mass murder charges that could result in their execution for the hijacked plane attacks in 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But military prosecutors said it should be up to the president to decide whether to continue his predecessor’s policies.

Another Guantanamo judge halted the case against young Canadian captive Omar Khadr, who was captured at age 15 and is accused of murdering a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.

“The practical effect of today’s ruling is to pronounce the military commissions process dead,” said his lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, referring to the trials by their formal name.

Khadr, now 22, is the last citizen of a Western nation held at Guantanamo. His lawyers have argued that he was a child soldier conscripted by his late father, an al Qaeda financier, and that any prosecution should take place in the regular U.S. or Canadian courts.

FEW TRIALS TOOK PLACE

Human rights activists and military defense lawyers had urged Obama to halt the special tribunals and move the prosecutions into the regular U.S. courts for trial under long-established rules.

The trials have moved in fits and spurts amid numerous legal challenges from defense lawyers who said fair trials were impossible in a politically tainted system that allowed hearsay evidence and coerced testimony.

“It would be a terrible mistake to try a case as important as the September 11 prosecution in such a crude and untested system,” said Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch.

Five people who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks were flown to Guantanamo by the Pentagon to attend pretrial hearings and were furious when the proceedings were halted.

Lorraine Arias Believeau, whose brother Adam died in the World Trade Center, said Guantanamo was the best and safest place for the trials.

“This was an act of war, not a traffic ticket. It should be in military court,” she said.

The Bush administration had said it planned to try 80 prisoners on war crimes charges, but only three cases have been completed.

About 245 foreign captives are still held at the detention center, which opened in January 2002 to house foreign terrorism suspects and has been a widely criticized part of the U.S. war on terrorism that Bush declared after the September 11 attacks.

In Washington, a U.S. district judge granted the Justice Department’s request for a two-week delay in the federal court case of three Guantanamo prisoners seeking their release.

The judge gave the department until February 4 to file a status report saying how it intends to proceed. There are about 200 cases pending in the Washington federal court from Guantanamo detainees seeking their release.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray, James Vicini and Jeff Mason in Washington)

Can’t make this stuff up!!

Obama to sign order shutting Gitmo in a year

WASHINGTON – The Associated Press has learned that President Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year and halt military trials of terror suspects held there.

The executive order was one of three expected imminently on how to interrogate and prosecute al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters believed to threaten the United States.

A senior Obama aide said the president would sign the order on Thursday, fulfilling his campaign promise to shut down a facility that critics around the world say violates domestic and international detainee rights. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the event has not yet been announced.

Associated press being nice to Bush

Analysis: Bush’s personality shapes his legacy

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush will be judged on what he did. He will also be remembered for what he’s like: a fast-moving, phrase-mangling Texan who stays upbeat even though his country is not.

For eight years, the nation has been led by a guy who relaxes by clearing brush in scorching heat and taking breakneck bike rides through the woods. He dishes out nicknames to world leaders, and even gave the German chancellor an impromptu, perhaps unwelcome, neck rub. He’s annoyed when kept waiting and sticks relentlessly to routine. He stays optimistic in even the most dire circumstances, but readily tears up in public. He has little use for looking within himself, and only lately has done much looking back.

Bush’s style and temperament are as much his legacy as his decisions. Policy shapes lives, but personality creates indelible memories — positive and negative.

Call it distinctly Bush.

___

Don’t be late.

Bush demands punctuality and disdains inefficiency. Every meeting better have a clear purpose. And it better not repeat what he already knows.

He is up early and in the Oval Office by 6:45 a.m. By 9:30 to 10 at night, it’s lights out. He likes to be fresh and won’t get cheated on his sleep.

In sessions with policy experts, Bush tends to ask questions that get right to the nub of a sticky issue. His top aides speak regretfully about how the country never got to see that side of him, even after all this time. They describe a man who is deeply inquisitive, not blithely incurious as much of the world thinks.

When Bush wants answers, guessing isn’t advised.

“He can sniff it out a mile away if you don’t have the goods,” said White House communications director Kevin Sullivan.

Other people write Bush’s speeches, but he’ll kick out phrases that he thinks stray from a logical progression. It’s about discipline.

You can tell the issues that really get Bush going, because he talks about them differently, more passionately: education, AIDS relief, freedom. They happen to be ones that can be viewed more clearly through a moral lens. That’s how he sees the world.

Bush reads the Bible regularly. Another devotion: exercise. He makes time for a workout at least six days a week, wherever he is. And he goes at it hard, especially on his mountain bike on the weekends, when he pushes Secret Service agents to keep up with him. He is competitive and likes to stay in command.

Even eating is approached with sheer purpose.

Bush wants his lunch ready when he is, and wolfs it down. His tastes are clear: maybe a peanut butter and honey sandwich, a BLT, or a burger. Former White House executive chef Walter Scheib learned from Bush never to serve a grilled cheese sandwich unless it came with a side of French’s yellow mustard.

The man from a land of cowboy boots orders proper dress in the White House. No jeans allowed in the West Wing. Coat and tie in the Oval Office.

“Orderliness in the process gave him confidence,” said Peter Wehner, a former top Bush aide and now a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center.

And if you’re in Bush’s presence, turn off your cell phone. Pity the person who gets the Bush stare when a Blackberry rings at the wrong time.

Then there are his stories. He repeats his favorites. Like the one about the cheery rug in the Oval Office. Or the spectacular rainbow that day in Romania.

Who’s going to stop him?

____

Bush’s words betray him sometimes.

“They misunderestimated the compassion of our country,” Bush said of the Sept. 11 terrorists. “I talk to families who die,” he said, meaning the loved ones of those who perish in war. “Childrens do learn when standards are high,” he said in promoting his education plan.

Ivy League educated, Bush is good-natured about his verbal trip-ups. Yet he appears to have grown a bit more methodical in public, as if searching carefully for the right words.

His tangled moments have undoubtedly helped shape an unflattering public perception; there are entire books of his “Bushisms.” Invariably, though, people who talk to him privately — historians, journalists, dissidents — come away with a very different impression of a meticulous thinker.

It is a paradox of his presidency.

Some of Bush’s sillier times are of his own choosing. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Like his herky-jerky dance moves in Liberia, or his odd little tap dance while waiting for John McCain to show up one day. He likes to back-slap people. And when he’s ready to move on, there are telltale signs. To end an event with visitors, he’ll say, “Let’s get a picture,” and that’s that.

Bush generally calls people by the labels of his choosing, too. Reporters, Cabinet members, heads of state — anyone is fair game for a nickname. The practice tends to add a touch of familiarity between people and the president, and Bush likes that.

As for fun, Bush is far from the first president with a love for sports, but he may have advanced the cause.

In baseball season, he often has a game on TV, even for soothing background noise while he works. He quietly welcomes ball players to the executive mansion for tours or dinnertime conversation. And regardless of the sport, he loves it every time any championship team comes to the White House.

Their moment is his moment.

__

Bush can flash a temper and impatience. But if he takes criticism personally — and he gets lots of criticism — he tries not to show it.

When former press secretary Scott McClellan wrote a scathing book about Bush’s leadership, the president told his senior aides to let it go.

“Find a way to forgive, because that’s the way to lead your life,” White House press secretary Dana Perino remembers Bush advising her.

Bush is insistently — some say unforgivably — optimistic, no matter how low his poll numbers get.

“Every day has been pretty joyous,” he said recently, summing up one of the hardest presidencies ever known.

The toughest moments for him come when he meets the grieving families of the troops he sent to war. Or when he meets severely wounded troops in recovery. Many of the hurting tell Bush they want to get back out in active duty. He is moved by the sacrifice.

“I do a lot of crying in this job,” Bush once acknowledged.

He shows consideration to people close to him in little ways. He sends birthday notes to staff members. He remembers little details about their families. When he visits an Army post to thank the troops, he’s been known to wander into the kitchen, too, to praise whoever cooked him the french fries.

The president is a proud dad of two grown daughters, Jenna and Barbara. The public got a tiny glimpse of his softer side when Jenna married Henry Hager in May. Bush said afterward that his little girl married a really good guy. First lady Laura Bush says her husband now has a son.

___

Bush is not much for the social scene. He and his wife will go to friends’ homes but stay away from restaurants and Washington’s other delights. His aides say he doesn’t like to cause a security hassle for the public.

That’s also why they say he speeds through his foreign travel. Even in the world’s more magnificent sites, Bush often skips touristy stuff to stick to business, contributing to that incurious reputation.

“I’m a nester,” Bush said.

Nowhere is that more true than at his beloved, secluded ranch in Crawford, Texas. He has spent more than a year of his presidency there.

Bush chops cedar, clears brush and builds mountain bike trails there. The summer heat doesn’t bother him so much as enthrall him. He even set up a little competition, true Bush: People who work for him get a coveted T-shirt and bragging rights if they run for three straight miles on days hitting 100 degrees.

He relaxes by reading quite a bit, mostly U.S. and world history. He likes the spy-spoofing “Austin Powers” movies. He chills out with his wife.

His time will soon be his own.

“I will leave the presidency with my head held high,” Bush says.

And he will leave behind a lot to remember.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — Ben Feller covers the White House for The Associated Press.

Is it spring yet?

Spring has so many things to look forward to baseball, better weather, flowers…………………..

University of Wisconsin Plan to Do Abortions Meets Huge Pro-Life Criticism

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 6, 2009

Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) — The University of Wisconsin is coming under heavy criticism today from pro-life advocates who are not happy with a UW Health plan to do abortions. Because no abortion business in Madison does abortions into the second trimester, a group of UW Health physicians have banded together to do them.

UW Health spokeswoman Lisa Brunette told the Capital Times, “The physicians involved believe this is part of a comprehensive plan of care for reproductive health.”

“Right now there is no clinic in the area that provides that type of termination and the physicians involved believe there is a public health responsibility to provide them, so they wish to move forward,” she said.

If the doctors follow through on their plan, they will do abortions at the Madison Surgery Center, which is a joint center sponsored by UW Health and Meriter Hospital.

The center’s board would have to sign off on the abortion plan and the pro-life law firm Alliance Defense Fund sent it a letter today asking that it reject doing abortions, calling the idea “secret and potentially illegal.”

“Many Madison Surgery Center employees believe that turning their workplace into an abortion facility will severely upset regular patients, disrupt the respected surgical practice that currently occurs there, [and] decimate employee morale,” ADF attorney Matt Bowman said.

ADF is also concerned that the plan could compel unwilling employees to aid or participate in abortions, which would violate their religious conscience rights and may constitute an unlawful state funding of abortion.

“Christians and other pro-life medical students and staff should be allowed to abide by their beliefs,” Bowman told LifeNews.com. “Pro-life employees shouldn’t be forced to violate their conscience by participating in the killing of preborn, developed babies. The university’s plan is morally and legally flawed and should be abandoned.”

Brunette promised that no employee with any religious or moral objections would be pressured to participate in abortions.

Bowman said he is also worried that University of Wisconsin medical residents would be expected to train and take part in the killing of the second-trimester babies as part of the medical curriculum.

Bowman said the idea to do abortions is an expansion on the research UWHC already does on body parts from babies killed in abortions.

ADF sent its letter to UWHC President and CEO Donna Katen-Bahensky, as well as to the presidents of Meriter and the UW Medical Foundation

It says that penalties against any employee who refuses to recommend, aid, or perform abortions based on religious or moral objections is a blatant violation of state and federal law.

It also reminds university leadership of the fact that “no state or federal funds from various sources may be used for a program that…provides, encourages, or refers for abortions” and that ADF is prepared to take decisive legal action if UWHC takes any negative action against its pro-life employees.

Brunette also promised that state funds would not be used to pay for abortions and that anyone getting an abortion would pay for it themselves or through health insurance.

She would not publicly name the physicians involved in the new abortion plan, but LifeNews.com learned that UW Health physician Caryn R. Dutton, of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department, will do the late-term abortions.

Dutton is also affiliated with Meriter Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital.

About 8,000 Wisconsin women get abortions every year.

ACTION: Contract the Madison Surgery Center at http://www.madisonsurgcenter.org or madisonsurgcenter@uwmf.wisc.edu and urge strong opposition to the new plan to do abortions.

Also contact Donna Katen-Bahensky, President and CEO, UW Hospital and Clinics at (608) 263-6400, Jeffrey Grossman, MD, President and CEO, UW Medical Foundation at (608) 263-7013, and Jim Woodward, President and CEO, Meriter Hospital at (608) 417-6000.

Alliance Defense Fund – http://www.telladf.org
ADF letter – http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/UWHCDemandLetter.pdf

WI Surpreme court race: Judge Randy Koschnick letter to Justice Shirley Abrahamson

Wisconsin Supreme Court
Clean Campaign Pledge

As members of Wisconsin’s judiciary we are bound by the Wisconsin Judicial Code of Ethics.
As candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, we will hold our campaigns to the highest standards of conduct and commit ourselves to:
 Focus only on our opponent’s record, opinions, qualifications, and judicial philosophies;
 Abstain from and renounce personal attacks against our opponent, and refrain from impugning character or integrity;
 Refuse and return contributions from parties with cases before our respective courts;
 Substantiate all claims made against our opponent by our respective campaigns;
 Publically repudiate false accusations made by third party groups;
 Seek consensus on no less than six independent, public debates that focus on the issues facing the Court and our candidacies.

______________________                              ____________________
Justice Shirley Abrahamson                          Judge Randy Koschnick

One year anniversary of death of a soldier Jason Lemke

PFC Jason Lemke, age 30, 2/23, 4th SBCT, 2 Infantry Div.was my friend, my best friend’s brother and a good man. Jason died in Iraq on Jan 5th 2008 a hero, a dad, a brother, a son, and a friend. I have known Jason for many years, I also have known this family for many years and my heart goes out to them with love on this first anniversary.

He had courage that most of us will never know.  Please remember this Milwaukee born soldier on this day and say a little pray with me.

Dear God

Please be with the Lemke family on this anniversary day.  Please give them hope that Jason’s courage and service to our country and sacrifice will never be in vain.  Please also give them strength to deal with this difficult day.  Amen

Please feel free to sign this post with a commet

That silly economic Stimulus payment

This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.