Yea!!!!!!!!!

Mary Ann Glendon declines Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal:

Dear Father Jenkins,

When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame’s most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.

Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,

Mary Ann Glendon

Fr. Jenkins responded, “We are, of course, disappointed that Professor Glendon has made this decision. It is our intention to award the Laetare Medal to another deserving recipient, and we will make that announcement as soon as possible.”

Ummm, now that Mary Ann Glendon has (unlike Notre Dame) correctly set forth the position of the Church, what Catholic could, in good conscience, accept the Laetare Medal – which is given in recognition of outstanding service to the Roman Catholic church and society? I guess we’ll find out.

Screw the little people; I’m here to end all crises.

By “de-emphasize the production of ever-more private goods and services, [and thereby] harnessing the economy to achieve broad social goals,” President Obama sets aside the standard logic of economic progress.

Fidel.

Mona Charen writes about the Democrats’ continued fascination with left-wing tyrants:

Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus traveled to Cuba last week and were delighted with their reception. They met with Raúl Castro for four hours (including dinner). Three lucky members of the delegation were even entertained by Fidel at his home. As the Miami Heraldreported, the representatives found Castro to be “very engaging, very energetic . . . very talkative.” Imagine. The dictator known for his five-hour speeches. Who could have guessed?

Rep. Laura Richardson (D., Calif.) was impressed that Castro knew her name and her district. “He looked right into my eyes,” she gushed, “and he said, ‘How can we help you? How can we help President Obama?’ ”

… 

In finest useful-idiot fashion, Representative [Bobby Rush (D., Ill.)] Rush said this of 77-year-old Raul Castro, who has served Fidel throughout the 50-year totalitarian siege of the island: “I think that what really surprised me, but also endeared me to him,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “was his keen sense of humor, his sense of history and his basic human qualities….”

Charen refers to these clowns as “useful idiots” – borrowing Lenin’s phrase – and it’s a good idea to use Lenin’s words against his apologists. But the term “idiot” gives commie lovers too much credit – as if they are too stupid to understand the horror that Castro et al. have caused.

Shameful.

Take back the streets.

Phillip Morris writes today in the Plain Dealer that citizens – not just government – have a responsibility to protect neighborhoods:

The city [of Cleveland] has tried periodic gun sweeps and gang patrols to stifle the terrorists who feed on those who remain trapped or loyal to the neighborhood.

But it’s not enough.

Glenville, like so many neighborhoods in this crime-ridden city, needs a militia – a militia of committed, responsible citizens willing to reclaim the streets.

It starts with turning in [a recent murder victim’s] killer.

It also starts with more people exercising their rights to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons and embarking on street patrols. I’m not advocating vigilantism. But if criminals know that armed, law-abiding people are walking the streets, maybe the criminals will stand down.

Obama the moderate.

Ronald Weich, who is President Obama’s nominee for assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, claims that the Unborn Victims of Violence Act – which recognizes two victims in federal crimes against pregnant women – “is just one more step in the anti-abortion movement’s methodical strategy to humanize fetuses, marginalize women, demonize abortion providers and make the image of abortion less palatable to the American people.”

Potato – e

 

President Obama thinks “Austrian” is a language.

Related item here.

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Or so rapper/idiot Kanye West claimed during a telethon raising money for Katrina. But facts are stubborn things:

The largest U.S. foreign aid program fighting the AIDS epidemic has cut the disease’s death toll by 1.2 million from 2004 to 2007 in a dozen hard-hit African countries, researchers said.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, started by President George W. Bush in 2003, lowered the AIDS death rate on average by 10.5 percent a year in those countries, said study author Eran Bendavid of Stanford University in a study published online today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. 

Embarrassing.

h/t – Hot Air

Good sense.

Bonnie Erbe says that abortion is not a tragedy. In fact, it is a positive good.

The Associated Press ran a story on March 25 that read as follows: “The pregnant woman showed up at the medical centre in flip-flops and in tears, after walking there to save bus fare. Her boyfriend had lost his job, she told her doctor in Oakland, Calif., and now — fearing harder times for her family — she wanted to abort what would have been her fourth child. ‘This was a desired pregnancy – she’d been getting prenatal care — but they re-evaluated expenses and decided not to continue,’ said Dr. Pratima Gupta. ‘When I was doing the options counseling, she interrupted me halfway through, crying, and said, “Dr. Gupta, I just walked here for an hour. I’m sure of my decision.”

Yes, it’s sad that this unwed, pregnant mother of three had no money for bus fare. It’s terrible that her boyfriend lost his job. It is heart-wrenching that she fell to tears in the doctor’s office. But in the long run, can we agree that this unwed couple’s decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy? It’s actually a fact-based, rational decision that in the end benefits the three children they already have and society as well.

Feeding and raising children is expensive. Tuition may be free at public schools but there are still books, transportation, food, clothes, medical care and activities that add up — way up. One may assume this family of five is struggling just to maintain its basics: housing and food. Add one more child and those costs rise as income drops. It’s no tragedy: it’s a good decision. The decision benefits society in two ways. It allows the couple to focus more time, energy and resources on their three children, giving each child a better life and a better chance of growing up to become a contributor to society. It also reduces the chance the family will have to rely on scarce public resources to raise their children.

Ms. Erbe does not claim that the unborn child is anything other than a, well, child. Indeed, she refers to the unborn baby as the couple’s “fourth child” and argues that the couple’s (other) “three children” will benefit from the abortion.

Sooooo, under Ms. Erbe’s “fact-based, rational” standard, would she approve if the couple decided to bring the unborn child to term and, um, terminated their oldest child? After all, if they keep the oldest child, then the couple’s “costs [would] go up as income drops.” Presumably, they already have baby clothes, whereas they would have to buy new clothes for their growing fourth child. And, the baby wouldn’t eat as much as his older sibling. Finally, of course, society would benefit because the couple could focus more time, energy, and resources on their three remaining children, and would not have to rely on the public. Would Ms. Erbe claim – as she did when the issue is abortion – that this course of action is “not always tragic and lots of times, it actually makes good sense”?

h/t – K-Lo

Liberals and Taxes.

Victor Davis Hanson explains what we should take away from all of the “unintended” tax mistakes made by Democrats:

[T]he lesson is that all these nominees belong to precisely the class that we’ve heard over the last two years “made out like bandits,” and should “spread the wealth,” and need to “level the playing field,” and “were the beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts” and should be “patriotic” in paying “their fair share.”

So there is a real ethical crisis among the liberal elite who, we are learning for the nth time, suffer the additional wage of hypocrisy, by calling for higher taxes on the upper-middle-class (often punctuated by self-serving qualifiers that they themselves are willing to pay more in taxes), only to scheme to find ways to cut down their tax liability contrary to the law.

The tragedy is that moralists like Daschle, Geithner, Solis, etc. have far more access to tax lawyers and are far less likely to pay the consequences when caught than the putative “rich” that the liberal left, for the last year, has so cavalierly trashed.

Of course, that Daschle et al. had access to, and relied on, tax lawyers demonstrates how unlikely it is that the failure to pay taxes was “unintentional.”

In any event, the larger question is – Why do rich liberals use tax lawyers in the first place? That is, why do wealthy liberals seek to reduce their taxable income? Why do they claim any deductions? Why – if the rich should pay more - don’t rich liberals simply calculate their gross income and pay the prevailing tax rate? After all, since they are “rich,” they obviously don’t need a tax break.