Catholic San Francisco

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via Catholic San Francisco.

Archbishop’s Journal – Free Will, Conscience and Moral Choice: What Catholics believe

January 13th, 2010
By Archbishop George H. Niederauer

In a recent interview with Eleanor Clift in Newsweek magazine (Dec. 21, 2009), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked about her disagreements with the United States Catholic bishops concerning Church teaching. Speaker Pelosi replied, in part: “I practically mourn this difference of opinion because I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have the opportunity to exercise their free will.”

Embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom. These misconceptions are widespread both within the Catholic community and beyond. For this reason I believe it is important for me as Archbishop of San Francisco to make clear what the Catholic Church teaches about free will, conscience, and moral choice.

Catholic teaching on free will recognizes that God has given men and women the capacity to choose good or evil in their lives. The bishops at the Second Vatican Council declared that the human person, endowed with freedom, is “an outstanding manifestation of the divine image.” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 17) As the parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, makes so beautifully clear, God did not want humanity to be mere automatons, but to have the dignity of freedom, even recognizing that with that freedom comes the cost of many evil choices.

However, human freedom does not legitimate bad moral choices, nor does it justify a stance that all moral choices are good if they are free: “The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything.” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1740) Christian belief in human freedom recognizes that we are called but not compelled by God to choose constantly the values of the Gospel—faith, hope, love, mercy, justice, forgiveness, integrity and compassion.

It is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching to conclude that our freedom of will justifies choices that are radically contrary to the Gospel—racism, infidelity, abortion, theft. Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right.

What, then, is to guide the children of God in the use of their freedom? Again, the bishops at the Council provide the answer—conscience: “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment . . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God . . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (GS, No. 16) Conscience, then, is the judgment of reason whereby the human person, guided by God’s grace, recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. In all we say and do, we are obliged to follow faithfully what we know to be just and right.

How do we form and guide our consciences? While the Church teaches that each of us is called to judge and direct his or her own actions, it also teaches that, like any good judge, each conscience masters the law and listens to expert testimony about the law. This process is called the education and formation of conscience.

Catholics believe that “the education of conscience is a lifelong task.” (CCC, No. 1784) Where do we go for this education of our consciences? Our living tradition teaches us that “In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path; we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.” (CCC, No. 1785)

Our Catholic beliefs about free will, conscience and moral choice are rooted in the Good News of Jesus Christ’s teaching and his redemptive life, death and resurrection: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1); “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2Cor. 3:17); we glory “in the liberty of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:17). Common caricatures of Christian morality portray believers as living in fear of punishment or concerned only with an eternal reward. Long ago, however, St. Basil the Great, a fourth-century bishop and theologian, taught that the Christian, in living a moral life according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “does not stand before God as a slave in servile fear, nor a mercenary looking for wages, but obeys for the sake of the good itself and out of love for God as his child.” (CCC, No. 1828)

As participants in the life of the civil community, we Catholic citizens try to follow our consciences, guided, as described above, by reason and the grace of God. While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens, we nevertheless are profoundly convinced that free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom. Because of these convictions we commit ourselves to a continuing witness to, and dialogue about, the Gospel values that underlie our understanding of freedom, conscience, and moral choice.

From January 15, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.

Writings and Statements – Archbishop’s Journal – Free Will, Conscience and Moral Choice: What Catholics believe

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via Writings and Statements – Archbishop’s Journal – Free Will, Conscience and Moral Choice: What Catholics believe.

Archbishop’s Journal – Free Will, Conscience and Moral Choice: What Catholics believe

• January 15, 2010

By Archbishop George H. Niederauer

In a recent interview with Eleanor Clift in Newsweek magazine (Dec. 21, 2009), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked about her disagreements with the United States Catholic bishops concerning Church teaching. Speaker Pelosi replied, in part: “I practically mourn this difference of opinion because I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have the opportunity to exercise their free will.”
Embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom. These misconceptions are widespread both within the Catholic community and beyond. For this reason I believe it is important for me as Archbishop of San Francisco to make clear what the Catholic Church teaches about free will, conscience, and moral choice.
Catholic teaching on free will recognizes that God has given men and women the capacity to choose good or evil in their lives. The bishops at the Second Vatican Council declared that the human person, endowed with freedom, is “an outstanding manifestation of the divine image.” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 17) As the parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, makes so beautifully clear, God did not want humanity to be mere automatons, but to have the dignity of freedom, even recognizing that with that freedom comes the cost of many evil choices.
However, human freedom does not legitimate bad moral choices, nor does it justify a stance that all moral choices are good if they are free: “The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything.” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1740) Christian belief in human freedom recognizes that we are called but not compelled by God to choose constantly the values of the Gospel—faith, hope, love, mercy, justice, forgiveness, integrity and compassion.
It is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching to conclude that our freedom of will justifies choices that are radically contrary to the Gospel—racism, infidelity, abortion, theft. Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right.
What, then, is to guide the children of God in the use of their freedom? Again, the bishops at the Council provide the answer—conscience: “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment . . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God . . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (GS, No. 16) Conscience, then, is the judgment of reason whereby the human person, guided by God’s grace, recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. In all we say and do, we are obliged to follow faithfully what we know to be just and right.
How do we form and guide our consciences? While the Church teaches that each of us is called to judge and direct his or her own actions, it also teaches that, like any good judge, each conscience masters the law and listens to expert testimony about the law. This process is called the education and formation of conscience.
Catholics believe that “the education of conscience is a lifelong task.” (CCC, No. 1784) Where do we go for this education of our consciences? Our living tradition teaches us that “In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path; we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.” (CCC, No. 1785)
Our Catholic beliefs about free will, conscience and moral choice are rooted in the Good News of Jesus Christ’s teaching and his redemptive life, death and resurrection: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1); “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2Cor. 3:17); we glory “in the liberty of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:17). Common caricatures of Christian morality portray believers as living in fear of punishment or concerned only with an eternal reward. Long ago, however, St. Basil the Great, a fourth-century bishop and theologian, taught that the Christian, in living a moral life according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “does not stand before God as a slave in servile fear, nor a mercenary looking for wages, but obeys for the sake of the good itself and out of love for God as his child.” (CCC, No. 1828)
As participants in the life of the civil community, we Catholic citizens try to follow our consciences, guided, as described above, by reason and the grace of God. While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens, we nevertheless are profoundly convinced that free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom. Because of these convictions we commit ourselves to a continuing witness to, and dialogue about, the Gospel values that underlie our understanding of freedom, conscience, and moral choice.

This column (“Archbishop’s Journal”) by Archbishop George H. Niederauer was published in the Jan. 15 issue of Catholic San Francisco, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

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Pelosi’s archbishop slams her rationale for supporting abortion :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

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via Pelosi’s archbishop slams her rationale for supporting abortion :: Catholic News Agency (CNA).

Pelosi’s archbishop slams her rationale for supporting abortion

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi / Archbishop George Niederauer

San Francisco, Calif., Jan 13, 2010 / 05:46 pm (CNA).- Archbishop George Niederauer responded today to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) recent comments that she has “some concerns about the Church’s position respecting a woman’s right to choose.” Justifying her decision to support abortion by citing her free will “is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching,” the archbishop insisted.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi told Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift in a December 21, 2009 interview that she disagrees with the Church on certain issues but considers herself a “practicing Catholic.”

“I have some concerns about the church’s position respecting a woman’s right to choose. I have some concerns about the church’s position on gay rights. I am a practicing Catholic, although they’re probably not too happy about that. But it is my faith. I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that is that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have that opportunity to exercise their free will,” Pelosi said.

Archbishop Niederauer countered in his January 13 column, “Embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom.” God gave human beings the capacity to choose between good and evil in order to give them the gift of freedom, even at the cost of many evil choices, the archbishop said.

But this gift of freedom, the freedom wrongly cited in justifying a woman’s right to choose, among other fallacies, does not justify the position that “all moral choices are good if they are free,” insisted Archbishop Niederauer, because “the exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything.”

Addressing those who advocate for “reproductive choice” while claiming to be Catholic, Archbishop Niederauer emphasized, “it is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching to conclude that our freedom of will justifies choices that are radically contrary to the Gospel—racism, infidelity, abortion, theft. Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right.”

The belief in the validity of arbitrarily determining right and wrong is widespread both in and outside of the Church, the archbishop noted.

Touching on the meaning of one’s conscience, the San Francisco archbishop described it as “the judgment of reason whereby the human person, guided by God’s grace, recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. In all we say and do, we are obliged to follow faithfully what we know to be just and right.”

“As participants in the life of the civil community,” Archbishop Niederauer wrote, “we Catholic citizens try to follow our consciences, guided, as described above, by reason and the grace of God. While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens, we nevertheless are profoundly convinced that free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom.”

Gateway Pundit- Fistgate XIV

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via Gateway Pundit.

Fistgate XIV: Jennings Personally Pushed Books That Encouraged Children to Meet Adults at Gay Bars For Sex

Wednesday, January 6, 2010, 12:07 PM

Jim Hoft

Happy New Year.
If you thought that we were through writing about Barack Obama’s dangerous Safe Schools Czar because it’s a new year you would be wrong. This story just gets freakier and weirder and the fact that the mainstream media completely ignores this dangerous man working in the Office of Safe and Drug-free Schools makes the story even more scandalous. You’d think the AP could peel away a few of its reporters from Going Rogue to investigate this radical czar. This avoidance by the democratic-media complex won’t keep us from reporting the truth. Our goal of protecting children is greater than our desire to protect a political party.

Kevin Jennings’ was the founder, and for many years, Executive Director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) until he left his post in 2008. GLSEN maintains a recommended reading list of books for children that the radical organization believes all kids should be reading. The books on the list promote all kinds of radical ideas from child rape, to first graders having sex to the joys of prostitution.

Recently it was discovered that these books were not only on GLSEN’s reading list but that Kevin Jennings personally promoted several of these books during his career. One of the books he promoted encouraged children to go to gay bars for sex with adults to see if they like it.
Mass Resistance Blog reported:

Jennings had recommended these books himself in his 1994 high school reader Becoming Visible (published by porn publisher Alyson Books). On p. 278 in his Questions/Activities section for Chapter 17, he wrote:

15. Other resources for reading are Bennett Singer’s Growing Up Gay, Ann Heron’s One Teenager in Ten: Writings by Gay and Lesbian Youth, Aaron Frick’s Reflections of a Rock Lobster: A Story of Growing Up Gay, and Paul Monette’s Becoming a Man. Films include Robert King’s The Disco Years and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, based on Jeanette Winterson’s autobiographical novel.

These questionable books (haven’t looked at the films yet…) have been described by Linda Harvey in 2002 (also here), NARTH (late 1990s), and more recently at Gateway Pundit/BigGovernment.com (Dec. 2009)…

NARTH reported on One Teenager in Ten:

Some of the Alyson publications, including One Teenager in Ten …encourage teens to, among other things, go to gay bars and have sex with adults to see if they like it.” Further, One Teenager in Ten “contains a lesbian teen’s explicit account of her affair with a teacher.”

This is proof that Jennings was promoting reading material that encouraged children to go to adult gay bars for sex for over 20 years.

There’s much more to come.

What the Dems know that we don’t: Universal Voter Registration

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via What the Dems know that we don’t: Universal Voter Registration.

Many are puzzled that Democrats persist in ramming unpopular and destructive legislation down our collective throats while seemingly unconcerned by their plummeting poll numbers. A widespread belief is that the Democrats are committing political suicide and will be swept from one or both houses of Congress with unprecedented electoral losses next November. But since Democrat politicians rarely do things that will not ultimately benefit themselves, this column asked two weeks ago: “what do they know that we don’t?”

We may have found out. It’s called universal voter registration. The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund described the Democrat plan recently at a David Horowitz Freedom Center forum. Watch the video:

Fund describes the proposal as follows:

In January, Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank will propose universal voter registration. What is universal voter registration? It means all of the state laws on elections will be overriden by a federal mandate. The feds will tell the states: ’take everyone on every list of welfare that you have, take everyone on every list of unemployed you have, take everyone on every list of property owners, take everyone on every list of driver’s license holders and register them to vote regardless of whether they want to be…’

Fund anticipates that Congress will attempt to ram this legislation down our throats like they have been with the ”healthcare” bill. What a surprise! Fund covers the vote issue at greater length in his book, How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections, a very good read.

Leftist groups are already arguing that universal voter registration will solve all the problems with our voting system. But the left created most of these problems. The radical leftist Nation magazine, for example, absolutely loves the idea of universal voter registration. This is the same magazine, however, that advanced Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven’s Manufactured Crisis strategy. The Cloward/Piven strategy was designed to undermine government institutions by overwhelming them with impossible demands for services. Cloward and Piven focused on welfare, housing and voting as the main targets of this strategy, and the radical group ACORN was specifically created for the purpose of executing it.

The Nation article enthusiastically lists Cloward/Piven-inspired organizations like Project Vote, the ACORN group where President Obama cut his teeth. It also discusses the left’s efforts to push enforcement of the Motor Voter law, and explains how universal voter registration could assist in these efforts. Cloward and Piven were the ones who crafted Motor Voter legislation in the early 1980s and pushed for it’s enactment until 1993, when President Clinton signed it into law. Cloward and Piven considered Motor Voter to be their crowning lifetime achievement. The picture below, from White House photo archives, shows Cloward (light grey suit) and Piven (green coat and navy dress) standing directly behind Clinton at the Motor Voter signing ceremony.

The left has predictably launched vicious smear attacks against John Fund for bringing universal voter registration to our attention. A Google search of the issue brings up any number of nasty ad hominem attacks. Most notable is Media Matters, the leftist group whose sole purpose seems to be smearing Republicans and defending the left’s indefensible policies. They put up this gem: “Right-Wing Ass Weasel John Fund Doesn’t Like Universal Voter Registration because of ACORN.” Media Matters, what a class act!

The problems with universal voter registration are numerous and obvious. Many state lists include vast numbers of illegals, including some states which allow illegals to obtain driver’s licenses; because many homeowners have more than one home there will be duplicates; because so many people are on so many separate federal and state government agency lists, there will be duplicates, and because so many lists exist with little or no cross-checking capability these duplicates are likely to go uncorrected. Add to this the fact that Dems hope to extend voting rights to felons and the whole thing begins to look like a nationwide Democrat voter registration drive facilitated by taxpayers.

Universal voter registration will create massive vulnerabilities to systemic voter fraud nationwide, and if Democrats have proven anything in recent years, it is that they can win elections that way. The George-Soros-funded Secretary of State project (SOS) was designed to take advantage of such vulnerabilities and may have been developed in anticipation of the universal voter registration plan. Al Franken’s stolen election in Minnesota was a trial run for the SOS project. Longtime ACORN friend Mark Ritchie was elected Minnesota Secretary of State in 2006 with Soros’s SOS and ACORN money, and what followed in Norm Coleman’s Senate runoff election was a frighening demonstration of just how far Democrats will go to win. Franken won the runoff and the Democrats got their filibuster-proof sixty vote Senate majority.

The Motor Voter law was correctly identified as a facilitator of vote fraud. One of the few legal issues Barack Obama actually participated in as a lawyer was a 1995 suit against the State of Illinois, which he brought on behalf of ACORN. Then Republican Governor Jim Edgars saw the newly passed Motor Voter act as creating the potential for massive vote fraud and refused to implement it. With the assistance of the Clinton Justice Department, Obama’s legal team won that suit. Obama himself actually participated very little, a strategy that seems to have served him well in life. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, after identifying himself in court proceedings, Obama sat back and let “the heavy-hitters at the Justice Department make the arguments…”

It is not surprising that the Democrats are now choosing to push this new initiative, for universal voter registration will be Motor Voter on turbochargers. And who better to sign it into law than the President from ACORN.

More on universal voter registration:

Dems positioning to rig November elections?

Democrats’ suicide strategy; do they know something we don’t?

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via Democrats’ suicide strategy; do they know something we don’t?.

Much has been made about how Democrats are committing political suicide with the healthcare bill and all the other onerous legislation they have proposed and/or passed this year. There is no mistaking that these actions are extremely unpopular. The widespread uncertainty they have fostered in the business community by coupling job-killing legislation and talk of big tax increases with unprecedented, reckless deficit spending has kept our economy at a virtual standstill. And their insulting, arrogant, dishonest and blatantly corrupt behavior has brought citizen concern and anger to a fever pitch, while Democrat poll numbers plummet.

But those who believe in this “Democrat suicide” model implicitly assume next November’s elections will be free and fair. Given ACORN’s antics, Democrat Secretaries of State literally stealing elections, shocking abuses of power by Democrats in Congress and the administration, the blatant thuggery of SEIU and other union activists, while the media covers for them, such an assumption is fairy tale fantasy. It would be funny to think some people actually have that much faith in Democrats, if the implications weren’t so disastrous. As it is, one can only cry.

Some of us believe this “Democrat suicide” to be a reason for greater concern rather than less. Since FDR, Democrat politicians have demonstrated themselves to be selfish in the extreme, throwing friends under the bus, lying in public, buying voters with vast spending programs that commit government to ever growing expenditures, while the programs themselves prove unfettered disasters; whatever is necessary to accomplish their goals. It is difficult to square this observed behavior with the notion that they would suddenly be running off the cliff like a bunch of lemmings just to pass healthcare in time for Christmas.

It is therefore much more likely that their corruption, their despicable, insulting tactics and breathtaking dishonesty comes of an ominous foreknowledge. We know, for example, that much of the “Stimulus” money is only stimulating Democrats. Despite the supposed focus on “shovel-ready” projects, only 7 percent of the $787 billion in the first Stimulus bill actually was slated for such projects. But when fellow Democrat Peter DeFazio pointed this out, Obama’s answer was, “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.” One can assume a similar attitude drives the auto and banking industry “bailouts,” and just about every other piece of legislation. Post bailout, for example, UAW workers pay nothing for a Cadillac healthcare plan now that GM is underwritten by We the People.

We have never before witnessed such brazen corruption. Consider the award of almost $6 million in “Stimulus” monies to companies run by former Hillary Clinton pollster Mark Penn, supposedly to save three jobs. According to The Hill, Clinton still owes Penn $1 million for her 2008 campaign. Looks like we taxpayers are covering that now too.

The Obamacare health travesty bill voted on in the wee hours Monday night contains a laundry list of Senate buy-offs, of which Senator Ben Nelson’s (D-NB) $100 million Medicare exclusion for the state of Nebraska is only one. Chris Dodd, facing a daunting re-election battle in Connecticut, got a similar amount for his state, presumably to improve his chances. There are many others. Lindsay Graham, the usually collegial Senator from South Carolina calls the bill “…one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in the history of Washington.” And as if the Democrats couldn’t’t do more, we now learn this version of the bill allows for covering illegals.

The largest three kickbacks in the Senate bill total $1.2 billion. Sounds like a lot of money with which to bribe voters. But what will it mean when trillions of dollars in “Stimulus I” and “Stimulus II” (just passed in the House of Representatives) are applied to election contests? Are Democrats overconfident? One can only hope. But if past is prologue, it is a dim hope, at best.

And it gets even worse. After all the secrecy, after blatantly violating sacrosanct Senate rules, after buying off Senators to get their support, Senator Harry Reid’s bill includes a section that will require a super-majority (i.e. two-thirds) of Senators to change any rules relevant to decisions made by the “Independent Medicare Advisory Boards,” aka “Death Panels.” As Redstate reports, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) objected that any language requiring a super-majority vote must be approved by a two-thirds majority. For the second time, the Senate presiding officer brushed aside standing Senate rules and said they didn’t apply. This happened today.

Even a former mobster is comparing Obama and Democrats to the Mafia. A post at Anti-Idiotarian Rotweiller contained the following quote, which seems to sum up the issue quite well:

The Left has no intention of giving up power. But they act consistently and almost unanimously in ways that leaving [sic] me biting my tongue to find ways of describing it in this forum, and actively infuriating huge swathes of the American people. If there are honest elections a whole bunch of them are going to lose power, quite possibly enough to take them out of control of the government.

Politicians in a group when they act consistently and anomalously against what would seem to be their own interests, are usually operating on information not available to anyone else. One also has to add to the mix the question why the Republicans as a party are only offering token opposition to the Democrats, when standing up would rally support to them? What do they know?

When you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, has to be considered. The only thing that remains, that I can see, is that no matter what they do, they no longer have any fear of facing the voters in an honest election. The specific mechanisms and basis for that confidence have yet to be determined. If anyone has a convincing alternative explanation that fits the data; I would gladly entertain it. I really would like to be able to accept an alternative that bodes better for our country, our Constitution, and the future of my children.

In mind of this, two more pieces of legislation have come to light which promise more devastation to our country, more government control, and even more promising prospects for Democrats to extort votes in 2010.

The first is Barney Frank’s financial overhaul bill. Michelle Bachman (R-MN) claims it is even worse than the healthcare bill. Michelle tends to shoot from the hip, and sometimes opens herself to criticism as a result, but her assessment of the Frank bill appears to be on the money.

The second is a new illegal immigrant amnesty bill that will flood voter rolls with tens of millions of new Democrat voters, if passed. Anyone want to bet on their chances of getting it through? And we still have eleven months to go… This nonstop blizzard of society-wrecking legislation continues to follow the Manufactured Crisis format, for anyone still in the dark about it.

In order to win next November, Republican candidates will have to win with vast majorities just to overcome Democrat vote fraud. Democrats will doubtless call it “vote rigging” if Republicans win with big margins and do whatever they can to discredit the results. For close races it will be scorched earth tactics like they used in Florida’s 2004 presidential race.

But Democrats will have an added advantage because they have also been busy stacking the deck using the so-called “SOS Project.” This George Soros-funded initiative strives to elect sympathetic Secretaries of State as they already have in Minnesota.

Finally, Obama has gotten four sympathetic “technical advisors” appointed to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. One of these, Edwin Smith, VP of Dominion Voting Systems, has been called a “scammer” by the Brad Blog, know for its expertise on e-voting machines. Brad Blog describes Smith thusly: “This isn’t just the Fox in the Hen House. This is the Fox who has already devoured every Hen in the House, in the Hen House. With feathers in his mouth and a sub-machine gun in his hands.”

Smith is a former VP at Sequoia Voting Systems, a producer of voting machines that failed during New Jersey’s 2008 elections. Sequoia had been owned by Smartmatic, a Venezuela-based company tied to the Chavez government and suspected of rigging the Venezuelan vote for President Hugo Chavez. Smartmatic was forced to sell off Sequoia after an investigation by the U.S. Treasury and State Departments in 2006, but Sequoia’s software is still owned by Smartmatic. Smartmatic in turn, got its technology from Dominion, Smith’s latest employer.

If all this fails, it is not inconceivable that they would take some more blatant extra-legal step, to shut down, postpone or otherwise nullify election results. If this sounds too extreme, consider: the Democrats are staking their future on a legislative, rhetorical and legal strategy that is alienating the entire country.

Are they really that stupid?

UPDATE: There appears to be a movement already afoot among some states to nullify any healthcare measure that comes out of this Congress. Nullification is an innovative Constitutional strategy states may use to neutralize onerous federal law the state believes to be unconstitutional. This comes out of the nascent 10th Amendment movement within some states to reassert authority that the federal government has been undermining for a long time. It is nice to be able to offer this positive bit of news as Christmas approaches, given Congressional Democrats’ apparent determination to play the Grinch and wreak as much havoc as possible in this Christmas season.

Dems positioning to rig November elections?

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via Dems positioning to rig November elections?.

Can falsified registrations become votes? If the feds push universal voter registration by overriding state elections procedures, you bet, says John Fund of the WSJ.

“What does universal voter registration mean?  It means all state laws will be overridden by a federal mandate.  At that point you will have destroyed the integrity of the registration process.  This is their stealth bill . . . it is even more sneaky than the healthcare bill.”

John Fund, Wall Street Journal

If you think ACORN voter registration and fraud threaten the integrity of the American electoral process, just wait until Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank get their way.  *

For many years, John Fund has been warning about Democrat efforts to redesign the electoral process.  These ‘reforms’ are sold as ways of improving the process.  Fund insists they are designed to manage favorable outcomes for Democrats, going so far as to say last November that the Democrats are working to subvert and corrupt the voter registration process.

Here is Fund’s word-for-word presentation on this topic last November at the David Horowitz forum:

“Democrats were very rattled by the November 3rd (2009) election results.  What do liberals do when they lose elections?  They change the rules.  In January, Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank will propose universal voter registration.  What is UVR? It means all of the state laws will be overridden by a federal mandate.

“The feds will tell the states: ‘Take everyone on every list of welfare recipients, take everyone on every list of unemployed you have, take everyone on every list of property owners, all driver’s license holders, and register them to vote, regardless of whether they want to be. Oh, and by the way there will be felon re-enfranchisement too.

“At that point you have destroyed the integrity of the registration process.

“Now, they will sell this very cleverly.  They will say, ‘Well, OK, ACORN did have some problems with voter registration . . . we should not have these third-party rogue groups out there, so let’s put ACORN out of business.  Let’s register everybody!’

“Now, the problem is of course is there are a lot of duplicates. And there are a lot of people on those rolls who are illegal alients.

“There are a lot of people on those rolls . . . it’s not a clean list.

“They (the Dems) don’t care.

“So this is the issue you haven’t hear about.  There is a reason you haven’t heard about it.  They don’t want you to hear about it.

“The path between the day this bill is introduced and the day it hits the House floor will probably be less than two weeks.

“Get ready for it.  You can stop it.  Don’t get me wrong, but this is their stealth bill that is even more sneaky than the healthcare bill.

_____________

You will soon hear the hard Left wail about how corrupt John Fund is and how conservative nutjobs and rightwing loons are simply pushing another conspiracy theory to advance the ‘destroy Obama witch hunt.’

As far as this citizen journalist is concerned, the fact Fund is attacked by Media Matters and Mother Jones and others only serves to increase his credibility.

Back to the central issue however, the question is: can falsified registrations become votes?  Read all about it right here.

We have always held to the tradition that individuals register themselves.   This is a built-in system to maintain integrity.  Allowing the federal government to jam universal voter registration opens the process to corruption, but that is the purpose.

Democrats know full well they’ll reap millions of votes in the process, once the process is corrupted in this way.

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* Note that the Obama DOJ has refused to investigate ACORN in the wake of the sex slave scandal coming from student investigative journalism work.  Notice that ACORN board members that called for a full audit have been fired.  Notice the Senate voting 83-7 in September in favor of a ban on further ACORN funding.  Pelosi had prevented many attempts to place the issue on the floor of the House.  Evenso, in September the House voted 345-75 to cut ACORN funding via a student aid bill.

And guess what? ACORN is still receiving federal funds. ACORN sued and in the first round, won. The votes to cut funding in Congress were ruled unconstitutional.  Any bets on whether or not the Obama DOJ will appeal?

Here Rep. Steve King promises an investigation of ACORN and predicts it will lead to the White House and President Obama who once worked for ACORN.

RELATED:

From Michelle Malkin.

INTEGRITY OF AMERICAN ELECTIONS AT RISK

Even more concerns as detailed here by Jim Simpson, former White House economist.

Cold Fury » “Registered by the State, for the State and to the State, so that Democrat Rule shall not Perish from the Earth.”

HIDDEN IN TEH HEALTHCRAE BILL BEING RAMMED THROUGH THE HOUSE AND SENATE IS A PROVISION TO AUTOMATICALLY REGISTER EVERYONE, ON ANY STATE LIST, TO VOTE.  You think ACORN was bd- how about the voter fraud with this scheme?

via Cold Fury » “Registered by the State, for the State and to the State, so that Democrat Rule shall not Perish from the Earth.”.

“Registered by the State, for the State and to the State, so that Democrat Rule shall not Perish from the Earth.”

October 25th, 2009

INTERNATIONAL VOTE HARVESTERS

“Frankly, I strongly feel that the world would be a much better place if trees could vote.”–Eleanor Emily Lee

Well, then this is your lucky day, lady.

While ex-ACORN employee B. Hussein Obama is whining about stolen elections in Afghanistan as an excuse for his dithering, Democrats are planning to steal even more elections here in America.

The plan is to slam a “universal voter registration” bill through Congress before the next election, warned John Fund on C-SPAN this weekend, and in his new book.

Universal registration would register people who don’t even want to be registered so their votes could be harvested by Democrat political machines.

Every existing list of people would be registered. Rahm’s Census. Library cards. Tax rolls. Welfare rolls. Drivers licenses. Patients. Customers. Mailing lists. ACORN lists. Gitmo detainees. The Seven Dwarves. Eight is Enough. Nine Inch Nails. Ten Most Wanted. Eleven Pipers Palin-ing. Twelve Angry Men. Santa Claus’ list of naughty and nice kids. And he won’t be allowed to check it once, let alone twice.

If you own property in more than one place, you’re registered in both. If you moved several times, you are registered at all your addresses. If you are a foreign national here legally or illegally, on any list, you’re registered. Same with felons. Are you a foreigner who illegally contributed to Obama’s campaign last year from your throne room in Saggy Arabica? On the list! Dead? How can you be dead…you’re right here on our list! And we hope you feel better soon!

This would doubtless be accompanied by the abolition of ID requirements.

Even Jimmy Carter supports voter ID laws. Know why? His first election was stolen by Democrats!

Fund at Politico last year:

…ACORN had hired 59 inmates from a work-release program at a nearby prison and…some inmates who had been convicted of identity theft had been made supervisors. That led some local wags to joke that at least ACORN was hiring specialists to do their work.

ACORN’s second line of defense has been that fraudulent registrations can’t turn into fraudulent votes, as if the felony of polluting voter lists was somehow not all that serious. But that defense goes only a short distance. “How would you know if people using fake names had cast votes in states without strict ID laws?” says GOP Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who this year won a major Supreme Court case upholding his state’s photo identification law. “It’s almost impossible to detect and once the fraudulent voter leaves the precinct or casts an absentee ballot, that vote is thrown in with other secret ballots there’s no way to trace it.”

Anita MonCrief, an ACORN whistle-blower who worked for both it and its Project Vote registration affiliate from 2005 until early this year, agrees. “It’s ludicrous to say that fake registrations can’t become fraudulent votes,” she told me. “I assure you that if you can get them on the rolls you can get them to vote, especially using absentee ballots.” [...]

…[T]here are two civil rights in play here. One is the right to cast a ballot without fear or intimidation or artificial barriers. We fought a great struggle in the 1960s to eliminate poll taxes, literacy tests and pass a Voting Rights Act to protect the right to vote.

But all Americans have another civil right — the right not to have their ballot canceled out by someone who shouldn’t be voting, is voting twice or may not even exist. You can be just as surely disenfranchised by someone canceling out your vote as if someone blocked your entry into a courthouse door where a polling place was located.

Via QandO:

… St. Tammany Parish Fire District No. 3…applied for a $120,000 grant to purchase smoke alarms for low-income families after a January fire killed four children in a home that had no working detectors.

“We wanted to buy smoke detectors to spread to homes all over the community to prevent that from happening again,” Chief Charles Flynn said in an interview Tuesday.

“I have no problem with not getting a grant, I’ve lost grants before,” said Chief Flynn, one of the fire officials who complained to Mr. Vitter in a letter.

“My issue is ACORN in New Orleans. Their mission statement says nothing about fire safety or fire prevention. It bothered me that ACORN got $1 million and there are so many smaller and bigger departments that have a need for that money.”

The Monroe Fire Department was the only squad in Louisiana to receive a grant and will be awarded $192,000. The Louisiana State Fire Marshal’s Office will receive $62,000.

ACORN received $997,402, slightly less than the maximum allowable grant of $1 million.

The real firefighters got a quarter of a million. The guys with their pants on fire got a full million.

Constitutional questions about the Mandated Purchase of Health Insurance were instantly dismissed as “not serious”, but Democrat congressmen were even quicker to call cutting off funds to ACORN “unconstitutional”.

“Once you’re on the federal tit, you’re on it forever!”–James Madison

Have you noticed how every Obama Payoff Bill comes in at two dollars and eighty-three cents less than a million? Or a billion? And a trillion?

And that “ban” on ACORN funding?

It expires this week.