Advent Conspiracy

"Merry Christmas" Planned Parenthood-Style

Pre-paid Christmas gift cards from Planned Parenthood? Are you kidding?

Hardly. According to OneNewsNow, Planned Parenthood of Indiana, one of 99 nationwide affiliates of the infamous abortion conglomerate, has announced it is offering holiday vouchers for its "health care" services or for "the recipient's choice of birth control method," including abortions at its child-killing centers in Indianapolis, Merrillville and Bloomington.

The plan has been widely denounced for "making a mockery of the holiday season." Indeed, according to Mike Fichter, president and CEO of Indiana Right to Life, "The tragedy is that almost 6,000 fewer children will be celebrating a first Christmas this year because they were aborted in Planned Parenthood's Indiana clinics."

But apparently, the industry standard-bearers see little irony in promoting abortion amidst a season that exists solely because, "Unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given."

Hentoff on Obama

Today's Washington Times contains a sobering editorial by Nat Hentoff about the extreme pro-infanticide resolve of the new Obama administration. May God have mercy upon us and upon our nation.

Awful Truth

It is an equally awful truth that four and four makes eight, whether you reckon the thing out in eight onions or eight angels, eight bricks or eight bishops, eight minor poets or eight pigs. Similarly, if it be true that God made all things, that grave fact can be asserted by pointing at a star or by waving an umbrella." --G.K. Chesterton

Executive (Dis)Orders

Steven Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute and the author of a host of important books, monographs, and briefings examining the burgeoning partnership between international politics, bureaucratic environmentalism, and the global abortion industry. His editorial analysis this month takes up the question of what we ought to expect during the first days of the new Obama administration as he implements a raft of promised Executive Orders aimed at jettisoning long-standing pro-life policies. It is not a pretty picture:

Obama's transition team is busily preparing a thick sheaf of Executive Orders for the President-elect to sign the day he takes office. And--in a reprise of what happened when Bill Clinton took power 16 years ago--the pro-life policies of the Bush Administration will apparently be the first to go.

Obama appears set to reverse existing Executive Orders that protect taxpayers from having to fund abortions at home and abroad. Moreover, Bush's prohibition against the vivisection of tiny humans (aka embryonic stem cell research), will almost certainly go by the wayside.

Another pro-life policy on the ideological chopping block involves the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which unabashedly supports China's inhumane one-child policy.

We know. It was the Population Research Institute whose investigation in China led the Bush administration to cut off funding to the UNFPA for the past seven years. We have continued to monitor the situation in China, and we stand by our assertion that the UNFPA was--and is--involved in coercive abortions in China.

PRI's original report, entitled "UNFPA, China, and Coercive Family Planning," is based on an investigation conducted by PRI researchers in China's Sihui County. Relying on interviews with over two dozen victims and witnesses, the 2001 investigation found that coercive abortion and sterilization practices were taking place in that county where the UNFPA had supposedly instituted a "client-centered and voluntary family planning program." In fact, PRI's investigation revealed that the UNFPA shared an office with the very Chinese family planning officials who were locking up women and carrying out forced abortions.

Prompted by this investigation, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell sent his own research team to China, which independently verified the facts that PRI had gathered. As a result, Powell himself urged that the U.S. government stop funding the UNFPA. Said Powell in a 2002 letter to Congress: "UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion."

President-elect Obama and his supporters blame pro-lifers in the Bush administration for this decision, but it was Colin Powell, who is no friend of social conservatives and who recently endorsed Obama for President, who made this call.

It would be a shame if Obama abandons both the women of China and one of his most high-profile backers in the name of the failed ideology of population control. Americans don't want their money going to an organization--the UNFPA--which works hand-in-glove with China's population control police as they drag women off for forced abortions and forced sterilizations. In protecting American taxpayers from having to fund such atrocities, President Bush made the right call.

Compare Bush's judicious actions to those of his predecessor. Bill Clinton chose the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to sign, in a televised Oval Office ceremony, a series of executive orders undoing the pro-life policies of the Reagan-Bush era. The orders he signed on that day--only his fourth in office--undid the Mexico City policy, allowing tax dollars to flow to abortion outfits, encouraged federally-funded clinics to refer for abortions, forced the U.S. military to provide abortion services, and permitted human embryo vivisection. His oft-stated claim that he wanted abortion to be "safe, legal and rare" was revealed as a sham at that moment.

Bush weighed the evidence before acting, while Clinton overreached. What will Obama do?

Whatever he does, it will cast in sharp relief who Barack Obama really is. Is he the reasonable-sounding moderate who appeared on the televised debates and in those carefully crafted (and ubiquitous) TV commercials? Or is he the radical who associates with race-baiting pastors, unrepentant terrorists, and makes far-reaching promises to Planned Parenthood?

By signing a series of pro-abortion Executive Orders, President Obama will be perceived as governing from the Left. The die will be cast, and pro-lifers will rally against him from that moment. They will start looking towards 2010 to restore some checks and balances on this man they will rightly perceive as a pro-abortion zealot.

Clinton's pollster argued strongly against acting on abortion policy as one of the new administration's first pieces of business, but he went ahead regardless. The debacle of the 1994 House elections for the Democrats began at that moment.

Let us see if Barack makes the same mistake.

Good and Evil

"Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil." --Robert Heinlein

"The most terrifying words in the English language are, I’m from the government and I’m here to help." --Ronald Reagan

"If I knew that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." --Henry David Thoreau

"Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely expressed for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent busybodies." --C.S. Lewis

It Has Begun Already!

The Real Strong Man

"We are perpetually being told that what is wanted is a strong man who will do things. What is really wanted is a strong man who will undo things; and that will be the real test of strength." --G.K. Chesterton

To the Work

Why are so many patriotic Americans still underwhelmed and unwowed by the media's Obama-frenzy? Very simply, the fierce divide over vital issues did not dissipate the day after the election. As Mike Huckabee stated on his HuckPac Blog, the Obama election essentially means that the nation must now face five fronts in the LibProg assault on our constitutional liberties:

1. Goodbye, Second Amendment rights.

2. Goodbye, protection for the unborn.

3. Goodbye, diligence against state sponsored terrorism from rogue governments like Iran, North Korea, and others.

4. Goodbye, parental rights as a fundamental right to not be supplanted by the government.

5. Goodbye, holding traditional marriage as one man, one woman for life.

So, while others celebrate, the vigilant patriot is necessarily working at the grassroots level to inform and reform in every arena and at every turn.

To the work! To the work! We are servants of God;
Let us follow the path that our Master has trod;
With the balm of His counsel our strength to renew,
Let us do with our might what our hands find to do.

Toiling on, toiling on,
Toiling on, toiling on,
Let us hope and trust,
Let us watch and pray,
And labor till the Master comes.

To the work! To the work! Let the hungry be fed;
To the fountain of life let the weary be led;
In the cross and its banner our glory shall be,
While we herald the tidings, “Salvation is free!”

To the work! To the work! There is labor for all;
For the kingdom of darkness and error shall fall;
And the love of our Father exalted shall be,
In the loud swelling chorus, “Salvation is free!”

To the work! To the work! In the strength of the Lord,
And a robe and a crown shall our labor reward,
When the home of the faithful our dwelling shall be,
And we shout with the ransomed, “Salvation is free!”

Where to Draw the Line

"If I know anything about the character of God after forty years of study, I know that God hates abortion. And I could never vote for a candidate who supported abortion--even if I agreed with that candidate on every other policy position. If he supported abortion I would not vote for him and I urge you to do the same." --R.C Sproul

"It is an art to weigh the importance of different issues and to come to a godly conclusion. Each of us should have a large amount of tolerance for other Christians who come to conclusions that are different from ours. Rarely will one issue trump all others, though I must say that I will never vote for a candidate who advocates or facilitates the killing of unborn children.” --John Frame

Change

America has voted for change with the choice of the most extreme pro-abortion and pro-infanticide president in history--to go with solid pro-abortion and pro-infanticide majorities in both the House and the Senate. As Gradgrind asserted, "These are facts, facts, facts. Cold hard facts."

In light of these facts, "How should we then live?"

The answer is simple: we too must change. We must stand for the sanctity of life as never before, with more courage than ever before, with more compassion than ever before, with more commitment than ever before, with more grace than ever before, with more resolve than ever before, with more creativity than ever before, and with more wisdom than ever before.

A Prophet Warns America

The Averted Gaze

Despite Barack Obama's staunch and unapologetic advocacy of homosexual activism and radical pro-abortion policies, new polling by the prestigious research organization, the Barna Group, indicates that the Democratic presidential nominee is making significant inroads among voters who are classified as "born-again Christians."

According to the Barna Poll, Obama is statistically tied, 43 percent to 45 percent, with Republican John McCain among "born-again Christian" voters. "Born-again Christians" are defined by Barna as people who say they have "made a personal commitment to Jesus" and believe they "will go to heaven" because they have "confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior." Based on that definition, 48 percent of all voters in this election will be "born-again Christians."

According to Dave Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, Christians voting for Obama say they are backing the Illinois senator because they believe he will "do a better job restoring America's reputation" and "handling the economy" and agree with his "stance on the Iraq War." Thus, it appears Christians in 2008 will fulfill Francis Schaeffer's dire prediction in The Great Evangelical Disaster, that "personal peace and affluence" will cause us to "avert our moral gaze" from the "things that matter most" to the "things that matter least."

A Vote for Obama?

Can a Christian of good conscience vote for Barack Obama? There are at least three reasons why I have trouble imagining how the answer to that question could possibly be "yes."

1. Obama's repeated pledge to sign the "Freedom of Choice Act"--a bill that would effectively strike down every guideline, regulation, restriction, and limit on the multi-billion dollar abortion industry in all 50 states.

2. Obama's determined opposition to banning or regulating "Partial Birth Abortion"--a barbaric ritualistic form of infanticide.

3. Obama's repeated and longstanding opposition to the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act"--a position from which even Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League cautiously backed away.

Whatever a thinking Christian's position might be on the war in Iraq, the crisis on Wall Street, the credit bail out, the war on terror, illegal immigration, the failure of government education, or soaring deficients, this bedrock issue must surely take precedence. If we cannot agree to protect this most basic right, the right to life itself, then every other right is ultimately at risk.

Vote Your Values

Obama's Infanticide Lie

Newly discovered documents from the Illinois state archives prove Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has repeatedly and publicly lied about his opposition as an Illinois state legislator to regulations requiring health officials to provide care to babies who survived abortion.

According to a report by Amanda Carpenter in TownHall, Senator Obama has repeatedly claimed he would have voted for Illinois’ version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) had it included language to protect abortion rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, as the federal version of the bill did, which sailed through the U.S. Senate 98-0. Contrary to what Obama has said however, forgotten records from the Illinois Senate archives show Obama did vote against a BAIPA bill that included such a neutrality clause virtually identical to the federal bill.

This is hardly surprising given Obama's radical commitment to the multi-billion dollar abortion industry in general and to industry leader Planned Parenthood in particular. Nevertheless, the disingenuousness of the press in offering cover for the candidate's deceptiveness is more than a little disturbing.

Obama and Black Genocide

Punished with a Baby

Tale of Two Babies

Playing Dirty

Obama and the Dems apparently want to play dirty. How dirty? Well, according to Victor Davis Hanson, about as dirty as any election campaign ever. And that just might prove to be their undoing.

Obama: Pro-Abort Fundraiser

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Obama and Infanticide

Obama: Pro-Abort Perversity

The Real Barack Obama

Good Question

CNN's Wolf Blitzer recently asked conservative commentator Bill Bennett what "one question" he would like to ask Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama. Bennett said he would ask the junior Illinois senator:

"Why are you to the left of NARAL, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein when it comes to abortion? Are you really there? I've got to question the guy's moral judgment who doesn't see a problem with killing a baby after it's been born. What is the answer to that question?"

Bennett was of course referring to Obama's fierce public opposition to Illinois' Born Alive Infants Protection Act. The legislation would have declared all live babies legal persons, which would guarantee them the protection of appropriate medical care--even if they were abortion survivors.

Former Gore campaign manager, Donna Brazile, impatiently interrupted the conversation between Blitzer and Bennett quipping: "Bill, you want to have a conversation about narrow issues … but the American people want to talk about gas prices."

Oh really? Thanks for setting our priorities straight, Donna!

The End of the Matter

Recently, I was reading through Thomas Carlyle’s brilliant biographical notes on the life and work of Oliver Cromwell when I stumbled across a refreshing insight. According to Carlyle, most serious attempts at social, political, or theological analysis in the modern era are dreary and repetitive affairs of ill-informed “shot-rubbish” and “dry-as-dust” inanities. Instead of throwing the light of understanding on an issue, they are little more than:

“Confusion piled on confusion to the utmost horizon’s edge: obscure, in the lurid twilight as of the shadow of death; trackless without index, without finger-post, or mark of any human foregoer; where your human footstep, if you are still human, echoes bodeful through the gaunt solitude, peopled only by somnambulant pedants, dilettantes, and doleful creatures by phantasms, errors, inconceivabilities, by nightmares, pasteboard norroys, griffins, wiverns, and chimeras dire. There, all vanquished, overwhelmed under such waste lumber-mountains, the wreck and dead ashes of some unbelieving generations, does the truth lie hidden from us.”

In other words, most works of modern analysis are merely the restatement of the obvious, the scandalous, or the insidious. They are negative and mundane simply because tomes of criticism are far easier to churn out than quartos of positive prediction or of constructive hope.

Carlyle’s telling indictment of such “droning melancholy skepticisms” and “dismal torpedo narratives” reminded me that perhaps the most important thing that I could ever say about Planned Parenthood was actually as yet unsaid. It struck me that there was little need for another rehearsal of pro-abortion woes or even another anthem of pro-life resolves. Instead, it seemed to me that the need of the moment is for a clear-eyed pronouncement of ultimate outcomes.

Though I had already come to the end of the matter, I had hardly come to what matters in the end.

The fact is, bad ideas don’t last. Though they seem to regularly torment the human experience across the span of history, their tenure at any one given time is actually quite short-lived. That may be the most important fact for us to grasp about Planned Parenthood—or any of the other modern malignancies that blithely distress this poor fallen world in which we live. But it is a fact that is all too easy to forget in the heat of controversy.

Small Things

The character of John McCain and Sarah Palin can best be seen in the small things rather than in the big policies--as this amazing Rush Limbaugh Transcript demonstrates only too well.

Sarah's Shake-Up

Some pundits have claimed that Sarah Palin has already changed the face of American politics. New evidence of that has emerged in one of the most unlikely places—in the studios of NBC News.

When Palin lamented media bias during her acceptance speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC.” Yesterday, NBC responded by demoting MSNBC co-anchors, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. Instead, NBC News correspondent David Gregory will anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. The stridently left-leaning Olbermann and the combative liberal Matthews will remain, but only as analysts during the coverage.

Apparently, the move came after months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network. But, the open acrimony and last-place ratings during the Republican convention, ultimately did in the pro-abort, anti-war, red-diaper duo.

Liberty

"The only object of liberty is life." G.K. Chesterton

Noonan Takes Aim

Peggy Noonan is always brilliant, insightful, and trenchant. Her editorial in today's Wall Street Journal is a case in point. In it, she offers vital counsel to John McCain and Sarah Palen on the eve of the most important speeches either of them has ever made. I sure hope and pray they reads it.

At one point, Noonan writes:

"I do not understand the absence of humor, that powerful weapon, that rhetorical cannon, in this year's campaign. There are a lot of things to say here but let me tell you the first I think of. America is a huge and lonely country. We are vast, stretch coast to coast, live in self-sufficient pods; modern culture tends us toward the atomic, the fractured and broken up. When two people meet, as they come to know each other as neighbors or colleagues, one of the great easers, one of the great ways of making a simple small human connection is: shared laughter. We are a political nation. We talk politics. So fill that area with humor: sly humor, teasing humor, humor that speaks a great truth or makes a sharp point."

And then, this:

"Because Sarah Palin jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale-Gender-Studies sense but the How-Do-I-Reload-This-Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract-Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing--who is really one of them and who is not--and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy. She could become a transformative political presence. So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick. And it's going to be brutal. It's already getting there. There are only two questions. 1. Can she take it? Will she be rattled? Can she sail through high seas? Can she roll with most punches and deliver some jabs herself? 2. And while she's taking it, rolling with it and sailing through, can she put herself forward convincingly as serious enough, grounded enough, weighty enough that the American people can imagine her as vice president of the United States? I suppose every candidate for vice president faces these questions to some degree, but because Palin is new, unknown, and a woman, it's all much more so."

Amen and amen. Hear and heed, McCain and Palen.