We can’t just “make nice” our way to liberty:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. – Ronald Reagan

Posted without additional comment:

Chicago Sees Coldest July In 67 Years

Average Temperature Only 68.9 Degrees

Geesh:

The U.S. government said Tuesday it has revoked the diplomatic visas of four Honduran officials, stepping up pressure on coup-installed leaders who insist they can resist international demands to restore the ousted president.

The U.S. State Department did not name the four, but a Honduran official said they included the Supreme Court magistrate who ordered the arrest of ousted President Manuel Zelda and the president of Honduras’ Congress.

The State Department is also reviewing the visas of all officials serving under interim President Roberto Micheletti, department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

Micheletti’s Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Lorena Alvarado said Supreme Court Justice Tomas Arita and Congressional President Jose Alfredo Saavedro were among those whose visas removed.

In other words, Obama’s Administration has revoked the visas of those Honduran officials who, acting in their official capacity, enforced the constitution of Honduras.

Meanwhile, we’re willing to deal with the Iranian thugs who gun down innocent people…

I’d like to say we can’t get any stupider than this, but is only 6 months in to Obama-nation…

This is worrisome:

Jack Shaw, a Jersey City political consultant who was among 44 people charged in a federal corruption probe, has died.

Two officials with knowledge of the investigation said Shaw was found at home with several bottles of pills nearby. One of the officials said Shaw, 61, had an unspecified medical condition, and authorities are not jumping to conclusions about the cause of his death.

I’m not jumping to any conclusions, either…but given that this is New Jersey, I think extra vigilance is needed by the authorities to keep the principals of this case alive at least until they testify. Now, this could have just been one of those things – or, he could have been “helped” along here by people with a lot to lose. Not to put too fine a point on it, but New Jersey is a State where strange things happen to people who place the political-economic power elite at risk.

Mr. Obama, are you listening?

…once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.

War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease (our enemies). They are blind to history’s clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative. – Douglas MacArthur

And President Obama doesn’t seem to understand this – from Blackfive:

There are reasons that military people use words like “victory” to describe winning…

President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but “victory” in the war-torn country isn’t necessarily the United States’ goal, he said Thursday in a TV interview.

“I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,” Obama told ABC News…

WTF Over? We don’t want to “win” now? Well, I have news for the President, every one of the men and women in uniform that is sweating, shooting, bleeding and dying to accomplish our mission there is looking for “victory.” They know what is measurable and what isn’t. And they definitely know what it looks like at the end.

Now, I know that in the COIN battle-space that it is difficult to get hard measurements for the Powerpoint Rangers to put in briefing slides, but I do know that one of the many “measurable goals” of war-fighting (thereby leading to “victory”) is the surrender/capture/death of the enemy. Economic development and stabilizing the government are all legs of the stool, but the the rock solid base of the stool, the thing that “contracts the ability of Al-Qaeda to operate” is killing or capturing (although capturing now has a greatly lessened effect) the enemy. That is what makes all of the other things possible.

But our CINC, having never been at the point of anything except petitions drives and organized protests, may not understand what I am getting at…

As I’ve said before, President Obama has my backing for whatever efforts he makes in the pursuit of victory. He must, to retain my support, pursue victory – relentlessly and regardless of how difficult it proves. I will not support military actions I perceive as being designed to merely prevent defeat or, worse, merely prevent bad news from hitting a President’s polling in the United States. In spite of Obama’s foolish statement quoted above, I will currently suspend judgment and consider it just a bad use of words – the sort of words a liberal would use, because liberals simply dislike any word which might indicate a bit of manly resolve.

Let us not have a real repeat of Vietnam – the continual effusion of blood without the clear cut goal of American victory at the end of it. We owe it to the magnificent men and women of our Armed Forces – we must back them to victory, because that is what they want. They’ve shed their blood, and they didn’t do it to merely prevent a loss but to secure a victory. If we break faith with them – as we broke faith with our soldiers and allies in Vietnam – then we will deserve whatever calamity befalls us.

Please, Mr. President, win.

Woohoo! Its all fixed. Just read the article – it tells you that Obamunism has saved the American economy!

Oh, to be sure, unemployment will keep going up and growth might be in the 1% range for a while – but, who cares?, FDR has been confirmed and we now know for certain that the best thing to do when you’re broke is spend like drunken sailors!

There I was, worrying about losing my job and my house and now Newsweek has set me straight – I’ll still lose my job and my house, but with “green jobs” and other hot phrases running fast and free out of elite think tanks, it’ll all be just great. The most important thing is to remember that we have to think that all is well, or Obama might not get re-elected in 2012, and that would be a catastrophe – you see, he has to keep fixing our economy and only he can do it, so brilliant is he.

(Ed. Note: this is What Media Bias? Part 155)

Over at Pursuing Holiness they discuss this issue and lay out a strong argument that – unintended or not – the passage of Obamacare as currently crafted with its insidious, pro-abortion provisions would force Catholic hospitals to close:

Make no mistake: the Catholic hospitals will either bend to the will of the federal government, or they will close. The Archdiocese of Boston would not comply with new mandatory gay adoption laws; the passage of the law resulted in the closure of the largest adoption agency in New England. It is ludicrous to believe that the Obama adminstration is not fully aware of the consequences of what they are doing, and of the Catholic Church’s track record. They know that they are putting the Church into a position where they will be forced to close the hospitals. And if they’re forced to close, they’ll re-open as abortion-providing facilities, quite possibly government owned.

At least if the Bishops are willing to commit civil disobedience, it will take a few years to duke this out in the court sytem, and possibly by then we’ll have a new Congress and/or President which will make this moot. In the meantime, now is the time for Christians of all denominations to pray. Pray for President Obama’s change of heart on this issue, pray for wisdom and strength for the Bishops who will decide how to respond to this attack, and that America will rise up in support of a culture of life and religious freedom.

As Emanuel likes to say, “never let a good crisis go to waste”, and one of the things the pro-abortion fanatics have long desires is to force hospitals, all hospitals, to provide abortion services. The reason for this is two-fold:

1. There are many areas of the country where an abortion cannot be obtained because there aren’t any doctors so incompetent that murder is all they can accomplish.

2. Pro-abortion fanatics want us soaked in the blood of innocents. Hyperbole? Not really – if the pro-abortion people can get more and more people guilty of the crime of abortion, they’ll have an ever larger constituency for their cause.

Fight and pray, fight and pray – stand in the front ranks, battling for life. We can stop this.

Well, his “strongly disapprove” number is getting to be a bit like President Bush’s…and without the relentless, slanderous negativity. Obama is doing it all on his own:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10. Yesterday and today are the only time that Obama’s Approval Index ratings have fallen to double digits in negative territory.

Of course, it was a really bad week for Obama – so, he’s bound to climb back up…but once someone gets “strongly disapprove” about someone, its highly unlikely that person will ever, say, vote to re-elect. We’ll just have to see how this plays out over time.

I mean, come on, Democrats – now you’re really starting to make this easy for us:

During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

The level of obtuseness in that statement is rarely reached. It was at the Press Club so I hope (a) that its on tape and (b) that the Press Club people won’t remember to destroy the tape before it gets on You Tube.

And don’t try and dodge your away from this guy, liberals – he’s one of your most senior, most respected House Members. Indeed, he’s in a lot of ways the Dean of the Democrat House Caucus…the man who for many years has exemplified just what Democrats stand for. So does Pelosi, of course. And Biden’s a gold mine, too…but that’s for 2012.