Monthly Archives: September 2013

There’s no question: GOP will be to blame for shutdown

This morning on the radio, I heard reports that some Republicans in Congress are hoping they can shift blame for the likely government shutdown to the president and Senate Democrats.

Wow. Talk about your fantasies.

As you know, I love to blame both parties for everything (which drives Bud crazy).

But in this case, there is simply no question: The Republicans made this happen all by themselves. Some of the older, wiser heads in the party know this — they remember the Gingrich shutdown — and have a bad, bad feeling about now.

But the young innocents of the Tea Party charge blithely on — partly because on a certain level they really don’t care whether the government shuts down (their extreme ideology makes them feel, deep down, that that’s a consummation devoutly to be wished), but also because, in case it does turn out to be something less than a lark, it will be blamed on Democrats.

But no one whose thinking is not distorted by ideology can miss what has happened here.

First, there is the Tea partisans’ insistence on making every single raising of the debt limit some kind of showdown at the OK Corral, which meant we were doing to have a crisis this month anyway.

Then, there is this bizarre fixation on not funding a perfectly legitimate law that has stood up to every legitimate thing they could throw at it. It survived legal challenges. When they tried to run against it in an election, they lost. They have demonstrated 42 times that it is not in their power to repeal it. So now they want to defund it, or delay it — which would be patently illegitimate on its own — and have brought about an imminent shutdown of the whole government in their bid to stop the law from taking effect.

On the issue of Obamacare, they are an utterly defeated army that has turned guerrilla and has nothing left to fall back on but acts of sabotage.

What they have done is so obvious, and so obviously outrageously irresponsible, that there’s little chance that anyone outside of the more fervent parts of their base could dream of blaming anyone but them.

I just figured I might as well go ahead and say that, before the shutdown occurs…

Walk for Life: We’ve surpassed our goal, again! So… what should the NEW goal be?

5 Replies

Well, we did it! We surpassed the new goal, only a couple of days after setting it!

Our Walk for Life team has now raised more than $3,000 — to be precise, $3,076 as I type this.

There have been a number contributions to the General Team Donation category (including one from my good friend and colleague Mike Fitts). But the big story remains the highly successful efforts of those shakedown aces, Bryan Caskey and Doug Ross. Remember when I told you that Bryan was in the Top Five individual fund-raisers among all Walk for Life participant? Well, he’s moved up from No. 5 to No. 4, as you can see on the right-hand side of this page. Way to go, Bryan! And you know Doug’s gotta be in the Top Ten, which is tremendous.

But all of you who have contributed need to form a circle, all turn to your right, and pat the person in front of you on the back. You all deserve it.

Now, that said, down to business. Of course, now that we’ve reached the goal, Col. Cathcart will set a new, higher number. You know how he is.

So I’m asking y’all’s advice. What should it be? $4,000? $5,000? I want it to be a stretch, but achievable. Thoughts?

Republicans have chosen to make budget/Obamacare battle all about GOP dysfunction

67 Replies

Hey, but don’t go by me. Y’all know I despise both parties so much that I’m always blaming them for all the world’s ills.

Listen to someone who actually wants the GOP to succeed in what it’s trying to do. Someone who is super-irritated with the way Republicans have contrived to make this disaster all about themselves, without any blame slopping over onto Democrats.

I refer to Kimberley Strassel, writing in The Wall Street Journal, where she is a member of the editorial board:

The tragic reality is that this vote isn’t shaping up to be all that perilous for the owners of the law. Nobody is even talking about Democrats. Nobody has put an iota of pressure on them for months. Every camera, every microphone has been trained on the GOP….

That debate was derailed when a rump group in the GOP unilaterally decided to impose “defund” as the broader Republican position. Having moved on their own, their only hope of enforcing support was to deliberately make this fight about Republicans—instead of Democrats. So what began last year as one possible strategy for undercutting the health-care law devolved this summer into a minority-imposed (and bogus) litmus test of conservative purity.

This effort has not, for some time now, been about victory. It has become, as RedState’s Erick Erickson put it with his usual eloquence, about shining a light on the “cockroaches” in the GOP. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has spent months berating his own side as “appeasers” who care only about “being invited to all the right cocktail parties in town.”

Outside conservative groups—Heritage Action, the Senate Conservatives Fund—have raised real cash on this venture, and they’ve spent most of it attacking House and Senate Republicans….

It’s like Democrats don’t exist. In fact, it’s like the issues at stake — health care, overall funding of the government, the faith and credit of the United States, the world economy — don’t exist, either, as far as those precipitating this crisis is concerned.

All that matters to this “rump group” driving events is ideological purity. It’s about smoking out, and “exposing,” the serious-minded Republicans who are not anarchic nihilists. You know, the actual conservatives — the ones who are not bomb-throwers.

We’re accustomed to seeing this kind of thing in South Carolina, where we have more than our share of extreme ideologues. Just ask Lindsey Graham, who is so often their target. He could now say, to the rest of the country, “Welcome to my world.”

I could take pleasure in the collapse from within of one of the major political parties — that would be one down, one to go — but their way of doing it is to bring down the house on all of us.

In light of the likely economic consequences of default, all I can do is hope that someone finds a way out of this trap — even if that means a political party saves itself in the process.

Sheheen hits Haley on absenteeism, education funding

12 Replies

Here’s a release that came in from the Vincent Sheheen gubernatorial campaign:

Dear Brad,

When the going gets tough, Nikki Haley gets going…right out of state.

This week a published report showed South Carolina topping the list of states slashing school spending and hurting public education, specifically citing Governor Haley’s political ideology as a main reason for the dramatic cuts.

That’s just after the release of a report showing that South Carolina’s middle-class families are struggling even more with falling incomes since Nikki Haley took office.

The going is getting tough for the people of South Carolina. And where’s Nikki Haley? Out-of-state raising money for the past three days at events she hid from her public schedule.

Tell Nikki Haley that the challenges facing middle-class families and small businesses in our state won’t be solved by her jetting off to New York and Philadelphia to raise money for her campaign.

Please donate $250, $100 or $50 today to make her a one-term governor so she can spend as much time as she wants outside of South Carolina.

Thanks,

Andrew

Of course, before you click on that link and give Vincent money, you’re going to click on this link and give to our Walk for Life team, right?

Here, by the way, is the report to which the release referred about education funding:

Even in 2008, before the dramatic budget cuts the state has enacted in the past few years, South Carolina spent the fourth-lowest amount on education. As fiscal year 2014, South Carolina primary and secondary students will each be educated with about $500 less than before the recession. The lack of education funding is, in part, due to the political ideals of Governor Nikki Haley. In 2011, she vetoed the state’s budget and included $56 million in cuts to education. In addition, Haley refused to accept money from the Education Jobs Fund — a federal program intended to mitigate budget constraints in schools across the country. South Carolina was the only state that did not seek money from this program.

9 more days to give to our Walk for Life team!

4 Replies

Well, the deadline has passed for joining the bradwarthen.com Walk for Life team — I went this afternoon and picked up the T-shirts for the team.

BUT… that doesn’t mean you can’t still contribute to the effort. And you do want to contribute to the effort, right? As Bryan Caskey said to his friends, the question is, “Cancer: Are You For It or Against It?”

For that matter, if you contribute, you’re more than welcome to walk with the team. Assuming you’re into camaraderie, exercise and all.

Thanks to Bryan and Doug Ross and others (Bryan and Doug having raised more than $1,000 each), our team has now raised $2,724 toward our (new) $3,000 goal. For those of you who don’t know how to use a calculator, that means we have $276 to go.

Let’s not fall short.

To give, just go to this page and click on the “Give Now” button over on the right-hand side.

I’m also told that if you still want to walk, you can register as an individual — they’re just not taking any more team members.

Far as I’m concerned, if you contribute, you’re a team member, whatever the official record says. We’ll be proud to have you walk with us. Or not, if you prefer to give and sleep in that day. Either way. We just want your money.

Restoring the Curtiss-Wright Hangar looks like quite a challenge

10 Replies

Remember the recent post about plans to restore and preserve the Curtiss-Wright Hangar at the Hamilton-Owens Airport, turning it into a restaurant, museum and events venue?

Well, I happened to be driving by it on my way to watch the Twins playing soccer the other day, and got a good look at it.

The folks undertaking this really have their work cut out for them…

Obamacare, the Constitution and the Bible: A Facebook conversation

21 Replies

Just thought I’d post portions of a conversation I jumped into over on Facebook.

First, Bill Connor posted:

In watching the fight to defund Obamacare, I have this to say. I am a Christian first, as I believe the Bible is the inspired word. Therefore, it is Truth. That said, the Bible is not silent about the role of government and it’s sphere of authority. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 give the mandate for governmental authority. That mandate is for the “sword” of protection. Protection from external enemies, and protection from lawlessness (law enforcement, Courts) from within the nation. The government is about force in protection. The Church is given the mandate to care for those in need. The Church does not possess the power of the sword, as “Charity” means love. God wants men to give freely and without coercion when it comes to taking care of the less fortunate in society. When Government exceeds its sphere and gets involved with church functions (as in Obamacare, among other things like welfare, etc.) it destroys the idea of Charity. Forcing someone with the sword to give to another is not a Christian ideal. Our founders believed in the Biblical spheres of authority for Church and State and the Constitution makes this law. The Constitution enumerates powers to Government, and those powers do not include Church type functions. Government is to be restrained by the Constitution to the “Sword” functions. Otherwise, Government essentially takes over the Church and all else and attempts to become “god”. That is a reason while I believe the Biblical position to to oppose Obamacare. We care about those in need. However, we are to give to those truly in need through Charity (Love). We did not give the government the power

After a bunch of other people had had a say, I posted:

Bill, in a representative democracy, we vote to elect people to decide what government does. When enough people are elected to decide to undertake something like universal health care, then that’s what we do. If enough people are elected who don’t want to do that, we don’t do that. That’s how the system is supposed to work. It’s really a stretch to make like the government is something outside ourselves coercing us to do something. We, the people, acting through our elected representatives, have decided to do this with the money that we will all pay into it. Does that mean all Americans wanted to do this? No. There probably hasn’t ever been a single action by the government of the United States that all Americans favored. We’re all in the minority on something. But what we do is accept that fact, and work to have our preferred candidates win the next election. In the meantime, we accept the lawful actions of those who have already been elected. We certainly don’t declare lawful actions illegitimate. Nor do we claim, with very thin evidence, that it’s contrary to the Bible. On that last point, I’m not seeing anywhere in the Bible where it says we can’t pool our resources as a people and provide health care for all, and I’d be shocked to find it. Near as I can tell, in terms of saying what the civil government should do, the Bible is pretty silent on something like Obamacare. That leaves the decision up to us and our elected representatives.

Then Bill responded:

Brad, first I appreciate you posting thoughtful note, even though I disagree. Daniel spelled out my opinion exactly. The reason we have the Constitution is to protect certain rights from the whim of the majority. In this case, we had a very quick period of time in which Democrats controlled the House and POTUS. The founders intended to restrain gov’t to its legitimate functions (drawn from the Biblical worldview) and Obamacare exceeds those Constitutional and Biblical limitations.

The another reader (Ltc Robert Clarke) responded:

Brad is right in that the law was passed following our system….but since not a single person in the opposition party supported it, it is bound to face stiff resistance. The people house holds the pursestrings and they should be able to cut the $ off? If you are going to do something this big, best to do it as a bipartisan effort.

And finally, I said this:

Yes, that is best. But when is the last chance we had in this country to do that? Both parties operate on the strategy of getting 50 percent plus one, and then doing whatever they like — which sets off the other party in paroxysms of desperation, because both parties look upon the other, and all its works, as completely lacking in legitimacy. Both parties need to chill, and accept the fact that sometimes people they disagree with are going to win an argument, and just try to win themselves next time around. It’s really getting overexcited to see Obamacare as some sort of Gotterdammerung, the end of all that is good and holy and American and Constitutional. It’s just not. It’s a fairly ugly, pieced-together mish-mash that IS so ugly because there is such opposition to taking the simple approach that Britain and Canada have taken. This is the kind of mess that our hyper-polarized politics produce. It may be too much of a cobbled-together mess to work. But we’ll find out when it’s implemented. It’s going to work, or it’s not going to work. Or it will work in some ways, but not in others. But we won’t know until it’s been in place for awhile.

I didn’t want to get into arguing about whether our Founders intended the Constitution to be “Biblical.” I preferred to stick to this not being the end of the world, or even of the country.

Your Virtual Front Page, Wednesday, September 25, 2013

27 Replies

Here’s a quick overview:

After Cruz yields, Senate advances spending bill (WashPost) — And what did he accomplish? He ensured that the House will have almost no time to deal with the matter, after the Senate sends it back with Obamacare intact. That Cruz; he’s some brilliant strategist. But then, when it’s all about attracting attention to yourself, well, mission accomplished.
Treasury Puts a Date for When Cash May Run Out: Oct. 17 (NYT) — With only $30 billion on hand, we’ll be teetering on the edge of default.
Iran’s Rouhani recognises Holocaust (The Guardian) — I guess we should all celebrate the fact that Iran is now caught up with the rest of us as far as 1945…
South Carolina worst in country in latest domestic violence ranking (The State) — This is our third time to be the worst in the country in numbers of women killed by men.
J.P. Morgan Discussing Settlement of $11 Billion (WSJ) — All that money, and I can’t even remember what it is they’re supposed to have done. Does this have to do with the “whale?” I forget.
CCTV shows Navy Yard gunman’s attack (BBC) — There’s no actual violence shown, just this guy stalking the halls…

Colonel Cathcart raises our ‘Walk for Life’ goal

6 Replies

Col. Cathcart, Lt. Col. Korn, and Major Danby.

You remember Col. Cathcart, don’t you — from Catch-22? (And if you haven’t read Catch-22, you should.)

Here’s a reminder of who he is:

His main function in the plot of the book is to keep raising the number of missions that the men in his bomb group must fly before they can rotate stateside. He does this to curry favor with his superiors. He lives for “feathers in his cap” and lives in horror of “black eyes.”

This repeated raising of the number of missions is a key driver in Yossarian’s constant, growing anxiety, especially since the colonel always raises the number just before Yossarian reaches it:

Well, it seems that Col. Cathcart has slipped out of the pages of the novel and somehow gained access to our Walk for Life team profile, and raised our goal — much as Yossarian slipped out of his tent one night and moved the bomb line on the map to above Bologna.

And I’m happy to report that I — I mean, Col. Cathcart — ran into Samuel Tenenbaum this morning, who is sort of the General Dreedle of Palmetto Health Foundation, and told him that our goal has been raised from $1,000 to $3,000. He was most pleased. I think this is quite a feather in my, I mean Col. Cathcart’s, cap.

And I’m sure, men (like Lt. Scheisskopf, I enjoy addressing you as “men” in a clipped, military voice), that you’ll be happy to keep flying missions until we exceed the new goal. Failure to do so would result in a black eye for me, your colonel, and I’m sure none of you men want that.

Bryan Caskey’s highly successful Walk for Life email: ‘Cancer: Are You For It or Against It?’

10 Replies

If you’ve been following the comments on this earlier post, you know that Bryan Caskey has now joined Doug Ross in raising more than $1,000 each for our Walk for Life team. Bryan is now in the top five among all individual fund-raisers for Walk for Life (look at the right-hand side of this page to see his name).

I asked Bryan how he did it, and he said he just “sent an e-mail out to a bunch of my other youngish-age (20-40) friends around Columbia. The group is mostly lawyers. (Don’t tell Juan!).” Here’s the email:

Cancer: Are You For It or Against It?

Hey! Stop what you’re doing, and pay attention for a second. It involves boobs.

Got your attention? Good.

On Saturday, October 5 (before the tailgating begins for the UK/USC game) I will be walking in the Columbia Walk for Life/Race for Life. Unless you’ve been living on the moon for the last decade, you know this is a big fundraiser to fight breast cancer. The reason I am sending you this e-mail is simple: I’m shaking you down for money. If you’re getting this e-mail, I know you have at least $25.00, and I hope you aren’t in favor of breast cancer.

We all know that breast cancer can be effectively and significantly reduced by early detection and treatment. That’s why I need your support. And by support, I mean money.

For the gentlemen who receive this e-mail, let’s take a little time to worry more about the health of women’s breasts, rather than their size. I’m challenging you to do more for breast cancer awareness than simply saying you’ve been aware of breasts for quite some time. I’m not guaranteeing you that donating will help you with the ladies, but it certainly won’t hurt. Don’t let cancer get to second base.

For the women who receive this e-mail, I don’t need to tell you anything. You know what’s up.

It’s an easy decision: You’re either for cancer, or you’re against it. Which is it?

The only way I will know that you’re against cancer is if you donate money. I’m taking care of the walking part, so you just need to take care of the donating part. I’ve donated $25.00, and I’m sending you this e-mail to ask that you do the same.

Follow This Link <http://www.walkforlifecolumbia.org/9055274?faf=1&e=7152699964> to visit my the web page and help me in my efforts to support Palmetto Health Foundation. You click the link, put your information in, and boom! You’ve declared your allegiance in the war on breast cancer.

This is the preliminary shake-down e-mail. Future communications will consist of the following in ascending order until you donate:

1.      Another e-mail, but this time IN ALL CAPS.

2.      A text message.

3.      A telephone call (You don’t want me to actually do this, do you?)

4.      I will show up at your house at 7:00AM

5.      I will send a tough guy named “Luca” to your house at 7:00AM the following day. (You don’t want to meet Luca, because hereally hates cancer, and he’ll assume that you’re in favor of cancer).

Don’t let Cancer steal second base!

P.S. More details below:

This year’s Walk for Life/Race for Life will be held Saturday, Oct. 5 in Finlay Park, Columbia, SC. The Walk/5K Race will begin at 8:30 a.m., and the 10K Race will begin at 8:15 a.m. It is with great enthusiasm that I will be participating in this year’s Walk/Race. I’m walking. Please consider sponsoring me with a donation so that Palmetto Health Breast Center can continue to save lives and raise awareness about early detection. To make a donation, visit the link at the bottom of the page.

Please consider making a donation today. No amount is too small, and whatever you can give will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Bryan D. Caskey

Go, all of ye, and do likewise…

Catering to America’s affinity for ‘soft’ news

2 Replies

I ran across a recent blog post that looked back at one from 2011 on The Daily Kos.

Showing several examples of recent TIME covers, Kos highlighted the dramatic difference between the American covers, and the corresponding ones from the same weeks in the European, Asian and South Pacific editions. Several weeks of examples were given. See the whole slide show.

There’s nothing subtle going on here. To the extent that these weeks are a guide, we see that TIME has decided people in the rest of the world are more serious-minded than Americans. Foreigners get hard news. Americans’ penchant for “me” news, soft stuff, lifestyle features, is catered to without a shred of hesitation or shame.

It would be easy to blame TIME. But I think TIME knows what Americans want. If they didn’t have the research to back it up, they wouldn’t do anything this blatant. Would they?

Walk for Life: Let’s shoot for the Top Ten!

12 Replies

This blog’s Walk for Life team exceeded its fundraising goal days ago, thanks to the unwavering efforts of the stalwart Doug Ross, who raised more than the $1,000 benchmark all by himself.

So now, let’s get competitive about this.

I don’t know how much other teams have raised for the Oct. 5 event to fight breast cancer, but if the pattern is anything like two years ago, we’re probably in the Top 20 already. In 2011, we came in 18th despite only having raised $982.

The amount we’ve raised so far this year, $1,309, would have put us in 12th place two years ago. So it seems reasonable to assume that the Top Ten is within our reach. (Again, I don’t know where we stand this time, but back then, anything over $1,620 would have put us there.)

Thanks to Kathryn Fenner, Bryan Caskey, my Dad, and one regular from the blog who gave anonymously, for joining Doug in bringing us this far.

Now I’m hoping to hear from some of y’all who haven’t acted yet. Join us, and Top Ten status can be ours…

Consensus starts to emerge: House GOP is loony

50 Replies

Even Paul Krugman — who is such a bitter, contemptuous partisan that I avoided running his columns at the newspaper — thought maybe he was going overboard a bit by calling the GOP’s maneuvers on funding Obamacare and the rest of government “crazy:”

In recent months, the G.O.P. seems to have transitioned from being the stupid party to being the crazy party.

I know, I’m being shrill. But as it grows increasingly hard to see how, in the face of Republican hysteria over health reform, we can avoid a government shutdown — and maybe the even more frightening prospect of a debt default — the time for euphemism is past…

But aside from the typically Krugmanesque assertion that the GOP was stupid before it was crazy (everyone who disagrees with Krugman is stupid — just ask him; he’ll tell you), the economist really wasn’t going out on much of a limb in this instance.

He was simply stating something that seems to be emerging as a consensus across the political spectrum. Among people who have clue, that is.

While his language is milder, Gerald Seib, writing in that wild-eyed liberal publication The Wall Street Journal, is similarly dismissive of the sanity of GOP House members’ actions:

The list of conservatives who didn’t want the House to do what it did late last week—that is, pass a bill trying to defund Obamacare, at the risk of shutting down the government—is long and distinguished: Karl Rove, Rep. Pete King, Sen. John McCain, the editorial page of this newspaper, even the House’s own Republican leadership.

But House Republicans went ahead anyway, passing a bill tying the financing of government operations starting Oct. 1 with the removal of money for implementing the new health law. The bill won’t pass the Senate, and it won’t be signed by the president, but it may lead to a partial closure of the government that many believe would be politically disastrous for the Republican Party.

Which raises again the question that animates much of the conversation in the capital: Why do House Republicans do the things they do?..

He goes on to answer himself with a primer on what most of us already understand about House Republicans. Basically, that these people’s experience of government doesn’t precede the existence of the Tea Party, and that they are elected from districts that are so safe for a Republican that a GOP member need only fear a primary challenge. Stuff, as I said, we knew already. Although he reminded me of a fact I had forgotten if I knew it: That these districts are SO grossly gerrymandered that Republican candidates in the aggregate “lost the popular vote for the House in 2012 by more than a million votes nationally, yet kept control of the House by 33 seats.” (Although I see this writer disagrees that redistricting was the culprit.)

Then there is Judd Gregg, a Republican and former senator from New Hampshire, who writes for The Hill:

Most Americans these days are simply ignoring Republicans. And they should.

The self-promotional babble of a few has become the mainstream of Republican political thought. It has marginalized the influence of the party to an appalling degree.

An approach to the debt ceiling that says one will not vote for its extension unless ObamaCare is defunded is the political equivalent of playing Russian roulette with all the chambers of the gun loaded. It is the ultimate no-win strategy….

… which almost makes Krugman sound temperate. Gregg continues:

You cannot in politics take a hostage you cannot shoot. That is what the debt ceiling is. At some point, the debt ceiling will have to be increased not because it is a good idea but because it is the only idea.

Defaulting on the nation’s obligations, which is the alternative to not increasing the debt ceiling, is not an option either substantively or politically…

He goes on to write about the destruction that defaulting on our debt would wreak on the world’s economy — something about which the babbling infants in the House (half of the GOP members have been there less than three years) and their fellow loony in the Senate, Ted Cruz, care not at all.

The people who elected them, and who will vote for someone crazier in a GOP primary if these individuals don’t act with gross irresponsibility, don’t know or care what sort of harm their actions could bring about, so they don’t know or care, either. This is apparently regarded, by at least one writer at RedState, as a good thing.

Here’s how James Taranto, whose standard tone in his Best of the Web Today column at the WSJ is every bit as dismissive of the left as Krugman is of the right, characterizes Ted Cruz’s effort to support the House GOP effort to defund Obamacare. After noting the commonsense fact that there is “no realistic prospect of enacting the House resolution,” he writes:

Instead of playing possum, a group of Senate Republicans led by Texas freshman Ted Cruz propose to play Otter: “I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!“…

Taranto then casts Sarah Palin in the role of Bluto, given her op-ed at Breitbart.com in which she essentially said, “We’re just the guys to do it.”

OK, so from the left and the right, we’re seeing such modifiers as “crazy,” “futile,” stupid,” and “appalling.”

To all of those qualities, let us add disingenuousness. Here is the entire text of a release that Joe Wilson, my congressman, sent out on Friday:

Wilson: Senate and President Must Act

(Washington, DC) – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) released the following statement after the House passed the Continuing Resolution which funds the government through December 15, 2013.

“Today, House Republicans have acted responsibly by passing a solution to keep the government’s doors open. Because of our efforts, American families are protected from the unworkable, unaffordable healthcare law and hardworking taxpayers can rest assured that our nation will stop spending beyond its means.

“It’s time for the Senate and the President to act. Time is ticking. We have ten short days until the federal government’s funding will expire. Senate Democrats should follow our lead and join us in protecting the American people, rather than placing politics over policy and threatening a government shutdown,” Congressman Joe Wilson said.

Note that only a passing reference is made to the actual point of the resolution for House Republicans: “…American families are protected from the unworkable, unaffordable healthcare law…” What an odd choice of words: “protected from.” He avoids saying what the measure does, which is deny funding to a program that is set in place by law — a law which he and his allies have demonstrated, an amazing number of times, that they are utterly incapable of repealing.

Then there is the really, truly cheesy dodge of making like it’s all on the president and the Senate whether the government is funded or not. Who are the children that Joe and the other Republicans who voted for this think will be fooled by that? Who will think, if the government shuts down, that anything other than the GOP obsession with Obamacare is to blame?

These guys are far gone. And everyone, on left and right, except them, seems to know it.

Dropping ‘Canon 915’ on Nancy Pelosi, et al.

12 Replies

On a previous post, I said (on my way to eventually agreeing with him) that Pope Frances’ description of a church “obsessed” with gays and abortion doesn’t match my own experience in the church. And it doesn’t.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not describing a reality that’s out there — some of it pretty close to him in Rome.

The same day the Pope was saying those conciliatory words, there appeared an interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke, who heads the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura and is America’s most senior prelate. This was brought to my attention by Jennifer Sheheen via Facebook.

Cardinal Burke advocated getting tough with wayward public pro-choice Catholics, such as Nancy Pelosi, and went on at some length about “the homosexual agenda.” An excerpt from a story about the interview:

“This is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic,” the cardinal said. “I fear for Congresswoman Pelosi if she does not come to understand how gravely in error she is. I invite her to reflect upon the example of St. Thomas More who acted rightly in a similar situation even at the cost of his life.”

The cardinal also urged the faithful to practice “much prayer and fasting” to counter the growing threat of the homosexual agenda.

“The alarming rapidity of the realization of the homosexual agenda ought to awaken all of us and frighten us with regard to the future of our nation,” he said. “This is a work of deceit, a lie about the most fundamental aspect of our human nature, our human sexuality, which after life itself defines us. There is only one place these types of lies come from, namely Satan. It is a diabolical situation which is aimed at destroying individuals, families, and eventually our nation.”

Yeah, OK, so I see what the Pope’s on about. I wonder whether Cardinal Burke sees what the Pope is on about.

As y’all probably know, I’m a member of the Cardinal Joseph Bernardin lectureship committee. Remember, we brought E. J. Dionne here a couple of years back. Anyway, back in his day Cardinal Bernardin was the most prominent American in the Catholic hierarchy, and he had a very different approach from Cardinal Burke. He was about reaching out. He was about Common Ground.

I find myself focusing on Cardinal Burke’s assertion that “Canon 915 must be applied” in the Pelosi case. Personally, I had never heard of “Canon 915,” but he made it sound like Orwell’s “Room 101.” I read on to see that it says, those who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

Cardinal Burke, the pope and I are together in being opposed to abortion on demand (as the pope affirmed over the weekend). But when it comes to what you do next, Burke and Francis seem to be on opposite poles.

Which brings me to the heart of what the Pope said the other day. What I heard was that he prefers that the church talk less about doctrine, and more about the love of Christ. As he Tweeted this morning, “The Church has no other meaning and finality than to witness to Jesus. May we not forget this.”

Before that, he Tweeted, “True charity requires courage: let us overcome the fear of getting our hands dirty so as to help those in need.” And before that: “Christ is always faithful. Let us pray to be always faithful to him.” And before that, “We are all sinners, but we experience the joy of God’s forgiveness and we walk forward trusting in his mercy.” And so on. Follow him on Twitter, and you start understanding where his head’s at, as the less grammatical members of my generation used to say.

No mention of canons, 915 or otherwise. His focus is on the teachings of Christ.

And at the risk of sounding like a raging Protestant or something, it’s kind of hard for me to imagine Jesus of Nazareth having a positive reaction to someone invoking something called “Canon 915” in his name. If you had interrupted the original communion, barging into that upper room and talking about Canon 915, the Apostles would likely have looked at you as though they thought you were barking mad. Canons? 915 of them? Really? It just wouldn’t have made any sense to them. I can imagine Peter, or someone, muttering something about “small-minded rules,” and about certain people insisting on missing the point…

But perhaps I’m getting far afield…

Walk for Life: Don’t leave Doug hanging out there, folks!

8 Replies

I think maybe we should rename the bradwarthen.com Walk for Life team the Doug Ross team, because he has raised/contributed an amount that by itself exceeds the goal I set for the team.

The goal was $1,000. Doug, alone, has chipped in $1,014. Here’s where you can see the contributions to the team.

I hope this doesn’t make everyone else think, “Good. I don’t have to give now.” I hope it makes everyone think, “If we all get together, maybe the rest of us can match Doug, and reach double the goal.”

I hope. I hope. Because I’m going to be embarrassed to see Doug on Walk day (Oct. 5) if no one else has risen to the challenge.

Hey, believe me, I know what it’s like to be strapped for cash. But if you can give, please do. And if you can’t, pester your friends the way I’m doing now. Do it on social media; do it in person. Shake ’em down. Be a pain about it.

Lets be a team. Let’s not leave Doug hanging out there.

We’ve raised more than we did two years ago — almost entirely thanks to Doug. But last time around, we had contributions from Kathryn Fenner, David Knobeloch, Pat Dixon, Nick Nielsen, Buddy Johnson and Mark Stewart. Exceeding the dollar amount is great, but it would be even better if we could widen participation this time.

Come on, jump in. You’ll be glad you did. I will, anyway…

Boy, I sure can pick cities to live in, can’t I?

3 Replies

Kathryn brought this to my attention. It’s a list, from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, of the top 100 cities that are “the most challenging places to live with allergies this fall in the United States.”

As she noted, “We are up there, but better than Charleston or Augusta!” Columbia came in 33rd on the list; Charleston was 26th, and Augusta was 27th.

But then I looked at the list, and discovered something more startling — I have lived in three of the top 11 cities, including No. 1 Wichita. (The other two were No. 5 Memphis and No. 11 New Orleans.) I also lived in Charleston as a kid.

Lower down on the list, I’ve lived in Philadelphia, No. 42; and Washington, No. 83. OK, technically I lived in Woodbury, N.J., and Kensington, Md., but each was close.

So, given that I’m a hyperallergic kind of guy, I can really pick ’em, can’t I?

At least I made a relatively smart move coming here from Wichita…

I think maybe the pope’s thinking the way I do on Kulturkampf

50 Replies

At first, I was sort of confused.

When I saw this headline on the NYT app Thursday night: “Pope Bluntly Faults Church’s Focus on Gays and Abortion.”

… I thought, What focus? Where’s he been going to Mass?

Because in my experience, there is no particular focus on those things, in actual Catholic churches. And the Church I know is certainly not “obsessed” with those things, as the pontiff said.

All of you who are not Catholic are now asking where I’ve been, that I don’t know the Church is “obsessed” with those things.

Here’s where I’ve been — I’ve actually been in the Church, rather than experiencing it as it is written about by secular media. And I cannot recall when I’ve heard a single homily concentrating on any of those topics. Occasionally, during the petitions, I’ve heard an affirmation of life mentioned among all the other things we’re praying for. But “obsession”? “Focus,” even? No. Not part of my experience.

Now I do hear that there are some parishes that do have more of such a “focus.” But I don’t know that from personal experience.

It’s the rest of the world that thinks about those things, constantly, and only interacts with the Church in terms of its positions on those subjects. That’s pretty much all most Catholics seem to know about us. Well, that, and pedophilia. A topic that also fails to intersect with my experience of the Church.

The only intersection I can recall in this diocese between these separate perceptions is when then-Bishop Robert Baker was one of the bishops who said politicians who favor abortion on demand should not receive Communion. But I mostly read about that in the paper. I don’t recall it intruding into my parish life. And I don’t recall of hearing of anyone actually being denied communion in this diocese, although maybe it happened.

I want to say there was another bishop’s letter regarding a political issue sometime since then, but I don’t remember what it was about. It just didn’t have much impact on my experience of church life.

Oh, wait — I remember now that our current bishop, Robert Guglielmone, wrote a letter advocating for Medicaid expansion in SC. Does that count? Probably not.

So I was wondering what the pope was on about.

But when I read some other versions of the story, with different headlines (such as the WSJ’s “Pope Warns Church Focusing Too Much on Divisive Issues”), I got it.

Pope Francis was, in a way, doing what I did as editorial page editor at The State. Not to elevate myself to the level of the Holy Father or anything.

Y’all know I have an aversion to seeing Culture War issues intrude upon our politics. It’s because of the habit of thought I developed as EPE. My view was that there were all sorts of things we needed to talk about in South Carolina — economic development, education, our dysfunctional form of government, the need for comprehensive tax reform. It was tough enough to try to have constructive conversations about those things, untainted by partisan, ideological foolishness, without wasting any capital we had on issues that were hopelessly divisive.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, we could accomplish in terms of changing minds on abortion, or same-sex marriage, or any of those kinds of things. Both sides in the partisan battles in this country used those issues for one purpose — to divide. As a sort of password to identify “their” people — to identify the good, right-thinking people — and to delegitimize those who disagreed.

All we could have accomplished by writing about such things would have been to make close to half our readers furious, thereby closing their minds to anything we had to say about pragmatic solutions to the issues we could actually do something about here in South Carolina.

I still don’t like to see such issues take a front-and-center position in our politics, because they drive us apart, and make it even harder to have constructive conversations on anything else.

Anyway, what does that have to do with what the Pope said?

Well, to begin with, this pontifex maximus is a very humble guy. He doesn’t care about winning argument points. And he understands that in terms of the way the world interacts with the church, perception is reality. So never mind that the church isn’t really obsessed with these things. It’s perceived as being so, and that erects walls between the church and lots of people who would otherwise be open to its central reasons for being.

So, he very publicly lets the world know that while he is Pope, the church will not be “obsessed” with such things. He’s not for a moment backing away from church teachings on those matters, but he assures us that he and the church he heads aren’t going to be going on and on about them. From E.J. Dionne’s column on the subject:

Francis responded plainly in the interview. “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible,” he said. “I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”

As the WSJ described them, his remarks “appeared intended to nudge the church away from politically charged issues by setting out a vision of a church that is more welcoming and less preoccupied with emphasizing doctrine.”

Doctrine. That’s the key word, I think.

This pope’s predecessor was an enforcer of doctrine. That’s how he made his bones in the church. Under John Paul II, he was the bad cop, the modern-day version of a Grand Inquisitor. He was Mr. Rules and Regulations.

This pope is more about the central issues that our faith is about. Love, mercy, open arms and healing hearts. And he doesn’t want to be going on and on about things that distract from that, or to have the world think the church is going on and on about those things.

I like this Pope.

Yo! Who’s out there blogging (actively) in the Midlands now?

14 Replies

Since we’re on the internet and all, I should probably specify — I mean the Midlands of South Carolina, not England.

Anyway, I’ve been helping out the Urban Land Institute, which is sponsoring the upcoming Midlands Reality Check, a one-day exercise to talk about our community’s future. I’ve written about this before.

Today, I told the committee that I would provide a list of bloggers who ought to receive releases about the upcoming events.

And then, I realized I wasn’t entirely sure who was actually, actively blogging in this area. As Dorothy would say, bloggers come and go so quickly here.

I know that our own Bryan Caskey is staying pretty active with his Permanent Press. And we know Will Folks is going strong.

But when I check my blogroll, which I could swear I just updated a few months ago, I find that many of my links go to virtual ghost towns. Here’s what I find on a spin through my links:

ColumbiaCents — Tavis Micklash hasn’t posted since Jan. 20.
The Politics of Jamie Sanderson is just gone, period.
Wesley Donehue abandoned his Man Project on Valentine’s Day.
Mike’s America is still going, but that’s based in Hilton Head, not the Midlands.
Nathan Ballentine, one of the early adopters in the Legislature, hasn’t posted since Aug. 7.
Logan Smith’s Palmetto Public Record doesn’t seem to exist any more.
Deacon Tim’s Sacraments Wholesale has been silent since April … of 2012.
Earl Capps announced he was shutting down his Blogland in August.
The Shop Tart, I’m happy to say, is still among us.

Talk about your devastation.

So what am I missing? What’s going on out there?

Obviously, I need to update my blogroll, bigtime. But I’m going to wait and see what I learn from y’all, in terms of sites I might be missing, before I fix it.

The lines are open…

Open Thread for Friday, September 20, 2013

26 Replies

Silence, my taskmaster, is on me about not having one of these in awhile. Actually, he’s on my case about not blogging enough, period. No posts yesterday. Sorry. Working.

I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to post about later in the day. Something about the pope, and… I forget the other one. It was something fun, I think. Oh, we’ll — it will occur to me again later.

Here’s your chance to blog about what interests YOU — stuff like QE. Or football. Just wait for me on the stuff I like — you know, like the pope thing. Or “Breaking Bad.” Or Elvis Costello. Or going to war in exciting new foreign lands. Y’all know the stuff I like…