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Posts Tagged ‘2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN’

NO SENSE OF DECENCY

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2015 at 12:05 am

“Senator, may we not drop this?….You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

The speaker was Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army–then under investigation by Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Submittee on Investigations for alleged Communist activities.

It was June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army-McCarthy hearings.

And it was the pivotal moment that finally destroyed the career of the Wisconsin Senator whose repeated slanders of Communist subversion had bullied and frightened Americans for four years.

Joseph McCarthy

When the Senate gallery erupted in applause, McCarthy–totally surprised at his sudden reverse of fortune–was finished.

Today, however, other Americans could stand to remember the question asked by Welch: “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Americans like Rick Santorum, Republican Presidential candidate in 2016.

Rick Santorum

As a United States Senator from Pennsylvania (1997 – 2005) and 2012 Presidential candidate, Santorum fervently sought to ban legalized abortion–even in rape cases– and even birth control.  They were, he said, an affront to “the way things ought to be.”

But this did not stop him from marrying, in 1990, a woman–Karen Garver–who had spent six years as the unmarried bedmate of an OBGYN-abortionist named Tom Allen, who was 40 years her senior.

Then there’s 2016 Presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) 

As a Republican United States Senator from Texas, Cruz voted–three times–against federal aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

The October, 2012, hurricane killed about 150 people and caused an estimated $75 billion in damage across the Northeast.

But when a fertilizer plant exploded in West, McLennan County Texas, on April 17, 2013, Cruz vowed that he would seek “all available resources” to assist its victims.

The blast killed 13 people, wounded about 200 others, and caused extensive damages to surrounding homes.

It didn’t matter to Cruz that:

  • The facility hadn’t been inspected by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) since 1985, when the company was fined $30; and
  • The plant had been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Then there’s Donald Trump, the egocentric businessman and “reality star” of NBC’s “The Apprentice.”

Donald Trump

On April 17, 2011, toying with the idea of entering the Presidential race himself, he said this about Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and GOP candidate:

“He’d buy companies. He’d close companies. He’d get rid of jobs.  I’ve built a great company.  I’m a much bigger businessman and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.

“Mitt Romney is a basically small-business guy, if you really think about  it. He was a hedge fund. He was a funds guy. He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn’t create. He worked there. He didn’t create it.”

Trump added that Bain Capital, the hedge fund where Romney made millions of dollars before running for governor, didn’t create any jobs.  Whereas Trump claimed that he–Trump–had created “hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

So at least some observers must have been puzzled when Trump announced, on February 2, 2012: “It’s my honor, real honor, and privilege to endorse Mitt Romney” for President.

“Mitt is tough, he’s smart, he’s sharp, he’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So, Governor Romney, go out and get ‘em. You can do it,” said Trump.

Mitt Romney

And Romney, in turn, had his own swooning-girl moment: “I’m so honored to have his endorsement. There are some things that you just can’t imagine in your life. This is one of them.”

Clearly, the word “hypocrisy” means nothing to Santorum, Cruz, Romney and Trump.  But it should mean something to the rest of us.

In samurai Japan, officials who publicly disgraced themselves knew what to do.  The samurai code of seppeku told them when they had crossed the line into eternal damnation.

And it gave them a way to redeem their lost honor: With a small “belly-cutting” knife and the help of a trusted assistant who sliced off their head to spare them the agonizing pain of disembowelment.

In the armies of America and Europe, the method was slightly different: A pistol in a private room.

Considering the ready availability of firearms among Right-wing Republicans, redeeming lost honor shouldn’t be a problem for any of these men.

But of course it will be.  It takes more than a trigger-pull to “do the right thing.”  It takes insight to recognize that you’ve “done the wrong thing.”   And it takes courage to act on that insight.

In men who live only for their own egos and wallets, such insight and courage will be forever missing.   They are beyond redemption.

Their lives give proof to the warning offered in Matthew 7: 17-20:

“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

ABORTING AMBITION: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 17, 2015 at 12:01 am

SS Obergruppenfuhrer (General) Reinhard Heydrich laid the foundations for the “Final Solution of the Jewish question.” This resulted in the extermination of six million Jewish men, women and children.

Nevertheless, he was dogged throughout his 11-year career in the Third Reich by rumors that he had a Jewish ancestor.

Similarly, former Pennsylvania United States Senator Rick Santorum has made banning abortion a center-piece of his political life.

Even so, he found himself accused, during his 2012 campaign for President, of being “soft” on abortion.

In January, 2012, in advance of the South Carolina primary, pink fliers attacking Santorum’s credentials as an anti-abortionist began turning up on windshields at many  political events in that state.

Their author was Elizabeth Leichert, an anti-abortion activist.

Dated January 18, 2012, the flier read:

“Like many Christians I know, I was originally very attracted to Rick Santorum’s positions – especially on the Right to Life issue.

“But that was before I began digging into his record….

“Did you know Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, had a six-year affair with an abortionist named Tom Allen?

“…This abortion doctor was 30 years her senior! In fact, he delivered her as a baby!

“The only reason they broke up was that Karen wanted kids – while Tom was busy killing them.

Karen Garver and  Dr. Thomas Allen 

“In fact, he [Tom Allen] said, ‘Karen had no problems with what I did for a living,’ and said that Rick Santorum was ‘pro-choice and a humanist.’

“And this was only two years before Rick Santorum ran for Congress!

“After learning these facts, when it comes to Rick Santorum, I can’t help but think of him as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“We’ve certainly seen candidates over the years use their “faith” as a campaign issue. We’ve certainly seen candidates who tell us they’re pro-life and then act quite differently once elected.

“I’m afraid that’s describes Rick Santorum to a tee!

“You see, the attacks on him for funding Planned Parenthood are 100% true.

“He’s even stated in a TV interview that he supports Title X funding, which sends our tax dollars to Planned Parenthood! You can see for yourself on youtube.

“He’s also time and again endorsed pro-abortion Republicans who work to defeat any efforts by Congress to save the lives of the unborn.

“I’m writing you because I believe this race for President is critical. I’m worried the facts about Rick Santorum won’t get out in time for this South Carolina Primary, and pro-lifers will be fooled into voting someone like Rick Santorum who DOES NOT share our values.

“He just wants to be President so badly, he’ll say anything to be elected. Period.”

The flier was signed, “In Christ, Elizabeth Leichert.”

Click here: Rick Santorum Is Getting The Worst Of South Carolina’s Dirty Politics – Business Insider

Asked for his reaction, Santorum replied: “It’s ugly, it’s cheap, it’s tawdry. It has no relationship to the issues at hand in this race, and we’re gonna treat it just like the ridiculous stuff that you see where you treat it for the value it is, which is zero.”

The report may be “ugly, cheap and tawdry.”  But it’s also apparently true.

As Karen Garver, the future Mrs. Santorum lived with obstetrician and abortionist Dr. Thomas E. Allen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for most of her 20s during the 1980s.

As a young nursing student, she shared his bed and liberal views on abortion, despite an age difference of 40 years.

Even more striking: Allen had delivered Karen as a baby in 1960. Her father, a pediatrician, got many client referrals through Allen.

When she moved out to go be with Rick,” Dr. Allen said in an interview in 2005, “she told me I’d like him, that he was pro-choice and a humanist.  But I don’t think there’s a humanist bone in that man’s body.”

Click here: Rick Santorum’s wife Karen had love affair with abortion doctor | Daily Mail Online

Today, as Karen Santorum, she is the Catholic mother of seven and fiercely opposes abortion and birth control.

Karen Santorum

Since Rick Santorum declared himself a candidate for President in 2016, no mention has so far been made of his wife’s unorthodox past.

But abortion is the issue within the Republican party that ignites the greatest passion and fanaticism.  There will always be those who consider themselves the most “pure” on this.  And who are willing to act even more brutally on their fanaticism.

“Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves,” wrote the author Mercedes Lackey. “The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.”

ABORTING AMBITION: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 16, 2015 at 12:04 am

“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohem, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”

Ernst Rohem

Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.

On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers.  The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.

The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.  They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.

But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.

Ernst Rohem, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.

Frightened by Rohem’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohem–or they would get rid of him.

So Rohem died in a hail of SS bullets–as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.

SS firing squad

Among the SS commanders supervising those executions was Reinhard Heydrich–a tall, blond-haired formal naval officer who was both a champion fencer and talented violinist.

Ultimately, he would become the personification of the Nazi ideal–”the man with the iron heart,” as Hitler eulogized at Heydrich’s funeral just eight years later.

Reinhard Heydrich

Even so, Heydrich had a problem: He could never escape vicious rumors that his family tree contained a Jewish ancestor.

His paternal grandmother had married Reinhold Heydrich, and then Gustav Robert Suss.  For unknown reasons, she decided to call herself Suss-Heydrich.

Since “Suss” was widely believed in Germany to indicate Jewish origin, the “stigma” of Jewish heritage attached itself to the Heydrich family.

Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.  But his arrogance and overweening ambition created a great many enemies.

Only a year later, he became the target of an urgent investigation by the SS itself. The charge: That he was part-Jewish, the ultimate sin in Hitler’s “racially pure” Nazi Germany.

The investigation cleared Heydrich, but the rumor of his “tainted” origins persisted, clearly tormenting the second most powerful man in the SS. Even his superior, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, believed it.

When Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech commandos in Prague, Himmler attended his funeral. He paid tribute to his former subordinate at the service: ”You, Reinhard Heydrich, were a truly good SS-man.”

But he could not resist saying in private: “He was an unhappy man, completely divided against himself, as often happened with those of mixed race.”

Those who dare to harshly judge others usually find themselves assailed just as harshly.

A modern-day example is Rick Santorum, the former United States Senator from Pennsylvania (1995 – 2007) and a Republican candidate for President in 2012 and 2016.

Rick Santorum

From his entry into politics, Santorum has been a fierce opponent of legalized abortion and even birth control.  Among his comments on these issues:

  • On why abortion should be illegal even in rape cases: “I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created–in the sense of rape–but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.”
  • On criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortion:I believe that, that any doctor who performs an abortion–that–I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so.”
  • On de-funding Planned Parenthood:I can’t imagine any other organization with its roots as poisonous as the roots of Planned Parenthood getting federal funding of any kind. This is an organization that was founded on the eugenics movement, founded on racism.”
  • On opposing birth control: “One of the things I will talk about [if elected President in 2012] that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea.  Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that’s okay.  Contraception’s okay.’  It’s not okay, because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

So it no doubt came as a shock to Santorum–and his anti-abortion supporters–when he found himself accused of being “soft” on abortion.

The attack came in the form of pink fliers appearing on car windshields at many South Carolina political events in January, 2012.

They were the work of Elizabeth Leichert, an anti-abortion activist.

Dated January 18, 2012, the flier read:

“Like many Christians I know, I was originally very attracted to Rick Santorum’s positions – especially on the Right to Life issue.

“But that was before I began digging into his record….

“Did you know Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, had a six-year affair with an abortionist named Tom Allen?”