The Respectfully Republican Conversation

Double edge sword ibc---takes the energy issue off the table for republicans........

Can any of you political junkies enlighten me on this?  Since McCain has agreed to Public Financing--and a limit of 84.1 million;  How would having Romney on the ticket help with funding if that is the case? Unless he too opted out.   I just can't see how McCain can stay competitive.

This text messaging business gave Obama millions of new sources to tap for donations (milking it for all it was worth) to go hand and hand with the phone banking in the stadium.

Pennsylvania was a horror in the primaries with Obama commercials airing every few seconds---Cringing to think what September and October will be like.-----I saw more Hillary commercials on Fox news than I saw on our airways.

Add a new word to the dictionary--BIDENISM

Ben Smith at politico has coined the term.

First Bidenism---Referring to Obama in Biden's speech as "Barack America".

I see a new cartoon....................

Linda---The thinking is that Romney will be the only VP candidate strong enough to go after Biden-----Know you can't stand Romney but will you hold your nose?????

Mind you I think Gov Sarah Palin is gutsy enough to take him on.

Don't know that Hutchinson has that attack dog instinct.

Biden always comes off as nasty.  He'll start his bulldog rants, and pretty much turn everyone off.  If people wanted him for President, they would have voted for him in these last primaries.

I'm so happy he'll be out of the Congress shooting off his mouth while they debate the drilling package coming up. 

So what do we have now coming from the democrats?  Good cop, bad cop?  Just attack Biden, and we'll be pretty much sick of his retorts by November.

The republican campaign is pushing for monetary support before Sept. 3rd, I think that's the date, then they have to abide by rules of Gov. funding.  There's quite a push on for donations now.

More child's play. 

My name is Juan Sepulveda and I'm the new State Director for the Obama campaign here in Texas.

I want to tell you about an exciting program we're running here called Camp Obama.

During this two-day session, people like you will be taking their support for this movement to the next level by learning the organizing principles that this campaign and our movement for change are built on.

Camp Obama attendees will receive real world organizing experience (in the same tradition of Saul Alinsky) that will have a direct impact on this election. Graduates of Camp Obama will go on to become Deputy Field Organizers who will lead this campaign to victory in crucial battleground states around the country.

By participating in Camp Obama, you'll get the kind of experience (using the same radical techniques of Saul) that Barack got as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he learned that real change happens from the bottom up. 

That experience transformed Barack's life and made him who he is today.

Camp Obama is your chance to put those very same principles into action -- to win this election and to strengthen democracy in communities around the country.

After completing the program, you'll be required to work as a Deputy Field Organizer in a battleground state where you'll be organizing supporters and helping lead our grassroots Get Out The Vote operation (For John McCain).

Apply for a spot at a Camp Obama near you and become a leader in our movement for change:

Paulette, I've been away since either Saturday morning OR ALL day Saturday.  My dd and gks came in. 

Yes, wouldn't it be great to be able to get rid of the ever smiling, I'M TRYING TO SAVE THE PLANET, I'M TRYING TO SAVE THE PLANT,  Pelosi?  What a lying jerk!    

Anyone planning to buy her book? 

Shirley

Shirley,

I agree with you.  I am terrified that Obama will be elected!  I think this country is in serious trouble if he becomes president.

Harley

Will you see Linda I am smarter than you......you see all you people are stupid.........you see Republicans you all are racists.......you see Democrats how could you possibly support Hillary Clinton.......you see how wonderful my husband is..........you see you stupid, uneducated, uninformed, flag loving, I love America asine people how could you not turn your heads and worship at the feet of my husband?............ha................and now the "not bias media is referring to the Obama's as the Huxtables............who in the hell are they trying to fool.........themselves?..........hasn't Bill Cosby been ridiculed for his conservative beliefs by his peers?  The Obama's are no more the Huxtables then Michelle Obama really loves and respects this country for what it IS...........jeez............Shokk

About abortion and the Catholic church.  I had an extensive Catholic education and my understanding was the same as Pelosi's, that the Church's teachings have changed over time.  (You all know I don't like the woman but fair is fair.)  There was a fairly long period of time in the Church's history when it did not view life as beginning at inception.  I checked a few sources to see if my memory is correct (see below).  From a practical, vote getting view, Pelosi is foolish to get into an argument with the Catholic bishops, but what's regrettable to me is Chaput's rewriting of history.  What's also regrettable is that he's not asking Biden to refrain from communion because he supports the death penalty!  The Bishops also pick and choose, the same as M&M catholics, so how can they expect better from their flocks?  

5th TO 16th Century CE (Various beliefs on whether abortion is murder):

St. Augustine (354-430 CE) reversed centuries of Christian teaching in Western Europe, by returning to the Aristotelian Pagan concept of "delayed ensoulment." He wrote 7 that a human soul cannot live in an unformed body. Thus, early in pregnancy, an abortion is not murder because no soul is destroyed (or, more accurately, only a vegetable or animal soul is terminated). He wrote extensively on sexual matters, teaching that the original sin of Adam and Eve are passed to each successive generation through the pleasure generated during sexual intercourse. This passed into the church's canon law. Only abortion of a more fully developed "fetus animatus" (animated fetus) was punished as murder.

Augustine had little influence over the beliefs of Orthodox Christianity. They retained their original anti-abortion stance.

St. Jerome (circa 340 - 420) wrote in a letter to Aglasia:

"The seed gradually takes shape in the uterus, and it [abortion] does not count as killing until the individual elements have acquired their external appearance and their limbs" 8

Starting in the 7th century CE, a series of penitentials were written in the West. These listed an array of sins, with the penance that a person must observe as punishment for the sin. Certain "sins" which prevented conception had particularly heavy penalties. These included:
bullet practicing a particularly ineffective form of birth control, coitus interruptus (withdrawal of the penis prior to ejaculation)
bullet engaging in oral sex or anal sex
bullet becoming sterile by artificial means, such as by consuming sterilizing poisons.

Abortion, on the other hand, required a less serious penance. Theodore, who organized the English church, assembled a penitential about 700 CE. Oral intercourse required from 7 years to a lifetime of penance; an abortion required only 120 days.

Pope Stephen V (served 885-891) wrote in 887 CE: "If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a child even one day old." "Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz."

Pope Innocent III (circa 1161-1216):
bullet He wrote a letter which ruled on a case of a Carthusian monk who had arranged for his female lover to obtain an abortion. The Pope decided that the monk was not guilty of homicide if the fetus was not "animated."
bullet Early in the 13th century he stated that the soul enters the body of the fetus at the time of "quickening" - when the woman first feels movement of the fetus. After ensoulment, abortion was equated with murder; before that time, it was a less serious sin, because it terminated only potential human life, not human life.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) also considered only the abortion of an "animated" fetus as murder.

Pope Sixtus V (1471-1484) issued a Papal bull "Effraenatam" in 1588 which threatened those who carried out abortions at any stage of gestation with excommunication and the death penalty.

Pope Gregory XIV (1535-1591) revoked the Papal bull shortly after taking office in 1591. He reinstated the "quickening" test, which he determined happened 116 days into pregnancy (16½ weeks).

17th TO 19th Century CE (Abortion becomes murder again):

In the 17th century, the concept of "simultaneous animation" gained acceptance within the medical and church communities in Western Europe. 9 This is the belief that an embryo acquires a soul at conception, not at 40, 80. or 116 days into gestation as the church was teaching.

Hieronymus Florentinius, a Franciscan monk, asserted In 1658 that all embryos or fetuses, regardless of their gestational age, which were in danger of death must be baptized. However, his opinion did not change the status of abortion as seen by the church.

Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) reversed the stance of the Roman Catholic church once more. He dropped the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus" in 1869.

Leo XIII (1878-1903):
bullet He issued a decree in 1884 that prohibited craniotomies. This is an unusual form of abortion used late in pregnancy and is occasionally needed to save the life of the pregnant woman.
bullet He issued a second degree in 1886 that prohibited all procedures that directly killed the fetus, even if done to save the woman's life. The tolerant approach to abortion which had prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church for previous centuries ended. The church required excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy. This position has continued to the present time.

Canon law was revised in 1917 and 1983 and to refer simply to "the fetus."

Stay tuned for more on Ayers and Obama's relationship.

I'm back already.  Greta has so much email coming in and so has Susan Estrich....emails coming in that the supporters for Hillary ARE NOT voting for Obama.  Greta's been getting these emails.  Susan says her emails are full of how proud they were of Hillary's speech tonight, but that she should have been the nominee.  And Greta's reporting that the women that are emailing her are NOT staying home, but voting for McCain.  They're really angry with how Hillary was treated in the media.

But Rosemary, in all due respect, that's incorrect, "It doesn't matter that it changed over time, it matters only what the Church teachings are today." 

If this were true, then religion, certainly the Catholic religion, could hardly claim to be following God's dictates.  I was taught that God's laws don't change over time.  How would that even be theologically possible?  That the Church's teachings on abortion have changed drastically over time demonstrates clearly that abortion is a man-driven issue.  If the Church can change it's teaching over time, depending on circumstances, or which Pope or Synod is in power, then it becomes clear that men are making the rules not God, which is, of course, why I am no longer a believer.  Religion is, in my view, a way of men taking control of other men, and always, of course, of women.  The teachings on abortion are just another way for men to control women.  I say this with respect, recognizing that others do not see it as I do. Even the bishop's admonition of Nancy Pelosi on the abortion issue, but without admonishing Biden for supporting the death penalty is just another ugly example of men keeping women down.  And all this comes back to explaining my anger that Obama was chosen by Democratic men (and the women who can't break away from male control) over a far more experienced and qualified woman.  It's time for women to stop letting men control their lives.  Feminism is on its last legs in this country, and regrettably women are equally responsible for letting this happen.  We've become complacent.  But listening to the angry women out there, I think, and hope, it's changing.

I didn't see Michelle's speech and, for sure, it wasn't Michelle who did the plagarizing, if it were in fact plagarized.  Some one else did.  None of them write their own speeches, not even the great Obama. (I believe his speech on race was an exception, and also his best.)  A while back there was a New York Times article on his speechwriter, a 26 year old, Holy Cross graduate.  I think that's one reason why Obama's speechs are so empty of specifics.  How can a 26 year old understand the fear of losing one's health care?  

Ann "how the world should be" in whom's opinion...........this is were this concept breaks down because I guarantee that my concept of how the world should be and your concept of how the world should be are probably quite different.........I don't want any part of my world to be part of Saul Alinsky's idea of how the world should be...........I think our forefathers that wrote our Constitution had a better idea of how the world should be or better yet how our Country should be..........isn't the left that says we don't have the right to dictate to other countries how "their" world should be.............so I am still very leery of Michelle's speech............why in the world would she quote "Saul Alinsky" is beyond me.........imo..........Shokk

Susie--I don't think Y is McCain and X is Obama.  Actually, I don't think Bill Clinton believes that McCain could deliver, even on the things he believes in.  Also, it's very likely that the makeup of the Congress will change drastically this year, so it will be a sum zero outcome if McCain wins the White House.  But that may be what you want.

I'm convinced that both Obama and McCain are talkers, not doers.  I still haven't figured out what McCain's economic policies are beyond lowering taxes and giving tax credits and his foreign policy position is frightening.  His response to the Russian/Georgia problem is about what I would expect from Bush.  And concerning that, Russian is now saying that it won't allow a missile defense system in Poland (exactly the same response that JFK had when Russia wanted to put missiles in Cuba), and I might add, JFK's claim to fame.  Do you really think that lowering taxes and tax credits will fix any of our problems?  It's clear to me, anyway, that Hillary would have delivered so much, parrticularly for women, and I wonder if I'll ever get over her not getting the nomination.

And back to the Russia/Georgia problem and the Democrats.  Their response isn't any better. Biden is much more of a hawk than most people realize.  And his proposal to give a billion dollars to Georgia, with which Obama agrees, leaves me sick.  WTF, Georgia started the whole thing, which even sensible members of our government acknowledge.  Obama only got this nomination because people believed he was anti-war and just yesterday I heard one of his advisers say--can't quote exactly, but will paraphrase--it's not that Obama's against sending our troops abroad, it's just that he wants to send them to Afghanistan.  I throw in the towel.  I'm convinced, after watching TV this political season that I'm the last liberal standing!  

Obama's Temple----The person who thought this up must have been delusional---or at the very least  a "Trekkie".

From Sister Toldja

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