By most accounts, President Obama’s Cairo speech was grand. It was a break from the Bush rhetoric. Mr. Obama quoted the Koran; he spoke of past mistakes and of a common future.

So what has been the reaction from the so-called Muslim world?

For days I have searched the internet (in English) in hopes of finding some leader of a Muslim nation who was willing to grasp the olive branch held out by Mr. Obama.

The media was full of “person in the street” comments, especially from Muslims in western nations, but as near as I can tell the leaders of the Muslim world were all but silent.

The state-backed papers in the two Arab countries on Mr Obama’s tour, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, were positive; and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader was negative (none of that a surprise).

But, not to worry, the Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on June 17th to come up with a common Arab stance on U.S. President Barack Obama's speech.

Imagine a time of economic downturn; people out of work, businesses closing, people losing their homes. In response to these extraordinary circumstances, the Federal government takes unprecedented steps to get the economy working again.

Ultimately, the corporations created serve two masters: The politicians with their political agendas, and the business people with their profit motive.

As long as the economy is booming, there is no problem, but when another slow-down hits it is clear the two “bottom lines” are incompatible.

An unrealistic scenario? Can you say “Fannie Mae” or “Freddie Mac”?

Well, you better be able to say Gennie Mae – the Federal government now owns 60% of GM.

When the political agenda and business agenda of GM come into conflict, what do you think will happen?

So let’s give GM to the real owners, not the politicians in Washington, give it to the people who paid for the 60% ownership - the American taxpayer.

If by using taxpayer money the Obama administration has the government owning 60% of GM, I want my stock.

Take everyone who paid Federal income tax for 2008 and divide up the GM stock proportionally.

Send me my GM stock.

Exodus 20:13 -- You shall not murder.

No one who stands pro-life should accept the idea of killing.  The murder of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the USA who performed late term abortions, is not only inexcusable, it is to be condemned.

I know the argument: Would you murder Hitler if you knew it would save all those lives? But, the argument is a straw man, put up to be knocked down. I did not know Dr. Tiller. I absolutely disagreed with his performing abortions. This does not give me, or anyone else the right to murder him.

However, those who are pro-abortion do not have an understanding of our anti-abortion stance.

According to The (liberal) New York Times: “Mr. Obama issued a statement after Dr. Tiller’s killing, saying, ‘However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.’”

Abortions are heinous acts of violence.

Dr. Tiller should not have been murdered. Nor should the hundreds of thousands of unborn innocent children.

Stop all heinous acts of violence.

Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a defense strategy that suggests that two rational nations, each of which possess the nuclear capability to totally destroy the other, would not start a nuclear war because each is certain it would end with the total destruction of both (and the rest of the world). MAD may have been well named, the United States and the Soviet Union never did engage in a nuclear war.

In the 21st century nuclear weapons age, two of the underlying assumptions of MAD are clearly called into question.

First, are those who possess nuclear weapons rational? Is North Korea’s Kim Jong Il rational? Is Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rational? If Pakistan should fall to the Taliban, will Pakistan’s Taliban leader be rational?

Second, if North Korea, Iran, or some other country sells or gives a nuclear bomb to a terrorist group and that group uses it to attack the United States (or Great Britain, or Israel, etc.) what targets are destroyed in the mutual retaliation? We may suspect North Korea or Iran as providing the bomb, but they would claim innocence and the world would condemn the United States if it launched a nuclear attack on either country without overwhelming public proof. Unlike the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, terrorists do not live in nice near targets (cities).

To paraphrase Klaatu:

A newsflash for Republicans and conservatives: The American people elected a liberal Democratic president and a liberal Democratic congress.

Big surprise: This liberal Democratic president nominated to the Supreme Court someone who seems to agree with his liberal views.

Second big surprise: The liberal Democratic Senate will confirm someone who agrees with their liberal views.

Get over it!

Oppose the nomination if you believe Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not qualified. (One should note that the Constitution provides no guidelines for qualifications to be a Federal or Supreme Court judge.)

President Obama at Notre Dame:

We must decide how to save God's creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it…

But, there is no need to save the thousands of unborn children who are killed by abortion each year in the United States.

Again Mr. Obama:

Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion...

What if President Lincoln said: Let's honor the conscience of those who agree with slavery...

 And further:

For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together...It is, of course, the golden rule — the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated.

Would everyone who wishes his or her mother aborted her or him please stand up.

To quote another great American, Benjamin Franklin: Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning.

“For the last six years we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter…”

Obama inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit and has quickly pushed it up to $1.8 trillion…The national debt will nearly double over the next decade…By that year [2019], interest payments alone on the debt are projected to be $806 billion annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (The liberal New York Times)

“They write the checks and you get stuck with the bills, they get the access while you get to write a letter, they think they own this government…”

Could you remind me again how we got into this financial mess? 

Was it not people spending money they did not have?

According to the AP:

For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration's plan. In 2010, it would borrow 35 cents for every dollar spent.

By this calculation, if I were making $54,000, I would be spending $100,000 this year and borrowing $46,000.

At its 2004 general meeting, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a statement that said, “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

According to the South Bend Tribune, Dr. Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges & Universities said: "It is clear to me that there is a degree of ambiguity in the bishops' guidelines issued in 2004,"

This seems very clear to me.  Catholic educational institutions, like most educational institutions, tend to be on the liberal side of most issues.  If Dr. Richard Yanikoski thinks honoring someone who is pro-abortion is appropriate, he should not be president of the ACCU, and any member institutions who agree with his stance should drop the concept of being Catholic from all public statements and publications.

President Obama may be the best president ever at presenting his views in the best possible light. It probably does not hurt that the liberal media never questions his spin.

Take his proposed budget of $3.1 trillion, the budget’s debt of $1.2 trillion (thus revenue of $1.9 trillion) and his recent announcement regarding $14 billion dollars in cuts in next year’s proposed budget.

When talking billions and trillions it is hard for most people to understand how these numbers relate. Thus, let’s do away with a few zeroes.

We could think of it this way.

Say I earned $19,000 per year, but was spending $31,000. 

To make up the difference between what I earned and what I spent, I borrow $12,000 from my children.

To show them that I am doing something to get my spending under control, I make the big announcement that I will be cutting $140 of my spending.

Think they would be impressed?

President Obama will not attend a large Catholic prayer breakfast the morning after the National Day of Prayer.

Notre Dame is honoring him with an honorary degree.

Makes one wonder what it means.

If as President Obama and the liberal Democrats claim, America has lost the moral high ground, there is one easy domestic step they can take: outlaw the death penalty.

In 2008, in the United States, 37 people were executed.

Yes, if someone attacked, raped, killed one of my loved ones I would want to kill that person. But, my or any other individual’s personal and emotional response should not be the guiding factor in setting society’s moral standards.

Once a person has been captured, tried, convicted and imprisoned, leave them there for life without parole. America’s moral high ground should not include legalized killing.

With a few strokes of his pen the President could commute all death sentences (approximately 3,300)  to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

According to Bloomberg:

General Motors Corp. may be more likely to end up in bankruptcy based on the Obama administration’s willingness to place Chrysler LLC into court protection to safeguard union health-care benefits.

GM bondholders proposed April 30 they get a 58 percent ownership stake in the Detroit-based automaker in exchange for their $27 billion in unsecured claims. Bondholders are objecting to GM’s proposal they get a 10 percent share of GM equity while a union health fund would get $10 billion in cash and as much as a 39 percent stake for $20 billion in unsecured claims.

Now the math is pretty simple. If the union health fund would get $10 billion in cash and as much as a 39 percent stake for $20 billion in unsecured claims and bondholders have $27 billion in unsecured claims, using the same formula the bondholders should get $13.5 billion in cash and a 53 percent stake.

Okay, so no litmus test for Supreme Court nominees, just a few simple questions:

1. Do you believe life begins at conception?
2. If no – if not a human life, what is created?
3. If yes – how can you justify taking a defenseless, innocent human life?