During the 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush said: “I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, ‘This is the way it's got to be.’”

He was right. 

Unfortunately, driven by 9-11, President Bush adopted the policy of nation building.

President Obama, in Cairo, spoke of his “unyielding belief” in a set of universal principles, including “the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people, the freedom to live as you choose”.

Unfortunately, as with his predecessor, reality bites.

When it comes to the suppression of the protests in Iran, Mr. Obama seems unwilling to speak out for the protester’s rights to speak their minds and have a say in how they are governed, or confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice.

There is not always an American solution to every problem in the world. Certainly, America should not try to impose solutions.

So you objected to the U.S. acting alone on international matters, you wanted America to work in a multi-nation coalition.

Now is the time for your multi-nation diplomacy to pay off.

France has a navy (# 3 worldwide), so do Russia (#4), China (#5), Germany (#7) and Italy (#8).

How about using some of that multi-national magic to get some of those navies to stop, board and inspect ships coming out of North Korea?

Alcatraz

Andersonville

Newgate

Abu Ghraib

Bermuda?

How can the world stand silently by and let the U.S. government force four untried, presumably innocent people to live in that most infamous of all prisons – Bermuda?

According to Fox News:

Four Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay have been sent to Bermuda, officials said Thursday. 

Dear Mr. President:

Recently on this blog I asked that you send to me the shares of GM and other corporations which you bought with my tax dollars. While I am waiting for them, I have another request.

According to The (liberal) New York Times:

The United States has won an agreement to transfer up to 17 Chinese Muslims [Uighurs] from the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Palau…

The president of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, said his government had “agreed to accommodate the United States of America’s request” to “temporarily resettle” the detainees…

The United States has pledged $200 million in long-term development aid to Palau.

According to the Palau Visitors Authority website:

Palau enjoys a pleasantly warm climate all year round with an annual mean temperature of 82° F …Typhoons are rare as Palau is located outside the typhoon zone.

The official currency of the Republic is the U.S. Dollar. Visa, JCB, Master Card, and American Express cards are widely accepted at stores and visitor facilities. There are FDIC insured banks.

So, Mr. President, in addition to sending me all the stock you bought with my money, I am willing to “temporarily resettle” to Palau. Since the going rate for temporary resettlement seems to be about $12 million, I will agree to be temporarily resettled for only $10 million.

I am willing to agree to this bargain price since, unlike the Uighurs, I did not go to Afghanistan to train as a terrorist, and I am not trying to overthrow my government.

Thank you Mr. President.

P.S. For those who may not know, during World War II the battle for Peleliu (one of the islands of Palau) cost almost 10,000 Marine and Army casualties, and about 100 men are still listed as MIA.

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.