Jakubczyk on Common Sense

Applying faith and reason to ideas, issues and events in today's world

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

An Open letter to a confused priest

Normally one would discuss this subject in private with the person in the hope that such a conversation would help the person in recognizing the error of his ways. It becomes even more delicate when one is considering a Catholic priest who has stated in public that he intends to vote for Obama. Thus for reasons that begin in charity, I have chosen to address my concerns through my blog and to hope that the spirit of wisdom would permeate the words that follow so that only the will of God would occur.

I have known of this priest for years. His dedication to all things Democrat was not unknown to anyone who heard any of his homilies. His frustration and anger over events that took place in the Church concerning the importance of orthodoxy was also transparent. Unfortunately it seems to this person that many in his generation of priests may have exacerbated the problems they were seeking to remedy.

Dear Father,
Here it is less the day before the election and you have been encouraging people to vote for Barack Obama. Now it is not enough that Obama is the most thoroughly pro-abortion candidate to run for president in history, he has also surrounded himself with people who would repeal all of the meager protections that pro-lifers have worked for thirty five years to try and put into law. But then it would seem that you really do not care to change the law. You would sooner have a pro-abortion president in office who will punish the Catholic Church for her efforts to save children than vote for a Republican - because after all - the Republicans are like the English in your mind - they are all rotten to the core. And this particular Republican appears to have been the object of your particular anger probably along with Bush).

You have made the specious claim that since most women get abortions for economic reasons, an Obama administration will result in less abortions. but if the law protected these children, then no one would be getting abortions. Would that not be the best solution for those poor women and their unborn children? When I look back at the previous Democratic administrations, their policies did not decrease abortions. Instead Democratic policies served to undermine nations with large Catholic populations. Financial foreign aid was tied to countries to force them to adopt ant-family population control policies. The UN fostered anti-Catholic policies and we only need look back at the Cairo and Beijing conferences to see how the pro-abortion groups tried to intimidate the Church.

I found it quite amusing that yesterday you would attempt to prevent Catholics from informing their fellow parishioners about the deceptive practices of your new found messiah. Your claim that somehow passing out the truth is wrong while the silence from your lips is acceptable behavior. Trying to scare young people will not work. Preaching the Gospel requires no boldness on our part, only a humble submission to the will fo God. Ultimately everyone will answer to God for his or her actions. this notion has allowed 50 million babies to be killed and both parties have failed to show the kind of intensity to the issue that life and death matters require. But your friends over at the Democrat party are wed to the culture of Death. None of you has shown the courage to openly challenge your standard bearer on the cause of life. No major Democrat has acted with the courage of the late Robert Casey to call for an end to the killing. Instead we have dissenting Catholics like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden making statements to confuse the average Catholic and mocking the Church's teaching on the subject. Interesting that the Church calls for all people to respect all innocent human life, not just Catholics. But that does not bother you, does it, Father? no you remind me of the collaborators who turned their back on their countrymen.

As a priest you have ben given a tremendous gift and a serious responsibility. You are held to a higher standard - one that we have seen broken by the fallen nature of our human condition. But the simplicity of the fact that all of us must work to protect innocent human life has been clouded by your liberal politics. You are ready to surrender our meager efforts to protect human life and so turn it all over to the State. You are willing to trust a person who is supported by the largest baby killing organization in the world.

So Father, if a crime lord walked into your parish office and wanted to give you donation of one million dollars - and you knew the money was blood money - obtained through criminal acts and murder, would you take it?

If someone came to you and told you that a child would die as a result of this vote, would it cause you any concern?

And if the official position of the Obama campaign is to repeal the Hyde Amendment, pass the Freedom of Choice Act and select only pro-choice judges, how will those actions NOT increase the number of babies killed by the largest abortion provider in the world?

Obama is in league with Planned Parenthood. You are supporting someone who gets his support from people who have killed more human beings than Hitler and Pol pot put together. And that does not concern you?

This election is in the hands of the voters, but more than that, it is in the hands of God. I pray for His mercy on this nation. I pray that the people of this nation will select a person who does respect the mother and her child in the womb.

the Scriptures call upon us to protect the widow and the orphan. Who are the modern day widows and orphans but the pregnant mother and her unborn child.

Why can you not care a little more about them than your precious Democrat party and its candidate for president?

Or are you still bitter ...?

This evening as I post this, I will pray for you, that God will give you wisdom to know the truth and to understand that this letter is not an effort to do anything but to wake you from the delusion that Obama is anything more than a smooth huckster. John McCain is by no means the perfect candidate- he would on this point agree with me - but his positions on the life issues, on marriage, on school choice, on immigration and on the principle of subsidiarity, are closer to the teachings of the Catholic Church than Barack Obama.

May His will be done and His mercy be upon us all - now and forever.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"Rule" ? Howard Dean's view of the world

With all due respect to the wonderful self-sacrificing members of the medical profession, Howard Dean's use of the word "rule" reflects his " I know best - you'd better listen to me" mentality that probably developed from all of those years bossing around nurses and orderlies. Now he wants the Democrats to "rule" the nation.

This has been the problem in this country for the last 35 years. The Courts have been "ruling" the nation through their usurpation of those areas of the law that are the exclusive province of the executive and /or legislative branch. The Court has :ruled" that a certain group of people have no rights. The Supreme Court has "ruled" that certain perverse actions which spread disease and death are "protected behaviors." Various State supreme courts have "ruled" that centuries old definitions of how we order our lives are no longer relevant and that a certain type of person can imitate and mock something fundamental to the human condition.

But liberals, leftists socialists and communists have never really trusted the people. so when Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean talk about taking over all branches of government, one sees who will be pulling Obama's strings.

Our nation was founded with upon the belief that those would sit in the seat of government would never forget who put them there. Indeed that has been the exception more than the rule. Power begets power and people once in political power very seldom relinquish it. That includes those who get in the bureaucracy.

Tell howard Dean and Barack Obama that we do not want anyone to "rule" over us.

On November 4, 2008 vote John McCain - President.

Our freedoms are precious and we must be vigilant if we are to keep them.

Friday, October 24, 2008

thinking about Sarah Palin's contribution to the conversation

I have been thinking for some time that the attacks on Governor Sarah Palin are more about the failings of our modern media and its attitude toward women. After all until Palin arrived on the national scene, the symbol of the modern successful woman was Hillary Clinton. The media dismissed Secretary of State Condelesa Rice - after all she is Black and a Republican and worked for that terrible George Bush.

Then along comes this articulate attractive conservative mother with five - count them five - children and a handsome husband who does not seem to mind that his wife is the governor of the state and the media goes absolutely nuts.

First we have the attacks of the angry left-wing nut-job blogosphere. This was followed by the smug condescending look by the mainstream media so perfectly personified in Charles Gibson.

so the attacks and the insults continue.

It is all because she is so pro-life.

So when anyone questions her credentials, ask why they dot not ask the same question of Obama's credentials.

Victor Davis Hanson stated it nicely over at NRO online.


Kevin Burke also touched upon the reaction that the left to her pro-life stand and wondered if the negative response had to do with post abortion guilt. You can link to his article here.

As I see the pettiness with which the press goes after her, I can only think it is attempting to send a message to other women of her character and quality to stay away.

But women like Sarah Palin have been a powerful part of the building and forming of this nation. Whether it was moving from the East Coast to the heartland of America, or taming the West, American women have always been an example of fearless dedication to the principles of faith, family and freedom. The West would not have become a part of the United States without women settling in the grassslands of Kansas or trekking across the Oregon Trail.

An abiding respect for the dignity of human life, a willingness to sacrifice for the future and the understanding of the sanctity of marriage, all of these values have been nurtured and taught by our mothers. These were the same women who denounced abortion as child murder. They would spit on the modern feminists who dare to claim the name.
They were strong human beings and because of their tenacity one could argue that was how the west was finally won.

Unfortunately for the society at large today, there is not the appreciation of the woman who can be strong and yet still appreciate as to the greatest gift her womanhood offers the culture.
Thus the anger is expressed at those who are an example of such a person.


I would suggest that Sarah Palin continues in this grand tradition.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

The plot thickens

When one asks who has benefited from the current Wall Street/sub-prime mortgage crisis, the media would have you believe that it was the Republicans or the Wall street investors or the banks who made out like bandits. But as the investigations continue by those in the new media, we are finding out that the Democrats and their leftist friends were the primary beneficiaries of this mess. further the Democrats stand to profit at the polls by fanning the flames and frustrating any serious efforts to address the long term solutions required to stabilize the situation.

Today's latest story tells us about Herb Sandler and his wife Marion,who were recently parodied on NBC's Saturday Night Live as the greedy folks who made billions (almost 25 billion dollars to be sure) on the sub-prime situation. They are also major benefactors to left wing organizations like the ACLU and ACORN according to the New York Times. To quote the Times:

Steiger also knew them as “civic-minded people who were kind of partial to lefty or progressive causes.” Since the late 1980s, the Sandlers used their wealth to finance a variety of nonprofit organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union and Acorn, the grass-roots organizers. They helped found the Center for Responsible Lending, where they are among the largest benefactors. They are also among the very few philanthropists in the country who finance basic scientific research, at the University of California at San Francisco. And they have set up nonprofits to conduct research into parasitic diseases and asthma. In 2003, they started the Center for American Progress, which is intended to be a liberal counterweight to the heavyweight policy centers of the right, like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. So far, the Sandlers have given around $20 million to the center.

All this they have done relatively quietly. Though hardly without ego, the Sandlers nonetheless shun the kind of publicity that accrues to such better-known philanthropists as George Soros and Bill Gates; indeed, the Center for American Progress is sometimes labeled a Soros-financed operation, even though the liberal financier has very little to do with it. And for years, the Sandlers did their philanthropy more or less out of their back pocket, since they were still running Golden West.


So lets see who else has benefited from these poor business practices that have plunged the U.S. and the world into an economic storm.

Franklin Raines

He made millions while running Fannie Mae. Now he advises Barack Obama. But when was the last time anyone talked about the lawsuit where he agreed to return 24.7 million dollars to settle a lawsuit against him for fraud.

Jamie Gorelick

Former Clinton attorney who also went to work with Raines in the lucrative mortgage securities industry making millions while watching the crisis develop.

Jim Johnson

Another adviser to Obama, Johnson served as CEO to Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998, making almost $2 million in improper bonuses in 1998, creating sweetheart deals for himself and friends and later resigning abruptly from the Obama campaign when all of this information became public.

Then there are the politicians whose hands are dirty.

Chris Dodd

Barney Frank

Chuck Schumer

All of whom were defending the corruption and the insane practices of Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac for the last six years. Google any of them and find a boatload of information on their crooked dealings.

Jeff Jacoby points out that Frank has no intention of being honest about his role in creating the problem.

Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.

Now that the bubble has burst and the "systemic risk" is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess." Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.


While there are some who are now investigating this scandal and reminding the American people that those who were in charge of this mess are advising Obama, the mainstream press for the most part continues to give Obama as pass. Of course given that most of the mainstream press is in open support for Obama, their actions are not surprising.

So it is up to you and me to spread the word on the truth.

Who pocketed the money? Who got the sweetheart deals?

Barack Obama and his friends.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Raising the real issues about the Leftist Obama

It is clear that the media is not going to raise any questions about Obama's connections with his Chicago pols and crooks.

It is clear that the media is not going to talk about how Democrats running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created this financial problem.

Or as Thomas Sowell said in a recent article, it appears that the facts do not matter.

so the McCain people better star getting more aggressive with bringing out the facts.

Otherwise the people will not know what is true.

And it would not be a bad idea to defend marriage and remind everyone how Obama thinks it is above his pay grade to know when human beings get their civil rights.

Let Sarah go to Michigan

When the news came out that the McCain campaign was leaving Michigan, the press was gleeful. McCain was giving up on an important blue collar state.
Now Sarah Palin has asked to go there and see if she can connect with the people of the state.

Let her go. Let her try to jump start the pro-life working class Catholic and evangelical voters.

Be bold.

Do not be afraid.

And please do not listen to your consultants who are afraid of their own shadow.
To win this race requires a strong bold and gutsy set of plans.

Where have those great youtube ads gone?
Have Sarah show up at a plant with her husband Todd and talk to the union workers. Let her tell them that they are being sold a bill of goods.

Have her go to the lower income areas where the schools are not so good and have her talk about parental choice in education. Have her challenge the Democrats to really care about the working class by supporting school choice.

Do not be afraid to focus on the pro-life message in Michigan. They have a very strong pro-life organization in Michigan Right to Life. Have her show up in a public event and invite the Catholics and the Evangelicals to join her. With this month being both National Down Syndrome Awareness month and Respect Life month, allow her to focus on the importance of respecting all innocent human life.

Give her two days - 48 hours and watch the numbers change.

Preparing for the next debate

John McCain had better be prepared for the next debate with Barack Obmam. Barack will come out swinging. He will attempt to land a major punch in order to give the press the excuse to call the fight over. The media tried to do that last week after the so called financial crisis, but Sarah Palin blocked that move with her healthy effort in her debate with Joe Biden.

So now the press will attempt to build the expectations game with McCain.

He should not bite.

Instead he should focus on the one thing that really disturbs the average American about Obama. He is too liberal. He is too liberal. He is too liberal.

How is he so liberal?

Well, lets talk about his advisers. All of those liberal Chicago politicians. Bill Ayers. Rev. Wright. You can legitimately ask after all who will be advising Barack?

Then lets talk about Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorleick who engineered the Fannie Mae mess. They are Barack Obmama's financial advisors. Mccain should hit this issue hard. Explain to the American people who allowed the Fannie Mae mess to get to the proportions we now see. Mention how much money they all made during their tenue there. Do not forget teh sweet deals they all got on houses they bought. And don't forget to mention Schumer, Dodd and Franks as part of the fiasco.

Then talk about his record. how he voted with the Democratic leadership 95% of the time., how he embraced the extreme parts of the Democratic agenda, how he is in favor of "same sex marriage," repealing DOMA, and allowing the courts to decide these important issues.

Remind the public that he supports partial birth abortion, opposed reasonable regualtionsto protect minors from being transported across state lines, opposed conscience clause protection for health care workers, and supports the Freedom of Choice Act that would wipe out all pro-life legislation t the state level.

Then point out how he wants to put in liberal activist judges who will make law and undermine the democratic process.

Be very precise with your statements so that after the debate the folks at Fact-check cannot give the Left any opportunity to attack you on the facts.

Barack Obama is the most liberal left wing candidate the Democrats have ever selected. He is the most liberal member of the Senate. He is for all practical purposes a socialist. He would disarm America and make her vulnerable to attack. He would give away the farm to grease the palms of his friends.

You have to point out that his is a leftist. This is not the time to be polite. The American people need to know the truth.
and remind the American people of Barack's own words - that pregnancy is a punishment, that the people are bitter as they cling to their guns and their religion.

you are fighting for the soul of this nation. Remember your heritage.

Now is the time.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Want more info on the bailout and what went wrong?

Check out this video on youtube.

"Who is actually responsible for the financial mess we're currently experiencing?
Free market deregulation? Greedy Wall Street types? Bad loan officers? Bad banks?
Maybe it was George Bush? or John McCain? The truth may be hard to accept, but
the truth is the truth, so watch this video, keep your mind open long enough to check
out all the facts presented, and then YOU decide." (tp from a friend)

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Gwen Ifill Should Step Down

The recent disclosure that PBS anchor and journalist Gwen Ifill has a book coming out on the emergence of Black power in the politics which centers on the candidacy of Barack Obama should disqualify her from being the moderator and questioner at the vice presidential debate scheduled for Thursday October 2, 2008 in St. Louis.

According to a story published on World Net Daily Ifill spent a great deal of time with Obama in researching for this book. The book is scheduled to be released in January at the same time as the Inaugural festivities. It is only in her and the publishers' interest to see an Obama victory which would help fuel sales of her book. this itself creates an appearance of journalistic impropriety.

Since the McCain campaign did not know about this conflict of interest, it could not have made any objection.

This is another reason for removing her or having her step down. She should have disclosed to the Commission on Debates that she was working on this project. She should have declined the opportunity to moderate the debate as her presence would give the appearance of bias. Had she disclosed the project, the McCain Campaign could have then discussed the appropriateness of her involvement. Now one day before the debate, there is this additional blemish on the presentation of the candidates by the press.

It is always interesting t hear the left complain that someone is biased because of his or her religious belief. The left will scream and moan about some judge who actually believes in God. But let there be a real conflict of interest and it is ignored.

It will be interesting to hear the questions that are asked on Thursday.