Part-Time Pundit

Hurricane Katrina: Radical Campus Left Claims Racial Cleansing is Going on in New Orleans

From the local campus anti-war protesters who are also struggling with the issue of whether or not to openly support the “Iraqi resistance”:

“And still, even tonight, teams of military, US Marshals, and local police perform sweeps and raids on the remaining hold-outs. We will never know the true death-toll of the storm, nor the near certain fact that many brown and black residents were gunned down in cold blood in a form of ethnic cleansing.”

It’s one thing to talk about race and poverty, its another to say that the federal government is wiping out black people in the streets of New Orleans.

There’s only one word for stuff like this… agitprop.

September 22nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Hurricane Katrina, Local, Military / War, Politics | 3 comments

Hurricane Katrina: Officials Caught Stealing Relief Supplies

Storm Donations Found at Official’s Home

Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.

The donations filled a large pickup truck four times. “It was an awful lot of stuff,” Caraway said.

Well, well. I can’t wait to see how Bush is accountable for this.

September 22nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Uncategorized | 6 comments

Second Edition of the Carnival of Life

Sorry for the late post on this one, yesterday was a very hectic day for me. This is the second edition of the Carnival of Life. Because of light contributions last week, we skipped and added those posts into this week. We still need hosts for upcoming weeks, and need many more posts to go with the carnival. Keep getting the word out!

Future Hosts:
September 28th - Stem Cell Extremist
October 3rd - Pro-Life Blogs
October 24th - The Revolution

Here are the last two weeks of entries.

Jay at Stop The ACLU presents ACLU Loses In Parental Consent For Abortion Case. The ACLU chalks up a rare lose against common sense laws that say parents really are the parents of their children.

DeputyHeadmistress at The Common Room presents Messages in Movies

DeputyHeadmistress also submits The Gift of Unplanned Blessings:
“We are the recipients of many unplanned blessings, and children are not the least of them.
In this post I want to tell you about two special “unplanned” additions to our family who were adopted. We had three children, had just had a miscarriage, the headmaster was enlisted in the AF, and I was a sahm (this means very little money). We weren’t seeking adoption at all, but we heard of two little girls who needed a home together, and we just couldn’t come up with a good reason to say no.”

Cross Blogging asks Will Abortions Become Obsolete? with new medical technologies that make traditional conception “obsolete”. (As an aside, to clear up some misconceptions. Galileo was not persecuted because of his science. Many others before and after him came to the same conclusions. His science, while sloppy (tides don’t prove the earth revolves around the sun) didn’t get him into trouble. His big mouth and attitude problem (things which I do have expertise in) got him into trouble. It’s one thing to advocate ideas, it’s another to start cramming them down the Pope’s mouth in medieval Europe.)

This Carnival is Ubercarnival listed.

September 22nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Carnivals, Pro-Life, Religion | one comment

Culture & Cosmos: Kennedy Using Katrina to Attack Private Schools

The area affected by Hurricane Katrina has a much higher than normal percentage of students in private (usually Catholic) schools. This is because of the imfamously poor state of public education in the area. If you want to be left behind and assured of no resources with which to get out of New Orleans because of a Hurricane, public schooling is your best bet.

Because of the amount of people displaced who would otherwise go to private schools, President Bush proposed to give them assistance in getting into private schools where they ended up. Instead, Kennedy insists that all children must be put in public schools unless the families (who now have no jobs) can come up with a second set of tuition money to pay on their own.

I agree, it is ironic that the opposition to the Bush plan is coming from 4 Irish Catholic senators.

=====
One of the Senate’s best known Catholics has worked to reject a proposal by President Bush that would have given families displaced by Hurricane Katrina financial aid to send their children to private or parochial schools. A bipartisan student relief package put forth by Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy and Wyoming Senator Michael Enzi did not include a provision that would have given students up to $7,500 because Kennedy opposed the provision, according to a high level Congressional staffer who spoke with Culture & Cosmos.

Culture & Cosmos also learned that a prominent Church prelate said he was furious that aid to private schools had been kept out of the package and he was especially angry that it is being blocked by “four Irish Catholic Senators.”

The proposal for financial aid came from the Bush administration and the Department of Education and noted that, “Communities in Louisiana significantly impacted by the hurricane had an above average number of children enrolled in private schools — 61,000 students in private schools compared to 187,000 in public schools in four severely impacted parishes. These significantly impacted Louisiana communities averaged 25% of students attending private K-12 schools — much higher than the 11% national average of private school students.” Out of the 61,000 students in private schools, 81%, or 50,000 attend Catholic schools. In fact, New Orleans public schools have long had a reputation for poor quality and the Catholic school system there is seen as an affordable refuge.

The total price tag for the Education Department’s proposal which aims to cover most of the cost of educating students displaced by Katrina is $1.9 billion. The administration estimates that of that total, 25% or $488 million would be needed for educational support if their proposal was implemented.

Kennedy publicly criticized aid for private schools yesterday in a statement: “But I am extremely disappointed that [President Bush] has proposed providing this relief using such a politically-charged approach. This is not the time for a partisan political debate on vouchers.” Despite the high percentage of New Orleans students who attend private school, Kennedy said “we need to focus on rebuilding the public school systems which are the cornerstones of the Gulf Coast communities and economies.”

Catholic League president William Donohue praised the proposal. “This is more than an education issue – it is a matter of fundamental civil rights. Having been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, the residents of New Orleans want to put their lives back together as soon as possible. What they don’t need now is for federal lawmakers to stand in their way by playing politics with the choices they make.”

Legislators are still hashing out the final details of the relief package they will send to the president so it is still possible that money for vouchers will be added back into Senators Enzi and Kennedy’s legislations.

One observer pointed out that “it is a joke that Kennedy still thinks he is the preeminent Catholic politician in America. He is a disgrace on this and other issues important to Catholic.”
Culture of Life Foundation
1413 K Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 289-2500 Fax: (202) 289-2502 E-mail: clf@culture-of-life.org
Website: http://www.culture-of-life.org

September 22nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos, Hurricane Katrina, Law / Legal Issues, National, Politics, Religion | one comment

Stop the ACLU: Stop the Pilfering of Tax Dollars

Many cases the ACLU takes are settled for hundreds of thousands of dollars before actually entering a court room. When an agency is sued by the ACLU, they are rightfully intimidated. The ACLU is a national organization with huge resources to call upon. Elementary schools, for instance, don’t have teams of lawyers standing by. They don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for lawyers who will fight for the school. Instead, they roll-over and take the easy road, just give the ACLU what they want.

In some circles this would be called extortion. In law, it is apparently called civil rights justice.

I have yet to get a satisfactory answer as to why someone who sues a city government for the use of a religious symbol gets $1 and the ACLU gets over a million. Here’s this week’s blogburst.

=======
On 1, Oct. 19, 1976 Congress passed an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which gave the Courts the power to award attorney’s fees in civil rights cases to the prevailing party. ‘The Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976′ was passed with high hopes, and the good intentions that it would help provide relief for individuals that might not otherwise be able to afford the expenses of defending their civil liberties if they were violated. The ACLU, and other judicial activitist have completely turned the intentions of this amendment on its head.

Whenever the ACLU fights voluntary prayer in school, a war memorial because it’s in the shape of a cross, ten commandment displays, or keeping the boyscouts from military sponsorship, and they win, you pay for their attorney’s fees.

What was intended to protect people from having their civil rights violated has been twisted by the ACLU to use as leverage when they threaten small schools and communities that can’t afford to defend themselves from the well funded, and well staffed ACLU bully. Yes, legislation intended to protect civil liberties is often used to supress religious expression by the likes of the ACLU.

There is currently legislation in the House introduced by Representive Hostettler that hopes to remedy its abuse. It is an amendment that limits the attorney fees in Establishment Clause cases to injuctive relief only. In other words, if the ACLU wants to pick a fight over someone praying in public, or a ten commandments display that offends one sensitive athiest, they’ll have to dig into their own deep pockets, and it will not come from yours.

We want your voice to be heard in D.C. supporting this legislation. It’s really simple, all we need is your autograph.

SIGN THE PETITION TO GET THE ACLU OFF THE TAXPAYER’S DOLE

This was a production of Stop The ACLU blogburst. If you would like to join our efforts to fight the ACLU, it’s very simple. Just register at our portal. We will add you to our mailing list, and send you the info you will need. Over 100 blogs already on board. Join us!

September 22nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Freedom of Speech, Law / Legal Issues, Religion, StoptheACLU | one comment

Coalition for Darfur: Decent into Anarchy

Crossposted from Coalition for Darfur. More updates on the deteriotating condition there that the new and improved UN is still failing to do anything about.

====
One week ago, experts and observers warned that Darfur risked “sliding into a perpetual state of lawlessness.” At a time when Khartoum and the Darfur rebels were preparing to meet in an attempt to move the essentially non-existent peace process forward, IRIN was reporting

Banditry and continuous attacks by armed groups on humanitarian workers, Arab nomads and villages in Darfur have increased significantly over the past weeks and threaten to destabilise the fragile ceasefire in the volatile western Sudanese region.

The “fragile ceasefire” has never really existed
and fears of “perpetual” lawlessness are misplaced considering that Darfur has been essentially lawless for more than two years.

Last week, the World Food Program reported that “security levels deteriorated in Darfur during the reporting week.” This week, the WFP reported that “despite precautionary security measures, attacks on commercial and humanitarian vehicles continue in Darfur.”

And as the UN was expressing
its concern “about the recurrent attacks carried out by armed men and gangs in Darfur states, which target civilians and commercial vehicles hired by relief organizations,” Norwegian Church Aid was reporting that “relief convoy has been raided at gunpoint by bandits in Darfur for the second time in a short period. The security situation in Darfur shows signs of deterioration”

A growing problem is also that aid convoys are now being ambushed with increasing regularity by bandits on horses and camels. Norwegian Church Aid vehicles have been raided at gunpoint twice in a matter of weeks … The field teams who travel most often through the western and southern parts of Darfur regularly encounter en route, and are often chased by, heavily armed men riding on horses and camels. Since the aid operation began just over a year ago, security has presented a great challenge
for the agencies. Yet whereas assault, exchanges of fire and attacks on villages were previously politically motivated, much of the violence seems now to be criminal in nature.

And the violence continues.

Just yesterday, it was reported that 40 were killed in fighting after an attack on the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement/Army by “armed nomadic tribesmen” [aka "the Janjaweed"]. This was followed by another report that 80 government soldiers had been killed by the SLM when they captured the town of Sheiria in a surprise attack in retaliation for earlier
government attacks on rebel-held territory.

The attack on Sheiria put at risk some 33,000 civilians who rely on humanitarian assistance after staff from three NGO’s were withdrawn due to the fighting. And for good measure, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) “reported that the security situation in the Kalma camp housing displaced persons has further deteriorated with a large number of security incidents, including some 60 reported
attacks on women over the last week alone.”

All of this took place while the sixth round of peace talks were being held in Nigeria.

It has now been more than a year since the United States declared the situation in Darfur a “genocide” - and the security situation on the ground is now even arguably worse. While government-orchestrated attacks on civilians have diminished, mainly because “there are not many villages left to burn down and destroy,” the rampant insecurity in all likelihood still qualifies as part of Khartoum’s genocidal campaign to “deliberately [inflict] on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The genocide is not ending and the situation is not improving. The people of Darfur have, for all intents and purposes, been abandoned.

September 22nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Military / War, Politics, Sudan, Terrorism, United Nations | no comments