by Hans Johnson

Regrets, he has a few. This week, former Congressman and pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak called the HHS Mandate “illegal” at a panel discussion in Charlotte. Stupak said he had been assured by President Obama that his Executive Order would disallow federal funding of abortion in the Affordable Care Act.

His swing vote, as well as those from other Democrats he convinced to join him, was crucial in the passage of the bill.  Many warned an Executive Order could be easily rescinded. Stupak now says the Order, as well as statutory law, have been violated:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bff7PLIL49E[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Jill]

Cardinal Dolan must have thought Democrats needed more prayer cover than Republicans. His closing prayer at the Republican National Convention was 544 words, while at the Democratic National Convention it was 700 words. (Text of both here.)

Dolan began his prayer at both conventions with either an intentional or unintentional slight of Islam: “Almighty God, father of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus…” but not  Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son by his wife’s maidservant Hagar, considered Muhammad’s ancestor.

Not many people likely noticed that, but I did, and I’m sure Muslims in the room fumed. (Photo right is of a prayer gathering of 300 Muslims in Charlotte before the launch of the DNC.)

In other words, Cardinal Dolan made sure everyone in the audience – and God – knew he was praying not to some ambiguous deity, of which so many are worshiped in the Democratic Party, particularly earth. It was a quiet, brilliant stroke of loyalty and defiance, IMO.

But moving on.

Many words in both prayers were similar, if not identical.

Those extra words in the Cardinal’s DNC prayer were dedicated to protection of the preborn, sick, elderly,  religious freedom, and traditional marriage. He apparently thought he didn’t need to say so much at the RNC:

We ask your benediction upon those yet to be born, and on those who are about to see you at the end of this life….

Almighty God, who gives us the sacred and inalienable gift of life, we thank you as well for the singular gift of liberty. Renew in all of our people a respect for religious freedom in full, that first most cherished freedom….

May we know the truth of your creation, respecting the laws of nature and nature’s God, and not seek to replace it with idols of our own making. Give us the good sense not to cast aside the boundaries of righteous living you first inscribed in our hearts even before inscribing them on tablets of stone. May you mend our every flaw, confirming our soul in self-control, our liberty in law.

But DNC attendees got a bigger dose:

Help us to see that a society’s greatness is found above all in the respect it shows for the weakest and neediest among us.

We beseech you, almighty God to shed your grace on this noble experiment in ordered liberty, which began with the confident assertion of inalienable rights bestowed upon us by you: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thus do we praise you for the gift of life. Grant us the courage to defend it, life, without which no other rights are secure. We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected. Strengthen our sick and our elders waiting to see your holy face at life’s end, that they may be accompanied by true compassion and cherished with the dignity due those who are infirm and fragile.

We praise and thank you for the gift of liberty. May this land of the free never lack those brave enough to defend our basic freedoms. Renew in all our people a profound respect for religious liberty: the first, most cherished freedom bequeathed upon us at our Founding….

We praise and thank you for granting us the life and the liberty by which we can pursue happiness. Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature’s God. Empower us with your grace so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community…

With your grace, may all Americans choose wisely as we consider the future course of public policy….

Thank you, Cardinal Dolan. Here’s his DNC prayer:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIoSATclypg[/youtube]

There are those who thought Cardinal Dolan shouldn’t attend the DNC, but in my view he was following Jesus’ example of bringing salt and light to darkness.

What better example could there be of misled Catholics in the Democrat Party in woeful need of shepherding than Caroline Kennedy, who inexplicably stated in her speech last night, “As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously, and today, it is under attack.” What? I felt so sad watching her.

[Top photo via wbobraadio.com; second photo via NBC; bottom photo via USA Today]

When I got pregnant, everything changed. The partying is long gone. I’m a new person.

~ MTV’s Jersey Shore star Snooki, sharing the positive effect of being a mother in an interview with People, September 5

(During her first ultrasound Snooki said her baby looked like “a little meatball,” hence the title of the post.)

[HT: Laura Loo]

When even liberals and the mainstream media think the Democratic National Convention has turned into an abortion-palooza, it must really be blatant.

Apparently even ideologically aligned reporters have their breaking point on abortion promotion. To wit…

Pro-abortion New York Times columnist David Brooks, after Day 1:

The one cavil I will have … is this speech has – [it] reinforces something we’ve heard all night, which was how much the crowd goes crazy and how passionate they are about abortion and gay marriage and the social issues. And tonight has been about that.

And to me it should have been a lot more about economics, growth, and debt. And that better be the job of day two and day three because they did not do it here.

How “crazy” was the crowd for abortion?

Pretty sick. More from NBC News:

[P]erhaps the most surprising part of last night was that it had more talk about abortion rights than in any Democratic convention since 1992, the first of many self-described “Year of the Woman” campaign years….

It’s clear Democrats and the Obama campaign were sending the not-so-subtle message that they believe the secret formula to capitalizing on the gender gap: talk about women’s rights and women’s choices. But that strategy also carries the potential risk of alienating Democratic voters who might oppose abortion rights.

And from the Washington Post’s Melinda Henneberger:

I have NEVER heard this much about abortion as in that hall last night, even if you throw in every homily of my life. Every other event is sponsored by [Planned Parenthood] or EMILY’s List. Then I moderated a panel for the outnumbered but undaunted pro-life [Democrats], where the panelists were asked by Salon what’s not to love about abortefacients and by Red State how come they like the infanticide president so much. America is evenly divided on this issue, but are ANY swing voters watching speech after convention speech?

And an op ed posted at CNN:

But the constant reference to abortion rights Tuesday night was at risk of coming off too strong. Abortion is a complex, painful issue that touches upon faith, gender and class.

It is not a matter that lends itself well to electioneering. More importantly, there’s a danger that in pushing the “war on women,” Obama may seem distracted from the real challenges facing America. Jobs, debt and health care are what matter most to voters in 2012. It’s still the economy, Mr. President.

That was just Day 1. On to Day 2, when the DNC aportion-palooza featured Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards and Georgetown birth control beggar Sandra Fluke. From ABC News:

It’s impossible to understate the prominence that women’s issues, in particular abortion rights, has played on the convention stage over the last two days.

Tonight I’ll be surprised if abortion gets much of a mention. Democrat movers and shakers read the papers, too. If abortion is mentioned, it will likely be in code, “reproductive choice,” or “reproductive healthcare,” etc.

I think what we’re seeing is a perfect storm.

Democrats recognize abortion is no longer a winning issue, so they have panicked and are overreaching. If they say nothing, they lose. If they say only as much as they’ve ever said, they lose. So they must say more.

In addition, so many pro-life Democrats have been weeded out of the Party, thanks to the political ramifications of Obamacare, there is no voice of temperance left to stop abortion proponents from pushing their agenda full throttle.

The consequences of the abortion push so far? According to Reuters this afternoon:

So far, U.S. President Barack Obama has not received much of a bounce yet in popular support from the Democratic National Convention, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Thursday.

The latest daily tracking poll found Republican Mitt Romney still clinging to a narrow lead of 45% to Obama’s 44% among likely voters. Romney had led by 46% to 44% in Wednesday’s poll.

“We’re not seeing a sort of glimmer, at this point, of a bump,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark….

“I do think we probably will see a small bump still…. I think it will be very modest,” Clark said.

And then what do abortion proponents do? Polls were showing before the convention the “war on women” meme wasn’t helping Obama among women, it was, and, in fact, was hurting him.

Will they keep trying?

UPDATE 9/7, 7a: Further thoughts on the perfect storm…

There are also those liberals who honestly fear they are going to lose the “right” to abort and that Republicans are going to ban contraception, and who honestly believe Romney is out to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood (when he meant “defund”).

Then there is Planned Parenthood, which has embedded itself into the upper echelons of the Democrat Party, and which was motivated to push abortion at the DNC simply by greed. Obama has literally become the gatekeeper of taxpayer funding to PP and has plans through Obamacare to open the gate wider. We can be sure PP helped plan the DNC. As The Hill reported yesterday, “Abortion-rights groups have played a prominent role in the Democratic convention.”

by Hans Johnson

September 4: When it was noticed Democrats had removed both “God” and “Jerusalem” from their platform, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin became defensive when called out on it by Fox News’ Brett Baier, claiming Baier was “carping on a trifle”…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0FIyCgmNg[/youtube]

September 4: Charles Krauthammer explained how the platform change was “extremely significant”…

September 5: Seeing a public relations nightmare from his house, President Obama reportedly instructed Democrats to return “God” and “Jerusalem” to the platform, resulting in one of the most embarrassing moments in Democrat Convention history: a chaotic vote, followed by a railroaded decision, followed by boo’s…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8BwqzzqcDs[/youtube]

September 5: Quoting NewsBusters, “Hours later, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz gave CNN an absolutely ridiculous explanation for what transpired resulting in her being mocked for her ‘alternate reality’ by numerous commentators including Anderson Cooper and John King…”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syKF3eqoqQk[/youtube]

Wow. The Susan B. Anthony List has just announced that its ad calling out Barack Obama for his opposition as state senator to the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act will air tonight during the time frame of his acceptance speech for renomination as president at the Democratic National Convention.

The ad, featuring abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, will run on all major networks in the Charlotte, North Carolina, media market, where the convention is being held, at a cost of $42,000.

Here, again, is that ad…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwFIEprF_9Y[/youtube]

SBA List points out in its press release that Obama’s radical support of infanticide in the event a baby survives his or her abortion is just the tip of the ice berg as far as his and the Democrat Party’s extreme positions on abortion go.

Both also oppose bans on sex-selective abortions and abortions after the point the preborn baby can feel pain.

Both support the barbaric partial birth abortion procedure.

Both support taxpayer funded abortion.

All of these are radical positions mainstream Americans find repulsive. The Charlotte Lozier Institute found that 77% of Americans (80% of women) support banning sex-selective abortion. National Right to Life found 63% of Americans support a ban on late-term abortion past the point at which unborn children feel pain.

“We will never get to be a majority again unless we have pro-life Democrats,” argued former Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, who retired in 2010 and is on the board of Democrats for Life.

Thirty-five years ago when the Democrats enjoyed a 292-seat majority in the House, there were 125 anti-abortion Democrats – including a young Rep. Al Gore of Tennessee. Now there are only 17 anti-abortion Democrats and districts such as Gore’s are now represented by anti-abortion Republicans.

~ NBC News, “Anti-abortion Democrats struggle to be heard at Charlotte convention,” September 5

[Photo via NBC]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Of all places, the New York Times highlights a new study which notes how abortion (especially multiple abortions) increases a woman’s risk of preterm birth for later pregnancies:
  

  After controlling for smoking, a history of miscarriage, socioeconomic level and other factors, the investigators found that the risk for very preterm birth — that is, birth at 28 or fewer weeks of gestation — increased with the number of previous abortions a woman had had: a 19 percent increase after one abortion, 69 percent for two, and 278 percent for three.

• An abortionist in Ghana has been caught on video talking a woman into having sex with him in the middle of her abortion. He has apparently done this thousands of times. A documentary of his arrest and operations will be shown on television there:
  

  A medical professional at a quintessentially clean, calm and quiet clinic at Madina in Accra has been arrested for performing illegal abortions and sleeping with thousands of women who have come under his knife.

  “Dr. Joshua Drah” initially denied any charges made against him by the police but was visibly shocked when he was shown a video of his operations.

• The Daily Beast has a long story on Karen Handel’s book about the Planned Parenthood-Komen controversy:
  

  Handel says Komen had “ongoing discussions with Planned Parenthood” about the issue, even exchanging proposed public statements. She says the presidents of both Planned Parenthood and Komen made an agreement not to take the issue to the press. Cecile Richards, the Planned Parenthood president, broke the deal, she says, going to the press before Komen had made a public statement and launching “an unprecedented, premeditated assault on a women’s health organization, while at the same time claiming to be a women’s health organization.” (Planned Parenthood has denied going to the press.) …

  Handel also points to an important internal glitch at Komen after the decision was made, but before an official statement was released. She says a call came in from the Associated Press asking about the Planned Parenthood grant, as the news had apparently been leaked. Handel says Komen’s head of communications didn’t stick to the planned script — namely, that Komen was simply restructuring its grants. “We had no intention of ever making ‘investigations’ the public narrative or mentioning it with the press,” Handel writes in the book. “Unfortunately, someone would eventually do so — Komen’s own communications vice president, Leslie Aun.”

• Kevin Williamson notes overhearing a conversation among the staff of a mainstream media outlet at the DNC convention who believe images of aborted children are fake:
  

  So the geniuses in the tent next door were declaring that these images are somehow fake or exaggerated (what do you think a baby a few months away from birth looks like chopped up), and were complaining that the pro-life protesters should not be allowed to bring their children along. Specifically, one lady said, “That’s child abuse!”

  It takes a special kind of moral illiteracy to look at that poster of a small person butchered and then to conclude that bringing your kids along to protest that state-sanctioned violence is the child abuse.

[Image via mediabistro.com]