Mitt Romney

Ethics of the Left Versus Biblical Ethics (Peas and Roses)

Published by Papa Giorgio

“When a man ceases to believe in God he does not believe in nothing, he believes almost in anything.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

This is an old story, but I wanted to get it onto my site for reference. It comes from Daily Caller’s Wesley J. Smith, nd is the forefront of vegan/vegetarian “ethics.”

Just when you thought things could not get any weirder: Last Sunday, The New York Times — of course! — ran a piece in its Sunday opinion section by a university professor — of course! — claiming that it is unethical to eat certain plants. [The piece is entitled, “If Peas Can Talk, Should We Eat Them?“]

According to Michael Marder, recent discoveries show that peas communicate with each other through their root systems and soil. Of course, being plants, pea “communication” doesn’t involve the least level of sentience, not to mention rationality. It is a purely chemical response to environmental stimuli.

But should pea chemical communication elevate the moral value of peas? Yes, according to Marder (my emphasis):

When it comes to a plant, it turns out to be not only a what but also a who — an agent in its milieu, with its own intrinsic value or version of the good. Inquiring into justifications for consuming vegetal beings thus reconceived, we reach one of the final frontiers of dietary ethics.

Good grief. Plants aren’t “beings” and “who” equates to personhood. But plants don’t have any “version of the good — or for that matter, the bad: They are plants!

Marder then claims that plant sophistication means we should not eat them unless they live for several growing seasons:

The “renewable” aspects of perennial plants may be accepted by humans as a gift of vegetal being and integrated into their diets. But it would be harder to justify the cultivation of peas and other annual plants, the entire being of which humans devote to externally imposed ends.

I hate to repeat myself, but good grief! People are starving in the world and Marder worries about the ethics of eating peas and carrots! Worse, the piece runs with all due respect in the Sunday opinion section of the nation’s Paper of Record! (Yes, I’m yelling.)

…read it all and try not to yell!

In another article Wesley J. Smith in National Review mentions this new frontier of ethics in speaking about the 20123 elections, and Romney’s father’s “MURDEROUS” heart!

I just saw a funny Tweet from @jimnorton, in which he “condemns” Mitt Romney’s father for “murdering roses” when he placed one on his wife’s bedstand every night. (Romney scored emotionally in last night’s speech when he recalled that his mother found out his father had died because the rose was missing.) Thing is, Norton’s jibe is not quite as off the wall as some might think. Switzerland has, for instance, placed the “dignity” of individual plants in its constitution. The government then asked a big brained bioethics commission to explain why individual plants have dignity (they share molecular material with us), and the commission gave an example of a terrible immoral action. From my Weekly Standard column, “The Scream of the Asparagus:”

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer’s herd–the report doesn’t say). But then, while walking home, he casually “decapitates” some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel decries this act as immoral, though its members can’t agree why. The report states, opaquely: At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves.

So, according to this crowd, George Romney apparently did murder roses–worse, put out a contract for daily rosicide!

After referencing the other article about peas that he [Smith] wrote, he ends with this:

Then there is the growing “nature rights” movement. My point is that @jimnorton thought he was being funny–and he was. But some take such nonsense seriously. That’s what happens when you reject human exceptionalism. You go–pardon the animalism–nuts!

…read it all…

Some 2012 Election Narratives About Romney Dismantled

Published by Papa Giorgio

Generosity = True Character!

BIDEN (Politico):

When the Obama campaign released past tax returns for Biden in 2008, it was revealed that the Bidens donated just $3,690 to charity over 10 years — an average of $369 a year.

OBAMA (WaPo):

♦ 2005: $77,315 to charity out of income of $1.66 million (4.6 percent)

♦ 2004: $2,500 out of $207,647 (1.2 percent)

♦ 2003: $3,400 out of $238,327 (1.4 percent)

♦ 2002: $1,050 out of $259,394 (0.4 percent)

The slightly longer video/audio of the below can be found here… I cut out the Benghazi commentary for this posting. This was originally uploaded to my MRCTV account in September 26, 2012:

From Video Description:

Larry Elder leads off with small talk about Hollywood’s silence on censorship, he plays SNL’s skit about undecided voters (video included)…. Then “The Sage” settles into his forte… stats. Quoting liberal sources he dissects Jonathan Karl’s ABC report (video included) and the general lunacy of the legacy media in stacking the deck against Romney. Long, but worth listening to.

For stories related to this report from Jonathan, see NewsBusters:

  1. ABC’s Karl Dissembles on Romney’s Tax Rate, But NBC Points Out He Pays Higher Percent Than Middle Class
  2. Nets Use Romney’s Taxes to Advance Obama’s False ‘Fairness’ Narrative

For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: http://www.larryelder.com/

Obama’s Defense Secretary/CIA Director, Leon Panetta: Iraq Withdrawal

Published by Papa Giorgio

Former Obama Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta told CBS News that some U.S. troops should have remained in Iraq. Panetta spoke with Scott Pelley in a segment that aired Friday.

✿ Scott Pelley: Were you confident in that moment that pulling out was the right thing to do?

✿ Leon Panetta: No, I wasn’t. I really, I really thought that it was important for us to maintain a presence in Iraq.

But, Barack Obama overruled Panetta and withdrew all troops from Iraq in 2012 – one of the biggest foreign policy errors in US history.

 

So what do we have so far in foreign affairs? So far we have Bush warning about pulling troops out of Iraq too soon and its disastrous effects; Sen. John McCain also said this troop withdrawal was bad mojo; Glenn Beck warning of ISIS years ago; Obama ridding himself of senior military staff that were involved in Iraqi success; Mitt Romney said it was counter to his plan in the 2012 election debates to pull troops from Iraq; Russia is now buzzing Alaska regularly with it’s nuclear bombers, as well as Europe — but both Romney AND Palin warned of Russia while Obama joked that the 80’s called and want their foreign policy back; Romney was right on Syria; from Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” when Romeny said Jeep was going to China (he was right), to Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels” ~ time-and-time again the Obama admin’s/Democrats direction for the country has been shown to be wrong, misguided, and dangerous. When will people get it? 

Obama Took Credit BEFORE He Was Against Taking Credit

Published by Papa Giorgio

Obama is SUCH a joke! HotAir has this:

….A dandy little edit here by the Free Beacon, via Ace. I know I’ve linked it before but the piece you want to read as accompaniment is Iraq hawk turned dove Peter Beinart lamenting all the ways Obama screwed up post-Bush American policy in the country. O wants you to believe at the end of the video here that he pushed hard to keep a residual American force inside Iraq for counterterrorism (i.e. counter-ISIS) operations but it’s simply not true. He didn’t push hard for it; when Maliki initially resisted his demand that U.S. troops be granted immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, O took that as his cue to pull everyone out. And that wasn’t the only time he indulged Maliki’s dumbest impulses. The story of the U.S. vis-a-vis Iraq after 2009, writes Beinart, is a story of disinterest and disengagement:

The decline of U.S. leverage in Iraq simply reinforced the attitude Obama had held since 2009: Let Maliki do whatever he wants so long as he keeps Iraq off the front page.

On December 12, 2011, just days before the final U.S. troops departed Iraq, Maliki visited the White House. According to Nasr, he told Obama that Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, an Iraqiya leader and the highest-ranking Sunni in his government, supported terrorism. Maliki, argues Nasr, was testing Obama, probing to see how the U.S. would react if he began cleansing his government of Sunnis. Obama replied that it was a domestic Iraqi affair. After the meeting, Nasr claims, Maliki told aides, “See! The Americans don’t care.”

In public remarks after the meeting, Obama praised Maliki for leading “Iraq’s most inclusive government yet.” Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq, another Sunni, told CNN he was “shocked” by the president’s comments. “There will be a day,” he predicted, “whereby the Americans will realize that they were deceived by al-Maliki … and they will regret that.”

And now the day has come. Remember that the next time O walks out to the podium and acts indignant about Maliki clinging to power.

One more bit, this from Dexter Filkins, on just how much of a fight O put up in demanding a residual troop presence:

President Obama, too, was ambivalent about retaining even a small force in Iraq. For several months, American officials told me, they were unable to answer basic questions in meetings with Iraqis—like how many troops they wanted to leave behind—because the Administration had not decided. “We got no guidance from the White House,” Jeffrey told me. “We didn’t know where the President was. Maliki kept saying, ‘I don’t know what I have to sell.’ ” At one meeting, Maliki said that he was willing to sign an executive agreement granting the soldiers permission to stay, if he didn’t have to persuade the parliament to accept immunity. The Obama Administration quickly rejected the idea. “The American attitude was: Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible,” Sami al-Askari, the Iraqi member of parliament, said…

(read more)

(Still the Lynn University campus debate via WaPo)

  • Romney: “With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement,”
  • Obama: “That’s not true,”
  • Romney: “Oh, you didn’t want a status of forces agreement?”
  • Obama: “No,” … “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.”

Some other things Mitt got right and “O” didn’t:

Obama Admins Jayvee [Jr. Varsity] Foreign Policy (Megyn Kelly is PRO)

Published by Papa Giorgio

H/T Gateway Pundit

He was against status of forces agreement before Iraq was against it. FromThe Washington Post:

President Obama surprised a few people during a news conference Thursday by claiming that the 2011 decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, a politically popular move on the eve of an election year, was made entirely by his Iraqi counterpart. The implication ran counter to a number of claims that Obama has made in the past, most notably during a tight campaign season two years ago, when he suggested that it was his decision to leave Iraq and end an unpopular war.

His remarks, coming as an Islamist insurgency seizes territory across northern Iraq and threatens the central government, recalled key moments in his reelection race when he called his opponent hopelessly out of step with Middle East realities for wanting to keep U.S. forces in the still-fragile country America had invaded nearly a decade earlier.

In the 2012 campaign’s stretch, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney met inside the performing arts center of Lynn University for the last of three presidential debates. The race remained close, and in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA-run annex in Benghazi, Libya, the Romney team saw foreign policy as an area of potential vulnerability for the incumbent. The debate focused on the issue.

For much of that election year, Obama had included a line of celebration in his standard stump speech, one that among an electorate exhausted by more than a decade of war always drew a rousing applause: “Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq,” Obama proclaimed in Bowling Green, Ohio, in September 2012, and did nearly every day after until the election. “We did.”…

…con’t below…

(Still the Lynn University campus debate via WaPo)

  • Romney: “With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement,”
  • Obama: “That’s not true,”
  • Romney: “Oh, you didn’t want a status of forces agreement?”
  • Obama: “No,” … “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.”

Politifact Tells Whoppers! 2012 Lie of the Year

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Breitbart’s article, “Reuters Debunks Politifact; Fiat Will Build Jeeps in China”

On Sunday, Reuters reported Fiat and Chrysler, which Fiat owns, are on the verge of signing an agreement to produce Jeeps in China, and they may make the announcement as early as Monday at the Detroit Auto Show: 

Italian carmaker Fiat and its U.S. unit Chrysler are set to sign a new agreement with Guangzhou Automobile Group Co to produce the Jeep vehicle for the Chinese market, Il Corriere della Sera said on Sunday.

In an unsourced article, the Corriere said the head of Fiat and Chrysler Sergio Marchionne could announce the agreement at the Detroit auto show, which kicks off on Monday.

Under the agreement, off-road vehicles under the Jeep brand will be produced at GAC’s Canton factory, the paper said.

This report debunks the supposedly neutral fact-checking organization Politifact’s claim that Mitt Romney’s campaign advertisement during the 2012 that alleged Obama sold Chrysler to Italians “who are going to build Jeeps in China” was 2012’s “Lie of the Year.”

Politifact announced that Mitt Romney’s “Jeep” ad was its “2012 Lie of the Year” even though the ad was factually true. 

Romney slightly misspoke on the stump about Fiat’s intention to produce Jeeps in China, but reports about Fiat, which owns Chrysler, building Jeeps in China surfaced as early as 2010. And the campaign ad simply stated: 

Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.

Even liberal publications like Mother Jones and mainstream newspapers like the Washington Post conceded the advertisement was factually true or true on the merits. 

This is not the first time Politifact’s “lie of the year” has been completely debunked after the fact. 

In 2009, Politifact announced that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s claim about “death panels” in Obamacare was its “Lie of the Year.” After Palin revealed what Rush Limbaugh said was a “hidden truth,” the Obama administration removed the so-called “death panels” from its initial Obamacare bill. And three years later, former Obama adviser Steve Rattner, in a New York Times op-ed, said the country actually needed “death panels” to ration health care.

…read more…

Here are some FACTS about death panels from an older post: Kirsten Powers says in this interview/debate that Bush made this law, Gateway Pundit has this correction:

Republican analyst Matt Schlapp corrected this latest lie [right around the 6:40 mark] by the Obama Administration. Bush vetoed the end of life provision that went into law in 2008.

[….]

RedState has more.

What The Hill’s Jason Millman forgot to mention in his article was that President Bush VETOED the 2008 bill and the Democrats, along with some “good-willed” Republicans OVERRODE Bush’s veto forcing him to sign the legislation into law. The bill dealt with doctors’ reimbursements and more, but the Democrats slipped in the end-of-life planning by opening up the Social Security Act, which I have stated many times is dangerous, because once changed, it is difficult to amend again and allows for tinkering with the Medicare fee schedule and covered services definitions and requirements.

The fact that the Obama Administration claimed that the Bush Administration supported the end of life provision is a complete lie. And, they know it.

My Prediction for the 2012 Election ~ 331 Electorals for Mitt (32-States)

Published by Papa Giorgio

 Taking the final leap and predictions. Sooo much fun. Enjoy tomorrow everyone… and remember, as much as we agree and disagree — this is the best system on the planet to choose our next elected officials.

★ Our American government has lasted over 200 years. Having a government, in any form, lasting this long is unheard of. For example, in the last 200 years France has had seven forms of government and Italy has had forty-eight.