Souter May Become First Victim of "Lost Liberty"
June 28, 2005
Logan Darrow Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, has petitioned the town of Weare, NH to build a hotel at 34 Cilley Hill Road. This would be an everyday non-event until one considers the person residing there now, Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
Clements argues that the city of Weare will receive much greater tax revenue with a hotel on this property, and would therefore benefit from the enforcement of immanent domain. This, of course, is the argument behind the recent Kelo v. City of New London case which was supported by Souter.
Freestar Media, LLC: “The proposed development, called ‘The Lost Liberty Hotel’ will feature the ‘Just Desserts Cafe’ and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel ‘Atlas Shrugged.’”
We at Opinion Times would like to see the Gideon Bible remain, but well done Mr. Clements anyway! This would be an appropriate monument to the excesses of Supreme Court hegemony over the actual language and intent of the Constitution.
Maybe the same thing could be done at 125 Broad Street in New York City at the ACLU headquarters. Just think of it: a brand new hotel bringing in more tax revenue per square foot than office space. On the first floor is the new home of New York Evangelical College with adjacent Court House which hangs the Ten Commandments above the bench.
Read the press release here.
Hat Tip: Drudge Report.
Sphere: Related ContentEconomist: Religious Just Starting Rise
June 24, 2005
Economist.com gives its take on the rise of the “Religious Right” in American politics.
“Religious America’s switch to the right is rooted in two things: liberal over-reach and conservative organisation. The consistent whinge from the Christian right about “liberal activist judges” exceeding their mandate contains a kernel of truth. In the 1960s and 1970s, judges changed America from a country where every school day began with a prayer, and abortion and pornography were frowned on, to a country where school prayer was banned and both abortion and pornography were protected by the constitution.The fact that the courts were running so far ahead of public opinion in a generally religious country bolstered the religious right in two ways. It provoked white evangelicals to join the political fray. And it persuaded all religious types to bond together. Protestants and Catholics, who used to be at loggerheads, have now found common ground, especially on abortion. “
This is not just a passing fad but the result of more than 25 years of effort which has led to a more mature and diverse Christian response to political and legal actions. President Reagan’s move to remove the Fairness Doctrine which led to the rise of Rush Limbaugh and a slew of conservative radio talk shows and the emergence of the blogs has also facilitated the rise of Social and Evangelical Conservatives.
The gains which took fruit in 2004 have not yet consolidated, but a successful 2006 election in Congress and with various Senate and Governors’ races could change the political landscape for the proceeding 20-25 years.
Sphere: Related ContentDurbin on a Bad Run
June 24, 2005
IowaHawk has found evidence that Dick Durbin is having a bad run in the customer service area. Thankfully, these few samples give us an example of patience and tolerance from one of our Senate leaders.
Sphere: Related ContentGreen Counter-revolution
June 24, 2005
Zach Wendling opines about Kelo:
“Now that development interests official[ly] trump property rights, I think it’s natural to wonder, ‘What trumps development interests?’ “
This makes me consider that now with government help I can get rid of my pesky neighbors and get that green space my boys have been craving!
PowerLine gives George Will’s opinion on the decision.
Sphere: Related ContentNobel Prize Nominee Says Terri Schiavo was Able to See
June 21, 2005
Confirming the suspicions of some, a Nobel Prize nominated Doctor confirms that Terri Schiavo was aware and not blind when she was killed in a Florida hospice. Dr. William Hammesfahr, a Florida neurologist, disputed some of the autopsy results in a recent interview.
LifeNews.com Unlike the constant drumbeat from the husband, his attorneys, and his doctors, the brain tissue was not dissolved, with a head of just spinal fluid,” Hammesfahr explained. “In fact, large areas were ‘relatively preserved.’”“Obviously, the pathologists comments that she could not see were not borne out by reality,” he said.
“The autopsy results confirmed my opinion … that the frontal areas of the brains, the areas that deal with awareness and cognition were relatively intact,” Hammesfahr added.
As a result, the Florida physician said Terri likely had little trouble with her eyesight in the years leading up to her death.
“In fact, the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal regions of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved, thus the evident responses which she was able to express to her family and to the clinicians seeing her or viewing her videotape,” he said.
The Doctor also noted the autopsy did not verify Terri’s husband Michael’s claim that she suffered a heart attack nor did it rule out physical abuse as the cause of her collapse and loss of oxygen back in 1991 which resulted in her deteriorated neurological condition.
Hammesfahr pointed out that the autopsy shows Terri’s collapse was not the result of bulimia, eating disorders or a heart attack. That leaves open the possibility that Terri’s collapse could have been the result of physical abuse.“As we noted in the press, there was no heart attack, or evident reason for this to have happened (and certainly not of Terri’s making),” he said.
He also indicated that the autopsy did not completely check for all types of physical abuse and he and a neurologist for Michael both agreed neck injuries were present.
Unfortunately, a woman who was fully mentally aware was destroyed by a court system unwilling to make life the ultimate test of good law. By refusing to embrace the concept of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” a rogue judge destroyed innocent human life. And by neglecting the enumerated executive power given to him, the Florida Governor sat back and watched it happen allowing the question to remain open: will we as a society ever again value the concept of life as the foundational principle of our freedoms?
Housing Market: What’s Next
June 20, 2005
. . . MaxedOutMama has her take and some research.
Durbin: Guantanamo is Cruel, Not Partial Birth Abortion
June 20, 2005
Robert Knight of Concerned Women of America points out an interesting fact left out of Sen. Dick Durbin’s (R-IL) recent comments suggesting the Guantanamo Bay prisoner facility is cruel and inhumane to suspected terrorist prisoners captured on the battlefield. He believes that taking a baby from its mother’s womb, sucking out its brains and discarding it is not cruelty.
Read about it here.
Sphere: Related ContentDry Creek Chronicles
June 20, 2005
Here’s a great new blog I came across today: Dry Creek Chronicles.
Cheaper by the Dozen–Plus Four
June 20, 2005
Arkansas State Representative Jim Bob Dugger and his wife are expecting a new child, and it will bring their family up to sixteen children.
Now that’s family values!
Sphere: Related ContentEditorial Writers Claim Religious Discriminiation
June 16, 2005
The Indianapolis Star, a Gannett Co. newspaper, has been charged with religious discrimination in a lawsuit brought by two former editorial writers, James Patterson and Lisa Coffey.
INDIANAPOLIS: “[Patterson and Coffey have charged in court that] top newsroom managers ‘consistently and repeatedly demonstrated … a negative hostility toward Christianity.’”The two are asking to be reinstated at the paper, and be compensated for lost income, benefits, emotional distress and unspecified punitive damages.
“Lisa and I aren’t the only employees that have been driven away from this company and we thought it was time for someone to say, ‘Goodness gracious. This isn’t right,’” Patterson said.
This is consistent with the changes which have taken place at the Star since Gannett purchased Central Newspapers, the former parent company of the Star and the Arizona Republic. The editorial bent has turned decidedly more liberal and news reports have become much less local and more liberally oriented with editorial decisions following the precedent of Gannett’s mega paper, USAToday.
In fairness, the editorial staff maintains two decidedly Christian writers, Russ Pulliam and Lori Borgman. Pulliam is the scion of the paper’s founding family, but his role on the editorial staff has been greatly reduced to general legislative and community commentary. Borgman writes a stay-at-home-mother oriented humor column which is in the Erma Bombeck tradition which sometimes espouses decidedly Christian ethical advice and insight.
The Indianapolis Star (history) was founded in 1903 and was brought to prominence after it was purchased in 1944 by Eugene C. Pulliam. The Pulliam family was a highly influential and conservative voice in the midwest for many years until Pulliam’s son, Eugene S. Pulliam, died in 1999. Shortly thereafter, it was sold to Gannett Co.
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