This Week in the News

As U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is facing incredibly low approval ratings and is bombarded with growing demands to step down, due to her perceived misrepresentations surrounding the waterboarding scandal, the U.K. Speaker of the House, Michael Martin, likewise came under fire, with many voices demanding his resignation, due to a financial scandal involving MPs’ “expense” accounts. But while Martin announced his intent to resign, Pelosi has been defiant until now.

President Obama’s long-awaited meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently had the expected results–namely, that the two leaders did not agree on just about anything substantive.

President Obama’s commencement address at the Catholic University at Notre Dame highlighted again that his position on abortion, stem cell research and other related issues are NOT in accordance with God’s Word–the Bible. His repeated flip flops have begun to anger some of his strongest supporters–civil and human rights groups.

Even his ambitious plan to close Guantánamo suffered a serious setback when the Senate voted 90-6 on Wednesday, May 20, to stall the process (Financial Times, May 21).

In two subsequent speeches on Thursday, May 21, by President Obama and former Vice President Cheney, it became obvious that the divide between the two men and the policies they represent, could not be greater.

President Obama said in his speech that after 9/11, “our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence… And in this season of fear, too many of us – Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens – fell silent. In other words, we went off course…

“I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America. I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation…

“The second decision that I made was to order the closing of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. For over seven years, we have detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo. During that time, the system of Military Commissions at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists… Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setbacks, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system. Meanwhile, over five hundred and twenty-five detainees were released from Guantanamo under the Bush Administration… 

“There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world… our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law…”

Regarding Vice President Cheney’s response, The Associated Press wrote that he defended “the decisions of the Bush administration in dealing with terrorism. Expressing no remorse for the actions the Bush White House had ordered, Cheney said under the same circumstances he would make the same decisions ‘without hesitation.'”

At the same time, we were reminded of the dangers confronting the USA, when four men who were reportedly attempting to “commit jihad,” were arrested in New York “shortly after planting a 37-pound mock explosive device in the trunk of a car outside the Riverdale Temple and two mock bombs in the backseat of a car outside the Riverdale Jewish Center, another synagogue a few blocks away… [They] were charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles” (The Associated Press, May 21).

An earthquake in Los Angeles, which was reputedly of a 4.7 to 5.0 magnitude, brought into focus the very real threat of the “big one.” A court decision, forcing parents to administer certain medical treatments to their 13-year-old child against the parents’ and the boy’s objections emphasizes again the ever-increasing power of the government to enforce its will on the will of the parents in administering certain medical treatments, while exemplifying the obvious contradiction in the government’s position that it is the right of the mother to kill her child through abortion.

The spread of the swine flu is still on the rise, with one expert suggesting that it might have been created in a lab; the Catholic Church is in the news again for allowing despicable child molestation through their priests and nuns to go on for decades in Ireland; and finally, “Ida,” a “missing link” between apes and humans was allegedly found. With this utter nonsense, many seek to give credence to Darwin’s theory of evolution, which has been disproved by some scientists.

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