"Profound hypocrisy of ACC, NCAA and others making business decisions desguised as moral outrage"

The following is taken from a PDF of a letter from Franklin Graham from Boone, NC, to Commissioner John D. Swofford of Atlantic Coast Conference in Greensboro, NC, dated September 15, 2016:

As a lifelong resident of North Carolina and current CEO and president of two organizations employing nearly 1,500 North Carolinians, I am saddened -- even outraged -- by the vote of the ACC Council of Presidents to move conference championships from our state in protest of legislation requiring people to use public bathrooms that correspond with their birth gender.

While I recognize this legislation -- and legislation like it in other states -- is complicated by society's continued blurring of the lines of gender and sexual identity, I also recognize the profound hypocrisy of the ACC, the NCAA and other companies and organizations who are making calculated business decisions disguised as moral outrage.

For example, the football championship game your conference voted to move from Charlotte in December is called the "Dr. Pepper ACC Football Championship." Dr. Pepper and its parent company, Cadbury Schweppes and Carlyle Group, proundly sell their products in countries where homosexuality is illegal. Will ACC drop its title sponsor? And why isn't the LGBT community demanding you sever ties with such a "bigoted" corporate sponsor?

Currently, LGBT relationships are illegal in more than 70 countries -- including 10 where homosexuality is punishable by death. Dr. Pepper is often bottled under contract by Coca-Cola bottlers -- yet Coca-Cola conducts business in virtually every nation on earth, including nearly every country where homosexuality is currently criminalized. Can your conference continue to tolerate that?

The ACC website proudly features Toyota as an "Official Corporate Champion," yet Toyota maintains factories and distribution centers in several of these discriminatory countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Egypt. Where is the moral outrage of the presidents of Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, UNC, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest?

Indeed, the ACC's member schools compete in 25 sports divided by gender -- 12 men's sports and 13 women's. Though gender issues may be becoming more complicated in higher education and other parts of society, the athletic conference you serve as commissioner doesn't seem to have any problem distinguishing between the two genders -- male and female. Yet, when a state like the one I live in seeks to make the same distinction with regard to use of public bathrooms in an effort to protect its citizens from those who would use the men's room today and th women's room tomorrow, the academic elites who comprise your conference fake a moral outrage that is frankly shameful.

Ironically, the NCAA is more discriminatory towards transgender people than the public policy they apparently wish to see as law in America. For example, opponents to legislation like NC House Bill 2 support permitting people to use the bathroom which corresponds to the sex they identify with on a given day -- meaning someone might feel like a man today and a woman tomorrow, switching bathrooms at will.

Yet even the NCAA doesn't allow such casual gender identity for participation in collegiate athletics. The NCAA Policy on Transgender Student-Athlete Participation states, "Any transgender student-athlete who is not taking hormone treatment related to gender transition may participate in sex-separated sports activities in accordance with his or her assigned birth gender."

I think I represent the views of millions who would rather preserve gender-specific public bathrooms -- a mainstay for generations -- than to attend a football game in my state to determine the champion of a conference governed by politically-correct, morally hypocritical academics.

Commissioner, in your statement today you said, "the ACC Council of Presidents made it clear that the core values of this league are of the utmost importance, and wthe opposition to any form of discrimination is paramount. Today's decision is one of principle." Will this same paramount "opposition to any form of discriminatin" have you now sever ties with Toyota and Dr. Pepper?

I am a big sports fan. My only daughter married a college football star that went on to play in the NFL. But I would rather defend the biological definition of the two genders as created by the Creator of the universe than attend -- or even watch on TV -- a football or basketball game to determine the AC champion.

Commissionar Swofford, you maintain your conference's decision is "one of principle" and that "core values ... are of utmost importance." Well, millions of us who oppose your decision do so as a matter of principle and core values -- values of privacy, safety and protection of our sons and daughters in public restooms, and the principle that God created just two genders and assigned them at birth.

Please don't make political pawns of student-athletes who just want to play football or basketball in North Carolina, and don't continue to offend millions of Americans who endorse thousands of years of gender-specific bathrooms while you continue to accept corporate sponsorship money from companies proudly conducting their business in countries that discriminate against homosexuals to the point of death.

Sincerely,

Franklin Graham President & CEO of Samaritan's Purse President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

cc. Presidents of the 15 member schools.

[Hat tip to J.S.]

The imperial judiciary

John Hayward, "The King v. Burwell aftermath" (Breitbart, June 25, 2015):

One of the core problems with a decision like the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell ruling is that it does the opposite of what a Supreme Court presided over by justices-for-life is supposed to do.

As Chief Justice Roberts makes abundantly clear in his ruling, he looked at politics, not the law, concluding that upholding the clear text of the Affordable Care Act would have killed it, and inflicted chaos on a health insurance system already driven mad by ObamaCare.

He made a political judgment – with copious pressure from President Obama and his followers, and the weight of his own previous decision to put politics above the law to preserve the individual mandate – that the Affordable Care Act was a writ of nearly-unlimited power to do what its framers say they want to accomplish today, not a law with a balance of both power and responsibility based on what it said at the moment it was signed.

This is a very bad precedent to set, especially if Roberts’ reasoning is followed to the conclusion that the bigger and more ambiguously-written a law is, the more untrammeled executive power it grants. No matter what ultimately becomes of ObamaCare, that will come back to haunt us in many other contexts in the future.

... I am of the opinion that tough political outcomes are a burden worth bearing to preserve the rule of law, but here we are instead: Democrats doing a creepy “ALL DEBATE IS NOW OVER!” victory dance to celebrate the Constitution-smashing preservation of a law the American people don’t like, whose passage has already blown them into a congressional minority, and which they own 100 percent. It would be easier to maintain optimism about Republicans fighting on such favorable political terrain if they had demonstrated an institutional talent for fighting winning battles on solid ground, and doing important things with the power thus obtained.

The American people are getting a raw deal out of ObamaCare, but the President was not wrong when he crowed today that the law is working the way he wanted it to. The American system has been bent and twisted beyond recognition by the agonizing pain of digesting a law that conflicts with such basic values as the freedom of religion, and even the freedom to decline engaging in commerce. The “consent of the governed” matters less than ever. The amount of money sucked down by ObamaCare and distributed to the government’s Little Partners in the insurance industry is staggering. A huge swath of the formerly independent middle class is now helplessly dependent on subsidy payments, whose termination can be threatened if they get any funny ideas about putting the Leviathan State on a diet.

... The Left will redouble its efforts to silence and marginalize Americans who are suffering under ObamaCare..... Most people get a queasy feeling when they hear the phrase “the ends justify the means.” They know that’s wrong, and they know those words have been cited to justify tyranny and evil. The Roberts decision is wholly based on that idea. The American system was founded on the opposite ideal: that the ends do not justify the means, the system should not be shredded to impose a “good idea” with haste, the rule of law is more important than any goal that could be achieved by discarding it.

... A “law” that imposes no restraint or obligation on the government, not even the need to respect the plain text of the law itself, contains a payload of power that should be unacceptable to every patriotic American. Sometimes Republicans talk about the Constitution as an object of worship, an abstract idea they hold in reverence, without discussing its practical effect upon the real world. Well, Chief Justice Roberts just gave us a very powerful example of how the abandonment of Constitutional principle disrupts the everyday lives of ordinary people. Use it.

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

I guess none of this matters anymore?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/. Check it out. We had this running during a single class period today at the seminary, and the amount that the debt mounted in that hour-and-a-half was simply staggering. I was under the illusion that the national debt was still around $14 million. I guess that must have been last week. But it's all just electronic digits, so it doesn't really matter, right? Right? Right? Of course the stock market is up so we're in the middle of a reasonable "recovery," right? Right? Right? Oh, that's all electronic digits too? Well what does that mean, then? He who dies with the most debt on his credit card "wins"? What a noble example our government sets for our children!

One seminarian told me that he checks this every morning the first thing after he wakes up, though I'm not at all sure as to his sincerity. Wouldn't this give you an ulcer after watching it too long? Or should one regard it as something more like a video game. Would any of you like it as a screen saver? Or perhaps a background on your desktop? Do you sleep better each night knowing that our dear leader has the best golf handicap of any of our presidents so far? The US Debt Clock has made me a bit dizzy. Think I probably should turn in for the night. Cheers. Have a restful evening.

Here's a video from last year, back when the debt was about $1 trillion less. Enjoy:

Received your Obamacare Pharmacy Discount cards yet?

I just did. Unsolicited. The card had no personal information on it, but promised significant discounts at all major pharmacies.

Those of us who know there is no such thing as a "free lunch" are bound to be curious. I visited our friend Google, and turned up this: Michael Todd, "Are Those Healthcare Alliance Cards You Got in the Mail a Scam?" (Pacific Standard, March 29, 2013).

Liberal Evangelical Ron Sider resigns from AARP

Mark Tooley's article (American Spectator, February 22, 2013) reports:

Unlike many figures of the Evangelical and Religious Left, Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA) has sustained an integrity that many conservatives have grudgingly admired. Unlike many of his activist cohorts, he has not prevaricated on Christian teachings about sex, marriage, or abortion. And unlike many of his fellow religionists on the left, Sider has maintained a rigorous concern for the global persecution of Christians when others prefer silence over criticism of Islamist or communist regimes.

Now Sider, as he nears retirement from 40 years as ESA founder and head, has again distinguished himself by dissenting from the Religious Left on the untouchable sacredness of the federal welfare and entitlement state. Sider has very publicly resigned from the Association of Retired People (AARP) to protest its refusal to compromise on entitlement reform.

Calling AARP “selfish and guilty of intergenerational injustice,” Sider chides the self-professed lobby for seniors over its adamant opposition to any reform of Social Security and Medicare. He notes that the “federal government spends about $4 on every senior over 65 and only $1 on every child under 18.” And he notes that the 22 percent poverty rate for children percent is much higher than the 9.7 percent rate for seniors.

A little perspective: How does the Vatican budget compare to Harvard's?

John L. Allen, Jr., "Harvard's Budget Ten Times that of Vatican" (First Thoughts, March 19, 2013):

“The Vatican has an annual operating budget of under $300 million, while Harvard University, arguably the Vatican of elite secular opinion, has a budget of $3.7 billion, meaning it’s ten times greater. The Vatican’s ‘patrimony,’ what other institutions would call an endowment, is around $1 billion. In this case, Harvard’s ahead by a robust factor of thirty, with an endowment of $30.7 billion.”

Just putting things in a little perspective.

[Hat tip to J.M.]

Fiscally we're the healthiest-looking horse in the glue factory

I wonder. Are we capable anymore of being fiscally RESPONSIBLE as a nation? We hear that "creating jobs" is the real problem. But what can government do about creating jobs if it's bankrupt?

We hear that the Cypriot government is preparing to expropriate their citizens bank accounts in order to bailout their debts. As the dominoes tumble, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland could be next?

Our administration is running up the national credit card by the TRILLIONS, like it's hooked on crack cocaine, with no expressed intention of doing anything to pay it back (but leave it to the next generation to pay off).

And a majority of American's still think that a revenue neutral budget passed by the House entails unconscionable injustice and hardship, because it doesn't add over another trillion-dollar spending increase like the new Senate budget?!!

Lord, help us.

In the meantime, the Fed continues pumping funny money money into the market (currency backed by precisely ... nothing), deflating the value of the dollars in everyone's paychecks, bank accounts, and retirement portfolios. Will we ever learn? Yes, of course. But most likely only when it's too late.


And then there's THIS from Mr. Obama's first term in office:

Of Hamsters and Sequesters

George Will, "The manufactured crisis of sequester" (Washington Post, February 22, 2013):

Even during this desultory economic recovery, one industry thrives — the manufacture of synthetic hysteria. It is, however, inaccurate to accuse the Hysteric in Chief of crying “Wolf!” about spending cuts under the sequester. He is actually crying “Hamster!”

As in: Batten down the hatches — the sequester will cut $85 billion from this year’s $3.6 trillion budget! Or: Head for the storm cellar — spending will be cut 2.3 percent! Or: Washington chain-saw massacre — we must scrape by on 97.7 percent of current spending! Or: Chaos is coming because the sequester will cut a sum $25 billion larger than was just shoveled out the door (supposedly, but not actually) for victims of Hurricane Sandy! Or: Heaven forfend, the sequester will cut 47 percent as much as was spent on the AIG bailout! Or: Famine, pestilence and locusts will come when the sequester causes federal spending over 10 years to plummet from $46 trillion all the way down to $44.8 trillion! Or: Grass will grow in the streets of America’s cities if the domestic agencies whose budgets have increased 17 percent under President Obama must endure a 5 percent cut!

The sequester has forced liberals to clarify their conviction that whatever the government’s size is at any moment, it is the bare minimum necessary to forestall intolerable suffering. At his unintentionally hilarious hysteria session Tuesday, Obama said: The sequester’s “meat-cleaver approach” of “severe,” “arbitrary” and “brutal” cuts will “eviscerate” education, energy and medical research spending. “And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf.”

Read more >>

[Hat tip to J.M.]

OWN IT: Top 5 States to be Hit Hardest by 2013 Tax Increases -- Supported Obama!

Sad but true: Christopher Goins, "Sandy-Ravaged New Jersey Families Face $6,933 Tax Hike in Fiscal Cliff Stalemate" (CSNews.com, November 12, 2012).

Working class grows a bit testy?

"How do I qualify for ... ?"

[Hat tip to R.B.]

"Before it's too late"? You gotta be kidding!

Related: The Forgotton Man

The U.S. budget we don't want to face

[Hat tip to M. Liccione]

Related: "-$1,330,000,000,000.00..."

"By now, pay later" gone to seed

Drudge Report ran a banner beginning yesterday, which reads:

"Happy Holidays: USA DEBT NOW $15,123,841,000,000!"

So shop till you drop, eh? He who dies with the most debt wins? Out of sight, out of mind? Does anyone imagine that we shall be able to continue thus indefinitely without eventually running smack into the brick wall of reality?

It's not just the economy, but still . . .

There are certainly other, even more fundamental issues besides the economy, such as the fact that people have forgotten God, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in his Harvard University address decades ago after being exiled from the U.S.S.R.

Still, the economy is to religion a bit like the brain is to the mind, or like the body is to the soul, a sort of corporeal life support system. Without it, the New Evangelization has no corporeal vehicles to preach the Gospel.

The gravity of the current situation is made crystal clear by Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, shows [http://youtu.be/Xwv5EbxXSmE].

Then, too, one recalls how the material collapse of civilizations in times past -- certainly as recorded in the Old Testament -- was often a consequence of God's judgment upon spiritual apostasy, i.e., "whoring after false Gods."

[Hat tip to C.B.]

National debt in perspective

Related

New national debt data: It's growing about $3 million a minute, even during his vacation (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 23, 2011): Obama sets record: $4,247,000,000,000 debt in just 945 days...

Drudge: Barackalypse Now

No, it's not like the smell of Napalm in the morning, and it doesn't smell like ... victory. It smells like overly-ripe bananas ... or like the United States, along with the countries of the E.U., turning into China's rotting banana republics.

"What are all these things compared with the loss of souls?"

Under this title -- words taken from Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno -- Rorate Caeli (August 6, 2011) writes:

One of the "cornerstones" of modern economy, the unassailable credit of the United States: downgraded.

Ours is an extraordinarily interesting age, of which this latest piece of news is just a very minute sign: the explosive energy that sprung up in the small western end of Eurasia in the Middle Ages, shaped by Christendom, a burst of creativity and missionary spirit which covered the whole world: the originally Christian West, whose good (and sublime) and bad (and hideous) ideas shaped the world as we know it, and that, in a kind of lifeline, lived its last decades of influence after the European disasters of the 20th century in some of its old colonial outposts - that energy seems to be finally spent. Many aspects of that civilization, enormously wealthy and yet bankrupt as well as spiritually exhausted, remain and will survive, but its hegemonic presence seems likely to be replaced. By what? And does it matter, in the eternal scheme of things?

Despite rivers of ink in "social" and "economic" doctrinal documents since "the Council", it is astounding that the best Catholic commentary on the troubles of this age was written 80 years ago.This is not the first time some of these words of Pius XI are posted here - but they never seem to get old: ...

Read more >>

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Don't you wonder what Johannes Gutenberg must be thinking?

Related:

And why you just gotta love Fr. Z: "The Debt Crisis: Washington’s Kabuki Dance and “NO!” Play" (July 29, 2011).

Update:

Official: Whew -- we will not default now! Unofficial: but we will default with massively devalued currency. Some years ago I drove through the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan: it cost $4.00; last week I drove through the Tunnel and it cost $8.00 Twice as much? No, the currency is worth half of what it was then.

No April Fool's joke: Foreign banks took most from Fed

What Bernanke's unsuccessful coverup reveals: "Foreign Banks Tapped Fed's Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret" (Bloomberg, April 1, 2011): "U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya."