Election 2010 - As The Dust Settles, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo*

Well, much of the dust has settled & most of the results are in. It is interestting to see how, even with all the modern technology, the results still are not in for some races. Last night at the court house here in DBQ they had some technical problems but the results were still all in by about 10:30 pm. When I was a kid I can remember my Mom not getting home until 3:30 am or later because everything was handcounted.

Now on to the results. & while I won't pretend that my comments are the final word, I am adding my 2 cents worth on what I say.

Nationwide, things went as expected. No, I didn't expect every GOP or Tea Party Candidate to win. I have lived too long to expect that. But overall, I think it is clear people wanted change. & despite what Obama said, it wasn't that the change came to slow, it was that he & his cronnies pushed it through to fast & to far beyond what the people really wanted. The big question now, & this is across the board, Iowa, Illinois & WIsconson & USA as well, is simple. Will the Republicans have to courage to do the right thing & start the fight to restore sanity, cut spending, get rid of ObamaCare, & most importantly, began to work to ending abortion & putting as many limits as they can on it in the meantime, esp by defunding Planned Parenthood & other abortion providers?

Listening to a part of Obama's speech today it is clear that he just doesn't get it. A lot of that is his ego. He cannot admit this is a rejection of what he stands for. Like I said, he was making it sound like we hadn't moved fast enough towards destruction rather than the people trying to pull back from his agenda of death. & the few things he held out, like earmarks, were just window dressing. Earmarks are bad, but they are just a minor part of the budget problem. The problem is we have got to cut back on spending period, & get rid of those things in the budget that are not the Federal government's responsibility. & as you listenned to him, it was esp clear that he just didn't get it about ObamaCare or abortion either.

Speaking of Obama, I wonder how he feels about his former Senate seat going to Mark Krik, a Republican? I am willing to bet that he doesn't even get that as a rejection of his policies. However, I am about as sure as I can be that Everett Dirksen is smiling from heaven that fter seeing his former seat in the hands ofAlan J. Dixon, Carol Moseley Brown & Obama, it is back in the hands of someone who won't be an embarrassment to the office.

Since I live just across the river from Illinois & Wisconsin, I have heard a lot about their elections. What happenned was a clean sweep for the Republican candidates for US Senate. Good riddence to Feingold in Wisconsin. & Grassley easily won what may be his last race given his age. He showed that if an incumbant does (mostly) the right thing, you will get relected.

On a smaller scale, I was not surprized to see the people of E DBQ expresss their disapproval of the change in bar closing times from 3:30 am to 2 am to match Iowa. The referendum was non-binding, but about as I expected. Nor was I surprized to see Illinois approve an amendment allowing the people to recall the governor. Given the recent trtack record, I would have been surprized had they voted it down.

1 Wisconsin state Assembly race I was paying some attention to was thet 49th which Travis Tranel (R) handily won over the incumbent, despite all the attack ads by these anonymous groups that all supposedly in the pockets of the Republicans.

OK, enough about elsewhere, it is time for Iowa & what happenned here. This is where my title comes into play.

1st, il buono. Terry Branstad became the 2nd Iowa governor to leave office & then be relected at a later date. Branstad is Pro-life, so he will be supportive of efforts to protect the unborn. Culver is acting a bit like Obama in that he just doesn't get it.

The other big thing was that all 3 of the Iowa Supreme Court Justices up for a retention vote got kicked out. Iowa judges are not elected, rather they are appointed by the governor from a list of 3 people nominated by a State Judicial Nominating Commission. They serve intitially for a 1 year term & are up for a retention vote the year of a general election. If retained then they come up again for a vote by the people every 8 years. Since the Constitution was amended in 1962 only about 4 lower level judges have not been retained. Never a Supreme Court Justice. & never 3 at once.

The 3 Justices that were up this year came under fire because the Iowa Supreme Court unanamously ruled that the Iowa Constitution allowed same-sex marriage. They admitted that when the Constitution was written the right to same-sex marriage was unimagined. So rather than uphold original intent they rewrote the Constitution. Then they tried to claim they didn't. Enough Iowans were fed up & when these 3 came up, they got booted & will leave office on 31 Dec 2010. Chief Justice Marsha Ternus was going arround the state campaigning for reelection by claiming that those working to kick her out were trying to make the judicial vote an election. She just didn't want to admit that we are tired of activist judges. She got a 54.9% no vote. The 2 associate judges, Michael J. Streit & David L. Baker got a 54.3% no vote. So Turnis's campaigning backfired.

& while the Democrats appear to have retained control of the Iowa Senate (barely), Pat Murphy will no longer be Speaker of the House. Unfortunately, that isn't because he lost to Paul Kern (more later), it was because the Republicans took control of the House.

Which leads to il cattivo. Because the people voted no on a Constitutional Convention & if it is definite that the Dems control the Senate, ammending the Iowa Constitution to undo the damage done by the Supreme Court may be delayed for another 2 years. Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, (D), has previously promised to block attempts to amend the state's constitution.

Meanwhile, the big heartbreak was Paul Kern losing to Murphy. As I said however, Murphy's win was phyrric as he is no longer Speaker. & the other fact is, he only won by 340 votes. He has never come this close in any other contest where he had an opponent. He only got 52% of the vote (as opposes to a 68% average the other times). & if it wasn't for the huge number of absentee votes in his favor he would have lost. He only won 4 of the 10 precincts & the 4 he won were close. & despite how the TH tried to spin it as merely the amount spent by Kern being responsible, it was much more. People were fed up with Murphy, fed up with his lies & dirty tricks. I won't go into how the TH itself treated Kern in comparison to Murphy overall, but the TH clearly went for Murphy because he supported gay marriage & abortion, not becuase he was the best candidate.

Sadly, Tom Miller won reelection, so Planned Parenthood will still have 1 buddy in the Capitol to help cover up their crimes. Brenna Finley did a great job of trying.

Anyone who knows DBQ Co knows it is a Democratic stronghold. A Republican hasn't held a county office since 1952. But, if the canvas holds up that will end in January when Daryl Klein will have ousted 32 year veteran Donna Smith.

All arround the county it was mostly a Republican night.

Finally, il brutto. Tuesday night at the post election gathering for Paul Kern, he was talking about how the TH mistreated him. Given my treatment over the years, I wasn't surprized. But then he later told me his treatment by a so-called Catholic Nun who said he wasn't pro-life because he didn't oppose the death penalty. At that point I blew off a little steam & in my inimitable Italiano style, I went into my Mother Angelica mode & let them know what I thought about all those frauds who claim to be Catholic & claim to be nuns.

That "nun" misrepresented Catholic teaching as the Church does allow for the death penalty (Catechism 2263-2267#). It was her excuse to justify voting for a pro-abort Democrat instead. & as I told his wife later, I have been fighting those frauds for 30 some years. I won't repeat all I said, but those there clearly know I do not consider those anti-war women at several of the local convents to be real Catholics or real nuns. & that I was not happy with the way she treated Paul.

Now, as I said, what will they do when in office? We must keep praying. & we must keep the fire under their feet, esp when it comes to the life issues. With Obama & the Dems still in partial control it won't be easy. But we cannot let them & their buddies in the Main Stream Media set the agenda. The Republicans must lead. I wish I was sure they would do all they should. Time will tell. & if not, as 1 friend of mine said today, the Tea Party may just have to become the new party in the USA. (Won't go into the debate about starting a new party here. That is for another time. All I will say is I think it could happen. & if the Republicans don't do the right thing, it will.)

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* The Good, The Ugly & The Bad
# 2267 "Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."" (emphasis mine) In short, there is room for prudential judgment as to when it is applicable. & to support it in those cases does not mean you are NOT Pro-life. It is called self-defense.