Parish Cluster Follow Up

As I said yesterday, all the parishes were to meet to discuss the scenarios.

They provided a copy of a power point presentation with various topics.

The first was "Why We Need to Cluster"

The discussion had several sub-parts to it, relating to shifting population generally in the eight county diocese, to decline in mass attendance/registered households as well as the diminishing numbers of priests to tend to the flock.

As a result of the decline in attendance, the clustering is also seeing a decline in Parish collections and in Parish/School Incomes. The sad fact is that the 6 parishes in the Lakewood/Cleveland Cluster have lost over the last 3 years a combined $460,000 and continue to lose money.

The next part of the discussion was what the charge was for the committee to determine what was the vibrancy of each parish and how to enhance that vibrancy after a consolidation of the parishes.

Here the discussion was on parish demographics and statistics. Included in this discussion was the ministries of each parish, finances and facilities.

The reason we were there, what is the committee's recommendation:

They are two fold; A majority of the committee has determined the cluster would be of better service to the community if there were three remaining parishes.

Here are the preferred choices for the 3 Church Scenario:
1) St. Clement, St. Luke, St. James
2) St. Cyril & Methodius, St. Luke, St. James
3) St. Clement, St. Cyril & Methodius, St. Luke

There is a minority report that will signify just a 2 church scenario.

Here are the preferred choices for the 2 Church Scenario;
1) St. Clement, St. Luke
2) St. Cyril & Methodius, St. Luke
3) St. Luke, St. James
4) St. Rose, St. James

There is also a major discussion as to the survival of the schools, Lakewood Catholic Academy and St. Cyril & Methodius.

Whatever churches close there will be a consideration of the transferring of some of the traditions and trappings from the closed parishes into the surviving parishes.

The other issues upon closing, is the debt reductions and what to do with the facilities left behind. Also to be considered, what to do with the facilities of the surviving parishes and the needs for possible expansion to deal with the influx of new parishioners and ministries.

Parish Clustering

Tonight all the Catholic parishes in Lakewood and St. Rose's in Cleveland will be conducting a Townhall Meeting regarding the closing of some of the churches in Lakewood.

The consensus is that there will be a majority report, along with a minority report submitted to Bishop Lennon in October.
I have no real concern for the content of the Majority Report, which would consist of closing three parishes and have three survive. The three surviving would be Sts. James, Luke and either Clements or Cyril & Methodious.

The Minority Report if adopted could have grave consequences on the City, by the elimination of 4 parishes and having two survive. In the one two church scenario, its is described as having no Catholic Church west of Bunts Road in Lakewood.

I will update after the meeting as to what the plans will be.

Here is the post from June regarding this topic.

UPDATE - 10:30pm: Just returned from meeting, may not be as bad as I first thought. Will follow up a little later.

Electoral Vote Tally

On the lower left, below the site stats is a widget for reviewing the Electoral Vote tallies and also provides updated polling data.

I followed this back in 2000 and then again 2004 and they were pretty close on the numbers.

If you would like to just go straight to the website, here is the link.

More Hurts Put on Obama

From the Democratic Strategist relating to Sen. Obama's campaign message on the economy:

An Open Letter From William Galston:

I'll get right to the point: You are in danger of squandering an election most of us thought was unlosable. The reason is simple: on the electorate’s most important concern – the economy -- you have no clear message, and John McCain has filled the void with his own.
This is more than my opinion. The Democracy Corps survey released yesterday proves the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Backed by a wealth of persuasive detail, here is the nub of their conclusion:

In the absence of a coherent change message from Obama, many voters are accepting McCain’s definition, particularly since they want to change Washington and clean up government. As a result, Obama has lost his double-digit advantage over McCain on the right kind of change.

When I say you have no message, here’s what I mean:

First, you are not offering a coherent account of what has gone wrong with the economy – why it is no longer working for average families. People are anxious and bewildered; they want to know why jobs are disappearing, why incomes are stagnating, and why prices are soaring. If you don’t offer an explanation, McCain’s will carry the day by default: the problem is the corrupt, self-interested politicians in Washington; the solution is getting them – and government in general – out of the way.

Second: you are not offering a focused, parsimonious list of remedies for the economic ills you cite. As a result, few if any voters can actually cite a single signature economic proposal you have made. It’s not that you don’t have ideas. If anything, you have too many. At some point, more becomes less, and you are well beyond that point. You need to decide which three or four economic proposals are most important and repeat them relentlessly for the next seven weeks.

Your campaign already contains everything you need to do this. You could offer a focused economic message with four elements: rebuilding the United States, with an infrastructure bank, generating millions of good jobs that can’t be outsourced; creating millions more jobs by leading the world in environmental innovation; significantly reducing the tax burden on average families; and offering health insurance to everyone at a price they can afford. If you say that about your economic plan – and nothing else – from now until November, there’s a good chance your message will get through.

Third: you are not drawing crisp, punchy contrasts between your plans and McCain’s. An example: the centerpiece of his health care plan is the taxation of employer-provided health care benefits. Pound away at that, and let him explain why throwing workers into the individual health insurance market unprotected is such a wonderful idea. And by the way, while your plan would increase coverage, his would do the opposite. Is that the change Americans want?

Fourth: your stump speech is too long and discursive. It shouldn’t last more than fifteen minutes, it should focus on your agenda, not today’s news story, it should feature short, declarative sentences, and it should leave no doubt about what you care about the most. Right now, regrettably, few Americans believe that you feel real passion about their economic plight and are willing to wage a tough fight on their behalf. It’s your job to convince them otherwise, and you don’t have much time to do it.

A message is a thought not only sent, but also received and understood. If your hearers aren’t getting it, it’s not a message. The essence of political speech is functional, not aesthetic. It is a tree judged by its fruit, and the fruit is persuasion. Right now you’re not persuading the people you need to persuade, and nothing else matters.

Fifth: there’s no coordination between an economic message and the rest of your campaign. If you want the focus to be on the economy, that’s what your paid advertising and your surrogates should be doing as well. Attacking McCain for employing lobbyists is a waste of precious time and resources; it plays on his turf and accepts his definition of the problem. Moreover, It diverts attention from the core issue – a Republican approach to the economy, shared by Bush and McCain, that shafts ordinary Americans and does nothing to help them deal with the challenges of global competition. So far, while the McCain campaign has gone for the jugular, you’ve gone for the capillaries.

Some Americans won’t support you because they think you’re too young and inexperienced to be president, or that you’re too liberal, or not patriotic enough, or because you might raise taxes, or because you’re African-American. That’s inevitable. The good news is that by themselves, these Americans are not a majority. The bad news is that they might become part of a majority if they are joined by the many Americans who are open to supporting you but are turning away because they don’t hear you speaking to their concerns in a manner that they can understand.

This is not about you alone; it’s a matter of political responsibility. Millions of Americans have invested their hopes and dreams in you, and you owe it to them to campaign effectively, which isn't happening right now. Yes, the McCain campaign is replete with exaggerations, evasions, and outright fabrications. It’s your responsibility to defeat them, not complain about them. If this means listening to advice you don’t want to hear, and getting out of the "comfort zone," so be it.
Three months ago, when you were riding high, the McCain campaign was flat on its back. But give McCain credit: when he was told that to win he had to change, he did. He focused, and he accepted a kind of discipline that he had previously resisted. Now it’s your turn.

If you had told me 180 or even 90 days ago that the battle for the White House would be essentially even going into the debates, I would have thought you as crazy. I had pretty much given up hope that the GOP would be able to retain the Presidency, based on fears about Iraq, Iran, the War on Terror and just plain BDS, attached to the seeming lingering of bad economic news, but here we are less than 6 weeks away (still with even worse economic news), tied in the polls with everyone scrambling to conduct their own math as to what states are still in play.

Amazing!

If Obama is not able to pull out a victory, even with what appears to be a better ground game than the McCain's, then this election will studied for a long time by political operatives and historians.

The Blame is not always on the GOP

This morning Douglas Turner of the Buffalo News provides a scathing attack on none other than the Democratic VP Nominee Sen. Joseph Biden and former Democratic Presidential hopeful, Sen. Chris Dodd regarding the Mortgage and Banking crisis.

What is astonishing is the Buffalo News has always been a left leaning paper, but as this election cycle has move forward I am finding it to becoming more despondent with the Democratic planks and becoming more centrist.

I will post the Op-Ed piece in its entirety, since the online version sometimes goes behind registration.

WASHINGTON — Two years ago, voters reacted strongly
against a Republican Congress that blithely blessed a disastrous pre-emptive war
and was the most corrupt since the post-Civil War Reconstruction days.
What we got in exchange is a Democratic Congress that is only marginally less
crooked, that still fosters the Iraq war and whose leaders are just plain inept.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., for instance. If the next Senate stays Democratic, he ought to be ousted as majority leader. Reid has not even been able to replace Sen. Joe Lieberman, Independent Democrat of Connecticut, as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee as just punishment for campaigning with the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Worse, Reid llowed two important committee chairmen to play hooky for a year while their issues allowed. One, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., is running as vice president in order to lend supposed strength to the Barack Obama ticket on overseas issues. In the chairman’s saddle 19 months, the eternally grinning Biden has called his very first hearing on Russia for Wednesday.

Pathetic. Dictator Vladimir Putin has been signaling for more than two years
that he intended to menace former Soviet satellites like Poland and Ukraine.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., has behaved even more outrageously. He’s the
fast-talking chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which has been looking
the other way while the government has bailed out one slimy securities operation
after another.
The best-known effect of his seniority on that panel is his getting favorable mortgage terms from a troubled bank. The recipient of massive campaign gifts from the securities industry, Dodd stayed with his delusional campaign for president while the mortgage market and the banking industry tanked.

Thanks in large part to Dodd, the government has been blind-sided by the troubles of two huge g overnment-sponsored entities, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. These are backstops for bankers who profited handsomely on mortgages they sold to borrowers who could not pay them back. Estimates of the cost to taxpayers of the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailouts range from zero to $300 billion. Little is said about two former high-ranking Clinton administration officials, Franklin D. Raines and Jamie Gorelick, who got paid $52 million and $26 million, respectively, at Fannie Mae while the agency cooked its books.

The Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., sounded the alarm about the two big agencies a full year ago. But the committee’s findings are advisory. Dodd himself ran a hearing on Freddie and Fannie last March. There, a spokesman for the Mortgage Bankers Association urged passage of laws mandating a complete overhaul and stringent oversight of the two agencies. But Dodd walked off to the hustings and the talk shows.

This marks the second time in a generation that a Democratic

Congress looked aside while banks were bailed out at taxpayer expense. The 1980s
savings-and-loan bailout cost taxpayers more than $130 billion.

The explanation is easy. Since 1990, the financial industry has spent at least $900
million on campaign gifts to federal candidates of both parties. Since 1998, the
banks, insurance and securities industry has spent $3.2 billion lobbying the
victors.

And they got what they paid for: Your tax money!

An assessment of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., must wait for another day. For now, let it suffice to say she is looking favorably on a $50 billion bailout for the Big Three U. S. automakers, whose CEOs are getting upwards of $17 million apiece.

This has to hurt a little bit for Sen. Obama

Yes, Palin Did Stop That Bridge

By JIM DEMINT September 10, 2008; Page A15

"But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up." -- Barack Obama, Sept. 6, 2008

In politics, words are cheap. What really counts are actions. Democrats and Republicans have talked about fiscal responsibility for years. In reality, both parties have a shameful record of wasting hundreds of billions of tax dollars on pork-barrel projects.

My Senate colleague Barack Obama is now attacking Gov. Sarah Palin over earmarks. Having worked with both John McCain and Mr. Obama on earmarks, and as a recovering earmarker myself, I can tell you that Mrs. Palin's leadership and record of reform stands well above that of Mr. Obama.

Let's compare.

Mrs. Palin used her veto pen to slash more local projects than any other governor in the state's history. She cut nearly 10% of Alaska's budget this year, saving state residents $268 million. This included vetoing a $30,000 van for Campfire USA and $200,000 for a tennis court irrigation system. She succinctly justified these cuts by saying they were "not a state responsibility."

Meanwhile in Washington, Mr. Obama voted for numerous wasteful earmarks last year, including: $12 million for bicycle paths, $450,000 for the International Peace Museum, $500,000 for a baseball stadium and $392,000 for a visitor's center in Louisiana.

Mrs. Palin cut Alaska's federal earmark requests in half last year, one of the strongest moves against earmarks by any governor. It took real leadership to buck Alaska's decades-long earmark addiction.

Mr. Obama delivered over $100 million in earmarks to Illinois last year and has requested nearly a billion dollars in pet projects since 2005. His running mate, Joe Biden, is still indulging in earmarks, securing over $90 million worth this year.
Mrs. Palin also killed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in her own state. Yes, she once supported the project: But after witnessing the problems created by earmarks for her state and for the nation's budget, she did what others like me have done: She changed her position and saved taxpayers millions. Even the Alaska Democratic Party credits her with killing the bridge.

When the Senate had its chance to stop the Bridge to Nowhere and transfer the money to Katrina rebuilding, Messrs. Obama and Biden voted for the $223 million earmark, siding with the old boys' club in the Senate. And to date, they still have not publicly renounced their support for the infamous earmark.

Mrs. Palin has proven courageous by taking on big spenders in her own party. In March of this year, the Anchorage Daily News reported that, "Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is aggravated about what he sees as Gov. Sarah Palin's antagonism toward the earmarks he uses to steer federal money to the state."

Mr. Obama had a chance to take on his party when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered a sham ethics bill, which was widely criticized by watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste for shielding earmarks from public scrutiny. But instead of standing with taxpayers, Mr. Obama voted for the bill. Today, he claims he helped write the bill that failed to clean up Washington.

Mr. Obama has shown little restraint on earmarks until this year, when he decided to co-sponsor an earmark moratorium authored by Mr. McCain and myself. Mr. Obama is vulnerable on this issue, and he knows it. That is why he is lashing out at Mrs. Palin and trying to hide his own record.

Mrs. Palin is one of the strongest antiearmark governors in America. If more governors around the country would do what she has done, we would be much closer to fixing our nation's fiscal problems than we are.

Mrs. Palin's record here is solid and inspiring. She will help Mr. McCain shut down the congressional favor factory, and she has a record to prove it. Actions mean something. You can't just make stuff up.

NOTE: The original link for the article on killing the project is from the Democratic Party website. But, since its was located, the Alaska Dems took the page down and refashioned it as a "Retire Ted" site.

A small look into Gov. Palin's style of governing.

From an article regarding then Mayor Sarah Palin's reasoning for the building of a recreation complex in Wasilla.

Among the documents is this email written from Palin’s account to the “Dept Heads” of the council in January 2001. Although its left margin is sliced off, the message of the email is clear. Palin writes:
Palin's Email To "Dept. Heads" Of City Council
“…as I look at the money that government [spends] on projects, programs, personnel and facilities to ‘fix’ societies ills and I realize that it’s [be]come more politically correct and accepted for government to throw money towards ‘after-the-fact [services]’, instead of preventive measures that a community could take to support and promote…family oriented, positive, constructive activities and lifestyles. Even on the local level we [spend] hundreds of thousands of dollars on our Police Dept., Youth Court, DARE Program, etc... ‘after the fact’ fixes for juvenile problems. We are in a position to help prevent (Palin’s emphasis) the [problems] that we are now forced to pay to attempt to remedy.”

The article goes on to state:

"...This approach sounds surprisingly similar to Senator Barack Obama’s philosophies about youth violence and health care spending. Obama’s “Blueprint for Change” bemoans the lack of money spent on preventive health measures, “The nation faces epidemics of obesity and chronic diseases as well as new threats of pandemic flu and bioterrorism. Yet despite all of this less than 4 cents of every health care dollar is spent on prevention and public health.” ...

The Presidential Race

Everywhere you read over the last 10 days has been about the McCain/Palin ticket. Quite frankly the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin was a stunner to just about everyone. I had read some early prognostications last spring that included her name as a possible candidate. Never thinking or doing any research on her. Of course everyone now is doing their due diligence.

The Left and the Media are trying to throw whatever they can to knock the Palin train off its tracks. For a local glimpse of it you can go over to the Lakewood Observer or the Lakewood Buzz. Thankfully, they are not as slimy as what appeared the Saturday after the Veep announcement. But, they are walking a fine line.

Let's face it, the Democrats and the Media basically have done what John McCain couldn't do for the GOP rank and file, that is solidification.

I for one was at best luke warm to the McCain campaign, I would have voted for him anyway, because of the platform of Obama's.

Since the smears and innuendos from the Koz' kids, Salon, NY Times, (of course) MSNBC and all the rest so firmly leaning Obama's way on the Saturday after the announcement, I became a more hardened supporter. Not only is the party going to get my time, but now they will get my money.

The recent polls after the conventions have certainly turned towards McCain/Palin, but its still early. I think the time to get excited will be come at the end of September and into mid- October. By that time we will have had at least one Presidential debate and the one and only VP debate (probably most watched debate on TV). Those polls will provide the best indicator of where the two candidates will be for November.

After that point, it will just come down to who has the better ground game. Right now that edge could be with Obama.

Let's go back to the Palin smears and distortions, I have already stated that some have been pretty bad, while others borderline. The Left and the Media is harping about her record, well today I have noticed that FactCheck.org has now a link to debunking some of the distortions that are out there. Here is one that I have seen over at the observation deck where they were crying about her cutting special ed funds.

• Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent.
  She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three
  years.

They don't have a lot, but I am sure they will continue to update.

Final point about the local comments, judging by the outrage/dementia (BDS kind) on the Observation Deck and the Lakewood Buzz over Sarah Palin and her fitness to be Vice President, I really wonder what will happen if McCain wins. Right now that is a very good possibility.

Dear Mr. Obama

I have seen this on Blackfive and LawDog and already has shown up in several emails to me.

Go view it, simplistic in its delivery, but devastating in its message.

Invitation to Gov. Palin

Now I would love to invite Republican VP Nominee Gov. Sarah Palin to visit Lakewood, but unfortunately she is not allowed.