(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) None but a crank would deny a birthday boy—or girl—of any age his right to a party. But there are parties and then there are parties. Take, for instance, the recent party of the President of the United States on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, or should we call it an extravaganza? Tickets to this star studded birthday bash ranged from a mere fifty dollars for the cheap seats to more than thirty-five thousand dollars for private seating with the man of the hour. For an additional ten thousand dollars—chump change (double entendre intended)--you could have your picture taken with the President.

For once in his term of office, Barack Hussein Obama has been good to his promise to bring change to America: we are now privileged to pay big bucks to attend birthday parties! What was happening to the rest of us non-party goers, who could not afford the cost of a birthday ticket or more likely would not have attended the party even if paid thousands to do so? Well, if you had any money in the stock market you probably ended that day somewhat poorer than you started it. In fact, stock dropped so dramatically on the birthday of the President that the wealth of the United States decreased by 1.1 trillion dollars on that single day, at least as measured by Wall Street. Rome burned while Caesar Nero fiddled; America burned while President Obama listened to Jennifer Hudson. Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Some conservatives have suggested that the crashing value of the stock market and the loss of the top-tier triple-A credit rating for the United States are actually birthday presents for the President, given his promise of change and his track record. Let there be no doubt about this President: he is no friend of Capitalism, he is no friend of Christianity and he is no friend of the Common Good. And while our focus as good Catholics must not be primarily upon money—for where your treasure is, there is your heart—the loss of so much national wealth, the insurmountable rising debt and the instability of the current economy are symptoms of a sickness and soon could be contributing causes to a collapse of this Country that may be imminent, once the prayers of the innocent are insufficient to stay the punishing Hand of God.

Even more troubling for the faithful than financial disasters should be the attacks of this President upon the moral and constitutional fabric of this Nation. In less than one full term in office he has succeeded in at least two areas where President Bill Clinton before him failed: imposing open homosexuality upon the military and imposing health care upon the nation. Bill Clinton was only able to move the military to the point of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which itself was a compromise of moral integrity; Barack Obama has now insured that military members can openly profess and practice sodomy and other homosexual perversions with impunity.

Hillary Clinton was only able to propose a universal health care plan on behalf of her husband; Barack Obama, with a complicit Senate, has forced a plan upon us that is financially unaffordable and morally unacceptable. The latest hard pill to swallow is that cost free contraceptives and abortifacients will be included under the umbrella of health care and will be paid for by tax dollars; it also appears that religious institutions will be required to provide these immoral means of preventing and terminating human life as well. Oh, yes, let’s not forget that the President has directed the federal government not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and he will actively seek to overturn it. Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

A comparison between Caesar Nero and President Obama is not a stretch, even beyond that of fiddling around while the world around them burns down. Many believed that Nero himself set the fires in Rome to burn away the slums and make room for his capital expansion; many believe that Obama intends to bring down America in order to make room for some new global form of government.

Many of the first century Caesars manifested signs of extreme narcissism, despotism and debauchery. The ancient historian Suetonius wrote much about Nero and eleven other Caesars in his early second-century work The Lives of the Caesars (De vita Caesarum). Much of this work reads like an ancient version of a modern tabloid.

Did you know that Nero never lost a music or theater competition or chariot race for the duration of his principate as Caesar of Rome? Imagine that! The Emperor was so convinced of his own talent and the people so afraid of him that when he performed in public the only safe way to leave the event early was to feign death and be carried off on a stretcher. By the end of the reign of Caesar Nero, the Roman Empire was so exhausted of financial resources and over-extended that it nearly collapsed. How much longer can America endure the same?

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!