A Tyrannical Act

A Tyrannical Act
Terry Jeffrey
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The day after the House approved the health care bill, a reporter asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs about the lawsuits some states were threatening against the legislation on the grounds that the provision forcing all Americans to buy health insurance was unconstitutional.

"I think there's pretty longstanding precedent on the constitutionality of this," Gibbs said, without offering any substantive explanation.

Later in the briefing, another reporter pressed Gibbs on the question. "You say there's established law, established precedent," said the reporter. "On what? What is it? What is the established precedent?"

"On the regulation of interstate commerce," said Gibbs.

The reporter then asked how the mandate in question was part of interstate commerce. "Well, that's -- I think, again -- look, I'm not a lawyer, right," said Gibbs.

"And neither am I," said the reporter.

"Right," said Gibbs, "so we're both in a pool where we can't either see or touch the bottom."

Gibbs, of course, has every right to profess ignorance of the Constitution. Who knows, in this instance, he might be telling the truth. But he has no right to denigrate the ability of other Americans to understand the Constitution, and it is fatuous for him to suggest only lawyers can.

George Washington, who presided over the constitutional convention, was no lawyer. He was a farmer and a soldier. Ben Franklin, a delegate to the constitutional convention, was no lawyer. He was a printer and a writer. Most Americans who have fought and died to preserve our way of life were not lawyers. Did these patriots not understand the Constitution?

What part of "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" does it take a law degree to understand?

Surely, a teacher, a doctor, a mechanic, a network news anchor and perhaps even a member of Congress can understand the words of the 10th Amendment as well as any lawyer can. It says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

If the Constitution has not delegated to the federal government the power to force Americans to buy health insurance, then Congress and the president do not have that power. Period.

The Commerce Clause that Robert Gibbs says President Obama will use to claim that the federal government does have this power is no more difficult to understand than the words that protect our private property. It says: "The Congress shall have power ... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."

If you live in California and engage in a transaction with someone in Mexico, you are engaging in "commerce with foreign nations," and the federal government can regulate that transaction. It cannot force you to buy breakfast in a restaurant on Tuesdays. But if a restaurant you freely patronize buys grapefruits in Mexico, it can regulate that grapefruit transaction.

Similarly, if you live in Ohio and engage in a transaction with someone in Florida, you are engaging in commerce "among the several states." The federal government cannot force you to buy oranges once a week, but if a grocer you freely shop with buys oranges from a farmer in Florida, it can regulate that orange transaction.

Finally, if you engage in commerce "with the Indian tribes," the federal government can regulate that, too.

Over the years, liberals seeking to increase government control over our lives have tried to expand the meaning of commerce "among the several states" far beyond what the Framers understood it to mean. The most far-flung interpretation came in the 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn. Here, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could use its power to regulate commerce "among the several states" to regulate the amount of wheat an Ohio farmer grew on his own land even though he never sold or traded that wheat but used it only for his own consumption on his own property.

It did take a whole team of lawyers to come up with this notion. But those lawyers -- serving as Supreme Court justices -- were not trying to understand the Constitution, they were trying to change it without going through the amendment process prescribed by the Constitution itself.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, until President Obama signed this health care bill, the federal government had never before ordered Americans to buy any good or service. The reason was simple: Until now, no president or Congress dared to exceed their constitutional authority in this way.

In November, I asked Sen. Orrin Hatch, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, about the constitutionality of the health care bill's individual mandate. "If that is held constitutional -- for them to be able to tell us we have to purchase health insurance -- then there is literally nothing that the federal government can't force us to do," he said. "Nothing."

Hatch is not given to hyperbole. He spoke truth. Forcing Americans to buy a product they do not want is a tyrannical act beyond the constitutional authority of the president and Congress. It must be repealed.
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To read another article by Terry Jeffrey, click here.

Riders on the Storm

Riders on the Storm
Chuck Norris
Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I have so few words to express the depth of my disgust with the unconstitutional path and passing of Obamacare and the corruption in Congress. So let me just tell you about the storm coming to Washington.

The majority of Americans have voiced ad nauseam their grave concerns with and rejection of Washington's health care bills. Like a host of other commentators, I have written at least a dozen syndicated articles this past year addressing sound objections. And like you, I've joined rallies, signed petitions and passed along a plethora of reasonable nonpartisan negative critiques of Obamacare. But at every turn, Washington has ignored us and demonized our opposition.

Obamacare violates commerce laws by forcing Americans to purchase a product and annihilates the federal government's 10th Amendment restrictions over U.S. states and citizens, which is why a whopping two-thirds of states across the nation already are legally battling over whether federal law can trump state laws via Obamacare.

Why can't Washington see that the main problem with Obamacare is not its costs, coverage or faulty projected savings, but that the federal government should not be involved in the health care business at all?! According to the Constitution, such a matter should be left to the free market, citizens, local communities and states.

But that's history now. One-sixth of our economy will be controlled by the federal government, and we're supposed to blindly accept that's not a socialistic tendency. The fact is that despite the Congressional Budget Office's projected savings, Obamacare will morph and inflate (along with its costs) in the years to come. Has any government program not done so? As President Barack Obama admitted to Fox's Bret Baier last week, "Yes, it's one-sixth of the economy, but we're not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop." There are the key words: "all in one fell swoop."

Mark my words: The terms in this health care bill eventually will be so far-reaching that it will become a major foundation for a fundamentally different America, from which will sprout many tentacles that will choke out other freedoms. This is not just a health care bill; it's a metastasizing tool and weapon for all forms of federal intrusion and takeover. In areas that the feds can't cover or control presently, absence and subtlety in the bill's language will provide the springboard for their future rule.

But the time for commentary and dialogue is over. The final hour has come. Our Constitution is on life support, and the federal government is pulling the plug.

As there is before an impending death or brewing storm, there's a hush at the moment, but most of us sense that there's something very, very wrong on the horizon.

It reminds me of a few years ago, when Dr. James Foster from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center tackled the question of whether there really is a period of calm before a storm. His answer: There definitely is.

Foster noted, "It was recognized long ago that before a severe storm, the air is still and the birds stop singing and go to shelter."

What's true with weather is also true with Washington. Many patriots have stopped singing. Some have gone into hiding. Others are gathering wood as we trudge through this Valley Forge. But all will reawaken and fight for the republic our Founders laid down for us.

The gray and black clouds are not governmental control, but masses of American citizens and patriots who will continue to swarm tyranny (Democrat and Republican) until it is squeezed out of our nation, just as it was during the American Revolution.

For now, all Washington bureaucrats need to know is this: The forecast for the U.S. Capitol in the upcoming weeks and months is definitely thunderstorms. If you encouraged, affirmed, endorsed or voted for Obamacare in any form, expect a dark cloud to precede your exit as we vote you out of office. We will remember in November. That's not only a threat; it's a guarantee.

We the people have come to understand the profound wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote to Abigail Adams in 1787, "I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

Washington: Pack your bags. Run for shelter. The storm is coming.

(To inspire and renew the founding spirit of our republic, I encourage patriots everywhere to purchase the brand-new photo book "Don't Tread on US!" for which I have written the foreword. The book is a collection of motivating and patriotic photos from rallies, tea parties and protests over the past year across the country.)

Sunday's Socialist Triumph

Sunday's Socialist Triumph
Tony Blankley
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday launched the Democrats' argument for the health care bill, claiming, "This is an American proposal that honors the traditions of our country." Does that suggest that opposition is un-American? And what are the traditions that are American that this law fulfills? The Democrats argue that the bill fulfills the "right" of all Americans to government-assured health care services. The congressional Democrats claim many other things that a majority of the country believes to be inconsistent with truth and reality.

So, considering the rhetorical onslaught that is about to be unleashed on the public, to paraphrase (and with the deepest apologies to) Winston Churchill on the occasion of the fall of France in June 1940:

What House Minority Leader John A. Boehner has called the Battle of Capitol Hill is over. I expect that the Battle of the Electorate is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of a nonsocialist America. Upon it depends our own American way of life and the long continuity of our institutions and our history. The whole fury and might of the media and the Democratic Party must very soon be trained on the electorate.

If they can stand up to the coming propaganda, America may be free, and the life of the wider free world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if the voters succumb to those seven months of blandishments and deceptions, then free America -- including all that we have known and cared for -- will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let the public therefore brace itself to its duties, and so concentrate its mind on the true facts, that if the American spirit of freedom and dignity last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was the American voters' finest hour."

As I said, apologies to Winston Churchill for borrowing and abusing his immortal words on the fall of France and the beginning of the Battle of Britain.

And yet, for us, now and here is where we must battle for our freedom. Not, pray God, with bullets, but with words and ideas.

This battle will not be fought in the skies over London, but on the Internet and airwaves over America. The target is not the homes and factories of the people, but the minds and judgments of the voters. But the power of a mind confused and misused is every bit as threatening to freedom as is the power of bombs and bullets.

The path to Sunday's catastrophic vote was paved with cynical blandishments by the Democratic Party's congressional leaders to their members. The votes were induced by the assurance that in the seven remaining months before the election, the true facts of their legislation, which led to overwhelming public opposition to the bill when passed -- can be undone in the minds of the voters by remorselessly repeating misconceptions to the public.

The most mendacious, cruel and destructive proposition put forth by the Democratic congressional leadership -- and soon by almost all its ranks and files -- is, of course, the outlandish claim that the bill will reduce the deficit.

The uncontrolled growth of the annual deficits and total public debt is at the crux of the public's slack-jawed horror of Washington policy these past 18 months. Washington is placing our grandchildren's prosperity on a slow boat to China.

Everything that more than 200 years of American invention, investment, labor, suffering and triumph, war and victory has created is being sold off to the world's lowest bidders in a matter of months.

So far, the public has not been fooled by the claim that a new entitlement for 30 million people is being created -- and it will cost less.

But now the Democrats have the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) official accounting -- and they plan to use it as a shield and a sword as they wade into the public debate.

Of course, every informed person understands why the CBO calculation is an honest measure of a dishonest bill. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan at the health care summit, former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, in last Sunday's New York Times, and hundreds of commentators have all laid out the lamentable, indisputable and undisputed fact that the CBO methodology has been gamed by the congressional Democrats to turn what will be more than a trillion dollars in further public deficit and debt into a fantasy savings of $140 billion.

While Medicare is at about $30 trillion in unfunded liability by 2070, the bill preposterously claims it is going to cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars a decade. The quarter- to half-trillion dollars per 10 years that it will cost to pay Medicare doctors enough to keep them providing services has simply been put in another bill. The mendacities go on and on. They are not merely small, politically useful little deceptions. They are of a dimension that may destroy the republic.

The Democratic congressional leadership seems to have a stunningly insulting view of their potential voters' intelligence. But on such a basis is the battle for the minds of the voters joined.

Never will the wisdom and common sense of the American public have been put to a more fateful test. The organized opposition to the bill must do its best. But, as fitting to a constitutional republic, the fate of American freedom lies with the people.

"Best Practices" - But For Whom?

"Best Practices" - But For Whom?
Marybeth Hicks
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The high-stakes political maneuvering leading up to the passage of Obamacare included a few moments of candor not often exhibited by members of Congress.

For example, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared on March 10, “We have to pass the bill in order for you to find out what is in it.”

And during a meeting of the House Rules Committee on Saturday, Rep. Alcee Hastings admitted, “When the deal goes down, all this talk about rules… we make them up as we go along.”

With this sort of honesty from representatives in Congress, it’s actually shocking that 64 percent of the voting public strongly disapproves of the job they are doing.

Though the bill has been signed into law, the debate about the merits of the legislation continues.

In particular, proponents on both sides of the abortion issue question the compromise gesture of an executive order to limit federal funding of abortion, the solution that enabled Rep. Bart Stupak and other pro-life Democrats to join their party in passing the bill despite the lack of legislative language limiting federally funded abortion services.

Pro-life advocates note that an executive order is easily reversed and expect President Obama will do so when the furor over health reform subsides. Pro-abortion advocates fear the executive order represents “a significant rollback in reproductive rights,” a concern expressed by Jehmu Greene of the Women’s Media Center, appearing on Fox News.

“Bart Stupak had an agenda,” Ms. Greene said, “to have the government intrude, to come into my home and come into your home and insist on a medical decision that the government wants to see happen. That’s not what this bill does.”

Sorry, Ms. Greene. That’s exactly what this bill does. Unfortunately, her myopic focus on abortion rights has blinded Ms. Greene to the reality that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, written in such legalese and jargon as to be virtually indecipherable to most citizens, nonetheless clearly puts the government in charge of our health decisions in ways we have yet to imagine.

Throughout the behemoth legislation are countless new boards, commissions and oversight bureaus designed to assess quality of care, design “best practices” and force – through incentives and penalties – the implementation of the government’s idea of beneficial health services. Those “best practices” will not necessarily reflect the desires of doctors and patients, but the treatments that pass the government’s cost/benefit analyses.

This is one of the harsh realities of health care reform often cited by experts such as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an advisor to the administration (and brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).

Anticipating such interference into their profession, roughly a third of current practicing physicians say they will quit the practice of medicine or retire early in part to avoid the government’s takeover of their decision-making power, this according to a survey released last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

As for the “right” to abortion coverage, the reason to keep it out of the bill isn’t only to protect a huge segment of our society from paying for what we consider the unjust murder of innocent children. Consider that rights typically come with commensurate responsibilities, and in the world of government “best practices,” abortion could actually be mandated.

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. I was 37 when I delivered my fourth child, old enough to be deemed “high risk” for having a baby with certain birth defects. My doctor suggested amniocentesis to rule out genetic defects. Learning that there was nothing that could be done in utero to address any potential problems my baby might have, I declined the test. I knew my daughter might not be in perfect health, but she would be perfect for us regardless. An abortion was out of the question.

Is that a choice every pregnant woman will be able to make in the future, or will high-risk moms automatically be subject to “best practices” that may include aborting a child who knowingly will be born with serious (read: expensive) medical problems?

The same question goes for cancer treatment and transplant surgery and even hip replacement. The right of a patient to choose his or her treatment will soon be subject to the government’s idea of what is “best.”

Begs, the question, best for whom?

Constitutional Awakening

Constitutional Awakening
Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

If there is anything good to say about Democrat control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, it's that their extraordinarily brazen, heavy-handed acts have aroused a level of constitutional interest among the American people that has been dormant for far too long. Part of this heightened interest is seen in the strength of the tea party movement around the nation. Another is the angry reception that many congressmen received at their district town hall meetings. Yet another is seen by the exchanges on the nation's most popular radio talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and others. Then there's the rising popularity of conservative/libertarian television shows such as Glenn Beck, John Stossel and Fox News.

While the odds on favorite is that the Republicans will do well in the fall elections, Americans who want constitutional government should not see Republican control as a solution to what our founders would have called "a long train of abuses and usurpations." Solutions to our nation's problems require correct diagnostics and answers to questions like: Why did 2008 presidential and congressional candidates spend over $5 billion campaigning for office? Why did special interests pay Washington lobbyists over $3 billion that same year? What are reasons why corporations, unions and other interest groups fork over these billions of dollars to lobbyists and into the campaign coffers of politicians?

One might say that these groups are simply extraordinarily civic-minded Americans who have a deep and abiding interest in elected officials living up to their oath of office to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. Another response is these politicians, and the people who spend billions of dollars on them, just love participating in the political process. If you believe either of these explanations, you're probably a candidate for some medicine, a straitjacket and a padded cell.

A far better explanation for the billions going to the campaign coffers of Washington politicians and lobbyist lies in the awesome government power and control over business, property, employment and other areas of our lives. Having such power, Washington politicians are in the position to grant favors and commit acts that if committed by a private person would land him in jail.

Here's one among thousands of examples: Incandescent light bulbs are far more convenient and less expensive than compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) that General Electric now produces. So how can General Electric sell its costly CFLs? They know that Congress has the power to outlaw incandescent light bulbs. General Electric was the prominent lobbyist for outlawing incandescent light bulbs and in 2008 had a $20 million lobbying budget. Also, it should come as no surprise that General Electric is a contributor to global warmers who help convince Congress that incandescent bulbs were destroying the planet.

The greater Congress' ability to grant favors and take one American's earnings to give to another American, the greater the value of influencing congressional decision-making. There's no better influence than money. The generic favor sought is to get Congress, under one ruse or another, to grant a privilege or right to one group of Americans that will be denied another group of Americans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi covering up for a corrupt Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Charles Rangel, said that while his behavior "was a violation of the rules of the House. It was not something that jeopardized our country in any way." Pelosi is right in minimizing Rangel's corruption. It pales in comparison, in terms of harm to our nation, to the legalized corruption that's a part of Washington's daily dealing.

Hopefully, our nation's constitutional reawaking will begin to deliver us from the precipice. There is no constitutional authority for two-thirds to three-quarters of what Congress does. Our constitution's father, James Madison, explained, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined ... (to be) exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce."

Cyber-Vulnerabilities: American Grid, Chinese Grip

Cyber-Vulnerabilities: American Grid, Chinese Grip
Austin Bay
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The U.S. fears for its grid; China's communist government worries about its grip.

That is the strategic insight gleaned from the fracas over Chinese engineering student Wang Jianwei's article titled "Cascade-Based Attack Vulnerability on the U.S. Power Grid."

Wang's study appeared last year in the Safety Science journal and has been online since spring 2009. Its abstract's first sentence reads: "The vulnerability of real-life networks subject to intentional attacks has been one of the outstanding challenges in the study of the network safety."

Wang, a student at China's elite Dalian University of Technology, addressed known power-grid weaknesses and ways to attack them. Wang claims he wants to reduce grid vulnerabilities and the published paper is an alert.

Several U.S. defense analysts who read the paper, among them Larry Wortzel, were not so sanguine. In testimony on March 10 to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Wortzel mentioned Wang's paper in passing, but suggested it served as a template for an attack on the entire U.S. power grid.

U.S. media sensationalists presented Wortzel as a fretful alarmist. Context matters -- computers controlling power grid operations have been attacked by hackers. Wortzel is a retired U.S. Army colonel, an intelligence officer and a specialist in Chinese affairs, and served as U.S. military attache in China. Wang sees his job as demonstrating grid vulnerabilities; Wortzel is in the business of assessing political, economic and military threats, capabilities and intentions.

Wortzel's entire testimony, however, provided extensive background on U.S. cyber-defense concerns regarding China. After discussing China's high-profile cyber-intrusions on Google's gmail accounts and attempts to steal Google source code, Wortzel identified three types of "malicious Chinese computer network operations": (1) operations that solidify "political and economic control in China"; (2) spy ops gathering "economic, military or technology intelligence" data; (3) cyber reconnaissance of "U.S. military, government, civil infrastructure or corporate networks for later exploitation or attack."

Conceding he could not prove his assessments "beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law," he said he believed "such persistent, systematic and sophisticated attacks ... most likely are state-directed." He noted that Chinese dissident organizations like Falun Gong have been "singled out by the Chinese Communist Party leadership for suppression. It is the organs of control and repression in China that need the type of information that was extracted from Google and who most profit from such penetrations."

Which leads to China's cyber-struggles. Beijing complains that the U.S. has extraordinary cyber-warfare capabilities, and it does. China's worries, however, go well beyond protecting military secrets and electrical grids: FREE information, disseminated by unfettered digital media on the Internet, threatens political control by communist elites.

China may have weathered the global recession, but if it has, Beijing regards its success as tentative, for even slow economic growth threatens the communist elites' deal with the Chinese people: We will let you get wealthy, just don't question the political structure. Beijing knows this.

Fear of losing its grip on dissidents during a period of economic stress played a role in China's January cyber-attack on Google's email service for Chinese clients. Google began Chinese operations in 2006 and admits it censored Chinese Internet search results. What an ugly side-story: A liberal California company that makes billions of dollars in the digital free information regimen (that ultimately owes its existence to the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment) acceded to the censorship demands of authoritarians. At least Google now says no more.

This week, Google left China for Hong Kong. But isn't Hong Kong in China? At the moment, Beijing still respects its "One China, Two Systems." Hong Kong makes money -- its Basic Law, which protects free information, is one reason.

Two political systems, but for Beijing, one firewall. Bloomberg News reported that on March 23 Internet searches for "Tiananmen" (1989 Tianamen Square massacre) "on computers in Shanghai and Beijing could not be displayed, suggesting the (Beijing) government had started limiting access."

Free, wealth-generating economies need free information. China's communist elites, however, can't yet risk it.

What Will Stop Them Now?

What Will Stop Them Now?
Sandy Rios
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

It didn’t matter that the healthcare plan Obama proposed was wildly unpopular with the American people. By 55 percent to 35 percent they opposed it. It didn’t matter that Democrats lost the Senate seat once held by the “Lion of the Senate,” Ted Kennedy, to Republican Scott Brown because he promised to vote against it. It didn’t matter that serious economists writing for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post predicted it would make our nation’s debt skyrocket. It didn’t matter that an election is looming in November, promising on the heels of outrage that many Democrats will lose their seats in Congress. It didn’t matter that leadership had to bribe, threaten, for the world to see, recalcitrant House members right down to the wire before the vote. It didn’t matter that they broke the rules and skipped a conference committee to advance the Senate bill or that they publicly signaled their intent to use an inappropriate rule called “reconciliation” to pass this massive, democracy-altering piece of legislation against the will of the people; nor that they nearly refused to vote altogether on the Senate Bill, almost “deeming” it to have passed according to the “Slaughter Rule.” And if all this didn’t matter, then what will stop them now?

With nothing to lose that hasn’t already been lost, a wave of legislation may be coming that will send us hurtling to the left with such force, we may never recover. Many House and Senate members will lose in November regardless, so what have they got to lose?

Before healthcare was out of the gate, amnesty for illegal immigrants was being reintroduced by Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer. While most of us were focusing on the House Healthcare vote, thousands descended on the Capitol to demand rights for illegal immigrants.

A big story lost in the shuffle recently was Obama’s refusal to allow drilling in the gulf at the same time Russia eagerly negotiates with Cuba to drill there for themselves. It isn’t enough for us to be forced to go “green” through attempts to control car manufacturing; we must be denied the right to drill for our own oil off our own coast to further strangle our supply of what he considers to be the wrong kind of energy. Meanwhile, our rivals gobble up the world’s supply, including our part. Does anyone doubt Cap and Trade will soon once again be on the voting horizon?

And how about gays serving openly in the military? The president has promised gay activists he would pass a repeal of our current policy and, as we move towards November, don’t think he won’t rush to pass this. Incidentally, the recent scandal with Congressman Eric Massa provided an unreported interesting twist. As a retired Naval officer, many who served with Massa have been coming forward to talk about his aggressive homosexual advances while their military superior. None said they felt free to report him for fear of his power over them. But of course, preserving military cohesiveness is less a concern than advancing homosexual “rights.” So expect a vote soon.

And speaking of the military … haven’t we heard repeatedly from the left complaints about all the money we’re spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how that money would be so much better spent here at home? What’s to stop this Congress from defunding America’s military to pay for their financially bankrupting “hope and change?”

But here’s another frightening thought. During the turbulent era of the ’60s and ’70s, the only opinions expressed in media were those of the left. Walter Cronkite reported the horrors and recited the body count in Vietnam every night. At the same time (we know now because of reports from Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist with NARAL) he was exaggerating the number of back alley abortions to help usher in Roe vs. Wade. Cronkite was America’s voice, but unbeknownst to us, he was the voice of others, more insidious—as were Dan Rather and Bill Moyers and Bill Schneider and countless others telling us on the nightly news what we should believe. There was no talk radio … and all American newspapers and networks took their headlines from the Grey Lady—the New York Times. With the constant pounding of leftist propaganda, Americans turned against the war, watched riots in Watts, saw college campuses burned and plundered. Many were left feeling helpless, wondering if anyone in America still felt the way they did about what was unfolding before them. But there was no voice for them, no outlet.

The 20 percentage points that divide Americans now on the issue of healthcare can, without a doubt, be attributed to alternative media—talk radio, FOX News, conservative on-line publications, blogs, conservative pundits on many channels… etc. How else would Americans know they had reason to be concerned?

Yes, alternative conservative media is a force to be reckoned with. And until they are destroyed, the left may not prevail. Whether by the community panels in the FCC’s “localism” proposal—the Fairness Doctrine by another name—or other regulations and rules to be determined, look for the assault on alternative media to commence again shortly.

What will stop them now? Apart from the power of God, those of us in media still have the ability to fight with our words. Surely there are enough voices in and out of media who value free speech enough to do battle for this last bastion of hope.

What will stop them? A healthy dose of unbridled truth, powerfully written and spoken and broadcast daily, faithfully, relentlessly. That will stop them … for now.

GOP senators in final drive to stall health bill

GOP senators in final drive to stall health bill
AP News
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

In a final drive to thwart President Barack Obama's health care remake, Republican senators plan to force Democrats to run a gantlet of politically dicey votes before they can finish a companion bill to the landmark law.

Voting was expected to start late Wednesday on a long list of Republican amendments to a "sidecar" bill making changes Democrats agreed to in the main legislation already signed by Obama. Major components of the "fix" legislation include scaling back a tax on high-cost insurance plans opposed by labor unions, closing the coverage gap in the Medicare prescription benefits, and higher taxes on upper-income earners.

But Republicans have other ideas. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., wants a vote on his amendment to prohibit coverage of Viagra for sex offenders. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, wants savings from Medicare cuts plowed back into the health care program for seniors, instead of being used to expand coverage to the uninsured. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., wants to gut penalties on employers whose workers wind up getting taxpayer subsidized coverage.

Democrats are vowing to bat down the GOP amendments one-by-one, and also hope Republicans won't succeed with any procedural objections.

"All of the amendments we'll take care of. Points of order _ we'll see what they do," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"How serious could they be offering an amendment on Viagra for rapists?" Reid said.

Should the GOP prevail on any point, the bill would have to go back to the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has put members on notice they may be needed to vote on any changes that get through the Senate, though House leaders also say they don't expect any to be made.

Meanwhile, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat accused Republicans of refusing to accept the finality of the health care overhaul.

"This is a political exercise for too many on the other side of the aisle," said Sen. Dick Durbin. "We're going to tell our people back home, 'It's time to govern. It's time to lead.' "

Durbin appeared on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday with GOP Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who had said last year he believed the health care overhaul would turn out to Obama's "Waterloo."

DeMint did not back down, saying "Americans are very angry," not only with the substance of the sweeping health care bill Obama signed into law Tuesday, but also with the process Democrats used to muscle it through Congress.

The fixes under consideration by the Senate were demanded by House Democrats as their price for passing the mammoth overhaul legislation that will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans over the next decade.

"They're hoping that Americans don't notice this is another power grab," DeMint said of Democrats. "So we're going to bring these issues up."

In another move to block action by Democrats, Republicans invoked obscure Senate rules that prevent hearings from taking place without unanimous consent, resulting in the cancellation of a number of routine hearings Tuesday and Wednesday.

As Obama put his signature on the bill at a celebratory White House ceremony, he declared "a new season in America" and hailed an accomplishment that had been denied to a line of presidents stretching back more than half a century.

Approval of the fix-it bill at the end of this week is virtually assured, since it's being debated under fast-track budget rules that allow passage with a simple majority instead of the 60 votes usually required for action in the 100-seat Senate. Democrats control 59 Senate seats.

That didn't stop Republicans, who are unanimously opposed, from using the floor debate that began Tuesday afternoon as an opportunity to repeat the accusations they've lobbed at Obama's health legislation for the past year: that it raises taxes, slashes Medicare and includes a burdensome and constitutionally questionable requirement for nearly all Americans to carry health insurance.

Although the battle may soon be over on Capitol Hill, opponents already have launched a campaign from the outside, with 13 state attorneys general suing Tuesday to overturn the legislation on grounds it is unconstitutional.

And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., served notice Tuesday of the GOP's continued campaign against the legislation going into the fall election season. "The slogan will be 'repeal and replace,' 'repeal and replace,'" McConnell said.

Obama planned to sign an executive order Wednesday affirming existing law against federal funding of abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the woman's life. A critical bloc of anti-abortion Democrats in the House had pledged to vote against the health care package unless given greater assurances that it would not amend current law.

In a last-minute deal, Obama agreed to issue the order to get their votes.

Slapping the Helping Hand

Slapping the Helping Hand
Ed Feulner
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Sailors in trouble are advised to seek out “any port in a storm.” Well, most state treasurers need to find a port.

A report from the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities predicts 37 states and the District of Columbia will face revenue “shortfalls” this year. Big ones, too. They’re currently short by $31.2 billion -- more than 7.2 percent of their total budgets.

Many states enjoyed windfall tax receipts earlier in the decade and boosted their budgets accordingly. But the recession took a bite out of revenues, and many now need all the help they can get. So one would expect state governments to accept help gladly from the private sector, even if it’s offered by a -- gasp -- religious organization.

Instead, District of Columbia lawmakers recently took deliberate steps to spurn an important force for good in their city: Catholic Charities. For full disclosure: I am proudly a practicing Catholic, who supports Catholic Charities as a private citizen.

The story involves the intersection of social and moral issues. Last year, D.C. Council members were crafting a bill to allow same-sex couples to marry in the District. But the measure’s effect didn’t stop there.

City officials made clear that if Catholic Charities wanted to continue to provide social services through a contract with the city, it would have to offer spousal benefits to the same-sex spouses of employees or stop offering benefits based on marital status altogether. Catholic Charities also learned that its foster care and publicly funded adoption programs would have to place children with same-sex married couples and license them as adoptive and foster families.

Failure to address these impacts is a direct slap at Catholic Charities, a faith-based organization that serves a critical role in the District. Its shelters, for instance, care for about a third of the city’s homeless.

District lawmakers could easily have included a religious exemption in its same-sex marriage law that would have allowed Catholic Charities to continue its work. But the lawmakers refused to address the concerns that Catholic Charities and several others, including several law professors, had raised. Religious organizations would have to bend to the government’s will in these matters.

Catholic Charities stuck by its principles and ended its foster care and adoption programs. It transferred some 43 children and their biological families, along with 35 foster families, to a private organization.

Some doubt this will matter much. “They don’t represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure,” District Council member David Catania told The Washington Post. Catania sponsored the same-sex marriage bill.

But make no mistake -- this is a decision with long-range consequences.

Statesman Edmund Burke once celebrated the “little platoons” of citizens in free countries who voluntarily band together to help others. These groups make a country better, and they save taxpayers millions.

Catholic Charities is just such a group. It encourages its employees and countless members of Catholic churches to get involved in helping the less fortunate.

The group serves nearly 80,000 people each year. Even without the foster care and adoption services, it operates 82 social-service programs in the District of Columbia. But with D.C.’s same-sex law, Catholic Charities will find it more difficult to complete missions or hire employees.

That’s because, instead of offering spousal health insurance benefits to the same-sex spouses of homosexual employees it hires, the organization has decided to stop offering spousal benefits to any new employees.

The outcome is predictable. Under its new restrictions, Catholic Charities won’t be able to accomplish as much. Needy District residents will turn to other providers chosen by the D.C. government, which has lost the benefit of Catholic agencies’ full experience and character. An already tight budget will be stretched even more. Meanwhile, fewer private citizens will join the important work of helping their fellow Americans.

The law of unintended consequences has come into play. Lawmakers set out to protect the rights of one group, but ended up trampling the religious rights of another. In the end, it is District residents who will suffer -- and pay -- for that decision.

An Off-Budget Office?

An Off-Budget Office?
Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Under the headline "Costly Bill Seen as Saving Money," the San Francisco Chronicle last week began a front-page story with these words: "Many people find it hard to understand how the health care legislation heading for a decisive vote Sunday can cost $940 billion and cut the horrendous federal deficit at the same time."

It's not hard to understand at all. It is a lie.

What makes this particular lie pass muster with many people, who might otherwise use their common sense, is that the Congressional Budget Office vouched for the consistency of the budget numbers that say you can add millions of people to a government-run system and yet save money.

The Congressional Budget Office does honest work. But it can only use the numbers that Congress supplies-- and Congress does dishonest work. It is not the CBO's job to give their opinion as to whether any of the marvelous things that Congress says it will do in the future are either likely or possible.

The Congressional Budget Office is like a computer: Garbage in, garbage out. The numbers in the health care bill are especially smelly garbage.

Do we really need a government agency to give us a false sense of security? Don't we already have politicians to do that? Weren't they doing that at the height of the housing boom that preceded the collapse, which then brought down the whole financial system and the whole economy? Many warnings were brushed aside by Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and many others in Congress.

What we really need-- and will never get-- is a Congressional Off-Budget Office. This would be an agency that does not have to accept whatever numbers Congress sends them and pretend to take those numbers seriously.

An independent agency could add up all of the government's financial liabilities, whether they are in the official budget or not. For example, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees bank accounts, has only a fraction of the money that it is supposed to have on hand to see that people's life savings don't get wiped out when a bank fails.

No administration of either party is going to let people's life savings get wiped out. That would be political suicide. FDIC is definitely too big to fail. But none of the billions of dollars that will be necessary to pour into FDIC at some point, as banks continue to fail and the FDIC's reserves continue to shrink, appears in the official budget numbers that the CBO sees.

It is a similar story with the Federal Housing Administration, which has what the Wall Street Journal calls "razor thin reserves" as it goes around the country, merrily guaranteeing ever larger mortgages for ever larger numbers of people, while 14 percent of those mortgages are already delinquent.

When the FHA is finally scraping the bottom of the barrel, trying to come up with the money to redeem all the reckless-- but politically popular-- guarantees it is making, where do you think that additional money they need will come from? From taxpayers-- current and future.

But none of this money is in the official federal budget that the Congressional Budget Office sees. There are many other financial liabilities of the government that are "off-budget," which means that they do not show up in the official numbers.

What if an individual operated this way? If you are 80 years old, and your assets exactly balance your liabilities, you're in good shape, right? Wrong.

At your age, you know that there may be some big medical bills coming, somewhere down the road. If you have been following politics-- which may be bad for your blood pressure-- you know that the mountainous federal deficits that extend into the future, as far as the eye can see, are likely to set off inflation that will silently steal a big chunk of the value of whatever money you have put aside for your old age. But none of that shows up in the numbers measuring your current assets and liability.

Moreover, at 80 years of age, you are not likely to be able to resume a career and make anything like the money you once made. What can you do? Unlike the federal government, you cannot just send your official numbers over to the Congressional Budget Office and have them announce that you are in great financial shape.
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To read another article by Thomas Sowell, click here.

Responding to Obamacare: Restore, Defeat, Defund, Repeal

Responding to Obamacare: Restore, Defeat, Defund, Repeal
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Let's begin our reaction to the passage of Obamacare by remembering Winston Churchill's famous formulation with which he introduced his war memoirs:

In defeat: defiance.

In war: resolution.

In victory: magnanimity.

In peace: goodwill.

Now is the time for defiance! Here's what we must do:

1) Restore the Medicare cuts mandated in this bill. Block the reduction of physicians' fees by 21 percent scheduled to take effect this fall. Override the cuts in Medicare that require annual approval by Congress. Challenge the Democrats over each and every cut. Try to peel away enough votes to stop the cuts from driving doctors and hospitals to adopt the course already taken by the Mayo Clinic in refusing to take Medicare patients.

2. Defeat the Democrats in the 2010 election! Start with the traitors who voted no in November and then switched to a shameful yes when it counted in March. Then go on to win the open seats in the House and Senate. And then fight to replace as many Democrats as possible. Remember: Any Democrat who voted no would have voted yes if they had needed his or her vote. The only way to repeal Obamacare is to vote Republican.

3. Defund. Once we get the majority in both chambers, defund appropriations for the Obamacare program. The bill passed by the Congress and signed by the president is simply an authorization measure. Funds must be appropriated for it each year by Congress. Through zero funding these changes, we can cripple them before they take full effect.

4. Repeal. And, once we defeat Barack Obama, we need to proceed to repeal this disastrous plan before it can ruin our health care system. Then, we must replace it with a Republican alternative that relies on the marketplace, tax incentives and individual responsibility to provide health care to all Americans.

Above all, we must finally learn the fundamental lesson this political process we have been through has to teach: that there is no such thing as a conservative or moderate Democrat. Blue dogs don't exist in real life. Only yellow dogs.

The days when there were Democrats who refused to follow their radical left-wing party line are over. There are no longer "state" Democrats who vote conservative as opposed to "national" Democrats who vote with the left. They are an extinct species. Some senators and congressmen capitalize on our memories of those days and pretend to be moderates. But they are just faking it.

Nancy Pelosi knew -- as Harry Reid knew in the Senate -- that she had the potential support of every single Democrat in her chamber if only the price was right. The sole difference between moderate and liberal Democrats is their asking price. Moderates require slightly higher bribes to assure their votes.

There are only two kinds of congressmen or senators: Democrats and Republicans. We have had a national education, and it's time to learn from it. In days gone by, intelligent people liked to say that they voted for the person, not the party. Now those who say this are fooling themselves. There is only party! The most conservative Democrat is way to the left of the most liberal Republican.

The Democratic victory on Obamacare will prove the most expensive in the party's history. It will lead to the eradication of their majority, the defeat of more than 50 of their congressmen, the switch of Senate control and Republican domination for decades. And, in the end, it will have done nothing to improve health care. But, fortunately, we can win the 2010 election to stop it from doing much damage.

The World According to Goodwin Liu

The World According to Goodwin Liu
William Wilson
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to begin confirmation hearings on Barack Obama’s nominee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Goodwin Liu. Liu’s record itself is rather unremarkable. He has no judicial experience. He only practiced law privately for a little more than 20 months.

However, one thing certain to slow down the confirmation of Liu, a University of California at Berkeley law professor, is his highly controversial worldview on “distributive justice.” One need look no further than Liu for a window into how Obama truly views the Constitution and rights, and importantly, what role of courts will have in adjudicating those rights.

What is a right? Whatever society says it is, according to Liu. Liu believes that federal courts have a responsibility to render decisions based upon a societal consensus that persons possess a right to certain goods and services, a consensus of “how a society understands its obligations of mutual provision.”

In 2008, Liu wrote that “the existence of a welfare right depends on democratic instantiation in the first instance, typically in the form of a legislated program, with the judiciary generally limited to an interstitial role.”

In lay terms, in Liu’s world, the proper role of the federal courts is to distribute welfare. If the federal government offers a subsidy, a benefit or some other type of welfare, then everyone is entitled to it in the eyes of the law.

Under Liu’s theories, it would be logical to say that everyone is entitled to Godiva chocolate because Congress subsidizes sugar production. In the world according to Liu, if there were a societal consensus that everyone should have a horse because the government subsidizes the grazing of wild mustangs or the racing industry, then Congress would constitutionally be obligated to allocate a horse to every man, woman, and child.

Under his theory, it would be reasonable for NASA to produce a space rocket for every American. After all, why should just the astronauts get to see space? If there were a societal consensus to spaceflight as a welfare “right,” then Congress would have to find the funds for the “Every American in Space” program, regardless of the cost.

Undereducated? Sue the government for a Pell grant. Undernourished? Sue the government to get on the National Lunch Program. Need a house? Sue the government for a two-story home with central heating. On a waiting list for a heart transplant? Sue the government to get to the head of line.

There would be neither extent nor limit to what could be argued for in court and then for what Congress would be forced to allocate the resources for. Using his logic, Liu could take ObamaCare and turn it into a single-payer system by judicial fiat in a single court decision.

In short, Liu would legislate from the bench that taxpayers have a responsibility to pay for other people’s lives. As one of our readers, Bill Matthews, wrote in recently in response to the passage of ObamaCare, “Why work? Why Save? Why invest?” He wrote that he was moving and going on welfare and Medicaid.

Mr. Matthews has it exactly right. In Liu’s world, it would make more sense to sit around and do nothing. Why bother? Government will take care of everything.

The generations of immigrants from Italy, Poland, China, Mexico, and elsewhere who moved to America to work and get themselves ahead so they could one day pay for their children’s education? Saps! They could have gotten it all for free in Liu’s world.

Goodwin Liu would single-handedly destroy the American dream of working hard, saving for the future, and advancing oneself through the determination to succeed. He would replace it with a nation of idle government dependents who wait around for their checks to come in the mail before venturing out to merely consume, producing nothing.

In reality, who would want to invest in U.S. treasuries — i.e. lend money to Congress — if that money would just be wasted away by the unoccupied? Those investors know that eventually, if there are no taxpayers, there will be no interest paid on those treasuries.

Liu’s worldview, if it were the law of the land, would make America a bad investment. Perhaps that is his goal: to weaken America by indenturing its citizenry.

His view on the Constitution? Liu believes the Constitution is as flexible as taffy on a hot summer day, to be bent and twisted into whatever he wants. As reported by National Review Online, in promoting his book, Keeping Faith with the Constitution for the American Constitution Society, Liu suggested in a podcast that, “What we mean by fidelity is that the Constitution should be interpreted in ways that adapt its principles and its text to the challenges and conditions of our society in every succeeding generation.”

Whatever that means, he’d be okay with it, even if it means bankrupting the public treasury. So long as there is a societal consensus for a welfare “right,” the means for providing for that right become secondary. In sum, Liu would violate Thomas Jefferson’s solemn proclamation of the limits of power: “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Goodwin Liu would break what remains of those tattered, rusted chains of the Constitution and replace them with the elitist, Ivory Tower rule of the entitlement state.

Entitlement Rip-Off

Entitlement Rip-Off
John Stossel
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Bernie Madoff took money from people who thought he'd invested it, gave some to others who thought it was a partial return on their earlier investments and kept much for himself. That's called a Ponzi scheme, and his $50 billion fraud was called the biggest ever. But it wasn't the biggest. Social Security and Medicare are much bigger ones.

These are trillion-dollar scams. Medicare has a $36 trillion unfunded liability. Social Security's is $8 trillion. There's no money to keep those promises.

But Congress isn't investigating this scam. Congress runs it. That FICA money you thought government had saved for your retirement is gone. There's nothing left but IOUs backed by nothing. Your money was spent not only on current retirees but on wars, welfare, corporate bailouts, earmarks and all the other stuff Congress wants. For years, this was possible because the FICA tax brought in surpluses that allowed government to pay retirees more than they contributed and still help buy those other things.

Those days are gone. The huge group of baby boomers has started to retire, and that means trouble. In 2008, for the first time, Medicare paid out more than it took in.

So instead of filling the government's coffers and hiding the real size of the budget deficit, the entitlement programs have now begun to drain the treasury. Part of the "problem" is that we live longer. When Social Security started, most people didn't live to 65. Now we average 78.

This means that baby boomers like me who expect to collect Social Security and Medicare are basically stealing from children.

Think of the burden: When I was a kid, there were five workers for every retired person. Now, there are only three. And soon there will only be two young workers to fund each baby boomer's Social Security and Medicare checks.

When I explore this alarming matter on my Fox Business New show tomorrow night, Veronique de Rugy, an economist at the Mercatus Center, will point out that Social and Medicare right now consume almost half the federal budget. In coming years, if nothing changes, they will swallow nearly the whole thing. But since Congress will want to spend money on all the other things it now buys -- not to mention a new medical entitlement -- the government will either have to raise taxes to stratospheric heights, borrow like crazy or inflate the dollar. Whichever it chooses, we'll have serious problems.

Higher taxes are not a good solution because taxation suppresses economic activity by transferring capital to politicians. Yet our only hope is a sustained economic boom.

As Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., points out: "You literally cannot tax your way out of this problem. It's not mathematically possible. ... You wipe out the middle class."

Well, how about borrowing? That might mean raising interest rates, which, again, would depress economic activity. Even then, lenders such as China may soon be too nervous to lend Uncle Sam more money. Moody's recently announced it might downgrade America's credit rating.

The most likely outcome is that the Fed will print more money, inflating the currency, so that the creditors are paid with less-valuable dollars. Our purchasing power will disappear.

The architects of the welfare state sure have left us a big mess. Yet hardly anyone talks about entitlements, except to add new ones.

De Rugy asks: Why can't people take care of their own retirement by investing the money government now takes? Had we done this all along, the looming problem would have been averted. Instead, "We're about to witness the biggest, most massive transfer of wealth from the relatively young and poor people of society to the relatively old and wealthy people in society."

Our forefathers would be appalled. After the American Revolution, when the new government was debating how to pay its bills, George Washington said this about a national debt: "We should avoid ungenerously throwing upon posterity ... the burden we ourselves ought to bear." Well, we sure are dumping my generation's debt onto posterity. I wish we had more politicians like George Washington.

It's Over -- The Fat Lady has Sung

It's Over -- The Fat Lady has Sung
Ben Shapiro
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Meet Donna Simpson, of Old Bridge, N.J. Donna is a 42-year-old, presumably unemployed single mother with specific medical issues related to obesity. It is unclear whether she has health insurance. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid probably think of Donna Simpson as a victim of the American health insurance system, which didn't provide her automatic coverage -- and if it did provide her coverage, that coverage was probably increasingly expensive.

There's a reason that Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Reid don't use Simpson as one of their typical sob stories: Simpson weighs 604 pounds, and she's trying to work her way up to 1,000 pounds so that she can make the "Guinness Book of World Records." "This is a fantasy of mine," Simpson told the New York Post. According to the Post, Simpson would love to hit 1,000 pounds by 2012, consuming a diet of 12,000 calories per day.

"My favorite food is sushi," she told the UK's Daily Mail, "but unlike others I can sit and eat 70 big pieces of sushi in one go. I do love cakes and sweet things, doughnuts are my favorite."

How does she pay $750 per week for her food? She has a website where people can donate money to watch the hog feed herself. "I love eating and people love watching me eat. It makes people happy, and I'm not harming anyone."

Well, that used to be true. She wasn't harming anyone because we weren't paying for her (or, at least, we weren't paying for her unless she had a heart attack and ended up in the emergency room).

Now we are paying for her. All of us. We're paying for her because insurance companies in America are no longer allowed to charge her higher premiums due to her pre-existing medical condition (i.e. being a load). They're no longer allowed to provide her coverage limits (i.e. limits on bypasses), and they're no longer allowed to tailor a policy for her that leaves out preventive care (care she'll never use since her goal is to be two Michael Moores).

If Simpson is smart (granted, a big if), she'll simply pay a $750 fine and avoid buying health insurance. Then when she gets sick due to her grain elevator size, she'll sign up for health insurance. The money she pays per year won't come close to covering her care. That means we'll cover it.

If this sounds like a bad idea, that's because it is. It's a horrible, terrible, anti-American idea. And it stems from the similarly awful idea that health care is a right. Once health care is defined as an individual right, society suddenly has an obligation to provide it. And society is made up of other individuals, who will have to come out of pocket to pay for the irresponsible.

In fact, health care is not a right. Donna Simpson doesn't have a right to force me to pay for her health care any more than I have a right to force her to pay for my electricity.

Having the opportunity to control your health (and your health care) is a right, however. Or at least, it was a right. Over the past few decades, health care in this country has moved from a patient-centric system to a government and insurance company-centric system. That's due solely to government regulation -- when medical care isn't regulated, the price drops and the quality increases (just look at Lasik surgery, which generally isn't covered by government programs or by health insurance programs). Free markets ensure rights, because rights are all about choice.

But the left doesn't believe in true rights or true choice. True rights come with the responsibility to live with the consequences of your choices. The right to control your health comes with the responsibility to live with your choices. Donna Simpson has every right to turn herself into a human hippopotamus, but that action has certain consequences -- namely, that she will pay for her own medical care.

The minute those consequences disappear, the right itself disappears, because rights without responsibilities are utterly unsustainable. It is only a matter of time before the government forces those like Donna Simpson to go on a Federal Diet Plan in order to "bend the cost curve," forcing the rest of us to get on the Government Health Control bandwagon. The left burned down the village in order to save it; they destroyed our control of our own health in order to guarantee health coverage for everyone. Our dearest freedom is now in the hands of the collective -- all to save Donna Simpson.

As the Elites Celebrate, the Resistance to Obamacare Begins

As the Elites Celebrate, the Resistance to Obamacare Begins
Robert Knight
Monday, March 22, 2010

There were undoubtedly lots of hangovers in Washington, D.C. on Monday morning, remnants of the packed saloons the night before. Washington’s socialists (read: Democrats), giddy with victory over the House voting 219-212 to pass Obama’s government takeover of health care, could barely contain themselves.

Happy footage abounded on the government mouthpiece networks the next morning (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC). By contrast, Tea Party protesters were shown in the worst light. The Washington Post ran a front page analysis by Dana Milbank calling the crowd “unruly” and “a hideous display, capping one of the ugliest and strangest periods of the American legislative process: the town hall meetings, the death panels ….” In other words, leave policymaking to your betters. Shut up and take it.

The bill, which passed without a single Republican vote, goes directly to the president, who will sign it this week, thus placing another 17 percent of the nation’s economy under government control and paving the way for a socialist remaking of what has been the finest health care system in the world. Then, he’ll take a victory tour around America for a few days to explain why this is good for us. He’s just not had enough airtime, you see. Of course, it doesn’t matter whether we like it or not. The polls consistently pointed in one direction over the past weeks, with a healthy majority of Americans saying “kill the bill.”

The House and Senate are jockeying over the “fix-it” legislation, which is supposed to remove some of the more onerous provisions. But don’t count on it. Abortion funding, for example, won’t be touched. That’s because Obama promised Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that he would issue an executive order prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortion. Stupak caved and led enough other representatives to put the bill over the top. His office also suddenly announced Friday a $726,409 federal infusion for three airports in his district. Wow. How did that happen? An Internet campaign is underway to send Mr. Stupak sets of 30 pieces of fake silver. They should probably include a copy of the executive order that he can frame, but it won’t have much shelf life.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel reports, “The order won’t change the Senate legal language – as pro-choice Democrats publicly crowed within minutes of the Stupak deal. Executive orders can be changed or eliminated on a whim.”

House leaders did abandon the ill-conceived idea to “deem” the Senate bill passed without a vote, a parliamentary trick so odious that the public outcry reached even Nancy Pelosi’s tin ear. After days of bribes and threats behind closed doors, however, she and other House Democratic leaders marched triumphantly to the Capitol, grinning all the way. Carrying a giant gavel, she was making history, and loving it! Those people over there, waving signs and calling them “commies” and “socialists?” Oh, just some extremists. Poor babies. Poor babies. (That’s how she described former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), a previous “no” vote who had resigned over exquisitely timed allegations of unseemly conduct with male aides.)

On Sunday evening, somber Americans gathered in small groups and boarded buses as they prepared to return to their home states. They were among thousands who took part in Saturday’s and Sunday’s rallies to protest the $2.4 trillion health care bill. The Washington Post’s Website predictably reported only “hundreds” took part, and featured mostly footage of shrill voices, plus posters of Obama as Hitler.

On Sunday evening, my wife and I were in the Cracker Barrel in Manassas, Virginia, sitting across from four men of varying ages, who were wearing shirts with the slogan “Born Free, Taxed to Death.”

They were Tea Party members from Georgia, and they were dead serious about what needs to be done. They took a moment to pray over their food. Then they were back discussing the coming political battles. One of them, Jack Smith of the Tea Party of Gilmer County, lamented that “only 10,000 showed up today. We needed a million. We’re going to need 60 million to take the country back.”

Did I note that these guys are very serious? Their determined expressions must not be unlike those worn by the patriots at Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775, who notched the first victory of the American Revolution. The Georgia men said that the America they know and love is slipping away, and they aren’t about to sit around and watch it happen. They said that both major political parties had better turn it around and repeal this mess or else be turned out in November. I told them that nine states have language allowing a broad recall of elected officials, and that petition efforts are already underway against U.S. Senators in New Jersey and Louisiana. More information can be found at RecallCongressNow.org. The Georgia men liked the idea of sending a message far before November.

Likewise, state officials are also not waiting for the federal hammer to fall. Virginia became the first state to pass a bill declaring it illegal for the government to require individuals to purchase health insurance. Idaho quickly followed. Similar legislation is pending in 37 states. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has said he will file a lawsuit challenging ObamaCare as soon as Obama signs it. Attorneys general in several other states are moving to do so, as well.

The ObamaCare takeover was accomplished by some of the most open bribery ever seen. Three examples: In the Senate, after it was reported that $100 million in federal funds brought around Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), she took to the Senate floor to boast that it was, darn it, $300 million. Now get it right! Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) openly boasted that his yes vote was bought in an Oval Office meeting at which he demanded that the Obama Administration increase water to his district in Central California. Sure enough, on Tuesday, the Interior Department announced a gusher, enough to provide 25 percent of the farmers’ needs instead of the expected pre-Costa/Obama confab of only five percent. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) flipped to a “yes” vote after another $100 million was promised in Medicaid money for the Volunteer State, the Wall Street Journal’s Strassel reported.

The Chicago Way has gone national, big time. If you can’t buy them, threaten them. If you can’t threaten them, well….not to worry. You can always buy or fool enough of them, right Mr. Stupak?

The Economics of Abortion

The Economics of Abortion
Ken Connor
Sunday, March 21, 2010

“We are bound by an inescapable garment of mutuality: Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1962

After the American colonists’ petition to King George III for political representation in Parliament was rejected, Thomas Jefferson drafted a declaration of independence from England that will forever be celebrated for its proclamation that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, key among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For over two centuries this declaration has formed the bedrock of America’s consciousness. The Declaration is not merely an assertion of political independence, it is a testament to humanity’s divine inheritance: We are created beings, each of whom bears the likeness of our Maker. Our dignity as human beings cannot be separated from this likeness; indeed, it is the very source of it. The truth of this testament has prevailed despite many shameful episodes in our nation’s history in which we allowed hatred, bigotry, fear, and ignorance to drown out the pricks of a guilty conscience. Sadly, it appears that American society has once again arrived at a moment in which we are daily finding new ways to deny the blessings and obligations of our divine inheritance.

As the final showdown over health care reform unfolded over the past two weeks, Representative Bart Stupak – one of 12 Democrats in the House that had pledged to vote against the health care bill unless major changes to the abortion provision language were made – is reporting that one of the reasons Democrats are pushing for federal funding of abortion is that they view it as a cost-cutting measure. More abortions result in fewer children, which translates into lower health care costs for all. In an interview with National Review Online, Stupak expressed bewilderment and dismay over his colleagues’ calculated position on abortion:

“If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing. . . . Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue – come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

When put in those terms, Stupak’s argument seems pretty cut and dry. Who, after all, would knowingly encourage women to kill their children as a means of saving a few bucks? Only a monster would do such a thing! A monster, or maybe your congressman? If what Rep. Stupak says is true and the real motive behind the Democrats’ vigorous defense of a woman’s “right” to abortion is economic rather than humanitarian (as they would have us believe), then our society is facing much greater troubles than how best to reform our health care system.

The worldview that would allow one to pursue state-funded abortion as a means of fiscal prudence is about as abominable as that which defended the continuation of slavery for the sake of the cotton, tobacco, and rice industries. Today, as then, persons of power and influence are working to deny basic human rights to a defenseless and politically impotent segment of the population. Unborn children, after all, can’t vote, so there’s no harm in pursuing policies sure to result in their destruction.

Americans would do well to consider the consequences of embracing political leaders who view certain segments of society as disposable. The genocidal horrors of the 20th century tell us all we need to know on that subject. The perverted ethics that justified Hitler’s “Final Solution” are the same as those that allow today’s liberated woman to celebrate her “right” to chemically or mechanically eliminate the parasitical “condition” of pregnancy.

If our society chooses to embrace the notion that the unborn only matter when they are wanted (and affordable), it is only a matter of time before we allow ourselves to be persuaded that the human rights of infants, the disabled, the elderly, the poor, the unproductive, or even the unemployed are similarly mutable. This way of looking at our fellow humans – no matter how cleverly disguised by the rhetoric of “rights” or “dignity” – is evidence of a poisonous and depraved state of mind; it is the very embodiment of St. Augustine’s disordered soul, which rejects the pursuit of God and His Truth in favor of its own perverted priorities and desires.

Thomas Jefferson recognized the critical relationship between liberty and worldview. He and the other Founding Fathers recognized at the very beginning of the American experiment that for the new nation to flourish would require that our people recognize that the source of their liberty is God, not government. We must not, in the name of “affordable health care for all” or any other political enticement, forsake the foundational principle upon which our liberty and our dignity rests.

Procedure is all that protects us from dictatorship

Procedure is all that protects us from dictatorship
Laura Hollis
Monday, March 22, 2010

Or, Peggy Noonan is the one who is insane.

Americans woke up this morning still reeling from the obfuscatory charade that took place in Congress yesterday in lieu of its usual deliberative responsibilities.

Unbeknownst to many, we actually got a two-fer last night: nationalization of America’s health care system and nationalization of the student loan program (which, tucked into the health care bill, was eclipsed by its bigger, uglier stepsister).

And we got it because we have a gutless Congress determined to abdicate their procedural responsibilities to protect and reflect the will of those who elected them, and to bow and scrape instead to our would-be dictator President.

How much more do we have to witness before there is no more blather about Barack Obama as a “centrist” or a “moderate?” Yesterday’s legislative debacle was only the latest in a series of calculated, deliberate and premeditated steps by this President to dismantle the constitutional protections Americans have enshrined in our foundational documents and achieve complete government takeover of the reviled and envied private sector.

Consider what we have seen happen in a little more than a year: nearly the entire American automaking industry nationalized, with its CEOs thrown out at the will of the President. Private contracts with investors eviscerated to provide payback to the President’s political patrons. Whole segments of the financial sector beholden to the federal government at the will of the President. Health care – one-sixth of the U.S. economy - nationalized at the will of the President. Student loans nationalized at the will of the President. The country taken into deeper and steeper debt at the will of the President – debt which, as it has everywhere else, will cripple enterprise, impede entrepreneurship, raise unemployment, stifle innovation, destroy America’s world-class health care, and result in shortages, rationing, economic distress, and general misery which will – surprise! – result in calls for what? More government intervention.

People who treat this as an exception to Barack Obama’s moderate “centrism” or an unintended consequence of his skillful management of a crisis he inherited are inexcusably stupid. History has demonstrated – and historians like F.A. Hayek and Elié Halevy have chronicled – that this is precisely what statists intend. Obama absolutely inherited a mess not of his making. But as Rahm Emanuel so pithily observed, it was an opportunity not to strengthen this country, but to strengthen the statists’ stranglehold over this country. And it was an opportunity that Obama has seized with relish.

Obama himself has made his inclinations, his intentions, and his tactics clear, in his own words, in his associations, in the writings of those like Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky whom he hails as mentors and inspirations, in his reference to the Constitution as a “flawed document,” and in his inaugural exhortation to “remake America.” The truth is there, for those who are willing to admit it. But too many observers are too enamored with their own image to tell us the truth.

Glenn Beck, among others, has brought the history of statist oppression into the living rooms and car radios of Americans, many of whom are sadly ignorant of the events and abuses of the past 100 years, and the ideologies which have driven – and continue to drive – them.

For that, he receives criticisms like that doled out by Peggy Noonan in her most recent column for the Wall Street Journal, in which she quips:

“Fox is owned by News Corp., which also owns this newspaper, so one should probably take pains to demonstrate that one is attempting to speak with disinterest and impartiality, in pursuit of which let me note that Glenn Beck has long appeared to be insane.”

Is that supposed to be funny?

Noonan continues her paean to Obama, bemoaning his inexplicable (to her) willingness to tarnish the luster of his “historic presidency” by utilizing unseemly (and arguably unconstitutional) procedures to get what he wants. She tut-tuts at the ends, “I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn't worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory.”

Dear, deluded Peggy. You still don’t get it, do you? Of course it’s worth it! These are not sideshows. This is the point. The tactics are the point. It’s not merely that the ends justify the means. The means are the point. Obama himself admitted as much (as he usually does, if you are paying attention) in his interview with Bret Baier, when he said, “I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or Senate. What I can tell you is that the vote that’s taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform. And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform. And I don’t think we should pretend otherwise."

Much is made among the Peggy Noonans of the world that Obama is a scholar in constitutional law. He is no such thing. A constitutional lawyer who does not care about process does not really care about law, constitutional or otherwise.

Congress should protect us from executive overreaching. Instead, they are facilitating the abuse of executive power by their manipulation of legislative power. They have passed laws without reading them, or even without following the procedures set forth in our own Constitution – all to accede to the will of the President.

Pelosi and her traitorous followers (and yes, I chose that word deliberately) threatened to use “deem and pass.” But, as it turns out, “deem and pass” was a bait-and-switch. Months before the unprecedented (in this context) “deem and pass” was dangled in the face of Americans, we were up-in-arms over the fact that Congress was threatening to use reconciliation to avoid the normal constitutional procedures of drafting a Senate bill, a House bill, and the drawn-out committee process to come up with a version that both houses of Congress could muster a majority of votes for. In response to that outrage, Pelosi threatened something even worse, and then purported to cave on the “deem-and-pass” tactic, and use the now-more-palatable-by-comparison reconciliation process instead.

What we have ended up with, therefore, is a Senate bill that neither a majority of the current senators nor the current House representatives would have voted for, no real House bill, specious promises of “fixes,” and a completely worthless and unenforceable “executive order” which purports to countervail what is in the legislation; legislation which the vast majority of Americans do not want.

It is hard even for me, a Civil Procedure professor, to convey how gravely serious it is when Congress manipulates or disregards the proper legislative procedures to ram through legislation that is contrary to the will of the American public, at the behest of an arm-twisting President.

Many of the world’s most vicious dictators have patsy parliaments, legislatures or national assemblies which exist for the sole purpose of providing a false legitimacy to what would otherwise be the petulant exercises of individual will. We are teetering on the brink of that abyss. The only thing left for Congress to do to make the dictatorship complete is simply to refuse to draft the laws and allow Obama to simply declare them.

Obama cannot yet declare his own supreme will to be law by fiat. But he’s close. Obama complained about the complexity of the democratic process, as compared to the elegant simplicity of what he could do if he were simply allowed to create law by the mere exercise of his will. As if in response to that complaint, Congress dutifully suspended its own legislative processes. Is it any wonder, then, that Obama could care less whether or not Congress follows its own rules, as long as he gets what he wants?

Glenn Beck is one of the few commentators with the guts to warn us of what this portends. And for that, people like Peggy Noonan joke that he is insane.

Bart Stupak is taking the most flak today for caving (and doing so deceitfully) to Obama’s will. But he is only one of many. Those like Stupak who voted in favor of this travesty are not just a disgrace, but a threat to the Republic, and every single one of them must be thrown out of office. Adherence to constitutional procedures is the only thing that protects us from dictatorship.

And if Peggy Noonan can’t see that, then she is the one who is insane.
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To read another article by Laura Hollis, click here.