Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
"Daily Motivations"
The real secret to making magic is a bunch of people all working together. -- Tony Jeary
"Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was." -- Richard Evans
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
"For God is Spirit, so those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24)
"I just don't get God," you've said. "He's too complicated, too confusing, and, most of all, too invisible! I can't wrap my mind or my arms around him."
Join the club. We have all felt that way. God is a Spirit, and we live in a material world. Complicating matters more, there's that whole idea of the Trinity: three-in-one, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost who are still, somehow, one God. How in the world are we supposed to deal with that? One answer: Water.
Water is an interesting substance. All physical life depends upon it, just as all spiritual life depends upon God. Did you ever stop to consider that water is three-in-one, too? In its solid form, ice or snow, we can chew it or throw it. In its liquid form, water we can drink it or swim in it. In its gas form, steam or vapor, we can breathe it.
We experience water very differently in each of its three forms, yet it never ceases being H2O---a compound of hydrogen and oxygen. When you were a child, you had no comprehension of how the water molecule "worked." But you could still enjoy a good glass of water, a snowcone or a fluffy cloud.
As God's children, we find that He is far beyond our intellectual comprehension. But we can still experience a personal relationship with Him. We can still call call Him "Abba (Daddy) Father." We can still worship Him "in spirit and in truth."
"The Patriot Post"
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
The BIG Lie
"[The AHIP report is a] hatchet job ... bought and paid for by the same health insurance companies that have been gouging too many consumers for too long as they stand in the way of reform yet again." -- Sen. Max "The Gouger" Baucus, who predicts that all Democrats and possibly more than one Republican will support his bill
This Week's 'Braying Jenny' Award
"When you think of the campaign that's been launched against the public option by the insurance industry -- because they can't take the competition. Anyone who had any doubts about the need for such an option need only look at the health insurance industry this week." -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Pelosi is reduced to taunting and threatening anyone opposed to her schemes, saying that it only further makes the case for a government-run "public option" for health insurance. But how could any industry compete with the federal government's ability to run at a deficit forever? She went on to mock the "discredited" AHIP report. No one has actually discredited the report, mind you, Pelosi only says it's been discredited.
Hope 'n' Change: About That Free Lunch
Creative accounting allows Washington to get away with a lot, and the current health care debacle is no exception. Recent analyses of House and Senate proposals by the Congressional Budget Office rely upon static scoring (i.e., not factoring in behavioral changes caused by the legislation,) fantastically optimistic projections and simple omissions of unfavorable facts that trumpet deficit-neutral bills having no basis in reality. The libertarian Cato Institute, for example, took a close look at the CBO's numbers and discovered a variety of unsupportable claims.
For starters, the 10-year projection that measures out the trillion-dollar House bill in itself is misleading. Most of the bill's major provisions don't kick in until 2014, making for a 6-year projection in which costs ramp up slowly. After the first three years of the program, around the time of the 2012 election, costs would accumulate to about $100 billion, relative chump change that will allow Obama's re-election campaign the opportunity to pledge that health care has been a cost-saving success. But four years beyond that, long after the current president passes the threshold of electoral accountability (assuming he wins, perish the thought), costs catch a fever. Cato estimates a $2.4 trillion tab (even Sen. Harry Reid admits as much), double what the House bill and the CBO project. And what happens after 2019 is a true horror story.
The Baucus bill, all the rage on Capitol Hill these days, is another fraud of epic proportions. It claims to have no impact on the deficit by assuming, in part, that growth rate cuts in Medicare's physician payments will help offset its $829 billion price tag. All well and good, but Congress never makes those cuts because no one wants to be on record as cutting an entitlement for one of America's most powerful voting blocs. Just by taking these cuts out of the equation, the bill automatically goes $200 billion into the red. Additionally, there is no reckoning of the built-in costs that will hit consumers, including penalties for high-price insurance plans, penalties for not having insurance and the general rise in cost of various health care procedures over the span of several years.
Obama and his Democrat lackeys have either bullied or beguiled the CBO, once a reliably non-partisan entity, into fabricating analyses concluding that Congress has produced sweeping legislation that does not negatively affect the deficit. If ever the phrase "voodoo economics" applied, it's now.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"I will actually give you a speech made up entirely -- almost at the spur of the moment, of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is, and a candidate will never say, but what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where citizens were honored in terms of their practice of citizenship, and they were educated in terms of what the issues were, and they could separate myth from reality in terms of what candidates would tell them:
'Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I'm so glad to see you, and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. [laughter] That's true, and what I'm going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people. But that means you -- particularly you young people, particularly you young, healthy people -- you're going to have to pay more. [applause] Thank you.'
'And by the way, we are going to have to -- if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive, so we're going to let you die.' [applause]
'Also, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid -- we already have a lot of bargaining leverage -- to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. But that means less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market, which means you are probably not going to live that much longer than your parents. [applause] Thank you.'" --Robert Reich, President Clinton's labor secretary, in a speech at Berkeley in 2007. Democrats, death panels and dying early -- it's all in there, folks.
From the Left: The War on Fox News
The Obama administration is clearly not content to have a majority of American news media in its back pocket. It wants total obedience and has now openly declared war on Fox News Channel, which White House Communications Director Anita Dunn recently accused of being "a wing of the Republican Party." She added that from here forward, "We're going to treat [Fox News] the way we would treat an opponent. ... We don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."
Consider the source, though. Dunn is also on the record saying that one of her "favorite political philosophers" was Mao Tse Tung, who was responsible for more than 70 million deaths in Communist China.
Obamanauts are furious with Fox for being the only major broadcast news outlet that has not toed the party line. Apparently, the administration thinks the way "legitimate news organizations behave" is to out-and-out lie about the opposition, like CBS News with its "fake but accurate" hatchet job on President George W. Bush just prior to the 2004 election, and like the outrageously phony quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh in recent days (more on that later).
Fox, on the other hand, has recently exposed the corruption of ACORN and the extreme leftism of former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, but this doesn't make it anti-Obama. Rather, it makes Fox pro-information, as the ACORN exposé and Van Jones's public insults about Republicans were real and noteworthy events, though most of the media chose not to report them.
The White House attack on Fox News goes beyond the simple cowardice of the Obama administration. Not only are they afraid to field tough questions from an aggressive news organization but government appointees in high places like Mark Lloyd, the FCC's Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer, are calling for ways to address the "structural imbalance" of talk radio and, presumably, the manner in which FNC does business. For his part, Lloyd is on record as being enamored of Hugo Chavez's "democratic revolution" and his takeover of the Venezuelan media. All aboard for the "Fairness Doctrine."
Bunker Buster Bomb
MOP up on aisle 3... A new conventional bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), is about to join the Air Force inventory, and not a moment too soon. Designed to penetrate farther into solid rock than previous 2,000-pound bombs, the MOP will dress out at a staggering 30,000 pounds, of which more than 5,000 pounds is high explosive. Dropped from a B-2 bomber at 30,000 feet, with a GPS guidance system steering it onto the target, the MOP can reportedly penetrate more than 120 feet of solid rock before detonating. Patriot readers can probably recommend some initial targets for the MOP -- Iranian and North Korean buried nuclear programs, mountain cave hideouts in Tora Bora, and the like. While the Defense Department denies any specific targeting requirements that would call for the MOP, the timing is certainly interesting.
In other news this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried and failed to make lemonade out of lemons when the Russians refused even to pretend to favor additional sanctions on Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov could only bring himself to say that "all efforts should be made to support further talks." Clinton then cited this clear rebuff as proof of the "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations. Guess it depends how you define "reset." See what dropping our missile defense plans and betraying our Polish and Czech allies got us?
"NRTW"
Stop the "Obamacare" Union Power Grab
http://www.righttoworkcommittee.org/ocaudio2.aspx
"syracuse.com"
Hoffman the only true conservative in race
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2009/10/three_candidates_vie_for_forme.html
To the Editor:
I can celebrate! Anyone can join me in celebrating: anyone who is tired of politics as usual and an out-of-control federal government that is gaining to much control over “we the people.” There is a fresh face on the horizon, coming forward to make a difference. His name is Doug Hoffman and he is running for the 23rd Congressional District to replace Rep. John McHugh.
Hoffman’s candidacy brings to mind the biblical story of David and Goliath. He is running against two major party candidates, both of whom have demonstrated extreme liberal views and actions. Hoffman is the only true conservative in this race.
David of old used five smooth stones to defend the name of God. Hoffman is defending traditional conservative values. His five smooth stones are five simple staments of truth. He believes in the sanctity of life; in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman; in shrinking the trillion dollar national debt; that Obama health care will be disastrous to the health care of the American people and in stopping out-of-control government spending and the resulting raising of taxes.
It is my hope that we in the 23rd Congressional District will claim our rights as Americans Nov. 3 to vote not for a party, but for a man of integrity who will represent those conservative values that are presently being trampled on in Washington. Then we will celebrate!
Nancy Schick
Fulton
He’s not an “R’ or a “D” but a “C”
To the Editor:
Some people always vote the “R” or “D” line. When asked why, I was surprised to find “because I always have” was a frequent answer.
This year, we have an important race in the 23rd Congressional District. Most years it wouldn’t get much attention, but this one has attracted national attention. Why would Upstate New York get the attention of the “powers that be” for the “R’s” and “D’s”? Why is the president going to a fundraiser for the “D” candidate in New York City? Why has the GOP recently contributed “six figures” to the “R” candidate? I believe the reason this election is getting so much attention is because the people in Washington are worried.
They are worried because there is a viable third candidate. We have a “C” candidate this year. Usually, the “C’s” go along with the “R’s,” but this time the “R” was so much like the “D,” they decided to offer a different option.
Doug Hoffman is the Conservative Party candidate for 23rd Congressional District. He’s not a lawyer or career politician. He is a CPA and small business owner. Washington is worried because a CPA can look at their plans and tell us how many tax dollars they will really cost. A small business owner can look at tax proposals and tell us how they will affect job creation. Washington is worried because, even though Hoffman has some big-name endorsements, he has more “grassroots” support than the “R” or the “D,” so the only people he will be beholden to when elected is “we the people.”
So, when casting your vote Nov. 3, think about how well “because I always have” has worked so far.
Silvan Johnson
Fulton
"The Web"
Glenn Beck — What Is The Exit Strategy for ObamaCare?
http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/glenn-beck-and8212-what-is-the-exit-strategy-for-obamacare-fox-news/1741079520
The Relationship Between Power and Peace
Paul Coughlin - Contributing Writer, Author, Speaker
http://www.crosswalk.com/spirituallife/men/11610360/page0/#Close
When I want to burrow deeper into a word or concept, I sometimes turn to sign language. Recently, during a break in a Michael McDonald concert, I noticed a woman, to the right of the stage, signing to a small group of people. I was mesmerized by her unvarnished and unblinking use of signs to describe everyday life.
There was no posturing or pretense as this gifted communicator reflected the mood and nature of the songs. When I asked her for the sign for courage, she clenched her fists, knuckles away from her body, elbows bent—the position your arms would be when finishing a pull-up, where your fists rest just below your chin.
"Courage means ‘strength, power,'" she told me. And that sign is the visual equivalent of the Hebrew word for courage (hazaq), which means "to show oneself strong." Thankfully, there are expressions of Christianity that put forth courage as a gift of God's Holy Spirit.
Anglicans, Catholics, and Lutherans believe there are seven primary gifts of the Holy Spirit, as found in Isaiah 11. Here we're told that the Spirit of God rests upon messiah, helping him and those who know him to do their part in the messianic kingdom. Isaiah gives very specific information:
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
This word power is also translated as strength and might, derivatives of courage. Thomas Aquinas unfolded this spiritual gift when he wrote that the gift of fortitude (courage) allows people "firmness of mind [that] is required both in doing good and in enduring evil, especially with regard to goods or evils that are difficult." According to Aquinas, the gift of courage compels a Christian's will toward going God's will here and now.
Another view of the intriguing Isaiah passage says that the gifts listed are threefold: (1) wisdom and understanding for government, (2) counsel and power (courage) for war, and (3) knowledge and fear of the Lord for spiritual leadership.
We must also pay attention to what Isaiah writes next because it's intrinsic to our comprehension of what the Holy Spirit will compel us to do with our thumotic courage.
With righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
Biblically, again and again and again, we see that courage is intrinsic to justice, faithfulness, righteousness, and peace. Through the Prince of Peace, we learn that peace itself is hard-won. Here we learn, specifically, that peace follows judgment and springs from righteousness—not from perpetual pleasantness and never-ending niceties.
Please don't miss how this remarkable passage so vividly reveals God's heart and will for the needy and the poor. We are to do more than merely provide food and shelter—we are to judge on their behalf, to move their direction, to plead their case for them when necessary. We should be more than their dietitian or landlord: We need to be their advocate.
Unfortunately, our current notion of peace itself is poorly conceived, even self-serving. We usually think of it in the framework of inner peace, an inner sense of well-being. We also frequently regard peace as being "about me, my feelings, my thoughts, my experience, my needs." There is an inner peace that comes from the Holy Spirit, yes, but why wouldn't we think this would include the likelihood that God would gift us with the ability to help bring about peace on earth as well?
Furthermore, regarding inner peace, we need to admit that this also comes from a life well-lived through the discharge of one's duties. Simply doing what one ought to do is a strong vaccine against the malaise of existential anguish and depression that haunts many people. We fulfill our responsibilities and continue moving toward our aspirations in part when we possess and employ our fighting spirit.
The fruit of peace likewise should lead toward the proliferation of peace; it shouldn't result in appeasement. Unfortunately, we're not very good at distinguishing peace-making from peace-faking. Rick Warren reminds us:
Peacemaking is not avoiding conflict. Running from a problem, pretending it doesn't exist, or being afraid to talk about it is actually cowardice. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, was never afraid of conflict….Peacemaking is also not appeasement. Always giving in, acting like a doormat, and allowing others to always run over you is not what Jesus had in mind.
The falsehoods in our worldview have us believing we're the world's doormats. In his oft-overlooked bluntness, though, Jesus sets us straight: "If your brother wrongs you, reprove him; and if he repents, forgive him." That's pretty straightforward and assertive. He likewise once told his disciples that if they had no sword they should sell their cloak to buy one.
The Bible gives us many examples of the rugged virtues we're called to embrace, so why do we focus only on the sweet and sugary ones that, when overemphasized, give us spiritual cavities and further deep-freeze our already frosty thumos? The answer is that we don't want toughness in our spirituality, even when it's unavoidable, and even when it can save lives. We don't want creative tension and unsettling disruption—we're afraid these might be offensive to others and, from a leadership angle, thereby lower the body count on a given Sunday. We like numbers. Numbers keep our budgets growing.
I understand budget problems. I've gone months unable to pay my bills due to ministry expenses, and I've hated how that feels. But service to others is a priority we make, for right now seekers coming into our churches aren't seeing fervent love and action but rather the ordination of mildness and conformity. On the most segregated day in America, they are seeing people "more cautious than courageous, [people who] have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of the stained-glass windows" regarding matters of justice and cruelty.
So we only quote the things that make our faith feel safe and comfortable; we hide from stuff that's revolutionary, adventurous…truly transforming. We'll do most anything to escape or ignore what seems threatening to our status quo.
Remember, though: The Bible commands us to be strong and courageous more than two dozen times! (Interestingly, it also lists about the same number of examples of cowardice, each a cautionary tale. It's as if God is instructing us to embrace courage each time there's an opportunity to flee it). We're told that the righteous are as bold as lions; how on earth have come to think we should be as sugary as cotton candy or as saccharine as diet soda ("sweetness"—both real and fake)?
The health of our thumos, the state of our spiritual maturity, and thus our ability to live well depend upon our accepting this revelation of what it means to follow god and reflect his true nature, which brings both disruption and comfort. Once more, here there is no contradiction, but rather completion.
Senate moderates voice concern over public option
http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=cincinnati&sParam=31906749..story
Enlarge by Haraz N. Ghanbari, AP
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. speaks about health care reform during a news conference, Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
By Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Inclusion of a government insurance plan in Senate health care legislation is posing problems for moderate senators whose votes are critical to passing the bill. Reverberations could be felt across the Capitol, where House Democratic leaders are finalizing a bill with a government plan.
Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Tuesday that while he won't vote to block Majority Leader Harry Reid's plan from going to the Senate floor for debate, he would ultimately oppose the measure because it includes a public option.
Meanwhile, Maine Republican Susan Collins, who had earlier indicated interest in trying to pass a bipartisan bill this year, issued a statement underscoring her opposition to "a taxpayer-subsidized, government-run health insurance company."
Lieberman said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that he's worried a public option would be costly to taxpayers and drive up insurance premiums. An independent who caucuses with Democrats, Lieberman is among a group of about a dozen moderate senators whose support Reid will need as Senate critical health care votes near.
Lieberman said he's open to the possibility of supporting a plan set up and run by the states.
It's not clear that Reid, D-Nev., has the 60 votes needed for the controversial government insurance plan to prevail on the Senate floor. If it fails, that could affect the thinking of House members, particularly moderate Democrats.
"There are some members of the House, obviously, who are very concerned about what the Senate does ... because they want to vote for something that can pass, that can be enacted," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
"On the other hand there are a whole lot of people in the House, the great majority of the Democrats in the House, who want to see a health reform bill pass in the fashion that we believe is justified ... and I think an overwhelming majority of Democrats are in favor of the public option," Hoyer added.
Lawmakers must meld the House and Senate versions of the health care bills.
House Democratic leaders have been debating the shape the government insurance plan will take in their bill, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushing for a strong version that would tie payment rates to providers to rates paid by Medicare -- likely resulting in cheaper costs for patients but lower payments to hospitals and doctors, something that troubles moderates.
Pelosi doesn't appear to have the votes for that plan. Hoyer said that switching the design to allow the Health and Human Services secretary to negotiate payment rates with providers -- the approach Reid is taking -- gets more support for a public option, which Hoyer said currently commands between 200 and 218 votes. A simple majority in the House is 218.
Reid's plan would allow individual states to opt out of the public insurance plan. In the wake of his announcement Monday the focus of the health overhaul debate shifted to the handful of moderate senators whose support will be crucial to get him to 60.
Reid's decision amounted to a victory for liberal lawmakers who have pushed for a public insurance option they contend would create needed competition for private industry and provide affordable choices to consumers.
The reaction from moderate Democrats -- they fear a public plan could drive insurers out of business and take over the marketplace -- ranged from muted to skeptical. The one Republican who has so far lent her support to Democratic health overhaul proposals, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, said she was "deeply disappointed" by Reid's decision.
Snowe had supported allowing government insurance in individual states only if the private market wasn't providing sufficient choice and competition.
Among the moderates whose support is in question are Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Landrieu said in a statement that she's still "very skeptical" about a government plan run from Washington but would keep working with Reid to find a "principled compromise."
Nelson "is not committing how we will vote regarding any proposal Sen. Reid is advancing," said spokesman Jake Thompson.
Lincoln, who's up for re-election in 2010, said through a spokesman she intends to study the details and decide how to vote based on the impact on her home state.
Both the House and Senate are struggling to complete work by year's end on legislation extending coverage to millions who lack it, banning insurance industry practices such as denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions, and slowing the rise in medical costs nationally.
Obama Told House Democrat He Wasn’t Talking about House Health Bill When He Told Congress ‘Our Plan’ Doesn’t Fund Abortion
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=56109
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president’s own health care plan—which has never been written.
“I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what,” Stupak said of Obama’s nationally televised declaration to Congress that the health-care plan will not allow federal funding of abortion.
Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care bill permit federal funds to pay for insurance plans that cover abortions.
In his speech to the joint session of Congress, Obama directly rebutted the claim that the plan would fund abortions, calling it a misunderstanding.” But in his later telephone conversation with Stupak, according to the congressman, Obama said that when he claimed in the speech that the plan would not fund abortions he was not talking about the House plan, he was talking about his own plan.
CNSNews.com read Stupak the verbatim transcript of President Obama’s joint-session-speech statement about abortion funding: “And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up: Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.”
CNSNews.com asked Stupak: “Is that a true or false statement?”
“That is exactly what he said,” said Stupak.
“But is it an accurate statement?” asked CNSNews.com.
“I called him,” said Stupak. “I called the president--had a discussion with the president. And I read exactly what you just said. And he said: ‘What it says is “under my plan”’—meaning the president’s plan. And I said: ‘With all due respect, sir, you do not have a plan. The only plan we have out is the House plan.’ So, I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what.”
CNSNews.com then asked Stupak if Obama was referring to a plan that existed only ‘theoretically, some different plan than the one you actually drafted in committee?”
“Correct. Correct,” said Stupak. “And when I pointed this out, he said: ‘Go back and work with the people on your committee and get this matter worked out. Work with the speaker. Work with us, would you?’ And I said: Yes, I would. And we have tried. But we haven’t been able to resolve our differences because we do not want public funds going for abortion.”
Stupak serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel that has primary responsibility for crafting health-care legislation. The House health-care-reform bill approved by this committee would create health insurance “exchanges” in each state where people using federal subsidies to purchase their insurance could choose the plan they want from among a group of government-approved plans.
On July 30, the committee approved an amendment to the bill sponsored by Rep. Lois Capps (D.-Calif.) that mandates that at least one insurance plan in each exchange must cover abortions.
On Aug. 19, in a radio presentation, President Obama nonetheless said that it was “not true” that the bill would allow government funding of abortion. On Aug. 21, the independent group FactCheck.org analyzed the bill in light of this statement by President Obama and concluded: “Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.”
The Senate Finance Committee’s health-care bill had not been completed at the time that President Obama delivered his Sept. 9 speech to Congress. When it was completed, however, it also included a provision like the Capps Amendment. Thus, both House and Senate versions of the health-care bill as they now stand would allow people to use federal dollars to buy health insurance plans that cover abortions.
In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Stupak offered his own amendment to the health care bill that would have prohibited federal funds from being used to cover “any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion.” This amendment mirrors the language of the Hyde Amendment that is included each year in various annual appropriations bills. Because the Hyde Amendment only affects funding included in the appropriations bill that carries it, its prohibition on abortion funding would not apply to the permanent funding stream for federal health insurance subsidies that would be set up by the health-care reform bills drafted by the House and Senate.
On July 31, by a 27-to-31 vote, the Energy and Commerce Committee defeated Stupak’s effort to include the Hyde language directly in the health-care bill itself and thus prohibit abortion funding through that bill and the programs it would create.
Stupak told CNSNews.com he has organized a group of “about 40 likeminded Democrats” who will try to kill the health care bill itself unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) agrees to allow an up-or-down vote on his amendment when the bill comes to the House floor.
"The speaker has told me I will not have my amendment," said Stupak. "It will not be made in order."
Stupak also said that during his telephone conversation with Obama the president indicated that he supports Stupak's goal of prohibting federal funding of abortion through the health-care reform plan, although the president did not say that he supports the specific language of Stupak's amendment.
"I would call upon the President to help us out here," said Stupak.
Here is a partial transcript of CNSNews.com’s interview with Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.):
Jeffrey: “When President Obama came and spoke to the joint session of Congress on September 9th, he said, quote: ‘And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up: Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” unquote. Is that a true or false statement?”
Stupak: “That is exactly what he said.”
Jeffrey: “Okay, that is what he said. But is it an accurate statement?”
Stupak: “I called him. I called the president--had a discussion with the president. And I read exactly what you just said. And he said: ‘What it says is “under my plan”’—meaning the president’s plan. And I said: ‘With all due respect, sir, you do not have a plan. The only plan we have out is the House plan.’ So, I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what.”
Jeffrey: “So President Obama did not tell you, Congressman Stupak, that the plans that have been drafted in the House—the bill that actually came out of your committee—does not fund abortion.”
Stupak: “He did not say that.”
Jeffrey: “He did not assert that. He said that ‘his’ plan--”
Stupak: “His plan.”
Jeffrey: “Theoretically, some different plan than the one you actually drafted in committee?”
Stupak: “Correct. Correct. And when I pointed this out, he said: ‘Go back and work with the people on your committee and get this matter worked out. Work with the speaker. Work with us, would you?’ And I said: Yes, I would. And we have tried. But we haven’t been able to resolve our differences because we do not want public funds going for abortion.”
Jeffrey: "Did President Obama indicate to you that he supports your amendment?"
Stupak: "He is supportive of what I am trying to do. However, we are getting down to crunch time. And I would call upon the President to help us out here. The speaker has told me I will not have my amendment. It will not be made in order. It will not be part of 3200. So the Capps language—which [means] citizens would have to start using their funds, public funds, to pay for abortions--will be part of 3200. And I will not have an opportunity on the House floor to delete that language or put the Hyde language in there to supersede the Capps language."
Jeffrey: "So, the president has represented to you that he supports the goal—"
Stupak: "Yes."
Jeffrey: "--of prohibiting federal dollars from being used to buy insurance that covers abortions?"
Stupak: "Yes."
Jeffrey: "Without saying that he supports your specific language?"
Stupak: "Without saying he supports my specific language."
Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Advocated ‘Queering Elementary Education’
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/56196
Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, U.S. Department of Education. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s safe schools czar wrote a foreword to a book in 1999 that called for elementary school children to explore their sexual identities, for teachers to incorporate homosexual themes in grades K-5, for discarding a “hetero-normative” approach to education and for “acknowledging children as sexual beings.”
Kevin Jennings, now the assistant deputy secretary for education who heads the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, began the foreword to Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling (Rowan & Littlefield Publishers) by writing about the Columbine school shooting in Colorado and comparing it to the beating-death of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming and, from there, to the issue of intolerance in schools.
“We remain silent in the face of intolerance,” wrote Jennings, then president of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, an organization he founded. “We do little to teach the values of equality and justice. We simply fail to set any kind of expectation at all that these young people must respect each other even (especially?) when differences among them are vast and profound.”
“Nowhere is this failure more evident than when it comes to antigay prejudice, and nowhere is that particular failure more manifest than it is in our elementary schools,” wrote Jennings.
The book for which Jennings wrote the foreword includes essays from gay and lesbian educators that advocate teaching acceptance of homosexuality in elementary school and kindergarten. (The book is edited by William J. Letts IV and James T. Sears, who also wrote essays for the book.)
In his foreword, Jennings rejects the premise that sexuality should not be taught in elementary schools by arguing that it already is taught, but to instill and promote anti-gay hatred.
“I often find myself confronted with people who attack me for ‘bringing this issue into our schools,’” he wrote. “How laughable this statement is, I think. The reality is that this issue--anti-gay bigotry--is already in our schools. Little kids are learning to hate, and they’re learning it right now in elementary schools across America.”
“Face it: ‘That’s so gay’ has become a mantra of elementary-school children, a mantra invoked whenever a child encounters something or someone they do not like or understand or appreciate,” Jennings wrote. “But the hatred and attitudes they express are not the exception--they are the rule. And we shouldn’t be surprised when troubled people vent their rage in murderous fashions on those they learned it is okay to hate.”
Jennings also criticized conservative political figures in the foreword.
“I’ll admit that in a world populated by the likes of Jesse Helms and Gary Bauer and Pat Buchanan, we can’t blame our schools for all the prejudice we see visited upon queer people,” Jennings wrote. “After all, when the senate majority leader [Trent Lott] compares us to kleptomaniacs, it’s hard to blame bigotry entirely on one’s third grade teacher (although one wonders exactly who Mr. Lott had for his teachers given the profound level of ignorance that pours forth from his mouth).”
To accuse any individual who does not share Jennings’ opinion of hate is a means of silencing debate, said Gary Bauer, president of American Values, a pro-family advocacy group.
“I recall when Matthew Shepard was murdered and a number of people singled out James Dobson as being responsible,” Bauer told CNSNews.com. “Such charges are obscene. The only purpose is to try to silence debate and expression of traditional values.”
On page 9, one of the book’s editors, James T. Sears, states, “Acknowledging children as sexual beings or allowing males (particularly homosexuals) to teach in elementary grades dislodges the classroom from the ‘safe haven’ of heteronormativity.”
Sears, identified as an “independent scholar” living in South Carolina, continues, “Childhood innocence is a veneer that we as adults impress onto children, enabling us to deny desire comfortably and to silence sexuality.”
He also wrote, “Allowing children freedom to develop their sexual identities absent guilt or conditional love is an important attribute of queer households (and classrooms).”
"Heteronormative" is described in Chapter 9 as framing education in such a way that heterosexuality is normal while anything else is abnormal. On page 103, the chapter’s author William J. Letts IV, one of the other editors, denounces a text that explains the difference between boys and girls. He writes that schools push for boys to play with G.I. Joe action figures and girls to play with Barbie dolls as part of a larger social push.
“Boys don’t have to stand to urinate (nor do girls have to sit--they could squat),” wrote Letts, adding, “that’s just how they got conditioned.” Letts is a former elementary school science teacher.
In Chapter 3, Kathy Bickmore writes, “The first reason to discuss sexuality in elementary school is that it is already present in students’ lives. Assumptions about children’s ‘innocence’ regarding sexuality are outdated.”
On page 21, Bickmore, who taught education at the University of Toronto, wrote: “Sexuality and homosexuality in particular, is generally seen to be unsafe content for young children’s classrooms. This assumption misjudges what many children already know about themselves and their world, and also misses the point of what helps an ‘innocent’ develop into a self-sustaining ‘citizen.’”
President Barack Obama. (AP Pool Photo/Jason Reed)
This month, 53 House Republicans sent a letter to President Obama asking him to remove Jennings from the Department of Education.
“As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America's schools--an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children,” the letter said.
“As evidence of this, Mr. Jennings wrote the foreword for a book titled Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue About Sexualities and Schooling. Throughout his career, Mr. Jennings has made it his mission to establish special protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students to the exclusion of all other students,” the letter said.
“The totality of Mr. Jennings' career has been to advocate for public affirmation of homosexuality,” it said. “There is more to safe and drug-free schools than can be accomplished from the narrow view of Mr. Jennings who has, for more than 20 years, almost exclusively focused on promoting the homosexual agenda.”
Jennings’ foreword indicates what kind of agenda he brings to his government office, said Bauer.
“A person’s history tells us a lot about what they will do in a position of power,” Bauer told CNSNews.com. “Most parents, including millions of people that voted for Barack Obama, will not be and should not be comfortable with someone like Mr. Jennings’ agenda for elementary school children.”
A spokesman for the Department of Education could not be reached for comment Tuesday despite repeated inquiries.
Also, two pro-homosexual rights groups--the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation--did not respond to inquiries from CNSNews.com about Jennings and the book.
Another essay in Queering Elementary Education says, “Choosing literature for children with explicitly gay and lesbian themes, characters and situations is a direct approach to including part of many children’s’ home lives.”
This essay by James R. King and Jennifer J. Schneider, both of the University of South Florida, further states on page 131 that, “Teaching homosexuality is precisely about differences, learning from differences and broadening the ways we understand others. The combined fears of sexual taboo and job insecurity (either real or imagined) have proved sufficient to keep homosexuality in the classroom closet. We can no longer afford the heterosexist elitism. Our students already know better (and worse).”
An essay by Kevin P. Colleary, who was a doctoral student in education at Harvard University, asserts on page 157 that, “Whenever a discussion of family or community occurs--both topics of greater importance in almost all grades K-3 social-studies curriculum documents--there is an opportunity to talk about gay and lesbian families, and/or specific communities or neighborhoods where many gays and lesbians lives in almost every major city.”
The book’s fourth chapter begins with a scene of kindergarteners reenacting Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It goes on to ask why not envision another reenactment. “Children have made a banner that says ‘Stonewall Inn.’” The reference was to a June 1969 riot by homosexuals outside the Stonewall bar, a riot viewed as a civil rights watershed event among gay activists.
That chapter was written by Betsy J. Cahill of New Mexico State University and Rachel Theilheimer of Manhattan Community College. The two go on to write: “Teachers can tell children about the lesbian and gay people they know or know about. In the video, It’s Elementary, a teacher and children brainstorm ideas about gays and lesbians. They listen to music by musicians such as Elton John and Melissa Ethridge. In a discussion the teacher points out that the musicians are gay. This is one example of how a teacher might formally teach about gays and lesbians.”
In Chapter 8, Eric Rofes, who taught at Bowdoin College, writes about whether he influenced any of his elementary students to become gay. He was only able to locate eight former students from an elementary class he taught 20 years earlier. He found that these students were not gay.
But he said an openly homosexual teacher can encourage a new generation of activists. “Finally, the greatest influence of openly lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers may be on students’ relationships to political activism, and social movements,” he wrote. “By witnessing up close the importance of political advocacy on a teacher’s job security and social position, children’s understanding of the importance of activism and its relevance to their lives might be enhanced.”
In an essay addressing how universities can work with school districts, Kate Evans, a professional writer, wrote on page 245, “University administrators can place student teachers only in schools that include sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies. If university allies discover local districts without such policies, they can work toward change by speaking at school board meetings and talking with professional contacts.”
In the book’s final chapter, Margaret Mullehern and Gregory Martinez, both of Boise State University, write about the challenges of including homosexuality in school multicultural programs.
“As teacher educators, we feel responsible for educating pre-service elementary teachers about how they can help children understand the damaging effects of homophobia and the positive contributions of gays and lesbians,” they wrote on page 255. “Thus, the decision to include sexual orientation in our multicultural education courses was easy.”
“However, as this chapter details, teaching queerly required more than a conviction,” they continue on page 255. “Confronted with a lack of knowledge and remnants of the homophobia we had grown up with, we had to peel back layers of fear and discomfort and educate our selves.”
Dismantling America
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=740538
Thomas Sowell - Syndicated Columnist
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official -- not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President -- could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?
Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers -- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.
How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.
We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.
How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles, and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God d--- America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government -- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.
Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.
Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year -- each bill more than a thousand pages long -- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question -- and the biggest question for this generation.
Signing away sovereignty
By Ed Lasky
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/signing_away_sovereignty.html
Americans concerned about the decline of American power under the presidency of Barack Obama should turn their radar on and keep it on. We should be aware that Obama intends to roll out for Senate approval a series of international treaties that will further bind America to the will of the international community if they are ratified.
Bit by bit, America's autonomous power is being taken away. The Boston Globe provides a public relations gloss by calling these treaties a means of fulfilling "Obama's vision of global cooperation." This is one view, I suppose. Another view would be that our policies will be tied down by these treaties -- and we will be judged by international bureaucrats and held to their interpretation of what our obligations are under the treaties.
Bryan Bender in the Boston Globe:
President Obama's vision of global cooperation - symbolized by his surprise Nobel Peace Prize - is in for a crucial test in the months ahead when he begins sending a series of treaties to the U.S. Senate, where skepticism among Republicans and some Democrats will make approval exceedingly difficult, according to government officials and specialists. [...]
... the Obama administration says it will seek ratification of three major pacts aimed at reducing nuclear weapons. It also will seek approval of a set of regulations to manage use of the oceans and, by the end of the president's first term, a new treaty to combat global climate change. [...]
"I think he is going to have a real fight on his hands,'' said Steven Groves, a specialist in international law at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.
International treaties require only Senate approval. The "People's House" has no say and no sway. While Obama's treaty agenda may be challenging, it is not insurmountable, especially when the full court press begins with the media, activist groups, and others in the Obama "we are the world" perspective; they never come up for approval in the House of Representatives.
Obama will begin with treaties designed to achieve his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. But that is just the beginning. Efforts will begin to bind America to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (setting guidelines for countries' use of the world's oceans, including economic activities and the protection of maritime resources). This will hurt our nation's ability to mine the world's seas for oil and gas, and other resources.
Instead of capitalizing on America's technological strength in these areas (some of it created with our dollars) to tap these resources for our benefit, America will be subject to the dictates of U.N. bureaucrats regarding how these resources can be developed.
Our national security and economic security depends on our access to strategic raw materials, and we will face overseers in the form of U.N.-style bureaucrats. We know how friendly they are to America.
But wait, there's more: treaties subjecting us to the desires of climate change advocates will follow. There was a reason Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol but never dared to submit it to the Senate for approval. He knew it would fail. But that was then; this is now.
Gun control treaties, perhaps under the guise of small arms trade treaties, will certainly be in Obama's queue.
Once in place, treaties will lock America in. They are rarely broken, and countries, including America, rarely withdraw from them. Even if America later were able to withdraw from treaties, permanent harm already will have occurred.
Expect Obama and his minions to attempt to Rahm through these types of treaties in the Senate.
These international treaties will have domestic consequences that could be massive. But we should know by now that radical change in America is what Barack Obama desires the most. If he can get the world community on his side, he will be that much closer to his, and their own, goals.
Abdullah Baali, the Ambassador to the United States from Algeria and a former U.N. official, is of the opinion that "it is absolutely essential that the U.S. ratify these treaties." That should be a warning flag for Americans. President Obama wants to outsource our policy to the international community, refuses to use our strength and talent to protect the American interest, and is determined to weaken America in the years ahead.
Obama clearly sees American power, in and of itself, as evil. We have seen this attitude displayed in his countless apologies for so called American transgressions over the years before the Obama Presidency. Obama is trying to force America into an unprecedented, massive makeover to please the international bureaucrats whose approval and acclaim he so desperately craves.
Obama does not view Uncle Sam as symbolizing America (especially the Uncle Sam that is accompanied by exhortations to defend our country); rather he views Gulliver as the ideal symbol of our nation: a giant who blunders about, causing harm and damage, and who must be restrained by the Lilliputians of the world.
We should know by now that our Academic in Chief wants to pass the global test made famous by Senator John Kerry (now the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, alternative Secretary of State, and the man who will shepherd these treaties through the Senate).
Having won the highest office in the land by saying things that pleased the necessary groups, now he has set off to please the so-called international community -- and particularly those foreign leaders who disdain America and what we represent.
No wonder he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: the far-left wing Norwegian judges gave him a nice pat on his head for passing their test with flying colors -- albeit not the red, white and blue ones.
Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.
"The e-mail Bag"
Northwest Pilots Not in Cockpit; Found at Home Hiding in Box
‘Happy Ending,' Airline Spokesman Says
From: Borowitz Reports.
MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) - The mystery surrounding the Northwest Airlines flight that strayed 150 miles from its intended destination was resolved today as Northwest reported that the two pilots for the flight were never in the cockpit to begin with.
"We found them safe at home, hiding in a box," said Northwest spokesperson Carol Foyler. "We're just glad that this story had a happy ending."
Despite the positive resolution to the pilots' drama, Northwest said they were moving forward on a number of safety measures, such as banning the computer game Guitar Hero in the cockpit.
Elsewhere, Elizabeth Taylor revised her statement that the Michael Jackson film "This Is It" is "the most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen" to read, "I have gone completely around the bend."
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