op ed review 1/23
House Republicans passed a bill to repeal Obamacare Wednesday, taking their first major step toward rolling back the massive overhaul that has dominated the American political landscape for almost two years.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47831.html#ixzz1Bb9MnQ8A
After leading the nation last year in passing a law to sue the federal government over the health care overhaul, Idaho's Republican-dominated Legislature now plans to use an obscure 18th century doctrine to declare Obamacare null and void. Lawmakers in six other states — Maine, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming — are also mulling "nullification" bills, which contend states, not the U.S. Supreme Court, are the ultimate arbiter of when Congress and the president run amok.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110121/ap_on_re_us/us_health_care_nullification
Six more states joined a lawsuit in Florida against President Obama's health care overhaul on Tuesday, meaning more than half of the country is challenging the law
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/18/states-join-obama-health-care-lawsuit-fla/
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. doctors surveyed fear healthcare reform could worsen care for patients, by flooding their offices and hurting income, according to a Thomson Reuters survey released Tuesday.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41149280
Repeal of ObamaCare can't come soon enough -- as several damaging provisions are set to take effect this year. For starters, it has effectively stopped the construction of physician-owned hospitals throughout the country. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_damage_has_already_begun_pzcq1MmzRb3O626H6Q7PqI
Moving aggressively to make good on election promises to slash the federal budget, the House GOP unveiled an eye-popping plan to eliminate $2.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years. Gone would be Amtrak subsidies, fat checks to the Legal Services Corporation and National Endowment for the Arts, and some $900 million to run Obamacare..
“Hawaii governor claims record of Obama's birth 'exists in archives' but can't produce the vital document.”
“Massive FBI Mafia bust: Organized crime still has firm grip on unions…”
The Washington Times is warning that the White House cybersecurity adviser and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are drawing up "ObamaNet," President Obama's mandate for what amounts to a national ID card for the Internet. President Obama wants to establish passwords for every citizen to centralize your personal information. Instead of logging onto Facebook or one's bank using separate passwords established with each individual company or web site, you will be required to use the government-issued password.
Reince Priebus faces many challenges in taking over the Republican National Committee, but among the trickiest will be building support from the anti-establishment tea party without offending big GOP donors or the independent voters the party needs in 2012. The GOP’s ability to strike that balance could go a long way towards determining the outcome of Election Day 2012.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47676.html
While other cities are slashing employee benefits, Berkeley, CA is slated to add one more: paying for sex-change operations.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/17/BA1P1HA3JL.DTL#ixzz1BP2fIRks
In Los Angeles County, welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants more than $600 million last year, up from $570 million in 2009.
The European Union has published a school calendar that omits Christian holidays, like Christmas and Easter, while noting significant Jewish and Muslim celebrations. Three million copies have reportedly been printed of the calendar, which will be given out freely to students who request it from the union's 27 member countries.
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Phyllis Schlafly
New Year’s Resolutions for State Legislators
The biggest news of 2010 was the gain of 690 state legislative seats by Republicans and their capture of both state houses in 26 states. Here are some New Year's resolutions for laws they should consider passing in 2011.
HEALTH CARE: "Out-of-pocket medical expenses shall be tax deductible" and "self-paying patients shall not be charged more by a hospital than what it charges insurance companies for the same services." Explanation: Third-party payments are driving up medical costs; the best antidote to ObamaCare is more patient power.
WITHDRAWAL OF COURT JURISDICTION: "The courts of this state shall not consider, apply or invoke foreign law in resolving any domestic dispute." Explanation: Foreign law has no legitimate role in America.
HOME SCHOOLING: "No publicly funded school or organization shall deny home-schooled students the right to participate in sports, extracurricular activities or scholarships." Explanation: Home-schoolers pay taxes and should not be discriminated against.
PAYCHECK PROTECTION: "No governmental entity shall deduct any portion of a worker's paycheck to fund any political activities." Explanation: It is un-American to force a worker to donate to a candidate, yet many government unions support liberal candidates from payroll deductions.
PRIVATE PROPERTY: "Eminent domain shall not be used against private property for another privately owned use." Explanation: Use of eminent domain has been abusive, as illustrated by the Kelo v. New London decision.
VIDEO GAMES: "There shall be no sale, rental or arcade-playing of extremely violent video games by children without parental consent." Explanation: Video games are increasingly graphic and harmful.
ELECTION FRAUD: "To protect the integrity of elections, voting shall be on Election Day with photo ID required, and early or mail-in voting shall be allowed only for good cause." Explanation: Early voting is undermining Election Day and encouraging voter fraud.
FAMILY COURTS: "A restraining order for domestic violence shall issue only on proof of clear and convincing evidence," and "divorced parents shall have joint (50-50) legal and physical custody of their children unless proof shows a parent to be unfit." Explanation: The anti-father abuses by family courts must stop.
TITLE IX: "No publicly funded school in this state shall eliminate a boys' or men's sports team for which there is sufficient demand in order to meet a numeric quota of participation by gender in sports." Explanation: Colleges and even high schools are imposing feminist quotas to eliminate male sports teams.
VACCINATION: "There shall be a philosophical exemption to all vaccination requirements, and no student shall be denied admission to a public school for lack of vaccination unless justified by a certified epidemic of a disease at that location." Explanation: About one-third of states already allow families to decline vaccination for any reason, a right enjoyed for other medical treatments.
RECALLING JUDGES: "Upon collection of petition signatures totaling at least 4 percent of the population of the district in which a judge presides, a recall election will be held to remove him from office." Explanation: There will be less judicial supremacy if judges can be recalled; three Iowa Supreme Court Justices were fired in a retention vote on Nov. 2.
GOOD FRIDAY: "The afternoon of Good Friday shall be an official state holiday." Explanation: Good Friday is a state holiday in 11 states -- why not the other 39?
BOY SCOUTS: "Any organization that conducts more than $1 million in annual business with this state, and which has an employee charitable giving program, shall certify annually that none of the organizations participating in its program discriminates against the Boy Scouts." Explanation: States should not do business with companies that discriminate against the Boy Scouts.
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES: "All rights accorded to criminal defendants shall likewise be recognized for any family targeted for investigation by a child protective agency." Explanation: Why do criminal defendants have more rights than parents?
ABORTION: "Any physician performing or inducing an abortion who does not have clinical privileges at a hospital that offers obstetrical or gynecological care located within 30 miles of the location at which the abortion is performed or induced shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." Explanation: Many abortions improperly leave victims searching for another doctor for follow-up care. This law has worked well in Missouri.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: "When parents representing more than 50 percent of the students at a public school sign a petition demanding new administration of their school, the administration shall be fired and replaced by new administration or conversion to a charter school." Explanation: This concept passed the California Senate in December 2009 but stalled in the heavily Democratic California Assembly.
Bad proposals, such as resolutions to call a national constitutional convention under Article V or to replace the Electoral College with a so-called National Popular Vote must be rejected. Those schemes would undermine our U.S. Constitution at the expense of the American people.
Another good read: Star Parker
“Six years ago I wrote a book called "Uncle Sam's Plantation." I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it. I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas. A poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism. …..The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families. Through God's grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is…..”
http://townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/2009/02/09/back_on_uncle_sams_plantation/page/full/
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"Often, in politics, it doesn't matter what the facts are. What matters is how well you make your case to the voting public."
-Thomas Sowell
"[T]he prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's gain is of necessity another person's loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict-enhancing, while market allocation is conflict-reducing. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict."
-Walter E. Williams
"America is on a path to bankruptcy. It's easy to get bogged down arguing about lots of small cuts, but we'll only make progress by abolishing whole departments and entire missions. I hope the public understands it has to be done."
-John Stossel
"Unlike most of the 111 that preceded it, the 112th Congress must begin the process of restoring the national regime and civic culture the Founders bequeathed. This will require reviving the rule of law, reasserting the relevance of the Constitution, and affirming the reality of American exceptionalism. ... The American Revolution was a political, not a social revolution; it was about emancipating individuals for the pursuit of happiness, not about the state allocating wealth and opportunity. Hence our exceptional Constitution, which says not what government must do for Americans but what it cannot do to them."
-George Will
"As many have observed, the coming-together moment in Tucson after the shooting wasn't a memorial, it was an event. The White House put it on: 'Together We Thrive -- Tucson and America.' T-shirts carried the message, and signs were placed on seats for Obama's speech. To say this was in bad taste is an egregious understatement. Why didn't they just call it a campaign whistle stop?"
-Jon Rappoport
"One friend says [Arizona shooter Jared] Loughner never listened to talk radio or watched the TV news. Throw in 'never read books' and you have the dictionary definition of a liberal. Being completely uninformed is precisely how most liberals stay liberal."
-Ann Coulter
"Mental illness is the only disease that has an influential lobby devoted to not treating it."
-Rich Lowry
"Some people claim that liberals are just naturally more adept at spinning the news than conservatives, as if it were a gift, the equivalent of throwing a 98 mph fastball or hitting a major league curve. The sole reason that liberals have an advantage is because, as my friend Bernard Goldberg has been patiently pointing out over the past decade, the MSM widely circulates and gives credence to those on the Left, always ready and eager to pass off their baloney as filet mignon."
-Burt Prelutsky
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BOOKS, FILM
“Many American Thinker readers are aware that I have been working on a book project for the past several years. I have mentioned it occasionally on this site, more often in the past few weeks as publication drew nearer. Now zero hour has arrived: “Death by Liberalism. The Fatal Outcome of Well-Meaning Liberal Policies” is available as of today. Simply put, DbL deals with the appalling and overlooked fact that liberalism kills.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/death_by_liberalism.html
"Kids Aren't Cars" is a new short film series set for release February 1st. Using examples from the Midwest, it documents the impact organized labor has had on the American education system, creating a one-size-fits-all assembly line model that leaves students behind and treats teachers equally, stifling innovation and improvement. See the trailer here. Our government education system has been spending more and more each year, yet the results have been the same. While unions demand higher spending - which of course ends up in the pockets of their members - money is not fixing the problem.
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LEFTIST WATCH
Michael Moore says people own guns because they’re racists.
http://biggovernment.com/eyeblasttv/2011/01/19/michael-moore-people-own-guns-because-theyre-racists/
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) says that repealing Obamacare would violate the Constitution.
The “new civility” didn’t last. “Democrat Compares Republicans to Nazis”
One could understand progressive-minded people calling the 2010 Republican wave the end of the world, but who would take them literally? MIT professor of linguistics Noam Chomsky warned the end is near..
And Britain’s leftie newspaper now says “Free speech can't exist unchained. US politics needs the tonic of order.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/13/free-speech-us-politics-obama
Portland Talk Show Host says America Worse On Human Rights Than China
http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2011/01/left-coast-libtalker-claims-us.html
This is such a loathsome organization: The ACLU of Washington, representing a group that purchased a bus ad accusing Israel of war crimes, sued King County Wednesday over its decision to cancel the ad before it appeared.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013975731_adsuit20m.html?syndication=rss
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ISLAM
Iran has banned the production of Valentine's Day gifts and any promotion of the day celebrating romantic love to combat what it sees as a spread of Western culture, Iranian media reported.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/19/3115983.htm?section=justin
After receiving threats and two suspicious letters, the National Archives of Canada cancelled the screening of a controversial documentary that criticizes Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
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CHINA
''If China becomes the world's No. 1 nation ... ." That was the headline in the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, The People's Daily, on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington. The article went on to boast how "China's emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/19/usacross-out-usa-china-1/
China now looks like the "clear front- runner for reaching the moon".
http://www.space.com/10633-moon-race-private-companies.html
China now has the world’s fastest supercomputer. It also owns number three.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-12/30/c_13669812.htm
China now has the world’s fastest high speed train, “as fast as a low-cruising jet”. China’s high-speed rail network will become larger than the rest of the world combined by the end of the decade.
http://inhabitat.com/china-unveils-the-worlds-fastest-high-speed-train/
China has now replaced the United States as the world’s number one high-technology exporter.
http://cowboys-and-tea-parties.blogspot.com/2010/12/interesting-statistics-draw-unwanted.html
China Overtakes U.S. as Biggest Economy When Measured by Purchasing Power
“25 Facts That Prove That China Is Kicking Our Rear Ends”
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-225249.html
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ARTICLES
"From the congressional chutzpah department: Democrats say Republicans will balloon the deficit by repealing the new trillion-dollar federal health care program. There's nothing wrong with your eyes: Dems claim that retracting Obamacare, which will spend about $1 trillion over the next decade, will add $230 billion to the deficit by 2021. They cite a Congressional Budget Office analysis, but it's an inside-the-Beltway shell game. Watch closely. First, savings credited to Obamacare are based on data given to CBO numbers crunchers by the program's proponents. CBO can only run estimates with the data it receives. Garbage in, garbage out. Only if you believe Obamacare is going to save money -- as it adds 32 million people to the insurance rolls -- would repealing the program increase the deficit. The idea that Obamacare will save money is crazy. Writing for National Review Online, former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin noted that in tasking CBO to project Obamacare's price tag, proponents omitted $115 billion in implementation costs, counted $70 billion in premiums for long-term care insurance while ignoring the benefits it will pay out, and pretended that more than $450 billion in reimbursement cuts to Medicare providers will occur when everyone in Washington knows they won't. Only through such budgetary gimmicks does Obamacare look like it would save money."
http://newsok.com/democrats-health-care-claims-well-off-the-mark/article/3531787
Charles Krauthammer attacks the media's recent bogus call for civility in politics. "The worst in uncivil discourse that we have had in the last decade occurred in the Bush years when the President was vilified, attacked, he was demonized, compared to Nazis," he told Chris Wallace on Fox News's "Special Report." "I do not remember the Times or the mainstream media all of a sudden wagging a finger and pulling a chin about the rise of uncivil discourse at the time"
The Disturbing Rehabilitation of Dr. Kevorkian
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/257295/disturbing-rehabilitation-dr-kevorkian-wesley-j-smith
This year the military may again find itself in the middle of another debate over social policy like last year’s debate over “don’t ask, don’t tell’ repeal — that of women in combat. Last week, as part of a draft report on diversity, a military advisory panel — the Military Leadership Diversity Commission — issued a recommendation to eliminate the restrictions on women serving in combat units.
Mark Steyn: “If I am pessimistic about the future of liberty, it is because I am pessimistic about the strength of the English-speaking nations, which have, in profound ways, surrendered to forces at odds with their inheritance. “Declinism” is in the air, but some of us apocalyptic types are way beyond that. The United States is facing nothing so amiable and genteel as Continental-style “decline,” but something more like sliding off a cliff.”
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Dependence-Day-6753
The union idea of civil discourse is to protest outside opponents' private homes. Now union supporters are targeting a developer, with fliers showing a bull's-eye and his home address. Cue the chirping crickets. That will be the soundtrack for mainstream media reaction to the latest example of thuggery perpetrated by Wal-Mart opponents who are not happy that the non-union retailer wants to build a Wal-Mart-anchored development on the site of an abandoned Chevy dealership in Washington, D.C. The development would employ up to 1,200 people in a city with 10.2% unemployment.
Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich has touched base with several prominent Republicans in his former home state, telling them that he intends to make a run for president in 2012
One of Sen. John Thune's top fundraisers quietly has been making calls in New Hampshire on Thune's behalf, a further sign that the South Dakota Republican is nearing a decision on whether to run for president.
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110121/NEWS/101210308/1001/news
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
A new chart by the Center for Health Transformation reveals the unprecedented 1,968 new and expanded powers given to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius under the health reform law
http://www.healthtransformation.net/
When you can't find your phone let your computer go look for it.
http://www.icantfindmyphone.com/
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HUMOR
"The American Bar Association reported Monday that the recession has resulted in fifteen thousand fewer lawyers in the U.S. They haven't disappeared. Yesterday at McDonald's the cashier at the drive-thru window spilled coffee on my lap, then offered to represent me."
-Argus Hamilton
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LATE NITE
Leno: Chinese President Hu Jintao will be at the White House [this] week. The good news is, he has no plans to foreclose. We can stay another month.
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WISE WORDS
"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve this measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."
-President Franklin Piece
"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation [for charity relief] in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."
-President Grover Cleveland
"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
-James Madison
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10:53 AM
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