Mexico Surrenders Drug War Ground, CIA under Liberal Assault, Catholic Opposition to Health Care Reform

Friends,

Here are some items I thought you would want to know about.

Blessings,

Barrett

Mexico Surrenders Ground in the War on Drugs

With Mexico’s decision to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, the war on drugs in the United States has been dealt a serious setback. We now have an entire country on our southern border that is a haven for drug abuse. Our southwestern states will suffer first from this tragic surrender as more drug-addicted people come across the border. Then the rest of the country will feel it as they move inland. Inspections at the border will become more difficult as well as more people attempt to cross into the country with their “legal” drug amounts. You can be sure that U.S. relations with Mexico are going to be more strained as a result of this decision.

Investor’s Business Daily, http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=335748953038743, has a superb editorial on why this surrender will not help Mexico defeat drug traffickers. They make five irrefutable arguments:

1.Consumption will increase.
2.Addiction will increase.
3.Treatment costs for addicts will increase.
4.Drug traffickers will profit.
5.The law-abiding population will be demoralized.

You can also expect Mexico’s decision to lead to increased calls for decriminalization of drugs in the U.S. This week, Denver's marijuana policy review panel agreed to send a letter to the presiding judge of Denver County Court urging a $1 fine as penalty for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_13212872. Such actions will be more common as our cities feel the added weight of Mexico’s drug problem spilling over the border. Earlier this year, I wrote an opinion piece on my opposition to decriminalization of marijuana. You can read it here, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/26/solutionsduke-should-us-decriminalize-marijuana/.

Liberals Seek to Dismantle the CIA

As you know, the CIA is coming under increased attack from liberals. A crippling blow was struck last week when a group formed by President Obama recommended that future interrogation efforts be run out of the Justice Department rather than the CIA. The Special Task Force on Interrogations and Transfer Policies has recommended the formation of “a specialized interrogation group to bring together officials from law enforcement, the U.S. Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense to conduct interrogations in a manner that will strengthen national security consistent with the rule of law” (http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-ag-835.html). This group will be administered by the FBI rather than the CIA.

Of course, this is just the next step in the liberals’ decades-long goal to destroy the CIA. In order to help bring down the CIA for good, the President has green-lighted the effort by Attorney General Holder to prosecute CIA agents for performing their duty and keeping us safe by interrogating some of the most vile terrorists in the world. You can be sure that this witch hunt is intended to weaken one of our most important lines of defense against a murderous, demented death cult that is determined to subjugate all of us under their medieval vision of Islam.

Some people are understandably troubled by a number of the CIA’s methods, especially waterboarding, but there is no evidence that the agency ever sought to hide from Congress what they were doing. They had legal opinion that told them they were clear to engage in their tactics, and no one they reported to in Congress raised any objections. To prosecute these people now for their extraordinary efforts to keep us safe is a cowardly act that will certainly weaken the CIA and put everyone in this nation at risk.

Make no mistake, the CIA was effective in its efforts to protect us from these lawless murderers. The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203706604574375012840827276-lMyQjAxMDA5MDIwNzEyNDcyWj.html, has an opinion piece about the CIA’s interrogation program. In it, they reference a report by former CIA Inspector General John Helgerson. The Journal article includes this very significant summary from Helgerson’s report:

“The most revealing portion of the IG report
documents the program's results. The CIA's
‘detention and interrogation of terrorists has
provided intelligence that has enabled the
identification and apprehension of other
terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned
for the United States and around the world.’
That included the identification of Jose Padilla
and Binyam Muhammed, who planned to
detonate a dirty bomb, and the arrest of previously
unknown members of an al Qaeda cell in Karachi,
Pakistan, designated to pilot an aircraft attack in the
U.S. The information also made the CIA aware of
plots to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi, hijack
aircraft to fly into Heathrow, loosen track spikes to
derail a U.S. train, blow up U.S. gas stations, fly an
airplane into a California building, and cut the lines
of suspension bridges in New York.”

The CIA’s own director, Leon Panetta, has made a mess of things and greatly aided the liberal agenda to declaw the CIA. Perhaps you remember when he ran to Congress to expose a secret CIA terrorist-assassination plan. It turns out that Mr. Panetta was more worried about protecting himself than he was about getting all the facts right. This story, http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-18/spy-agency-fiasco/, by Joseph Finder is well worth the read. Finder concludes the following:

•The secret assassination ‘program’ wasn’t much more than a PowerPoint presentation, a task force and a collection of schemes—it never got off the ground.
•Panetta’s three immediate predecessors—George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden—have spoken to him, and that he now sees that no laws were broken.
•Panetta has frantically tried to rectify his gaffe, but now faces increased Congressional oversight.

Now, rumor has it, Panetta will likely be resigning his position in the wake of AG Holder’s successful bid to take over part of the agency’s portfolio and to seek the prosecution of CIA agents. From Ms. Pelosi’s false claim that she was never briefed on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation tactics to Leon Panetta’s chicken little moment, the stage has been set for Eric Holder to crush the life from the CIA.

Opposition to Government-Run Health Care Increases

A number of very prominent Catholic bishops are becoming more vocal in their opposition to the Dems’ health care reform proposals. David Kirkpatrick has a very important article in the New York Times about their growing opposition, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/health/policy/28catholics.html?emc=eta1. The main points of contention are concerns about abortion mandates and rationing. He includes this paragraph:

“As recently as July, the bishops’ conference
had largely embraced the president’s goals,
although with the caveat that any health care
overhaul avoid new federal financing of
abortions. But in the last two weeks some
leaders of the conference, like Cardinal Justin
Rigali, have concluded that Democrats’ efforts
to carve out abortion coverage are so inadequate
that lawmakers should block the entire effort.”

Cardinal Rigali’s opposition is a significant development. He is the Chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The liberal health care reformers in Congress and the White House can say what they want to, but now a growing body of very influential Catholic Bishops is opposing their plans because they know that abortion will be provided through the bills liberals are trying to advance.

And on the rationing front, the role of Ezekiel Emanuel is getting more scrutiny. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, is a health care advisor to President Obama. He has been involved for many years in calling for a health care rationing regime. His plan for prioritizing who should be favored in a rationing scheme is very disturbing. According to Emanuel people on the ends of the age spectrum should not get the same level of care as people in the middle. Emanuel’s reasoning: People between ages 15 and 40 have had the most invested in them by society and have the most to give back to society. The further removed one is from that ideal age range, the less valuable he or she is! Here is a very helpful story in the Wall Street Journal by Betsy McCaughey, http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676-lMyQjAxMDA5MDIwNzEyNDcyWj.html, about Ezekiel Emanuel’s philosophy on health care rationing. Richard Land Live!, http://richardlandlive.com/, has posted a link to his journal article. You can read it here, http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/PIIS0140673609601379.pdf. It’s frightening to think that this man is advising the President on health care.

Preventive Care Savings Myth, Nuclear-Armed Iran, Global Warming Round Two, Mounting Financial Fear

Friends,

Here are some items I came across this week that I thought you would want to know about.

Blessings,

Barrett

The Preventive Care Savings Myth

President Obama has been talking lately about the need to force health insurance companies to provide free preventive health services. He claims that this strategy will save lives and money. Everyone is agreed that it will save lives, and that is certainly a worthwhile goal, but it will not save money. If preventive care saved money, every insurance company would be offering it. One thing you can be sure of, the insurance companies are in business to make money. They have crunched the numbers and they know that it is cheaper to treat the small percentage of people who develop diseases than to try to protect their entire customer base from potentially contracting them. I have no sympathy for insurance companies. They will always make their money. But for that very same reason, I know I can count on them to do whatever they can to control their costs. If preventive care saved them money, they would make it available. Since they don’t, it can only mean one thing—forcing insurance companies to offer preventive care FREE OF CHARGE will increase the costs of health insurance. Charles Krauthammer makes that very point, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/14/the_preventive_care_myth_97889.html. Here’s a paragraph from his article:

“A study in the journal Circulation found that
for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if
all the recommended prevention activities were
applied with 100 percent success," the prevention
would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings,
increasing the country's total medical bill by 162
percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive
assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine
that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive
care and found that more than 80 percent of
preventive measures added to medical costs.”

Get Ready for a Nuclear-Armed Iran

Despite the tough talk, the Administration has already accepted the fact of a nuclear-armed Iran and developed its response—a nuclear umbrella for Israel. In other words, if Iran nukes Israel, the U.S. supposedly would nuke Iran. Hillary Clinton promoted this option in April 2008 while she was a presidential candidate. This article in the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/13/iran-nuclear-arms-israel-obama, sums up things very well. Here is the author’s concluding statement:

“No one should want a nuclear-armed Iran and
new sanctions should certainly be tried. But
if we calculate correctly that the prospect of
an Iranian bomb ultimately comes down to a
question of Iranian willpower, then a mature
debate needs to be had about how we manage that
risk. Instead of threatening military action
that will only increase Iran's desire for nuclear
weapons while undermining opportunities for
democratic change, western powers should focus on
developing a robust deterrence framework that
provides security guarantees to vulnerable countries
and reminds Iran's leaders of what they stand to lose
by abusing their nuclear potential. Proliferation is
always a risk, but we can live with a nuclear Iran if
we have to.”

This is precisely where our Administration is on this issue. The international community will be revisiting the Iran problem in September when the G20 group of industrialized and developing countries meets in Pittsburgh. Don’t expect any more from that meeting except some more meaningless saber-rattling. Iran already knows Obama’s bottom line, and it will hold out until he gets there.

The Next Round of Global Warming Legislation

Now that the UN has declared the world has only 4 months to avert a worldwide climate disaster, the pressure will mount to resume the legislative push for U.S. restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. This isn’t a dead deal. Remember that the EPA has been given the authority by the Supreme Court to regulate CO2 as a pollutant and a mandate from the White House to do it if Congress fails to act.

If you want a glance at the future that lies ahead if our country turns down this road, I recommend a new book entitled Green Hell by Steve Milloy. He describes in excruciating detail the intrusive nature of a government that believes it has a mandate to reduce the amount of CO2 every person and company emits. For me, the picture comes into sharp focus with the simple little incandescent light bulb. In their inquisitorial environmental fervor the liberals in Congress have mandated an efficiency standard for them by 2012 that likely cannot be met. They want everyone to use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) instead. Milloy has a section in his book about these little wonders. If you break one in your home, look out. They contain mercury vapor. This stuff is so dangerous that these bulbs cannot even be manufactured in the U.S.

Milloy includes the cleanup instructions provided by Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection if someone is unfortunate enough to break one of these things. It has fourteen steps! If you don’t believe him—I was curious myself—here’s the link to the U.S. government’s Energy Star web page that describes what you need to do if you break a CFL in your house, http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf:
How should I clean up a broken fluorescent bulb?

Because CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, EPA recommends the following clean-up and disposal guidelines:

1. Before Clean-up: Air Out the Room

Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.

Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.

Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

2. Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

• Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.

• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass pieces and powder.

• Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place towels in the glass jar or plastic bag.

• Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

3. Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug:

• Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.

• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.

• If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.

• Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

4. Clean-up Steps for Clothing, Bedding, etc.:

• If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away. Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage.

• You can, however, wash clothing or other materials that have been exposed to the mercury vapor from a broken CFL, such as the clothing you are wearing when you cleaned up the broken CFL, as long as that clothing has not come into direct contact with the materials from the broken bulb.

• If shoes come into direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from the bulb, wipe them off with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place the towels or wipes in a glass jar or plastic bag for disposal.

5. Disposal of Clean-up Materials

• Immediately place all clean-up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area for the next normal trash pickup.

• Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.

• Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states do not allow such trash disposal. Instead, they require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

6. Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming

• The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window before vacuuming.

If the simple little light bulb has been turned into such a problem, imagine what will happen when the radical environmentalists get their hands on the rest of our lives.

Fears Mount Over Our Financial Future

Stories are becoming more numerous about the coming financial meltdown being precipitated by our country’s uncontrolled spending. Here are two stories worth taking the time to read. Mort Zuckerman’s article, http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/08/09/2009-08-09_drowning_in_debt_obamas_spending_and_borrowing_leaves_us_gasping_for_air.html, “Drowning in Debt” includes these scary facts:

“The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reckons
that the deficit will run for a decade and will still
exceed $1.2 trillion in 2019. By that time, the United
States will have virtually doubled its national debt,
to over $17 trillion. Then, after 2019, we get another
turn of the screw as the peak waves of baby boomers
move into their retirement years and costs soar for
the major entitlements, Social Security and Medicare.
At 41% of GDP in 2008, the accumulated federal debt
will rise to 82% by 2019. One out of every six dollars
spent then by the feds will go to interest, compared
with 1 in 12 dollars last year. These out-year budgets
will require an increase in everyone's income taxes,
raising federal income taxes an average of $11,000
for families, a hike of 55% per household - a political
impossibility. The Government Accountability Office
estimates that by 2040, interest payments will absorb
30% of all revenues and entitlements will consume the
rest, leaving nothing for defense, education or veterans'
pensions.”

In his article “Public Spending’s Day of Reckoning” Desmond Lachman, http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/12/public-spending-finances-economy-debt-opinions-contributors-desmond-lachman.html?partner=email, writes,

“In principle, there are only three
possible end-games for an unsustainable
fiscal position. The first and optimal end-game
is for the government to adopt bold expenditure-
reducing and revenue-enhancing measures that
might return the public finances to a sustainable
path…The second end-game, to which the U.S.
effectively resorted in 1931 when it devalued the
dollar against gold, is for the government to
default directly on its debt obligations…This
leaves the third option for the government:
resorting to the monetary printing press to
inflate away its debt obligations.”

In the current political environment, which response do you think we are likely to adopt?

Not Promoting a Single-Payer Plan…Yet!

Listen closely to what the President says when he isn’t reading the script from his teleprompter and it’s possible, occasionally, to get a glimpse of the action he is planning. His town hall meeting yesterday in Portsmouth, NH is a good example. During the Q&A, he hinted at what he really has in mind for the country’s health care system. Here is his answer to whether or not he intends to move the U.S. to a single-payer health care plan:

“I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter

because, frankly, we historically have had a employer-

based system in this country with private insurers,

and for us to transition to a system like that I believe

would be too disruptive. So what would end up

happening would be, a lot of people who currently

have employer-based health care would suddenly find

themselves dropped, and they would have to go into an

entirely new system that had not been fully set up yet.

And I would be concerned about the potential

destructiveness of that kind of transition. All right? So

I'm not promoting a single-payer plan.”

Twice, the President reveals his hand. He says, “So what would end up happening would be, a lot of people who currently have employer-based health care would suddenly find themselves dropped, and they would have to go into an entirely new system that had not been fully set up yet.” Why would he say those people who would be dropped from their employer-based health care would be forced into a system that “had not been fully set up yet”? This answer suggests that there is a lot more to come after the initial introduction of the program. After all, no one would lose their insurance until a plan is set up that they could be moved to. Why wouldn’t they be able to move directly into the government plan at that point? There are only two possible ways to understand this answer: 1. The President is prepared to introduce a health plan that is not entirely workable, and then work out the bugs on-the-fly until it is “fully set up”; or 2. The President intends for the initial introduction of the plan to be only the first step in a broader, more comprehensive approach—a “fully” set up plan.

The first possible answer is very scary, but it seems to me that the second understanding of his words is more likely. His next slip points to this. He says, “And I would be concerned about the potential destructiveness of that kind of transition.” Why would he say that he would be concerned about “that kind of transition”? Is there a “kind of” transition that he wouldn’t be concerned about? Like one that takes longer and is less “disruptive”? Probably so. It seems clear that the President is open to the idea of a transition from private health insurance to a single-payer plan—as long as it is the right “kind of transition.”

Why am I being so sensitive to the President’s language? Because I know what he has said in the past about his desire to have a single-payer health care system in this country. Here are his own words: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan…That’s what I’d like to see.” And on the transition issue, he said this, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately, there’s going to be potentially some transition process.” You can see him say it himself on this Youtube clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk.

So, what did the President mean when he said, “I'm not promoting a single-payer plan”? He meant that “right now” he isn’t promoting a single-payer health care plan. Right now, he’s promoting this “public option” plan. The single-payer step will come later. He isn’t lying when he says that. He just isn’t telling you everything he has planned. But if you listen to him carefully, you can hear the future.

We know where the President wants to take the country with his health care reform, and we have seen what the liberals in Congress want to do. They are on the same page—a single-payer universal health care plan.

False Pro-Life bill, Collapsing Obama Bubble, Health Care Horrors, Shifting Political Scene

Friends,

I really had to work to reduce the number of items from this past week that I think you need to pay close attention to. I hope you find these helpful.

Blessings,

Barrett

The Ryan-DeLauro False Pro-Life Bill

The pressure to accept the bill by Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) as a compromise pro-life bill is mounting. Don’t be fooled by all the talk. The bill is not a compromise bill. The only people compromising on this bill are people with pro-life values. The only “compromise” pro-abortion supporters made was not to make the bill all about abortion. But make no mistake, there are abortion provisions in this bill. The remarkable group Democrats for Life of America is so irritated with Tim Ryan's ongoing support of pro-abortion policies, including his aggressive support of this bill, that they recently removed him from their board.

Earlier, I gave you some information about this bill. Below is my expanded assessment of it. You can download the assessment, which includes the actual language in the bill, at http://erlc.com/documents/pdf/ryan-deLauro-hr3312-abortion-connection.pdf.

The Ryan-DeLauro (H.R. 3312) Abortion Connection

The Ryan-Delauro bill (H.R. 3312), referred to as the “Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act,” is being promoted as “common ground” legislation in the abortion wars. In reality, the bill is woefully misguided. While it does provide some helpful safety net services for women who find themselves in a difficult pregnancy, there is no doubt that H.R. 3312 will result in more abortions.

H.R. 3312 will facilitate more use of the abortion-inducing Plan B “morning after” pill, increase the number of “family planning” clinics on college campuses, and provide increased funding for Planned Parenthood. The following evidence from the bill is undeniable.

I. The Plan B “Morning after Pill” Connection

·Sec. 102 of the bill includes funding for teaching teenagers about all forms of contraception and encouraging its increased use.
·Section 301 of the bill says those who use federal funds for teen pregnancy prevention programs must “increase contraceptive use among sexually active teens” and can offer “preventive health services” as a means to reduce teen pregnancy.
·Because Plan B is referred to in the medical literature as a contraceptive, the Ryan-DeLauro bill will include teaching teenagers about it and encouraging its use. Plan B is more than a contraceptive. It also causes abortion of a young embryo by preventing implantation in the uterine wall.

II. The Family Planning Connection

·Sec. 602 of the bill specifically calls for establishing “campus-based family planning services” among community college students.
·Sec. 701 of the bill mandates that states include family planning services for all Medicaid patients.
·It is established fact that “family planning services” include abortion services and contraception distribution.

III. The Planned Parenthood Connection

·Sec. 1002 more than doubles current Title X funding to $700 million, and additional funds as needed in future years.
·Planned Parenthood is a primary recipient of these funds. In their 2007-2008 fiscal year, Planned Parenthood received nearly $350 million dollars from the government for their “family planning” services. In that same year, their clinics performed more than 305,000 abortions, more than 1/4 of all the abortions performed in the United States.
·While federal funds cannot be used for abortion, Planned Parenthood is able to use these funds for their other activities and administrative costs, freeing up money from other sources, including from the states, to fund their abortion and abortion-related activities.

IV. Conclusion

The Ryan-DeLauro bill (H.R. 3312) is an abortion bill. It provides federal funding and stipulations that will result in more abortions. Plan B is an abortion-inducing drug. Family planning services often include abortion and abortion-related offerings among their services. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, will receive funding under this bill.

If someone is looking for a legitimate abortion-neutral bill, they should support the Pregnant Women Support Act, (S. 1032, H.R. 2035). The Pregnant Women Support Act offers nearly all of the safety-net features for pregnant women contained in the Ryan-DeLauro bill plus many others, without any of the pro-abortion compromise. Those who are truly interested in reducing abortions in this country should support the Pregnant Women Support Act and oppose the Ryan-DeLauro bill.

The Collapsing Obama Bubble

While President Obama continues to enjoy high personal ratings, the country is becoming more nervous about his policies. The Tea Parties were the first evidence of eroding public confidence. The conflict at congressional town hall meetings is the next. These meetings are becoming very confrontational. People are worried about what is going to happen to their health care, and rightly so. Two trends are responsible for raising the level of public angst that is now being focused on Obama and the liberal congress. The first is the growing list of unpopular policies they are pushing. Just consider this sampling:

+Misspent stimulus, to date only $80 billion of the $800 billion has been spent, and most of the money is to be spent on liberal pet projects,
+Unemployment now officially at least 9.4%, but maybe as high as 16.3%,
+Bloated $3.6 trillion budget that drives up the national debt to $9.3 trillion in 10years,
+Cap and Trade global warming legislation, that creates less energy and higher costs,
+Erosions of pro-life protections, including loss of conscience protections for pro-life medical professionals, no abstinence education funding, and increases for Planned Parenthood,
+Government take-over of huge swaths of the economy, including insurance, banking, and GM,
+Government take-over of health care.

People can only take so much stress at one time. The more anxiety producing events (APE) they experience, the more resistant and fearful they become. It’s called going APE. Well, the country is going APE over all these anxiety producing events President Obama and the liberal congress are throwing at them. And there is no end in sight. The radical homosexual community continues to push their agenda. Liberals are about to pass their Hate Crimes bill, providing special DOJ protections for homosexuals, and last week they introduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which provides special workplace protections for homosexuals.

The other trend that is working against public confidence in the policies President Obama is pushing through with the help of liberals in congress is the growing list of discrepancies between what the President says and what he does. People are increasingly commenting that it is more important to watch what he does, because you cannot count on anything he says to have the meaning you think it has. He is being perceived by a growing number of people as deliberately deceptive with his words. This recent Commentary article by Peter Wehner, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/decoding-obama-15181, catalogues some of the worst examples:

+He said he would create 150,000 American jobs, but claimed success for saving or creating 150,000 jobs,
+He said he saved $2 trillion in the budget, but the money was never going to be spent,
+He said he opposes borrowing and spending, but then he engaged in massive borrowing and spending,
+He said he doesn’t want to run GM, but he controls everything it does,
+He said he doesn’t want to meddle in the private sector, but he constantly meddles in it,
+He said he wants bipartisan governance, but none of his policies have bipartisan involvement,
+He said he is against indefinite detention of terror suspects, but then he detains them indefinitely,
+He said he deplores Bush’s anti-terror tactics, but then he continues to use them,
+He said he would bring transparency to government, but then he obstructs efforts to get information,
+He said lobbyists are off limits, but then he hires the ones he likes,
+He said he wants to turn the page, but then he keeps going back to deflect criticism.

Here is how Wehner concludes this article:

"It is hardly unprecedented for a politician to rely on contradictory, misleading, and intellectually dishonest statements. But in only five months, Barack Obama – the man who campaigned on a new kind of politics, who ran on hope and against cynicism, and who insisted ‘words mean something’ – has set a pace that is going to be hard to match, and hopefully hard to sustain.

“'I have always had a sort of mania about words,' Malcolm Muggeridge said in a speech he delivered more than three decades ago. 'Words can be polluted even more dramatically and drastically than rivers and land and sea. There has been a terrible destruction of words in our time.' It is an irony that Barack Obama, a politician as gifted in both the written and spoken word as we have seen in decades, has contributed to the cheapening of them."

Health Care Horror Stories

You don’t want to miss this description, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/07/government_medicine_should_horrify_americans_97810.html, of the health care horrors people in England and Canada live with every day. Murdock includes these recently uncovered public comments by Obama in his pre-president days:

With these comments, it’s pretty clear where the President is headed with his health care plan. Where is this likely to lead? Murdock gives some very disturbing statistics from England and Canada that tell us precisely where:

+Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its American victims and 46 percent of its targets in the U.K.
+Prostate cancer is fatal to 19 percent of its American patients and 57 percent of Britons it strikes.
+The U.K.'s 2005 heart-attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America's.
+In Canada, some towns address the shortage of doctors with lotteries in which citizens compete for rare medical appointments.
+In 2008, the average Canadian waited 17.3 weeks from the time his general practitioner referred him to a specialist until he actually received treatment, 86 percent longer than the wait in 1993.
+Such sloth includes a median 9.7-week wait for an MRI exam, 31.7 weeks to see a neurosurgeon, and 36.7 weeks - nearly nine months - to visit an orthopedic surgeon.

The Shifting Political Scene

If you are wondering what people are talking about on the national political scene, I think this article, http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/30/the-republican-recovery, from the American Spectator is the best summary of the current thinking that you could read. This article, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Terrible-new-poll-numbers-for-Obama-Democrats-52062972.html, from the Washington Examiner does a good job discussing the most recent polling data on the popularity of the Democrats and Republicans. Here is a key paragraph from that article:

"The poll has other bad news for Democrats and President Obama. The percentage of people who believe the country is on the wrong track has risen six points since April. The percentage of people who approve of the way Obama is handling the economy has dipped below 50 percent for the first time. The percentage of people who approve of his handling of the health care issue is 41 percent, with 46 percent disapproving. The percentage of people who have a positive opinion of Obama is down nine points since April. The percentage of people who say the president has strong leadership qualities, can be trusted to keep his word, will work with people of different viewpoints, is likable -- all those numbers are down."

The Republicans are recruiting many very prominent candidates to run in historically conservative districts. If the economy is still in the tank in 2010, there is a strong likelihood that many of them will win. When you add in the national mood on the health care issue, cap and trade global warming legislation, the Sotomayor confirmation, and many other issues that I list above, the stage is being set for a repeat of 1994.

Health Care Follies, Misguided Foreign Policy, and Justice Subverted

Friends:

It's been a busy week. Here are three issues that have me very concerned.

Health Care Follies

As you know, health care reform is still the major issue. The Senate has put the brakes on their bill for now, but the House finished up their committee work before recessing for August. Late Friday night, the last House committee with jurisdiction, Henry Waxman’s Energy and Commerce Committee, passed the bill. It’s been a real see-saw in that committee. The Energy and Commerce Committee was our last hope to stop this monstrosity before the August recess. It looked for a while like the Blue Dog Democrats on that committee were going to hold out, but Waxman brought them on board with a deal to reduce the cost of the bill and some weakening of the public health component.

That’s right, while some of the Blue Dogs expressed concern about abortion, there never was any serious pushback by the majority of the Blue Dogs over sanctity of human life issues. The real exception was Bart Stupak (D-MI). He has been a true Blue Dog champion for pro-life values through all of this. The greatest disappointment in the whole affair was the other Bart on the committee—Bart Gordon (D-TN). Gordon, a Blue Dog Democrat, was the swing vote that defeated the Pitts/Stupak amendment that would have prevented the House health care plan from mandating abortion. On the first vote, Gordon voted yes, and the amendment passed, 31-27. Waxman voted for the amendment so he could bring it back up for a revote. When he brought it back up for the revote, Bart Gordon switched his vote and voted against the amendment, and it failed, 29-30. Bart Gordon’s vote was the deciding vote.

The bill the House will be voting on is very troubling. The ERLC recently completed a fact sheet on it that I think you’ll find very helpful. You can get it here, http://erlc.com/documents/pdf/20090731-affordable-health-choices-act-exposed.pdf. Here is the summary statement from the fact sheet:

“The House health care bill, H.R. 3200, is 1018 pages in length. The magnitude of the bill along with the innumerous citations to other legislation makes it nearly impossible to figure out what everything in the bill actually means. The information in this document is a compilation of what we have determined to be the most dangerous language in the bill and our analysis of what that language could potentially mean. The simple fact is that if passed, no one can say for certain how badly this will all play out in practice. However, what we can say with absolute certainty is that this legislation will lead to diminished health care for most Americans, less choice, higher taxes, and unprecedented government intrusion into every level and aspect of society, from business, to education, to marriage, to individual liberty.”

I encourage you to visit with your congressman and senators while they are back home during the August recess to raise your concerns about health care reform before they return in September to try to finish this job.

Misguided Foreign Policy

You should also be concerned about ongoing developments with Honduras. The Administration is on the wrong side of this issue. Yet, they seem determined to dig themselves in deeper. They continue to persist in their refusal to recognize the new Honduran government. Last week the State Department reinforced its error by revoking the diplomatic visas of four Hondurans working in the interim Honduran government. If you want a good quick read on the situation and what the U.S. should be doing, I recommend this article, http://www.insideronline.org/summary.cfm?id=10547, from the Heritage Foundation. The writer concludes,

“In the July 5 flight over Honduras, Zelaya announced that failure to force his return would constitute 'the death of democracy in Latin America.' There is an ironic truth in his statement: An internationally coerced and unconditional return of Zelaya to the Honduran presidency will weaken the fundamentals of liberal democracy (limited government, checks and balances, and executive accountability) in the Western Hemisphere and hand Hugo Chávez and his ALBA alliance another propaganda scalp.”

Now contrast the Administration’s attitude toward Honduras with its complete caving to Sudan. Jamie Dean wrote an important article, http://www.worldmag.com/articles/15481, on the Obama administration’s failure to act on behalf of Darfur. Here is part of what she had to say:

“When Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir ruthlessly expelled 13 foreign aid groups delivering at least half of the life-sustaining aid to millions of people in Darfur in March, Obama called the action 'unacceptable.' A few weeks later, Obama renewed his call for Bashir to allow aid workers to stay, saying he would otherwise have to 'find another mechanism' for delivering aid. But by late May, no new mechanism existed. Obama's new special envoy to Sudan, Major General Scott Gration, had even softer words when he visited the African nation for the first time in April. Gration, a retired Air Force officer, told officials in Sudan's northern capital city of Khartoum, 'I come here with my hands open,' and said he hoped Sudan would respond 'with a hand of friendship.' The envoy didn't mention genocide. Indeed, he didn't mention Darfur.”

Contrasting the Administration’s response in these two situations reveals some very troubling foreign policy shifts. Human rights and freedom are no longer U. S. priorities. The Administration’s ideology of political equivalence has rendered it incapable of distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys. You see that with Sudan, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Palestine, China, Venezuela, and now Honduras.

Justice Subverted

And while you’re thinking about the Obama administration, the recent decision by the Department of Justice to drop the charges against those New Black Panthers who stood at the entrance to the polling place in Philadelphia should give you reason to be very concerned about the Administration’s commitment to equal justice under the law. It would seem that President Obama’s twisted empathy standard is well-represented at DOJ. Here is a video clip of the New Black Panthers activity at that polling booth, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU. This news report helps to fill in some of the details of what was going on, http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/voting_intimidation_by_black_panthers_in_philadelphia/. This sure looks like voter intimidation to me.

The ERLC raised concerns about Eric Holder’s nomination as Attorney General. His decision to not pursue charges against these three men, especially the one wielding a nightstick, reinforces those concerns. In fact, this is just one in a growing string of troubling developments at DOJ. This Weekly Standard article, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/799hlime.asp?pg=1, makes the point.

Blessings,

Barrett