Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute's 2010 Great American Conservative Women calendar

Individuals have rights

The NY Times reports that some states are considering measures that would preserve individual rights to make health care decisions. It writes:

Approval of the measures, the lawmakers suggest, would set off a legal battle over the rights of states versus the reach of federal power ...

The national print edition had this story on the front page with the headline, "Health Care Overhaul Stirs States' Rights Claims".

No, there are no states' rights claims. The quoted Republicans were advocating individual rights, not states's rights.

“All I’m trying to do is protect the individual’s right to make health care decisions,” said State Representative Tom Emmer, a Republican. “I just don’t want the government getting between my decisions with my doctors.”

The term "states' rights" is a liberal smear term. Conservatives do not advocate states' rights. Under the conservative view, individuals have rights and states have powers.

How Lincoln Learned to Read

An author named Daniel Wolff has written a rather interesting book entitled How Lincoln Learned to Read: Twelve Great Americans and the Educations that Made Them. The author describes the early lives of 12 notable Americans in order to give us 12 'snapshots' of the history of American education. Mr. Wolff tells the story of each person's formative years, not only his classroom education, but also experiences at home and elsewhere that shaped each child's future life and vocation. Many of our most famous Americans received little or no formal education. Lincoln, for example, learned to read at home from his mother. Benjamin Franklin completed only two years of formal schooling and half of an apprenticeship, but became one of the first to achieve the American dream.

This book begins with Benjamin Franklin and ends with Elvis Presley. In between, Wolff includes Abigail Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, Helen Keller, and John F. Kennedy. These stories make clear that public school education as we know it is a recent invention. School attendance became compulsory in most states only in the 20th century, and as late as the 1920s, only a third of teenagers attended any high school.

This book shows how John Dewey's socialist vision for public schools split up the family. Father went off to his job, mother stayed home and did the chores, the kids walked down the hill and spent their day in school. The chief responsibility for raising children now fell, to a large extent, on the public school.

The author takes a typically liberal attitude toward private schooling. However, the book has enough valuable information to interest readers of any political view. This book by Daniel Wolff is entitled How Lincoln Learned to Read: Twelve Great Americans and the Educations that Made Them.

Audio version of this commentary.

Update on What China Sends to the U.S.

The U.S. steel industry has filed an anti-dumping suit against Communist China. Dumping materials at below-cost is illegal under international trade agreements. The U.S. alleges that Chinese steelmakers unfairly dumped $2.7 billion of steel onto the U.S. market last year. China continues sending us massive amounts of steel products despite the fact that, in our current recession with building construction way down, we just don't need Chinese steel. These imports significantly undersell U.S. producers and create a hugh inventory buildup in the U.S. market. China has responded with the typical epithet used by the globalists, accusing the U.S. of "protectionism." In our current economic downturn, automakers, equipment manufacturers, and commercial construction companies have severely cut the amount of steel they can buy, so American steel plants have been operating at only half their capacity. Yet, dumped and subsidized imports from China tripled from 2006 to 2008 and continue to increase.

Here's an example of another unsafe product shipped to us by Communist China. Drywall from Communist China has become the home construction scare story of this year. Unsafe Chinese drywall emitted sulfuric fumes that corroded the air conditioning coils and raised a stink. One guy in Florida had to replace his air conditioner three times in one year. No one knows how many Florida homes were built with the defective Chinese wallboard, but 100 homeowners have reported the problem to the Florida Department of Health. It was imported by the millions of pounds between 2004 and 2008 when the building boom was on. At least three class-action lawsuits have been filed in Florida, with plaintiffs alleging that the drywall fumes destroy appliances and copper wiring, and cause headaches and coughs.

Audio version of this commentary.

Read the Union Health-Care Label

Get ready for Detroit-style labor relations in our hospitals.

By MARK MIX

In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.

Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.

The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.

Following this playbook, the Senate bill creates a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (class)" reimbursement plan.

The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers "under the public health insurance option." Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.

Consider Kaiser Permanente, the giant, managed-care organization that has since 1997 proudly touted its labor-management "partnership" in scores of workplaces. Union officials play an essentially co-equal role in running many Kaiser facilities. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the Kaiser plan "a framework for what every health care delivery system should do" at a July 24 health-care forum outside of Washington, D.C. Read more here.

More Leftwing NEA Resolutions

Here are some of the policy resolutions adopted by the National Education Association at the NEA's annual convention, which took place this year in San Diego in July.

The NEA supports "early childhood education programs in the public schools for children from birth through age eight," and furthermore want these preschool programs to include "diversity-based curricula." The NEA wants its control over pre-school children to include mandatory kindergarten and pre-kindergarten for all three- and four-year olds. The NEA supports comprehensive school-based taxpayer-funded health care clinics in public schools that include diagnosis and treatment.

The NEA supports the adoption of a single-payer, government health care plan for all residents of the United States, including illegal aliens. The NEA supports statehood for the District of Columbia. The NEA supports subservience to the United Nations, its treaties, its courts and organizations, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. The NEA supports giving illegal aliens not only free grade and high school schooling, but also preferential college tuition rates that are denied to American citizens. The NEA opposes any legislation that would require schools to schedule a moment of silence. The NEA opposes making English our official language.

The NEA want children to be taught environmental education (of course, according to Al Gore). The NEA wants schoolchildren to be taught multicultural education (which means indoctrinating them in the falsehood that all cultures are equally good). The NEA wants schoolchildren to be taught global education (a buzz word that means teaching "interdependency in sharing the world's resources" and preparing kids to be citizens of the world and to eliminate patriotism and accept global government). NEA resolutions oppose any "parental option plans" because the NEA wants the government to control the type of education all children receive.

Audio version of this commentary.

NEA Resolutions Promote the Gay Agenda

The National Education Association (known as the NEA) held its annual convention in San Diego in July and again passed many policy resolutions designed to implement the homosexual movement's goals and agenda. The NEA wants public schools to teach all children to accept and never criticize the homosexual behavior or lifestyle. Since the NEA is the nation's most powerful teachers union, it's important for parents to know about the NEA's policies that are set forth in many references to "sexual orientation" and "gender identification." These resolutions are the official policy of the NEA.

The NEA wants public schools to maintain the preeminent role in the teaching of sex education. NEA policy demands that children be given all information and knowledge about sex, including information about diversity of sexual orientation, gender identification, and homophobia. The NEA wants teachers to be protected from parents looking over their shoulders and from laws that give any authority over sex education to parents. And, of course, the NEA wants employment practices that give affirmative action benefits to homosexuals.

NEA resolutions oppose any "parental option plans" because the NEA wants the government to dictate the type of education all children receive. The NEA especially opposes homeschooling, and wherever homeschooling is tolerated, the NEA wants homeschooling to be taught only by persons licensed by the state education agency and using a curriculum approved by the state. The NEA wants to forbid homeschoolers from participating in any extracurricular activities in the public schools.

Since the NEA is the largest and most powerful teachers union, it is only reasonable to assume that these attitudes will follow the teachers into the classroom. Parents, you should be on guard against the possibility that your children are being indoctrinated with NEA values that you do NOT share.

Audio version of this commentary.

Seven Fatal Flaws of Baucus Bill

A public plan disguised as a co-op, individual and employer mandates, massive federal regulation over insurance and benefits, and massive Medicaid expansion—the Baucus bill has them all. These are the same features plaguing the other bills in Congress and that Americans have routinely dismissed for months.

Seven Fatal Flaws

1) Middle Class Tax Hike: The Baucus bill would impose a new sales tax on drugs and medical devices and a new federal excise tax on insurance plans that exceed $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family. These taxes will ultimately be passed down to the consumer, putting many middle class families on the receiving end of a tax hike.

2) An Individual Mandate: In 2013, almost everyone would be required to purchase health insurance that complies with new federal standards. Those making more than three times the poverty level would face a tax penalty of $950 (maxing out at $3,800 per family) and $750 (maxing out at $1,500 per family) for those below 300 percent poverty. This penalty could apply to individuals with incomes as low as $10,831 a year.

3) No Privacy: In order to enforce the tax penalty provisions, the government would be forced to collect detailed health insurance information on Americans, reducing patient privacy and adding significant administrative costs to employers and insurers.

4) A Pay-or-Play Employer Mandate: Employers with more than 50 employees that don’t offer health coverage would have to pay a penalty for each employee who qualifies for new federal subsidizes under the bill. Inevitably, low-income workers will be hurt the most as employers would simply downsize or cut wages.

5) A Thinly Disguised Public Option: The Baucus bill invites indefinite federal control of a “co-op” by providing an unnecessary $6 billion in federal funding for startup loans and grants and it gives broad latitude to the HHS Secretary to regulate co-ops and promote them. The co-op created in this bill is literally an acronym for a new government-run health plan.

6) Medicaid Expansion: Under the Baucus bill, millions of Americans would end up on Medicaid. The current Medicaid program is unsustainable and poorly serves the needy and indigent now. Taxpayers will pick up the new costs of Medicaid, and states will have little flexibility for real reform.

7) Medicare: The Baucus bill establishes value-based purchasing, requiring compliance with government guidelines on the delivery of medical services. Hospitals and physicians who don’t comply would get lower Medicare payments. This approach could bias or compromise doctors’ decisions and contradict U.S. law on the federal interference in the practice of medicine.

The President needs to lead by meeting with key leaders of both parties and seek bipartisan reform around two key themes: 1) instead of a one-size-fits-all federal solution, Congress should let the states take the lead on reform, and 2) reform the tax treatment of health insurance to give all taxpayers tax relief for purchasing private insurance and extend assistance (through spending offsets) to low-income families to purchase private insurance instead of expanding government care.

Tags: Max Baucus

Source: http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/research/seven-fatal-flaws-of-baucus-bill/

What Phyllis Schlafly taught us

This past weekend I had the pleasure of being one of the presenters at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, where we honored Phyllis Schlafly for her lifetime of achievement. She is the person whom even liberal academics look to when they want to explain grassroots conservatism. Phyllis was hailed—rightly so—for having stopped the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

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Supreme Court Sends a Signal in English

A U.S. Supreme Court decision this year drove another nail in the coffin of bilingual education. That's the very unpopular teaching practice in which immigrant children are segregated and taught for years primarily in their native language. Bilingual education is a documented failure in schools all over America. A school district in Arizona recognized the superiority of what is called English immersion methods for teaching the English language, but some students and parents sued Arizona, claiming it was not taking “appropriate action” to overcome barriers faced by these non-English-speaking kids. The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, concluded: “Research on ELL instruction indicates there is documented academic support for the view that English immersion is significantly more effective than bilingual education. Findings of the Arizona Department of Education in 2004 strongly support this conclusion.”

Upholding the Arizona plan, the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona is doing exactly what the law requires, namely, taking “appropriate action” by using English immersion techniques to teach English to students who grew up speaking another language. The experience of other states supports the Court’s decision. Massachusetts effectively uses English immersion instead of bilingual education. The Boston Globe reported that immigrant students (who came to the U.S. only a few years earlier barely knowing English) were class valedictorians in 17 of the 42 high schools in Boston. One of these immigrant kids, a boy from Haiti, not only led his school but won a four-year scholarship to MIT.

Polls continue to show that more than 90% of all Americans view English as our nation’s unifying language and essential for newcomers to learn in order to participate in the American dream. The Supreme Court has sent a clear signal: get rid of bilingual education and teach the English language so immigrants can succeed in America.

Listen to this commentary.

Debtors Prisons Are a National Disgrace

Debtor's prisons (that means putting men in prison because they can't pay a debt) were abolished in the United States even before we abolished slavery. But did you know that they exist today to punish men who are too poor to pay what is falsely called "child support"? Did you know that if a man hasn't got the money to pay the so-called "child support" ordered by a court, the judge can sentence the poor guy to debtor's prison without any jury trial?

The case of Frank Hatley is just one example of a man who spent over a year in a debtors prison in Georgia. A DNA test nine years ago plus a second one this year proved that Frank Hatley is not the father of the child for whom he was ordered to pay child support. The court order issued back in 2001, signed by Judge Dane Perkins, acknowledged that Hatley is not the father, but nevertheless ordered him to continue paying every month and never told him he could have a court-appointed lawyer since he could not afford one.

Frank Hatley worked a job as a laborer, unloading charcoal grills from shipping containers. He paid the government (not the mom or child) thousands of dollars in so-called "child support." After he was laid off from his job and reduced to living in his car, he continued making payments out of his unemployment benefits. But he didn't pay enough to satisfy the avaricious child-support bureaucrats, so Judge Perkins ruled Hatley in contempt and, without a trial, sent him to debtors prison. With the help of a Legal Services lawyer, he has now been released from jail and relieved from future assessments. But (because of the Bradley Amendment) the government demands that Hatley continue paying at the rate of $250 a month until he pays off the $16,398 debt the government claims he accumulated earlier (even though the court then knew he was not the father).

In that jail in the little town of Adel, Georgia, where Hatley was a prisoner, one-third of the inmates are in debtors prison. This system is morally and constitutionally wrong. Debtors prisons should be abolished.

Audio version of this commentary.

Some Injustices of the Child-Support System

Did you know that alleged "child support" has nothing to do with supporting a child because the mother has no obligation to spend even one dollar of it on a child, and in many cases none of the "support" money ever gets to a child because it goes to fatten the payroll of the child-support bureaucracy? Did you know that a judge can order a man to reimburse the government for welfare money, which is falsely labeled "child support" and paid to the mother of a child to whom the man is not related? Did you know that when a woman applying for welfare handouts lies about who is the father of her child, she is never prosecuted for perjury? Did you know that judges can refuse to accept DNA evidence proving that the man she accuses is not the father?

Did you know that when corporations can't pay their debts, they can take bankruptcy, which means they pay off their debts for pennies on the dollar, but a man can never get an alleged "child support" debt forgiven or reduced, even if he is out of a job, penniless, homeless, medically incapacitated, incarcerated (justly or unjustly), can't afford a lawyer, serving in our Armed Forces overseas, or never even owed the money in the first place?

These are among the injustices that the feminists and liberal legislators, have inflicted on men. The sponsor of the federal law that says you can never get a support order reduced or forgiven was the former Democratic Senator from New Jersey and presidential candidate Bill Bradley. The law is called the Bradley Amendment.

Most Bradley-law victims never come to national attention because the mainstream media follow the feminist propaganda line. But one egregious case did make the news this summer, and I'll tell you about it tomorrow. It's about a man who was kept in debtors' prison for over a year for not paying support for a child who was not his own.

Audio version of this commentary.

Jimmy Carter is race-baiting again

NBC news reports:

Former President Jimmy Carter said in an interview Tuesday that Congressman Joe Wilson's "you lie" outburst to President Obama was "based on racism" and that many of the critiques leveled against the president have been made because of his black heritage.

Wilson may have been rude, but not racist. I hope people are not intimidated by these baseless accusations. Misinformation about the health care bill must be exposed.

The Reality of the Violence Against Women Act

This week marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, authored by the current Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. The White House issued a statement of commemoration.

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NEA Animosity Toward Conservatives

The National Education Association's number-one lawyer, Bob Chanin, retired this year after 41 years with the NEA, and he made a final speech which really reveals the NEA's animosity toward parents and others who don't agree with the NEA's leftwing views. In his speech, Chanin asked this question, and I quote: "Why are these conservative and right-wing bastards picking on NEA and its affiliates?" Then, Chanin answered his own question, and again I quote: "NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power, and we have power because there are more than 3 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year."

That statement is really arrogant! The NEA would have a small fraction of its power and bank account if it had to depend on teachers "willing to pay" dues. In many states, teachers pay union dues only because it is a condition of their employment. Many of the NEA's contracts require school districts to promptly fire any teacher who fails to pay dues. Mr. Chanin then added: "We are not paranoid, someone really is after us." Chanin is correct. Conservatives are after the NEA. Since this powerful organization has effective control of the public schools and spends millions of taxpayers' dollars to indoctrinate schoolchildren, and spends millions of its own money to lobby for leftwing goals, the NEA certainly deserves to be subjected to citizen surveillance and criticism.

One additional action of the NEA convention I find very amusing. The NEA convention voted down New Business Item 66, which would have required the union to make public the salaries and benefits received by its executives.

Audio version of this commentary.

The NEA's Position about Abortion

Every year for the last 24 years, the National Education Association, which meets in convention in July, has passed a resolution endorsing "the right to reproductive freedom," which everybody understands endorses abortion. And every year, some pro-life delegates try to pass a motion stating that the NEA is neutral and takes "no position on abortion." This abortion-neutral motion is always decisively defeated, never getting more than 25% of the vote. Some years, the motion is even ruled out of order by the chairman.

During the convention debate, the NEA's lawyer, Bob Chanin, warned the delegates that, if the abortion-neutral motion passed, the NEA would have to remain silent on this issue if Roe v. Wade were challenged, would not be able to lobby for taxpayer-funded abortions, and would not be able to advocate abortion as a means of ending teen pregnancies. So, the majority voted to keep the NEA's endorsement of abortion on demand.

This year, at the NEA convention in San Diego, something remarkable happened. The pro-lifers introduced their motion as a bylaw amendment instead of as a resolution, a procedure that calls for a secret, written ballot instead of a voice vote. The abortion-neutral amendment failed again, but surprise, surprise, when the intimidation factor was gone and the delegates had the benefit of a secret ballot, an amazing 39% voted for the abortion-neutral measure.

NEA resolutions also included all the major feminist goals such as "comparable worth" (that means government control of wages according to feminist ideology rather than the free market); and "the use of non-sexist language" (that means censoring out all masculine words such as husband and father). The NEA even urges its members to work for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment even though the ERA was declared dead by the U.S. Supreme Court 26 years ago.

Audio version of this commentary.

Pledge of Confusion? Schools Wrestle With Flag Policy in Classroom

“There has been a recurring effort by the ACLU and others to try to stop the Pledge of Allegiance from being said. The fact of the matter is that the American people like the Pledge of Allegiance, they like it the way it is,” Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, told FOXNews.com.

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NEA Goes All-Out for Same-Sex Marriage

The National Education Association (known as the NEA), which usually passes a dozen or more pro-homosexual resolutions at its annual national convention, this year in San Diego went all out in support of same-sex marriage. This emphasis on advocacy for homosexuals was spelled out in a five-point New Business Item E.

Point #1 tells NEA affiliates to support state legislation that registers same-sex couples in a way that is modeled on marriage. This registration would cover taxes, inheritance, adoptions, medical decisions, and even immigration.

Point #2 says that states can call this same-sex registration marriage or civil union or domestic partnership, so long as same-sex relationships are treated like marriage.

In Point #3, the NEA promises to “support its affiliates” in opposing state constitutional amendments and laws that differentiate between homosexual and heterosexual couples. The NEA’s California affiliate spent $1.25 million of teachers’ dues money on the campaign to defeat Proposition 8 last year.

In Point #4, the NEA supports repeal of federal laws and regulations such as the very popular 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (called DOMA), which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. According to the Government Accountability Office’s list of laws that use DOMA’s definition of marriage, repeal of this law would create new Social Security and joint income tax benefits for homosexual partners.

The NEA’s only concession to those who disagree with these goals is Point #5. It acknowledges that churches have a First Amendment right not to perform same-sex marriages.

After a limited floor debate, this New Business Item was approved by a voice vote of about 60% to 40%, putting the nation's largest teachers union firmly on record as supporting same-sex marriage.

Audio version of this commentary.

Howard Dean misleads about health care plan

From today's Meet The Press:

DR. DEAN: The other thing is I'm going to strongly disagree with Senator Cornyn. This bill is remarkably helpful to small business. Small businesses less than 25 employees in the Senate bill don't have to have -- pay anything for health insurance ever again. Less than half a million dollars in the House bill. And this is a -- Blue Dogs put this in. Payroll -- don't have to pay health insurance ever again. That's a huge boost for the people who create 80 percent of all the new jobs in America.

Doesn't that sound like health insurance is going to be free for small businesses? At little later in the program, Newt Gingrich thought that this sounded too good to be true.

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: ... The fact is, the country's looking at the speech and the country's asking about the speech. And a good example is what Howard Dean just said. When you, when you say to me no small business under 25 employees will ever again have to buy--pay for health insurance, I want to know who's going to pay for it. I mean, this country -- you're going to get to the economy later on. This country's facing $9 trillion in increased deficits. The average American is thinking, you know, life doesn't work like this. You -- the idea that every small business in America is going to be able to somehow magically wave a wand and in perpetuity we're going to be given free health insurance?

DR. DEAN: I didn't say free.

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: Well, then, where's the money coming from?

DR. DEAN: There's the -- the way, the way the bill works is a government subsidy, and then you go out and choose what kind of health insurance to...

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: So where does the government money come from? Who's going to give the government the money to give me? I have a, I have a couple small businesses, and my small businesses could easily meet this.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: As a small business owner, I'd love to have free health insurance.

DR. DEAN: It's not free.

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: Ah.

DR. DEAN: Employees have to pay something for it.

More Fine Print in the Health Care Bill

Today, I'll tell you more about the surprises in the fine print of Obama's health care bill that Congress is trying to pass. Title II creates a "Health Insurance Exchange," pretending to be a marketplace for health insurance plans. Of course, so long as a "public option" is subsidized by the taxpayers, it can always undersell private plans, and so the health insurance you now have will soon disappear. Anyone who does not enroll in an Exchange-participating plan will be "automatically enrolled under Medicaid." The government will use force to achieve its goal of universal coverage.

Employers will be subjected to a play-or-pay mandate. Those who do not provide health insurance to their employees must give the government a "contribution" equal to 8% of average wages paid.

Seniors must submit to "advance care planning consultation" (also known as end-of-life discussions) every five years, or more often if there is "a significant change in the health condition of the individual, including diagnosis of a ... life-limiting disease ... or injury." Will these consultants advise seniors to hurry up and die because they are costing too much money? Government bureaucrats will conduct "Comparative Effectiveness Research" to decide the effectiveness of treatments and drugs. That is the exotic label for rationing and Congressmen admit that drugs and treatments that are "found to be less effective and more expensive will no longer be prescribed." Government bureaucrats (not the medical profession) shall determine national priorities.

The fine print of the Democrats' health-care bill not only imposes incredible debt on our children, but gives enormous power to the Obama bureaucrats to decide what kind of insurance we must carry, how much we must pay or be hit with fines and penalties, and what treatments and drugs are "effective" and will be permitted. This isn't America; this is Socialism.

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The myth of female empowerment

By Suzanne Venker

On Sept. 25, 2009, I will be speaking at the How to Take Back America Conference in St. Louis, Mo. The subject of my workshop, which I'll be conducting alongside Phyllis Schlafly, is "How to cope with feminist attacks on marriage and motherhood." It's a subject I've been dealing with for years since the release of my first book, and I can assure you it's a topic that's not going away. In many respects the fight has just begun.

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Reading the Fine Print in Health Care Bill

When you buy a product that doesn't turn out to be what you expected, your friends will often remind you that you "should have read the fine print" before you bought it. Americans should read the fine print in the Health Care bill that Congress is trying to pass.

The House Democrats' health care bill is entitled "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009." No clue is given as to how long we will have a choice, but it will probably be only until taxpayer-paid government insurance chases private insurance out of business. The bill's subtitle states its purpose as health care for everyone, reducing "the growth in health care spending," "and for other purposes." Note that the goal is not to reduce spending but only the "growth" in spending. We need to worry about the "other purposes" that will be added by regulations. For example, Obama's health bill covers family planning. Those are well-known code words for taxpayer-funded contraception and abortion.

The bill states that health-care benefits require "shared responsibility among workers, employers, and the government." That means the government will force all taxpayers to pay for health care for millions of people who don't now buy insurance because they don't want it. The bill states that the government will investigate "self-insured employers not being able to pay obligations." Government agents will audit and then harass small business owners to force them to pay for insurance they cannot afford. The bill provides for "nurse home visitation services" for various purposes, such as "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies" (that reminds us of China's policies), for reducing "child abuse, neglect" (giving more authority to the already too powerful Child Protective Services). Tomorrow I'll tell you more about the fine-print surprises in the health care bill.

Listen to this commentary.

Debating Government Health Care

The Democrats' answer to the question of how they will pay for their trillion-dollar health-care bill was announced by Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel. He wants to impose a surtax on incomes over $280,000, which would be a staggering blow to small businesses that create most jobs. Another option floated by the Democrats is to tax employer-sponsored health coverage. The real purpose of Obama's health care bill is to seize control of another major industry (health care) and move us rapidly into Socialism. The Democrat plan involves mandates to force individuals to buy insurance, to force employers to provide insurance, and to force private insurance to offer an expensive list of benefits.

Instead of allowing insurance to compete by offering different benefit packages, the Democrats are considering insurance mandates to cover exotic benefits that individuals may not want to buy such as in-vitro fertilization, hair transplants, rehab services, hearing aids, sex-change operations, prescription drugs, abortions, mental health, and substance abuse programs. The Democrats intend to prohibit low-cost policies just for catastrophic care.

Listen to this commentary.

The Democrats intend to impose community rating on a federal level, which means all customers will be offered the same rates and benefits regardless of age, obesity, smoking or other lifestyle differences. This forces young people to subsidize older patients. The Democrats intend to launch a "public option" to compete with private insurance. Government subsidies for the public option would soon drive private insurance out of business.

Obama promised that if you like your current insurance, you can keep it, but that option will soon be gone under Obama reform. Your employer could cancel his company-paid insurance (because it's cheaper to pay a fine instead), or your insurance could be canceled (because it can't compete with government subsidized insurance).

Questions About China to Ask Candidates

When public officials travel the country to make speeches and appear at local town meetings, voters should take this opportunity to ask them pertinent questions about important national issues. Communist China is becoming an increasingly important country, so here are some questions to ask public officials and candidates about Communist China.

* What will you do about China's organized theft of our intellectual property and counterfeiting of U.S. products? China is the world's top producer of illegal copies of music, movies, software, designer clothes, and medicines.

* What will you do to stop China from sending us contaminated prescription drugs (such as Heparin that killed 81 Americans), dangerous lead-paint-coated toys for children, and seafood that is grown in filthy waters? What will you do about the poisonous drywall used in home construction that has destroyed appliances and copper wiring in hundreds of homes in Florida and caused headaches and coughs among the homeowners? What will you do to get our Food and Drug agents to inspect China's manufacture of prescription drugs that they export to the U.S.? If we are going to let China sell prescription drugs in our country, it's our government's job to make sure they are safe.

* What will you do about the fact that the Chinese artificially undervalue their currency up to 40%, subsidize their products sent to the U.S., and impose import duties against U.S. products that are 10 times higher than tariffs on their products that are sold in U.S. stores?

* What will you do about Communist China continuing to ship us steel products at below their cost because the Communist government subsidizes the production in order to destroy the U.S. steel industry?

These are some good questions to ask Congressional candidates so they will know you expect them to stand up for American products and jobs.


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Critics of Stimulus Feel Threatened

President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is using intimidation tactics to make the public believe that the giant Stimulus legislation is solving the unemployment problem. After Arizona Senator Jon Kyl criticized the Stimulus, Rahm Emanuel orchestrated four letters to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer from four Obama Cabinet Secretaries threatening to cut off Arizona's federal funding. Congressman Darrell Issa described Emanuel's threat as "Chicago-style tactics." Since Emanuel came out of the Chicago Democratic machine, Congressman Issa said, "While this type of scare tactic may work in Chicago, it will not work to intimidate me or other Members of the United States Congress."

Since Rahm Emanuel's tactics are now becoming nationally known, it's no wonder that Americans are apprehensive about the White House plan to build a database of citizens who speak out against Obama's health care legislation. The database will be secret, but the fact that the White House is building it has leaked out. On August 3, Obama's media people posted on the White House website a notice complaining that "disinformation about health insurance reform" may be spread "via chain emails or through casual conversation." The White House has sent out instructions to Obama's supporters, and I quote: "Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. . . . If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

With the White House specifically requesting that kind of personal information, it is inevitable that the names, email address, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House, where Rahm Emanuel is director-in-chief of Chicago-style retaliation and intimidation. Since the White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, the Obama Administration can keep the names on the database secret for political purposes for ten years.

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Eagle Forum Intern Reflects on Summer Internship

By Emily Hammon

My first day of negotiating the Washington D.C. traffic left me asking myself, "What made me think I could do this!" Although I confess I wanted to turn around and go back to my small town where no one honks and very few people are in any kind of hurry, I'm very glad I didn't.

My internship with the conservative think tank Eagle Forum proved to be more than I could ever have imagined.

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Bernard Schoenburg: GOP far from settled on Senate nod

Congressional Town Hall Meetings

It's customary for Members of Congress to hold Town Hall meetings in their districts during the August recess. This year, many constituents came to these meetings to express opposition to the proposed Health Care legislation, and Obama supporters have been hitting back in very ugly ways.

For example, at Congressman Russ Carnahan's Town Hall meeting in St. Louis on August 6, Service Employees International Union thugs, clad in purple shirts, brutally beat, punched in the face, and kicked in the head when he was down, an African American named Kenneth Gladney, at the same time hurling a torrent of racial slurs. The union goons were following White House advice that if they encountered resistance, they should "punch back twice as hard." The Purple Shirt Brigade thugs assaulted Kenneth Gladney because he was passing out historical American flags with the inscription "Don't Tread On Me." The Left doesn't want to tolerate African Americans who are conservatives. Mr. Gladney was taken to the hospital, and six people were arrested. This was actually a much more newsworthy event than the confrontation between the policeman and the professor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but unfortunately the pro-Obama media did not give it much coverage.

We are seeing a coordinated smear on those who oppose socialized medicine. A Democratic National Committee spokesman called them "angry mobs of rabid right-wing extremists." White House Press Secretary Gibbs called them "manufactured" protesters. Majority Leader Harry Reid called them "Astroturf" to pretend that they are artificial grass roots. In fact, the opponents of socialized medicine are just ordinary citizens, many of whom (like Kenneth Gladney) had never before attended a political meeting. On the other hand, the leftwing organization called MoveOn.org sent out an email stating, "We've got a plan to fight back against these radical right-wingers."

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What Happened in Guadalajara

President Obama went to Guadalajara, Mexico in August as part of his promise to become a "citizen of the world" and met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The cozy meetings of these three heads of state used to be labeled the Security and Prosperity Partnership, but now they call themselves the North American Leaders Summit. Prestigious internationalist think tanks, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hudson Institute, and the Center for Strategic & International Studies, have explained the real purpose of these high-level get-togethers. These meetings were planned to be the first steps toward a North American Union modeled on the European Union, with open borders and a common currency, which was prematurely labeled the amero.

The words "union" and "amero" have become embarrassing, so the goal has now been identified as "economic integration" and "labor mobility." The Guadalajara joint statement reaffirmed the purpose of "integrated economies," and that means allowing unlimited access for cheap labor from Mexico to take U.S. jobs. President Calderon demanded "migration reform and labor mobility" (which means amnesty), and asserted that it is "unthinkable" for the United States to function "without the contribution of the Mexican laborers and workers." Canada's Harper wants all three to work "together on a North American focus against climate change in order to assure and guarantee a new international covenant that is efficient and truly global."

Obama reaffirmed his commitment to pass the Cap and Trade bill so he will be hailed as a hero at the upcoming United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen. He promised to "take the lead by reducing U.S. emissions by 80 percent by 2050" and to "work with other nations to cut global emissions in half." There certainly is no gain for the United States in these North American Summits.

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