CPS tramples on parents rights

A new research study shows the failure of Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations. The accompanying editorial is not freely available, but it is described in this NY Times article.

Congress tried to go national with the state CPS child abuse registries, but a federal HHS study said that it was not feasible. An AP story about it is here.

Two CPS cases are currently before the supreme court, Camreta and Alford v. Greene Los Angeles County v. Humphries. The court ought to declare the CPS practices to be unconstitutional, but probably will not.

Don't Forget to Vote on November 2nd

This year, 2010, could be the most important year of our time. The November 2nd election will determine whether, as President Obama wants, America is “fundamentally transformed" into European-style Socialism, or we make a solid right turn, elect a conservative Congress, and halt extravagant spending into what our government admits is “unsustainable debt” that will burden our children and grandchildren.

Otero County Sheriff's Department official says Mexican cartels, flow of illegal narcotics threaten security of citizens

Capt. Leon Ledbetter spoke about illegal drugs, Mexican drug cartels and things the community can do about it during Tuesday's monthly luncheon meeting of Eagle Forum.

Ledbetter said he believes three major Mexican cartels are battling for power and position. He has been with the Otero County Sheriff's Department since 1991. Ledbetter plans to retire from the department Dec. 31.
 
"It explains a lot of what's going on with the violence in Juarez," he said. "To get the drugs into the United States, they have to cross somewhere along the border. The people who control the border don't get along with a cartel that doesn't have access to the border, then they will physically take it over."

Closing "Digital Divide" Widens Gap

We hear a lot of talk in education circles about the academic achievement gap between racial and socioeconomic groups. One aspect of this gap is called the "digital divide," which means that poorer kids are disadvantaged in school because they don't have computers at home like kids from well-to-do families. Taxpayers have spent millions of dollars to try to close this so-called “digital divide” by donating computers to poorer kids. By 2003, the poorer students had reached parity with richer kids in computer access.

Midterm blowout: 50 or more Dem seats set to fall in the election

Republicans are headed for a blowout election win that seems certain to seize more than enough seats to knock out the Democrats and take control of the House.

The Hill 2010 Midterm Election poll, surveying nearly 17,000 likely voters in 42 toss-up districts over four weeks, points to a massive Republican wave that, barring an extraordinary turnaround, will deliver crushing nationwide defeats for President Obama’s party.


The data suggest a GOP pickup that could easily top 50 seats (the party needs 39 for control of the House).

Read full story

Let's Celebrate American Exceptionalism

President Obama has made it clear that his worldview rejects American exceptionalism. Exceptionalism is hard to define precisely. It first appeared when John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, said "we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill." Ronald Reagan then expanded on this thought and called us "a shining city on a hill." Alexis de Toqueville, the French commentator of the 19th century, said in his famous book, Democracy in America: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one."

Obama! A Modern U.S. President (musical spoof)

Ten Truths About Socialism

Socialism was supposed to be dead, or at least dying, when the Union of Soviet Socialist countries fell apart in 1991. Yet just last year, in February 2009, the cover of Newsweek boldly proclaimed, “We’re All Socialists Now.” That isn't true, of course. That was merely what the Socialists and liberals hoped. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 43% of 18- to 29-year-olds, had a positive reaction to the word Socialism.

Perhaps the reason for this is the infiltration of “social justice” teaching into our schools. Whatever the reason, these young people had a positive reaction to the word “socialism.”

This pocket-sized book called 10 Truths About Socialism and published by Coral Ridge Ministries, explains why socialism has failed every time it has been tried, from the Christian Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in 1620 to today’s Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. Early chapters of this little book concisely explain how the philosophies of Rousseau, Marx and others paved the way for both the Nazi and Communist versions of Socialism that are responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million people in the 20th century. The authors demonstrate how socialism’s insistence on the primacy of the state over individuals and families and churches is at odds with man’s very nature. As the Jamestown and Plymouth Rock colonial settlers back in the 1600s each learned and recorded for history, people work much harder when they get to keep the fruit of their labors, and they resent providing for those who refuse to work.

If you know one of these young people who have been misled by social justice, give him a copy of this little book called 10 Truths About Socialism by Robert Knight.

Listen to the radio commentary here:

Interview: Robert Knight — 10 Truths About Socialism

Newsweek magazine declared last year that "We're All Socialists Now." Our guest will explain how socialism is at odds with God's law, the family, and the Church.

Book: 10 Truths About Socialism


Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 10-23-10

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"Fundamentally Transforming America"

President Barack Obama says he wants to "fundamentally transform the United States." I don't believe the American people want him to transform America into a land where our government --

* spends us into national bankruptcy, burdening our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt;
* "redistributes" your earnings to non-taxpayers, with financial handouts to promote the feminist/homosexual anti-marriage agenda,
* appoints 35 weirdo Czars to rule entire industries, starting with banks, automobiles, health care, and women's issues,
* appoints "transnationalist" judges who will put U.S. courts and decisions under United Nations rulings, treaties, and foreign law,
* uses the public schools to create an Obama cult and to train schoolchildren to work as activists for a radical agenda,

Making Jobs for Feminists in Other Countries

The Obama Administration and the Nancy Pelosi gang in Congress are always pandering to the feminists and trying to give them more and more taxpayers' money. They have a new radical feminist bill they are trying to push through Congress called the International Violence Against Women Act -- I-VAWA for short. The feminists already have a well-funded Violence Against Women Act for the United States, and this bill is intended to give the feminists lots of money to carry out their activities in foreign countries. The bill called I-VAWA broadly defines violence against women to include non-violent "psychological harm," "intimidation at work." Naturally, lots of taxpayers' money will be needed for so awesome a task, so the bill authorizes a five-year appropriation of $1 billion.

Game Makers Face Mortal Kombat as High Court Rules on Violence

George Rose hopes to have a front row seat in the nation's capital on Election Day. The executive vice-president of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), the world's largest independent game developer, doesn't have politics on his mind. He'll be watching the Supreme Court oral argument on Nov. 2 in a case that could cost his company billions.

The high court, in Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association, is weighing whether a 2005 California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors violates the First Amendment right to free speech. (The law has never been enforced due to legal challenges.) If the high court upholds the California ban, video game companies would be required to attach a 2-inch by 2-inch white label marked "18" on the front of a boxed game deemed too violent for minors. Retailers that violate the ban would be subject to fines of $1,000.

Read complete article


Further reading:

Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association (PDF) — Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, rejecting claims that gruesome video games are somehow First Amendment free speech. The video game industry has surpassed Hollywood in revenue and influence and gore, unbeknownst to many parents. The image abuse being inflicted by the video game industry on addicted children is leading to violent behavior, wasted time, and wasted lives. Playing games is not free speech and California properly assisted parents by prohibiting the sale or rental of violent video games to children there. This amicus brief explains why the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold this pro-parent law and should reject the notion that an industry has a First Amendment right to disturb children with shockingly violent images in role-playing games.

Political tussles in California

California Democrats are facing their own battle as they try to hold on to their majority power in the nation's capital. Longtime California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer is struggling to hold on to her seat, so she has called on President Obama to begin campaigning with her this week. Orlean Koehle of the Eagle Forum believes Boxer, who is up against Republican candidate Carly Fiorina for the Senate seat, must pull the president into the race because she knows she is losing.

"I think a lot of the Democrats are actually shying away from Obama, because often when he does appear, he actually chases voters away," Koehle notes. "I do not believe he is a very popular president anymore, and I think those Democrats who do bring him in to help them end up regretting it."

As Obama sides with the Democratic candidate, Fiornia will campaign with former presidential runner John McCain while Sarah Palin rallies across the state in an effort to win GOP votes. However, the Eagle Forum activist does not think Fiorina's decision will have a positive effect on her party. "I do not think McCain is very popular at all; I don't think that's a very wise choice," she suggests.

Koehle believes the candidates who are not longtime politicians are gaining momentum in the state, and she thinks the November election will bring new faces to California's government.

Source: OneNewsNow.com

• 2010 Candidates Endorsed By Eagle Forum PAC 

The Feminist Left Goes Global

Just when we thought President Obama had reached the ultimate in seizing extravagant power by appointing a Health Care Czar to exercise life-and-death surveillance over Medicare and Medicaid, Congress is now trying to give him a Czar with global powers. This would be a Czar over women's issues, worldwide. Based in the State Department, her statutory title will be "Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues." Her task will be to assure a "gender integration" perspective in all State Department policies and programs. The feminist movement in the United States has never been only about changing laws alleged to be discriminatory. Feminists yearn to dictate cultural norms and attitudes, too.

Phrase not in Constitution

A lot of people are making fun of Christine O'Donnell for questioning whether the phrase “Separation of Church and State” is in the US Constitution. It is not, of course. It was adopted the the courts after a 1947 US Supreme Court decision. That only happened after many years of lobbying by the Ku Klux Klan.

Supreme Court hears arguments in recall of Conrad

No U.S. senator has ever been recalled, but that’s exactly what one group is trying to  do as they attempt to circulate a petition to recall Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

The Supreme Court met Wednesday to hear arguments from the state and RecallND, a group whose petition was denied by Secretary of State Al Jaeger when they tried to recall  Conrad in March.

Jaeger rejected the petition based on advice from Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem who later explained in an opinion that recall of a U.S. senator was unconstitutional  in both the state and federal constitutions.

RecallND and their attorney   Andrew Schlafly disagree with that, but Schlafly said it’s too premature for that question to be considered as it is not the job of the secretary of state to reject recall petitions based on their legality but rather whether they follow the proper form.

Read complete article

Opportunities for Grassroots Involvement

One of the factors that gives us hope that new grassroots involvement in political action can bring about a real change in the direction our government is heading is the fact that conservatives are developing new channels of communication and ways to bypass the liberal mainstream media. We now have mighty tools to talk and plan with each other. When I was fighting to Stop ERA in the 1970s, our only channels of communication were the telephone and the Phyllis Schlafly Report mailed by what is now called snail mail. We didn’t have internet, computers, email, or even fax machines. Now, to spread our message and find new activists, conservatives have talk radio without leftwing spin, the internet, and conservative websites.

Speaking of Foreign Money, What About Obama's?

Read it for yourself!

John Fund wrote a revealing article pointing out that while "President Obama says outside political groups supporting Republicans are 'a threat to democracy' because some won't disclose who their donors are," President Obama's 2008 campaign did not go above and beyond beyond law to disclose its donors to the general public.

Mexican hit men stalk U.S.

Drug-smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or "sicarios," into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities.

In a memo first sent in May but widely circulated since, the department said a group of "15, very well-equipped and armed" assassins complete with body armor had been sent into the state to identify, locate and kill the drug thieves, who are thought to be independent operators.

The memo said the assassins had been dispatched to the Vekol Valley, a well-established and widely travelled drug-smuggling corridor running north and south across Interstate 8 between the Arizona towns of Casa Grande and Gila Bend. The valley is a direct link to both the interstate and to Phoenix, giving drug smugglers the option of shipping their goods to California or to major cities both north and east.

Read complete article at WashingtonTimes.com

What Are Schools Teaching About Muslims?

Parents should check out how American history is taught, and NOT taught, in their children's school. Is Islamic or Mexican propaganda masquerading as "American history"?

Culture of Poverty

Phyllis Schlafly's column last week, Marriage Is the Key to Spending Cuts, discussed a 1965 report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The NY Times did not print it, but it apparently was convinced that this 45-year-old report is a hot topic. A few days later it published two long articles on the report, The Professor Goes to Washington, by David Brooks, and ‘Culture of Poverty’ Makes a Comeback.

Angle Leads Reid 50-47 in Nevada After Reid's Abortion Coverup in Debate

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- After Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did his best during their debate to cover up the abortion funding in the ObamaCare health care reform bill he shepherded through the Senate, a new Rasmussen Reports poll out today shows pro-life candidate Sharron Angle leading 50-47.

The survey of likely voters in Nevada finds Angle with 50% to Reid’s 47% -- and another % prefer another candidate in the race, and one percent are undecided.

"A week ago, Angle held an insignificant 49% to 48% lead in a contest that has been marked for months by its closeness. In seven of eight surveys prior to this one since July, Reid and Angle have been three points apart or less. Both have hit the 50% mark one time," Rasmussen noted.

Read complete story at LifeNews.com

Interview: Judith Reisman — Sexual Sabotage

Alfred Kinsey died in 1956, but his legacy of normalizing deviant sexual behavior lives on. An expert will explain how Kinsey is still the basis for sex education classes in public schools.

Book: Sexual Sabotage: How One Mad Scientist Unleashed a Plague of Corruption and Contagion on America


Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 10-16-10

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Did a Communist Teach History to Your Children?

Several months ago on this series of programs, I told you about the most widely used history textbook in the public schools. It's called A People's History of the United States by the late Howard Zinn. It has sold a million and a half copies since it was published in 1980. It is required reading in many high schools and colleges. It is a very leftwing version of U.S. history, full of multicultural, feminist, and class-war propaganda. This history textbook by Howard Zinn sells the thesis that America is not a republic but an empire controlled by certain white men. Its heroes are anti-establishment protestors. The book debunks our nation's traditional heroes, such as Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson, and doesn't mention great Americans such as Thomas Edison.

Mexican drug cartels declaring U.S. 'no longer controls border'

The decapitation of the lead Mexican investigator in the alleged murder of a jet-skier on a border lake is a sharp retort to President Obama's administration, a Texas congressman said.

"The Mexican drug cartels just sent a message to the White House that the United States no longer controls the border," Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told WND.

The severed head of investigator Rolando Armando Flores Villegas was delivered this week to an army garrison in Ciudad Miguel Aleman in the Tamaulipas state in Mexico. The city is across the river from Zapata County, Texas, the location of Falcon Lake, where David Michael Hartley allegedly was killed by Mexican pirates while he was jet-skiing with his wife Tiffany.

Read entire article at WorldNetDaily

Turning Oil into Salt

Until the 19th century, salt was one of the most valuable commodities in the world because it was the only way to preserve food. Countries even went to war over salt. Then, with the advent of canning and refrigeration, salt lost its strategic importance and became just another inexpensive commodity.

Recently I interviewed a scientist named Dr. Gal Luft on my Saturday radio program. He says that oil now has the strategic importance that salt once had in the world because it underlies our entire transportation system and our very way of life. We rely on oil to move food from farm to our homes, to go to the doctor, to deliver the mail, and to take the kids to school. Our dependence on oil makes us highly vulnerable to unfriendly dictators who control 80% of the world's oil reserves.

Dr. Luft is a leading advocate of energy-independence. He says that we must break oil's monopoly as a fuel source. He uses salt as a metaphor and says our task is to "turn oil into salt." Dr. Luft explained that we cannot achieve energy independence through consuming less oil or drilling more oil. That is because the OPEC nations, mostly in the Middle East, control the sources of oil and how much they pump out of the ground. Any time they want, they can respond by reducing production to keep oil prices higher, or increasing production to make oil prices lower. The solution for us to create a competitive fuel market by making cars that can run on fuel alternatives. Dr. Luft believes that it is possible to give Americans a fuel choice right now.. With a minor modification that costs about $100 per car, auto manufacturers can build flex-fuel cars that run on any combination of gasoline and/or various alcohol-based fuels, including methanol, ethanol, and butanol. Creating a competitive market for fuel at the pump would reduce gas prices and make oil much less important on the world market. It's something to think about.

Listen to the radio commentary here:



Book: Turning Oil Into Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice

Parental Choice in Schools Is Better

The Federal Government is planning on imposing national curriculum standards on all public schools. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to exercise any control over education, and this limitation is reinforced by a longstanding federal law that forbids the federal government "to mandate, direct, or control ... school's curriculum, program of instruction, or allocation of state or local resources." Control of public school curriculum is a very desirable prize for those who want to control the future. Even Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano, admitted in 1977, "national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas." The bait is use of our money, lots of it.

Common Core Standards: A Very Bad Idea

The No Child Left Behind Act, which allowed states to set their own public school standards for "proficiency," is considered a failure by all factions in the education world. Therefore, we obviously should force all kids in every state to be held to uniform national standards of proficiency. Right? No; that's very wrong. But that bad idea is being aggressively promoted by the Obama Administration. The mailed fist in the velvet glove is the extraordinary river of taxpayers' money used to force compliance.

Having taken over major parts of the banking industry, the mortgage industry, the automobile industry, the college student-loan industry, and the health-care industry, the Obama Administration is now taking over the $600 billion public-school industry using taxpayers' money from the Stimulus package. The White House concedes that "stimulus" is now a negative word and avoids its use because it obviously did not stimulate jobs. But Stimulus dollars will stimulate the takeover of our children's minds under what is called Common Core Standards. That's the moniker for forcing national curriculum standards on all public schools.

Imposing national standards sounds so alluring and positive. We would get rid of our messy, different 50 state standards, and make our kids smarter by incentivizing them to aspire to a higher bar of achievement, make them all college-ready, enable them to rank higher on international tests, and enable them to better compete in the new global economy.

However, children will never be properly educated under a system run by bureaucrats handing out money and the National Education Association union spending the money in the classroom. This NEA union has extraordinary millions of dollars extracted from its members to lobby for leftwing policies and to elect their political candidates to support NEA policies.

Listen to the radio commentary here:

The Senate Should Reject New START Treaty

Last April, President Obama went to the Czech Republic and signed an arms-control treaty called New START. It's called New START because the original treaty called START expired last December. We hope the U.S. Senate will refuse to ratify it because this treaty would be very dangerous to U.S. national security.

Sharron Angle Speaks for Me

Help defeat Harry Reid!

Interview: Neal McCluskey — Common Core Standards

Lured by lots of federal money, 36 states have agreed to give up state control of public education standards in favor of national standards. Will imposing national standards make kids smarter?

Behind the Curtain: Assessing the Case for National Curriculum Standards


Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 10-09-10

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Don't START To Give Up Anti-Missile Defense

Among the dangers lurking in Congress's fall session and Lame Duck Session will be a Senate rush to ratify the treaty called New START, which he signed with the Russians in Prague last April. This treaty is not only a bad idea; it's downright dangerous to U.S. national security. For the first time in the long record of U.S.-Russian treaties, this New START treaty links offensive and defensive weapons. Advocates of ratification say that doesn't matter because the link is only in the Preamble and that doesn't bind us. But that interpretation hasn't been cleared with the Russians, who assert that the Preamble does put a binding limit on U.S. missile defenses.

Un-American American History Courses

Arizona passed a state law that bans schools from teaching classes designed to promote solidarity among students of a foreign ethnic group. This law bans classes that "promote the overthrow of the United States government" or "promote resentment toward a race or class of people" because schools should treat all pupils as individual Americans. The issue arose because the Tucson School District offers courses in Mexican-American studies (known locally as Raza Studies) that focus on that particular group and its influence.

Who's Responsible for Violent Video Games?

Several states have passed laws to reduce the damage that violent video games do to children by limiting the sale of those games to minors. The laws do not restrict sales to adults. The video game industry is trying to wrap its evil product in the First Amendment because the industry doesn't want any reduction in the enormous profits that come from sales to kids. A case involving this issue is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. The game industry is asking the High Court to create a new type of free speech that would make it impossible to put any limit on this corruption of children's minds and morals by selling them violent role-playing video games. If the industry loses this case it could lose billions of dollars in future revenue. One commentator described this outcome as "apocalyptic" for the industry.

Who's Responsible for Violent Video Games?

Several states have passed laws to reduce the damage that violent video games do to children by limiting the sale of those games to minors. The laws do not restrict sales to adults. The video game industry is trying to wrap its evil product in the First Amendment because the industry doesn't want any reduction in the enormous profits that come from sales to kids. A case involving this issue is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. The game industry is asking the High Court to create a new type of free speech that would make it impossible to put any limit on this corruption of children's minds and morals by selling them violent role-playing video games. If the industry loses this case it could lose billions of dollars in future revenue. One commentator described this outcome as "apocalyptic" for the industry.

Obama Opposes the Will of the American People

Yesterday, I ticked off a list of major national issues where the American people, according to public opinion polls, are on one side, but President Obama has declared himself against the majority of the people. Another one of these major issues is the matter of building the Mosque on the ground near the 9/11 attack in New York City. Obama supports building the Mosque but 61% of Americans are against it.

Obama versus Majority Public Opinion

The Democrats are reluctant to admit the truth that Obama is not a smart politician (like Bill Clinton, for example). Obama is a radical ideologue determined to "transform" America into the socialist mold. Let's tick off the issues where Obama staked out his lonely position at the same time that public opinion polls showed the majority of Americans are on the other side. Obama's determination to achieve "change" doesn't include obeying the wishes of We The People.

Interview: Robert Reilly — Closing Of The Muslim Mind

Book: The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist

Ever since 9/11, Americans have struggled to understand the radical Muslims. Why are they angry? Is peace with them possible?


Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 10-02-10
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Professors Oppose Transparency Law

When a student at the University of Texas at Austin complained that her course titled “Communication and Religion” was actually about fringe cults like Wiccans, she kicked off a major change in how much information Texas colleges and universities provide to students about what's in the courses. The Texas legislature soon unanimously passed a law, quickly signed by Governor Rick Perry, stating that all the state’s public universities must post a detailed syllabus for each undergraduate course that includes class requirements, required textbooks and lecture topics. Other information, including each professor’s educational background, published works, salary, previous student evaluations, and the cost of attending classes. All this data must be searchable, and accessible without a password. Access cannot be limited to students, but must be freely available to the public. The sponsor of this law said it is intended to help students and parents make better decisions. If students have more information, they can better pick their courses and their major, and spend their money more efficiently.