Pence: Health Care Bill at Dead End
Posted on March 11th, 2010 by Dr. Eric Wallace
By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.
Most of us remember the stellar advertising campaign A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste designed at giving underprivileged elementary children a bite at the educational apple. This week Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) decided to use this concept to become an advocate for middle school and high school students as well. Lieberman and five colleagues weighed in on D.C. politics, filing an amendment to a tax extenders bill to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
The D.C. OSP was created in 2004 under the Bush administration. These $7,500 scholarships made it possible for students to attend a private school. The students that used these scholarships felt a greater degree of safety as well as made major academic strides. A federally mandated evaluation of the program also showed these private school students received the equivalent of 3.7 months of additional learning than others. This has been done while actually reducing the District’s costs as these students only received half of the city’s $15,000-per-pupil assessment.
At a press conference last month, Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) stated that if the scholarship is not saved, 86 percent of these students will be forced to return to failing schools. In that same press conference, Senator Lieberman said, “If Dr. King were here today, he’d be fighting his heart out for the OSP.” The Senator vowed then to find a way to save the D.C. OSP.
Before we talk more about the scholarship and its merits, let’s go back to 2004 and find out what the environment was that led to the program’s initiation. D.C. schools led in violence nationally, while ranking academically near the bottom. In 2004, 14 percent of students said they didn’t go to class because they felt unsafe. As a result of this unprecedented violent atmosphere, private money also was invested in the city to curb violence. A personal hero of mine, Robert Woodson, was given 1 million dollars by the Chevron/Texaco Corp. to support his Violence-Free Zone initiative. Woodson is the director of The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington.
The million-dollar grant focused on just four elementary schools, funding several after-school activities based on the Violence-Free Zone’s seven-year track record at that time. The initiative had successfully quelled gang banging and violence in DC’s Benning Terrace public housing complex and received national acclaim that led to its replication in cities like Dallas.
In 2010 we still have problems with the schools in D.C. More than 60 percent of fourth graders cannot read at a basic level. In addition, we have a 50 percent high school dropout rate among African-American males. What about crime?
The conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation reported several additional statistics about D.C. schools this past fall. Data obtained from the D.C. police department showed that the schools reported 3,500 incidents of crime during the 2007-08 school year. Obviously this level was many more than D.C. chartered or private schools reported. “Of the calls by public schools, 912 concerned violent incidents, including one homicide and 43 sex offenses. The most common, violent crime was simple assault; there were 648 reports of this and 114 reports of aggravated assault.”
Against this current backdrop of violence and lost academic opportunity, the administration’s FY 2011 budget has cut the D.C. OSP funding to 8 million dollars for scholarships. Further, the White House administration has been unsympathetic to the cries of the people, while President Obama sends his own kids to Sidwell Friends School. If this isn’t bad enough, some residents have cited the irony that the president, himself, received scholarships but wants to take them way from D.C. kids.
Parents in the city are outraged for obvious reasons - a proven scholarship program that is good for everyone has been suspended for doctrinaire or ideological reasons. To add insult to injury the administration has been resolute in promoting policies that do not give D.C. kids safe or effective education.
Most parents also feel that maintaining the D.C. OSP budget would be little more than a rounding error in the grand scheme of our national indebtedness. These D.C. voices believe that when they add the inefficiency of the D.C. school system under Mayor Fenty to the White House administration’s disinterest, they see an example of broken government. They see both a local and a federal government that does not serve them.
Black parents in underprivileged areas know that educational opportunity is the premier civil rights struggle of our time. They also know that keeping an opportunity for school choice alive in the nation’s capital will make all the difference for their kids.
By Ken Blackwell
Imagine you woke up this morning to read this story in your morning paper:
Mexico City, March 8, 2010: British Foreign Secretary David Miliband offered today to mediate a territorial dispute between Mexico and the United States of America. The Labour Party official offered Britain’s “good offices” in the century-and-a-half diplomatic row over conflicting territorial claims between the two North American nations. Miliband raised eyebrows at the U.S. State Department by referring to the American state of Texas by its Mexican name of “Tejas.”
That would surely cause you and most other Americans to be outraged. Butt out, Brits, you would be likely to say, as quickly as you can say “John Bull.” Don’t Mess with Texas!
Yet, the reverse of this situation has just occurred with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s latest diplomatic blunder on her Latin American tour. During an official visit to Argentina, Mrs. Clinton referred to the Britain’s Falkland Islands as “Las Malvinas–the Argentine name for them. She said the U.S. was willing to mediate the conflicting claims of Argentina and Britain to the collection of rocky crags that have been British since 1833. The Falklands have been British a decade longer than Texas has been American. Argentina still claims these crags–and is even keener to have them back now that oil is rumored to be bubbling beneath the stormy seas of the South Atlantic.
Every one of 3,000 living souls on the Falklands is British–and defiantly so. We haven’t polled the Falklands’ other residents yet–the Silvery Grebes, Blackbrow Albatrosses, or Macaroni Penguins. Although, with a policy gaffe this bird-brained, perhaps we should.
Is the Obama administration determined to undo everything Ronald Reagan accomplished? In 1982, Argentina’s rogue government got into trouble because of its insane economic policies. The military junta then in charge in Buenos Aires in 1982 started yelling “Remember the Malvinas!” They hoped to distract their tormented people from their hardships at home by naked aggression abroad. The Argentine military invaded the sparsely populated Falkland Islands–there are almost 800 of them, most of them uninhabited.
The Argentine junta reckoned without the Iron Lady, Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. There was never a doubt that Mrs. Thatcher would respond to this brazen aggression with force.
She quickly assembled and sent to sea a Royal Navy battle fleet. She personally went to the fleet’s embarkation point to see off the young warriors. Not since World War II had Britain’s people been so united about anything. And Mrs. Thatcher reveled in her new-won popularity. Britons hailed her as the greatest British woman warrior since the legendary Boadicea, who bravely battled the Roman occupiers.
When one of her young Cabinet ministers–a bright up-and-comer–suggested that Britain should go to the UN during the two weeks it would take the war fleet to arrive on station in the Falklands, and bring new proposals for a peaceful negotiation of differences, Mrs. Thatcher’s reaction was described as “thermonuclear.” Nothing has been heard from that young man since.
The Falklands War was short, sharp, and bloody. Argentine jets equipped with French Exocet missiles sank the British cruiser HMS Sheffield, with the loss of 20 sailors. But Mrs. Thatcher controversially ordered the British submarine Conqueror to sink the Argentine cruiser, Belgrano, with heavy loss of life.
Thousands of young Argentine draftees, poorly trained, poorly supplied, and even more poorly led, were quickly rounded up on the islands. Britain lost 255 dead in this war while 649 Argentines were needlessly sacrificed to the Buenos Aires dictators’ vainglory. As a result of this humiliating defeat, Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri and his fellow thugs were soon sent packing.
Back then, the Reagan administration quietly but firmly backed Britain with critical intelligence and re-fueling stations. But now, we face another possible crisis over the Falklands. And all because of Hillary Clinton’s clumsy attempt at “even-handedness”–which is in fact ham-handedness.
Britain loyally supported us in Iraq. She is our strongest ally in Afghanistan. Tied down fighting at our side, Britain would be hard-pressed to eject the Argentines should the left-wing government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner decide once again to invade the homes of those staunchly British Falklanders.
Think we’re having trouble with Latin Americans now? Try to imagine U.S. Naval vessels called in at the last minute to block an Argentine invasion of the Falklands. The Argentines are crowing over the Clinton Coup. He’s never seen “such substantial support” from the U.S., says Argentina’s Ambassador in Washington Hector Timerman. Buenos Aires’ official mouthpiece, Ruperto Godoy called Mrs. Clintons’ comments “very significant, very important.”
Hillary’s comments are indeed significant. She is buying trouble for us around the globe. From a failed “Re-Set” button with the Russians, to a dangerous appeasement of Iran and China, from bribing the PLO on the West Bank with $900 million to shutting down missile defense for Eastern European democracies, from siding with the dictator in Honduras, to opening the door to a second Falklands War, this administration’s foreign policy is in shambles. And we’re only 14 months into it.
By Star Parker
Citigroup, one the world’s largest banks, was bailed out with some $45 billion of U.S. taxpayer funds and we taxpayers — you and I — still own a little over one quarter of the company.
Do you recall making this investment? I don’t.
Nevertheless, in testimony before a panel appointed by Congress to oversee management of the $700 billion TARP fund which financed the Citigroup bailout, the bank’s CEO, Vikram Pandit, thanked all of us.
“I want to thank our Government for providing Citi with TARP funds….Citi owes a large debt of gratitude to American taxpayers.”
The rest of Pandit’s testimony amounted to genuflecting before his government welfare officers and endorsing sweeping new government regulation of the financial services industry that Democrats in the House and Senate are championing.
“I strongly believe that consumer protection can and should be strengthened at the federal regulatory level,” testified Pandit.
The $700 billion TARP fund used to bail out Citigroup, along with others, was a check written on American taxpayers that Congress gave then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to spend however he wanted.
At the center of the financial collapse that brought down these banks was the illusion of infinitely rising housing prices fueled by trillions of dollars of free flowing credit, artificially cheap because it was backed by us taxpayers through FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
In other words, the heart of our crisis can be explained by Margaret Thatcher’s famous summary of the problem with socialism: sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.
Of course we need protection. But American consumers are also American taxpayers and its American citizens and taxpayers that need to be protected from their government.
The tea party grassroots revolt that has sprouted across our country is a basic expression of recognition that we have lost control of our own government and that if we are going to be a free and prosperous people, this can’t go on.
This year some 45 percent of our GDP, the economic production of the American people, will be taken by local, state, and federal government.
Since 1970, federal government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased by 221 percent compared to a 32-percent increase in median household income.
No, we don’t need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. We need restoration of the rule of law, basic protections for private property essential for any free society, and recognition of the limited role of the federal government, as enumerated in our constitution.
We can’t continue living in the lawless society we’ve become where politicians and corporate welfare queens can conspire in Washington to do whatever they want with our resources.
It is illegal for businesses to collude to set prices. But somehow it was not illegal for the nation’s pharmaceutical firms to do essentially this in helping to midwife the multi-trillion dollar health care bill that still might be forced on us. Pharmaceutical industry support for socializing one-sixth of the American economy was critical for moving the health care bill forward. And they got on board by getting agreement on how government would be involved in pharmaceutical pricing.
The Department of Education has announced that Washington, DC is among the finalists to receive federal money as part of the $4 billion Race to the Top program. Washington already spends $28,000 per student in one of the worst schools systems in the country.
The current Obama administration budget projects a doubling of our national debt to $18.5 trillion by 2020, or about 100 percent of our GDP. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein estimates interest alone will cost $800 billion a year.
It’s time to stop lying to ourselves. We’re losing our freedom and our nation. We need to slam on the brakes before it’s too late.
By Armstrong Williams
That Toyota brand and fleet of vehicles: Matrix, Sequoia, Highlander, RAV4, Camry, Avalon, Corolla, Tundra and Lexus. If any of you are the proud owner of one of these vehicles over the past few years, I’m certain you have horror story after horror story you could testify about before Congress, just as several have done in recent days. Do you ever wonder whether anyone was ever listening to your cry in the wilderness?
Many of us are just too personally familiar with the crisis Toyota now faces as a result of its clandestine relationship with our government which has seriously jeopardized or killed countless Americans on our highways. Toyota, which is headquartered in Japan, culturally addresses issues of irresponsibility and neglect in much harsher terms than the U.S. In fact, the Japanese have long been known as a group in which personal sacrifice (even suicide) is encouraged as part of one’s display of grief, regret and responsibility sharing. Their culture is quick to issue apology after apology and show deep humiliation for their transgressions. Unfortunately in this latest episode, just simply apologizing repeatedly will not be enough to satisfy the tremendous harm and lack of sensitivity to those who have long prized the Toyota brand as the standard of the global auto market.
Congress has finally worked itself into a full-throated frenzy over the recent series of recalls by the world’s No. 1 auto producer. I use the word “finally” because any time Americans are continuously dying as a result of businesses cutting corners, it’s our government’s job to step in quickly and address the problem. I know many of you have been a little less than satisfied with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s responses in recent months to these recalls. It’s almost as if the agency and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wanted to look the other way as Toyota officials fixed its problems on their own; hoping the issue would quickly dissipate from the national conversation. Yet the longer drivers waited for their Corollas to be repaired, the more we learned about other problems along the manufacturer’s complete line of autos. Could they not blatantly see and understand that not addressing this cover up immediately would lead to the loss of more lives and seriously jeopardizing the welfare of the Toyota brand drivers? Do you think that they were so cold and callous that it didn’t matter if their consumers were injured or killed in a collision? Isn’t it unbelievable that they continuously refused to take any responsibility and blame everyone except themselves until they had to face the grim realities of their dirty little secrets in manufacturing these automobiles.
Contemplate the flip side of my argument. A 100 percent safe car is impossible to build. As a manufacturer approaches 100 percent safety, the manufacturing costs increase exponentially. The real question is what is the customer (or society) willing to pay for safety as it approaches 100 percent safe. Most consumers would be willing to pay $20,000 for a car that is 99.8 percent safe but not $100,000 for a car that is 99.9 percent safe. Are the customers wrong? How would they react to Washington bureaucrats telling them they had to pay an additional $80,000 for an incremental 1/10 of 1 percent of safety?
Recently Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda testified before a congressional oversight panel, prepared to take full responsibility for any safety problems in his company’s vehicles. His group’s president said as much, and the company has been in full damage control for weeks now trying to reassure drivers their cars are safe to be on the road.
But they’re not safe. And no amount of elevator music and soothing announcer talk can mitigate those realities. People are dying! Which only leads me to believe there’s full-scale corruption at Toyota where profits trump safety, and cutting corners means the company stays on top. That’s a false claim of auto hegemony, and Mr. Toyoda should be ashamed.
My gripe is: Japanese culture calls for humiliating apologies first, which is fine, if not somewhat hollow. But I have yet to see any real identification of the systemic problems with Toyota’s cars, let alone concrete solutions that will fix them.In his remarks before the congressional panel, Toyota President Yoshimi Inaba described in detail his company’s recall efforts, but offered little-to-no details on the root causes of the recalls in the first place. What was wrong with the throttles, Mr. Inaba? And what are you doing to fix them that would make us feel safe? It’s not enough to say “I’m sorry.” Not when folks are still dying. Does he know what a terrible feeling of helplessness a mother feels when she goes to brake her car, only to feel no resistance at all? No stopping power? How does one get behind a wheel after such an incident, let alone another Toyota?
By now its evident Toyota no longer has a financial/public relations problem. No, it’s presently in the midst of a serious crisis that goes to the heart of public safety. They are, in effect, manufacturing killing machines. And until they can address and solve this problem in a forthright, transparent and sincere manner, they shouldn’t be allowed to sell any cars in the U.S. Period. Hyundai certainly appreciates the gravity of this situation. Last Monday, new Sonata customers complained of a faulty door latch, and by the next day, assembly of the cars had halted, pending further study. Hyundai officials took the situation at face value, and cared more about their customers than seeing if they could skirt around the safety concern and hope no one would get hurt.
I’m a huge fan of the private sector, and for good reason. It keeps this country employed, thriving and moving into the 21st century of innovation. But when businesses abuse the privileges and rights government grants them to serve consumers and customers alike — to the point of jeopardizing lives — a line must be drawn. I only hope no more lives will be lost before Toyota learns a valuable lesson: American safety isn’t worth any cultural quest to be the best in the business.
“The Armstrong Williams Show” is broadcast on XM Satellite’s Power 169 channel from 9 to 10 p.m. weeknights.
By Ken Blackwell
With our 24/7 news cycle, we tend to rush past important events all too quickly. No sooner did we see Chilean rescue teams aiding stricken Haitians than international groups were racing to Chile. At times it all seems a blur.
Let’s not rush by last week’s Health Care Summit at Washington’s historic Blair House. It was a great location for such a gathering. It was not held on Capitol Hill. Neither was it held in the White House. Blair House could serve as an excellent meeting ground between the Executive and the Legislative branches. Hats off to the event planners who chose this site.
President Harry Truman actually lived in Blair House for several years during the extensive renovation of the White House. Harry actually stuck his head out the window here when Puerto Rican terrorists tried to assassinate him in 1950. A White House policeman died defending the President.
An even more bizarre event occurred here in 1995, when Russian President Boris Yeltsin ventured out the door of Blair House in his underwear, hailing a cab for a pizza run. Stories of Yeltsin’s late night boozing were vigorously denied by the Kremlin: “It’s not true Yeltsin is drunk every night. He’s drunk every day. At night, he sleeps it off.”
The day-long Obamathon on Health Care needs to be analyzed with care. No sooner did we hear in the State of the Union Address about the need to focus on jobs, jobs, jobs, than we found ourselves back on health care. As if we haven’t talked enough about health care in the last year. Jobs–Joe Biden’s “three-letter word”–ought to be the focus on domestic policy, but it isn’t. And voters are not happy about that.
President Obama was described by almost everyone as highly intelligent, articulate, and professorial. But we knew all that going in. Conservative columnist Dennis Prager noted something that few have commented upon:
The President was invariably addressed as “Mr. President.” He–on the other hand–routinely referred to conferees by their first names. How is that? “John, Chuck, Kathleen, Eric, Mitch.” It’s not a question of protocol or civility. It’s more than that.
The President claimed to be above it all when he slapped down Republican objections that the time had not been allotted fairly. The President spoke about one-third of the time, his congressional allies, the Democrats, spoke about one-third, and the Republicans got about one-third. When someone called his attention to the fact he had run over, he said: “I’m the President,” and it seemed he was making up the rules as he went along.
When House Minority Leader John Boehner raised the critical issue of federal funding of abortion under ObamaCare, the President petulantly waved it away, calling the question just “Republican talking points.”
How odd, especially when the Stupak Amendment banning federal subsidies for abortion passed the House by 240 votes–including all Republicans and 64 Democrats. Nothing the President or the Republicans proposed at this summit is likely to command such a strong, bi-partisan majority. And ?Rep. Bart Stupak is a Democrat.
Republicans should not object too strenuously, however, to the loosey-goosey rules of the Blair House health care summit. Behind their hands, they might have been saying to one another: “Give them more rope.”
Why is that? Well, it’s because the entire exercise was no game changer. The GOP had gone into the pow-wow with the President, his staff, and his strong congressional majorities, and had done pretty well. More than pretty well: They stood toe-to-toe with Obama the Progressive Paragon and came out unscathed.
We know that it was a great day for Republicans when even John Dickinson of the liberal blog, Slate, says this:
[It] wasn’t a good day for congressional Democratstrategists involved in 2010 races, fence-sitting Democrats needed to see Obama change the political dynamic. He needed to show how health care reform could be defended and how Republicans could be brought low. He did neither. White House aides and the president himself said he was going to press Republicans for how their plans would work, but he did that only twice—and mildly. There was no put-up-or-shut-up moment.
We know President Obama doesn’t like Winston Churchill. In fact, he tossed the bust of Churchill out of the White House as one of his first official acts. But Churchill’s words could come as great comfort to the Republicans who attended the great Blair House summit: “Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
For Release: March 3, 2010
Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or project21@nationalcenter.org or Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476 or jkent@nationalcenter.org
Washington, D.C.: Mychal Massie, chairman of the Project 21 black leadership network, is condemning President Barack Obama’s decision to urge Senate leaders to employ controversial reconciliation rules to force a government takeover of health care.
“The people have spoken, and they have said no to Obama’s radical brand of health care reform,” said Project 21’s Massie. ”Putting his seal of approval on usurping regular Senate procedure showcases not just an extraordinary arrogance and a willingness to abuse legislative power, but it also unambiguously indicates his contempt and disregard for the will of the American people.”
In an address from the White House today, Obama expressed a willingness to work with Republicans to pass health care reform. But Obama also suggested that the Senate leadership might instead employ reconciliation rules to limit debate and lower the vote threshold normally needed to pass legislation in that chamber. This would allow the plan’s more unpopular provisions to be enacted.
“During the judicial battles of the Bush years, when there was talk of the employing the ‘nuclear option’ to overcome filibusters, there was great respect among liberals for Senate the procedure of cloture,” noted Massie. ”Ultimately, conservative legislators agreed with them and the option was never used. Now, with the shoe on the other foot, liberals are quick to do the very thing that once horrified them. They are refusing to hear the pleas from their colleagues and the American people to scrap their plan and start over.”
Massie continued: “The question to be answered is why are these senators willing to risk their careers and Obama his legacy to force such a miserable piece of legislation? Trying to obfuscate and confuse the use of reconciliation to pass a fundamental overhaul of such a substantial portion of the American economy is dishonest on a level likely never before imagined in the history of the legislative branch. Misrepresenting it as cost-cutting is morally opprobrious and fraudulent. But this is apparently not out of character for those determined to make a free citizenry dependent upon government from cradle to the grave.”
In a February 25 Wall Street Journal commentary, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) called the use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare “a total affront to the legislative process.” He noted that the process had previously been used only for incremental budget issues or those with wide bipartisan support.
Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by The National Center for Public Policy Research (www.nationalcenter.org).
By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.
Last month, Catherine Davis and her Atlanta-based Georgia Right to Life organization launched a groundbreaking effort to stop the egregious number of black abortions in their state. The organization decided to use billboards to present its case for life - that’s right - billboards.
The 80-billboard campaign permeates the skyscape of Atlanta. Because of its scale, the campaign is nothing less than cutting-edge innovation. The billboards read, “Black children are an endangered species.” The words encircle the face of an adorable black child. In addition to the message, the only Web address listed is “toomanyaborted.com.”
At the Website, the message is very clear. Their research and statistics are complete. The editorials are also compelling. The Georgia Right to Life group has designed a sophisticated communications vehicle. Yet, it all starts with a winsome message from the billboards. The graphics experts say that billboards can only effectively use seven words - just seven words and a visual impression. Therefore the designers tastefully showed the innocence of a beautiful black baby.
This campaign is controversial, not because of its effect on Atlanta drivers or the average Joe. Changing lives by saying, “Respect yourself!” should hardly be controversial. The controversy arises from their effectiveness as record numbers of black girls are going to their Website. Angry pro-abortion groups and Planned Parenthood have attempted to label GRTL as “deceptive.” GRTL is also accused of working against the best interests of young black women. Some even have demeaned Catherine Davis as, you guessed it, a “sell out.” Once again in opponents’ minds, the “naive black crusader” is being used by white extremists. In response to pro-abortion advocates, Davis has also been pitted against them on CNN, NPR, and in a recent New York Times article.
Despite opponents’ vitriol, GRTL’s work is both tasteful and historic. How is it historic? First, its anti-abortion message is direct and hard-hitting. Second, targeting blacks so directly, without condemnation, is revolutionary. This is a major course correction in anti-abortion marketing. As a result, it is finally piercing the cultural veil over the issue of abortion in the black community.
So who is Catherine Davis?
She is a native of Stamford, Connecticut, a lawyer, and a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the prestigious Tufts University. Thirteen years ago, she moved to Georgia to become a change agent. In 2006, Catherine Davis ran for Congress in Georgia, because she had a desire to impact her community. After a crushing political defeat, she felt unsupported by her Republican Party and ostracized by the Democrats. She decided to take on an advocacy role.
For the last few years she has served tirelessly to give a voice to the voiceless. She focused on positive change through education, local/state involvement, and peaceful action. Davis’s Radiance Foundation and Operation Outrage exposed the destruction of the African-American community through the abortion industry. Then in 2009, Davis became the Minority Outreach Director for the 30-year old organization GRTL. In her new post she simply continued grass root activism. Davis traveled the state of Georgia returning to the real strength of the black community - the Church.
Her education and experience have catapulted her to the forefront of the abortion struggle. She has mobilized a coalition of over a hundred black pastors who have begun to confront the issue of abortion politically. This informal coalition has educated, debated and won over many legislators on both sides of the aisle.
Today, however, a fresh wind is blowing. Recent studies show that black attitudes about abortion are changing nationally. The community is waking up to a truly genocidal trend that cannot be masked by the term “reproductive freedom.”
Catherine Davis’s rise to prominence is a sign that the religious and political landscape is changing. She and other pro-life black champions are passionate because of the horrifying abortion statistics of our day. Since 1973, more than fourteen million African-American babies have been aborted. In Georgia, like most communities in America, the black abortion rate is skyrocketing. Over half of Georgia abortions (57%) are performed on blacks, who make up only 29% of the population.
I want to challenge you to become a part of the growing number of people who are taking a stand against abortion. I also want you to celebrate and congratulate preachers like Bishop Boone of Wellington
Boone Ministries, Pastor Clenard Childress of LEARN, and Rev. Johnny Hunter founder of the black pro-life movement and LEARN, who have been blowing a trumpet for years. They have been maligned and persecuted. It’s time to honor them and their message. Become educated about the issue. Speak to others about the genocide that is currently accepted among many Americans.
Respect Yourself and God’s Gift of Life.
By Star Parker
Van Jones is back, reconstructed and rehabilitated.
Jones, recall, departed from his White House job as “green jobs czar” after publicity about his association with a “9/11 truther” organization that alleges complicity of the Bush administration with the 9/11 attack.
He was already a lightening rod, having characterized President Bush as a “crackhead”, using profanity to describe Republicans, and offering gems like blaming “white polluters and white environmentalists” for “steering poison” to minority communities.
But as White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel understands that power brokers should “never waste a crisis”, those on the left grasp that you never waste an asset like a black self-described communist from the 1990’s with an Ivy League degree and a best selling “green jobs” book.
So now Jones has new jobs at Princeton University and Washington’s Center for American Progress. And, to seal the public rehabilitation, he will be awarded the NAACP’s Image Award, and has been called by NAACP president Benjamin Jealous a “national treasure.”
Central to Jones’ work will, of course, be the continuation of his “green jobs” agenda. The Center for American Progress announcement says he’ll be a senior fellow and leader with its Green Opportunity Initiative.
CAP was founded by rich liberals who thought the left needed a think tank like conservatives have (as they concluded they needed talk radio, and hence founded the now defunct Air America). One of the major sources of funding of CAP was Marion and Herbert Sandler who got rich building Golden West Financial selling Adjustable Rate Mortgages with teaser rates to unsophisticated buyers. Yes, the very greedy kind of businesspeople that the Obama administration would have us believe caused our current economic crisis.
But the beauty of the left is that facts will never get in the way of ideology.
The recent scandal associated with the use of research data at the Climate Research Unit in England — which has been essentially the headquarters of global warming research — has brought claims of man-made climate change into serious doubt.
Sober minds realize that this must be a time for reassessment about assumptions driving the belief that irreversible climate change has occurred and that this alleged change is caused by human activity. As expressed in an editorial in Britain’s Prospect Magazine, “We cannot rely on highly imperfect climate models as a basis for policy initiatives that cost billions and change how we live.”
But this hasn’t put a dent in the green jobs movement. President Obama continues to push this idea as central to economic recovery, as he did the other day speaking to CEOs at the Business Roundtable in Washington.
The love affair on the left with “green jobs” is, of course, about ideology, which is why facts are irrelevant. It is another excuse to grow government and bring European socialism to America. What could be a better opportunity than to claim that the planet’s atmosphere is now out of whack because of capitalism?
Van Jones is important because he uses environmentalism as a new platform to welcome poor blacks onto the government plantation.
This is important spin because poor folks do have common sense. In a Zogby poll done after the presidential election, 73 percent of blacks said they were opposed to taxing fossil fuels to promote alternative energy.
The Carter Administration invested $2.1 billion in the Great Plains Coal Gasification Plant to convert coal to gas. The result? Zero. Federal government spending since 1961 on “advanced energy technologies and basic energy science research” totals $187 billion with hardly anything to show.
Poor folks don’t need socialism or green jobs. They need green money. They’ll get more of it being free, going to school, getting married and going to work.