FJM Blog

By Harry R. Jackson Jr.

The plight of the poor has been a major bone of contention in the healthcare debate for months now. The morality of various approaches has also been hotly debated from all sides of the political universe – left, right, and middle. A recent statement I made at the National Press Club regarding abortion and what I called “a form of genocide” within the black community has sparked a great deal of controversy among clergy. In fact, I have been labeled by some African Americans as unconcerned about the needs of the poor.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I have a great deal of concern for the poor. I take the scriptural admonitions to take care of widows, orphans, and the impoverished in our midst very seriously. In fact my convictions and beliefs on healthcare are clearly spelled out in the book Personal Faith, Public Policy – which I co-authored with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Center. Time will not permit me to share our entire healthcare chapter with you, but allow me to share, briefly, my background and position.

Growing up in South Avondale, the inner city of Cincinnati, Ohio, I am inextricably linked to the experiences and struggles of working class families. The lack of medical coverage among the working poor has escalated since the days of my youth. This lack of access to coverage is often most acute in communities of color, like the one in which I grew up. Healthcare reform is in a state of emergency, and I believe that the Obama administration’s goal of ensuring access to health insurance for those without it is an important and necessary one.

It is my stance that the community and the Church have a social and moral responsibility to play an active role in caring for the sick and the elderly. Jesus told us to care for the “least of these” and that’s what we are called to do. Non-governmental organizations such as Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, and the local church itself have a unique role in meeting the needs of their respective communities. These groups have an understanding of the needs and goals of their neighborhoods, in real time, and can adeptly act to address them. The government’s role should be to assist in making it easier for the system to work, not control it.

I believe a potentially unintended consequence of decreasing insurance coverage costs is a decrease in the quality of care. The proposed bills have not been transparent about the mechanisms they will employ to ensure that a decrease in cost will not lead to a decrease in quality. In 2005, I entered a near fatal battle with esophageal cancer. Through high quality medical treatment and the grace of God, I am two years in remission. Excellent, expedited care facilitated my recovery.

It is not enough to provide insurance coverage without ensuring quality care. I believe churches and the community can function as an avenue to ensure that those in need of treatment and prevention have the opportunity to improve their life chances.

Under the proposed plan, I am concerned that others in dire straights will not be able to receive the speedy life saving care to which I was afforded. As we discuss the importance of providing affordable access to medical insurance for the millions who do not currently have it, I hope we do not lose sight of the fact that doctors and surgeons also need to be in a position to provide the best treatment measures for their patients.

Our responsibility, as pastors, is first to preach a holistic healing message to our members and then to provide services to our broader communities that promote wellness and prevention. The message of the Gospel must enrich the mind, soul, and body.

The Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that: The modern concept of a hospital dates from A.D. 331 when Constantine, having been converted to Christianity, abolished all pagan hospitals and thus created the opportunity for a new start. Until that time, disease had isolated the sufferer from the community. The Christian tradition emphasized the close relationship of the sufferer to his fellow man, upon who rested the obligation for care. Illness thus became a matter for the Christian Church.

Europe’s first medical schools came out of the Church. Not surprisingly, most cities still have hospitals that are attached to the faith community. The involvement of people of faith in this arena is both historic and pervasive. The development of hospitals in America followed a very similar path as the Christian community helped establish infirmaries that developed into hospitals. Although there is no biblical directive about modern healthcare, many Christians believe that concern about healthcare falls under the general principle of “loving your neighbor.”

With the community in mind, I would advocate a healthcare system that responsibly reaches out to the poor and needy. Unfortunately, the administration’s proposals (as it now stands) would result in lessening the overall quality of care. While this sounds acceptable in theory, it is impractical. The delay or denial of surgery or treatment for some patients would become a death sentence.

Let’s be responsive to the needs of the poor and advocate for a healthcare plan that includes both quantity and quality.

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By Star Parker

In an interview with Newsmax, former president Bill Clinton offered good advice to Republicans. He said Republicans need to shake off the “party of no” image and get positive. Clinton raised the Republican’s 1994 “Contract with America” as an example of the kind of thing that needs to be done. By devising and running on the “Contract”, a ten point agenda for reform, Republicans successfully transformed negative sentiment toward Democrats — much of it driven by the rejection of “Hillarycare”, big government-centered health care reform similar to what Democrats are now pushing - to positive support for a Republican alternative.

Republicans in 1994 picked up eight seats in the Senate and captured control of the House for the first time since 1952.

Public sentiment today is running against the direction in which Democrats are taking the country. Government run health care, huge federal government deficits, spending, and debt, are not playing well with the American people.

Barely more than one in three give positive approval to the Democrat controlled congress and President Obama’s job approval ratings have dropped precipitously since the beginning of the year.

Although Democrat Party identification still exceeds Republicans, their lead has shrunk from 17 points in January to 5 points now.

In a recent Gallup Poll, 57 percent say “government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses.”

But so far Republicans are not transforming dissatisfaction with Democrats into positive Republican support.

The shrinking gap in party identification is the result of a sway in Republican leaning independents and not from growth in self-identifying hard core Republicans.

And Republican approval of their own Republican members of Congress has dropped from 52 percent last December to 39 percent today.

I can say from my own mail that animosity still runs high toward our previous Republican administration. As the Mercatus Center at George Mason University reports, annual growth in federal spending in the eight years of the Bush Administration was higher than under any of the six previous presidents, including Lyndon Johnson in the 1960’s.

So although the public is unhappy with the big government policies of Democrats, Republicans have their work cut out to re-establish themselves as the limited government alternative.

Republicans must start crystallizing principles. And it’s time to be bold. Our country is in trouble. In this sense, I think Mike Huckabee, who won the presidential straw poll at the Values Voters Summit last week, is someone to pay attention to.

The strength of Huckabee’s candidacy was a big surprise in 2008. And a lot of establishment Republicans still have a hard time taking him seriously.

But let’s keep in mind that these same establishment Republicans are the reason their party is now on the outside looking in.

Huckabee is singular in staking out principled and courageous stands badly needed today.

At the Values Voters Summit, he re-stated his support for totally overhauling our tax system, getting rid of the income tax, and replacing it with a national sales tax (the Fair Tax).

Huckabee courageously stated during a recent trip to Israel opposition to creation of a Palestinian state.

He pointed out appropriate concern when 20 percent of the population of Israel is Arabs but the Palestinians demand zero Jewish presence as a pre-condition for the state they say they need.

How can Americans pressure Israel to relinquish territory and compromise its security to those motivated by hate rather than by ideals of freedom?

Regarding “death panels”, Huckabee correctly pointed out that our government has been sanctioning death since Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Whether it’s Huckabee or others, Republicans need to get positive, principled, and aggressive. Republicans ought to heed Bill Clinton’s advice.

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By Herman Cain

There’s an old saying that there are three kinds of people in the world. There are people who make things happen, people who watch things happen and people who ask what happened. The latter group will wake up in the not-too-distant future and ask what happen to the United States of America if they just sit there.

The big government tax-and-spend liberals are happy with this irrefutable government power grab of our liberties, while too many conservatives at heart are just sitting on the couch. And since the mainstream media is not connecting the dots about what is really happening, here are some recent examples:

The “Cap & Trade & Tax & Kill” bill was passed in the House of Representatives under the false premise of a global warming crisis. Only eight Republicans voted for this bill and none of the 211 Democrats read the bill before voting in favor of the bill.

The president and the Democrat-controlled Congress are attempting to confiscate total control of our nation’s health care system using often disputed and misleading information, while claiming the end result will not be socialized medicine. This claim has been repeatedly shown to be false by dozens of organizations and hundreds of writers.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus attempted to silence the private insurance company Humana Inc. for daring to criticize one part of his proposed health care bill. (Baucus Bludgeons Humana). This is both an abuse of power through intimidation and a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The administration, the Democrats and the mainstream media have tried to ignore the millions of voices speaking out at town hall meetings, Tea Parties and rallies. Despite the name calling and mischaracterization of their motives by Democrats, people are simply saying, “We are not sheeple.”

And hoping we would not find out, the House Democrats’ proposed Health Care Deform legislation, H.R. 3200, expands the powers of the already abusive Internal Revenue Service to become the Health Insurance Police.

Our nation has an unsustainable level of federal spending, which includes a projected doubling of the national debt in 10 years, along with the largest single year deficit in history of $1.8 trillion for the current fiscal year of 2009. This does not include the trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, which are being ignored by the president and Congress as they pile on more and more spending.

The president has appointed an unprecedented number of unconfirmed “czars”, many of whom having anti-liberty, anti-constitutional and anti-free-market views on what America should look like in the future.

And by the way, we are in a recession.

Regardless of the bills being proposed or passed by Congress the inherent fundamentals are the same. Namely, bigger government, more spending, more taxes and fewer liberties will be shoved down our throats, if we just watch things happen.

Yes, there are national security issues that we are concerned about, which we may not be able to impact immediately. But the voices of we the people can help shape domestic policy now as it evolves through Congress.

To re-iterate from a previous commentary, we can and must continue to voice our opposition collectively to wrongheaded, anti-liberty and anti-free-market proposals. The power of the ballot box is still our greatest antidote to this socialism express, but we have to have more people who are better informed in order to make better decisions in November 2010.

As a caller to my radio show put it last week, more people will have to get off the couch and help make things happen.

That’s how America was founded.

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By Ken Blackwell

Readers who are familiar with the Stockholm Syndrome will recall that it refers to a hostage-taking 1973 incident in that Swedish capital city. Over time, the hostages began to look to their captors as friends and protectors rather than the murderous kidnapers that they truly were.

We are seeing something similar in what I call the Camp David Syndrome. President Obama has just announced the latest effort toward crafting a Middle East Peace Settlement. That grand-sounding title is Beltway-speak for “let’s lean on Israel to gain some street cred with the Euros.” He’s chosen Hillary Clinton as his negotiator.

In 1978, Jimmy Carter brought Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin together to his mountain top presidential retreat in Maryland’s beautiful Catoctin Mountains. There, over days of intense negotiation, Carter brokered what became known in diplomatic lore as the Camp David Accords. Under those agreements, Israel agreed to withdraw her forces from the Sinai Peninsula that she had seized in the lightning Six-Day War of 1967, and re-captured during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That war had been launched by Egypt’s Sadat — showing the characteristic respect for other faiths that Muslims habitually show — the Jewish High Holy Days of that year.

Carter hailed his achievement as something just shy of the Second Coming. It wasn’t. Carter was led up to that mountain by growing problems on the plain below. Americans were becoming increasingly disenchanted with Jimmy’s fecklessness on the domestic front. High interest rates made home ownership impossible for young couples, long gas lines frayed nerves, and rising unemployment made everyone edgy. But Carter felt that success on the international scene could bring him and his embattled party some goodwill from American voters.

It didn’t. Barely six weeks after the media hullabaloo over the Camp David Accords, voters trooped to the polls and spanked Carter’s party. Between 1978 and 1980, voters gave Republicans 46 seats in the House of Representatives, five more seats than the GOP had lost in the watershed post-Watergate election of 1974.

Still, the myth persists that a Middle East peace agreement will translate into electoral success at home. Carter proved to be a one-trick pony. He received a sharp kick from voters in 1980. They put the pony permanently out to pasture.

What Carter achieved at Camp David is not replicable today. That’s because the Israelis in 1978 did not want to occupy Sinai. They agreed that it did not materially contribute to their security. (Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir used to joke that the Almighty had led the Children of Abraham out of bondage in Egypt, called them to wander for forty years, and told them to settle on the only piece of real estate in the Middle East that has no oil!)

So Carter’s fabled diplomacy was not really necessary to persuade the Israelis to disgorge territory that had never been Israeli and that they did not really want. And President Anwar Sadat had a firm grip over Egypt, which one Egyptian diplomat described as the only real nation in the Arab world. “The rest are just tribes with flags,” that Arab diplomat memorably said. Besides, Sadat needed money. And the U.S. was ready to purchase a peace.

Despite the fact that Jimmy Carter got a shellacking at the polls in 1978 and 1980, Presidents persist in pursuing the brass ring, or an elusive Nobel Prize, for brokering a Mideast Peace Settlement.

Bill Clinton tried it in 2000. He was playing out an exhausted presidency, grasping for straws. He summoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the “reformed” terrorist leader, Yassir Arafat, to the U.S. He tried to arrange another Camp David breakthrough. Barak made extraordinary concessions, even dangerous ones. No dice. Arafat fomented a second “intifada” against Israel. Clinton’s party lost the next Presidential Election.

Then, there was the 2007 Annapolis Conference on Mideast Peace. President George W. Bush chose that week after Thanksgiving to bring a wide range of Arab and Israeli negotiators to the U.S. Naval Academy’s historic Yard. Some of the Arab delegates refused to enter the same doorway as the Israelis had entered. Some peace talks. The best we can say for this effort is that it could have been worse. It might have lasted two days instead of just one. And Bush’s party lost the next Presidential Election.

What was considered historic about the Annapolis Conference is that for the first time all parties agreed to a “two-state solution.” Did the Arab delegates who attended, the ones who refused to enter the same doorway as the Israelis, agree that Israel would be one of those two states? Don’t ask.

What we have yet to hear is why the U.S. should want a Palestinian state to be formed in the Mideast. When the Israelis evacuated from Gaza and the local residents held elections, they promptly voted in Hamas, the terrorist organization. Hamas supporters stormed the residence of the late Yassir Arafat and stole his Nobel “Peace” Prize. Now, there’s poetic justice.

On the West Bank, Arafat’s loyal lieutenant, Abu Abbas, maintains a precarious perch. The U.S. is giving $900 million in aid to his so-called Authority for allegedly humanitarian purposes. This is where bombers use ambulances to run rockets to and from Palestinian hospitals and where children dance in mock explosive belts before PTA meetings in schools named for suicide bombers. This is what we want more of? For Peace’s sake? For Pete’s sake!

I was amazed to see President Obama come on TV so soon to call for a Mideast breakthrough. I didn’t think he was in that much trouble on the domestic front already.

Tags: Uncategorized by Dr. Eric Wallace
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By Armstrong Williams

When I was growing up during the post war prosperity of 1960s, my parents continually reminded us about how fortunate we were to mature in the relative prosperity of an upper middle class farming family community in Marion, SC.  They often shared with us the impact of the Great Depression on their life and values.  Mom then and now continues to impress upon us the value of hard work, education, thrift, God, and charity.  Like most young people of our generation, we often tuned out my mother’s stories but subconsciously absorbed the values.  It is only with the advent of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, that I began to reflect on my parent’s recollections of the extreme hardships they endured in the late 1930s.

My maternal grandparents ran a seamstress and beauty shop which provided their family of several children with a modest working class lifestyle.  They were better off than the men in business suits selling tobacco on the street downtown.  All the children helped with chores around the house.  When the children were old enough, they looked for part-time jobs or worked in the seamstress /beauty shop or the tobacco fields. At mealtime, everybody ate all the food on their plates without complaining.  If an unemployed friend dropped by at dinner time, everybody ate a little less and the friend was fed.  The younger children only wore hand-me-down clothes.  At Christmas time, the children each got one present.  Often it was a hand-made toy or winter clothing, and when the business was profitable for that year they could find a fire truck under the tree.

When many of my older cousins graduated from high school, college was not an option.  They pursued vocational training, went to work and sent money home to help support their younger siblings.  It was not until after WWII that many of my relatives went to college under the GI bill.

In my grandparents’ household, every meal was preceded by grace, and every Sunday the family went to church to thank God for the family’s modest existence.  The family was thankful that my grandfather had a simple-yet-successful business so he had the means to feed and clothe his family and pay the mortgage on his small house and farm.  Notwithstanding the family’s humble means, the children always placed a portion of their hard-earned cash into the collection plate during Sunday church service.  There were many people in their small decaying farming town that needed the money more than they did.

Since the mid 1990s, my family and most of my few close friends have only known great prosperity.  We live in large houses with cleaning help, have multiple cars, regularly eat at restaurants, get multiple Christmas presents, wear designer clothes and take luxury vacations.  We rarely eat all that is on our plate because we fear obesity.  There is no need for thrift because we have unlimited lines on our credit cards.  Try finding a teenage baby sitter for Saturday night. It is almost impossible because our teenagers get a generous allowance. Our children work in summer jobs and volunteer for charitable activities primarily to pad their college applications.  When our children graduate from college, they expect employers to recruit them and pay them a salary that will support a yuppie lifestyle.

Neither they nor many of their friends understand what it’s like to have to conserve due to being pressed by the outside environment. Worse yet, when they have reached a time in their lives when they should be contracting their spending habits, such as now, they are being fed mixed, and contradicting messages by society. On one hand they are being told that unemployment rates are rising, and their future outlook for employment is not as rosy as only a few years earlier. On the other hand, they are being told that consumer confidence is rising, that more people are optimistic about future employment prospecting, and that change is occurring in the marketplace.

The perspective of one that has not gone through extremely difficult times, as was experienced in the Great Depression, don’t fully understand what it is like to live in want, and be forced to practice fiscal prudence and dedication that is needed to rise out of a national quagmire.

Instead, this generation has been given a passageway to live a double life, and be okay with it. While they face outside pressures of the job market, they are being tempted with department sales that are providing what one would normally deem as conspicuous consumption at semi affordable levels –or should I say, levels tempting enough to buy. Claims coming from the White House that things are getting better allow them to ignore harsh economic reality. [and take a look at their personal financial life to see the things that should change. ]?

Younger adults who have family obligations are falling victim to this too. They consistently must pay the mortgage and put food on their table. However, they still are much better off than the previous recession before them.  In attempting to relieve the financial stress of these people, the Government is recklessly spending money it does not have on government program after program. This is the point where unsustainability meets unsustainability.

Over the past year, the Great Recession of 2007-2009 has changed my perspective.  I have begun to realize that there is a soft underbelly to prosperity. Have my nieces, nephews and the children of close family friends absorbed those core values that created the American Dream?  Or did their family’s prosperous lifestyle erode those core values? Is it too late to relearn the time-tested core values of hard work, thrift, education, God and charity so that we will not slide into a New Great Depression?  Hopefully, the Great Recession is a wake-up call to America.

www.armstrongwilliams.com

Williams can be heard nightly on Sirius/XM power 169, 9 pm - 10 pm est.

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By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

On May 15, 2007, I stopped at one of Washington DC’s most well-known soul food restaurants. As I waited for my favorite fare, a news flash came over the air stating that Jerry Falwell had died of a heart attack. Suddenly, a black waitress began to dance and celebrate because of Falwell’s passing. She was truly elated. In her mind, a great enemy of civil rights and the black community had just left the battlefield.

Ironically, I had just spoken in a conference with Dr. Falwell a month before. In fact, I served on a board with him. He was warm, friendly, and had a heart for all people - including African Americans. In my view, he was a champion of Christian values and faith.

The wild antics of the waitress showed that she simply did not know the man. She, like many blacks, only knew the caricature that the mainstream media had painted of a spiritual giant.  Unfortunately the “Moral Majority” never worked to change its image among the millions of blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities who had no firsthand knowledge of the movement. Further, the Moral Majority never took it upon itself to challenge followers who were genuinely part of a racist fringe. As a result, an invisible “no blacks allowed” sign seemed to hang over the entrance to the movement.

Once again, the Left is trying to label decent people as monsters and the righteous as hypocrites.  Today conservatives and the religious Right have a unique opportunity to re-brand themselves as being compassionate and caring toward the poor. We cannot afford to fall into the trap of winning a Pyrrhic victory on pet issues, while being negatively labeled so that no one can hear our voices on major long-term fronts.

President Jimmy Carter has claimed that the much of the recent challenges to the administration were personal. “I think people that are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by the belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African-American.” were his misguided conclusions. Unfortunately, it does not help the conservative movement to have the Tea Party movement cast as racist. One writer (Keith Richburg of The News International) penned the following observations, “One did not have to look too hard at the 12 September anti-Obama rally in Washington – an overwhelmingly white, largely rural crowd – to see the sea of Confederate flags, a symbol of ‘heritage’ to some southern whites and a symbol of racist oppression to blacks. Or the racially laden signs, such as ‘The zoo has an African lion – the White House has a lyin’ African.’ Others held signs that demanded Obama be sent ‘back to Kenya’.”

Countless others have attempted to lift up their voices to malign the Tea Party grassroots movement. Simultaneously widespread conservative resistance to the administration’s healthcare plans is being labeled as anti-poor. The historic problem conservatives have had is that they play into the hands of their enemies, from a public relations perspective.

Let’s just analyze our recent political history for a moment. Fed up with the establishment, Republican politics, and hypocritical purveyors of party loyalty; new wave conservatives want to return the movement’s foundational values of limited government, individual rights, free enterprise, and traditional values [LIFT}.  Unfortunately, new conservative activists have forgotten the power of the press.

For example, the movement’s unreserved support of the Joe Wilson outburst troubles most African Americans. Blacks and Hispanics, who struggle daily with issues of respect, have very little patience with these kinds of outbursts. Conservatives applaud Wilson’s passion, while forgetting the arena of public opinion. The fact that his interruption of the president’s speech has been tagged as racist is very predictable. For African Americans like myself, we were saddened by the fact that the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) led the charge to get Joe Wilson reprimanded. The CBC also has a long history of demonizing its opposition. Every time the caucus fears that its members will go off of the “ideological plantation,” they play the race card.

Instead of being protectors of the long-term interests of the black family, the CBC often sells out the family in the “quid pro quo” dance for economic advantage. Instead of seeing the healthcare proposals on the table as holding great danger for black families - pregnant teenagers, elderly parents, and thousands of unborn black babies, the caucus applauds the proposed legislation without reservation.

The CBC’ s history on pro-family issues is atrocious.  The group is pro-abortion (despite that black abortions are 3 times their percentage of population). The black family is crumbling from within. Nearly 8 out of 10 black babies are born out of wedlock; nearly half of our pregnancies terminated by abortion; over 40 percent of both black men and women will never marry; and HIV/AIDS infection rates are out of control. If any group should oppose the president's healthcare proposals, it should be blacks.

Yes, Joe Wilson was out of order. Yes, blacks want to support the first black president. But no, blacks should not “sleep” the important aspects of healthcare in order to protect our racial “hero.” Blind allegiance based on race is the exact opposite of the substance of King's Dream.

So what should wise conservatives do?  We should attack bad policies, not the President. We should go out of our way to challenge racists in our midst. In addition, we should insist that none of our friends continues to accuse the President of being a secret Muslim or being born outside of the US.

The scripture says that we must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Let’s do just that with regard to personal attacks on the president. Together we can be a force to awaken our friends to important concerns.  Let’s speak the truth in love!

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By Ken Blackwell & Ken Klukowski

In the wake of Fox News reporting on the unfolding ACORN scandal, ACORN is now threatening to sue the network. Now that Fox is actually breaking news on this story by showing new videos, ACORN might just do it. Fox News should pray that ACORN does sue, because it would blow the doors off this story, possibly destroying ACORN and erupting into a political scandal in Washington.

As bizarre as it seems, ACORN is threatening to sue Fox for reporting on these incriminating videotapes. Glenn Beck broke news with a new tape on Monday, and Sean Hannity might be doing the same shortly. Evidently, ACORN is accusing Fox of coordinating with the filmmakers, arguing that somehow these reports make Fox legally liable.

ACORN’s unavoidable problem, however, is that suing Fox News would give Fox — or any other media organization — the ultimate Christmas present: a legally enforceable way to compel ACORN to give up all its secrets.

The process by which a party to a lawsuit can force the opposing party to disclose information is called discovery, which can take the form of depositions, written questions, or demands for the production of documents. Under federal rules, a defendant can get court orders for discovery for any information relevant to its defense, except for privileged information such as attorney-client discussions.

If ACORN sues, it would have to sue alleging some variation of defamation or fraud. The problem is that for either allegation, truth is an absolute defense. Nothing could be more relevant to Fox establishing its defense of truth in the lawsuit than having access to ACORN’s office memos, emails, phone records, and bank statements. All of these would have a reasonable chance of providing evidence as to whether ACORN workers had knowledge of any of the topics seen on the videotapes.

In short, it would blow the doors off ACORN’s vault of secrets. Fox would learn which organizations collaborate with ACORN, how they spend taxpayer money and what ACORN’s leaders say to each other behind closed doors. It would be a treasure trove for a media organization.

It could also become a massive political scandal in Washington. Two of the individuals on ACORN’s eight-member advisory board include John Podesta (the chairman of President Obama’s transition team after the election) and Andrew Stern, the president of SEIU who is intimately involved with the White House on numerous issues, including the health care plan. Some Democratic elected and appointed officials also have close ties with ACORN.

While it’s certainly possible that none of these public officials have any knowledge of criminal activities by ACORN workers, it would be embarrassing to have their names associated with the investigation. Does ACORN really want to open Pandora’s box by suing a media company when these things would be at stake?

It’s not surprising that ACORN is considering lawsuits out of desperation, including suits against the intrepid reporters who filmed these tapes, and against Big Government, the new political website by online media guru Andrew Breitbart that first broke this story and has been the leading source for continuing developments.

(Not that any of them should be overly concerned, either. They would have no trouble collecting vast sums for a legal defense team and would have a good chance at winning on the merits in any such lawsuit. And again, their discovery efforts would give Big Government reams of material for new stories. In short, they would become heroes to the national conservative movement for helping bring down ACORN.)

So ACORN’s legal actions would be its undoing. The resulting exposure would explode into a national story that even sympathetic media outlets could no longer ignore, bedeviling ACORN’s allies at SEIU and even dragging top advisers to President Barack Obama into humiliating legal proceedings.

And once top ACORN officials were put on the witness stand under oath, who knows what the American taxpayer would learn?

It would be one huge, ongoing scoop for Fox. And their ratings would soar, as ACORN sinks beneath the waves.

Ken Blackwell is a former undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and current senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law. Ken Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union and frequently contributes to FoxNews.com.

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By Star Parker

The Democrats have lost the health care debate.

For months now, polls have been showing that Americans don’t want the massive new government controls, regulations, taxes, and spending that Democrats are pushing.

Latest Gallup polling shows 60 percent saying that President Barack Obama’s proposal will not expand health coverage without raising taxes on middle class Americans and without affecting the current quality of health care.

Forty three percent approve of how Obama is handling health care and 52 percent disapprove.

You would be hard pressed to find a Democrat or Republican who does not agree that we can improve how we deliver health care.

So the logical conclusion we’d expect now from well intentioned people would be that we go back to square one. We do what Obama promised but never did — have a truly open, bi-partisan discussion, with all ideas are on the table, to generate the best possible product for the American people.

Why is this not happening? Because it’s not about healthcare. It’s about ideology.

Despite claims from our Democrat administration that it wants civility, it does not. It wants control.

This nation is already torn apart ideologically. In the last four month,s we’ve witnessed two cold-blooded ideologically motivated murders. An abortion doctor shot in a church and a pro-life demonstrator murdered in a drive-by shooting in front of a school.

There are fewer and fewer “self evident truths” about which we all agree.

The current charade to paint ideological differences with our president as racially motivated dangerously pours gasoline on the burning embers of our differences.

But this is what Democrats want. They have lost the health-care debate on substance, so they want to make it emotional. They want to intimidate. And nothing intimidates and polarizes like race.

Months ago they started the process of getting socialized medicine — taking over one sixth of the American economy — passed in a few short weeks. The deadlines and breathlessness were because they knew that if Americans got a chance to understand what they were trying to do there would be push back. Exactly what has happened.

When the President spoke recently before the joint session of Congress, he finished by asking that we replace “acrimony with civility.” But in this same speech he characterized his opposition as fomenting a “partisan spectacle,” of “scare tactics” and of “wild claims about a government takeover of health care.”

Our smooth talking President reduced those who disagree with him to a bunch of clowns, incorporated not a single major reform idea coming from the opposition, and then accused Republicans of stifling “honest debate.”

Is it any wonder that every freedom loving American is at wits end? And that Congressman Joe Wilson lost it when he yelled out “You lie.”

To demonstrate the Obama team’s interest in civility, immediately after the speech, Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s foul-mouthed, take-no-prisoners chief of staff, “charged over to three Republicans,” as reported by the Wall St. Journal, “demanding in a profanity-laced tirade that they force Mr. Wilson to apologize.”

Cong. Jim Clyburn, third ranking House Democrat, and black caucus member, took the lead in getting a House vote to formally reprimand Wilson. According to Clyburn, “This is about the rules of the House.”

But what rules does Clyburn really care about?

When asked in an interview where the Constitution gives the federal government authority to regulate health care delivery, Clyburn replied, “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do.”

Finally an honest Democrat. Clyburn pulled no punches that our Constitution, which is the basis of his authority, is irrelevant to him. That it’s all about political thuggery.

Which is why we’re now talking about race instead of health care.

Tags: Uncategorized by Dr. Eric Wallace
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By Herman Cain

A cheaper Trojan horse is the “health care deform” bill unveiled last Wednesday by Senator Max Baucus. It makes the same promises that are made by the President and H.R. 3200, but with different body parts.

Before I explain why this is the case, I want to remind the liberals again that there is a Republican alternative (H.R. 3400) which will achieve everything the Democrats’ plan (H.R. 3200) will not, namely, to rein in costs, cover everybody and improve the health care system.

But with the help of the mainstream media, the Democrats have ignored the Republican alternative because “they won” last November as they remind us, which is why H.R. 3400 has been sent to eight committees and will remain there, until Speaker Pelosi gives the order to release it. I will not hold my breath.

Democrat-care (H.R. 3200) will not deliver what the Democrats claim, even with a moving price tag of between $856 billion to $1.5 trillion. And the latest Senate panel version released by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) falls equally short.

Although it does not contain the hotly contested “public option” it does contain major provisions of the House version, such as:

• Mandates on individuals to have health insurance
• No mandate on employers, but employers will be assessed a fee (it’s a tax!)
• Fees levied on health care companies and insurers
• Mandates on insurance companies regarding coverage for all

As usual, the government mandates and fees will ultimately be borne by consumers and taxpayers through more new government bureaucracies. The Senate panel plan, however, does specifically prohibit the use of federal funds for abortions, and specifies illegal immigrants will not be covered.

The latter two provisions were intended to appease Republicans, but no Republicans on the panel took the bait. The full Senate Finance Committee will have to vote on the bill before going to the floor of the Senate for “debate”.

Even after a round of TV talk shows last weekend by President Obama, more and more people are simply not buying either of the Trojan horses, because more and more people are discovering the trap doors in the bills.

More people are hearing the experiences of patients in other countries, and the experiences of people like Dr. Michael Hogan, an orthopedic surgeon who was born in England, attended medical school and practiced medicine in Canada, and now practices medicine here in the United States in Georgia.

When I asked Dr. Hogan on my radio show last week if he believed the bills being proposed by the Democrats would lead to health care rationing, he responded without hesitation “absolutely”. He went on to say that whenever government controls the purse strings it takes away choices, reduces productivity and creates waiting lists for medical services.

Even worse, some people simply die while they are waiting for medical care.

The president and the Democrats would call that a scare tactic. Dr. Hogan, patients and doctors call it reality in government-run health care systems.

The millions of voices that the administration and the Democrats in Congress are trying to ignore at town hall meetings and Tea Parties are asking the Democrats to do a reality check.

We the People have done a reality check, and we have figured out that a cheaper Trojan horse is still a Trojan horse.

Tags: Uncategorized by Dr. Eric Wallace
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Tags: Uncategorized by Dr. Eric Wallace
No Comments »