House Committee Passes Bill to Completely Ban Taxpayer Funding of Abortions

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Photo Credit: Life News

Photo Credit: Life News

The House Judiciary Committee today approved legislation that will put in place a complete ban on taxpayer funding of abortions that ensures abortions are not directly funded in any federal governmental program or department.

The legislation combines several policies that must be enacted every year in Congressional battles and puts them into law where they will not be in jeopardy of being overturned every time Congress changes hands from pro-life lawmakers to those who support abortions.

The bill has been around a few years but has only been approved in the House thanks to a pro-abortion Senate. On May 4, 2011, the House passed HR 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, on a 251-175 vote with Republicans voting 235-0 for the bill and Democrats voting 175-16 against it.

The House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice will hold a hearing on H.R. 7, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” this week.

Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is the lead sponsor of the bill, informed the House that a study by the Guttmacher Institute, the pro-abortion former research apparatus of Planned Parenthood, released a study noting that one-quarter of women who otherwise would have had abortions chose to give birth when taxpayer dollars were not available to pay for abortions of their children.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

Supreme Court to Decide if Pro-Life People Have Free Speech at Abortion Clinics

The Supreme Court today is hearing a case regarding a buffer zone outside abortion clinics in the state of Massachusetts. At issue is whether the state has the right to squelch pro-life free speech and prevent pro-life advocates from protesting or offering women information about abortion alternatives.

Today’s oral arguments concerns the constitutionality of a Massachusetts law that creates a 35-foot “buffer zone” restricting pro-life advocates from speaking with people entering abortion facilities.

Alliance Defending Freedom filed the lawsuit McCullen v. Coakley in 2008 with then lead counsel and allied attorney Michael De Primo and has also provided funding for the case since then. De Primo is currently litigating the case together with two other allied attorneys, Philip Moran and Mark Rienzi. Rienzi, professor of constitutional law at Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, is now lead counsel alongside attorneys with the Washington, D.C. firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr, LLP.

“Women considering abortion have the right to talk to whomever they please on public sidewalks,” said Rienzi, who will argue before the court Wednesday. “That includes peaceful pro-lifers like Eleanor McCullen, who just wants to offer information and help to those who would like it.”

“The government cannot be allowed to create censorship zones where the First Amendment doesn’t apply,” added De Primo. “This buffer zone censors speakers from engaging in constitutionally protected speech. We hope the Supreme Court will agree and strike down the law that created the zone.”

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Crime Study: Handguns, Not ‘Assault Rifles,’ Used in Most Mass Shootings

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Media hype about mass shootings in America has fostered a myth that the killings are on the rise and that an assault weapon ban, expanded background checks and greater attention to the mentally ill will curb a rampaging epidemic, according to an authoritative and exhaustive study by a noted criminologist.

Instead, according to James Alan Fox, author and criminology professor at Northeastern University, mass shootings have remained stagnant over 34 years, averaging 20 a year, and few were committed by the type of berserk psychos portrayed by the media.

“Public discourse is grounded in myth and misunderstanding about the nature of the offense and those who perpetrate it,” he writes in the journal “Homicide Studies.” He added: “Without minimizing the pain and suffering of the hundreds of those who have been victimized in recent attacks, the facts clearly say that there has been no increase in mass shootings and certainly no epidemic.”

The study debunks several proposals aired from President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats after the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting aimed at stopping mass killings. While he said any plan is worth trying, he concluded that short of abolishing the Second Amendment, there is little that can be done.

“Mass murder just may be a price we pay for living in a society where personal freedom is so highly valued,” he wrote in the study coauthored Northeastern criminology student Monica DeLateur.

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Senators: Police Should Get Warrants to Use Drones in the U.S.

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Photo Credit: ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Photo Credit: ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) wants everyone to know that drones are a threat to privacy.

During a senate hearing Wednesday on the future of the unmanned aerial vehicles in the U.S., Feinstein told a story in which she heard a demonstration outside of her house. When Feinstein peered through the window, she was startled by a drone, flying right in front of her face. Once the remote operator saw her through the drone’s camera, it spun out of control and crashed. “So, I felt a little good about that,” she said.

It was a cautionary tale. According to Feinstein, drones can be extremely intrusive, and the time to pass legislation to protect Americans’ privacy is now, as they will soon be a common sight in U.S. skies. The Federal Aviation Administration has a mandate to integrate civilian drones into the airspace by 2015, but many drones — operated by research centers, law-enforcement agencies, and even hobbyists — are already flying.

“There should be strong binding enforceable privacy policies,” she said. “And that can be done before the technology is upon us.”

Feinstein, who didn’t reveal more about the drone incident (her press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment) is strongly in support of enacting privacy-protecting legislation before drones’ full integration in U.S. airspace.

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Ambassador Stevens Cabled Washington: CIA Says ‘AQ [Al Qaeda] Training Camps Within Benghazi’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

On August 16, 2012–a little less than a month before the terrorist attacks on the U.S. State Department and CIA facilities in Benghazi, Libya–Amb. Chris Stevens sent a cable to State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. stating that a CIA officer on the ground in Benghazi had briefed a State Department officer in that city the day before “on the location of approximately ten Islamist militias and AQ training camps within Benghazi.”

This information was released today in a report issued by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“AQ,” the initials for al Qaeda, are used in intelligence documents quoted in the report to indicate a tie to al Qaeda. For example, a Defense Intelligence Agency report refers to “al Qa’ida (AQ) regional nodes;” a Pentagon Joint Chief’s intelligence report refers to “AQ associates;” and a CIA report entitled “Libya: Al Qa’ida Establishing Sanctuary,” refers to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as “AQAP” and al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Magreb as “AQIM.”

The CIA officer’s discussion of the “AQ training camps” in Benghazi occurred at an “Emergency Action Committee” meeting convened August 15, 2012 by the State Department’s principal officer in Benghazi.

“In an August 16, 2012, cable to State headquarters, Stevens raised additional concerns about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi following an Emergency Action Committee (EAC) meeting held on August 15, 2012, in Benghazi,” says a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Benghazi that was released today.

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Alaska to Pay $5.75 Billion for Exxon LNG Project Stake

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exxon-mobil_LogoAlaska plans to jump-start a $45 billion natural gas export project by pitching in more than 10 percent of the cost and joining Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), BP Plc (BP/), ConocoPhillips and TransCanada Corp. (TRP) as an equity partner.

The agreement between the state and the four companies outlines a framework in which Alaska would take as much as a 25 percent stake in a proposed gas processing plant, an 800-mile (1,287-kilometer) pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope and a liquefaction facility in the Kenai Peninsula.

Governor Sean Parnell has asked the Alaska legislature to approve the deal and give state agencies the ability to negotiate shipping and leasing arrangements, according to a statement released today by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

“This is the first time we’ve had all of the parties aligned on a path forward,” Joe Balash, the department’s commissioner, said in a phone interview today before the announcement. The deal gives the project a “good shot” at proceeding, he said.

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Alaska Will Be Leaving the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium

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Photo Credit: truth in american education

Photo Credit: truth in american education

Erik McCormick, director of assessment with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (AK DEED) announced that Alaska will be leaving the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). Governor Parnell and Commissioner Hanley had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SBAC in April of 2013, but withheld announcement of signing the agreement until the legislature had ended the 2013 session in mid-April. The announcement comes days before the beginning of the 2014 legislative session.

The April 2013 announcement spurred controversy during most of the summer and fall of 2013. Many activists in education policy believed that the governor and the AK DEED had overstepped their legal authority in signing the consortium agreement. According to the Alaska state constitution, education authority lies with the legislature not the governor. Case law such as the Moore decision squarely affirmed that the final authority for education was with the legislature.

Unlike any prior consortia, SBAC’s governing board was more like an Agenda 21 regional governing structure. The legislature’s ability to determine policy would have been significantly eroded by continued membership. Federal overreach, along with sovereignty rights were frequently expressed by activists who opposed Alaska’s membership in the consortium.

Activists also expressed concerns because the senior adviser to SBAC is Obama’s campaign adviser, Linda Darling Hammond. Hammond is so radical that Senate Democrats blocked her nomination to the U.S. Department of Education in the early days of Barack Obama’s first term. Hammond is a frequent contributor to the United Nations committee on global education playing a dual role as a U.S. researcher on that committee and as an SBAC adviser. Hammond’s earlier project, CSCOPE was met with considerable controversy in Texas and was recently outlawed in that state.

Second amendment supporters also expressed concern about the consortia. SBAC is housed at the University of California where Janet Napolitano became system president in the late summer of 2013. Because SBAC had a data sharing agreement with the state and the federal government, many Alaskans expressed concern that the consortia was simply surrogate for the federal government to further encroach on Alaska’s privacy and rights.

Several legislators were poised to introduce legislation aimed at eliminating the state’s involvement in the consortia, through either education funding or through substantive legislative language.

Shane Vander Hart of the Truth in American Education website noted,

“Alaska took a great first step in pulling out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Now they must shine light on the back door approach to implementing the Common Core unbeknownst to their residents.”

AK DEED McCormick also stated that Alaska was contracting with Assessment & Achievement Institute, an organization with the University of Kansas for the construction of the tests for the Alaska State Standards. The state had already been working with another University of Kansas group, DLM Consortium, to create a new Alternate Assessment for students with severe cognitive disabilities.

Activists should not celebrate too soon. Alaska may face circumstances to those faced by Utah, Alabama, Maine, and Michigan when they left SBAC. In those cases, withdrawal from SBAC had to be approved by the SBAC’s governing board and U.S. Department of Education secretary Arne Duncan. In those states, the standards remained controversial because they are very similar to the common core.

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Dr. Barbara Haney is an economist, political activist, and social media consultant in Alaska. She has previously served as a program director and faculty member at University of Alaska, Eastern Illinois University, University of Notre Dame, and other colleges and research institutions. In addition to her university experience, Dr. Haney has served as an ABE educator and a home school educator. She has served as a district chairman, national delegate, and campaign volunteer in various Republican campaigns. Dr. Haney receives mail at [email protected]

Income Inequality: Obama Owes You $19,000

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing

Democratic leaders have signaled their intention to make income inequality the centerpiece of the midterm elections, and expanding benefit programs for the poor and unemployed are at the heart of the strategy. As the ever-gracious senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, put it, if the GOP opposes extension of long-term unemployment benefits, “it’s going to hurt them in the election.”

Now Democratic leaders are hard at work flogging the income inequality issue while refusing to come up with $6.4 billion to extend unemployment benefits. Clearly, they do not want the benefits extended. They would rather have a provocative issue to use against Republicans in the fall.

It’s possible, however, that income inequality could turn out to be a big mistake for them. Maybe Americans aren’t dumb enough to fall for wealth envy ruse again. Maybe they’re ready to grow up and realize that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett will always make more than most people. The real problem is the difference between what they should be earning, based on wage growth during previous recoveries, and they’re earning under Obama. Who’s responsible for that? Not Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.

In the past, as in the 2008 campaign, Obama liked to compare himself to Ronald Reagan. That was always laughable, but since the President brought it up, how does he compare with Reagan in terms of wage growth?

The Social Security Administration’s national average wage index shows that earnings of US workers rose by a cumulative 7.2% during Obama’s first term (from $41,334 to $44,321 between 2008 and the end of 2012). During Reagan’s first term, wages rose 29% (from $12,513 to $16,135), and they went on to rise to $19,334 by the end of his second term (a total of 54.5%). That difference is the source of much of today’s discontent over income inequality.

The real “inequality,” in other words, is between what workers are now getting (an average of $44,321) and what they would have been getting ($53,321) if the economy had been growing as it did under Reagan.

The contrast is magnified over time. By the end of Obama’s second term, average wages are likely to be close to $47,500. Applying the growth trajectory of Reagan’s second term, average wages would be $66,634. Personally, I would rather have the $66,634, and most Americans would as well.

By 2016 Obama’s experiment in socialism will have cost US workers over $19,000 per year in lost wages. And Obama’s party is just getting started. If succeeded by another left-wing president, presumably Hillary Clinton, the lost wages will continue to compound.

It doesn’t really matter how much less than Warren Buffett you are making if you don’t have enough to get your kids through school and save for retirement. It does matter if you’re making less than you should be as a result of government policies that restrict growth.

Not many of us will make it into the 1% so it doesn’t matter how much they make. What matters is how much we make. And Obama has seen to it that average Americans will be making $19,000 less than they should be. Income inequality is only a hot-button issue because, under Obama, incomes have become more unequal.

Stagnant wage growth is bad enough, but, remarkably, Obama is the first president in American history to have frozen job growth during his first term in office. According to the World Bank, the US labor force has grown by a statistically insignificant .005% between January 2009 and the end of 2012. Even the less prosperous nation of Chile managed job growth of 11.5% during the same period. Why was job growth in the US so far behind that of Chile? It was because Chile embraced the free market under a conservative president while America chose socialism.

Conservatives want something better for all Americans. They want the poor to dream big, along with everyone else. They celebrate stories like that of Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle Corporation, whose $41 billion puts him third on the list of America’s wealthiest citizens. Ellison began life as the adopted son of a family of modest means. He worked hard and earned every penny he made, but America gave him the chance.

That kind of opportunity, the chance to found a small company and see it grow into a major enterprise, has been wrecked by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress. It is Republicans who want to make it possible once again.

Conservatives have a time-tested plan for attacking income inequality. They want Americans to have the chance to work and prosper, to start small businesses, and to see their wages grow by 54% and more. That message will resonate in 2014. But only if conservatives start to talk about the real “income inequality” in America—the inequality between what Americans are making today and what they would be making without Democrats in power.

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Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books on American politics and culture, including Heartland of the Imagination (2011). He can be contacted at [email protected].

Obamacare Time Bomb: Heirs May Face Bill for Your Healthcare

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Millions of new enrollees are signing up for Medicaid due to its expansion under Obamacare, but many will be shocked to learn that their estates can be held liable for the costs of their healthcare.

As part of the 1993 budget reconciliation bill, Congress required states to implement the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP) to seek reimbursement of payments for nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

Obamacare, officially known as The Affordable Care Act, greatly expanded the services for which reimbursement can be pursued, and states can now use liens to recover money spent by Medicaid for services beyond long-term care.

States have discretion in how to implement the law, with some seeking to collect nearly all medical expenses.

Yevgeniy Feyman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said the intent of the program was to discourage people from using Medicaid as a free long-term health insurance plan while hiding their assets.

Read more from this story HERE.

Colonel Greg Gadson, Joe Miller’s West Point Classmate and Wounded Warrior, to Speak at Pentagon’s King Observance

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During the Pentagon’s annual commemoration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., a combat veteran wounded in Iraq will explain the inspiration he drew from the civil rights leader.

Army Col. Greg Gadson, garrison commander of Fort Belvoir, Va., said he will spread King’s message of overcoming prejudices and challenges when he speaks at the Pentagon event, which begins at 9 a.m. Jan. 16. The observance will air live on the Pentagon Channel.

On May 7, 2007, Gadson was returning from a memorial service for two fellow soldiers when he was struck by a roadside bomb. Everything changed, he said in an interview with American Forces Press Service. Gadson lost both legs and suffered serious injury to his right arm, but, seven years later, said he says he can do without the term “wounded warrior.”

“At some point, you have to stop being a wounded warrior,” the colonel said. “Like graduating or getting a promotion or accomplishing anything, it’s tempered in time, so don’t allow yourself to be defined as a wounded warrior, because then you’re always wounded.”

And just as King envisioned decades ago, Gadson said, he wants people to know that prejudices and challenges are things to overcome.

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Video Reveals Asiana Crash Firefighters Saw Girl Before Hitting, Killing Her

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/NTSB

Photo Credit: REUTERS/NTSB

Video from the helmet camera of a firefighter responding to the crash landing of an Asiana Airlines flight in San Francisco shows at least one rescuer was aware someone was on the ground outside the aircraft and even warned a colleague. Yet two fire trucks subsequently ran over an injured passenger.

The video, first aired by CBS News on Tuesday, shows the girl, 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan, lying in the grass before she was struck, according to an attorney for her family. A coroner concluded she was alive at the time and died when she was later hit by a fire truck.

In the video, a firefighter with a helmet camera tells the driver of a fire truck that there’s a person in front of him. A fire truck-mounted camera shows a firefighter directing the truck away from the person.

What’s not clear from the video is why rescuers didn’t try to move or clearly mark the presence of the person on the ground during the chaotic aftermath of the July 6 crash at San Francisco International Airport.

Shortly after the crash, rescue officials confirmed that one of the plane crash victims was run over by a fire truck. Firefighters told investigators they assumed the girl was dead and hurried on toward the damaged aircraft, according to documents released by the NTSB.

Read more from this story HERE.