Why Marriage Matters For America And Conservatism

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Photo Credit: Ken Weingart Some former officials in the Republican Party are urging the Supreme Court to redefine marriage for the nation. But support for marriage as the union of a man and a woman is essential to American—and conservative—principles. Indeed, nothing could be less conservative than urging an activist court to redefine an essential institution of civil society.

As my co-authors and I argue in our new book, What Is Marriage?, and in the amicus brief we filed with the Supreme Court, marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together as husband and wife to be father and mother to any children their union produces. It is based on the anthropological truth that men and women are different and complementary, on the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and on the social reality that children need a mother and a father. Marriage has public purposes that transcend its private purposes.

Marriage predates government. It is the fundamental building block of all human civilization. All Americans, especially conservatives, should respect this crucial institution of civil society. This is why 41 states, with good reason, affirm that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Government recognizes marriage because it is an institution that benefits society in a way that no other relationship does. Marriage is society’s least restrictive means to ensure the well-being of children. State recognition of marriage protects children by encouraging men and women to commit to each other and take responsibility for their children. While respecting everyone’s liberty, government rightly recognizes, protects, and promotes marriage as the ideal institution for childbearing and childrearing.

Redefining marriage would further distance marriage from the needs of children. It would deny as a matter of policy the ideal that a child needs a mom and a dad. We know that children tend to do best when raised by a mother and a father. The confusion resulting from further delinking childbearing from marriage would force the state to intervene more often in family life and cause welfare programs to grow even more.

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Se·ques·ter: To Isolate, Or Hide Away

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Photo Credit: Irish Central Sequester. Since we are getting bombarded with the word, I decided to look it up to see what it means in the dictionary.

In its noun form, it is a general cut to government spending

In the verb, it means to isolate or hide away. In this case I think it’s use is the verb and the truth is hidden away.

In order to get the Republicans to agree to avert the fiscal cliff/debt ceiling crisis two years ago, the President said he would be glad to cut expenditures…in two years. So the President came up with a deal and it was called sequestration. Well the two years is up and the cuts will occur in two days.

Like all of the other fiscal cliffs and debt ceiling crises we have been exposed to for the past 4 years, nothing gets done until the last minute. There is no leadership, no one at the helm to bring all of the parties together and hammer out a deal.

Obama’s sequestration included cuts to the military that he figured would be revolting to Republicans and they would eventually agree to compromise with him. But the Republicans seem willing to go along with these cuts, the wars are winding down and there is less pressure on the military.

This reaction from the Republicans was unexpected to Obama. In his sequestration he had also included cuts to many social programs his base relies on…cuts he never thought he would have to make.

President Obama has taken to the road to try to drum up outrage against Republicans to pressure them to cave in on the sequestration cuts.

President Obama treats the sequester like it is a red headed step child, as if he was the innocent bystander and had nothing to do with it…But award winning journalist Bob Woodward, blew the whistle and firmly placed paternity rights to sequestration in Obamas corner.

But in this case “sequester” hides the truth. The truth is that these so called “cuts” are only a pinprick to the growth of government spending.

Both sides are equally guilty of protecting their pet projects and sacred cows which automatically grow fatter each year under baseline budgeting.

Senator Tom Coburn who knows better than most what the game is about, said the other day: “There’s easy ways to cut this money in ways the American people will never feel. What you hear is an outrage because nobody wants to cut spending.”

Senator Coburn has documented billions in waste and fraud that could be cut from the budget…read his excellent, 2012 Wastebook. But none of this is being addressed in the “sequester.”

The CATO Institute did an exhaustive study on how we are spending 100 billion on corporate welfare. But none of this is being touched with the “sequester” either. Here is their excellent report: Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget.

The people and their children who will have to shoulder the burden of this out out of control spending, are tired of having the truth about the debt and deficit “sequestered” away by their leaders.

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U.S. Offers Training and Other Aid to Syrian Rebels

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WASHINGTON — The United States is significantly stepping up its support for the Syrian opposition, senior administration officials said on Wednesday, helping to train rebels at a base in the region and for the first time offering armed groups nonlethal assistance and equipment that could help their military campaign.

The training mission, already under way, represents the deepest American involvement yet in the Syrian conflict, though the size and scope of the mission is not clear, nor is its host country. The offer of nonlethal assistance is expected to come from Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting on Thursday in Rome with opposition leaders. Mr. Kerry is also expected to raise the prospect of direct financial aid, though officials cautioned that the White House still had to sign off on all the elements.

Before arriving in Rome on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry declared in Paris that the Syrian opposition needed additional assistance and indicated that the United States and its partners planned to provide some.

Under a broad definition of “nonlethal,” assistance to the opposition could include items like vehicles, communications equipment and night vision gear. The Obama administration has said it will not — at least for now — provide arms to the opposition.

One major goal of the administration is to help the opposition build up its credibility within Syria by providing traditional government services to the civilian population. Since the conflict erupted two years ago, the United States has sent $365 million in humanitarian aid to Syrians. American officials have been increasingly worried that extremist members of the resistance against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, notably the Al Nusra Front, which the United States has asserted is affiliated with Al Qaeda, will take control of portions of Syria and cement its authority by providing public services, much as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.

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J.C. Watts: GOP ‘In Denial’ About Its Image Problems With Minorities

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyFormer Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) says the Republican Party is “in denial” about its image problems with minority voters — and he argues the “burden of proof” is on the GOP to show it is sincere about repairing relationships with communities tilting toward Democrats.

“We are in denial — because the fact is that many people associate the Republican Party as the party of the rich,” Watts told The Hill on Wednesday.

Watts, who left Congress in 2003, recently launched INSIGHT America, a nonprofit group designed to boost diversity within the GOP. It’s one of several GOP efforts at minority outreach launched in the wake of the 2012 election, in which President Obama won large majorities of the black, Hispanic and Asian American vote.

“Right now, there is not a strong relationship between minority communities and the Republican Party,” said Watts, who was in Washington on Wednesday to give a speech to the Heritage Foundation.

“The burden of proof is on us and it starts with relationships … We lost eight out of 10 demographics in the last election, so we have to be getting back to basics,” he added.

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US Imam Calls On Muslims In US To Wage Jihad

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Photo Credit: YouTubeThe controversial imam of a prominent mosque in Arlington, Va., has urged immigrant Muslims in the United States to wage war for Islam.

“The enemies of Allah are lining up. The question for us is, are we lining [up] or are we afraid because they may call us terrorists?” Shaker Elsayed told a crowd of Ethiopian Muslims during a lecture at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va.

“Let me give you the good news: they are already calling us terrorists anyway. Whether you sitting at home, watching TV, drinking coffee, sleeping or playing with your kids, you are a terrorist because you are a Muslim.”

“Well, give them a run for their money. Make it worth it. Make this title worth it, and be a good Muslim,” said the Cairo-born Muslim.

“Muslim men when it is a price to pay, they are first in line. … They are the first in the community-service line. They are the first in jihad line,” he declared to applause.

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The Unaffordable Care Act

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Photo Credit: APThe Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Tuesday showing that if cost-control measures are not maintained the Affordable Care Act could increase the deficit by $6.2 trillion, or .7 percent of GDP, over the next 75 years.

The report shows President Barack Obama’s comments that Obamacare would “not add a dime to the long term debt [are] false,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) said at a Budget Committee hearing.

“The result of this brand new report confirmed everything that Republicans were saying about the bill,” Sessions said. The report is the first to look at the long-term effects of the Affordable Care Act beyond a ten-year period.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) previously had projected the cost of Obamacare over a ten-year period and found it would save more than $100 billion if certain policies remained the same—policies that CBO director Doug Elmendorf said would be hard to maintain.

“CBO’s cost estimate noted that the legislation maintains and puts into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time,” Elmendorf said at the time. The new GAO study ran two projections: one in which those cost reduction policies were maintained and another projection in which Congress phased out the reduction policies put into Obamacare.

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Banality: RINOs Counter Tea Party With Empty Rhetoric

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Photo Credit: MIke Theiler I’m told we’re living in a Moderate Moment. After Mitt Romney lost the election, moderate Republicans started emerging from every corner of the country, from Northwest Washington, D.C. to Arlington, Virginia. It was time, they declared, for calm voices to prevail in the Republican Party. The Tea Party, the right-wing, the “Conservative Entertainment Complex” — all this must be cast overboard for the GOP to win again.

The latest iteration of this came in Wednesday’s Washington Post from columnist Kathleen Parker: RINO, of course, refers to Republicans In Name Only and is the pejorative term used against those who fail to march in lockstep with the so-called conservative base. I used “so-called” because, though the hard-right faction of the party tends to be viewed as The Base, this isn’t necessarily so. My guess is there are now more RINOs than those who, though evangelical in their zeal, are poison to their party’s ability to win national elections.

Parker calls for a RINO uprising, a new faction on the right to counter the Tea Party. That’s all well and good. There are genuine differences of opinion on the right, and a little inward dialectic never hurt anyone.

But how would her brand of Republicanism differ from the conservative base she derides? This is the closest thing we get to a policy prescription in her column: “Most would like the country to rock along without drama — operating within a reasonable budget, with respect for privacy and the rule of law, compassion for the disadvantaged and an abundance of concern for national security, including border control but not necessarily drone attacks on citizens.”

Yes, if only there was a political movement calling for reasonable budgets, more privacy for the individual, upholding the rule of law, and concern for national security. She must imagine hordes of earthy Tea Partiers holding the Post in their gunpowder-stained fingers while recoiling and exclaiming, “Compassion for the disadvantaged?! This paper’s gone to the dogs!”

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Italy Halts Austerity Plan Leaving EU In Turmoil

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Photo Credit: Max RossiThree years of German-led austerity and budget cuts aimed at saving the euro and retooling the European economy was left facing one of its biggest challenges as Italian voters’ rejection of spending cuts and tax rises opened up a stark new fissure in European politics.

The governing stalemate in Rome and the vote in the general election – by a factor of three to two – against the austerity policies pursued by Italy’s humiliated caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, meant that the spending cuts and tax rises dictated by the eurozone would grind to a halt, risking a re-eruption of the euro crisis after six months of relative stability.

Fears that the deadlock will lengthen Italy’s near two-year recession and spill over into the rest of the eurozone hit markets across Europe. The Italian banking sector fell 7% in value, dragging the main MIB stock market index 4% lower.

The market turmoil in Milan spread to Germany, France and the UK, with domestic banks among the biggest fallers. Deutsche Bank saw almost 5% knocked off its value, while Barclays suffered a 4% decline. The FTSE 100 fell 1.4%. The German Dax slumped more than 2% and the Paris Cac was down 2.75%.

The cliffhanger vote saw the maverick comedian Beppe Grillo’s 5 Star movement take almost one in four of the votes and the political revival of the ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. But the narrow victor, Pier Luigi Bersani, on the centre-left, claimed the mantle of the premiership, although it was unclear if he would be able to form a government.

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President Obama’s Sequester Strategy: Divide And Conquer

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama broke Republicans once on taxes — and his risky strategy for winning the sequester fight assumes he’ll do it again.

He will divide, isolate and defeat Republicans using all the powers of his office and all his skills as a political campaigner. As Americans grow frustrated with the cuts, Republicans will reject their party’s no-tax mantra and demand that Congress end the standoff, even if it means raising some new revenue – just the way Obama is demanding.

Obama’s trying to speed this result, by releasing state by state details of the pain and suffering the sequester will cause, all meant to get Republicans to cave. And he’s got the biggest megaphone, hammering this message over and over in a way the divided Republican party cannot.

Except that message could cut both ways. What if the public agrees that yes, there is a lot of pain and suffering – and turns to Obama wondering, why didn’t you do more to prevent it? That’s what makes some Democrats nervous about the White House’s supreme level of confidence.

Democratic lawmakers, who are unclear about the end game, could succumb to the same public offensive that Obama has been ginning up against Republicans and start demanding that the White House cut its losses and move on to other important second-term initiatives. A GOP proposal to give flexibility to the agency heads on deciding how to administer the cuts could start looking attractive to Democrats as a way out.

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Poll Finds 15-Point Drop In Dem Support For Health Law

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photo credit: andrew aliferisDemocratic support for President Obama’s healthcare law has dropped 15 points since November, contributing to a rise in negative attitudes toward the reform, according to a new poll.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act currently outnumber supporters (42 percent to 36), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s (KFF) latest tracking survey. Public opinion has switched back and forth since the law passed in 2010, and in November, support for the law was 4 percent higher than opposition (43 percent to 39).

Kaiser attributed the marked slide in support among Democrats to a “post-presidential election fade.” In November, 72 percent of that group expressed support for the law, compared with 57 percent who feel favorably toward it now.

Unaffiliated voters saw a similar but less dramatic decline in support, with 32 percent approving of the healthcare law compared with 37 percent in November.

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