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What Zika Crisis Shows About Women’s Health Funding Debate

September 7, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner /by Kelsey Harkness

After Congress failed to pass a Zika funding bill due in part to disagreements over restricting funds from going to Planned Parenthood, pressure is on for lawmakers to reach a deal this month to address the growing crisis.

But prospects for an agreement remain bleak, with Republicans standing firm on their belief that Planned Parenthood does not need more funding to contribute to the fight against the Zika virus, and Democrats insisting that they do.

In Florida, meanwhile, one major network of federally approved health care centers says it is ready to ramp up efforts against Zika, funding or no funding.

“We can handle it,” Tiffani Helberg, spokeswoman for Community Health of South Florida Inc., told The Daily Signal. “We have enough physicians and nurses and medical experts and health centers to handle anything.”

As Democrats and Republican lawmakers negotiate, Planned Parenthood has insisted that its organization is critical in the fight against Zika, and therefore should be included in any Zika funding bill.

“Often we are the only provider that someone will see all year and we are the front line of defense when it comes to battling Zika,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said during a press conference on June 30 after Senate Democrats blocked the $1.1 billion Zika measure.

In reality, clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions, are limited in the services they can provide in the fight against Zika.

In Puerto Rico, for example, Planned Parenthood is running an educational campaign, providing condoms and birth control, and informing women of their options if they do get pregnant while being infected with the Zika virus. If a woman believes she’s infected with the virus, she must go elsewhere for testing and treatment.

The $1.1 billion measure that already passed the House but failed in the Senate, Laguens said, “does not provide necessary planning for family planning resources in line with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] recommendations.” The Planned Parenthood official added the bill “does not give money to the providers best suited to help fight the Zika virus, like Profamilias in Puerto Rico.”

Zika, which has hit Puerto Rico the hardest of all states and U.S. territories, is transmitted through mosquitoes and also sexually. The virus poses the greatest risk to pregnant women, as it’s known to cause microcephaly in as many as 13 percent of infants, which results in a baby’s head to be unusually small and its brain to be underdeveloped.

According to its website, Profamilias operates two women’s health care clinics in Puerto Rico under the umbrella of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

When President Barack Obama made his $1.9 billion Zika funding request back in February, he did not specifically ask Congress to fund Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is not a qualified provider under the Medicaid program in Puerto Rico, which will distribute federal Zika money. Without a change to Medicaid provider eligibility, Planned Parenthood would not be eligible to receive funding through Obama’s request.

Instead, the Zika bill currently being negotiated would increase government funding for the 13 preventative clinics in Puerto Rico that already provide care through the Medicaid program. In addition, the bill calls for a 700 percent funding increase for community health centers across the United States.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Puerto Rico currently has 13,791 locally acquired Zika cases. Zika-infected mosquitoes also have made their way to Florida, where 35 people have been locally infected, in addition to 507 travel-related cases involving state residents.

Centers for Disease Control Director Thomas Frieden warned last week that the federal government is running out of resources to fight the virus, pressuring Congress to pass a spending bill.

“We don’t have the resources we need to mount the kind of robust fight against the disease,” Frieden said Aug. 30 during a Twitter town hall. “Without additional funding we will not be able to fully understand the impact of Zika.”

Blame Game

Since failing to pass a Zika funding bill this summer, Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate have been blaming each other.

“Democrats would prefer to filibuster the bill [in the Senate] if there is no funding specifically for Planned Parenthood,” Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal via email. “They’ve filibustered the bill twice already and I expect they will again.”

“Democrats have been calling for bipartisan negotiations for months, but instead of coming to the table, Republicans are holding a vote on a bill they know will fail,” Adam Jentleson, deputy chief of staff for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, according to CNN. “Once this partisan exercise is over, we hope Republicans will finally engage in real negotiations to address this critical issue.”

The Daily Signal contacted Reid’s office for further comment, but they did not return the request.

The Heritage Foundation’s Paul Winfree, a budget expert, argued in an August interview that the Obama administration could shift up to $2.2 billion from an account established to counter the Ebola virus. But as of Tuesday, Congress was working toward reaching a deal on the Zika bill.

With the issue of Planned Parenthood a sticking point for both Republicans and Democrats, the question remains: How essential is Planned Parenthood in the Zika fight?

The Daily Signal contacted Planned Parenthood, but the group did not return the request for comment.

Is Planned Parenthood Equipped?

Casey Mattox, a lawyer at the conservative nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that “for public health reasons alone,” federally qualified health centers—which don’t include Planned Parenthood—should be the recipients of any Zika-related health funds.

“We are facing a public health crisis with Zika and in a public health crisis, you want the places that can actually address that crisis to receive the funding,” Mattox said. “Federally qualified health centers are equipped to do that and Planned Parenthood simply is not.”

Federally qualified health centers each year provide comprehensive health care, including obstetrics and gynecology services, at little to no cost to millions of Americans who are uninsured, jobless, or among the working poor.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, federally qualified health centers provide more than three times the total number of services that Planned Parenthood provides.

“In federally qualified health centers, you actually have medical professionals on staff—doctors and nurses on staff—to diagnosis and treat illness,” Mattox said, adding:

That’s what they’re there for. Planned Parenthood does not have that. They have people who can provide birth control, and can provide other women’s health screenings in some cases, but they don’t have medical professionals that can actually provide primary care services. And that’s what you need in a public health crisis, the ability to provide primary care services, determine whether someone has Zika, and advise them on how to not get Zika.

Currently, 13,540 clinics provide comprehensive health care for women in the U.S., compared with 665 Planned Parenthood locations, according to data collected by Alliance Defending Freedom and Charlotte Lozier Institute, the education arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life advocacy group.

In Puerto Rico, where the Zika virus is hitting especially hard, 20 federally qualified health centers exist, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Profamilias, operating under International Planned Parenthood Federation, runs two permanent clinics in Puerto Rico in addition to 11 “service points” there, according to its website.

The Daily Signal sought comment from Profamilias, but it did not reply.

‘Not Overwhelmed at This Point’

In southern Florida, where the number of Zika cases continues to rise, a spokeswoman for one federally qualified health care network said its centers are ready and prepared to take on more Zika cases.

“We have seen some Zika patients and we’re working with the Health Department to handle the situation,” said Helberg, vice president for communications and development for Community Health of South Florida Inc. “We’re not overwhelmed at this point. I think everything’s being handled appropriately.”

Community Health of South Florida Inc. operates 11 centers covering the Florida Keys to Miami, where the majority of domestic Zika cases have been reported.

Helberg said she did not want to address the specific issue of Planned Parenthood and whether community health centers are more deserving of taxpayer funds to fight Zika.

But she said that if a pregnant woman goes to one of its centers to get tested for Zika, “we’ll take care of them throughout their pregnancy.”

“We treat everyone—children, adults, elderly, you name it—women, men, and we provide a host of services to them,” she said. “We are here to treat them with whatever needs they have, in any of the areas that we have services.”

Mattox, the lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that health care centers such as the network in South Florida unquestionably are better suited to receive federal Zika funds.

“If Planned Parenthood wants to address this problem, then, unlike federally qualified health centers, they are well-equipped to do that,” the lawyer said, adding:

In the last 10 years, Planned Parenthood has brought in over $750 million in excess income and they’re spending well over $20 million this election season in order to influence the outcome in November. So they have plenty of resources at their disposal if they want to pitch in and do what federally qualified health centers and many other nonprofits are doing without having the large bankrolls to be able to support that.

It makes a lot more sense for our taxpayer dollars to be supporting the efforts of the entities that don’t already have the billion-dollar reserves and actually need our resources to be able to provide those services.

More for Doctors and Hospitals

And while financially prepared to face the growing Zika crisis, Helberg said, the community health network of health centers in Florida would welcome more funding.

“We’ve had a lot of cutbacks in funding as of late and that is hurting us as a community health center,” she said. “We are the No. 1 resource for many people, whether you’re insured or uninsured, whether you’re homeless, whether you’re undocumented, we will provide you health care services. And without adequate funding, that’s difficult. Zika or no Zika.”

Prior to the Zika outbreak, conservatives had been calling on Congress to strip Planned Parenthood of its $500 million in taxpayer funding and instead divert that money to health care centers such as the network that Helberg helps to operate.

The effort, which ultimately failed, came after the Center for Medical Progress, a group that opposes abortion, released a series of undercover videos showing high-ranking Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of tissue from aborted babies. Planned Parenthood has denied illegal activity.

Some health care experts warned Congress that stripping Planned Parenthood of its taxpayer dollars could hurt the millions of patients the organization serves each year.

This time around, however, Republicans aren’t asking to take away money from the nation’s largest abortion provider—they’re arguing against giving it more.

The measure the Senate will take up again this week, which already passed in the House, “actually increased funding for health care,” Stewart, the spokesman for McConnell, said. “And yes, it goes to doctors, hospitals, community health centers.”

Whatever the outcome, Helberg said she remains optimistic about community health centers’ ability to step up if the Zika crisis gets worse.

“I think we’re equipped,” she said. “We’ve withstood many challenges—bird flu and all the other horrible things that have come through—and that’s the role of a community health center: to be here through good and bad times. We can handle it, we have enough physicians and nurses and medical experts and health centers to handle anything.” (For more from the author of “What Zika Crisis Shows About Women’s Health Funding Debate” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Why I Applaud Trump’s Plan to Show Teachers the Door

September 6, 2016/1 Comment/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner /by Logan Albright

There are not too many areas of policy on which Donald Trump and I agree. One of the few exceptions is on the topic of education policy, where Trump has rightly condemned the Department of Education as wasteful, meddlesome, and counterproductive. While the presidential candidate has waffled back and forth on whether he would eliminate the department outright or drastically scale it back, it’s clear that he has no love for the unconstitutional federal education bureaucracy.

Predictably, progressive groups are horrified at Trump’s proposal, and are scrambling to pull at the heartstrings of Americans, emotionally manipulating them into opposing this eminently sensible proposal. In this vein, the Center for American Progress (CAP) has released a policy paper claiming that eliminating the Department of Education (DoEd) would destroy jobs for nearly half a million teachers.

To which I can only respond: Good!

It’s time to punch a hole in this myth that teachers are some kind of noble, magical unicorns selflessly molding young minds out of the goodness of their hearts. While there are many good teachers who honestly want to help children learn, we need to get over this idea that every teacher is infinitely valuable simply by virtue of their chosen profession. Teaching is a job like any other, but unlike most other jobs, it’s one that has been badly corrupted by politics and government to the point where many teaching positions do more harm than good.

In particular, public school teachers have largely become glorified babysitters, tasked with crowd control, not education. And mandatory testing standards mean that many teachers are simply ”teaching to the test” rather than engaging in a genuine effort to enlighten their students. In some schools, the role of the teacher has been reduced to pressing play on a device containing a pre-recorded lesson plan. Yet these are the brave and noble souls that liberals think deserve special treatment compared to other workers.

Regarding the Department of Education itself, it’s important to note that the U.S. Constitution does not mention education as an enumerated power of the federal government, The Tenth Amendment makes explicit that anything not specifically given to the federal government is the sole province of the states, and the people. The Department of Education is therefore, by definition, illegal. Anyone who uses the argument that “we must uphold the rule of law” must likewise oppose the Department of Education, or risk falling into the fathomless abyss of hypocrisy.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a pragmatic look at what the Department of Education actually does. The Department’s core function is awarding large amounts of money to state and local school systems in the form of federal grants, with inevitable strings attached that hamstring localities’ ability to set their own curricula, standards, or procedures. The massively unpopular Common Core standards are a prime example of the kind of mischief the DoEd gets up to, as states were lured into the restrictive standards by massive amounts of funding through the Race to the Top program, only to discover that any semblance of flexibility was the cost of the grants.

Federal control over local schools makes no sense, as bureaucrats in Washington have no idea what is needed to educate students in Alaska, Alabama, or Maine. Additionally, the money handed out by the DoEd has not resulted in any measurable improvement in education outcomes over the forty or so years of its existence.

If, as CAP alleges, scaling back teachers and funding will be catastrophic for student outcomes, why is it that we have seen absolutely no benefit from the steady increase of both these variables over the past several decades? This is how government operates; it endlessly piles up spending and staff that were never necessary to begin with, and then screams that disaster will occur if they are removed.

This brings us back to teachers. At this point, most people are familiar with teachers’ unions and how they prevent bad teachers from being fired. We’ve all heard stories about hopelessly incompetent or even criminal teachers staying on staff because of their union’s political power. A business that is unable to get rid of its worst employees is always doomed to failure, unless, of course, it is being propped up by endless revenue streams courtesy of the American taxpayer, as public school are. These people don’t care about students; they care about lining their own pockets.

This diversion of funds from the private sector, where people spend money on things they care about, and where they try to find good value for their dollars, to politically favored groups like teachers who bear no responsibility for doing a good, or even acceptable job, is a tremendous waste, not just of money, but of young minds as well. I have no doubt that many of these teachers who are propped up by funding from the DoEd would be much more valuable to society in other roles, where their worth is determined by the services they provide to the public, not the lobbying of special interests.

In summary, children in public schools, especially those under the thumb of the federal government, are not taught, they are controlled. They are not encouraged, they are discouraged. They are told what to think, not how to think. They are brainwashed to obey authority without question, and punished when they dare to think differently. In my view, the fewer people we have engaging in such irresponsible treatment of our children, the better. (For more from the author of “Why I Applaud Trump’s Plan to Show Teachers the Door” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Pro-Life Catholics Fight Back, Picketing Tim Kaine’s Parish

September 5, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner /by John Zmirak

This week I read a report in the indispensable LifeSiteNews about American Catholics who aren’t going to sit idly while their Church drifts toward the socialist, pro-choice left. In the process, it highlighted one practical step faithful Catholics can take to resist these trends.

Apparently some Catholics in Virginia got sick of the scandal of avowedly Catholic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine receiving Holy Communion like a Catholic in good standing — when canon 915 of Church law forbids him from doing so, and instructs his bishop and pastor to refuse it to him. Neither his bishop nor his pastor has done so. So these faithful citizens decided to go after the scandal at its root, by picketing Tim Kaine’s Catholic parish. As LifeSite recounts:

Roughly a dozen pro-life activists protested Sunday outside of pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine’s Catholic parish.

“Sen. Kaine has failed in his duty as a Catholic public servant to defend the preborn and Fr. Arsenault has failed in his duty as pastor to admonish Sen. Kaine and to instruct the rest of his congregation on the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the sanctity of human life,” Virginia pro-life activist Maggie Egger told LifeSiteNews in an email.

“I, along with a group of Catholics from various parishes around the Diocese of Richmond, went to St. Elizabeth’s yesterday to do what Sen. Kaine and Fr. Arsenault will not: defend our preborn brethren by exposing abortion as the decapitation and dismemberment of tiny human beings, instruct the parishioners of St. Elizabeth’s on the teachings of the Church, and inform them that Sen. Kaine publicly supports the decapitation and dismemberment of tiny human beings under the guise of being ‘personally pro-life,’” Egger said.

Every four years, millions of Catholics vote for pro-abortion politicians with an apparently clear conscience. (Obama got majorities of Catholic votes in both elections; imagine the scandal if a majority of Catholics voted for a segregationist.) At the same time, as the Pew Study reports, 40 percent of adults who were raised as Catholics have left the Church never to return. These two trends are linked, as the very same tepidness enables pro-choice Catholics, and drives out some fervent souls who decide to worship elsewhere. Note that GOP vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence seems to be one of the fervent; he joined his wife’s evangelical church and stayed pro-life. Tim Kaine stayed Catholic and became pro-choice.

How does something like that happen? Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict, Pope Francis, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and almost 2000 years of Church tradition (going back at least to the Didache) have been absolutely clear that abortion is murder. Full stop. For the government to permit it is criminal, akin to Southern states that used to wink at lynching. Politicians who support legal abortion are “public sinners” akin to members of the Mafia. They have no more place receiving Communion than Al Capone.

How could someone like Jesuit-educated, former missionary Tim Kaine go to Mass every week, hob-nob with his local bishop and not get the Catholic pro-life memo? Maybe nobody sent it. LifeSiteNews delved into the parish which Kaine attends, and found the following:

Kaine’s parish, St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, gave him a standing ovation at Mass after he became Hillary Clinton’s running mate. His pastor, Father Jim Arsenault, praised Kaine in an NPR interview.

“I know that he’s definitely against capital punishment and works to help defend those who are on death row,” Arsenault said. “The church has a teaching with regard to we’re pro-life, and we believe in that seamless garment of life. We respect sometimes lawmakers make difficult decisions.” Arsenault was commenting on how as governor of Virginia, Kaine oversaw several executions. The priest told NPR that he thought the issues most important to Kaine were women’s pay and “social justice issues.”

And there we have our answer. Catholics like Tim Kaine have apostatized on the Church’s most fundamental moral teaching, that human life is good and sacred and cannot be snuffed out for our sexual convenience. When they defend such radical evil for the sake of naked ambition, they are applauded by their fellow-parishioners who think it’s cool to have a celebrity with them each week. And such politicians are protected by their pastors and bishops. Priests like Fr. Arsenault latch onto empty, shallow slogans like the “seamless garment” that have never been endorsed by the Church, just repeated as a mantra by countless tenured Jesuits till it’s hard to tell the difference.

God bless Maggie Egger for leading this witness to life and faith, and LifeSiteNews for reporting on it. Egger and company surely had more pleasant things they could have done with their Sunday morning than stand outside some posh parish and denounce its local hero to the glares of his friends and neighbors. They won’t win any prizes or praise from that quarter.

You see, by taking this stand these pro-life Catholics committed the one unforgivable sin in the suburban, lax post-Catholic church: They made a scene. They shattered the facile illusion of worldly, progressive Sadducees who are exquisitely cozy in our poisoned, post-Christian culture. Egger and company stood as a sign of contradiction, around the cross, and can expect to receive the same contempt as their Savior who hung on it.

We need millions more Catholics like that, confronting politicians, pastors and bishops across the country. If only for the sake of peace and quiet, they might start preaching the Gospel. (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Catholics Fight Back, Picketing Tim Kaine’s Parish” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Michigan High School Football Team Shows What It Thinks of National Anthem

September 5, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner, Weekly /by Jack Davis

When a Michigan high school football team learned that the national anthem would not be played before its Wednesday game, the players took up the challenge.

They sang it themselves.

The Lapeer Lightning freshman team was playing a game against Carman-Ainsworth High School in Flint Township, Mich. Lapeer was told there would be no anthem played before the game.

“Like most schools in the state of Michigan, we choose to play the national anthem prior to the highest level of competition,” Carman-Ainsworth Schools Superintendent Eddie Kindle said, noting that the anthem was to be played before a junior high game later that night. He said that the lack of an anthem was not in any way a form of protest.

When game time rolled around, Lapeer’s freshmen lined up on the sideline, waiting for the anthem to be played.

When they learned it wouldn’t be, they started to sing.

“It’s an incredible feeling. I’ve been with most of these players for three years now. They’re just an awesome group of kids,” Lapeer head coach Bryan Sahr said. “It makes me incredibly emotional and I don’t usually get emotional.”

Sahr said the team was unaware that a formal decision had been made not to play the anthem, which was why the team lined up to hear it. They assumed it was not played due to problems with the sound system.

The coach said the players and fans on the host team’s sideline saluted while his team sang, and then cheered when their rendition was over.

“A lot of teenagers would be embarrassed to do that. I know I don’t like to hear myself sing,” Sahr said.

The school said it was proud of its freshmen.

“We’re just super proud of our guys to overcome that situation and take it upon themselves to sing the national anthem. We couldn’t be prouder,” said Lapeer High School athletic director Shad Spilski.

Lapeer mom Chell Byrnes posted an image of the team on her Facebook page with an explanation of what happened. The post was shared more than 1,700 times and attracted numerous comments.

“I was proud of my great nephew & team for being respectful,” posted Lynn Dunn. “It was the first time ever seeing him play. Kudos to the parents and coaches for installing the pride we should have of our country and the people who serve/served this great nation. … Please share this so that all kids know that it is cool to do the right thing, hard but cool.”

Nicole Driskell Mckenna added, “Maybe Colin Kapernick could learn a few things from our boys!” (For more from the author of “Michigan High School Football Team Shows What It Thinks of National Anthem” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Progressives Just Warped the Word ‘Parent.’ Here’s What That Means for You

September 5, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner, Weekly /by Carly Hoilman

Last week, New York’s highest court effectively redefined what it means to be a parent. The New York State Court of Appeals determined Tuesday that non-biological, non-adoptive parents can claim custody or visitation rights, marking the unprecedented expansion of the understanding of parenthood.

The Ruling

Tuesday’s ruling overturned a 1991 decision that limited the legal definition of parenthood to biological or adoptive relatives, granting only these two groups the ability to seek custody or visitation rights. In this case, Alison D. v. Virginia M., the petitioner (Alison D.) sought visitation rights to see the son of the respondent (Virginia M.) whom Alison D. had helped raise before the lesbian couple split up. Since the respondent was the only biological “parent,” and the two were not married, it was determined that Alison D. had no standing under the New York Domestic Relations Law to seek visitation.

That all changed this week, when 25 years after Alison D. v. Virginia M., the court ruled in Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A. C.C that non-biological, non-adoptive parents can seek custody or visitation if “a partner shows by clear and convincing evidence that the parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together.”

“This is a major step forward for same-sex couples and especially for the children of those parents,” said attorney Eric Wrubel, who argued on behalf of the winning appeal. “Tying the definition of parenthood to biology or adoption was no longer viable. This new ruling will help to protect children, regardless of the marital or financial status of their parents.”

Wrubel represented the child in Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A. C.C, who was seeking time with both of his mothers after his lesbian parents split up.

Tuesday’s decision comes five years after the New York State Senate voted to legalize gay marriage, and just more than a year after the nationwide legalization of gay marriage.

“In light of more recently delineated legal principles, the definition of ‘parent’ established by this Court 25 years ago… has become unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships,” wrote Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam.

The Implications

On the one hand, New York’s decision speaks to society’s acceptance of what some call “spiritual” motherhood or fatherhood — the idea that women and men can demonstrate real maternal or paternal qualities without having a biological connection to the child(ren) under their care. This is why adoption is accepted and even viewed admirably in most American circles.

But there’s a case to be made for why the definition of parenthood should be limited to biology and legal adoption: Parenthood is a monumental responsibility that requires demonstrable dedication to a vulnerable class of human beings. A biological mother who neglects her child is not a parent; nor is a caretaker who has not gone through the legal process of obtaining custody.

Parenthood is a form of stewardship that involves contributing to the formation of another human being. Treating the term “parenthood” as dispensable opens up the potential for ill-fit guardians, such as the state, to usurp a position that up until now has been protected under the law.

Writing for The Federalist last year, author Paul Kengor, who has written a collection of books on communist ideology, outlined several Marxist ideas that have gained popularity and taken form in American policy during the last few years.

In the June 29 piece, Kengor first details portions of “The Origin of the Family,” which scholars consider to be the first joint work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:

There, and elsewhere, we see, among other things, a fanatical push to abolish all right of inheritance, to end home and religious education, to dissolve monogamy in marriage, to pursue pre- and extra-marital sex, to foster and “tolerate” (as Engels put it) the “gradual growth of unconstrained sexual intercourse” by unmarried women, to nationalize all housework, to shift mothers into factories, to move children into daycare nurseries, to separate children into community collectives apart from their natural parents, and, most of all, for society and the state to rear and educate children.

As Engels envisioned, “the single family ceases to be the economic unit of society. Private housekeeping is transformed into a social industry. The care and education of the children becomes a public affair; society looks after all children alike, whether they are legitimate or not.”

Kengor then moves on to the pair’s magnum opus, “The Communist Manifesto,” in which Marx and Engels voice similar goals for what they enthusiastically call the “abolition of the family.” In the work’s famous 10-point plan for bringing about a communist utopia, Kengor notes, one will find that half of these points depend on familial dissolution:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of all property of emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work….

8. … gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools…

Dr. Drew Loses Show After Discussing Hillary’s Health

September 4, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner, Weekly /by Richard Johnson

Dr. Drew Pinsky is so afraid of Hillary Clinton and her supporters, he won’t blame them for the cancellation of his show on HLN, the sister channel of CNN . . .

“Dr. Drew” was canceled eight days after Pinsky discussed Clinton’s health on a radio show, saying he was “gravely concerned not just about her health, but her health care.”

“CNN is so supportive of Clinton, network honchos acted like the Mafia when confronting Drew,” a source told me. “First, they demanded he retract his comments, but he wouldn’t.”

What followed was a series of nasty phone calls and e-mails. “It was downright scary and creepy,” a source close to Pinsky said. (Read more from “Dr. Drew Loses Show After Discussing Hillary’s Health” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Why a Nurse and a Pastor Object to Being Forced to Help Abort Babies

September 4, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner /by Leah Jessen

A pastor and a nurse want Congress to pass legislation that would allow Americans the freedom to opt out of the abortion process.

Chris Lewis, lead pastor of Foothill Church in Glendora, California, says his congregation doesn’t want to be coerced into covering abortions on employee health insurance plans.

But that is exactly what the state of California is doing, Lewis told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

Lewis said it is “shocking” that the state Department of Managed Health Care would force his 1,000-member church, against its deeply held religious convictions, to cover abortion in the health plans of roughly 100 employees.

“We’re stuck in this horrible place,” Lewis told The Daily Signal. “We’re essentially being coerced by the state to violate our conscience.”

“We don’t want to have to cover [abortion],” he said.

Lewis spoke on Capitol Hill at a House forum in July on conscience rights, urging Congress to pass the Conscience Protection Act.

Among about eight others who spoke was a nurse of 26 years, Fe Esperanza Racpan Vinoya.

“I became a nurse to help people, but not to do harm,” Vinoya said.

In 2014, the state of California issued an order requiring all health insurance plans to cover abortion, without a religious exemption.

Lewis said he and his congregation believe life begins at conception, and covering abortions on employee health plans violates the church’s core tenets.

“I can’t believe that we as a church, with this fundamentally, deeply held conviction of ours, can be put in a position to violate our conscience like this,” Lewis said. “We felt like we were over a barrel.” He added:

On the one hand, we’re required to offer coverage under Obamacare. We want to provide that for our employees. … We want to care for them. We want to care for their families. At the same time, we’re being told … to have coverage of the termination of all pregnancies, regardless [whether it is] elective or otherwise.

“I’m really troubled by the idea that the state can just say it doesn’t matter, that your religious freedoms don’t matter to us,” Lewis said.

The House of Representatives passed the Conscience Protection Act, introduced by Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., by a vote of 245-182 the week after the forum where Lewis and Vinoya spoke.

The legislation would prohibit the federal government and state or local governments that receive federal health dollars from penalizing or discriminating against health care providers for refusing to “perform, refer for, pay for, or otherwise participate in abortion.”

The legislation is the House’s amended version of an originally unrelated Senate bill sponsored by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. The Senate now must vote on the amended bill.

President Barack Obama is expected to veto the measure should it win final passage in his final five months in office.

The Obama administration “strongly opposes” the legislation, according to a statement from the Executive Office of the President.

“This bill would unduly limit women’s health care choices by allowing a broadly defined set of health providers (including secular sponsors of employer-based health coverage) to decline to provide abortion coverage based on any objections,” the statement says.

Donna Crane, vice president of policy at NARAL Pro-Choice America, described the Conscience Protection Act as legislation that “lets even more people get in between you and the health care you choose.”

Vinoya, the veteran nurse, told The Daily Signal that she doesn’t want to be forced to participate in abortions.

About five years ago, Vinoya was part of a group of 12 pro-life nurses who sued the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey over a hospital rule that would force all nurses to assist in abortions.

“No one actually knew what to do because the management was saying to us that we were going to lose our job or … be transferred to another unit [for not cooperating],” Vinoya said.

It was a “horrible feeling” for everybody, she said.

The university’s hospital in Newark said at the time that it was not directly forcing nurses to participate in any abortions.

In her remarks July 8 during the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Forum on Protecting Conscience Rights, Vinoya said:

Participating in the destruction of human life is not only a violation of my religious convictions as a Christian, it also conflicts with my calling as a medical professional to protect life, not to end it.

After a court hearing in 2011, the New Jersey hospital agreed not to force the pro-life nurses to assist in abortions.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal aid group, represents Lewis and his church as well as Vinoya and the other pro-life nurses.

“I think that the [Conscience Protection Act] should be passed for professionals like me who are not fortunate enough to have people … who have selflessly helped us get through this ordeal and saved us our jobs,” Vinoya told The Daily Signal.

Lewis said he wants to stand up for the rights of unborn children.

“The most voiceless people in the culture are the unborn,” Lewis said. “We want to be a part of not further propagating abortions and allowing that to happen, but actually trying to see [abortions] reduced [and] restricted.” (For more from the author of “Why a Nurse and a Pastor Object to Being Forced to Help Abort Babies” please click HERE)

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It’s Not Just the Unborn Who Are ‘Voiceless’ in the Fight for Life

September 4, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner /by Nate Madden

A majority of America’s pulpits may be silent on the issue of abortion, but a new movie seeks to change that through a harrowing and inspiring story of forgiveness, courage, and hope. “Voiceless,” an upcoming film from American Hero Movie, LLC. and C3 Studios, tells the story of a man whose bold stance for unborn life nearly costs him not only his job, his freedom, his life, but also the respect and support of his church and his family.

Jesse Dean, superbly portrayed by Rusty Joiner, fits the familiar archetype of a recently discharged combat veteran shouldering the physical and psychological scars of his time overseas. His newfound faith in God drives him to move to work at New Life Fellowship, an old Philadelphia church whose membership is declining.

While Jesse’s focus is initially focused on a boxing ministry outreach geared towards the neighborhood youth, his routine doesn’t last long after he notices the women coming in and out of an abortion clinic located right across the street.

After a distressed woman who comes to him for help decides to abort her child, Jesse sets out to turn his pro-life beliefs into action through sidewalk counseling and local activism. But, long after being discharged, Jesse finds himself trapped in a two-front war on the streets of Philadelphia.

From the outset, Jesse’s struggle is not unknown to those in the pro-life movement or anyone who has ever taken the time to pray silently outside a clinic. Local government cronyism, media slander, and vitriolic insults wear Jesse down as expected. The emotional pain — resulting from rejection and the knowledge that this rejection means a loss of innocent life — contributes to Jesse’s depression: He becomes disheveled, dejected, and slightly erratic by the middle of the film. But what really wears on our hero is a near-complete lack of support, timid silence, and round criticisms by his fellow Christians, specifically his wife, Julia, and his congregation.

Throughout the film, these voices manifest in near constant streams of criticism and concern about what Jesse’s pro-life activities could mean for the church’s image.

This pressure takes the form of pastors and church elders asking him, “Do you know what this sort of thing does to a church?” The sentiment is echoed by fellow members who persistently argue that the church’s focus should stay out of “political” battles and instead focus on more PR-friendly forms of ministry like feeding the hungry.

“You mean with signs?!” asks one member when Jesse brings up the issue of addressing the clinic as a church. “We shouldn’t get political,” says another. “We should be saving souls, not pushing them away,” says yet another church member.

It is in these scenes that the film’s title takes on a second meaning: Not only are the children who are being killed across the street voiceless, but so also are the members of New Life Fellowship.

Art Imitates Real Life, Unfortunately

But the timid, silent leadership of Jesse’s church is more than a phenomenon of fiction. Recent polling suggests that it represents a real and troubling majority of congregations in cities, suburbs, and parishes across the United States.

A recent Pew Poll found that only 29 percent of more than 4,000 adults interviewed said they recently heard about the topic of abortion from the pulpit. Even more despairing for the cause of the preborn is the fact that of the two groups who heard the most — white Evangelicals and Catholics — only 36 percent claimed to have heard the subject touched upon. Furthermore, in an America, where a black child is five times more likely to be killed in the womb than a white child, black Protestant churches have fallen especially silent on the issue of abortion. The study finds that only 16 percent of respondents said that their pastor had openly discussed or preached on the issue.

If Christians aren’t even hearing about this from the pulpit, how can any but the most dedicated ever be expected to take action?

But the film also shows how this sort of “comfortable” public witness is the kind that leaves the body of Christ spiritually starved. The missional poverty of this kind of “comfort” Christianity is the kind of beige thinking satisfied with easy ministry but unwilling to stand against grave injustices like the taking of unborn life.

“I’ve been to enough pot luck dinners,” Miss Elsie, a founding member of the church but who has stopped coming, says to Jessie. Ultimately, however, what brings Miss Elsie back into the fold is not the comfort of self-congratulation but the courage and action required for the beauty of life to prevail against a culture of death.

Yes, “Voiceless” is definitely a film by pro-lifers for pro-lifers, but in this case that’s a good and necessary thing. Unlike other pro-life movies like “Bella” or “October Baby,” this film does not spend too much of its time on pro-life apologetics. Rather, it speaks to an audience, which may see the truth of the life argument and holds up a harsh mirror to those who dare not profess that belief in any meaningful, public way.

This is the sort of message that is meant to remind churches how to seek justice truly in the public square: to drive out timidity from the corners of our hearts and the comfort of our pews, to be courageous, and to defend the defenseless.

After all, “In the end,” reads the famous quotation by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” (For more from the author of “It’s Not Just the Unborn Who Are ‘Voiceless’ in the Fight for Life” please click HERE)

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No, Republican Voters Are Not ‘Moving on’ From Marriage

September 3, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner /by Frank Schubert

A year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s narrow 5-4 ruling redefining marriage, many of the elite in the Republican Party are anxious to declare “the marriage issue” settled. It’s a common refrain from high-ranking Republicans: “The Supreme Court has spoken” and the party should move on to other issues.

The trouble for the echo chamber of corporate lobbyists, paid political consultants, wealthy donors and media personalities who constantly push this narrative is that the actual Republican Party — the tens of millions of Americans who vote in elections — do not buy the refrain, and they regularly hold accountable those who do.

Zerr Zapped

Anne Zerr is the latest example. A state house member in Missouri, Zerr was one of three Republicans who refused to support SJR 39, a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would protect supporters of marriage from being punished by government for refusing to be part of same-sex “marriage.” SJR 39 is essentially the Missouri version of the First Amendment Defense Act pending in Congress.

Grassroots activists had pushed the measure through the state senate to protect the bakers, florists, photographers, innkeepers, and others who have been targeted in other states with lawsuits, fines, and financial and reputational ruin from facing a similar fate in Missouri. SJR 39 would have let voters decide the issue. But when LGBT activists and their allies in corporate America expressed their opposition, Zerr caved and helped kill the proposal.

Unfortunately for Anne Zerr, she then faced voters in a Republican primary race for an open state Senate seat. Social conservatives saw an opportunity to send a message to the echo chamber by opposing her. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) funded mailers and phone calls targeting Zerr for her refusal to allow voters to protect supporters of marriage. And ordinary voters responded.

NOM endorsed her main opponent, conservative businessman and devout Catholic Bill Eigel, who supported SJR 39. On August 2nd, Eigel defeated Zerr in the Republican primary.

Numerous GOP Political Careers Wrecked By Muffing the Marriage Test

Zerr is not the first Republican to pay with her career for following the urgings of the elite to abandon marriage. She is just the latest.

It’s rarely covered by the media, but the political landscape is littered with the wrecked careers of Republicans who abandoned the party’s commitment to marriage as it has always existed, which is a foundational institution of virtually every faith tradition on the planet.

New York enacted same-sex marriage only because four Republicans in the state senate listened to the political elite and wealthy donors and voted against their party platform and the wishes of their constituents. They were promised, and received, big-time fundraising help from Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Wall Street billionaires. But none of that mattered. Conservatives and marriage supporters like NOM focused voters on their betrayal.

An unprecedented coalition of people with diverse beliefs and backgrounds came together to hold these legislators accountable — including African American and Hispanic clergy, the orthodox Jewish community, New York’s Conservative Party and longtime GOP activists. Today, all four Republicans who for voted for gay “marriage” are now former senators. Despite all the Wall Street money, grassroots activists were able to spread the word about the betrayal these four senators committed — and the voters responded.

Not Even Coastal Republicans are Safe

This phenomenon is not limited to state legislative races. In 2014, two prominent gay Republicans were recruited by GOP leaders in Washington to run for congressional seats in California (Carl DeMaio) and Massachusetts (Richard Tisei). Both made support for gay “marriage” a prominent feature in their election campaigns. As a result, social conservatives opposed them both, some going so far as to endorse their Democratic opponents on the theory that the lesser of two evils was to have a bad Democrat serve for two years rather than a bad Republican serve for decades. DeMaio and Tisei each raised millions, but both were defeated.

A similar thing has happened in races for the US Senate. In California, Republican Tom Campbell, a former state legislator and member of Congress, came out in support of redefining marriage. Social conservatives funded TV ads against him, and he lost a competitive GOP US Senate primary as a result.

The same thing happened in New Hampshire, when NOM funded an ad campaign against wealthy businessman Bill Binnie, who thought gay “marriage” was his ticket to the US Senate. Binnie was defeated. This past cycle, Monica Wehby was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Oregon and promptly aired a TV commercial announcing her support for redefining marriage. Conservatives responded by openly opposing her, and Wehby was trounced.

Naturally, GOP Champions of Natural Marriage Tend to Thrive

Principled Courage Trumps Political Cash

Meanwhile, US Senate candidates in competitive races who stood firm in their support for marriage — often against the wishes of corporate interests and the consulting class — were rewarded. Tom Cotton in Arkansas and Thom Tillis in North Carolina both benefited from independent expenditure campaigns from groups like NOM in winning their elections.

Lest you conclude that this is a battle between social conservative money and corporate money, it’s not primarily the money that matters. Social conservatives are always outspent by the corporate interests, and often badly. What matters is the support of the voters. Once they are alerted to where the candidates stand, they respond. A modest degree of spending by social conservatives produces an outsized response because voters deeply care about the issue.

It’s not only partisan candidates who have seen this effect. In Iowa, three sitting members of the state supreme court, including its chief justice, were removed from the bench by voters furious with their ruling imposing gay “marriage” in that state. An aggressive campaign opposing their judicial retention was mounted by social conservatives to alert voters to their judicial misdeeds.

It should be acknowledged that these races often involve more than the marriage issue. There is usually a range of issues at play in any contested race, whether for the state legislature or Congress. But unquestionably, marriage was a critical issue in all of these contests. Marriage was the issue that drove conservatives to oppose and ultimately defeat incumbents like Anne Zerr in Missouri.

A Solid Platform to Run On

Finally, it is also important to note the importance that support for marriage played most recently in the GOP when grassroots Republican activists made their views clear in crafting the national Republican Party platform last month in Cleveland. Despite an organized and well-funded campaign by Wall Street billionaires and corporate lobbyists to “modernize” the party’s official position on marriage, convention delegates utterly rejected the notion.

The 2016 GOP platform is the most pro-traditional marriage platform ever adopted. It specifically calls for reversing the Obergefell ruling redefining marriage. It explicitly condemns as the product of activist judges the rulings on marriage in both Obergefell and the Windsor case that overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and it calls for the appointment of Supreme Court justices who will reject their reasoning. It endorses the First Amendment Defense Act to protect supporters of marriage from governmental persecution. And it calls for a constitutional amendment to return to the states their right to define marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman.

Never fans of social issues to begin with, it’s a safe bet that the consulting class, corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors will ignore the mountain of evidence all around them that rank-and-file Republican activists and voters revere marriage and will act to defend it. But Republican candidates should come to understand that succumbing to the pleadings of the elite echo chamber can come at a very high price: their very political careers. (For more from the author of “No, Republican Voters Are Not ‘Moving on’ From Marriage” please click HERE)

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As Predicted, Gay Activists Attack the Messengers, Ignore the Evidence

September 2, 2016/0 Comments/in Featured, Kathleen's Korner /by Michael Brown

After a major new report was released a little over one week ago challenging the standard LGBT talking points, I predicted that rather than interact with the findings of that report (specifically, a 143-page analysis of 200 previous, peer-reviewed studies), most gay activists and their allies would attack the authors of that study.

Before the day was out, the prediction began to come true, and it has been confirmed numerous times since then.

The report, authored by Lawrence S. Mayer and Paul R. McHugh, was titled, “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” and was published by The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society.

On Right Wing Watch, the headline to Peter Montgomery’s article stated, “A New Regnerus? Anti-Equality Groups Promote New Study on Sexual Orientation and Gender.”

He was referring, of course, to Prof. Mark Regnerus, whose studies claiming that children of gay parents do not fare as well as children of straight parents came under such attack that he almost lost his job. So much for academic tolerance and diversity.

“So-Called Findings,” Frightening Funding

Worse still, Montgomery writes, the new report is being hailed by notorious conservatives like Brian Brown of the National Organization of Marriage and Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation. Surely the research must be faulty if conservatives are citing it.

Robbie Medwed, writing for TheNewCivilRights.com, dismisses the report as that of a “Right-Wing Think Tank,” referring to The New Atlantis as “a so-called Journal of Technology and Society,” and then making reference to the report’s “findings” (It’s in quotes, as if to say so-called findings. And note this is “a so-called Journal of Technology and Society.” Perhaps it’s actually a phone book or novel masquerading as a journal?).

Medwed continues, “To fully understand where this study came from and what’s really going on, let’s take a look at its authors and who’s funding it,” pointing to the journal’s conservative affiliations, in particular the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC).

How evil is the EPPC? Medwed cites the organization’s own description: It is an “institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy” — how utterly wicked!

But there’s more: “EPPC and its scholars have consistently sought to defend and promote our nation’s founding principles — respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, individual freedom and responsibility, justice, the rule of law, and limited government.”

Surely there is no possible way that an organization like this, which helps publish The New Atlantis, could produce an unbiased, academically rigorous piece of research. Obviously not. It believes in the Judeo-Christian moral tradition!

Boos for McHugh

As for McHugh, “His work has been debunked time and time again. McHugh has a distinguished track record of anti-LGBT bigotry and harm … Simply, there is no possible way anyone can argue that his ‘scholarship’ is unbiased and objective.”

Medwed apparently fails to realize the circular reasoning of his argument, namely, that because McHugh’s research leads him to differ with LGBT talking points, and because LGBT researchers differ with his findings, “there is no possible way anyone can argue that his ‘scholarship’ is unbiased and objective.”

As for Mayer, he “reinterpreted” the data “to fit the outcomes they desired.”

At The Daily Beast, the headline to Samantha Allen’s article said it all: “The Right’s Favorite Anti-LGBT Doctor Strikes Again. Dr. Paul McHugh has a long history of anti-science, anti-LGBT stances. That doesn’t stop conservative media from lauding his work.”

How dare conservatives cite a bigot like him!

Over at The Advocate, the headline to Dean Hamer’s study read, “New ‘Scientific’ Study on Sexuality, Gender is Neither New nor Scientific.”

Scorning the call by Drs. Mayer and McHugh for “more research,” Dr. Hamer wrote, “Mayer has never published a single article on human sexuality or gender (his name doesn’t even appear in the paper’s bibliography), and McHugh actually has a long history of blocking such efforts, beginning with his closure of the pioneering gender identity clinic at Johns Hopkins in 1979. McHugh claimed that his decision was based in science, but his real motivation became clear through his repeated reference to gender-confirmation surgery as a ‘mutilation’ and his decision to explain his actions not in a scientific journal but in a conservative Catholic publication.”

So, Dr. McHugh only “claimed that his decision was based in science.” It obviously was not, since he ended up opposing sex-change surgery and transgender activism.

To The Advocate’s credit, they did ask a respected gay scientist to pen the article, and Dr. Hamer does interact critically with the report. (Again, I said that most would attack the messengers rather than interact with the substance of the report, not that all would.)

The Messengers’ Vehicle Also Attacked

Still, it is noteworthy that Dr. Hamer can hardly be called unbiased himself, since he is famous for his search for a gay gene. And even as a seasoned professional, he cannot hide his disdain, closing with these words: “But when the data we have struggled so long and hard to collect is twisted and misinterpreted by people who call themselves scientists, and who receive the benefits and protection of a mainstream institution such as John Hopkins Medical School, it disgusts me.”

Shoot the messengers indeed.

Similarly, Zach Ford who is the LGBT editor for ThinkProgress.org and who describes himself as “Gay, Atheist, Pianist, Unapologetic ‘Social Justice Warrior,” interacted at length with the content of the study, but not without launching some broadsides against the authors and publishers of the report.

While citing the critique of the Mayer-McHugh report by Dr. Warren Throckmorton (who, as would be expected, challenged their findings), Ford also wrote that Dr. McHugh is “generally the only scientist whom opponents of transgender equality ever cite and who has his own history of overt anti-LGBT bias.” As for The New Atlantis, he described it as “a journal that is affiliated with the anti-LGBT Ethics and Public Policy Center and prides itself on not being peer-reviewed.”

Pediatricians Smeared for Good Measure

And while Ford seeks to be even-handed in his critique, taking time to delve into the subject matter, he still refers to the American College of Pediatricians, which opposes transgender activism, as “the fake anti-LGBT American College of Pediatricians.”

A previous article by Ford even carried this headline, “Fake Medical Organization Publishes Lie-Ridden Manifesto Attacking Transgender Kids. Do not trust your children with the American College of Pediatricians.”

So, because these pediatricians felt that the need to break away from the left-leaning American Academy of Pediatricians, based on their own research and medical experience and values, they are a “fake medical organization,” despite the fact that membership is limited to “pediatricians and other healthcare professionals who provide care primarily for infants, children, or adolescents.”

If they are not pro-LGBT activism, they cannot be a legitimate medical organization!

And on and on it goes.

I do hope that in the days to come, researchers and scientists from all camps will take the time to interact fairly and honestly with the Mayer-McHugh report, but for the moment, I guess this is where I say, “I hate to say it, but I told you so.” (For more from the author of “As Predicted, Gay Activists Attack the Messengers, Ignore the Evidence” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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