Tag Archives: Obama

Clinton/Obama and Updated Bush/Obama First Terms “By the Numbers” Released

The Alabama Policy Institute (API) has released a new infographic in its By the Numbers series that presents side-by-side statistics from comparable time periods during the first terms in office of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as an updated infographic comparing the first terms in office of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The one-page Clinton/Obama Presidents’ First Terms By the Numbers and the Bush/Obama Presidents’ First Terms By the Numbers infographics cover a variety of key issues including the cost of health insurance and a gallon of gas, as well as federal regulations implemented, length of unemployment, job creation and loss, per capita income, national debt, approval ratings, change in the S&P 500, number of federal employees, Americans on food stamps and others.

The infographics, in which all dollars have been adjusted for inflation to provide realistic comparisons, can be found in their entirety on the By the Numbers page at www.alabamapolicy.org.

According to API Policy Director and General Counsel Cameron Smith, API was vigilant in gathering truly comparable statistics.

“It was important to API that we provide an apples-to-apples comparison,” Smith said. “Since President Obama’s first term is not over, we did not pair statistics of his incomplete term with those of President Clinton’s or President Bush’s full term. If data was only available for the first three years of Mr. Obama’s administration for a particular statistic, we compared that figure to the same information from the first three years of the Bush and Clinton administrations.”

“An informed electorate is a powerful force, and we hope our By the Numbers series provides a basic, easy-to-comprehend snapshot that will educate Americans on the issues that matter most.”

By the Numbers</em. complements API's studies, white papers, issue briefs, editorials and other resources available at www.alabamapolicy.org. Other topics addressed in the By the Numbers series include Energy, K-12 Education and Medicaid.

Another Successful Islamic Terrorist Attack, Why? (Corrected)

News about the facts being discovered by the investigations of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya continues to unfold. What the recent Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings made apparent is that the Obama administration was lying to the American public. Obama blamed the incident on an anti-Islamic film probably because such a film actually did incite a violent riot in Egypt. Nevertheless, the terrorist attack was was planned military style attack. It was most likely motivated both by revenge against our government’s military intervention in toppling the Gaddafi as noted by Congressman Kucinich and in-sync with the memory of the successful attack by Islamic terrorists against America on 9/11 as Congresswoman Adams made evident. At the same time, the successful terrorist attack in Benghazi was made possible by a minimization of the real threat posed by Islamic terrorists by the Obama administration in general and the real escalating violence and threats in Benghazi as emphasized by Congressman Rohrbacher. This was an issue repeatedly explored by various members of the Oversight Committee and confirmed by witnesses who were directly involved in security of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. In fact, Lt. Colonel Woods and Mr. Nordstrom, who was head of security in Libya prior to the attack, both affirmed that they had requested more armed military units to meet previous levels security personnel but their requests were ignored or denied by the Department of State.

As you will hear in the following video, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinish discusses the illegality of the Obama’s intervention in Libya and how it has created animus of Libyans against America. He makes it evident that neither the current Libyan government or Obama’s administration know which terrorist groups possesses the thousand of weapons and missles missing from Liyba’s arsenal. Thus, demonstrating the severity of the threat in Benghazi.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TnoYMMVrJ0&w=500&h=375]

As previously mentioned, an underlying problem contributing the successful terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi is Obama administration’s mindset. It is a mindset that minimizes the threat of Islamic radicalism. This mindset towards Islam makes America appear weak and thus has made our embassies more vulnerable. This is brought out clearly by Congressman Rohrbacher in the next video.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGV1e8ab3nI&w=500&h=375]

Congresswoman Adams has experience in law enforcement, Her questioning not not focused on those concerns common to law enforcement concerning terrorism, but it further demonstrated the disregard for those same issues by the State Department’s head of embassy security, which is detailed in the next video.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qC1Ay2aME&w=500&h=375]

Congressman Jim Cooper read a list of American military and embassy personnel who were killed by terrorist attacks. The provide important perspective no both the real threat to our Ambassadors, their staffs, and our military. By implication, it affirms Congressman Kucinich’s position that much of U.S. military interventionism produces anti-American violence.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYzc4O2CAWQ&hl=en_US&w=500&h=277]

The only real difference between Central American terrorists and Islamic terrorists is ideological justification and concomitant financial support. Nicaraguans and other Central Americans have experience the violent and degrading interventionism of the American government as have the Libyans and others. Central Americans have no religion or other pervasive worldview that has historically justified killing others, but Muslim do. Because Central Americans do not, they have no financial backers make it possible for armed attacks or war against the American government i.e., ambassadors, embassy employees, military personnel, etc. Muslim, however, do have such backing as Al-Qaeda and all other Islamic Jihadists do.

Obama Administration’s War on Persecuted Christians

by Raymond Ibrahim
Special to IPT News
August 2, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3695/obama-administration-war-on-persecuted-christians

The Obama administration’s support for its Islamist allies means a lack of U.S. support for their enemies or, more properly, victims—the Christian and other non-Muslim minorities of the Muslim world. Consider the many recent proofs:

According to Pete Winn of CNS:

The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that it released on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline Congress set for the release of these reports. The new human rights reports—purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered—are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Thus, the reports do not provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East that saw the rise of revolutionary movements in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an instrumental role. For the first time ever, the State Department simply eliminated the section of religious freedom in its reports covering 2011… (emphasis added).

The CNS report goes on to quote several U.S. officials questioning the motives of the Obama administration. Former U.S. diplomat Thomas Farr said that he has “observed during the three-and-a-half years of the Obama administration that the issue of religious freedom has been distinctly downplayed.” Leonard Leo, former chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said “to have pulled religious freedom out of it [the report] means that fewer people will obtain information,” so that “you don’t have the whole picture.”

It’s not the first time the administration has suppressed knowledge concerning the suffering of religious minorities under Islam. Earlier it suppressed knowledge concerning Islam itself (see here for a surreal example of the effects of such censorship).

In “Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution,” James Walsh gives more examples of State Department indifference “regarding the New Years’ murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the ravaging of a cathedral,” including how the State Department “refused to list Egypt as ‘a country of particular concern,’ even as Christians and others were being murdered, churches destroyed, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. ”

And the evidence keeps mounting. Legislation to create a special envoy for religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia—legislation that, in the words of the Washington Post, “passed the House by a huge margin,” has been stalled by Sen. James Webb, D-Va.:

In a letter sent to Webb Wednesday night, Rep. Frank Wolf [R-Va, who introduced the envoy bill] said he “cannot understand why” the hold had been placed on a bill that might help Coptic Christians and other groups “who face daily persecution, hardship, violence, instability and even death.”

Yet the ultimate source of opposition is the State Department. The Post continues:

Webb spokesman Will Jenkins explained the hold by saying that “after considering the legislation, Senator Webb asked the State Department for its analysis.” In a position paper issued in response, State Department officials said “we oppose the bill as it infringes on the Secretary’s [Hillary Clinton’s] flexibility to make appropriate staffing decisions,” and suggested the duties of Wolf’s proposed envoy would overlap with several existing positions. “The new special envoy position is unnecessary, duplicative, and likely counterproductive,” the State Department said (emphasis added).

But as Wolf explained in his letter: “If I believed that religious minorities, especially in these strategic regions, were getting the attention warranted at the State Department, I would cease in pressing for passage of this legislation. Sadly, that is far from being the case. We must act now…. Time is running out.”

Much of this was discussed during Coptic Solidarity’s third annual conference in Washington D.C. last month, which I participated in, and which featured many politicians and lawmakers—including the U.K.’s Lord Alton, Senator Roy Blunt, Congressman Trent Franks, Congressman Joseph Pitts, and Frank Wolf himself. As Coptic Solidarity’s summary report puts it, “All policy makers voiced strong support to the Copts…. Some policy makers raised concerns about the current U.S. Administration’s overtures towards religious extremists.”

There was little doubt among the speakers that, while Webb is the front man, Hillary Clinton—who was named often—is ultimately behind the opposition to the bill. (Videos of all speakers can be accessed here; for information on the envoy bill and how to contact Webb’s office, click here).

Even those invited to speak about matters outside of Egypt, such as Nigerian lawyer and activist Emmanuel Ogebe, wondered at Obama’s position that the ongoing massacres of Christians have nothing to do with religion. After describing the sheer carnage of thousands of Christians at the hands of Muslim militants, lamented that Obama’s response was to pressure the Nigerian president to make more concessions, including by creating more mosques (the very places that “radicalize” Muslims against infidel Christians).

Indeed, while the administration vocally condemned vandal attacks on mosques in the West Bank (where no Muslims died), it had nothing to say when Islamic terrorists bombed Nigerian churches on Easter Sunday, killing some 50 Christians and wounding hundreds. And when the Egyptian military indiscriminately massacred dozens of unarmed Christians for protesting the nonstop attacks on their churches, all the White House could say is, “Now is a time for restraint on all sides”—as if Egypt’s beleaguered Christian minority needs to “restrain” itself against the nation’s military, a military that intentionally ran armored vehicles over them at Maspero.

In light of all this, naturally the Obama administration, in the guise of the State Department, would oppose a bill to create an envoy who will only expose more religious persecution that the administration will have to suppress or obfuscate?

Bottom line: In its attempts to empower its Islamist allies, the current U.S. administration has taken up their cause by waging a war of silence on their despised enemies—the Christians and other minorities of the Islamic world.

Obama Elevates LGBT as U.S. Foreign Policy Priority

By Wendy Wright

(GENEVA – C-FAM)   All federal agencies dealing with U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance must now promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. This new priority puts U.S. foreign policy on a collision course with religious freedom.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced President Obama’s sweeping directive to UN diplomats in Geneva last week. Along with the full-force of the U.S. government, a Global Equality Fund will equip foreign LGBT groups to agitate within countries.

Every federal agency engaged overseas, and “other agencies as the President may designate,” is directed to “combat the criminalization of LGBT status or conduct abroad,” assist LGBT refugees and asylum seekers, leverage aid to advance LGBT nondiscrimination, respond swiftly to abuses of LGBT persons abroad, enlist international organizations “in the fight,” and report on progress.

A State Department official said, “We are not just having people . . . whose full-time job it is to occupy ourselves with concerns of human rights, but also people whose daily grind is, most of the time, spent on different things.”

This elevates LGBT above every other people group, including those persecuted for religious beliefs, promoting democracy and human rights, ethnic minorities, and women.

Asked by the Friday Fax if any other minority has this status, the State Department did not respond.

By one account, only nine countries do not discriminate in some way against LGBT individuals, such as donating blood or “higher age of consent laws.”

Obama’s directive comes as Nigeria debates a bill to protect marriage. The Catholic Medical Association of Nigeria denounced “the coordinated ferocity” by foreign governments and international groups “browbeating” legislators to adopt laws that are premised on “dubious science and ethical mischief.”

Reacting to Obama’s order, Oliver Kisaka with the National Council of Churches of Kenya told the CS Monitor, “God did not make a mistake; being gay is that person’s own perspective. Those who live as gays need help to live right and we should not be supporting them to live in a wrong reality.

“Society should reach out to gays and transgender people to help them out of their situation. They have not ceased to be God’s children and no one is a gone case.”

Clinton equated religious and cultural views on sexuality and gender identity with “violent practices toward women like honor killings, widow burning or female genital mutilation.”

Tina Ramirez of the Washington DC–based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty told the Friday Fax, “The Administration is sticking its head in the sand when it comes to the conflict between gay rights and religious freedom. The failure of either the President or the Secretary of State to articulate how the international LGBT rights initiative will interact with religious conscientious objection is a recipe for conflict between the two. No one disagrees with Secretary Clinton’s truism that religious freedom doesn’t protect religiously-motivated violence against anyone. But the real issue, that neither the President nor Secretary Clinton talked about, is what happens when the LGBT initiative conflicts with sincere conscientious objection. Religious liberty is a fundamental human right protected in the United States Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and countless other human rights instruments; the Administration seems to be treating it as an afterthought.”

Wendy Wright is Managing Editor of FridayFax, internet report published weekly by C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (http://www.c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission.”

2011 UN Agenda: Same As It Ever Was

By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.

UN-watchers expect the new year’s agenda to include youth, demography, reproductive health, the homosexual agenda, and the global economic crisis.

Last summer the UN announced the International Year for Youth that runs for a year. UN leaders expected commitments for a global conference on youth slated for sometime next summer, but the General Assembly failed to approve a final plan. Even so, wary conservatives expect some aggressive action on youth in the new year.

In particular, social conservatives expect a massive push to sexualize young children, something made explicit at the World Youth Conference in Mexico last August, as well as in a UN report calling for radical sexual education for young children last Fall.

Global demographic meltdown also concerns UN Member States. Governments around the world bemoan below replacement fertility rates and crashing social welfare systems. The UN says 70 countries have fertility rates that are below replacement level. According to many economists, states with below replacement level fertility will not be able to sustain their social benefit systems, with too few new workers to pay for the benefits of rapidly ageing populations.

The demographic crisis challenges the decades-old emphasis by UN agencies and Western countries in pushing population control in the guise of reproductive health and sustainable development on the developing world. The UN Commission on Population and Development this year deals with the directly related issues of fertility and development.

One of the most contentious issues since the 1990’s, UN agencies, UN commissions and left-wing advocacy groups use the term reproductive health to push for a right to abortion. Advocates expect a pitched battle this year over the reproductive health agenda and a serious push back from pro-life quarters.

Just this month, the journal Contraception published a study from Spain that found that although contraceptive use increased 60%, the abortion rate doubled. This directly contradicts the widely-accepted dogma that increased use of contraception reduces the number of abortions.

Member States also face serious concerns over the deepening financial crisis. Western governments face massive deficits and are moving in the direction of austerity budgets. Newly elected Republicans in the US intend to follow Canada’s lead to defund Planned Parenthood, as well as other programs that push abortion and controversial issues.

With most of the major international donors experiencing severe fiscal problems, development aid and obtaining additional funding commitments will be a major emerging issue in 2011.

The homosexual agenda will be pervasive in many international negotiations in 2011, partly due to the Obama administration making it a primary focus of its foreign policy. Expect to see several attempts to incorporate the undefined terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into as many UN documents as possible.

Finally, UN Secretary General, Ban ki-Moon is up for reelection this year. Social conservatives complained about his outspoken support in December for the homosexual agenda and the appointments of many pro-abortion advocates to high level UN positions under his watch.

Originally published in Friday Fax, January 6, 2011. Friday fax is a publication of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM).

Is Obama Pro-Israel?

The November 12th edition of The Progress Report, the politically progressive author argues that the Obama administration is supportive of Israel. The following is an excerpt of the post titled “Obama’s Pro-Israel Record”.

The ongoing disagreement over the settlements has tended to obscure the Obama administration’s record of support for Israel, and has been used by critics to dishonestly label the President as “anti-Israel.” But by any reasonable measure, Obama has been an extremely pro-Israel president. He has significantly expanded trade between Israel and the U.S., and played an extremely important behind-the-scenes role in bringing about Israel’s acceptance into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a long sought-after Israeli goal. In September, Obama went before the United Nations General Assembly and challenged the international community to support Arab-Israeli peace, and declared that “Israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate.” He also assured the world that “efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakable opposition of the United States.” In comments made to The Progress Report in August, Josh Block of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee remarked, “Clearly the Obama administration remains deeply committed to the U.S.-Israel alliance.”

It’s been rumored that Secretaty of State Clinton was pro-Israel prior to Obama’s becoming president. That would help explain pro-Israel of the staunchly pro-Muslim presidency, which is the resounding sentiment of many Israelis and others. Being representative of American interests such as Middle East peace and trade, Obama also would of necessity seek to get Israeli officials what they want in exchange for serious negotiations with the Palestinians.

Cost of Government Day Finally Arrives on August 19, 2010

Every year, the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and the Center for Fiscal Accountability calculate Cost of Government Day. This is the day on which the average American has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state, and local levels.

In 2010, Cost of Government Day falls on August 19. That means working people must toil 231 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government. In other words, the cost of government consumes 63.41 percent of national income.

“Two years ago Americans worked until July 16 to pay for the cost of government: all federal, state and local government spending and regulatory costs. That government was too expensive and wasteful. Two years later, we work until August 19 for the same bloated government. We have lost an additional full month of our income to pay the cost of government in just the last two years,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

Key findings of the Cost of Government Day report include:

  • Cost of Government Day (COGD) falls 8 days later in 2010 than last year’s revised date of August 11.
  • Workers will have to labor 104 days just to pay for federal spending, which consumes 28.6 percent of national income.
  • Taxpayers will have to work 52 days just to pay for state and local government expenditures.
  • The average American worker must labor 74 days to cover the costs of government regulations. A breakdown of the COGD components can be found here.
  • The report also includes a state breakdown. The earliest Cost of Government Day occurs in Alaska, on July 28. Connecticut has the latest COGD, on September 17.
  • One of the contributing factors to increased spending is the growth in government payrolls. The federal workforce totaled 4.4 million employees this year, while the addition of state and local workers brings the total government workforce to 24.315 million employees.
  • The report also tracks taxpayer migration, showing taxes are a driving component behind interstate movement. In 2008, the ten states with no income tax gained over 80,000 new residents who brought with them over $900 million in net adjusted income. In contrast, the states with the highest tax burden lost 129,445 residents and $10.2 billion in wealth.

To read more, go to the Americans for Tax Reform webiste.

Eugenics in 2010: Obamacare Cost-Cutting Genetic Discrimination

In the March 31st edition of LifeNews, Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life, wrote how Obamacare further the eugenics the Left introduced in the United States through abortion.

Hawkins interest in the current health care reform stems from her infant son’s battle with Cystic fibrosis, an expensive-to-treat and fatal genetic disease. Obamacare threatens to ration top notch healthcare for children like her son.

The question is does she have any support for her concern?

The following quote is from her LifeNews article:

A week before the doomed healthcare vote, Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI) admitted to the National Review Online that Congressional Democrats argued that passing his pro-life amendment which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortion will result in more children and therefore higher healthcare costs. They’re saying: “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more.”

This argument isn’t new but in fact is the same old 1970’s argument that John Holdren (the President’s Science Czar) used when saying that the more people there are, the less food there will be. This 1970’s argument has been regurgitated in 2010 with a healthcare slant: the more people, the less healthcare available for you and me.

Democrats in Congress know that incentivizing abortions by making them cheaper and more accessible will lead to higher abortion rates costing less healthcare dollars and making those limited funds available for some other person.

When the state is involved in the cost of healthcare, it knows that it is dealing with scare resources and that rationing will have to occur. This fact has already been reiterated multiple times by President Obama’s Comparative Effectiveness Research Council appointee and brother to his Chief-of-Staff, Dr. Zeke Emanuel.

Emanuel admitted in The Lancet medical journal last January that cost-cutting measures in healthcare reform are merely “lipstick” and rationing will have to occur in any government healthcare system.

He even went so far as to describe his ideal rationing plan where those at the beginning and end of life would receive 2nd tier healthcare when scarcity develops. In the article, he further talks about his sense of “communitarianism” and how those who are unproductive members of society are a burden and healthcare dollars could be best spent elsewhere. Bottom line Message: We only want the “genetically” superior people and less is better.

To Dr. Emanuel, my son Gunner is an excess burden on society.

Yet, he has been appointed by President Obama to serve on the President’s Comparative Effectiveness Research Council, the body that will make “recommendations” to doctors as to how to treat their patients in the most cost-effective way.

Today, new advances being made with prenatal genetic testing aren’t for the benefit of the family, but for the destruction of the pre-born child within the mother. The ability to diagnose diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis, Down Syndrome, and others while the child is still in the womb means a greater chance a woman will be encouraged and pressured to abort, thus limiting that child’s “burden” on society.

It is shocking what you find if you Google search the phrase “cost benefit analysis of prenatal testing” and read the medical journal articles (especially those coming out of Europe on this issue).

Now that Obamacare has passed, will prenatal genetic tests eventually move from being voluntary to mandatory, in the name of cost-savings? Down the road, will abortions be encouraged by the state or even forced on those children who will have special needs or will need life-long medical care?

Further, what will happen to children to who are born with costly diseases? Will they receive the best medical care or just enough to “make them comfortable?” Today, in America, this rationing is already happening to many babies born with Trisomy 18 and 13, as parents have gone on the record proving medical doctors told them they had to think about “resources” when making the decision as to how to treat their children. Thankfully, the cases today aren’t uniform but the misjudgment of one or two doctors. What will happen if people like Dr. Emanuel are writing the guidelines of care for all doctors?

Let me offer some additional observations.

Obamacare as depicted above is a cost-benefit application of Darwin’s survival of the fittest, but one imposed by the socialist state. This is not much different than Hilter’s Darwinian-based eugenic program to create a superior Aryan race. The difference is not in principle but rather one of goal. Unlike Hitler, the goal of the socialist Left may not be creating the perfect race. Their goal may be more practical: Forcing on America one world socialism–their version of perfect economics and governance.

Now, that the courts and Left have declared abortion is a Constitutional right with many true believers, the Left funded by those like billionaire Soros and led by Pelosi, Reed, and Obama are seeking to further the original agenda of creating the Great Society by bankrupting the nation while promising to decrease the budget at the great expense of more innocent lives. (Remember, the reason for the Great Recession was over-indebtedness.)

The loud proponents of anti-discrimination it turns out are the most hideous of discriminators. They obstruct the right to life because they are fully prejudiced against any who they deem unworthy of it. Just as the CIA has been used to destroy uncooperative regimes, the Left uses courts and deceit to convince the masses that killing the unwanted is a right to the good life. Irresponsibility, immorality and killing is part of the Left’s definition of freedom. Freedom has thus been perverted for the benefit of killing those who may cost the socialist state too much money.

Yet, no one seems to question whether the genetic diseases of those like Hawkin’s son, Gunner, who will be discriminated against are preventable. That is, are they merely the result of genetic accidents or are they induced by a polluted environment, contaminated food, stress resulting from an unjust political economy, or other factors?
If the later, one solution maybe be in public policy that is based on a holistic view of the common good for all citizens rather than imposing ideological party or special interest agendas though piecemeal problem solving policies.

President Obama chooses former porn lawyer for #2 spot in Justice Department

Nothing has spoken more dramatically about our new president’s radical social agenda than the bios of persons whom he has appointed to key advisory and cabinet positions. Many are Clinton-era retreads. (What happened to “change?”) Many formerly held positions on some of the nation’s most notoriously anti-family, anti-life organizations.

President Obama’s nomination of David Ogden to be Deputy Attorney General – second in command to Attorney General Eric Holder – certainly is the most outrageous and potentially dangerous appointment to date.

To this critical Justice Department position President Obama has nominated an attorney whose list of private-practice clients includes the ACLU, the National Organization for Women, Playboy, Penthouse and Adam and Eve.

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on confirmation of David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General on this Thursday.

Here are a few highlights of David Ogden’s resume:

* Submitted a Supreme Court brief on behalf of the ACLU arguing that a man had been improperly convicted under the federal child pornography statue because the man’s videotapes – specifically, tapes with the names, “Little Girl Bottoms” and “Little Blondes” – which the Third Circuit Court of Appeals already had deemed “clearly designed to pander to pedophiles,” weren’t really pornography.

* Fought to remove porn filters from the Internet in public libraries.

* Argued that the law requiring producers of sexually explicit material to keep records about the identity and ages of their performers was unconstitutional.

* Co-authored a brief arguing that parental notification was an unconstitutional burden on 14-year old adolescent girls seeking an abortion.

It stands to reason that you do not trust the enforcement of a nation’s pornography laws to an attorney who has built his career on defending persons who violate those laws! Yet that is exactly what President Obama has asked us to do.

To urge Senator George Voinovich and Senator Sherrod Brown to vote NO on the confirmation of David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General, click here.

Source:
Citizens For Community Values
, 2/24/09.

What does Obama’s stimulus plan, outdated infrastructure, and gas taxes have in common

In a January 10 editorial, the New York Times approved Obama’s big spending stimulus plan but complained about his plans to continue the past era of tax cuts. One of part of the approved plan is $500 billion to bolster unemployment benefits, aid to states, and for investment in the nation’s crumbling and outdated infrastructure.

In an article critical of the Times editorial, Don Feder of Accuracy in Media rightly observed that “no matter how much the states get for highway repairs (from the gas tax, general revenue, tolls and federal aid), the infrastructure is still crumbling and outdated.”

The question taxpayers and gasoline consumers should be asking is why that is. The national average tax on gasoline is 47 cents per gallon. That means the amount of gas taxes collected by federal, state and local governments to maintain our roadways is a meager $66.5 billion a year. And the federal government returns to the states 90.5% of its portion of the national gas tax, which is 18.4 percent.

Are states using their part of the tax pie for projects other than maintaining our roadways?

We could probably define Obama’s plan as a pork-barrel bailout stimulating welfare program–what do you think?