Trouble for state universities

Here’s a fascinating article from the New York Times.  It finds that states aren’t funding universities as they once did.  Instead, the money goes to Medicaid.  As a result, state universities find it harder to compete with private universities, because state schools cannot pay their professors as well as a private school can.

My personal experience has found this to be completely true.  In fact, I’m surprised that the article didn’t investigate further, and examine how “lesser” state schools compete.  This article only mentions major schools, like U of I, or University of Texas at Austin.  What about the smaller state schools?

My husband’s first teaching job was at a “medium-sized” state school.  His department (and most other large departments on campus) were called “revolving doors”, because anyone with talent (anyone who could leave), did.  If the U of I’s are having trouble keeping great teachers, just imagine what the Illinois States, Eastern Illinois U’s, and other “medium -sized” schools are dealing with!

September 18, 2010

A Health Care Plan for Colleges

By PETER ORSZAG

Over the past few weeks, millions of parents sent their children off to college. But amid the packing and unpacking (and in some cases, the tears), most probably didn’t realize how increasing health care costs are harming their kids’ education.

Consider this: In 1980, a new associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a leading public school, earned about the same amount as one at the University of Chicago, a nearby leading private school; ditto for the University of Texas at Austin and Rice University.

By 2000, new associate professors at the University of Illinois and the University of Texas were earning about 15 percent less than their counterparts at Chicago and Rice. And by this year, the differential had widened to 20 percent.

Money may not be the only thing motivating professors, but over time this growing salary gap will undoubtedly pull the talented ones away from public higher education — the colleges and universities that three-quarters of our students attend.

What does health care have to do with any of this? Research I’ve done with Tom Kane of Harvard and the Gates Foundation finds a surprisingly strong connection: over recent decades, as state governments have devoted a larger share of resources to rising costs of Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, they have cut support for higher education.

Governments’ general support for higher education 25 years ago was nearly 50 percent greater than state spending on Medicaid. That relationship has now flipped: Medicaid spending is about 50 percent greater than support for higher education. If higher education’s share of state budgets had remained constant instead of being crowded out by rising Medicaid costs, it would be getting some $30 billion more than it receives today, or more than $2,000 per student.

These Medicaid cost increases have closely tracked cost increases in the rest of the health care system over the past three decades. So the problem is not Medicaid per se; the fundamental problem is rising health care costs as a whole.

Our research suggests that states tend to rob education to pay for Medicaid during economic downturns. And when the economy recovers, the money for education usually doesn’t get restored. Today, as in other business cycles, states are cutting back. Georgia reduced higher education financing by 7 percent for fiscal 2011; Washington reduced spending for the University of Washington by 26 percent over this year and next. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, since 2008 at least 43 states have made cuts to financing for public colleges and universities or have increased tuition.

Tuitions have risen significantly and now account for 37 percent of total public higher education budgets, up from 25 percent in 1985. Yet this has not been enough to offset state government cutbacks. That’s because, just 30 years ago, state appropriations generally accounted for about four times the revenue of tuition — so offsetting a 20 percent reduction in state support would require raising tuition by 80 percent. This is simply not politically feasible.

The result, as we’ve seen, is that public colleges haven’t been able to stay competitive with private universities on salaries and spending on students. It might be possible to trim some more fat, but ultimately quality is going to suffer.

The evidence suggests that may already be happening. The U.S. News and World Report college rankings are hardly perfect, but they do provide some perspective. In the 1987 survey, there were eight public schools among the top 25; this year there were only three, and none in the top 20. In 1987, the top-ranked public university (the University of California at Berkeley) came in fifth. By 2010, Berkeley was still the top-rated of the public universities, but it had fallen to 22nd overall.

How can we reverse this trend? One step is to provide more federal support for Medicaid when downturns hit, because that is when states tend to put the squeeze on higher education. So the temporary Medicaid help provided by Congress and the Obama administration over the past two years may have not only helped avoid cutbacks in Medicaid while bolstering the economy, but also improved your child’s college education.

The more fundamental response, however, is to get a better handle on rising health care costs, something I’ll focus on in my next few columns. Containing health care costs is not just an abstraction central to addressing our long-term fiscal gap. It is also central to raising workers’ take-home pay, because increasing costs for health care are holding down wages.

And perhaps most unexpectedly, slowing the growth of health costs may be among the best things we can do to help the next generation attend a high-quality public college.

Peter Orszag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2009 to 2010 and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

Obama cartoons

These are just too funny not to post….

Abortion and later child-bearing

Here’s a fascinating new study that so-called “pro-choice” people will try to hide:  Having an abortion makes it more likely that a later pregnancy will results in either a low-birthweight baby or a pre-term birth.  Both results – preterm births and LBW – have serious long-term and short-term health consequences for the baby. 

Preterm/LBW babies are more likely to experience one or more of the following:  neonatal death, special care in the NICU, breathing difficulties, feeding problems, immature brains, and jaundice.  Later in life, the child is more likely to have problems with asthma, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, visual and hearing impairments, and poor health and growth, behavioral problems, learning difficulties, ADHD, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes. 

Study Details

This study was a meta-analysis, which means that they looked at every study that has ever been performed on abortion and preterm/LBW and put them all together to make one huge study.  They used a total of 37 different studies and together these studies give a definitive look at everything the medical community knows about abortion and its effects on later childbearing.

The study found that women with one prior abortion had a 24% increased rate of preterm delivery, and a 47% increased risk of LBW, compared to women who have never had an abortion.  Women with more than one prior abortion had a 27% increased risk of preterm delivery and a 62% increased risk of LBW. 

The researchers hypothesize that mechanical trauma to the cervix, infections, or endometrial trauma might cause such negative outcomes for later-born children.

Reference:

Shah PS, Zao J; Knowledge Synthesis Group of Determinants of preterm/LBW births.  BJOG. 2009;116:1425-1442.

Quotes about Government

People keep sending me these great quotes.  It must mean that I’m supposed to pass them along…..

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, it will herald the end of the republic.   – Ben Franklin

Suppose you were an idiot.   And suppose you were a member of Congress….   But then I repeat myself.   -Mark Twain

 A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.    -Thomas Jefferson

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a
man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.    -Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.      -George Bernard Shaw

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.    – Ben Franklin  

 In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.    -Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you!    -Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.   -Mark Twain (1866)

The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.     -Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.  The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.    -Winston Churchill

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.   – Ben Franklin

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.     -Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at  Georgetown University

I don’t make jokes.  I just watch the government and report the facts.     -Will Rogers

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.    – Ben Franklin

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!     -P.J. O’Rourke

Talk is cheap…except when Congress does it.    -Unknown

This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.    – Ben Franklin

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.    – Ben Franklin

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.     -Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.    -Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

Catholic Vote has done it again!

Catholic Vote is such a great organization.  I loved their first video about Obama, which came out last fall (but most of the major media outlets refused to air it).  It was so positive and so beautifully done.

Now, they have a new video, all about health care reform.  It is called “Big Government Health Care PSA.”  It is hilarious.  Check it out at: 

http://www.catholicvoteaction.org/index.php

 

And, in case you missed the first video, here it is again:

The Freedom of Choice Act

 

The Freedom of Choice Act, or FOCA, is the most dangerous threat to American Freedom.  Barack Obama has promised to sign FOCA into law immediately upon taking office.  What is so scary about FOCA?

FOCA eliminates all restrictions against abortion:  It allows minors to get an abortion without their parents’ knowledge, it forces states to allow gruesome partial-birth abortions, it eliminates regulations that protect women from unsafe abortion clinics, allows non-physicians to perform abortions, and forces taxpayers to  fund abortion.  Even worse, FOCA denies doctors, nurses, and hospitals the right to refuse to perform abortions. 

Don’t believe me?  Have you bought into the hype that Obama is a “centrist”?  Here is a video showing in their own words Obama and McCain’s opinions on abortion. In this video, Obama proudly promises to sign FOCA.

And, while we’re on the topic of Obama and abortion, here is a link to a video that demonstrates how Barack Obama wants to kill babies accidentally born alive during an abortion (as described by a nurse who used to work at a Protestant hospital where such babies were left to die in dirty laundry rooms).

Scary?  One thing you can do is go to http://www.fightfoca.com/ and sign their petition.  Then, go to Obama’s own webpage, http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision, where he asks for the American people’s input as to what he should do as president.  Let him know that FOCA should NOT be signed into law.  It’s not much, but it is a start.

Media Bias against Sarah Palin

A Study in Character Assassination: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed  Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon By Colleen Raezler and Brian Fitzpatrick, Culture and Media Institute Executive Summary Full Report| Pdf Version Apart from politicians embroiled in scandals, rarely have the public perceptions of a candidate soured so quickly.  According to Pew Research Center polls from September and October, the percentage of the public that sees Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin unfavorably shot up from 32 percent to 49 percent in just one month. Why have so many Americans turned against Palin, who made such a strong impression on the public when John McCain introduced her as his running mate at the Republican convention in September?  Most likely, it’s because the few good reports they’ve heard about the Alaska governor have been overwhelmed by a blizzard of bad reports. ABC, NBC and CBS news shows are covering Palin intensively, and they are running 18 negative stories for every positive one. Network coverage of Palin has moved beyond criticism to outright ridicule.  Strikingly, all three networks have repeatedly aired clips of Palin being parodied by a comedy show, NBC’s Saturday Night Live, leading to concerns that many Americans are confusing the real Palin with SNL’s figure of fun.  When have comic impressions of a political figure ever qualified as hard news? CMI reviewed network news coverage of Palin for the two weeks beginning September 29 and ending October 12, the period before and after the October 2 vice-presidential debate.  We found that ABC, NBC and CBS have been stridently critical of Palin.  Before the debate, the networks characterized her as a dunce whose shortcomings were dividing the GOP.  After Palin laid to rest concerns about her competence by performing well in the debate, the network narrative changed: Palin became a demon, victimizing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with unfair criticism   Major findings: Major network news shows ran 69 stories about Sarah Palin between September 29 and October 12.  37 stories were negative, just 2 were positive, and 30 were neutral.  Not a single evening news show ran a positive story about Palin. Overall, 21 network stories portrayed Palin as unintelligent and unqualified.  8 of these stories played a total of 11 clips of Saturday Night Live ridiculing Palin. 14 segments featured the most embarrassing clips from Palin’s interview with Katie Couric.  9 stories emphasized attacks on Palin by conservative columnists. 14 stories demonized Palin as little more than John McCain’s attack dog. ABC was hardest on Palin, with 9 negative stories (60%), 6 neutral (40%) and no positive stories.  NBC ran 15 negative stories (54%), 13 neutral (46%) and no positive stories. CBS ran 14 negative stories (54%), 10 neutral (38%) and 2 positive (8%). Conclusion Network coverage of Sarah Palin has been so distorted and out of balance that the public cannot trust what they’re hearing from ABC, NBC and CBS about the GOP vice-presidential nominee.  The networks have been so intent on assassinating Palin’s character that they have turned for added ammunition to sources they normally ignore – conservative columnists and comedians. Sarah Palin’s nomination changed the presidential race, creating a real threat to the media’s preferred candidate, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.  ABC, NBC and CBS have rallied to Obama’s defense by working hard to bring Palin down. Read the Full Text Here! To find out more information or to set up an interview, contact Colleen O’Boyle at 703-683-5004 ext. 122

The End of Feminism

September 18th, 2008 by Genevieve S. Kineke

While hysteria swirls around Sarah Palin, wife and mother of five, everyone would benefit by taking a large step back from the pandemonium in order to better perceive what is really happening. Her supporters rightly point to her affirmation of life and her ability to juggle family with wider commitments as the cause of a nearly unhinged backlash from liberals, but this is wide of the true mark. The actual cause of international outrage is not her motherhood, but the fact that she does not reject fatherhood. There has been a deliberate blurring of these two facts in recent decades, and it is essential that we restore our critical focus. We have been tricked by a clever charade.

For forty years, we have witnessed incalculable energy being spent on the questions surrounding human reproduction, and most of the capital has been used to promote the separation of stable conjugal relations from nurturing subsequent generations. The terrain in these battles encompasses the right to contraception and no-fault divorce, the glorification of sodomy and same-sex marriage, an unprecedented assault on the purity of children, the degradation of traditional family values in the entertainment industry, and the insidious establishment of the mass media as primary communicant with the young which undermines parental authority. The result is moral anarchy and sexual chaos, which have confused so many impressionable souls about the very meaning of family life and sexual intimacy.

Most pro-family advocates over the decades have pointed to the attack on motherhood as an integral weapon in this war. When a mother turns on the child of her womb as a competitor or even enemy, many rightly presume that civilization is in great peril. It is true that Satan approached Eve in order to bring about our fall from grace — and that diabolical strategy has had its successes ever since — but we cannot lose sight of the subsequent means of restoration. Motherhood was key to salvation and always will be, not only because of the life it fosters but because of the bridge it creates.

The motherhood of Mary is instructive for all mothers, in that she received the seed of God and that she restored our relationship with the Creator, thus placing motherhood within a constellation of family of relationships. The enemies of motherhood strategically attack it — not primarily because of its capacity for life but because of the truth it contains: motherhood is the bridge to fatherhood, and fatherhood is the icon of God Himself. The war on motherhood is of a transitive nature: fatherhood is the true enemy.

Many have asked whether Sarah Palin is a feminist. This brings to the forefront the lively debate among women of faith about whether secular feminism, in its ideal sense, can be a vehicle for the beautiful truths about authentic femininity. Sincere and admirable women have taken both sides of the issue, whose primary component seems to be semantics. Some find the word “feminism” so burdened with misunderstandings that it takes too much time to unburden it; others demand the right to use the word in its purest sense out of principle.

The National Organisation for Women (NOW) has tipped its hand in this debate since the success of Sarah Palin in the national arena. Truly, she seems to have embodied their long-standing mission statement, “Our purpose is to take action to bring women into full participation in society-sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men, while living free from discrimination” This ripe claim worked as long as Hillary Clinton was in her ascendancy, but the reality of applying it to the Republican vice presidential nominee rankled NOW to its core, and their keyboards must have overheated.

The result was a hot new mission statement, parading down the feminist runway: “NOW works to end discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society, secure abortion, birth control and reproductive rights for all women.” This new creation — wobbling on shaky syntax and wrapped in a hasty cobbling of goals — nevertheless reveals the feminist view of men, who discriminate, impregnate and otherwise harass women as a matter of course. The veil is dropped, revealing more clearly their Marxist dialectic: the new oppressors are men (who make motherhood possible); therefore women must control the means of reproduction as a weapon to free themselves.

Feminists don’t hate motherhood — as long as it’s on their own terms and disengaged from fatherhood. Sperm banks, in vitro fertilization and lesbian adoptions are touted as hip and brave choices, and cloning is the Promised Land on the horizon. Their true hatred is reserved for fatherhood — for the Todd Palin’s of the world — who love and support the women in their lives and collaborate for the good of their shared offspring.

Sarah Palin has forced their hand for two reasons: she allows her children to live and she collaborates with men. While neither is conducive to the NOW worldview, the first is an irritant, the second is the real outrage. As the nation struggles to understand how feminists could possibly not appreciate this example of hard work, courage, balance and brains, we are invited to look beyond feminism into the back rooms of strange bedfellows.

Why are feminists silent about radical Islam, which habitually oppresses and demeans women around the world? Why do homosexuals collaborate with environmentalists, whose appreciation for pristine beauty would seem to exclude bathhouse orgies laced with unnatural substances? Why do Wiccans and New Agers turn a blind eye to fascistic atheists whose material world view would crush their spiritual longings in a heartbeat? Why does every radical parade host this hodge-podge of elements of the most unlikely diaspora?

The answer is found in their shared hatred of all manifestations of fatherhood. The widespread contempt for legitimate authority thus devolves into a collective tantrum ultimately pointed at the Father-God of all. Behind every raging feminist is a wounded heart that blames the patriarchy. Hence the giddy embrace of queer-eyed metrosexuals; the love affair with Gaia and perverted theology; the scornful interpretation of patriotic gestures as shallow jingoism, the drive to castrate the military through social experiments that distract the soldiers from their mission; and the ramped-up government programs that undermine the principle of subsidiarity which is the very source of fatherly strength and oversight within the family.

The goal of feminism is to destroy fatherhood by destroying the links inherent in traditional family life. This scheme allows only two options for men: either excessive brutality to remind the world of the dangers of too much testosterone or the abdication of responsibility through feckless self-interest. Any deviation from these models is discouraged or ridiculed.

Women wield an extraordinary influence in this realm because fathers can only know their children when the mothers cooperate, and male authority finds its legitimate voice only when women bring themselves and their children to submit to it. Given the widespread contempt for masculine strength and legitimate authority among the youth of the West, we would have to conclude that the diaspora has had tremendous success thus far.

Pope Benedict has alluded to this state of affairs in his recent address at Lourdes: “My greatest concern is for young people. Some of them are struggling to find the right direction or are suffering from a loss of connection to family life.” The disintegration of the family, he notes, is alarming. “Sometimes on the margins and often left to themselves, they are vulnerable and must come to terms on their own with a reality that often overwhelms them.”

How is it that reality itself is incomprehensible to these young people? It is because the enemies of God have collaborated to make motherhood and fatherhood themselves alien notions. While this is the end of feminism, it is most assuredly not the end of the family, and women are key to the resurgence of truth. The family is not subject to redefinition, nor a playground for innovation. Strong, well-grounded women are critical because they are the essential bridge to fatherhood, they are the guiding lights for these children struggling to know reality.

Any environmentalist can explain the dynamic interactions among living creatures, and the family is the most important eco-system of all. When the Vatican organized a congress earlier this year to honour the Church’s finest document about women, Mulieris Dignitatem, it called the event: “Man and Women: Humanity in its Entirety,” highlighting the need for collaboration between the sexes. Even the survivors of Lost know that we “live together or die alone.” The problem with feminists is their zero-sum game, in which “grrl power” must be achieved at the expense of boys and men — and babies.

While we fight to defend motherhood, let us always remember that it is the link to something greater — the Father from Whom all fathers take their name. The strategic deconstruction of fatherhood makes it increasingly difficult for children to understand the natural order and to find God — indeed, to find their way to their ultimate home. Motherhood is not an abstract but the solution. Just as Mary’s fiat “magnified the Lord,” authentic femininity is a pole star pointing to the One who makes all life possible, primarily by loving and supporting masculinity in all its richness. Defend motherhood — for the sake of fatherhood. That’s the ultimate target in these turbulent times.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of The Authentic Catholic Woman (Servant Books). She can be found online at www.feminine-genius.com.

A Fabulous Article About Obama from Newsmax

‘Smears’ About Obama Largely True

Monday, October 20, 2008 9:32 PM By: Lowell Ponte

The Obama campaign says its candidate is a victim of “smears” — and has even created a Web site to fight such attacks.But a Newsmax investigation finds many of the so-called smears are largely based in truth — and the Obama campaign uses half-truths, clever language, and ad hominem attacks to spin the facts. Obama’s www.FightTheSmears.com focuses mainly on anti-Obama messages being repeated on the Internet and talk radio, the only media where Obama’s ideological allies are not dominant. These “smears” and the Obama rebuttals are often framed in lawyerly language that leaves much wiggle room in the candidate’s answers. FightTheSmears.com also makes no attempt at objectivity, describing Obama’s critics as “pushing misleading research and distorted claims” because they are “ideologues” busy “spreading a ‘pack of lies’ about Barack.” In a section of the site titled, “Who’s Behind the Smears?” visitors can see a chart naming seven groups and six individuals with lines that suggest multiple, sinister connections between them. The people and groups named are real and are members of Washington’s small but conservative sphere of power and influence. The Obama conspiracy chart links all of these conservative individuals and groups back to the critics who dogged the “Clinton 1992 Campaign.” This may come as something as a surprise to Hillary Clinton, as many of the “smears” against Obama first surfaced during her heated primary contest with him. Newsmax reviewed 10 random claims and related rebuttals posted on Obama’s ever-changing FightTheSmears.com to gauge their veracity. Here’s what we found:   Claim No. 1: Obama’s campaign is funded by the rich, big corporations and foreigners. “Barack Obama was the only major presidential candidate this year to completely reject contributions from The Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have dominated our politics for years,” the Obama site says of the persistent online criticisms of its fundraising. “Instead, this campaign has been owned by the more than 3.1 million everyday Americans who have donated in small amounts.” Not so, according to campaign finance records. Nearly half of the $600 million raised by Obama to date has come from wealthy donors and special interests. Obama’s allies months ago dropped their ad linking Republican rival “Exxon John” McCain to Big Oil after it came to light that Obama had taken far more money from Exxon-Mobil than McCain. “The Obama campaign has complied fully with federal election law,” claims the Obama site, “including donor eligibility and contribution disclosure requirements.” However, one giant loophole the politicians wrote into the law allows contributions in amounts of $200 or less with no donor identification. Obama claims that $300 million in campaign funds was given by these small donors, and he won’t release their names and addresses. McCain has released his whole donor database, including those who have contributed less than $200. Critics argue that the other half of Obama’s campaign haul — the part not raised from big corporate donors and special interests — came in a small flood of anonymous donations that might be foreign or corrupt, or both.   Claim No. 2: Obama has had a close, ongoing relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. The Obama site acknowledges that its candidate and Ayers ”served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990s,” but maintains most stories about the links between Obama and Ayers are phony or exaggerated. It does not mention that Obama and Ayers worked together on the board distributing millions of dollars with the aim of radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren. Nor does the site acknowledge that Obama kicked off his first political campaign in the living room of Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader. (Obama is currently saying it was not the first event. There is no dispute that one of Obama’s first political events in his first run for public office was held in Ayers’ home.) There is also no dispute the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon the Capitol, the home of a New York Supreme Court justice, and a police station, among other targets. FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the group, has recounted Ayers teaching him how to make bombs and saying, “In the revolution, some innocent people need to die.” “Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques . . .” says the Obama Web site. Actually, McCain and Obama critics are questioning why Obama would continue to associate with a man who, as recently as 2001, said he did not do enough and wished he had bombed more. Conservatives also note that if Ayers had bombed abortion clinics, the liberal media would brand him a pariah forever. What does it tell us about the liberal media’s and Obama’s judgment and values that they see nothing wrong with embracing unrepentant terrorist Ayers today?   Claim No. 3: Obama takes advice from executives of troubled mortgage backer Fannie Mae. “John McCain started smearing Obama about non-existent ties to Fannie Mae in some of his deceptive attack ads,” says FightTheSmears.com. The site downplays connections between Obama and two former heads of the giant mortgage-backing institution — James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines — whose corruption played a key role in the current financial crisis. But an editorial in the Aug. 27, 2008, Washington Post described Johnson and Raines, as “members of Mr. Obama’s political circle.” Raines advised the Obama campaign on housing matters. Obama chose Johnson to select his vice presidential running mate. But because neither are advising Obama today, this Web site’s present-tense claim that he “doesn’t [not didn’t] take advice from Fannie Mae execs” is technically, if deceptively, true. Johnson also reportedly helped raise as much as $500,000 for Obama’s campaign. And despite Obama’s lack of seniority in the U.S. Senate, he pocketed more than $105,000 in political contributions, the third-highest amount given to any lawmaker, directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama’s Web site leaves all this unmentioned.   Claim No. 4: Obama has close ties with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group suspected of massive voter registration fraud. Obama’s site says the candidate was never an ACORN employee and that ACORN “was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive [Obama] ran in 1992.” In defending Obama, the site resorts to smearing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell — calling him a “discredited Republican voter-suppression guru” — for daring to fight the vote fraud so often associated with operatives of ACORN, among the largest radical groups in the United States. As Newsmax has documented in ["Clever Obama Tries To Bury ACORN Past,"] Obama’s Web site is attempting to deceive when it says Obama was never “hired” to work as a trainer for ACORN’s leaders. In fact, he did the work for free from at least 1993 until 2003. ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg acknowledges in the Oct. 11, 2008, New York Times that Obama trained ACORN leaders. And Obama worked as a lawyer for ACORN. As to heading up Project Vote in Illinois, Obama said during a speech to ACORN leaders last November, “[When] I ran the Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack-dab in the middle of it.” Veteran journalist Karen Tumulty described Project Vote in the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of Time magazine as “a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now” after interviewing its national director. The co-founder of ACORN, former Students for a Democratic Society official Wade Rathke, described Project Vote as one of ACORN’s “family of organizations.” Over the years, ACORN and its front groups, like the one Obama ran in Illinois, have registered more than 4 million voters. When authorities in Virginia checked ACORN registrations, it found that 83 percent were fraudulent or had problems. This, in theory, could mean ACORN may have created the opportunity for stealing more than 3.3 million votes in this November’s election, a margin far wider than that by which Obama is likely to win.   Claim No. 5: Obama has shown only wavering support for individual gun-ownership rights. “During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States Senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen,” says Obama’s Web site, “while doing everything he could to protect children — including his own two daughters — from illegal gun violence.” But the National Rifle Association, it continues, “is distributing a dishonest and cowardly flyer that makes confrontational accusations and runs away from verifying them.” Actually, the NRA does a meticulous job of laying out documentation, as Newsmax reported in September ["NRA to Fight Obama Over Gun Rights Flip-Flops,"] to show that Obama has supported handgun confiscation; the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.; a virtual ban on high-powered rifle ammunition; and many other draconian restrictions on Second Amendment rights. If elected, wrote the NRA, Obama “would be the most anti-gun president in American history.”   Claim No. 6: A fervent supporter of abortion rights, Obama supports late-term and partial-birth abortions. The Obama Web site dismisses such criticism as the work of “radical anti-abortion ideologues running ads against Barack.” But as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted repeatedly against legislation to protect infants who, during a late-term abortion, were “born alive.” Such protection, he has argued, already exists in Illinois; it does, but is subject to the abortionist’s decision whether such an infant has a good likelihood of survival. Nurses have reported instances in which surviving aborted babies were left by abortionists to die without water, food, or warmth. Obama’s Web site notes that even the Republican author of one of these bills, former state Sen. Rick Winkel, has written that “none of those who voted against [his bill] favored infanticide.” True, but Obama’s site does not quote the rest of Winkel’s statement: “[T]heir zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.” Obama has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record according to NARAL Pro-Choice America; his rating from the National Right to Life Committee is zero. How extreme is Obama on this issue? In the U.S. Senate, he has voted against bills that would prohibit minors from crossing state lines for abortion without parental notification. “Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama has said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”   Claim No. 7: Obama showed little interest or support for American combat troops during his overseas visits. Doubts about Obama’s true support for the military cropped up during a campaign trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Europe. A widely circulated e-mail, penned by Army Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter, described Obama’s visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan: “As the Soldiers lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off . . . He again shunned the opportunity to talk to soldiers to thank them for their service . . . I swear we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from [Obama].” Porter later recanted, sending a follow-up e-mail that said, in part: “After checking my sources, information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong.” He did not specify which information was wrong, leading Obama skeptics to suspect that this officer has been disciplined by his superiors. Heading home, Obama touched down in Germany, where he “was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl.” But as The Washington Post reported, Obama “canceled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate” and could not have his visits with hospitalized soldiers videotaped by the media. Prominent liberal mainstream media reporters such as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend Obama, saying that the press had never planned to cover his visits to military sickbeds. But Obama canceled both visits and used his free time instead to shoot hoops, with the media recording his best shots.   Claim No. 8: Barack Obama is a Muslim. FightTheSmears.com states bluntly that Obama is a Christian, not a follower of Islam. In fact, Barack Hussein Obama’s Kenyan father was raised Muslim, though he reportedly was not religious. His mother divorced and remarried another man, a Muslim from Indonesia. As a youngster in Indonesia, Barack Obama attended two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim. He received religious instruction in both schools as a Muslim, including studying the Quran. According to a childhood friend, Obama occasionally attended services at a local mosque. Obama’s Muslim upbringing has been detailed in a 2007 Los Angeles Times report (reprinted in The Baltimore Sun) headlined “Islam an Unknown Factor in Obama Bid.” Middle East expert Daniel Pipes has studied the question of Obama’s Muslim faith and says he is “lying” when he says he was never a Muslim. It’s important to note that Obama’s Web site does not say he was never a Muslim. But in the past, Obama’s site and FightTheSmears.com did make the claim Obama was never a Muslim. Since that claim is obviously false, it is no longer used. Obama says he became a Christian in his late 20s. He now describes himself as Christian. Until recently, he spent two decades as a member of a Chicago United Church of Christ congregation that embraces Black Liberation theology. Somewhat like the Roman Catholic liberation theology of Latin America, the Chicago UCC church preaches elements of neo-Marxist class warfare. It combines these radical socialist elements with black racialism.   Claim No. 9: As president, Obama would raise taxes dramatically for most Americans. Millions of Americans recognize that Obama is likely to raise taxes. But like a good conjurer, who tricks you into watching his right hand while doing things with his left, the Obama Web site assures readers with a red herring. The Illinois senator will not tax your water, as claimed in some fringe e-mails, FightTheSmears.com maintains. What Obama will do, however, is tax businesses and capital gains more heavily, even though America already has the world’s second-highest business taxes. “Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases” said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax businesses! So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline . . . or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small business, don’t worry. It’s not going to affect you.” During his campaign, Obama has promised to raise various taxes that will fall on most economic classes, including the dividend tax, the FICA tax cap, the capital gains tax, the estate tax, and new taxes on gasoline. He also called for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will automatically raise taxes on most Americans. By letting the Bush cuts expire, Obama would produce a $2 trillion tax increase that some economists predict will rumble through the already weakened economy like an earthquake.   Claim No. 10: Obama was born outside the United States and is ineligible for the presidency. The Obama Web site dismisses the claim that the candidate was born anywhere but in the United States as “completely false” and “groundless.” As proof, the Obama’s campaign has produced a “certificate of live birth” from Hawaii indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961. Critics, however say the document could have easily been forged and is not a substitute for a certified birth certificate. No reporter has been allowed to see the original certificate of live birth or its certificate number, which is blacked out on copies of it on the Obama site. Skeptics note that Obama’s “Father’s Race” is identified on this document as “African,” a geographic and modern politically correct term rather than a 1961 racial designation. The standard term used on American birth certificates until the U.S. Census changed it in 1980 would have been “Negro.” Former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, Philip J. Berg, a Democrat with mixed credibility (he has supported conspiracy theories involving 9/11), has filed a lawsuit to force Obama to produce a certified copy of his birth certificate. According to Berg, Obama’s paternal grandmother has said she was present at his birth in Kenya, after which his mother promptly returned with her baby to the United States. If that is true, Obama could be constitutionally ineligible to be president.    © 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

The Columbus Dispatch endorses John McCain!

For president: John McCain

A lifetime of sacrifice and service make McCain best choice

The Columbus Dispatch

Sunday,  October 19, 2008

 

For president of the United States, The Dispatch endorses Republican Sen. John McCain, whose experience, service and sacrifice for his country make him more qualified to lead the nation.

McCain’s Democratic opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, is a rousing motivational speaker, but his experience and achievements — eight years in the Illinois Legislature and less than four in the U.S. Senate — do not stand comparison with McCain’s.

A resume containing so little evidence of leadership and accomplishment leaves in question Obama’s ability to handle the most responsible and difficult job in the world, especially at a time when the nation faces a combination of problems so large and complex that they would challenge even the most seasoned leader.

Nor does it seem likely that a man who has traveled in the left lane of American politics for his entire adult life really is the bipartisan centrist that he claims to be. And with Democrats already in control of the U.S. House and Senate — and the possibility that they might gain a filibuster-proof majority in the next Senate — there would be little to check the inevitable excesses of one-party rule if a Democrat wins the White House.

This could have a profound effect on the U.S. Supreme Court. A divided Senate acts as a check on presidential nominations to the court by preventing the confirmation of justices with extreme views. But with a filibuster-proof Senate majority ready to do his bidding, Obama would have the unfettered ability to appoint justices likely to be judicial activists, eager to launch a new era of legislating from the bench. Such a Supreme Court could end up as a rubber stamp for, rather than a check on, the White House and Congress.

While neither party can make a credible claim to fiscal responsibility, the dangers of more deficit spending, a growing national debt and uncontrollable entitlement spending are likely greater with an Obama administration. Democrats have not controlled the White House and Congress simultaneously since 1994. A return to majority status is likely to unleash pent-up demand to enact a Democratic wish list of new and expensive social programs when the nation can’t afford the ones it has. Given his party-line voting record in the Senate, there is no indication that Obama is able or willing to stand against such an onslaught.

But many of the policy choices the nation will have to make in the next four years are monumental and should be the result of a bipartisan dialogue, not of unchecked one-party dictate.

Debate and political give and take ensure that decisions have been fully vetted, that all interests and concerns have been weighed and that the resulting decisions enjoy broad public support.

Unlike Obama, McCain has a record of bipartisanship: He was a member of the Gang of 14 Republican and Democratic senators who joined in 2005 to preserve the Senate filibuster rule. Note that this courageous act, which enraged the Republican Senate leadership, preserved the filibuster power for what was then the Democratic minority in the Senate. And that was not the only time that McCain has bucked his party.

At a time when the nation faces serious problems, including international economic turmoil, immigration, health care, war in Afghanistan, nation-building in Iraq and foreign-policy challenges from the Middle East, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, the president should have an extensive resume and long experience in grappling with tough decisions. Few new presidents have faced an assignment as tough as the one facing the winner of the November election.

From 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam, where he endured torture, through 25 years in the U.S. House and Senate, McCain has demonstrated the grit, energy and determination that the present challenges demand.

The choice is between a candidate who has been tested to a degree experienced by few and a candidate who is untested. In Obama, Americans are presented with a question mark.

Among the top problems facing the United States is its dire fiscal situation. The nation has a $10 trillion debt and other unfunded obligations to entitlement programs that total $53 trillion. The federal deficit this year is nearly $458 billion and some project the 2009 deficit could hit $700 billion. Despite these staggering numbers, lawmakers and the president just approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout that they don’t have the money to pay for. In short, the United States is dangerously overextended at a time when a worldwide recession threatens.

For years, The Dispatch has called on the president and Congress to deal with this massive, mounting debt which threatens the prosperity and quality of life of generations to come. But year after year, the nation’s leaders have kicked the problem down the road.

Seriously confronting this problem will require a president able to call on Americans to make sacrifices for the sake of their grandchildren.

The president will have to ask them to accept cuts in popular programs, tax increases and lowered expectations of what government can afford to do.

Because of the personal sacrifices that McCain has made for the nation, he has unmatched moral authority to call on Americans to take their medicine. If elected, that is precisely what he should do.

The Dispatch urges voters to elect John McCain as president.