Daily Archives: February 10, 2011

Christian Institute: Marriage is important and the Government wants to support the institution in the tax system, a senior Cabinet minister has said. Iain Duncan Smith praised marriage as a “fundamental institution” and hit out at those in the political world who, over the years, “frowned” at its mention. The minister’s speech followed a report which warned that Britain’s high levels of family breakdown were a key factor in the “rising tide” of mental illness.

Heritage Foundation: “The Obama Administration has decided that the government will engage in limited collective bargaining with airline security screeners. This decision will reduce the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) effectiveness. Collective bargaining impairs rewarding merit and raises the likelihood of illegal labor disputes. The limitations on union negotiations only partially mitigate these concerns. To protect passengers, Congress should prohibit collective bargaining in the TSA.”

Washington Post: Pelosi described the GOP push as the “most radical assault” on women’s reproductive rights “in our lifetimes.” And she was equally blunt in her assessment of right-wing assaults on family planning. “They are at a different philosophical place,” she said, characterizing their view as: “all engagement has to result in a child.”

USA Today: Meanwhile, observers are debating what lessons religious colleges should derive from Manhattan College’s experience. “I’m not that concerned about this ruling because there’s an easy way to avoid it: stay true to your religious mission and don’t drift away from it,” said Kevin Theriot, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which provides legal representation in religious liberty cases. “The question for liberal organizations is: Are they staying true to their theological purposes?”

Chicago Tribune: “Gay rights advocates delivered petitions with 3,248 signatures to House Speaker Kraig Paulsen’s office urging him to resist efforts to impeach the remaining four justices on the Iowa Supreme Court.”

Az Republic: “Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she plans to file a counter-lawsuit against the federal government for failing to enforce immigration laws.”

The Epoch Times: “UK should cut ties with EU human rights court that has effectively become the nation’s supreme court, says think tank.”

Europe News: “A radical Muslim Imam, Said Jaziri, was captured recently crossing the US/Mexico border in southern California according to LA Times and the UK Daily Mail, once again proving the point that border security is as much about national security as it is about illegal immigration.”

Europe News: “A local council’s effort to evict a mosque from an abandoned industrial site here demonstrates Britain’s shifting appetite for multiculturalism, a concept the U.K. prime minister has said should be rejected.”

ePolitix.com: MPs are not just unhappy with the substance of the court’s ruling. When making their bid for a debate on backbench time to the backbench business committee Straw said the courts ruling raised fundamental constitutional questions.”This is about a court without the checks and balances of the Supreme Court telling a democratically elected Parliament and parliamentarians what to think,” he said.

KHON2.com: “The Hawaii House of Representatives will continue to hold prayers before daily session, unlike the state Senate, which canceled them last month.”

Turnto10.com: “The ACLU wants to put an end to the practice of giving preferential treatment to parochial schools over public schools in the use of city athletic fields.”

James Taranto writes at the Wall Street Journal: Akhil Reed Amar of Yale, in the Los Angeles Times, and Laurence Tribe of Harvard, in the New York Times. Both profs claim ObamaCare is constitutional . . . Rather than grapple with a novel legal issue in a serious scholarly way, it’s as if they stick their fingers in their ears and sing “Law law law law law.”

Christian Science Monitor: So far, five senators have announced that they will retire at the end of of their terms rather than seek reelection. With the 2012 campaigns not far off, the departures of these incumbents are shaking things up. Here’s how.”

AP: “Thursday’s announcement by Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers comes just a day after he failed to sell a smaller package of cuts in a closed-door GOP meeting.”

NY Times Blog: “Legalizing gay marriage in Rhode Island could bring the state an additional $1.2 million over a three-year period, according to a study from the Williams Institute at the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.”

Heritage Foundation, The Foundry: “The decline of marriage in recent years not only signals trouble for the men and women missing out on the stability of the institution; it can also threaten the future success of children born outside the economic protection of marriage.”

Fox News: “The concern of conservatives is over the participation of a group whose stated goals run at odds with that of core conservative principles, not over debate over those issues,” said APP President Frank Cannon who called upon Palin, who will not attend the event, to clarify her remarks. “The conservative movement at its strongest integrates its national security, economic and traditional values components,” Cannon said.

Winnipeg Free Press: “Wegrzyn apologized on Thursday for the remark, in which he criticized the prospect of marriage among men but said he’d ‘gladly watch’ lesbians. He said he is not homophobic, but conceded that the remark was sexist.”

The Hill: “Real estate mogul Donald Trump is set to make a last-minute appearance at CPAC on Thursday afternoon, a stop orchestrated with the help of GOProud, the conservative-leaning gay-rights group that’s the focus of a boycott from several leading conservative organizations . . . Trump, who’s flirting with a presidential bid in 2012 . . .”

With Brochin’s support, there are now 21 senators who have said publicly they will vote for the same-sex marriage bill, which needs 24 votes for passage. Six other members have either said they are undecided or not announced their position.” (see list in the article)

“Over the past week, Live Action has released six videos revealing Planned Parenthood’s willingness to aid and abet the sex traffickers of underage girls. Since the beginning of our release, Planned Parenthood has attacked our organization and attempted to discredit the growing evidence of institutional and rampant abuse cover up. Here is a top six list of some of the deceiving statements that Planned Parenthood has made in just the past few days . . . ”

LifeNews: “Two committees in the Arizona legislature considered bills on Wednesday to further limit abortions after the passage of a package of bills last legislative session.”

“Planned Parenthood abortion centers in three states have been caught on undercover video footage ignoring alleged sex traffickers and a new audio file Live Action released today adds a District of Columbia abortion clinic to the list.”

Star Advertiser: “Despite the opinion by the head of the state agency that administers Hawaii’s open-records law, Gov. Neil Abercrombie will not release the names of candidates to the Hawaii Supreme Court.”

The Hill: “Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) had intended to release on Thursday a bill cutting $32 billion from current spending levels and $74 billion from Obama’s 2011 budget request. He outlined some of the major cuts in the CR on Wednesday. ”

How Appealing reports on the case in Mesivtah Eitz Chaim of Bobov, Inc. v. Pike County Board of Assessment Appeals, No. 16 MAP 2011

One News Now: “Although they do not speak for the United Methodist Church (UMC), 33 retired bishops of the denomination are calling for the removal of its ban on homosexual clergy.”

Newsmax: We should follow the model of the appropriations bill that shut off the funding for the Vietnam War,” King said at a town hall meeting in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night.

AZ Republic: “U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl will announce Thursday morning that he will not seek a fourth term in 2012, a source has confirmed to The Arizona Republic.”

Richmond Times Dispatch: “Leroy R. Hassell Sr., who rose from segregated Norfolk to become the first black chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court — a role in which he pressed for a judiciary attuned to the disabled and dispossessed, died Wednesday at a Richmond-area hospital after a lengthy illness. He was 55.”

Victor David Hanson writes at Townhall: “Somehow, Jerry Brown must not only change the way Californians act, but also the strange way they now seem to think — convincing the present generation to produce far more private wealth while consuming far fewer public funds. Otherwise, the revenue-strapped and reform-minded governor is little more than a modern Sisyphus — endlessly pushing his enormous rock uphill, never quite reaching the top.”

Jeff Jacoby writes at Townhall: “Liberty and justice for all” does not require empowering even those who seek to do away with liberty and justice . . . The Brotherhood is the world’s most influential Islamist organization, and Islamism — the radical ideology that seeks the submission of all people to Islamic law — is perhaps the most virulent antidemocratic force in the world today.

Religion Clause Blog: “In Morgan v. City and County of Denver, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11918 (D CO, Feb. 7, 2011), a Colorado federal district court approved a magistrate’s recommendations (2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141090, Dec. 29, 2010) and dismissed a Title VII religious discrimination claim brought by a Seventh Day Adventist against the Denver Police Department Records Bureau. Plaintiff was terminated for refusing to work on Saturdays.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Today’s New York Times reports on the long legal battle in which a pagan religious group in the Catskill Mountains is seeking a tax exemption for its Phrygianum (religious convent). At issue is a former inn (Central House) that was the fictional home of Rip Van Winkle.”

Heritage Foundation Morning Bell: To remove any possible doubt regarding “the full faith and credit of the United States,” Senator Pat Toomey (R–PA) and Representative Tom McClintock (R–CA) have introduced the Full Faith and Credit Act, which would make the payment of interest on the debt the top priority. The Obama Administration quickly identified this legislation as a threat to their scare tactics and thus their big government spending plans, so Deputy Treasury Secretary Neil Wolan wrote a letter to Toomey claiming that any form of non-payment, be it to a retiree holding a U.S. savings bond or to the state of California to build its train to nowhere, “would merely be default by another name” and “would therefore bring about the same catastrophic economic consequences Secretary Geithner has warned against.”

NY Times: “As our nation heads toward liberty, however, we disagree with the claims that the only options in Egypt are a purely secular, liberal democracy or an authoritarian theocracy. Secular liberal democracy of the American and European variety, with its firm rejection of religion in public life, is not the exclusive model for a legitimate democracy. In Egypt, religion continues to be an important part of our culture and heritage. Moving forward, we envision the establishment of a democratic, civil state that draws on universal measures of freedom and justice, which are central Islamic values.”

TBD.com: Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund: “The legislation before you is inconsistent with the purposes of Maryland’s marriage laws,” the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based attorney testified. “Men and women still comprise the two great halves of humanity.”

Fox News: Erik Stanley walked up Woodson Road in Mission, Kansas, surveying the church parking lot at St. Pius X Catholic Church. He said the government can tax your life and can tax your death, but they’re not supposed to tax your church. And that’s exactly what he said is happening in Mission. “The city of Mission is taxing churches,” he said. “And that’s clearly unconstitutional.”

Providence Journal: NOM also flew in Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, the president of a NOM offshoot known as The Ruth Institute, who drew comparisons between the fight against abortion and the fight for the principle that children “need a mother and father,” and lawyer Austin R. Nimocks, of the Alliance Defense Fund, while Christopher Plante, executive director of the local chapter, asserted: “The ball is slowing down, if not going backwards.”

AP: “Doctors say the early stages of pregnancy are an especially bad time for a pharmacological mix-up where a woman prescribed antibiotics instead is given a powerful drug used in chemotherapy.”

“The nation is flooded with illegal adult pornography in almost every medium which is providing fuel to the fire of child pornography, destruction of marriages and families, addiction of children and adults, and an increase in sex trafficking, yet the U.S. Department of Justice has not indicted any distributers of such material in the past two years,” said Patrick Trueman, Morality in Media CEO and former chief of the Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

AP: The issue has enraged victims’ groups and stirred up old grievances about the power of European courts to overrule Britain’s elected lawmakers. Many British lawmakers are deeply opposed to changing a centuries-old law, and Prime Minister David Cameron has said it made him “physically ill to contemplate giving the vote to prisoners.”

AP: In an interview this week with The Associated Press, he called homosexuality “a culture away from our culture.”

AP: “The French president’s incautious comments about the suspect, and his complaints of incompetence in the legal system, have sparked a revolt among judges, prosecutors and lawyers. Protesting magistrates have shut down almost all the country’s courthouses this week in the run-up to a protest march planned later Thursday.”

AP: “Rep. Christopher Lee of western New York abruptly resigned with only a vague explanation of regret after a gossip website reported that the married congressman had sent a shirtless photo of himself flexing his muscles to a woman he met on Craigslist.”

SCOTUS Blog: “Virginia asks the Court to gather up all of the health care law’s challenges from the federal appeals courts, and decide all of them in one omnibus proceeding dealing with every issue. The constitutional controversy has mired the nation in uncertainty, the state argues.”