Daily Archives: March 1, 2011

Right Side News links to Fox News video reporting on the situation.

LifeNews: Every innocent life deserves to be protected, and every pregnant mother should receive the help she needs to care for that life,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Piero Tozzi.  “We couldn’t be more pleased to present this honor to the people of Chile for their painstaking and diligent efforts to help pregnant women and protect their preborn children. Those efforts are based on constitutional protections that serve as a model to the rest of the world.”

“Under well established precedent, the dismissal of the appeal in Baker for want of a substantial federal question constitutes a decision on the merits that is binding on lower courts on the issues presented and necessarily decided.”

Public Information Office for the Ninth Circuit: “The Hon. Cynthia Holcomb Hall, a distinguished senior judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, died Saturday, February 26, 2011, after a long and valiant battle with cancer. She was 82.”

LifeNews: “A three-month-long investigation conducted by a pro-life group into abortion centers in Texas reveals a pattern of evading parental consent laws and illegally dumping both medical records and hazardous waste.”

Christian Today: “In direct response to the Australian Secular Lobby’s push to have chaplains banished from government schools Scripture Union Queensland has launched an information website for students and parents. The ‘support school chaplains’ (supportschoolchaplains.com.au) website . . . ”

California’s attorney general asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to allow gay marriages to resume while the court considers the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex unions.

The Huffington Post carries video of the Senator making his pronouncement.

Fox13Now.com (includes video): “Three bills dealing with abortion sponsored by Rep. Carl Wimmer (R-Herriman) are now being debated on Capitol Hill.” | House Bill 353 – Freedom of Conscience Bill | House Bill 354 Prohibits government issued or sponsored insurance to pay for abortion | House Bill 171 Will require additional licensing and inspections for abortion clinics

AllGov.com: “The Alabama Education Association is suing Governor Robert Bentley over legislation that his predecessor pushed through the legislature in an effort to cripple the union’s political activity.”

TNReport.com: “HB 0368, the anti-evolution bill that was supposed to be up last week, was rolled to the House General Subcommittee of Education meeting on Wednesday, 3/2/11. The bill promotes creationism in the science classroom under the guise of encouraging critical thinking, stating that teachers will not be disciplined for encouraging students to examine the “weaknesses” of proven scientific theories such as evolution.”

NewsObserver.com: With Republicans now controlling the legislature, Forrester is looking forward to hearings and a victory. “I think we have enough votes to get it passed,” he said. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, and similar bills in past years have drawn bi-partisan support.

The Catholic Church isn’t giving up its fight against same-sex marriage in Maryland. The top three church leaders who serve the state issued a joint statement Monday urging their flock to “act at once” to prevent the House of Delegates from passing the same bill legalizing gay nuptials that passed the Senate last week

WTOL.com: “An aide to committee Chairman Lynn Wachtmann said a pregnant woman will be brought before the committee and an ultrasound image of her uterus will be projected onto a screen.”

Pajamas Media: Americans United for Life Vice President of Legal Affairs Denise Burke tells LifeNews.com the “anti-life media once again got their facts wrong” in reporting about AUL’s “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act.” She said the model legislation seeks to ensure that a pregnant woman and her unborn child are protected from criminal violence and that her decision to carry her child to term is respected and that the model legislation was drafted in direct response to the well-documented and growing problem of pregnancy-related violence against women.

Newsleader.com: “Virginia abortion clinics believe a new state law requiring them to meet hospital standards could force some to close, even though several newly-built clinics are designed to meet structural and architectural standards hospitals.”

TIME Blog: Presidential front-runner Alejandro Toledo, trying to win back the office he held between 2001 and ’06, got things going after his party announced that it supported civil unions for same-sex couples. “We are not promoting gay marriage, but we are fully behind civil unions,” said Toledo.

Patrick J. Buchanan writes at CNSNews: “Actually, what the governor wants to end is the scandalous practice of powerful unions raising millions and running phone banks and get-out-the-vote operations for politicians who thank them with wages, benefits and job security no private employer can match.”

VolunteerTv.com: The bill, known as House Bill 229 or Senate Bill 49, says in part: “No public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.”

AP: “The European Union high court ruled Tuesday that insurers and pension schemes cannot differentiate contracts based on gender since that would amount to sex discrimination.”

“House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) today would not rule out that the Republican House leadership would permit taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood in the final continuing resolution that Congress must enact to keep the government funded through the rest of fiscal year 2011, which runs through Sept. 30.”

Walter E. Williams writes at CNSNews: “From my view, the only controversy regarding unions is what they should be permitted and not permitted to do. According to the Department of Labor, most union members today work for state, local and federal government. Close to 40 percent of public employees are unionized. As such, they represent a powerful political force in elections.”

Providence Journal: “But union members said they believe he fired all of the teachers so he can pick and choose which ones get to return for next school year. If a layoff was ordered, teachers would have been recalled according to seniority.”

The Age: “OPPOSITION MPs have strongly attacked the ban on Bibles and other holy books being handed out at citizenship ceremonies, with Tony Abbott describing it as outrageous.”

CNSNews: “In New York City in 2007, 87,527 abortions were performed, with 43,568–or 49.8 percent–of the aborted babies being black, according to the CDC.”

Rev. Robert A. Sirico writes in the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal via the Acton Institute Blog: “Here’s the question Catholics need to ask themselves: Are the unions I support of the same type that are idealized in Catholic social teaching? Or have they changed to the point where they are unions in name only but actually just political machines for coercing workers and extracting money through the political process? The bias toward unions in Catholic social teaching is rooted in a perception that unions fulfill certain moral conditions. When they fail to do so, the application of moral teaching can change.”

David Prentice writes at the FRC Blog: The embryonic stem cell and cloning company, Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), has been granted a patent for what it calls its “single-blastomere technique” for generating human embryonic stem cell lines. ACT claims that the technique produces embryonic stem cell lines without embryo destruction, but the company’s own published data belie the statement.

ADF attorney David French writes at the National Review Phi Beta Cons Blog: “So now at least some of the protestors in Wisconsin have been reduced to hitting a Fox News reporter and covering up his camera to prevent his broadcast. And this in a protest that features a strong university presence. Lest anyone forget, the University of Wisconsin at Madison has been one of the leading college censors in the United States.”

CBN.com: “Opponents [of marriage redefinition] have said they will immediately begin the process of gathering enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot in November 2012 and let the voters decide whether they want to approve gay marriage.”

Telegram & Gazette: “A group opposed to the possibility of a Planned Parenthood office in downtown Gardner changed the direction of its petition last night in an effort to gain approval from the Planning Board and City Council.”

Chile boasts lowest maternal mortality rate in Latin America due to vigorous efforts to help mothers, protect preborn children

NECN: “The bill (LB22) by Omaha Sen. Beau McCoy would exclude abortion coverage from all private insurance policies sold in Nebraska.”

Reuters: “The Cuban Communist Party has moved forward the election of new leadership to a congress in April where longtime party leader Fidel Castro is expected to step down, sources close to the party said over the weekend.”

Am Law Daily: The NLJ’s annual survey of “go-to” law schools shows that the University of Chicago Law School had the highest percentage (58.97 percent) of 2010 graduates end up at NLJ 250 firms. Cornell Law School (58.33 percent) was not far behind. Columbia Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School also can boast that a majority of graduates landed at top firms.

Wall Street Journal: “The NLJ crunched the numbers, and found that hiring of graduates of the top law schools by the nation’s largest law firms slid by 10% during 2010 compared with 2009.”

The Hill: “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says a plan from House Republicans to cut $61 billion in spending this year would not harm economic growth. ”

LifeNews: “The administration of President Barack Obama filed legal papers on Monday officially appealing the decision of a federal judge in Virginia who struck down the main portion of the Obamacare law that could allow taxpayer funding of abortions.”

AP: “China appears to be tightening restrictions on international media again, barring foreign journalists from working near a popular Shanghai park and along a major Beijing shopping street after calls for protests in those spots appeared online.”

AP: “The European Union’s justice commissioner asked publicly listed companies to appoint more women to corporate boards and threatened them with imposed quotas if they don’t.”

ADF attorney Jim Campbell appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the situation. | MP3 audio 10:26 mins | Related: ADF statement in response to DOJ letter on Defense of Marriage Act

National Law Journal: “U.S. Justice Department lawyers have moved again to halt the court fight over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, citing Congress’s recent vote for repeal. At the same time, government lawyers asked the appeal court to reverse a federal judge who ruled that the military’s ban on open homosexuals was unconstitutional. ”

AFP on Yahoo: “China’s holdings of US bonds reached $1.16 trillion at the end of December, almost $270 billion more than previously estimated, new data showed Monday.”

Greg Scott, ADF National Media Relations Director, writes at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: “President Obama took 61% of the California vote to Sen. McCain’s 37%. Proposition 8, California’s state constitutional marriage protection amendment, cruised to a comfortable 52.24%-47.76% win. The math isn’t all that hard. The fact is, plenty of folks who voted for then-candidate Obama also voted to restore the definition of marriage in deep-Blue California.”

LifeNews: “A local judge has ruled that embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell — who has gained national notoriety for the shoddy abortion business he ran — can’t sell his assets to avoid a civil lawsuit.”

ADF attorney Brett Harvey writes at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: “Despite clear historical and legal precedent, the legal fight continues. Recently states, counties, and towns across the U.S. have received letters from activists groups like the ACLU and Freedom from Religion Foundation demanding that invocations before public meetings be stopped or censored. This campaign of fear and intimidation has made an impact . . . ”

Bob Unruh writes at WorldNetDaily: But the ADF said the trouble started because the church “treats seriously the God-given call to help the poor and disadvantaged…” “So this church opened its facilities to help those in need with food and a place to stay. On several occasions, this church opened its doors to people who lost their home, were currently homeless, or otherwise unable to find a place to live. This church provided food for those who were hungry. It had a closet where it kept food to give away to those in need. In essence, this church decided that merely talking about doing God’s will was not going to cut it. It put its faith in action and actually used its facilities to carry out God’s command to care for the needy,” the organization confirmed. “The city also made such illogical conclusions that while using a church room to talk about caring for the homeless would serve a religious purpose, actually caring for the homeless in that room would not serve a religious purpose,” the ADF said. In its tax appeal for 2008, the ADF argues the church is entitled to the full benefit of tax exemptions for churches.

David French writes at Patheos: “I don’t feel closer to God,” I said, “but I do know that I depend utterly on Him for the next breath of life in my body and for the breath of life in my wife and children.” Some people call that fatalistic. But that misunderstands the difference between fate and Providence. Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, and that means there is plan, a story, a purpose—one that we cannot discern and will not discern until that day when we know as we are known. Events don’t just happen; they unfold and are revealed according to the plan of a loving God.

National Catholic Register: Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian attorneys, said he was disappointed to see “public officials cast aside their duties and responsibilities in favor of playing politics.” “The executive branch of the government is supposed to defend the laws, not undermine them,” Nimocks said. “This decision clearly does the latter, and the American people are the ones who suffer as a result.”

SCOTUS Blog: The Obama Administration tells a federal judge it will not arrange for health care coverage for the same-sex spouse of an employee of the federal courts even though it believes the ban on such coverage is unconstitutional.

Charles G. Koch writes at the Wall Street Journal: “Crony capitalism and bloated government prevent entrepreneurs from producing the products and services that make people’s lives better.”

The Hill: That’s the message Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) sent to the Obama administration on Monday when the Interior Department announced it had approved the first Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permit since last year’s massive oil spill.”

Heritage Foundation: President Barack Obama knows all of this, which is why he told the visiting National Governors Association at the White House yesterday that he supports changing the date that states can begin applying for waivers from some Obamacare mandates from 2017 up to 2014. Specifically, the President endorsed legislation by Senators Ron Wyden (D–OR) and Scott Brown (R–MA), claiming: “It will give you flexibility more quickly while still guaranteeing the American people reform.” President Obama is at least half right here. Wyden–Brown would give states some flexibility—but only the flexibility to implement a government take over of health care faster.

Matthew J. Franck writes at Public Discourse: “From every angle–political, moral, and constitutional–Mr. Obama’s low cynicism is breathtaking. Perhaps the advocates of same-sex marriage are content with “any means necessary.” But no one, on either side of this issue, should confuse our current president with his great predecessor from Springfield.”

NCPA Policy Digest: “The U.S. effective corporate tax rate on new investment was 34.6 percent in 2010, which was the highest rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the fifth-highest rate among 83 countries.”

A state appeals court has cleared the way for a same-sex spouse to inherit the estate of his deceased partner.

MSNBC: “Rutgers University is set to launch a pilot program this fall that would allow students living in campus dorm rooms to pick roommates of the opposite sex. The move intends to welcome more gay students to the camp.”

For the first time in decades, Americans have been asked to look under the government hood at the causes of runaway spending.

Washington Times: Evidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations, contributed to the 2008 economic crash by covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system. The unclassified 2009 report “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses” by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, states that “a three-phased attack was planned and is in the process against the United States economy.”