Health care reform explained

"Why do we need President Obama's big-bang health-care reform at all? What's the real agenda here? If it's really to cover the truly uninsured, a much cheaper, targeted, small-ball approach would do the trick. But on the other hand, maybe the real goal is a larger, ultra-liberal plan aimed at a government takeover of the U.S. health system. ... According to the U.S. Census Bureau, we don't have 47 million folks who are truly uninsured. When you take out college kids plus those earning $75,000 or more who choose not to sign up for a health-care plan, roughly 20 million people are removed from the list of uninsured. After that, you can remove the 10 million who are not U.S. citizens and the 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but for some reason have not signed up for those programs. So that leaves only 10 million to 15 million people among the long-term uninsured. Yes, they need help. And yes, they should get it. But not with mandatory universal coverage, or new government-backed insurance plans, or massive tax increases. And certainly not with the Canadian-European-style nationalization that has always been the true goal of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. Instead, we can give the truly uninsured vouchers or debit cards that will allow for choice and coverage, and even health savings accounts for retirement wealth. ... Knocking down profits and telling people what to do because government planners know best, right? Wrong. Absolutely wrong." --economist Lawrence Kudlow

(Photo & Quote below From the Patriot Post)

One of Obama's key claims is that "you can keep your plan if you want to." What he means is that the government won't specifically mandate that anyone lose coverage, but the effect of his policies would be to cause many individuals to lose their benefits. America's Health Insurance Plans, the nation's largest trade group for health insurers, warned of "devastating consequences" from a government plan. In a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), the lead author of the health care bill, the group said that a public health insurance option "would dismantle employer-based coverage, significantly increase costs for those who remain in private coverage, and add additional liabilities to the federal budget." This is painfully obvious to us, but the power brokers in DC aren't interested in a market-based approach.

In fact, though Democrats claim that the government would compete on a "level playing field" with private insurers, Obama says his plan "is an important tool to discipline insurance companies." As Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute says, "The government can subsidize its plan with tax revenue from other taxpayers. The government can enact regulations that favor its plan over other private insurers."

Indeed, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) quipped, "Having the government compete against the private sector is kind of like my seven-year-old daughter's lemonade stand competing against McDonalds."

Straight talk about universal healthcare -Giving you complete coverage on all the dangers of universal healthcare coverage, by William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

The Dems are doing their best to put a positive, humanitarian spin on the idea of universal health care, or what I call "socialized medicine", but the long-term ramifications would be devastating.

They would have you believe that conservatives who are against universal healthcare take this stance because they are mean-spirited and compassionless. Naturally, this isn't the case. And it's hardly how I feel.

I am against universal healthcare because I believe it will create one of the most intrusive government bureaucracies since the Internal Revenue Service, and it will impinge heavily on the individual freedoms of all American citizens.

Obama is attempting to achieve universal healthcare coverage by relying primarily on private insurance.

That's right - he is looking to solve our nation's health care problems by giving control of the system to the insurance companies. Wow.

One of the key misconceptions among Obama supporters is that a universal healthcare system would make healthcare more affordable. What delusional planet is he from? Under socialized medicine, the healthcare system may be perceived as being more fair, but it certainly won't be any cheaper.

A better way to describe the program would be to call it "universal heath insurance." The idea is that by compelling everyone in the nation to participate in the insurance market, you'd cut down on what's known as the "free rider" syndrome. As the term suggests, this would be people getting a "free ride" from the healthcare system by deciding not to get their own health insurance because they've been assured that in the case of an emergency or personal health catastrophe, inexpensive care will be guaranteed to them by the government. The theory is that mandated participation would help to drive down insurance costs.

But any mandate requires an enforcement component. My fear is that a government branch with the kind of power to actually identify and penalize those seeking to avoid the insurance mandates of universal healthcare would be vast and all-powerful. The new healthcare arm of the government would likely have the same kind of power (and loathsome reputation) as the IRS.

I'm all about personal freedom and the rights of individuals. Universal healthcare is not only impractical, but costly - and not just for your pocketbook. It's handing over yet another right to the government, and allowing the government to decide and rule your fate.

I'm not compassionless-I'm just sensible. And universal healthcare as it's being proposed still doesn't make much sense to me.

The disaster of the Massachusetts universal healthcare system should give you a preview of what life under a universal healthcare scheme could be like...

The universal healthcare dam springs a leak

A program of mandated health insurance is already in effect in Massachusetts. Under that system, subsidized insurance is made available to individuals earning up to $30,636 annually, and families of four earning up to $61,956 per year. The state government has begun to impose stiff fines on residents who fail to purchase health insurance - and the penalties can amount to as much as $912 a year!

And this place is already known as "Tax-achusetts!"

Even though this system is in its infancy, it already has many vocal opponents. Devon Herrick, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis calls the Massachusetts universal coverage plan "overregulated and largely unworkable." Herrick explains that the least expensive health plan available through the program costs $196 a month, while the state fine for being uninsured is about half that cost -- $98 a month!

After just two years, Massachusetts' universal coverage program is running at a staggering $147 million deficit, and the four insurance carriers who provide the state- subsidized insurance estimated that costs will go up by 14 percent this year.

Even more shocking is the manner in which Massachusetts state officials have decided to deal with the out-of-control costs of their broken system: they've ordered the insurance companies to cut payments to doctors and hospitals, reduce choices for payments, and possibly increase how much patients will have to pay.

I only hope that Americans get a good, long look at the disaster that universal healthcare has wrought on the economy and people of Massachusetts before a similar catastrophe is unleashed on the whole country. The train wreck in New England is headed our way if the democrats get their way.

America: you have been warned.

More Information by Amanda Reinecker from the Heritage Foundation:

"The goal of health care reform is to ensure that everyone has affordable, adequate coverage for basic health care in America, and to do this without digging us deeper into the deficit hole," Heritage Vice President Stuart Butler writes on the New York Times website.

But before any reform is undertaken, we must keep a few key facts in mind. First, taxpayers already fund about 50 cents of every dollar spent on healthcare. Second, taxpayers will end up paying even more if we get government more involved in every part of the health system.

To achieve real reform while avoiding this centralized, bureaucratic micromanagement and increased government spending, Butler recommends health care reformers focus on two priorities:

1. Fix how health care is taxed. We need to ensure Americans can get tax relief whether they buy insurance through their employer or on the individual market. This reform will allow millions of working families to better afford coverage.

2. Create markets for insurance. "Create state-based insurance exchanges so that families can pick from a range of plans that meet basic conditions -- with the most immediate focus on families that are not offered coverage by their employers."

Butler cautions against big-government approaches to health care reform. These reforms assume that "if only the government were to organize every part of the health system somehow it would all work well. That kind of central planning doesn't work for national economies and it won't work for the health sector in America, which is as large as most national economies."

President Obama's proposal to create a "public option," a government-run health insurance plan, would be one such big-government offering. During a press conference this week, he acknowledged concerns "that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly, that over time they can't compete with the government just printing money." But acknowledging concerns isn't the same as addressing them.

Heritage's FixHealthcarePolicy.com has become a popular resource for fueling the debate -- many experts and concerned citizens are going there instead of the official White House site on health care -- and equipping individuals and legislators with the facts on the costly consequences of big-government health care.

As the debates heat up, Heritage experts like Nina Owcharenko are reminding members of Congress they have a choice. "Either they can support efforts that expand Washington's control of the health care system, or they can allow the states to develop solutions that will transfer direct control of health care dollars and personal health care decisions back to individuals and families. The choice should not be that hard."

More information on Obama's Health Care Plan from: The National Tax Limitation Committee.

Obama describes his health care scheme with the usual pie-in-the-sky rhetoric, claiming - with fingers crossed behind his back - that his approach will heal the sick, miraculously reduce costs, and resurrect a moribund health system.

Obama has already told you that if you want to keep your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor and if you want to keep your present health plan, you'll be able to keep your present health plan.

Specifically, Obama said:

"If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away."

But Obama can't keep that promise and he knows it.

Jim Lindgren writing for the Internet blog the Volokh Conspiracy:

"But if the Obama plan is enacted, a substantial portion of employers will cut their health subsidies - raising their employees' share of contributions to the company plan - in order to drive some of the employees into the government exchange and the public option. Other employers may drop their plans altogether - after all, workers could buy their own coverage in the government exchange - or simply fund part of their workers' participation in the exchange. These changes, which would be the direct results of the implementation of the Obama plan, would make it virtually impossible for Obama to keep these promises...."

But will keeping your doctor or your health care provider really matter when government bureaucrats start calling the shots and telling your doctor and provider exactly what they can and cannot do... what they are allowed to treat... what they're allowed to pay.

Make no mistake, Obama's takeover of health care will be nothing more than a raw power grab, more cutting than his takeover of the banks and the automobile industry. Its goal will not be to improve health care but, to reward political allies - and punish people like you.

Let's examine the real repercussions of health care rationing?

Think of it this way, to Obama (and other Statists), people represent health costs. The fewer people, the lower the costs.

Are we saying that Obama will target the elderly, the handicapped and the unborn to reduce costs?

Consider Obama's own words remarks as reprinted in the Washington Times and make that call yourself.

"Part of what I think government can do effectively is to be an honest broker in assessing and evaluating treatment options."

Obama also said:

"The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill...."

Regarding those in the last phases of life, Obama specifically says:

"There is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels."

Obama's top health advisers have emphasized that America should value the lives of young, healthy people more than those of old, sick individuals.

One such adviser is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Obama's chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel.

Kevin Williamson of National Review Online describes Dr. Emanuel's views:

"He wrote in The Lancet in 2008: 'Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination.' We all were young once, the argument goes, and so denying the elderly and weak in order to care for the young and fit is just."

Just what do you think Obama's talking about here? Trust me, these are scary times and if you're over the age of 55, be very scared. If you're chronically ill with diabetes or high blood pressure or multiple sclerosis - or dying with heart disease or cancer - your future doesn't look very bright.

Would Obama empower the federal government and bureaucratic pencil-pushers to decide exactly when your presence on earth is no longer feasible, viable or sustainable?

Obama claims that his health plan won't involve rationing or reduced care. But that's ridiculous, because all government-run health systems suffer from those drawbacks.

For a real-world, practical example, we only need look at the Canadian system.

Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian-trained physician who practices in the United States, describes his own revelation about Canada's medical horror show:

"On [my way to medical school class]... I cut through a hospital emergency room and came upon dozens of people on stretchers - waiting, moaning, begging for treatment. Some elderly patients had waited up to five days in corridors before being admitted to beds. They smelled of urine and sweat. As I navigated past the bodies, I began to question everything I thought I knew about health care - not only in Canada, but also in the United States. ... I had begun a journey into the heart of one of the great policy disasters of modern times."

Is the situation really any better in Europe - should we, for instance, emulate the French?

Consider a French journalist's words at the Heritage Foundation:

"The majority of France's state-owned hospitals are managed in a way that is reminiscent of the old U.S.S.R. ... In the average French public hospital, it is not uncommon for every window to be open, even in winter, because the heating system in the building cannot be regulated. With the only options being no heat or unbearably high heat, everyone opts for the latter. Predictably, this is not very cheap."

What about Germany? The British medical journal Lancet states:

"The German health care system is facing bankruptcy on an unprecedented scale."

In Great Britain, one current cost-saving measure is the denial of essential medications to women in advanced stages of certain cancers.

And yet, on June 15, Barack Obama told the American Medical Association (AMA) that other developed countries - he meant nations like Canada, Germany, France, and Britain - pay much less per capita for health care than Americans.

Tell us something we don't know... you also get exactly what you pay for.

So why does Obama want to bring millions of people into the system literally overnight? What happens when there are suddenly many more patients than there are practitioners to care for them?

Will the health care system start to follow the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) model... where you take-a-number.... and wait... and then wait some more?

And if you're really sick, what are the chances that you might die in line, waiting for treatment that simply does not come in time?

Dr. Gratzer tells us what's going on in Canada:

"I trained in emergency rooms that were chronically, chaotically, dangerously overcrowded... all across Canada. I met a middle-aged man with sleep problems who was booked for an appointment with a specialist three years later; a man with pain... who was referred to a pain clinic with a two-year wait list; a woman with breast cancer who was asked to wait for four months before starting the life-saving radiation therapy."

When you consider the evils of health care rationing, consider the following.

Addressing the AMA, Obama implied that costs were rising because patients were getting unneeded care. In fact, the opposite is true.

A 2003 survey by the Rand Corporation found that only 11% of patients got treatments they didn't need - while a whopping 46% failed to receive needed care.

And strangely, there's tremendous irony in Obama's mindless drive toward a government-run system.

In Great Britain, France, Germany - and even Canada - there's a growing push to get people back into private insurance systems, taking the pressure off public facilities and doctors. It's a move toward - you guessed it - government cost savings.

More Information from Newt Gingrich:

President Obama said something at his White House healthcare event last week that offers a disturbing hint of our future under his vision of health reform. He suggested one way to save costs is not to spend on procedures that "evidence shows [are] not necessarily going to improve care" for the sick and the dying. "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," the President said. Maybe. But the question is, who decides?

A Bureaucrat's Concern Isn't You, It's the Government's Bottom Line

Who decides if those extra dollars will or will not be spent on your care or the care of someone you love? Under the plan advocated by President Obama and his allies, that someone will be a government bureaucrat. And even if that bureaucrat has the best of intentions, and even if he does his job well - especially if he does his job well - his main concern won't be you or your loved one. His only concern, if he's doing his job right, will be for the government's bottom line. It's his choice, not yours. Surgery costs too much. Make do with the painkiller.

Instead of Figuring Out What Can Be Done,
We're Debating the Government Option

What's most tragic about the health reform options being debated today is that it doesn't have to be this way. I have spent the past six years since founding the Center for Health Transformation [www.healthtransformation.net] studying our healthcare system, and finding out what works and what doesn't work. I've spoken to literally thousands of doctors, patients, hospital administrators and other health professionals. There is widespread agreement over steps we could take now to deliver more choices of greater quality at lower cost to every American. But instead of focusing on creating a bipartisan consensus, President Obama and his allies have introduced the Trojan Horse of a "public option" in health reform.

Think Government Will Create a Level Playing Field in Healthcare?
Look at the Auto Industry

Supporters of the public plan option say it would be just one choice among many; a government plan to "compete" with private health insurance plans. But if you think for a moment that the Democratic establishment in Washington is going to create a government healthcare plan that competes on a level playing field with private insurance, just take a look at what they did with the auto industry. They rigged the game. They gave their union allies 55 percent of Chrysler and cheated the retired teachers and police officers who had invested in the company. Then they gave $50 billion in the taxpayers' money to GM to prop it up. Meanwhile, the third of the once-Big Three, Ford, is left to fend for itself. Is that a level playing field?

The Public Option as a Strategy to Achieve Nationalized Healthcare

The main argument for a government option is that private insurance is too expensive. To expand coverage, Americans need an affordable alternative. But in order to offer an affordable alternative, the government has to dramatically underprice private plans. Of course, government, unlike a private company that must meet its budget in order to stay in business, can endlessly subsidize its plan. And the result? Depending on how great the government subsidy, the Lewin Group, a healthcare policy research firm, estimated that as many as 119 million currently insured Americans would drop private coverage and enroll in the government plan. The private insurance market would gradually disappear. And if you think this is an irrational fear, listen to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a supporter of the public option. Rep. Schakowsky proudly says that private insurers "have every reason to be frightened" by a government plan, because it is a "strategy for getting [to a single-payer system], and I believe we will."

So Far, $22 Million Has Been Spent On TV Ads.
And What Do We Have To Show For It?

Americans are justifiably dissatisfied with our healthcare system. Healthcare is too expensive. Millions of Americans can't get health insurance. And too often what we can get doesn't promote better health and doesn't deliver the best possible care. So far, groups on both sides of this debate have spent $22 million on television commercials - more than was spent in the entire battle over Clinton healthcare reform in the 1990s. We're spending lots of money, but the focus on the government plan has kept us from finding agreement in areas where we can make a real difference for Americans.

Democrats and Republicans Can Agree On
Modernizing the System and Ending Healthcare Fraud

There is widespread agreement, for instance, that electronic medical records are the future. President Obama and I both share this view. They will be the primary method of record keeping in the future, and the faster we get to that future the more lives we will save, the more efficient our health system will be and the cheaper it will be. Another area in which Democrats and Republicans should easily be able to find common ground is in fighting healthcare fraud. And if you think this is just tinkering around the edges of healthcare reform, you're wrong. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a doctor, believes that fully one-third of all health spending is wasted on defensive medicine, red tape and outright fraud. In a system that will spend $2.5 trillion this year, that means that more than $800 billion will go to unnecessary, unproductive and fully preventable spending. For more information on how we can improve our healthcare by eliminating fraud, look for my book with Center For Health Transformation Vice President, Director of State Policy Jim Frogue entitled Stop Paying the Crooks: Solutions to End the Fraud That Threatens Your Healthcare due out later this summer.

Command-and-Control Doesn't Work. Competition and Choice Do.

I'm a conservative who believes that America desperately needs real change in our health system. But we will never get to that if we can't get beyond this endless debate over government-run healthcare. The fact is, command-and-control from Washington doesn't work. Competition, choice and individual control will produce the health system we want. To truly bring down costs and expand coverage we need to build a bipartisan agreement focused on four things:

1. Improving individual health by incentivizing prevention, wellness and early health.


2. Giving doctors and hospitals incentives to deliver high-quality care through fair and proper payments.


3. Reforming public programs like Medicare and Medicaid to root out fraud, cut waste and reward quality.


4. Empowering individuals with the information and financial resources they need to be better, more-informed consumers.

The Center for Health Transformation has developed an approach that will improve individual health, lower costs and deliver the best possible care. Tell your representative that any health reform bill must have these basic principles.

Obama Suggests Health Care Reform Will Mean Rationing for Some, But Admits He Would Pay Out-of-Pocket for His Own Family

During the 90-minute question-and-answer session, which hosts Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson said was attended by 164 people “on the front lines of health care in America,” epilepsy specialist Dr. Orrin Devinsky asked the president one of a few challenging questions. Devinsky asked: “If a national health plan was approved and your family participated, and, President Obama, if your wife or your daughter became seriously ill, and things were not going well, and the plan physicians told you they were doing everything that reasonably could be done, and you sought out opinions from some medical leaders and major centers, and they said there's another option that you should -- should pursue, but it was not covered in the plan, would you potentially sacrifice the health of your family for the greater good of insuring millions? Or would you do everything you possibly could as a father and husband to get the best health care and outcome for your family?”

Obama didn’t answer directly, saying that “(I)f it's my family member, my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.”

But the president questioned whether his now-deceased grandmother should have received her hip replacement while suffering a terminal illness. Recounting the dilemma, Obama said, “(T)he question was, does she get hip replacement surgery even though she was fragile enough that they weren’t sure how long she would last (or) whether she could get through the surgery.”

“I think families all across America are going through decisions like that all the time,” Obama said.

This was not the first time the president had used his grandmother to illustrate his point on health care. In an April 2008 interview with The New York Times Magazine, Obama suggested much of the cost of health care in America comes from the elderly and those with chronic illness. “That’s where you get into some very difficult moral issues,” Obama said – specifically considering whether “in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question.”

But in the April interview, Obama also admitted that his own grandmother would have gotten the procedure either way. “I would have paid out-of-pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother,” he said.

Obama's health plan not good enough for his family: "[If] it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care." --Barack Obama **"Oopsie! So ObamaCare for thee, but not for me? Hope and change, baby!" --blogger Ed Morrissey


Chart of Title One of the Kennedy-Dodd Health Reform Bill from AHIP

More on the Cap & Trade Tax

On the cost of energy, The Wall Street Journal writes, "The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment." Even billionaire Democrat donor Warren Buffet acknowledged that cap and tax is a "huge tax ... and a fairly regressive tax." And the Journal concludes, "Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can't repeal that reality."


"The Heritage Foundation's senior policy analyst for energy and environment, Ben Lieberman, has produced a stellar paper on [the cap and trade bill]... Based on available evidence and analysis, Lieberman concludes 'that both the seriousness and imminence of anthropogenic global warming has been overstated.' But even if we assume the problem is as bad as the hysterics claim, the proposed bill 'would have a trivial impact on future concentrations of greenhouse gases. ...[It] would reduce the earth's future temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree C by 2100, an amount too small to even notice.' The bill would bind only the U.S., not other nations, many of which, like China, are 'polluting' at a record pace. Also note that many European nations that have already imposed similar emissions restrictions have seen their emissions rise. But what would the costs be for this quixotic legislative paean to earth goddess Gaia? Contrary to the flawed analyses being advanced by the bill's proponents, Heritage estimates that the direct costs would be an average of $829 per year for a household of four, totaling $20,000 between 2012 and 2035. But when considering the total cost as reflected in the cost of allocations and offsets, the average cost to that family unit would be $2,979 annually from 2012 to 2035. Adding insult and hypocrisy to injury, the bill would hurt the poor the worst because they would bear a disproportionate burden of the higher energy costs the bill would trigger. Now here's the kicker. The bill is also projected to harm the manufacturing sector and cause estimated 'net' job losses, averaging about 1.15 million between 2012 and 2030. The overall gross domestic product losses would average $393 billion per year from 2012 to 2035, and the cumulative loss in gross domestic product would be $9.4 trillion by 2035. The national debt for a family of four would increase by $115,000 by 2035. Enough already. Throw the bums out." --columnist David Limbaugh

The Waxman-Markey global warming bill is an "energy tax in disguise," Heritage Foundation energy expert Ben Lieberman told members of Congress this week.

In his testimony, Lieberman made clear that cap-and-tax works by "inflicting economic pain."

"The bottom line is that cap and trade works by raising the cost of energy high enough so that individuals and businesses are forced to use less of it," he reported.

Heritage experts have been working round the clock to inform the public of the true costs of cap-and-tax legislation.

According to recent Heritage economic analyses, the costs of the proposed global warming bill will kick in when it takes effect in 2012. By 2035, a family of four's energy costs will increase dramatically.

· 90 percent increase in electricity costs

· 58 percent increase in gasoline costs

· 55 percent increase in natural gas costs

Lieberman points out that these are only "low-ball estimates" and that the burden of these increased costs will disproportionately affect the poor.

In addition, there is no concrete evidence that such carbon regulations will have a noticeable impact on the earth's temperature. As Heritage experts David Kreutzer, Karen Campbell and Nicolas Loris point out, cap-and-tax legislation will only bring "higher taxes and economic devastation in return for ... nothing."

"This climate bill has nothing to do with saving the planet or the polar bears. The problems that this legislation claims to address do not exist. Regulating our behavior and limiting our freedom will not have any effect on the climate. It is a pure power and money grab..." --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

» Watch the video "Cap and Trade: Will It Save the Earth?" to debunk liberal myths and get the facts from Heritage experts.

More Information on Cap-and Trade, From: The Center for Individual Freedom.

Only the United States Senate stands in the way of what the Wall Street Journal calls "the biggest tax in American history." That's because the Pelosi-led House of Representatives just strong-armed the so-called American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as "Cap-and-Trade") through the House of Representatives.

According to the Heritage Foundation, this massive "national energy tax" could cost the average family "nearly 3,000 per household per year."

House Minority Leader John Boehner points out that it will "put millions of Americans out of work" as American jobs are shipped overseas or lost outright.

Even President Obama admitted that under "Cap-and-Trade" legislation, "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

But that's not all. Apparently, few if any Members of the House of Representatives even bothered to read this massive "national energy tax" before voting on it. Does this sound familiar?

According to Pioneer Press: "Last week, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (the 'Cap and Trade Energy Bill'), or H.R. 2454, was 946 pages long. Over the weekend, it ballooned to 1,201 pages with no explanation for how or why." Then, to add insult to injury, on the day of the vote, the Pelosi-led Congress added another 255 pages to the bill (which no one had read to begin with) at 3:00 AM (EST) and limited debate to three hours before passing this massive "national energy tax" at 7:16 PM (EST). And when Boehner tried to read some of the provisions of this bill aloud on the floor of the House, liberals in Congress tried to shut him down. "Democrats tried to shut me down as I read parts of Speaker Pelosi's national energy tax (also known as 'cap and trade') out loud on the House floor. For more than an hour I cited provisions that will destroy American jobs, raise prices for gasoline and electricity, and devastate middle-class families and small businesses," said Minority Leader Boehner.



Just What Is Cap-And-Trade?

Essentially, "Cap-and-Trade" is being deceptively peddled as a system to encourage businesses to engage in "environmentally responsible activities." But in actuality, it has little to do with the environment and instead is a means to deprive you of your income, control your behavior and repress your liberties.

Remember when President Obama said: "We can't drive our SUVs, and eat whatever we want, and keep our homes at 72 [degrees] all the time, whether we live in the desert or the tundra, and keep consuming 25% of the world's resources with just 4% of the world's population... That's not going to happen." Little did we know that he was deadly serious when he made that radical statement on the campaign trail last year?

Under "Cap-and-Trade," the government would issue "pollution credits." Once allocated (as the government sees fit) those who use less than their government-imposed allocation can sell them to those who have exceeded their government allocation.

Peter Ferrara, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, writing for The American Spectator explains "Cap-and-Trade" this way: "Under this policy, every business involving CO2 emissions will have to buy permits from the government for the amount of such emissions, which will be sold in open auctions, where the permit price will be bid up. But the government will limit the number of these permits, and consequently the maximum amount of CO2 emissions allowed. Indeed, over time the government will clamp down on the amount of CO2 emissions allowed by the permits, with the emissions to be reduced by 80 percent by 2050." And how will "Cap-and-Trade" policies change your standard of living for the worse: Ferrara explains: "These increased costs are effectively a new tax on the American people, even though Obama promised in his campaign that there would be no tax increase for the bottom 95 percent of income earners."

Of course, in the strictest sense, "Cap-and-Trade" is not solely a "tax." It's something much worse. When the government taxes you, it openly confiscates your income and that income goes directly into government coffers to fund some actual or perceived need. Under "Cap-and-Trade," no one in the government reaches directly into your pocket... nothing new is withheld from your paycheck... no new lines appear on your 1040 Form that you send to the IRS. Instead, the government, which is already taking de facto control of the banking and automotive industry, will have yet another tool in its arsenal to effectively take control of every other company or sector of industry that produces CO2... and that's just about everybody. And when you complain that your standard of living has gone down, you can be certain that President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and liberals in Congress will simply point the finger at "greedy industry" when they know full well that they were the ones that gave this monster life. In short, "Cap-and-Trade" has nothing to do with the environment, it is nothing more than a mechanism that the government can now use to force others to pick your pocket, and diminish your standard of living in this already queasy economy. Fewer Jobs And A Lower Standard Of Living....

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, summed up how "Cap-and-Trade" will change your life for the worse when speaking at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference: "[L]et me get this straight, we are not going to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year, unless you use electricity. And we are not going to raise taxes on anyone under $250,000 per year, unless you buy gasoline... [or] unless you buy heating oil... [or] unless you use natural gas... And I thought to myself how dumb do they think we are that they can pretend that an energy tax is not an energy tax and...that every retired American who uses electricity is not going to pay it, and every person in New Hampshire who uses heating oil is not going to pay it, and every person who drives a car isn't going to pay it. I just want to report to Attorney General Holder and President Obama that this is a nation of people courageous enough... to insist that we not be governed by people who won't tell us the truth."

Here's what Boehner says about recent "Cap-and-Trade" proposals that are on the table: "Families and small businesses are struggling to get by, but the Democrats... would raise taxes on every American who drives a car, flips on a light switch, or buys a product manufactured in the United States. In fact it would cost every family as much as $3,100 a year in additional energy costs through their 'cap-and-trade' energy tax, and will drive millions of good-paying American jobs overseas."



And the Republican Study Committee echoes those sentiments: "At a time when families across the country are struggling to make ends meet, the President and his Democrat friends want to take over $3,000 in new taxes from every American family in order to appease extreme political cronies. This is not a solution. It is a recipe for economic disaster."

Ben Lieberman of the Heritage Foundation says: "By limiting the supply of fossil fuels... cap and trade means more expensive gasoline and electricity as well as net job losses in energy-dependent sectors. Senator Lieberman himself concedes costs into the hundreds of billions of dollars. And as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, such energy cost increases act as a regressive tax on the poor."

In other words, as far as Obama's promise to cut taxes for 95% of American wage-earners, forget it. It was nothing more than sleight-of-hand. But "Cap-and-Trade" is not just a shell game when it comes to your pocketbook. It has the same effect when it comes to jobs. Remember all those jobs Obama promised to create? Ferrara puts that illusion in perspective: "A thorough study on the effects of cap and trade conducted by a leading economics firm, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), concluded that cap and trade would result in job losses of between 1.2 million and 1.8 million by 2020, and 3 to 4 million by 2030. This is roughly the amount of jobs Obama claims will be produced by his economic stimulus package. Slower growth results in a loss of GDP for the American people of nearly $700 billion per year by 2030, which translates into lost household income of $4,000 to $6,750 per year by then."

Make no mistake; "Cap-and-Trade" is not just a confiscatory income killer... it's a job-killer as well. And, just where do you think all those jobs are going to go? They're going to go to China and India, countries that have no intention of crippling their emerging economies with ridiculous "Cap-and-Trade" schemes. Fraud And Abuse... Rewarding Political Cronies On Your Dime.

Ask yourself the following question. If government controls the supply of allowable CO2 emissions, how long do you think it will take for elected officials to use "Cap-and-Trade" as a tool to reward cronies and punish political enemies? David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute is one of several commentators who see in this legislation a left-wing plot to reward political friends and punish political foes. "In the name of environmental protection, Democrats are readying just such a transfer on a scale that would have impressed the Pharaohs. Tens of billions of dollars, possibly hundreds of billions, will be shifted from American consumers of electricity to shareholders of favored utility companies in primarily blue states. Under the leadership of uber-liberal Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Democrats are determined to make their plan so complicated that taxpayers will not notice the flocks of dollars migrating from the middle of the country to the coasts."

Of course, such a dynamic has another implication. "Cap-and-Trade" will be a rich man's game. In fact, one extremely wealthy liberal is already playing the "Cap-and-Trade" game. That rich liberal is Al Gore, and he lives in a 20-room house with eight bathrooms. His house - which looks like Tara in Gone With the Wind - burns carbon like you wouldn't believe. Nashville Electric Service records show that Gore Hall consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year. To be specific: the Department of Energy says the average American consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours per year. In 2006, Gore consumed some 221,000 kilowatts hours. That's more than 20 times the national average. Of course, in his Academy Award-winning film, Mr. Global Warming told Americans to cut down on their consumption of electricity. So when some folks found him in that enormous house, they thought they detected hypocrisy. Not so, said Gore, "I'm carbon neutral." "Carbon neutral?" Oh yes. At home, Tipper and Al and the kids can burn as many kilowatts and produce as much carbon dioxide as they please - just so long as they buy carbon offsets. And what are carbon offsets? They are "verifiable reductions in CO2" that somebody else is willing to sell. If a company has some extra carbon emissions lying around, it can sell them to Al Gore so he can cool every square inch of that monster house in the summer and heat it from basement to attic in the winter - just as carbon neutral as he can be. And which company sold Gore those carbon offsets? It was a company in Great Britain. And guess who owns a huge chunk of that company? You guessed it... Al Gore.

As blogger Dan Riehl put it: Gore has built a "green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can't afford to play on Gore's terms." Do America a favor. Let's defeat this liberal "Cap-and-Trade" scheme right here and right now.

(cartoons from the Patriot Post & Patriot Update)

Planned Parenthood ensures that statutory rapists can continue their abuse of young girls

Another undercover video from Lila Rose, shows how Planned Parenthood handles potential cases of sexual abuse:



Planned Parenthood: "We Bend the Rules on Sexual Abuse" (from LifeNews.com)

The video is the latest from Lila Rose, a UCLA student who has become a muckraker for her series of videos exposing the nation's largest abortion business.

In this new video, the Birmingham Planned Parenthood counselor tells Rose, who pretends to be a 14-year-old statutory rape victim that it "does sometimes bend the rules a little bit" rather than report sexual abuse to state authorities.

Rose told the staffer that she was 14 and had been impregnated by a 31-year-old boyfriend. She told the Planned Parenthood official she needed a secret abortion so her parents would not find out about her sexual relationship with the older man.

Rose asks, "Is it a problem about my boyfriend?"

The counselor, identified as "Tanisha" in the video, responds, "As long as you consented to having sex with him, there's nothing we can truly do about that."

Rose then says that her boyfriend "said he could get in big trouble," and Tanisha acknowledges that "he could, especially if your parents find out that he's 31."

The Planned Parenthood official then tells Rose that the center manager, Desiree Bates, "sometimes does bend the rules a little bit" and adds "whatever you tell us stays within these walls" and "we can't disclose any information to anybody."

However, Alabama code 26-14-3 requires health professionals to disclose suspected cases of sexual abuse to state officials immediately. .....

The video also shows the Planned Parenthood staff apparently evading the state's parental consent law.

Tanisha also seems to tell Rose that a signature from an "older sister that's over the age of 18" or someone "with the same last name" could function as a substitute for parental consent so Planned Parenthood could perform an abortion on a minor.

Yet, Alabama Code 26-21-3 specifies that the written permission of either a parent or legal guardian is necessary before a minor may obtain an abortion.

This is the seventh Planned Parenthood center implicated in a multi-state child abuse scandal involving the deliberate and unlawful suppression of evidence of statutory rape. Alabama is the fourth state to be implicated in the controversy, along with Arizona, Indiana, and Tennessee.

Sadly, this isn't the only instance of Planned Parenthood workers breaking state mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse. There are many videos (http://liveaction.org/index.php/projects/monalisa) that document Planned Parenthood's willingness to repeatedly violate mandatory reporting laws for statutory rape that protect children.

Planned Parenthood has shown a consistent pattern of lawlessness and abuse, and protects sexual abusers and hurts young girls by doing this.

These investigations are done in hopes they will expose the illegal activities going on at Planned Parenthood and hopefully will lead to the criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood so that their business practices will be forced to comply with governing laws that protect young girls.

Problems with National Health Care

These comics summarize how Obama Health Care Plan will work

(above comic from Patriot Post)

I wanted to share this link to a new website that Students for Life of America released this week, www.HealthCareforGunner.com. The site explores the current debate about national health care and raises new issues surrounding rationing care.

There has been much talk about implementing a national health care plan in the U.S. However, there is disturbing information from Ireland and Great Britain, both of which have national health care, regarding the poor standards of care given to patients with deadly diseases.

Take a look at the site, it is very informative.

National Health Care is NOT the answer!



If we don't stop the Obama Democrats' disastrous health care takeover now, we'll all be facing the end of health care choice and endlessly rising taxation very soon.

Don't let that happen -- We Americans need to keep our health care freedom.

"I doubt whether there are many Americans who think Congress has either the right or competency to choose where they live, what clothes they wear or what cars they drive. Yet many Americans stand ready to allow Congress to decide what doctors they go to and what treatments they receive. We forget that once we have government-sponsored health care, it can be used to justify almost any restraint on liberty." --economist Walter E. Williams

"The president claims that we must pass a government-run health insurance program -- possibly the most wide-ranging and intricate government undertaking in decades -- yesterday or a 'ticking time bomb' will explode. If all this terrifying talk sounds familiar, it might be because the president applies the same fear-infused vocabulary to nearly all his hard-to-defend policy positions. You'll remember the stimulus plan had to be passed without a second's delay or we would see 8.7 percent unemployment. We're almost at 10." --columnist David Harsanyi

The Second Amendment

these photos are too good not to share (tip from Right Voices)

Homeschooling in America

These articles were particularly interesting (& disturbing) to me as I homeschool my children:

There's something the U.S. government doesn't want you to know. And it's come out again in the new Heritage Foundation report on education. It conveys that the general public is increasingly dissatisfied with public schools, with a rising number opting for private education.

The report explains that during the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions, 44 states introduced school-choice legislation. And in 2008, choices for private school were enacted into law or expanded in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Today 14 states and the District of Columbia offer voucher or education tax-credit programs that aid parents with sending their children to private schools. But that may be short-lived.

Despite the growing public preference for private education, Congress recently canceled the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which was created in 2004 to offer students from low-income families in the nation's capital an opportunity to join the voucher educational community. The law provided $14 million in scholarships to help pay for tuition at private schools of their choosing. But no longer.

Why did Congress nix the program, especially when recent studies showed that students receiving vouchers since the program's inception were academically 18.9 months ahead of their peers? (I read the other day that 100 percent of Thurgood Marshall Academy's charter graduates are accepted to colleges.) And why would Congress phase out a program that costs $7,500 per student annually, compared with the $15,000 it costs in Washington's public schools to educate a child?

So its cancellation is not a result of costing too much, because it's half the price of public schooling. And it's not because of inferior quality, because the kids enrolled in the program were scoring higher than students in regular schools. There's only one reason Congress canceled it, and it comes down to this: federal control and educational indoctrination. .....

.....Is it merely coincidental that the private choice of home schooling was outlawed by the Soviet state in 1919, by Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1938, and by Communist China in 1949?

Is America next?

to read the rest of The Decline and Fall of Private Education by Chuck Norris click here

I thought parents had a right to educate their children in the manor they deem most appropriate and advantageous, whether it be public, private, or homeschool . Not so in North Carolina:

A North Carolina judge has ordered three children to attend public schools
this fall because the homeschooling their mother has provided over the last four years needs to be "challenged."

The children, however, have tested above their grade levels – by as much as two years.

The decision is raising eyebrows among homeschooling families, and one friend of the mother has launched a website to publicize the issue.

The ruling was made by Judge Ned Mangum of Wake County, who was handling a divorce proceeding for Thomas and Venessa Mills.

A statement released by a publicist working for the mother, whose children now are 10, 11 and 12, said Mangum stripped her of her right to decide what is best for her children's education. ...

Mangum said he made the determination on his guiding principle, "What's in the best interest of the minor children," and conceded it was putting his judgment in place of the mother's....

In the North Carolina case, Adam Cothes, a spokesman for the mother, said the children routinely had been testing at up to two years above their grade level, were involved in swim team and other activities and events outside their home and had taken leadership
roles in history club events.

On her website, family friend Robyn Williams said Mangum stated his decision was not ideologically or religiously motivated but that ordering the children into public schools would "challenge the ideas you've taught them."

Williams, a homeschool mother of four herself, said, "I have never seen such injustice and such a direct attack against homeschool."
"This judge clearly took personal issue with Venessa's stance on education and faith, even though her children are doing great. If her right to homeschool can be taken away so easily, what will this mean for homeschoolers state wide, or even nationally?" Williams asked .....

"We're pleased the appeals court recognized the rights of parents to provide education for their children," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. "This decision reaffirms the constitutional right that's afforded to parents in directing the education of their children. It's an important victory for families who cherish the freedom to ensure that their children receive a high quality education that is inherent in homeschooling."

"Parents have a constitutional right to make educational choices for their children," said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. "Thousands of California families have educated their children successfully through homeschooling. We're pleased with the court's decision, which protects the rights of families and protects an avenue of education that has proven to benefit children time and time again.

The North Carolina ruling also resembles a number of rulings handed down against homeschool parents in Germany, where such instruction has been banned since the years of Adolf Hitler's rule."

After reading the article 'Homeschoolers Rights at Risk' (see link below), you should scroll down to the other articles, especially Understanding the CRC threat to homeschooling rights:

http://www.examiner .com/x-11642- West-Palm- Beach-Homeschool ing-Examiner~ y2009m6d24- Homeschoolers- rights-at- risk

Like most recent homeschoolers I have enjoyed homeschooling my children freely, openly, legally and with much support from my community. However homeschooling as I know it is being threatened along with my parental rights and though I've generally shied away from politics I have realized, like many other homeschoolers and concerned parents, that I must keep up with proposed government changes and speak up when my voice is needed.....

Deeply moving speech my Sarah Palin

Here's are the video clips to a deeply moving speech by Pro-Life Gov. Sarah Palin at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life fundraising dinner held at the Centre in Evansville, Indiana. I was able to watch the speech on YouTube. I would highly recommend that you watch it (all 7 parts). It was very moving and emotional.

I think what particularly struck me -as an older pregnant mother, I can somewhat relate to her. I'm pregnant right now & tests have shown that I am at a high risk for a down syndrome baby. I haven't had an Amniocentesis to confirm it, as I didn't want to risk a miscarriage. It's news that you don't pray for, and I still pray for everything to be normal as no test have confirmed it either. So for the past few months, I haven't & still don't know what the outcome might be. But Sarah's words have inspired me, she stated: "So I prayed that my heart would be filled up. What else did I have? I had to call upon my faith and ask that my heart be filled up. And I'll tell you the moment he was born I knew for sure that my prayer was answered. And my heart overflowed with joy." I also pray if the outcome is not what I hope for, then I pray that God may also fill my heart with joy and love, and give me the confidence that I may be able to raise this baby too. We're all God's children, no matter what problems, disabilities, etc., we are born with, and all children are in need of love. A pro-choice doctor told, me at my appointment, "Well, some women - just cannot handle having a Down Syndrome child and would have to terminate." I say, if you cannot handle that (as I know it may be too big of a burden for some), why not give the child life as there are many couples willing & wanting to adopt special need children. Why kill the child???

Here is a brief summary of Sarah Palin's speech from the National Right to Life:

Palin's candid discussion of the many extraordinary challenges of the last year or so, including finding out that she was pregnant at 44 and later that her baby would have Down syndrome. She already had four kids, a demanding job, and a husband whose job was hundreds of miles away. On top of that her oldest son was about to deploy to Iraq and Palin's then-17-year-old daughter told her she was "going to be a mom. Talk about change!"

Before she gave even more details, Palin added, "There has been great purpose in what I went through this past year."

Palin told her audience that she found out at 13 weeks that Trig would have Down syndrome and "that blew me away, it just rocked my world. And to be honest with you I had a heck of a time being able to put my arms around the idea of first of having a baby at 44 and then knowing that the baby would have some challenges. It was serious time of testing. … It was a time where I had to ask myself, 'Was I going to walk the walk, or was I just going to talk the talk?'"

She then explained that she had first found out she was pregnant while attending an out-of-state conference. "Just for a fleeting moment, I knew, nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is, it could be easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances and no one would know, no one would ever know.

"Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities. Oh, dear God, instantly I had an understanding, for that fleeting moment, why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances--just make it all go away and get some normalcy back in life--just take care of it."

Not even Todd knew she was pregnant. "No one would know," she said, and then added, "But I would know."

A moment later, she lightened the atmosphere: "Plus, I was old," she quipped. "And I thought, 'Very funny, God. My name's Sarah, but my husband's not Abraham, he's Todd.'"

These were "truly less than ideal circumstances, perhaps, but I had just enough faith to know that my trying to change the circumstances wasn't any answer."

Growing increasingly more reflective, Palin said, "I came to believe that Trig's prenatal test was me being asked if I would trust and believe and, more importantly, live out what I had been saying for years about the pro-life movement and the purpose and the sanctity of every life, no matter the circumstances. 'I'd always been pro-life,' I said.

"So we went through some things a year ago that now lets me understand a woman, a girl's temptation to maybe try to make it all go away, if she has been influenced by society to believe that she is not strong enough or smart enough or equipped enough or convenienced enough to make the choice to let the child live. I do understand that what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process."

The most revealing moments for me were when Palin talked about trying to research what it meant for a child to have Down syndrome.

"It just seemed liked when I tried to open the book, like this was something for someone else, someone stronger and maybe more compassionate than I, to be able to give this child what he would need, to better handle the circumstances. I wasn't sure if my heart could hold what this baby would need.

"So I prayed that my heart would be filled up. What else did I have? I had to call upon my faith and ask that my heart be filled up. And I'll tell you the moment he was born I knew for sure that my prayer was answered. And my heart overflowed with joy." Thunderous applause.

"And I tell you this for a reason. I felt a love that I had never felt before and compassion that I didn't even know was there. Trig is a miracle … . He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I want other women to give this a chance and experience this, this that can make their lives better, not inconvenienced or burdened."

An incredible speech, an honest speech. It was the kind of speech only a pro-lifer who had been through the fire and had come out the other side having protected her baby, could give.

This is a beautiful, touching poem that is written for an unexpected pregnancy, but can also apply to a pregnancy that have unexpected complications or if a baby is found to have unexpected problems/disabilities.

REFLECTION by Carmen Pate
------------------------------------------------------

An unexpected pregnancy is perceived by many young
women as the end of their life as they know it. News
of an unexpected pregnancy pulls the rug from under
her well laid plans.

Sadly, these women may choose abortion as a matter of
self-preservation, believing that an abortion will
help return life to normal and give them opportunity
to start anew.

They don't see abortion as killing a child, but rather
as saving their own life. Of course, abortion will not
bring the newness of life they are seeking, but
instead will bring death to their child, lifelong
regret, and unexpected -- possibly devastating --
consequences to their own life.

Abortion will be the choice made if we don't meet them
at the crossroad between life and death with a better
way.

Almost without exception, these young women are
looking for love, acceptance, and to be valued.

In their efforts to have those needs met, they have
become promiscuous. Most, if honest, will admit the
needs were only met momentarily, if at all, during
their brief encounter, and afterward the needs
returned unmet.

The truth is, only Christ loves them unconditionally
with an everlasting love. Only Christ will accept them
as they are, and only Christ sees them for their true
value in Him.

He has a perfect plan for each woman and her child if
only she will allow Christ to transform her life as
she surrenders to Him.

No, an unexpected pregnancy is not the end of life,
but rather can be the beginning of two beautiful lives
if God's plan for them is given opportunity to unfold.

Baby Steps

See the miracle of life develop throughout a baby's 16 stages of growth.

Baby Steps (English) from American Life League on Vimeo.

By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them...

Life's been busy & so much happening right now, that I have been unable to update this blog or check out all the other great blogs for a while..

Here is a very interesting article that I read on LifeSiteNews.com (excerpts below)

In the wake of the murder of his close friend and colleague George Tiller, Nebraska late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart has stated that he will continue offering third-trimester abortions.

In a telephone interview with the Associated Press last week Carhart said, "there will be a place in Kansas for the later second- and the medically indicated third-trimester patients very soon."

Carhart said that he has never performed third-trimester abortions at his facility in Nebraska, but that he has done so at Tiller’s facility in Wichita. Carhart would occasionally perform late-term abortions at Tiller’s facility to avoid Nebraska’s more restrictive laws, which forbid abortions on babies that are viable.

With Tiller dead, however, the number of doctors willing to kill unborn babies in advanced stages of pregnancy, especially when they are capable of surviving outside the womb, has been reduced. Carhart says that he will step up to the plate to continue the practice. ....

....During a preliminary injunction hearing in a US District Court in 1997 on the issue of late-term abortions, Carhart testified that he would sometimes dismember advanced-stage unborn babies during abortions, while the babies were still alive (read the testimony here). Carhart described in detail the process of grasping the limb of the baby to be removed, and then twisting it off. When asked if the babies usually die during the process of dismemberment, Carhart responded, "I don't really know. I know that the fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see the fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound."

Operation Rescue has responded to Carhart’s recent statements by saying that it will formally ask the Nebraska Attorney General for an investigation of Carhart’s facility and practices.

“We believe this decision creates a clear and present danger to the public and puts the lives of women at grave risk,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.

“Conditions at Carhart’s run-down abortion mill are gross and appalling. I wouldn’t let my dog be treated in a dump like that. His incompetency has cost at least one mother’s life, and has seriously injured others.”

Operation Rescue has documented Carhart’s participation in a half-dozen abortions that resulted in life-threatening complications that required emergency hospitalization, including the third-trimester death of Christin Gilbert.

Earlier this year, Operation Rescue’s complaints that Carhart was operating his abortion mill, the Abortion and Contraception clinic of Nebraska, illegally and under dangerous conditions prompted the City of Bellevue to temporarily close him down. OR released photos showing Carhart’s abortion business taking abortion patients while running on only an extension cord and a generator.

I enourage you to read the entire article and all the links in the article. They are all very insightful and tell you what kind of person Carhart is. .... "by their fruits, ye shall know them."

LeRoy Carhart is a butcher, and an evil man & stating the truth about what a kind of person that would/could do this merciless killing to innocent, helpless babies is evil. There is no other word for it. Pro-choice advocates may try to disguise this evil and call it: "noble and courageous work, recognizing abortionists as a "reproductive healthcare providers" dedicated to "kindness, courtesy, justice, love, and respect" and an irreplaceable advocate of "mercy abortions," abortions performed 6 months into pregnancy."

But when you actually find out what actually happens....

As one Tiller fanatic, William Saletan chillingly observed:

You think marching or phone-banking makes you an (pro-choice) activist. You know nothing. There's you, and then there are the people who work in the clinics. And then there are the people who use the forceps. And then there are the people who use the forceps nobody else will use. At the end of the line, there's George Tiller.

....then you know what evil is.

And I've been reading this other web site about George Tiller (dr-tiller.com), and from several of the women's personal abortion experience at his clinic. And I truly feel sorry that these women felt there was no other way or choice for them - that they would subject themselves to this and let their babies be murdered. After I read their stories, I was truly saddened that they felt that this was the only way. That they felt like there wasn't another way or help or counseling for them & that killing their babies seemed like the only option. There IS always another option, and there ARE people willing to help, and YES, it takes a very strong person to endure these trials, but there is another, BETTER way.

My son has been going to a special education pre-school for a communication disability. There are many children with various disabilities/handicaps there at the school - (from mild to severe). I could not imagine a parent coming into the school and "mercifully" killing their handicapped child (in order to save him/her from his/her lifelong disability) any more than I could imagine killing an unborn baby to save them from their lifelong disability.

I have friends whose son was diagnosed with cancer at 7 years old. I can't imagine any parent "mercifully" killing their child with cancer in order to save their child from the future pain from the treatments and from the cancer itself. The child (& parents and family) go through all the pain and struggles of cancer treatment/surgeries, etc. in order to help him survive. No one would ever think of killing newly diagnosed cancer children as "mercy" killing.

But somehow, killing a unborn baby who will have disabilities or who might have to undergo painful treatments/surgery is mercy killing??? However you would never think to do this "mercy killing" to an older child... But, how is it any different?

And no, I don't agree with the way Tiller was violently stopped, as two wrongs to do not make a right.... so even though Carhart and Tiller are evil it does not justify violence against them. However, we must not and cannot shy away from the truth and refuse to call abortion and what these abortionist do as evil (what it truly is) because it might possibly lead a radical to commit violence. We have to continue to stand for truth and state the truth.

We are told not to judge, but even a "A Tree Is Known by Its Fruit" (Matt 7:15-20 below) - Carhart is also known by his fruits - he is one that mercilessly kills & seeks to kill more viable babies - - if that isn't evil.... then what is????

Matt 7:15-20:
"15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

No One Gets Left Behind

Great Video - I just saw today.

Enjoy the FREE video built to honor our military members and their families. Be sure to remember in the deepest part of your soul the ones that have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Keep these brave warriors in your thoughts daily. Direct the emotion of LOVE to the people that keep us safe. We are able to feed our families, build our businesses, LOVE the people close to us and pursue happiness because of the men and women that make sure "No One Gets Left Behind".