Tonight's Crazy Story:
Lawmaker Office Duped by The Onion's Planned Parenthood Satire
Congressman Joe Fleming's office posted a link to a story about a new Planned Parenthood's abortion facility. The only problem: it was published by The Onion, a satirical news website.
Topic One: Health Care's Future
Steve Jacob writes a worthwhile article on the impending problem in health care, which has nothing to do with the fate of ObamaCare. "The primary-care workload is expected to increase by nearly 30 percent between 2005 and 2025. Feeding this demand is a growing population, a flood of baby boomers becoming Medicare beneficiaries, and the newly insured because of health-care reform. However, the supply of primary-care physicians is expected to rise by only 2 to 7 percent. Three out of four physicians say they already are at or over capacity. The math screams that there will be a health-care access crisis in the next 15 years. Expect longer waits for appointments, shorter physician visits, greater use of nonphysicians for routine care, and higher prices."
There's Always Time for a Laugh:
"Tom Brady's wife Gisele publicly criticized the Patriots receivers for dropping some of her husband's passes. You know, it's one thing when you get chewed out by your coach. But to get chewed out by a a supermodel, that's got to hurt."
-Jay Leno
Topic Two: Education
HuffPo has a column on the proposal that everyone be forced to stay in school until age 18. I agree with many of the assertions in the article, but we are looking to the wrong place for a solution. Yes, it is true that those who drop out of high school rarely become highly productive members of society. However, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. There is no evidence to suggest that any substantial portion of the students who do drop out of school would become highly productive if forced to stay in school an extra two years. Furthermore, this is another example of federal overreach. Education is best when education is managed locally, and a federally mandated drop out age is certainly not local.
Related stories: GOP govs proposing education spending increases. The fight to reform education. The entitlement culture and teachers. Principals can make a difference in the education of students.
Debt Watch:
Yesterday, the government spent $2,773,374,579.57 over its revenues, boosting the national debt to:
$15,337,881,657,918.14
Topic Three: Contraception Confusion
Rick Perry received a lot of criticism from both parties for his "Strong" ad, and many decried Perry's claims of a "war on religion". In that light, I present a new exhibit: the contraception debate. Under ObamaCare, churches and individuals will be forced to pay for items that go against their religious beliefs, including the morning-after pill that kills the developing embryo at its earliest stages.
Meanwhile, the army is silencing Catholic army chaplains by instructing them that they may not read a letter from their archbishop regarding the contraception mandate. By silencing religious expression, the administration is showing once again that they have no concern for the Constitution and freedom.
Related stories: UT-San Diego editorial on religious liberty. Sharpton's ridiculous defense of the contraception mandate: separation of church and state.
Tweets of the Day:
Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets):
Suddenly Democrats love the Citizen's United case. It's almost like they only want free speech for themselves or something.
Topic Four: Voter ID
Townhall has a great column, "The Vote of the Living Dead". "One would think that given the Bush-Gore dustup in Florida over pregnant and hanging chads, truth-in-balloting would be of as much a concern of the Left as it is the Right. One would think that, but one would be wrong. Not only has Left compared the idea to the poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crow era but, asserts Cooper, the U.S. Attorney General opposes the idea as well. Which begs the question, why is the Left so opposed to the notion of fairness and truth at ballot box? What is it about insuring that only registered voters who live (literally) in their precinct avail themselves of one of the most important American rights?"
A person needs to look no farther than New Hampshire and Florida for examples of vote fraud, and that is only this year. Furthermore, Indiana's secretary of state--the person in charge of managing elections and preventing election fraud--was convicted on six of seven counts of election fraud, including registering to vote at an address where he did not live. Finally, Townhall contributor Lincoln Brown writes of the ironies that if liberals have their way, Americans will need ID to buy sugar but not to vote.
Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"An honorable Peace is and always was my first wish! I can take no delight in the effusion of human Blood; but, if this War should continue, I wish to have the most active part in it."
-John Paul Jones
Topic Five: Pipeline Politics
The NY Times has a (rare) great op-ed on the politics of the keystone pipeline. "Oliver no longer talks so freely about the environmental critics of the Keystone pipeline; all of Harper’s ministers have been instructed to stop making comments that might be construed as interfering in the American presidential election. But there are other, more diplomatic, ways to send messages. Like going to China with your cabinet members and cutting energy deals with a country that has, as The Globe and Mail in Toronto put it recently, a “thirst for Canadian oil.” Oil, I might add, that may be a little dirtier than the crude that pours forth from the Saudi Arabian desert — that is one of the main reasons environmentalists say they oppose Keystone — but is hardly the environmental disaster many suppose."
"As it turns out, the environmental movement doesn’t just want to shut down Keystone. Its real goal, as I discovered when I spoke recently to Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, is much bigger. 'The effort to stop Keystone is part of a broader effort to stop the expansion of the tar sands,' Brune said. 'It is based on choking off the ability to find markets for tar sands oil.' This is a ludicrous goal. If it were to succeed, it would be deeply damaging to the national interest of both Canada and the United States. But it has no chance of succeeding. Energy is the single most important industry in Canada. Three-quarters of the Canadian public agree with the Harper government’s diversification strategy. China’s “thirst” for oil is hardly going to be deterred by the Sierra Club. And the Harper government views the continued development of the tar sands as a national strategic priority. Thus, at least one country in North America understands where its national interests lie. Too bad it’s not us."
Tomorrow in History
February 8, 1837
- The US Senate elects the Vice President for the first and only time, selecting Richard Johnson
over Francis P. Granger
Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening
Overtime for border patrol is a bargain
Most college profs do not consider Reagan in top 10 presidents
The age of mediocrity
Iranian Ayatollah: "Kill all Jews"
Boehner says Obama uses tea party as an excuse
Questions for Obama on fairness
The next individual mandate: buy Chevy Volts?
90 DC workers charged with unemployment fraud
Judge to decide if animals get same protections as humans
Carney: people leaving workforce is an "economic good"
Another bankrupt government-supported green energy company
Pro-choice supporters become anti-choice on Komen
The Closing Argument
The final article in the grab bag section discusses how the "pro-choice" crowd opposed the right of the Komen breast cancer foundation to choose which organizations it would support. This distinction highlights a problem in the pro-life/pro-choice discussion that I have discussed before: most of the people who claim to be pro-choice actually oppose choice. If a person was truly pro-choice, that person would support giving a person a complete perspective on the decision before allowing them to obtain an abortion. Thus, a truly pro-choice person would not oppose Texas's law requiring physicians to provide a sonogram prior to performing an abortion. However, issues such as the Komen decision or the Texas sonogram law expose the truth that most people who call themselves "pro-choice" are actually pro-abortion. They do not want freedom of choice, they want abortion to be so easily accessible that anyone who thinks about an abortion can easily and quickly obtain one.
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