Voice For Liberty

Tag: Politics

  • Video message can’t rehabilitate Wichita’s reputation

    The Wichita organization ROKICT.com has produced a video that attempts to rehabilitate Wichita’s reputation in light of the events of yesterday.

    Introduced as “About wichita — a reaction from the arts community to the kansas stigma after the murder of dr. tiller” it’s been viewed over 750 times on YouTube.

    Early on, the video spotlights activist Jason Dilts speaking at the candlelight vigil for murdered doctor George Tiller.

    Obviously speaking from the heart, Dilts said “Wichita’s better than this. This is not Wichita. (Cheers from crowd.) … We’re a community that brings people together. Some of us are pro-choice, some are pro-life, but we’re all pro-community.”

    That’s all the video speaks to about abortion, except for its ending message “We are more than a stigma, we are stronger than violence.” The rest of the video promotes Wichita in much the same way a chamber of commerce commercial would — although to a younger, hipper, edgy audience.

    The problem is that this message — concern that only now, after the murder of Dr. Tiller, does Wichita bear the stigma of violence — resonates only if you believe that a woman truly does have the right to a late-term abortion.

    But if you believe, as many Americans do, that abortion kills a human life, then Wichita has born the stigma of violence for many years, as our community was home to one of our nation’s few late-term abortion providers.

    This difference of opinion can’t be overcome by the suggestion that we’re all “pro-community.”

  • Kansas campaign press release archive started

    To help people in Kansas keep up with campaigns, I’ve started a collection of Kansas campaign press releases and related material.

    To view the documents, click on Kansas campaign press release archive.

  • Politics impossible to ignore in Tiller murder

    George Tiller vigil 2009-05-31 11

    About 500 people gathered in Wichita’s Old Town Square last night in a vigil to remember the life of murdered Wichita doctor George Tiller.

    Tiller was notable as one of the few doctors in the United States who performed late-term abortions.

    One speaker at the vigil said that Tiller was the victim of a hate crime. One spoke of Wichita’s “sense of community.” “We’re a city that brings people together … we’re all pro-community.”

    One person attending the vigil said “This is grass roots terrorism.”

    Another person in the audience told me that it’s a shame that Wichita — and the city’s image — will be in the news for the next several days because of this story. Another wanted to make sure that I reported how peaceful the vigil attendees were, perhaps drawing a contrast with a small group of protesters from Westboro Baptist Church who carried anti-abortion signs and shouted before the vigil started. There, a group of abortion rights supporters returned the insults in kind.

    I agree with the assessment of Bud Norman that last night’s vigil was more a demonstration for abortion rights than anything else. Part of the problem, as Norman noted, was the lack of sound reinforcement equipment. That, coupled with the water fountain noise — not to mention the street traffic and trains — meant that only some of the people who attended the vigil heard the speakers. That didn’t seem to bother many of the people who attended.

    The politics of abortion are impossible to separate from this murder, and those politics are emotionally charged.

    As an illustration, it didn’t take long before an online forum, the Wichita Eagle’s WE blog, descended into vicious and hateful name-calling, with writers on both sides making threats against others.

    At this time, it seems that neither side is willing to trust the other. Some pro-choice people are not willing to accept pro-life groups’ condemnations of Tiller’s murder, claiming instead that pro-lifers are secretly glad that Tiller is dead.

    There is also an attempt to blame all pro-life demonstrators for Tiller’s death. One Kansas blogger wrote “… blame for that tragedy is at the feet of every person who has ever called a pro-choice person or a doctor who performs abortions a baby killer or who has ever marched at clinics or rallies holding signs with pictures of dismembered fetuses. Those words and those pictures are intended to elicit violent reactions like revulsion, hate, and, in their most extreme, murder.”

    Language like this fails to recognize the sincerity of the beliefs of many pro-life people, including those who protested peacefully nearly every day at Tiller’s clinic. Truly believing that abortion is equivalent to murder, they acted on their strongly-held beliefs — just as pro-choice people act on theirs.

    Despite President Obama’s recent call for “open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words” he recognizes that “the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.” The murder of George Tiller will likely provide another example of how true this is.

  • Chemical Facility Security Authorization Act threatens American economy

    Update: Let your elected representatives in Washington know about this legislation. Send them a message by clicking here.

    Earlier this week I reported on legislation being considered by Congress that would, under the lofty goal of national security, impose a huge burden on the American chemical industry. (Chemical security law goes beyond protection)

    Our agricultural industries need to be concerned, too. The article Homeland Security To Regulate Farm and Ranch Inputs? details some of the harm that excessive government interference will cause.

    For example, the legislation “proposes to mandate the government to take a large measure of control over products and processes in the chemical industry, much like it has taken over leadership, compensation and control functions at some banks, insurance and auto companies. … A government bureaucracy would be given power to mandate product substitutions, formulation changes and changes in processes … But interference with product formulation and the complicated processes worked out scientifically over years of research and experience is not the proper purview of government security regulators or environmental activists. It is a separate issue from security and terrorism. Such interference is more likely to create new manufacturing and worker safety hazards.”

    This article gives us a hint at what may be the real motivation behind this legislation: “Interestingly, it is environmental activist groups, many of whom oppose mainstream agriculture’s use of any chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and fossil fuels to produce America’s robust food supply, who are pushing this legislative reach to mandate private industry’s products and processes.”

    Wrapping an extremist environmental agenda in the trappings of national security may be an effective scare tactic, but it’s not a good way to formulate national policy.

  • Kris Kobach campaign in Wichita

    Republican Kris Kobach stopped by Wichita yesterday afternoon in his trip across Kansas supporting his candidacy for the Kansas Secretary of State.

    Kobach’s main reason for running, he says, is ACORN and the voter fraud it spreads. “It is a political organization, but it is also a criminal enterprise. It’s a criminal enterprise that is either under investigation or has been successfully prosecuted in 14 states.” ACORN is to receive $400 million in the federal stimulus plan, he said.

    Kobach outlined several things he wants to do to reduce voter fraud.

    Kobach says we need to require photo ID to vote in Kansas. This has been approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.

    We also need to require voters, when they register to vote for the first time, to prove that they’re U.S. citizens.

    We also need to purge the voter rolls, eliminating those who have died, are not U.S. citizens, or have moved away.

    Purging the voter rolls of non-citizens will prompt a lawsuit by the ACLU, Kobach said, but it has lost these suits.

    We also need to change the method of prosecution of voter fraud. There have been documented cases of voter fraud, he said, but no prosecutions. Currently the Secretary of State’s office refers suspected cases to local district attorneys, but these cases are judged as less important than other crimes, and therefore aren’t prosecuted. He advocates having an attorney in the Secretary’s office that would prepare cases and assist local district attorneys in prosecutions.

    Kobach said that “if you actually start enforcing the law, people start following the law,” the point being that starting to enforce the law will make the difference.

    Kansas is one of the most vulnerable states to voter fraud, Kobach said. His aspiration is to make Kansas a model of election security.

    The Wichita Eagle’s Dion Lefler attended the event and contributes coverage in Two area lawmakers back Kobach secretary of state candidacy. His previous coverage is at Kobach to run for secretary of state. The Eagle’s Rhonda Holman voices her skepticism of widespread voter fraud in her editorial Beware of claims of voter fraud.

  • Chemical security law goes beyond protection

    Congress is about to consider legislation that, on the surface, seems like it implements an important goal. Its name — Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards — suggests something that no one could oppose.

    The proposed legislation, however, would extend government control into another of our nation’s most important industries. It would require companies to change their manufacturing processes and substitute products in the name of safety. But the legislation may not produce its intended effect. As the letter below states: “Congressional testimony found that this could actually increase risk to the businesses that the bill intends to protect.”

    If you need to know just how bad this bill is, consider that the Center for American Progress, founded by Herbert M. Sandler and Marion O. Sandler, is squarely behind it.

    Radical environmentalists seek to destroy American industry any way they can. Using an unimpeachable issue — our national security and anti-terrorism — to advance their goals is just another of their tools.

    Following is a letter from a coalition of industry groups that explains some of the issues surrounding this legislation.

    Dear Member of Congress,

    We represent American businesses and local city services that provide millions of jobs and our national infrastructure. Protecting our communities and complying with federal security standards is a top priority for us.

    We support straightforward legislation to reauthorize the DHS chemical facility security standards enacted by Congress in 2006. We also support Congress enacting into statute the regulatory framework that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) carefully established and is now enforcing, known as the “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards.” Removing the sunset date and making the chemical security regulations permanent would provide the certainty needed to both protect our citizens and enable our economic recovery.

    However, we strongly urge you to oppose disrupting this security program by adding provisions that would mandate government-favored substitutions, weaken protection of sensitive information, impose stifling penalties for administrative errors, create conflicts with other security standards or move away from a performance (or risk-based) approach.

    For example, last year’s “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act” could have caused disruptions of new federal security standards and reduced jobs in the short term, and in the long term weakened infrastructure protection and economic stability.

    Our top concern is that legislation could go beyond security protections by creating a mandate to substitute products and processes with a government-selected technology. Congressional testimony found that this could actually increase risk to the businesses that the bill intends to protect. Such a standard is not measurable and would likely lead to confusion, loss of viable products, prohibitive legal liability, and business failures.

    We ask that you ensure that any security legislation avoid overlap and conflict with existing federal security requirements, such as the U.S. Coast Guard’s “Maritime Transportation Security Act.” Any proposal must also protect from release any sensitive security information on site vulnerability.

    Companies in thousands of communities are complying with the landmark new DHS chemical security standards while continuing to provide essential products and services for our daily lives. We believe that counter-productive adjustments to the current law would undermine security and endanger businesses in communities all around the country. Thank you for your consideration of our views.

    Update: Let your elected representatives in Washington know about this legislation. Send them a message by clicking here.

  • Harold Koh nomination threatens American law and sovereignty

    President Barack Obama has appointed Harold Koh to be Legal Advisor to the State Department. While a job with this title might seem to be relatively minor, it turns out that this position is quite influential and powerful. Koh’s views on the law indicate that he should not be confirmed by the Senate for this position.

    Harold Koh is a transnationalist. What does that mean?

    • International law and American law are not distinct
    • International law should be incorporated into American law
    • American courts should import international law, even when that law conflicts with American legal tradition and laws our elected representatives have passed

    According to M. Edward Whelan III of the Ethics and Public Policy Center:

    Transnationalists have three primary mechanisms for their revolution. First, they advocate a new understanding of “customary international law” (or CIL) in which they and other international elites, rather than state practice, generate the norms of new CIL and in which those norms supposedly are binding as federal common law. Second, they favor an extravagant reading of the treaty power in which treaties are presumptively self-executing (i.e., applicable as domestic law) and the treaty power is boundless in its scope (i.e., treaties can address the full range of domestic policymaking and thereby supplant — and even go beyond the scope of — congressional legislation). Third, they urge the Supreme Court to reinvent the meaning of constitutional provisions to reflect selected contemporary foreign and international practices. What transnationalism, at bottom, is all about is depriving American citizens of their powers of representative government by selectively imposing on them the favored policies of Europe’s leftist elites.

    The nomination of Harold Koh is dangerous for America. It holds the threat that American representative democracy will be subservient to world view. Our system of liberty and property rights is not respected all across the world. Transnationalism is a way for those who want to attack America to do so through law.

    A good source of information about Harold Koh and why his nomination should be opposed is The Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty.

    Another source of information about Koh is Harold Koh’s Transnationalism , by M. Edward Whelan III of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

  • The audacity of hopelessness

    The Audacity of Hopelessness
    Gregory L. Schneider

    President Barack Obama has had his way with business in his first hundred days in office. He is the only president in American history to fire a CEO of a private business, Rick Wagoner of General Motors. He called bondholders of Chrysler Corporation speculators after they refused a government-financed deal that would have paid them one-third or less of what they are owed; they would rather go through regular bankruptcy proceedings. Recently, out of fear of a nationalized health care system, private insurance trade associations and health care providers have pledged to the president that they will reduce $2 trillion in health care costs over the next decade. It might be the audacity of hope for President Obama, but it’s hopelessness for the private sector.

    The health providers, according to the Wall Street Journal, said they would reduce costs by simplifying administrative costs, making hospitals more efficient, reducing hospitalizations, and improving health care information technology. This last cost reduction goal plays to the president’s good graces, as it is a key component in what he believes will reduce health care costs. If the costs can be reduced then there may be no problem with the providers committing themselves to do so. But much depends on the other health care plan floating through Congress, the one that could force an end to private insurance — despite what supporters say — through the crowding out of the private market and its replacement with the public insurance Obama favors.

    Why is the health care industry, which vehemently opposed Hillary Clinton’s efforts to nationalize health coverage in 1993 and 1994, now supportive of the effort to do so? One thought is that it’s better to be a player on the inside negotiating the terms of surrender rather than one on the outside being dictated the terms. The conventional wisdom among conservatives is that this represents “a craven gesture of submission,” a kowtow to the American emperor as National Review editor Rich Lowry called it in his column.

    But look a little deeper as CATO Institute health care fellow Michael Cannon did on National Review Online (May 11, 2009) and there may be a different reason for why the health care industry caved and gave such promises to Obama. According to Cannon, “the basic math of universal coverage is this: it will cost a minimum of $120 billion per year to cover the uninsured. Over ten years, it can easily cost $2 trillion.” The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has not recognized the assumed savings from health care reform which are a major component of the Obama argument — reform health care and costs will decrease.

    “So it may be,” Cannon continues, “that the industry’s overture is actually an effort to cook the books by ganging up on the CBO: “See, you silly number-crunchers? Even the industry believes these reforms will reduce spending. What’s in it for the industry? Universal coverage gives them a huge revenue boost in the short term — and then every lobbyist at the White House will fight for those spending reductions over the long term. The industry isn’t negotiating its surrender — they’re negotiating the surrender of even more of our money.”

    Every economic decision the Obama administration has made since it took office in January has resulted in the politicization of private business. Look at the auto companies; look at the banks and Wall Street firms. Want to get out of government managed programs, like the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? You have to prove your worthiness, jump through hoops and then the administration may let you out of the program. Or it may not. Better to enter bankruptcy and reject the federal dole than to suffer the full consequences of government bailouts.

    That is a lesson I hope business learns quickly and begins to resist the trend toward socialized medicine (i.e., higher taxes, rationed care and a weakened health care system) on top of nationalized banks, auto companies and whatever else this administration has in store. That truly is the audacity of hopelessness.

    Gregory L. Schneider is a Senior Fellow with the Kansas-based Flint Hills Center for Public Policy.  A complete bio on Dr. Schneider can be found at http://www.flinthills.org/content/view/24/39/, and he can be reached at greg.schneider@flinthills.org.

  • Government-run health care focus of May 24 demonstration

    Next Sunday, Wichita-area citizens will have an opportunity to let their fellow citizens and the Obama administration know of the dangers of government control of health care.

    The event will be on Sunday, May 24, 2009, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. The location is the pedestrian bridge over Kellogg (US 54/400 highway) at Pattie Street. Meet on the south side of Kellogg.

    You can click on a Google map of the location. There’s also a Facebook event page.

    This event is part of the America Protests Facebook group.

    Protest event organizers say this is your opportunity to wake up the public, to get people talking to each other about government control of health care, to watch these videos to become informed, and to spread information throughout the country.

    This is the line in the sand. We must prevent passage of the current “Health Care Reform” bill. The public has no idea why it’s irreversible. They have no idea of the consequences of this bill. As long as we remain willing to go about our daily lives without rising up and holding mass demonstrations the public will remain complacent.

    Please sign up to attend the protests. May 24 and June 6 are the two days planned. You can click on the Facebook event page for more information. The guest list for the first protest on May 24 is private; your name or picture will not be displayed when you choose to attend.

    Please notify everyone you can of this protest. We want people to line the street with free information, brochures, and flyers to inform the public and get the alarm sounded across the country.

    Please send an email to students@cox.net for more information on the protest event, to ask your questions, and to volunteer to hand out literature, send emails, etc.

    What are the dangers of government-run health care? Indian (native American) health care is totally funded and run by the United States Government. This is what health care for everyone else will look like if we don’t speak up to prevent it.

    It took 10 years to get one bill to the floor in Congress for debate — just one bill to try to make improvements in Indian health care. If you think nationalized health care will be run any better you’re fooling yourself.

    Dick Morris described the irreversible nature of implementing Obama’s “Health Care Reform:” “The other radical changes Obama is bringing about in our nation can always be reversed. New taxes can be repealed or lowered. That which was nationalized can be privatized. Government which has grown can be cut. But once the health care system is extended to cover everyone, with no commensurate increase in the resources available, the change will be forever. The vicious cycle of cuts in medical resources and in the number of doctors and nurses will doom health care in this country. This wanton destruction will not be reversible by any bill or program. A crucial part of our quality of life — the best health care in the world — will be gone forever.”

    This is a very important video explaining why government-run health care is irreversible: