America has a major problem because President Obama admits he doesn't know what he's talking about.
It's not just his uninformed statement that police "acted stupidly" by arresting his friend, a noted black scholar. The President also admitted last week that he doesn't know the details of the legislation that he's promoting for a big-government overhaul of our health care system.
Salesmen are supposed to know their product. Misrepresenting what you sell is fraud.
The fact that Obama hasn't read all 1,018 pages of the massive bill is not shameful. But he told a blogger news conference that he's even unaware of what's at the very start of the bill--the provisions that would squeeze 88-million Americans out of their private insurance coverage and into a government-run plan.
Details about Obama and about what IS in the bill are here in Ernest's latest column at Human Events.
What Obama Doesn't Know Can Hurt Us!
Can the Left Dictate to Democrats in Congress?
Even as most Americans grow more concerned about federal overspending—including our first-ever trillion-dollar deficit—left-wing pressure groups are pushing harder than ever for more government and more spending. They’re spending millions on TV and radio barrages because they don’t believe President Obama and the liberals in Congress have gone far enough. Like the Energizer Bunny, these groups keep going and going and going.
Read about "The Overstimulated Left," which won't slow down its demands despite public opposition to their overspending and big government plans. Plus the "Blue Dog Democrats" are the targets of a massive ad campaign from their own liberal party leaders, as the Democratic National Committee tries to push relucant Democrats into voting for Obama's massive health care overhaul.
"Gender Identity" laws lead to mischief
This week I've hosted Mark Shannon's afternoon drive radio talk show on KTOK in Oklahoma City, while he takes time off.
With "hate crimes" legislation moving through Congress, I asked Oklahoma State Rep. Al McCaffrey to be a guest on the program, since he has sponsored bills to add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as protected groups under Oklahoma law.
I quickly understood that he had a different understanding of some of the goals and the terms that homosexual rights groups want to place into our laws. The term "gender identity" in particular is not the innocent term it may appear to be.
The website of the Transgender Law Center is a major and extensive resource for what is being advocated, and is quite revealing about the agenda. For example, here is part of what it states about school restrooms:
All students have a right to safe and appropriate restroom facilities. This includes the right to use a restroom that corresponds to the student’s gender identity, regardless of the student’s sex assigned at birth.[4] Requiring the student to ‘prove’ their gender (by requiring a doctor’s letter, identity documents, etc.) is not acceptable. The student’s self-identification is the sole measure of the student’s gender.
The same page has many more incredible details about the agenda. And what IS "gender identity?" To be succinct, it means cross-dressing. This does not involve persons who have undergone sex-change surgery. "Gender identity" means whatever a person chooses to claim at the moment. Here is the definition that advocates created and was adopted by the public school system for Los Angeles, California:
"Gender identity" refers to one’s understanding, interests, outlook, and feelings about whether one is female or male, or both, or neither, regardless of one’s biological sex.
"Gender expression" refers to the way a person expresses her or his gender, through gestures, movement, dress and grooming.
The school systems' reference guide is online here. It includes these definitions and much more. Approval of cross-dressing is already the policy in Los Angeles public schools. Parents are not to be told if their child cross-dresses at school, and teachers must let each student decide whether they want to be called a "him" or a "her."
The Transgender Law Center also proclaims that, thanks to its efforts and that of others, "267 Colleges and Universities Have Non-Discrimination Policies that Include Gendeer Identity/Expression." Their list of those schools is online here.
The term "gender identity" promises to be an endless source of mischief, letting persons remove privacy barriers at will. New York City last fall gave cross-dressers the right to use the public restroom of their choice in its transit system, after one of many lawsuits filed since the city added "gender identity" to its human rights law in 2002. One department store has been forced to let men who dress as women use its restrooms and its fitting rooms. Controversies over the term are afoot in many states and communities where activists are pushing adoption of that term in hate crimes laws, employment laws, school codes and more, with the same zeal as the Greeks pushed their Trojan Horse.
With their "gender identity" foot-in-the-door approach, homosexual rights activists are creating enormous problems. The terminology is dizzying as various subgroups seek recognition. Acronyms that began with "Gay and Lesbian" have expanded to GLBT (adding bisexual and transgendered) and LGBTQ (adding either "questioning" or "queer") to LGBTQIA (adding intersex and allies). This is sure to be an incomplete list.
We who are concerned with traditional values should remember that each step taken will lead to another. A major example was when California's State Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage a constitutional right (which voters later overturned). The court's decision concluded that once California had created "civil unions" for persons of the same sex, the state had triggered the constitutional requirement for equal protection of the laws, and therefore must convert civil unions into actual marriages.
Unfortunately for those who argue for moderate or compromise solutions, each supposed halfway measure leads us further away from traditional values. Recognition of "gender identity" opens an enormous Pandora's box of problems.
Sneak Peek at New "Government-Built" Car!!
Since the U.S. government has taken over General Motors, everyone has wondered what type of car it wants to build. Here's a sneak peek from a hidden camera that caught the first glimpse of the new vehicle.
Government's Comedy of Errors
Giant Numbers Are Bad for Your Health
Defense Shrinks While Rest of Government Grows
Saving us from ourselves . . .
We all know the phrase: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” Perhaps someday they’ll change the national motto from e pluribus unum to est pro vestri own beneficium—“It’s for your own good.”
Regular superheroes save us from villains. Liberal superheroes save us from ourselves.
Today’s federal government doesn’t stop with taking over big things like General Motors and health care, but also wants to govern little things in our lives. They’re talking about new gun controls; a federal ban on smoking in public places; controls on advertising, to make sweets as verboten as cigarettes; even sin taxes on whatever fizzes or appeals to a sweet tooth.
Congress vs The Economy!
The biggest show in Washington resembles “Let’s Make A Deal,” as an enormous tax on energy starts moving through committee in the U.S. House. But it could become “Apocalypse Now” because the bill will kill 2.5-million jobs and its $9.6-trillion price tag could wreck the economy.
What do we gain? Supposedly global warming will be reduced by two-tenths of one degree by the end of the century. That’s it. Americans will adjust their thermostats by far more due to skyrocketing electric bills that President Obama predicts will be caused by this legislation. So we’ll be hotter in the summer and colder in the winter.
The annual price tag for a family of four? It’s projected to be $4,000 a year! The higher electric bills alone will average about $1,500 a year.
So why do so many in Congress support this cap-and-tax approach despite the absence of public support? Many have been bought off by sweetheart deals that are spread throughout the bill. More details are in Ernest Istook’s column at Human Events.
Could 2010 Census Include Make-Believe People?
Left-leaning groups want to include millions of pretend people in the real-life 2010 Census. It almost happened in 2000. This time, they might get their way.
The administration claims it has “no plans” to use statistical sampling to augment the actual headcount next year by adding millions of fictitious people.
Conservatives worry that, having learned from the failure of Bill Clinton’s high-profile push for census sampling, the administration has adopted a stealth approach.
Here are the details from Ernest.
Federal Budget Is Like Swine Flue
Talking about the federal budget causes dizziness, headaches and confusion. That’s why many Americans mistake it for the swine flu and try to avoid it.
Likewise, the just-adopted budget can also be dangerous. One threat has been dodged, though. The threat that the budget would give favored treatment to new energy taxes has dissolved, although plans for those taxes are still being pushed actively.
The new budget gives an advantage to plans for nationalizing health care and for greater federal intervention in education, however.
Ernest Istook explains in his column at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31698
A Kitchen Table Agenda
National Review posed these questions to me and to others such as Newt Gingrich and Dr. Ed Feulner: Has the conservative movement begun to fight? Facing the specter of increasing Democratic majorities in Congress, can it rebuild? What should the Right be doing right now? Is it doing it?
You can read all the responses at their website, including mine. Here's what I proposed:
Conservatives are fighting but not persuading. We must reeducate a nation whose core principles have been eroded by left-leaning media, Hollywood, political correctness, and conservative misbehavior.
Liberal ascendance reflects American attitudes more than we like to admit, in a country where only 53 percent say capitalism beats socialism.
Simply promoting lower taxes and smaller government won’t resonate with millions who enjoy zero income-tax liability or who receive government benefits. We must explain that they still have a personal pocketbook stake.
How? With a kitchen-table agenda. In a single word: Consumerism — the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate society’s economic structure.
Washington mandates have pushed up prices on everything that’s important. Some examples:
- The 2007 energy bill will raise car prices by $5,000 to $7,000 per vehicle.
- Health-care costs reflect 135,000 pages of regulations.
- Ethanol mandates have fueled soaring food prices.
- New light bulbs cost 5 times more than the old.
- How about the economy-wrecking mortgage meltdown? A HUD regulation created a quota (28 percent last year) for how many Fannie and Freddie mortgages must go to those with the poorest incomes.
And the red tape and mandates just keep on coming. Cap-and-trade will be the granddaddy of them all. As candidate Barack Obama said, “Under my [energy] plan . . . electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
Congressionally engineered hikes in the cost of everything should be discussed as families sit around the kitchen table. The full cost goes beyond regulations and taxes; it’s also an issue of freedom.
Big government remains the cause of big problems, not the solution. We know the message can work when delivered well. Ronald Reagan proved it.
Who Can Afford to Go All-Green?
Politicians claim they will boost the economy with green jobs. They don't mention that their legislation will destroy more existing jobs than it ever creates with new green jobs that often pay less than the jobs they kill. Other nations have learned this fact from sad experience with their environmental laws; can't we learn a lesson from them?
Read Ernest's article: Green Jobs? Or Gangrene?
Another overlooked fact about the new energy and environmental proposals is the cost to everyday Americans. Are you ready for skyrocketing energy bills? And higher taxes as well, also from the same proposals? As even The New York Times now admits, alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power are far more expensive ways to generate electricity than by using fossil fuels or nuclear energy.
Ernest exposes this in Green Agenda Soaks Taxpayers
You should also read "Seven Myths of Green Jobs," which has just been released by several academics.
The Few. The Proud. The Taxpayers.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg let the cat out of the bag when he announced that half the city’s income comes from 42,000 of its residents. So in a city of 8.2 million, less than half of one percent of the people carry 50 percent of the tax burden.
On the national scale, the top 10% of income tax filers pay 70% of the taxes and earned 47% of the income.
The Tax Foundation reports that the top 1% of American tax filers paid more taxes in 2006 than the bottom 90%. The numbers were $408-billion paid compared to $299-billion. Of 136 million returns filed that year, a mere 1.4 million Americans paid more than this other 122 million combined.
And 23-million Americans who paid zero in income taxes still received federal “refunds” of $46 billion last year.
Is this what passes for fairness today? Is this why some have Tea Parties to protest, while millions don’t care because they are paying nothing?
Read more here.
The High Cost of Congress
Any tax cut or “economic stimulus” we might get this spring is peanuts compared to how Washington keeps jacking up the price of everything that’s important.
By itself, last month’s energy bill will make food, cars, gasoline and even light bulbs more expensive. Washington is also the culprit behind high medical bills and health insurance, washing machines that have doubled in price, and our wonderful, more-expensive “lo-flo” toilets that don’t flush right.
All this is on top of what red tape already costs us. A 2004 government report admitted that federal regulations cost our economy at least $1.1 trillion each year. That’s $3,666 per person, so multiply that by the number of people in your household. And remember that’s before the 2007 energy bill. And in addition to taxes.
The new energy laws are a leftist’s dream and a supply-sider’s nightmare. As 2008 starts, we’re paying $3 (often more) for a gallon of gasoline. That’s up about a fourth (64 cents) from a year ago. The Heritage Foundation calculates the new energy bill will boost gas prices over $5 a gallon by 2016. Yet rather than let us produce more oil domestically, Congress keeps areas off-limits from drilling that could raise supply and lower prices.
Someday you might save gas, since Congress has dictated that new cars must soon get 10% more miles per gallon. But that depends on your being able to afford a new car. Sticker shock on new cars will get worse because engineering them to meet the mandate will raise car prices by $5,000 to $7,000 per car, according to General Motors.
Compounding the engineering challenge is the Congressional requirement that more ethanol be mixed into the gasoline. That lowers mpg because ethanol contains less energy. In return for this mileage reduction, your tax dollars are used to pay ethanol producers a 51-cent-per-gallon subsidy. Since the new law compels the sale of 35 billion gallons of ethanol—up from the currently mandated 8 billion gallons a year—the subsidy costs to taxpayers will rise from $4 billion to $17.5 billion annually.
This is why food prices keep going up. As more corn goes into ethanol, food processors must bid against the government subsidy to buy corn. So must livestock producers who need the corn to feed the cattle, chickens and other animals. Even before the four-fold increase in the ethanol mandate, one-fifth of corn production already goes to ethanol. This will worsen the $9 billion a year extra that consumers already pay in food prices because ethanol subsidies have taken so much corn out of the food and feed supply. Thanks to Congress, the era of cheap and plentiful food in America may be over. (Sadly, they’ll just propose more food stamps as a “solution”.)
Could we just plant more corn (and maybe end $23 billion in farm subsidies)? The ethanol mandate is so massive there’s not room to plant more corn to avoid higher food prices. The National Environmental Trust estimates the new mandate will require us to plant an additional 82.5-millon acres of corn (129,000 square miles). That would take every square inch of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio—presuming you could evacuate the people and plant every acre.
Then there’s Congress’ bright idea about light bulbs—banning Thomas Edison’s invention of the incandescent bulb. As a smart shopper, I can buy them on sale for only 25 cents each. But I can’t find the new curly-cue fluorescent bulbs for less than $2 apiece. I’ve bought some anyway, since they’re said to last eight times longer and save 80% more energy. But I resent Congress’ telling me I’ve got no choice. I’m tempted to be ornery and stock up on the old-school bulbs before they’re banished to consumer prison. (I had the same dismay when the feds banned 99-cent cans of Freon, making us spend a hundred dollars to fix the coolant in our car air-conditioning.)
There’s a cultural factor, too. We lose a little refinement when the piggy-tail lights replace decorative bulbs in candelabras, mirror lights, etc., or we can’t find small incandescent lights for Christmas decorations.
These mandates come from the same folks who brought us the $900 washing machine (up from $400 or so before l federal mandates kicked in) and the pricier 1.6-gallon-per-flush toilet, which wastes water because you have to flush multiple times.
Federal red tape is also the biggest reason why health care is so expensive. For each hour spent with patients, our doctors, nurses and their staff must spend almost another hour doing the paperwork dictated by federal regulations.
No wonder we’re losing jobs to the rest of the world. They don’t drown themselves in silly red tape that makes the price of their products uncompetitive. But we do.
Presidential candidates take note: If you want to woo middle class voters, don’t offer them one-shot rebates or other “economic stimulus” gimmicks. Bring back common-sense, and make life in America affordable again.
--Ernest Istook is a former U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma, and now a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
