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Washington, D.C. (27 October 2009) – The Senate version of America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 may transform the nation’s largest abortion chain into a quasi-government entity for sex education.

Section 1803, page 503, creates a National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resource Center and states:

The Secretary shall award a grant to a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that meets the requirements described in clause (ii) to establish and operate a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center (in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘Resource Center’) to carry out the purpose and activities described in clause (iii). (emphasis added)
According to the requirements found in clause (ii):

The organization has demonstrated experience working with and providing assistance to a broad range of individuals and entities to reduce teen pregnancy. The organization is research-based and has comprehensive knowledge and data about teen pregnancy prevention strategies.
According to Rita Diller, national director for STOP Planned Parenthood, there is only one “nationally recognized” organization that fits the bill – Planned Parenthood.

“This dangerous provision to the Senate health care bill could give Planned Parenthood, already under investigation for tax fraud and concealing child rape, quasi-government status and even more influence over our kids,” Diller said.

Section 1803 also creates a “Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training” program (i.e., sex education), which grants at least $250,000 to each state to educate adolescents on “both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and STDs.”

American Life League’s Michael Hichborn has a full analysis of this and the many other dangerous provisions included in the health care bill in his upcoming Report on America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.

American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.

For example:

The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees.
Nearly 90 percent of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less.
It might not appear that way at first, because the dollars are collected via a 40 percent tax on sales by insurers of “Cadillac” policies, fees on health insurers, drug companies and device manufacturers, and an assortment of odds and ends.
The economics are clear:

These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums.
Consumers will pay the excise tax on high-cost plans; the Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that 87 percent of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.
Industry fees are even worse because Democrats chose to make these fees nondeductible, explains Holtz-Eakin:

This means that insurance companies will have to raise premiums significantly just to break even. American families will bear a burden even greater than the $130 billion in fees that the bill intends to collect.
Premiums will rise by as much as $200 billion over the next 10 years — and 90 percent will again fall on the middle class.
Senate Democrats are also erecting new barriers to middle-class ascent:

A family of four making $54,000 would pay $4,800 for health insurance, with the remainder coming from subsidies.
If they work harder and raise their income to $66,000, their cost of insurance rises by $2,800.
In other words, earning another $12,000 raises their bill by $2,800 — a marginal tax rate of 23 percent.
Double-digit increases in effective tax rates will have detrimental effects on the incentives of millions of Americans.
Source: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, “The Baucus Bill is a Tax Bill,” The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009

Especially to those LFR Ringers who are supporters of our http://www.WeNeedAFence.com project, this latest move by the Obama Administration is an outrage:

Even though the Border Patrol now reports that almost 1,300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border is not under effective control, and the Department of Justice says that vast stretches of the border  are “easily breached,” and the Government Accountability Office has revealed that three persons “linked to terrorism” and 530 aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints last year, the administration is nonetheless now planning to decrease the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border Patrol Director of Media Relations Lloyd Easterling confirmed this week–as I first reported in my column yesterday–that his agency is planning for a net decrease of 384 agents on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2010, which begins on October 1. read complete Article

Political snitches monitor sermons

At least two organizations are monitoring the content of Sunday sermons by U.S. pastors and threatening to report churches to the Internal Revenue Service if they hear political messages they deem inappropriate under federal guidelines on tax-exempt status.

Earlier this week, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, headed by Barry Lynn, filed a complaint with the IRS against Ronnie Floyd, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark., accusing him of preaching a sermon promoting President Bush’s re-election July 4.

The complaint challenges the church’s tax-exempt status as a religious organization.

Lynn’s letter to the IRS reads, in part: “The pastor’s description of the candidates’ stands and their personal religious beliefs was obviously aimed at encouraging congregants to cast ballots for Bush. The church is known for its stands on social issues and its opposition to legal abortion and gay rights. By lauding Bush’s stands on these and other issues and attacking (Sen. John) Kerry’s, Floyd was plainly telling his congregation to be sure to vote for Bush.

“I have enclosed a videotape that includes the entire sermon as well as a partial transcript. About 45 minutes into the message, Floyd begins to discuss the differences between Bush and Kerry.

Organizations granted tax-free status under federal law “may not participate at all in campaign activity for or against political candidates,” according to published IRS guidelines… To read more

Even though the nation was in a recession and unemployment rates were rising, the percentage of people lacking health insurance in the United States did not increase during 2008, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.

The actual number of people lacking health insurance ticked up slightly during the year, but so did the actual number of people who were insured, as the overall population increased from 299.10 million in 2007 to 301.48 million in 2008. There was also a slight movement of people from private insurance into government insurance—including seniors moving into Medicare. To read complete article

The 33-second ad by the League of American Voters, which features a neurosurgeon who warns that a government-run health care system will lead to the rationing of procedures and medicine, began airing two weeks ago on local affiliates of ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS. On a national level, however, ABC and NBC have refused to run the spot in its present form.

“It’s a powerful ad,” said Bob Adams, executive director of the League of American Voters, a national nonprofit group with 15,000 members who advocate individual liberty and government accountability. “It tells the truth and it really highlights one of the biggest vulnerabilities and problems with this proposed legislation, which is it rations health care and disproportionately will decimate the quality of health care for seniors.”

Adams said the advertisement is running on local network affiliates in states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Maine and Pennsylvania. But although CBS has approved the ad for national distribution and talks are ongoing with FOX, NBC has questioned some of the ad’s facts while ABC has labeled it “partisan.”

“The ABC Television Network has a long-standing policy that we do not sell time for advertising that presents a partisan position on a controversial public issue,” spokeswoman Susan Sewell said in a written statement. “Just to be clear, this is a policy for the entire network, not just ABC News.”

NBC, meanwhile, said it has not turned down the ad and will reconsider it with some revisions.

“We have not rejected the ad,” spokeswoman Liz Fischer told FOXNews.com. “We have communicated with the media agency about some factual claims that require additional substantiation. As always, we are happy to reconsider the ad once these issues are addressed.”

Adams objects to ABC’s assertion that his group’s position is partisan.

“It’s a position that we would argue a vast majority of Americans stand behind,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a message that ABC and the Obama administration haven’t received yet.”

Dick Morris, a FOX News political analyst and the League of American Voters’ chief strategist, conceptualized the advertisement and said its purpose was to “refocus” the debate on health care reform.

“I feel the whole debate on health care reform needed to be refocused on the issue of Medicare,” he told FOXNews.com. “Most of the debate had been on issues of socialized medicine and cost. I felt that the impact of the legislation in cutting the Medicare program and enforcing rationing needed to be addressed.”

Morris, a onetime advisor to former President Bill Clinton, said he was particularly troubled by ABC’s decision not to air the spot.

“It’s the ultimate act of chutzpah because ABC is the network that turned itself over completely to Obama for a daylong propaganda fest about health care reform,” he said. “For them to be pious and say they will not accept advertising on health care shuts their viewers out from any possible understanding of both sides of this issue.”

An Arizona congressman says liberals on the “Franking Commission” have deliberately tried to censor mail that conservative Republican House members are attempting to send out to their constituents.

  Democrats on the bipartisan Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards have been blocking Republicans from sending out franked mailings to constituents that refer to the cap-and-trade bill as “cap and tax,” the stimulus bill as the “so-called stimulus,” and the healthcare reform bill as “socialized medicine.”
 
Representative Trent Franks (R-Arizona) says the Franking Commission even told him to stop using the phrase “Democratic majority” in his newsletters, and to use “majority” instead.
 
“For instance, I can say ‘the Speaker,’ but I can’t say ‘Speaker Pelosi’ because that’s too inflammatory. Well, you know, I understand their problem — they don’t want people to really identify the Democratic Party with Nancy Pelosi,” he notes. “But the point is, we are forced to change our vernacular and how we say things in order to comport with their attitudes and their way of believing [how] we should say it.”
 

Another Republican member of the House, John Carter of Texas, told Human Events last month the Franking Commission informed him he could not say: “House Democrats unveiled a government-run healthcare plan” — but instead must use: “The House majority unveiled a public option healthcare plan.” That, stated Carter, is “Pelosi-speak.”

 According to Franks, an honest and open debate would put Democrats’ agenda “in dire straits.”
 
“Ironically, we found franked mail sent from Nancy Pelosi that has exactly the same phrases in it, only from the Democrat side when she was in the minority — exactly the same that she never was censored for,” he adds. “But now that they’re in the majority, they’re censoring the Republican mail.”
 
Franks says for the first time in decades, Republicans have not been able to offer amendments to some of the most critical bills being considered. He points out that Democrats are even trying to create a rule on appropriations bills that would prevent Republicans from offering their amendments.