Monday, February 24, 2014
From: Gary L. Bauer
Administration Proposes Big Budget Cuts!
The Obama Administration today announced major budget cuts. Of course, those cuts are aimed at reducing the Army to its lowest levels since before World War II. According to one report, the plan from Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel “takes into account the fiscal reality of government austerity.”
Last week we were getting an entirely different message from the White House. Thursday the Washington Post reported that Obama’s newest budget will spend tens of billions more and “would aim to reduce the emphasis on austerity.”
“Austerity” seems to be a very subjective term. The national debt has more than doubled since 2009.
Nevertheless, it seems that the Army is going to bear the burden of new domestic spending plans by shedding more than 75,000 troops under Hagel’s proposal. I bet there was great acclaim for this idea in Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran.
Poll: Obama Not A Respected Leader
After Obama’s “red line” debacles, the public seems to be having second thoughts about our commander-in-chief. A new Gallup poll suggests Americans now feel Obama may be a liability on the world stage.
When asked whether they thought foreign leaders respect Obama, only 41% of Americans believe they do. A majority — 53% — feel that foreign leaders do not respect our president.
The world becomes a very dangerous place when the United States of America loses the respect of allies and adversaries. Recent remarks from Iran’s president and supreme leader indicate that they neither fear nor respect President Obama. Last month, a poll found that only 22% of Israelis trusted Barack Obama to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.
Reacting to Obama’s foreign policy views, world chess champion and human rights activist Garry Kasparov tweeted this weekend, “I’ve said it before, but if Barack Obama had been president instead of Ronald Reagan, I’d still be a citizen of the Soviet Union.”
The Left’s Assault On Freedom
I am pleased to report that the Federal Communications Commission has put its investigation of newsrooms on hold after exposure by Fox News and groups like ours. But the tendency of the left to abuse its power and assault freedom is still alive and well.
For example, Obamacare is going to be a major issue in the upcoming election, and vulnerable politicians are going on the attack. But they are not attempting to win over skeptical voters with a pro-Obamacare PR blitz.
Instead, they are once again attempting to silence their critics. One Senate candidate is threatening the broadcasting licenseof a TV station airing an ad by a cancer survivor who claims Obamacare is jeopardizing her health.
While lawyers can nitpick the details of the ad, the reality is that Obamacare is hurting millions of Americans, including some suffering from cancer. Stephen Blackwood wrote a chilling letter to the editor recently about his mother’s experience with Obamacare.
Diagnosed with carcinoid cancer in 2005, Catherine Blackwood was among the millions of Americans who lost her health insurance because of Obamacare. Now the new policy she was forced to buy is refusing to pay for her life-saving treatments. Here is Stephen’s conclusion:
“I understand that the intention — or at least the rhetorical justification — of [Obamacare] was to provide coverage for those who didn’t have it. But there is something deeply and incontestably perverse about a law that so distorts and undermines the free activity of individuals that they can no longer buy and sell the goods and services that keep them alive. ObamaCare made my mother’s old plan illegal, and it forced her to buy a new plan that would accelerate her disease and death.”
While liberals are bragging that Obamacare may give some people the freedom to work less, it is also an assault on consumer freedom that may claim some people’s lives.
Faith Communities Fighting For Family And Freedom
The battle to redefine marriage has significant implications for religious liberty and freedom. As we have reported, Christian business owners and private individuals are now being persecuted and their livelihoods put at risk for daring to live out the tenets their faith in public and even private settings.
It was encouraging to read that five religious organizations — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and Lutheran Church Missouri Synod — jointly filed an amicus brief with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The brief debunks the myth that normal marriage represents a form of bigotry and attests to the importance of marriage as a “vital and foundational institution of civil society.”
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals is currently hearing challenges to state marriage amendments overwhelmingly approved by the voters in Oklahoma and Utah. Whatever the court decides, its decision will likely be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. We will keep you posted.
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