Obama's Bad Science Bailout

Yesterday's Executive Order may not have surprised conservatives, but it certainly shocked the Left. Although most of the country expected President Obama to make good on his promise to reverse the federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell (ESC) research, the final order turned out to be far more extreme than ESC's biggest proponents had hoped. Most believed the President would maintain some semblance of restraint and allow experimentation only on those embryos discarded by fertility clinics. Unfortunately, no such limits exist. The President not only cracked ajar the door to ethically-challenged research, he flung it wide open--leaving the very scientists who demanded this money potentially in charge of its limitations.

Under the President's directive, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), unless Congress intervenes, will determine what, if any, boundaries there might be on how we obtain these embryos. With no clear policy from the White House, you and I could be footing the bill for research that clones embryos just to scavenge their parts.

If that's the case, our policy will condone the creation of life for the sole purpose of experimenting on it. Ronald M. Green, a Dartmouth College bioethicist, said, "There are lot of people on the left and the right sides of our political spectrum who are opposed to that--to create a life to destroy it."

President Obama justified the idea yesterday, saying, "As a person of faith, I believe we are called to... work to ease human suffering." But killing to cure doesn't make murder more acceptable, just like giving stolen goods to the church doesn't justify larceny. As Yuval Levin, the former executive director of President Bush's Council on Bioethics writes in today's Washington Post, "In science policy, science informs--but politics governs, and rightly so."

By shielding this research from any public or congressional scrutiny, the President may as well tear up his social contract with the American people. When we're talking about human life and taxpayer dollars, voters have a right to know who's going to monitor the scientists. The appetite for this research may be insatiable, but as Levin says, "[Science]... is no substitute for wisdom, prudence, or democracy."

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) disagrees. A longtime proponent of unethical research, DeGette urged Congress to make Obama's executive order permanent. "Congress must quickly pass complementary legislation so that no future anti-science administration will be able to hinder progress... Congress absolutely must not delay in codifying the directive to prevent science from being subject to the whim of politics." Here is the first of what we expect to be many fierce attacks on the Dickey-Wicker Amendment--the only policy remaining that protects taxpayers from directly funding the destruction of human embryos.

President of 'Hope' Gives Patients Anything But

For eight years, President George Bush proudly displayed in the Oval Office a bust of Sir Winston Churchill on loan from Great Britain. As a gesture of goodwill, the British government offered to let President Obama keep the statue during his term as a symbol of our longstanding friendship. Obama declined, shipping the bust back to England--and with it, the reminder of Churchill's great wisdom. It was he who warned that if evil prevails "all that we have known and cared for will sink into a new Dark Age, made more sinister...by the lights of perverted science."

Today, that "perverted science" took root in America in a powerful new way, as President Obama tore down the wall between the federal government and embryonic stem cell experiments. By executive order, he took the first step in overturning the restrictions on taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research. His decision will allow government agencies to use federal money to encourage experiments on innocent human life, abolishing a ban that Bush put in place in 2001.

Supporters of the decision are quick to point out that Americans won't be financing the death of embryos. Although we may not be funding the killing, we are funding the killers. For now, the one law that prevents Obama from using taxpayer dollars to fund the destruction of embryos directly is still in place. The Dickey-Wicker amendment, approved by Congress every year since 1996, bans the use of federal funds to create human embryos. Unfortunately, even that safeguard could be in jeopardy under the liberal majority. As with the other pro-life riders, Dickey-Wicker must survive the appropriations process--a feat that could now be monumentally more difficult.

Obama's decision puts the government in a business which is not only unethical but also medically unnecessary. As recently as last week, researchers announced that they had successfully turned ethically created cells into the neurons that break down in Parkinson's disease. The week before, scientists produced evidence that they had treated Parkinson's in a patient with his own adult stem cells. Almost daily, researchers are celebrating new breakthroughs without compromising a single human life. Over 70 diseases and conditions have already been treated through adult stem cells, helping patients overcome everything from juvenile diabetes to heart disease. There is a common misconception that ESC research hasn't yielded these same results because it's not legal. It is. Only federal funding has been restricted. Private, commercial, and even state ESC experiments continue to no avail. That's why the ESC community is so desperate for federal funding. Many of the private ESC financiers see the method as an expensive failure. Even Dr. James Thomson, who first grew human ESC in 1998, has pulled his resources from embryos and invested in induced pluripotent (or iPS) cells, because, apart from the satisfying the moral dilemma, these cells are easier and cheaper to reproduce.

While the Obama administration and its supporters claim to be on the cutting-edge of science, the new President is pursing old technology. And thanks to the latest stimulus package, he will have at least $8 billion to do so. In a clever political move, Obama put the money in place at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during the second "bailout," then moved ahead with rescinding Bush's restrictions. As he stated today, it will be up to NIH to decide in the next 120 days on the guidelines for ESC research.

Of course, scientists will lobby to obtain the money without strings or congressional oversight. According to the White House, their wish may be granted in the form of a presidential memo which Obama released today that seeks to insulate scientists from political accountability. In instances like this one, a lack of transparency is unacceptable, particularly when taxpayers are footing the bill. Harold Varmus, who co-chairs the President's Council on Science and Technology, defended the idea. "This is consistent with the President's determination to use sound scientific practice... instead of dogma in developing federal policy." Is it dogma or discipline? I guess that depends on your worldview. Are they restrictions or protections? Research or experiments? In this brave new world of commodifying human life, we should all be grateful for moral restraints. Please contact your leaders and urge them to uphold the ones that still exist. Urge them to right Obama's wrong by voting for the Patients' First Act. Instead of asking taxpayers to fund the destruction of life, this bipartisan bill would promote stem cell research that is making progress on principle.

The Standard is Poor

His speech may have inspired the nation, but President Obama's economic cheerleading failed to make a believer out of Wall Street. Despite today's bleak news on the trading floor, the comforter-in-chief seemed to accomplish what he set out to do on Tuesday night--raise the spirits of grassroots Americans. Before last night's speech, confidence in the country had tumbled. While an overwhelming majority approved of President Obama (62%), nearly 80% agreed that "things are going badly in the United States." By a noticeable margin, the President has become more popular than his policies.

While people respond to his rhetoric, the market responds to reality--which is why investors have seen an interesting trend each time the President's outlines his agenda for the economy in a major speech. Obama's stock goes up, and the Dow goes down. Like a truth indicator to the President's plans, Wall Street tells us what Obama will not: financial experts have serious misgivings about the administration's approach to the crisis. The correlation below is really quite striking. When the President speaks, the market listens... and crumbles.

• November 5, 2008 (Wednesday after Election Day): -486 (5.0%)


• January 9, 2009 (one day after Obama speaks at George Mason University on "need" for $800 billion stimulus package): -143 (1.6%)


• January 20, 2009 (Inauguration Day): -332 (4.0%)


• February 10, 2009 (one day after Obama declares that without a stimulus, "an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with a catastrophe"): -382 (4.6%)


• February 17, 2009 (market opens for the first time after Congress passes $787 billion stimulus on February 13; Obama signs bill into law, declaring, "The stimulus lets Americans claim destiny."): -298 (3.8%)


• February 19, 2009 (one day after Obama announces potential mortgage relief plan): -90 (1.2%)


• February 25, 2009 (one day after Obama's first speech to the full Congress): -80 (1.1%)

Pig Pen: Obama Signs Pork Package into Law

With one stroke of the pen, President Obama vaulted into the record books yesterday, signing what may stand as the largest spending bill ever passed in the history of America. The legislation itself is eight inches thick, so large, a White House aide joked, that it "needed to be strapped in with a seat belt on Air Force One."

Instead of relieving debt, President Obama's "stimulus" is expected to add $9,400 more debt to every family in America. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that may be a modest estimate. If the programs created by the stimulus are made permanent (as the late President Ronald Reagan said, "A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!") the 10-year cost of this bill will be $3.27 trillion--almost triple the initial amount. Let me put that into perspective. If we spent a dollar every second, it would take 31,688 years to spend one trillion!

Unfortunately for U.S. taxpayers, there seems to be no caboose on this money train. The ink had barely dried on the stimulus before President Obama called for another $50 billion to stabilize the housing crisis. The auto industry is also striking while the money press is hot, lining up for another $17 billion handout--on top of the roughly $20 billion carmakers already received from Washington. Wall Street's finest are not far behind, as plans for a TARP 2 (Troubled Assets Relief Program) are already underway.

Obama: Up to His Earmarks in Pork

Yesterday, President Obama was back in campaign mode, hoping to engender the same affection for his massive stimulus bill that he did for his candidacy. This time, voters are noticeably more skeptical. In Indiana, Obama abandoned his trademark optimism and warned that without his trillion dollar spending spree, we would be turning a "crisis into a catastrophe." He defended his recovery plan--but not without telling a few whoppers about the intricacies of his plan.

To a roomful of Hoosiers, Obama said, "Understand, this bill does not have a single earmark in it, which is unprecedented for a bill of this size. There aren't individual pork projects that members of Congress are putting into this bill." In truth, it depends on how the President defines the word "earmark." A majority of Obama's projects are wasteful, special interest spending programs. If the Coast Guard's $255 million "polar icebreaker" doesn't qualify as pork, what does? Maybe the $3 million tax benefit for people with golf carts or ATVs?

Obama bragged, "The plan that we've put forward will save or create three million to four million jobs over the next two years." As the Associated Press points out, those numbers are impossible to substantiate. "The president's own economists... stated, 'It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error.'"

Despite voters' displeasure, the stimulus bill passed the Senate today, paving the way for some high-stakes bargaining between the chambers. Democrats have already indicated that most of the Senate cuts will be put back into the final legislation during the House and Senate conference. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the "compromise" expected to pass today will cost $18.7 billion more than the House bill. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said, "I do think that there was some spending in the bill that was makeup for a starvation diet under the Bush administration, some important priorities of our party." A "starvation diet" is hardly how I would characterize Bush's two terms, in which federal spending ballooned by more than 20 percent!

Unfortunately, this is just a tidbit of what the administration has in store over the next few months. On the threshold of an unprecedented $1.3 trillion stimulus, the President is moving forward with "phase two" of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), created to rescue Wall Street. In TARP 2, the Treasury Department has floated the possibility of spending up to $150 billion in new bank bailouts, shortly before the springtime omnibus, which is rumored to cost another $500 billion.

Dems Hope Pork Bailout Saves Their Bacon

This much is clear after last night's vote. House Democrats will live or die by the stimulus. President Obama's hopes for a spirit of bipartisanship sank the moment Republican leaders got their hands on the bill's fine print. The American people seem to be catching the new wave of skepticism about the liberals' plan. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, only forty-two percent of the nation's likely voters now support the President's plan. Perhaps they, like the GOP, are paying more attention to the fallout for the nation's families. Human Events says the $1.1 trillion pork-and-payoff bill will cost every American household $10,000--with just 5% dedicated to infrastructure. As families carefully spend their dollars, the presses are running around the clock to print more money for government agencies who abuse what they already have.

We're also learning of some disturbing connections between House liberals and the beneficiaries of the stimulus. Newspapers revealed that the bill's architect, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), had a vested interest in the massive $2 billion earmark for national parks (triple what the Senate Appropriations Committee approved). His son, Craig Obey, happens to be the chief lobbyist for the National Park Service. House Democrats also want to reward the National Science Foundation with a lavish $1.4 billion check at the same time its employees are under investigation for viewing and emailing porn on the taxpayers' dime ("for significant portions of their workdays, and over period of months or even years," according to Politico). Most Americans would agree that this isn't the kind of stimulus Congress should be funding.

We also learned that your money will help ingratiate Obama to his new Hollywood friends by providing a $246 million tax break for film investors. We commend the Democrats who stood against the party pressure and voted with conservatives and the GOP to protect the taxpayers. They include: Reps. Bobby Bright (Ala.), Parker Griffith (Ala.), Allen Boyd (Fla.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Gene Taylor (Miss.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), and Jim Cooper (Tenn.).

GOP Loses Standoff, Wins Respect

President Obama came to the Republican mountain, but he didn't manage to move it. In his much-anticipated meeting with the House minority, the new leader tried to soften opposition to the $1.1. trillion stimulus package. Obama did concede on one of the Republicans' largest complaints--the hundreds of millions of dollars in contraception. He stripped that provision, along with a beautification project for the National Mall, but neither compromise did much to ease Republicans' minds. Like us, they see the "recovery package" not as stimulus but as a major pork-and-payoff bill that quietly authorizes the most controversial pieces of Obama's social agenda.

Although the legislation passed this evening 244-188, the GOP did set in motion a new era of opposition, voting unanimously against a bill that would take government into the final frontiers of universal health care and federalized education. In the face of the most popular incoming President since JFK, Republicans stood together in statement of solidarity. We applaud them for showing real backbone against unprecedented government expansion.

As the veil begins to drop from the shady elements of the stimulus, more people are beginning to understand what's at stake. Today's New York Times reads, "Stimulus Offers Road to Retooling Social Policy" with "little notice and no public hearings." We thumbed through the 1,588 page H.R. 1 and found plenty of waste. Obama offers: $600 million to buy "green" cars for government workers; $400 million to help NASA conduct climate change research (which ranks dead last on Americans' priorities, according to a new Pew poll); $4.1 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities," for which ACORN (the Democrats' get-out-the-vote machinery) would be eligible; and even $227 million to oversee the pork spending in the stimulus (Page 11). Medicaid would expand for the poor, the uninsured, and the unemployed, opening the doors to universal health care. And the bill would more than double the Department of Education's current budget.

24 Hours -- A World of Difference

Americans watched on television as President Bush's jumbo jet soared out of sight on Tuesday--and with him, a long record of protecting the unborn. Although the Obama administration is only about 48 hours old, the new President has already set to work undoing years of pro-life and pro-family policy.

Minutes after Obama took the oath of office, the transfer of power was made complete on the White House website. For the past eight years I've been a regular visitor of the website. I have over 2,500 pictures in my library of the various points of President Bush's terms in office. The page, once home to a host of family values, now welcomes an extreme collection of anti-life, anti-woman, and anti-family agendas. Under the caption "civil rights," Obama pledges to fight for nationwide civil unions, repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, homosexual adoption, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, expanded "hate crimes," and over 1,100 costly same-sex benefits. He promises to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as well as block a federal amendment to preserve marriage. In exchange for the support of groups like Planned Parenthood, the abortion business is also due for a rich payoff from the 44th president, including his support of abortion-on-demand, more funding for "family planning" programs, embryonic stem cell experiments, and tax-funded abortion.

Washington D.C. may have changed overnight, but our values as Christians must be enduring. We must continue to advance faith, family, and freedom in the next four years. God's people need to begin to work NOW on the next congressional elections to get conservatives elected. America needs to bless God before God will bless America!

At the U.N., a Dangerous Leap of Faith

President Bush traveled to the United Nations Wednesday to join Gordon Brown of the U.K. and Shimon Peres of Israel at a two-day conference presided over by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The conference is a continuation of last July's summit of world religions held in Spain and also organized by King Abdullah and the Muslim World League. Later today, the U.N. is expected to endorse a statement issued at the conclusion of the Spain conference on the importance of religion and humanity's common values. Among them is "respect for religions, their places of worship, and their symbols ... therefore preventing the derision of what people consider sacred." All religions deserve respect, but the devil is in the details. As Leonard Leo and Donald Argue, members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, point out, this language is "a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion." In other words, this may be giving U.N. approval to Islamic "blasphemy laws," which are used to stifle dissent. If King Abdullah and other supporters of the Madrid statement truly care about the value of religion, they must allow people to freely practice the faith of their choosing, as prescribed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rather than give cover to blasphemy laws.

Texan Holds 'Em

After a year-long battle with congressional Democrats, President Bush had the last word on online wagering yesterday, after the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department issued a joint rule that will finally put a stop to illegal Internet gambling. FRC had worked extensively on the issue with House conservatives, helping them fend off members like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) who were scheming to keep government agencies from implementing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). Without these new regulations, the law, which passed easily (317-93) last year, would have been useless. Now that the final puzzle piece is in place, banks and other payment agencies will have until December 2009 to stop credit card and other electronic payments to illegal gambling websites. This is a huge win for the family movement, which had argued that the banking industry had the technology to enforce the bans on Internet betting but not the will. Thanks to President Bush, who recognized the importance of closing the deal on UIGEA before leaving office, financial institutions will be obligated to protect Americans from a predatory industry that spawns an addictive habit which devastates families.

More Cultural Cold Feet?

Marriage proponents in California had hoped the passage of Proposition 8 would bring an end to the emotional roller coaster for state voters. Unfortunately, the relief of protecting marriage in America's biggest state has been somewhat clouded by threats of litigation and statewide demonstrations. This weekend, churches were hounded by protestors, angry at the role Christians played in beating back the cultural tide. At a rally outside of the Mormon temple, homosexuals even turned on their own, hurling racial insults at gay African Americans who were there to demonstrate with the "No on Prop 8" crowd.

Perhaps the most surprising revolt of all on marriage is the one brewing among some Republicans. Although marriage proved to be the most winning issue on Election Day, a handful of high-profile Republicans insist on distancing themselves from it. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a longtime opponent of Proposition 8, sounded more like a blue-blooded liberal on CNN Sunday, saying he hopes the state Supreme Court would "undo" Prop 8. "I think the important thing for the Republican Party is now to... look at other issues... and not to get stuck in ideology." On the contrary, November 4 made it painstakingly clear that the GOP's only hope for survival is moving back toward a solidly conservative ideology.

Smash & Grab

This was written by a fellow pastor:

While watching a documentary on violence and self-defense I saw a scene that contained a road sign which stated: "Warning, Smash and Grab Area." It got me to thinking....

On Jan 20 the following will immediately become a "smash and grab" area for the new administration:
- abortion limitations
- oil and gas drilling
- stem cell research
- tax dollars for abortion

“There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for Congressional action, and I think we’ll see the president do that,” John D. Podesta, a top transition leader, said Sunday. “He (Barack Hussein Obama) feels like he has a real mandate for change. We need to get off the course that the Bush administration has set.”

PRAY FOR GOD'S INTERVENTION
PRAY FOR GOD'S PROTECTION

PRAY FOR BOLDNESS FOR THE LORD'S PASTORS & CHURCHES (added by me - RGH)

McCain / Palin

Unrestrained - Judges Gone Wild

Once again the California Supreme Court displayed a total lack of judicial restraint today when it denied a request to put the creation of same-sex "marriage" on hold until Californians go to the polls in November. As we reported yesterday, the petition was certified with far more signatures than California requires, placing on the November ballot a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Refusal to "stay" the decision sets up a tangled legal web in which potentially thousands of same-sex "marriages" may be legally unrecognizable when and if the amendment is approved by voters. Homosexual activists have set the stage for legal theater and will tell voters that it's up to them to prevent it by playing along with the court's creation. Voters in California must realize that the court's irresponsibility does not negate their responsibility to provide the needed checks and balances to the court by upholding the historic and biblical definition of marriage for the good of all society.

It's Not Easy Being Green

When Congress adjourned for Memorial Day recess, marriage was in disarray, gas prices were soaring, circuit courts sat empty, and our troops were still waiting for funding to replenish supplies. Now, fresh off a holiday weekend in which most families paid $4 a gallon to drive to neighborhood barbecues, American patience has worn thin. Imagine the frustration this week, as Congress returned to work--not on judges, marriage, or the war supplemental bill--but on changing the weather. By a 74-14 vote, the Senate agreed to devote days to the Lieberman-Warner legislation on global warming. Desperate to prove their environmental mettle, liberals are fighting for a policy that would bankrupt the economy and burden American taxpayers. The leadership says its goal is to slash CO2 emissions by almost 20 percent in 12 years, but conservatives argue the cost to American businesses and taxpayers far outweighs the negligible climate benefit. The bill's 500 pages are a complicated mess of distorted science, pork projects, and a tax-and-trade solution that will send U.S. jobs overseas and result in the most massive expansion of the federal government since the New Deal. In just 10 years, the tax burden to American families would skyrocket by $1 trillion. The average American would face higher heating and cooling bills, more pain at the pump, and expensive consumer products. From the less fortunate, the bill saps even more. As Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) points out in the Wall Street Journal, the poorest Americans already spend almost a fifth of their monthly budget on energy. By 2030, gas prices could climb anywhere from 45 cents to $1, and the U.S. economy would be on the hook for an extra $4.8 trillion. And for what? Even environmental advocates admit that in the end these concessions may do nothing to affect the earth's climate. After 40 years of Lieberman-Warner, the most that the Environmental Protection Agency is willing to promise is a one percent reduction in CO2 emissions. To hardworking Americans who are struggling to provide for their children, this entire debate is baffling. Sen. Inhofe, who has fought this global warming hysteria since 2003, challenged his colleagues to get back to business. "Will you dare stand on the Senate floor in these uncertain economic times and vote in favor of significantly increasing the price of gas at the pump, losing millions of American jobs, creating a huge new bureaucracy and raising taxes by record amounts?" Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this bill is that the evidence is still very inconclusive about the climate threat. If anything is heating up, it's marriage. This Congress is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the real crises facing this nation as they refuse to intervene.