With Tom Tancredo’s entry into the Colorado governors race this year,
third parties are getting more airtime and coverage than ever before.
Joining host Jon Caldara on this week’s Devils Advocate are third party
candidates for Colorado governor Jaimes Brown from the Libertarian Party
and Jason Clark running as an Independent. What exactly is the purpose
and goals of these lesser-known candidates? How might they impact the race for
governor this year? Find out this Friday at 8:30pm on Colorado Public
Television channel 12, repeated the following Monday at 1pm.
Paul Hsieh, MD of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine writes:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is on the verge of taking the highly unusual step of “decertifying” the cancer drug Avastin that it had previously approved. In addition to sparking concerns that this is another step towards medical rationing, the FDA’s proposal will worsen another important but less-frequently recognized danger of government-run health care — namely, the politicization of health benefits. Both problems will accelerate under ObamaCare unless our politicians repudiate the principle of government-run health care. …
If you had terminal cancer, who should decide what treatments you may receive during your last few irreplaceable months of life? You, in consultation with your doctor? Or politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?
Unless we repeal ObamaCare [HR 3590], get ready for the latter choice.
Read the whole article at Pajamas Media: Avastin and Your Life.
Ann Coulter’s column today argues that Obama is not a Muslim; rather, he “is obviously an atheist.” The gist of the argument is “The only evidence for Obama’s Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years....Attending Wright’s church is the conscious, calculated decision to immerse yourself in hate-filled demagoguery and call it ‘Christianity.’”
I disagree with both the facts and the conclusion. Coulter is accurate in calling Jeremiah Wright “a racist nut.” However, that does not prove that Wright (and by extension Obama, to whatever extent Obama believes in Wright’s theology) is not a Christian. Some practitioners of “liberation theology” (including the black liberation theology variant) may simply be Marxists looking for some broadly-appealing rhetoric to add to their political program. Other practitioners, however, may be sincerely and otherwise-orthodox Christians who truly believe in both Christianity and Marxism, and in the liberation theology fusion of the two. For example, liberation theology was popular among many Catholics in Latin America from the late 1960s until 1984, when it was condemned by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I think it is implausible to believe that, pre-1984, the many Latin American American bishops, priests, nuns, and Catholic lay people who embraced liberation theology were all closet atheists. It seems much more reasonable to conclude that at least some of them were orthodox Catholics who, until 1984, could consider liberation theology to be one legitimate way of expressing the Catholic faith.
Similarly, I would suggest that many of the pastors in slave states in antebellum America who taught that slavery was legitimate because of the slaves’ inherent racial inferiority were also sincere Christians, albeit grossly mistaken in their teachings on this matter.
Ergo, belief in the racist, Marxist philosophy of black liberation theology is not necessarily incompatible with being a Christian who has orthodox beliefs on most matters of Christian doctrine (e.g., the trinity, the resurrection, virgin birth, and so on).
Second, the record of President Obama’s Christianity is not limited to his record of attendance at Reverend Wright’s nut-house. For example, this year, the President spoke at a prayer breakfast on Easter Sunday, on what the resurrection means to him personally. His remarks about “the Easter celebration of our risen Savior...and what lesson I take from Christ’s sacrifice” were entirely straightforward statements of orthodox Christianity. I doubt that any normal Christian, of whatever denomination, could theologically disagree with a single word President Obama said.
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about an article in the Korea Times reporting that the Obama administration was blocking the import of American-made M1 Garands and M1 Carbines which the South Korean government wished to sell into the U.S. market. The Korea Times reported that an unnamed Korean official said that the American government was blocking the imports because of objections to increasing the gun supply in the United States. Some blog commenters speculated that the Korea Times was wrong, and that the real objection must have been that since the rifles were probably gifts from the United States government, the terms of the gift required that the rifles be given back to the U.S. Army once the Koreans did not want them any more.
Today, Maxim Lott’s reporting for FoxNews confirms that the Korea Times accurately characterized the American government objections:
The Obama administration approved the sale of the American-made rifles last year. But it reversed course and banned the sale in March – a decision that went largely unnoticed at the time but that is now sparking opposition from gun rights advocates.
A State Department spokesman said the administration’s decision was based on concerns that the guns could fall into the wrong hands.
“The transfer of such a large number of weapons — 87,310 M1 Garands and 770,160 M1 Carbines — could potentially be exploited by individuals seeking firearms for illicit purposes,” the spokesman told FoxNews.com.
“We are working closely with our Korean allies and the U.S. Army in exploring alternative options to dispose of these firearms.”
The article quotes the Brady Campaign’s Dennis Henigan, and me, regarding the policy issues raised by the import ban.
Like an acrophobic man wearing cement shoes, Colorado’s bid for the second round of “Race to the Top” federal education money fell way short. Some, like Governor Ritter, attribute this second failure to “bias against the west.” Others believe it was the lack of union buy-in. Whether it was bias or lack of CEA support remains to be seen. But what we do know is that Colorado education officials were banking on that money, and for awhile, most everyone believed we were a shoe-in. Why? Well for one, the legislature passed SB 191 – great teachers and leaders – last session. Indeed, the passing of SB 191 was intended to be our winning lottery ticket! However, our “race to failure” this time around should once and for all teach us that counting on Powerball for money is almost always a suckers bet. (and if you believe otherwise, you’re probably that pathetic guy who goes to the casino to play Keno).
One guy I know for a fact does not play Powerball OR Keno (but will crush you in fantasy baseball) is our education policy analyst Ben DeGrow. Ben recently sat down for a discussion of our second losing bid for Race to the Top monies with State Board of Education member Randy DeHoff. Randy is like the Brett Favre of the State Board of Ed by the way – 12 years of service and still going strong. Anyway, the two of them sat down to talk about what they believe cost Colorado this time, and whether we’ll even bother applying again if there happens to be a third round of Race to the Top funding. Additionally, they discuss the impact of SB 191 and what might happen during its implementation and the Common Core Standards recently adopted by the State Board of Ed.
There a couple new education-related publications out there that shed some light on current debates. When it comes to K-12 education, public opinion, policies and results are interconnected, though the relationship often is not so apparent. If we want to help improve and maximize student learning, it’s good to be informed on all fronts.
First, Education Next recently released the results of its 2010 annual survey. The bottom line?
With the exceptions of school spending and teacher tenure, the divisions between ordinary Democrats and Republicans on education policy matters are quite minor. To be sure, disagreements among Americans continue to linger. Indeed, with the exception of student and school accountability measures, Americans as a whole do not stand steadfastly behind any single reform proposal. Yet the most salient divisions appear to be within, not between, the political parties. And we find growing support for several strategies put forward in recent years by leaders of both political parties—most notably online education and merit pay.
In particular, Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Marty West talk about the growing support for charter schools — most notably among minority groups and parents who live in neighborhoods where charter schools operate.
Second, this morning the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released its latest version of the Report Card on American Education. Matthew Ladner, Andrew LeFevre and Dan Lips analyze and rate each state on two basic frameworks:
Interestingly, Colorado ranks 17th in the former category and second nationally in the latter category. (Which is the only state leading Colorado? You guessed it: Florida.)
As we move forward, I hope both sets of data help to inform Colorado’s education reform strategies and efforts.
THe health control legislation [HR 3590] expands Medicaid eligibility. John Goodman explains how Medicaid’s denial of coverage are worse than private insurers:
During the year leading up to the final passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the White House set up a special Web site and invited all Americans to post their own personal stories about insurance company abuses. During the days leading up to the final vote on the bill, the president and congressional supporters used almost every television opportunity to trot out these cases — sometimes in graphic detail.
Yet, in all the episodes of abuse, do you recall even a single instance where an insurer:
- Arbitrarily dropped coverage for tens of thousands of enrollees with the stroke of a pen — just to save money.
- Dropped entire categories of care — such as dental care or home health care — because it decided these services were too costly?
- Arbitrarily reduced the fees it paid to doctors and hospitals, pushing many out of its network, and leaving its enrollees with serious access to care problems?
Probably not. For a private insurer, each of these activities would be a serious violation of contract. There is one insurer that does these things routinely. It’s called Medicaid and about half of all the newly insured people under the PPACA will be enrolling in it.
Read the whole article on Medicaid rescissions, also published in Kaiser Health News.