Tennessee taxpayers deserve a firm assurance that Planned Parenthood funding will end in Shelby County:
Tennessean political reporter Chas Sisk announced via the political blog In Session on Friday that the Shelby County Health Department has agreed, under pressure from Governor Bill Haslam and Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey, not to pass federal "family planning" grant money on to Planned Parenthood. Shelby County, it should be recalled, has been the lone holdout, begging "time" to complete its contracts and "provide services" to clients. The move by the State's most populous county is good news for both pro-life and conservative activists in Tennessee, but if the contents of a letter from the Director of the Shelby County Health Department, Yvonne Madlock, to Tennessee State Health Commissioner Susan Cooper dated Wednesday are to be believed, the saga of Planned Parenthood funding in this State may not be over yet.
If there was some concern about conflict with the federal government if Tennessee defunds Planned Parenthood, why can't we follow Indiana?:
Are we afraid of federal threats? The State of Indiana is clearly not, as it is prepared to fight the federal government in court in order to de-fund the world's largest abortion provider. Indianapolis has said that it will openly act in defiance of the Obama Administration and enforce the law that it has passed and that Indiana's Republican Governor Mitch Daniels has signed. If conflict with the federal government is the prime concern over the Campfield amendment, that issue won't go away either this year or next, and Indiana is showing the nation that they are ready to take on the challenge. If Governor Haslam uses the line-item veto to negate the altering language and thereby enforce the Campfield amendment, Tennessee will enter the fray immediately. If Republican leaders do not push for a line-item veto now, but then do as promised and pass the de-funding law in full as part of next year's session, the spat with Washington will only be delayed, but will almost certainly come-and in a Presidential election year. We should not be afraid to fight the federal power when Tennessee is fighting for what we know to be right. If the General Assembly intends to defund Planned Parenthood, why delay the inevitable?
According to a legislator who contacted The Examiner yesterday on the condition of anonymity, many members of the Tennessee General Assembly have expressed extreme concern over allegations that the wording of amendments to the forthcoming Tennessee budget were altered without their knowledge. "Many members have let leadership know of their anger over this situation," our source said "and some were threatening to demand answers in a more public way, and nearly all who were angry demanded to know who was responsible for making the changes after the wording which would have negated Campfield's amendment was initially removed and then mysteriously re-inserted." Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) sponsored an amendment to the State budget which passed both Houses that was intended to deny Planned Parenthood, the world's largest practitioner of abortion, State funding in the coming fiscal year.
Are we so dependent upon the federal sow, as though we are piglets sucking at a teet in a dirty hog pen, that a letter from Democratic Senators (who don't represent us) to a Health and Human Services Secretary appointed by a President we didn't vote for, about butting into the business of States where none of these people live, would frighten our leaders into submission, and the will of the General Assembly be damned? Are our leaders so frightened of federal power that the wording of legislation can be changed after it is passed, apparently without the knowledge of those who voted to pass it?
"I'm not implicating anyone," Shipley said Friday, "but this whole affair points to a serious danger to our system of government. As legislators, we rely on being able to trust that what we are told legislation does is what it will do, and this raises the question about whether or not we as legislators or the public can have that trust. Clearly a major change was made to the budget amendment and most legislators did not have knowledge about that change when we voted on it."
Shipley said that the reason House Leadership must disclose everything that they have come to know about who is responsible for changing the wording of the amendment is because the public needs to know that they can trust their legislative leaders to be transparent. "Republicans ran on the idea that things were going to be done differently than they were when the Democrats ran the Legislature, so we need to know who knew what and who did what," said Shipley, "this has the appearance of a class E felony, and at least it may call for a censure, and at most it may call for the impeachment of a responsible person or persons. This subverts our legislative intent as the General Assembly, which was clearly to defund Planned Parenthood in the State budget."
Some unnamed legislator has taken it upon themselves to change the wording of an important budget amendment, and thereby fund Planned Barrenhood:
We now know that the lawyer who made the change in the budget wording was House legal counsel Doug Heim, and Heim isn't saying who ordered him to make the change because he is citing "attorney-client privilege." The General Assembly is a public body made up of officials elected by the people of this State, and one of them ordered a major change to be made in the wording of a budget amendment, and now they want to hide under the cover of attorney-client privilege? The lawyer who would use such logic is, at best, abusing the priciple of privilege, since legislative attorneys represent all members of the body, not merely one, and other members have the right to know who is making changes to public documents. The legislator who would use the cover of legal privilege to avoid the public wrath is the worst form of coward, and has no place whatsoever in the public square. It is to be remembered that Richard Nixon, after all, attempted to hide under the cover of legal privilege during Watergate.
Last Thursday, former Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senator Rick Santorum reminded East Tennessee pro-lifers what is important:
Santorum pointed to his youngest child, Bella, as the classic example of the anti-life attitude currently seeming to sweep the medical profession. Bella was born with an extremely rare genetic condition called Trisomy 18, the presence of an extra 18th chromosome-something which normally kills the children who are born with it from the lack of ability to breathe. At the time that Bella was born, the Santorums were told by the attending doctor before taking Bella home that they must "learn to let go." The Santorums' regular doctor discovered that the prescription this doctor had written for Bella was three times the amount that she should have been getting during a wellness exam for Bella. Fortunately, Karen Santorum never had that prescription filled.
Planned Barrenhood has become, of course, the leading provider of both birth control and aborticides in America and one of the leading providers in the world. I'm quite sure Sanger would approve of locating the Planned Barrenhood clinic in a predominantly black neighborhood, since that would further the Sangerian goal of using birth control and aborticide as a long-term means of exterminating "inferior" people. To be fair, Sanger didn't just think blacks were inferior, so were some Whites as well-as author Jonah Goldberg points out, much of the liberal elite has accepted some form of the eugenics doctrine whether they realize it or not.
Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations cannot rely on either the Legislature or the public to bolster their position in Tennessee law. These groups know that Statewide, they do not have the support of public sentiment, and as a result they don't have support of the General Assembly or even (on paper) the support of the joint legislative Democratic Caucus. Hence, pro-abortion forces in Tennessee rely on the courts as their means to avoid popularly-accepted restrictions on abortion in this State.
For Jason Mumpower to try and get the members of the House Republican Caucus to sign on to a letter "reprimanding" Tennessee Right to Life for endorsing a candidate that the caucus didn't support is akin to Mumpower and Glen Casada trying to tell their constituency groups what to do (in Casada's defense, I do not believe that if he were Leader, he would be stupid enough to do anything like this of his own accord). Tennessee Right to Life does not care about the internal issues within the Republican Party, either. Those of us who are active or semi-active in the GOP who are also committed pro-lifers do care, but we have a vested interest since we are committed to party politics-Tennessee Right to Life is not, since it is a constituency organization, but is not affiliated officially with the Republican Party.
Rather than take a page from How to Win Friends and Influence People, Jason Mumpower is shooting himself in the foot at a time when he needs to be building support rather than dividing his base. Unless Mumpower gets his head out of the clouds and back down to political reality, he will be much less likely to be Speaker of the House in 2011-and not because he would lack a Republican majority.
What should concern pro-life conservatives about Devaney's statement is not that he is saying that pro-abortionists can be Republicans, but the seeming nonchalance with which he appears to regard the pro-life position. Pro-life political action is reduced to a mere political position, a difference of opinion akin to tarriffs or environmental policy. What Devaney does not seem to understand is that this question of aborticide is not a matter of mere political opinion, but a matter of life or death. Either you believe that it is cold-blooded murder to take the life of an unborn child in the womb, or you do not-period. There is no middle ground on the matter and for that reason pro-life people within the Republican Party will not give an inch and will not give up the pro-life plank in the national platform.
Is the "pro-life" candidate in the Tennessee House District 62 special election trying to hide something?:
As someone who has been active in the pro-life movement, I know that no reputable pro-life organization would want a candidate which they have endorsed to cut out on a public forum (or in Cobb's case, forums), where a large part of the audience(s) would likely share their pro-life views. Such events are to be seen as positive and prompt attendance would be encouraged-even at a place like the Webb School.
On Friday I discussed why Tennessee Right to Life would endorse a Democrat in the District 62 Tennessee House Race by explaining the realities of pro-life politics. Today I use those same realities to explain why it may have been a good idea not to make a public endorsement in that race:
Votes this past session have shown the electorate that half of the Democratic Caucus is pro-life (or inclined to vote that way), but the Democratic Leadership has known that all along, which is why they did everything in their power to keep pro-life legislation from reaching the floor when they were in control of the House. There is little reason to believe they would not do so again. Would a Democratic House majority serve the interests of the pro-live movement in Tennessee? If history is any indication, the answer is very likely not. If the Republicans had more substantial numbers in the House, the District 62 special election would not carry with it the element of control that it does, and wouldn't be as big of a political deal as it is.
Tennessee Right to Life's endorsement of Ty Cobb also underlines a critical reality that people on the Left often fail to realize about pro-life political and social organizations is that they truly are non-partisan. The primary interest of inherently pro-life groups is that the most pro-life candidate is elected in every political contest, so that pro-life legislation is most likely to pass and the unborn be protected.
Rather than face their constituents like men and women, the Democrats are desperate enough to blame the American people, with Nancy Pelosi calling angry town hall protest participants "Un-American" and declaring them to be swastika-bearing Nazis. Note that these were the same lowlifes who spent the last eight years telling America that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. While I don't disagree with that premise, we now see that the neo-Communists of the national Democratic Party don't really believe that dissent equates to patriotism when the people are dissenting against their policies.
It is for this reason that I must confess to finding Lamar Alexander's reaction to some of our protesting brethren troubling:
Alexander signaled that he did not approve of the methods used by an audience that heckled and booed Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at an event in Philadelphia over the weekend.
On a personal level, I think very highly of Lamar and respect his desire for civil discourse. I know few people who do not wish for civility. What Lamar seems to think, however, is that out in the country it is somehow beneficial to behave as though we are in the chambers of the United States Senate. Lamar Alexander has not yet grasped that this debate is not about mere politics. This health care plan, if passed, will essentially force taxpayer funding of aborticide. The quasi-socialized system could cause the elderly, the disabled, and the chronically ill to be denied care. Some may be encouraged to enter palliative care before it might otherwise be time. All of these things are bad, and the taxpayer funding of aborticide is reason enough to reject the entire proposal. The truth of the matter is that this health care proposal, combined with the President's other major policies, represent a very pure form of evil that has come to us directly out of the very pit of Hell.
The people are beginning to understand just how devious these proposals are, and they are riled up. The Democratic leadership are afraid of the public reaction because it will show the general population that their plans are not being universally accepted, but are being actively opposed. When you are opposing something that is-for all intents and purposes-intrinsically evil, you don't sing Kumbuya with the opposition while saying "this is bad." It sends the signal that you are tolerating an intrinsic wickedness, when you have a moral duty to oppose it with every fiber of your very being.
The matters at hand presently before the country are not mere issues of political debate, but are literally questions of good vs. evil, on which there can be no fence-sitting or middle ground. Evil must be opposed by every morally acceptable means possible, and then when the evil is defeated, we can discuss "civil" political discourse.
The House has voted to defund Planned Barrenhood, at least in the sense that family planning funding would devolve entirely upon the county health department. Most of you might be saying "but it does." It does not in Davidson and Shelby Counties, the hub counties for Planned Barrenhood. In spite of whining from certain Shelby County liberals, this bill was about defunding Planned Barrenhood, not about taxes or Shelby County autonomy.
I have waited until now to discuss anything about Sunday's assassination of Dr. George Tiller in his house of worship. The primary reason for the wait was really to collect my own thoughts and not to say anything in a way that was rash or inappropriate, but also to speak freely and honestly about how I feel about Tiller and others like him, and why both sides in this debate will simply never understand the other.
Regardless of my personal feelings toward George Tiller, violence (which is what I believe Tiller engaged in toward the unborn) should not simply begat violence, especially when the violence in question will do nothing to help the pro-life cause. This is no way to advance our movement, a movement that is not rooted in a political party, as some may believe, but in the idea that every human life is precious and has the right to live from conception until natural death.
Even so, I confess to being terribly conflicted in my heart and mind about what has happened to George Tiller. I am, to quote one of my cousins, "sorry for his soul," but I am finding it very difficult to feel sorrow for the man-and I am actually trying. Saying that I feel terrible that George Tiller is gone (and therefore will not be able to murder anymore children) is like saying "how awful, Hitler put a bullet through his head" or "isn't it a shame that Pol Pot is dead." Holding a memorial service for the Son of Sam killer is the rough moral equivalent with which I might memorialize George Tiller.
The other side is angry not merely because George Tiller is dead, but because they do not see what he was doing as murder or killing. Indeed, the so-called pro-choice party feels grief because a champion of their cause is gone. To them, the fewer babies there are in the world, the better off that we all are. What we see as nothing short of murder of a child in the womb-or in Tiller's case, murder of a child about to be born in many cases, they see as merely a matter of choice, and those are just the more reasonable people in the opposite camp.
There is simply no middle ground there, either this is a child or a choice. If you believe that we are dealing with children, George Tiller wasn't just a murderer, but a mass murderer on the scale of minor genocide. If you believe this is a mere matter of personal choice, George Tiller is a martyr and a hero of freedom and liberty.
I am sorry that George Tiller had to die in the way in which he did because someone decided to take the will of God into their own hands. It is God's place to deal with Tiller and no one else's. I pray for his widow and his children, they did not deserve to see the head of their family die in such a way.
I cannot pretend to be sorry that George Tiller will not be working to take the lives of the unborn every day at his abortion mill. I am not sorry in the least about that.
Now that SJR 127 has passed both Houses of the Tennessee General Assembly by a 2/3rds vote on its first go 'round, it is becoming increasingly clear that liberals are not in control of the place. What's more, it is becoming evident that the reason that Jimmy Naifeh made sure that so many pieces of conservative legislation died in committee when he was Speaker of the House is because if these measures ever made it to the floor, they would have passed by a rather comfortable margin.
Many of our friends on the Left are consoling themselves by saying that this vote was inconsequential, that it was meaningless and it doesn't really change anything. Some have even suggested that if the proposed amendment passes both Houses of the General Assembly a second time and goes before the electorate for ratification that it will mean nothing.
The reality is that this vote does mean something. A great many people have worked hard for many years just to bring this pro-life Constitutional Amendment to a floor vote in the House for the first time. Those manifold efforts finally paid off yesterday when 127, which says that there is no such thing as a guaranteed right to an abortion in the Tennessee Constitution and effectively overturns the legal effects of Planned Parenthood v. Sundquist. Persistence does pay off, but now the battle has only just begun. SJR 127 must pass by 2/3rds one more time, in the next General Assembly, before the people can have their say. The public might have already had a vote had this measure not been bottled up for so many years in Committee Never Ending, and Planned Barrenhood and the other Leftist interest groups know that if 127 makes it to a public vote, it stands a good chance of passing. Their only hope of preventing the meaningful regulation of abortion in this State is to try and keep 127 from the floor in the next General Assembly, and thus prevent the vote that will trigger the 2014 referendum.
The fight over 127 will not be over until it is on a public ballot.
Today is the day that pro-life activists in Tennessee have been waiting for, and many have been doing so for some years. SJR 127, the Constitutional amendment that makes it clear that there is no such thing as a "right" to abortion in the Tennessee Constitution, will finally get its hearing and first vote on the floor of the State House of Representatives. It is such an important milestone because the measure has now passed the Senate twice, and with broad bipartisan support, but never so much as made it out of committee in the House until today.
In a twist of irony, the woman who is at least partly responsible for this announced over the weekend that she is resigning her position. Tennessee Republican Chairman Robin Smith has announced that she is resigning as of May 30, triggering an immediate election for Chairman among the Tennessee Republican Executive Committee. I think the world of Robin and her abilities, and I believe that the reason that Tennessee enjoys Republican control of the General Assembly for the first time ever is due in no small part to the fact that Robin Smith and her colleagues made capturing the Tennessee General Assembly the Republican Party's number one priority in 2008.
Not only did John McCain carry Tennessee, but the Republicans ended the night on November 4th here with more political power than we have ever previously enjoyed in Tennessee history. The Volunteer State turned blood red while the rest of the country went in another direction. Barack Obama carried six counties in Tennessee out of 95, and the very mention of his name was made a political poison. Candidates for the General Assembly were literally beaten by commercials which said "this candidate supports Obama." So frightened were Tennessee Democrats of Barack Obama that I did not see a single Obama bumper sticker on Capitol Hill in Nashville last year-but they sure came out in January 2009.
Robin's name became a curse word among Nashville Democrats. When a Republican legislator angers a Democrat, the worst (best?) thing that the angry Dem might call that person is "Robin Smith."
Robin Smith helped make all of that possible by standing firm on principles that she believes in and simply not wavering. Even when I have disagreed with her approach on certain things, I have deeply admired the fact that when Robin tells you she believes something, you can take it to the bank. Robin Smith has also been the most accessable Chairman in the history of the Tennessee Republican Party, and perhaps the entire Republican Party. Robin met with the grassroots on our level and encouraged our efforts to drum up support for candidates, use the internet as a campaign and organizing tool, and strategize for the 21st Century. She wanted to make use of grassroots activists not just at election time, but all the time, and she treated all of us little people in the trenches like we were important to the party, and that it wasn't just about the folks who could write big checks.
Party officials always call me Mister. Robin called me by my first name, and after awhile I quit calling her Madam Chairman and just called her Robin.
I am sorry to see her go, and I think her departure is a loss for the party. The reason that she is leaving is a good one-to run for Congress in the 3rd District-and it will bring her home to East Tennessee. However, I do agree with Rob Huddleston that she could have given the party a bit more notice to give us time to vet the different candidates for Chairman who have emerged in the wake of her announcement. As it is, I am afraid that the Executive Committee may make a less-than-desirable choice for no other reason than the lack of time needed to make the right one.
How can we say that Notre Dame isn't a Catholic University anymore? When they arrest a priest of God for coming on Our Lady's campus and praying Our Lady's Rosary.
A conservative journal of social, cultural, and ecclesiatical affairs grounded in a realistic Catholic Christian worldview. It is my hope that this site will be a reflection of Christ,the teachings of His Holy Church, and of the basic vision of a Christian social morality.
