President Barack Obama promoted the pro-abortion HHS mandate during the debate Tuesday night in New York, defending what Catholic and evangelical groups strongly oppose.
The mandate forces religious employers such as small businesses, colleges, and organizations to pay for abortion-causing drugs and birth control for their employees — even though it violates their religious and moral views.
Obama said this:
Now, there are some other issues that have a bearing on how women succeed in the workplace. For example, their healthcare. You know a major difference in this campaign is that Governor Romney feels comfortable having politicians in Washington decide the health care choices that women are making.
I think that’s a mistake. In my health care bill, I said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who is insured. Because this is not just a – a health issue, it’s an economic issue for women. It makes a difference. This is money out of that family’s pocket. Governor Romney not only opposed it, he suggested that in fact employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage.
Obama promoted taxpayer-funding of abortions several times in the debate.
The biased CNN moderator tried to prevent Romney from replying, but he finally did respond:
I’d just note that I don’t believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not. And I don’t believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care of not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives. And – and the – and the president’s statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong.
I’m with Romney on this one. I don’t want to subsidize the birth control pills and abortions of people who choose to have sex of their own free will. Obama also attacked Romney for wanting to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that makes tens of millions of dollars of profits by performing abortions. Do we really have the money to pay for abortions at a time like this? Is that a mainstream view of abortion?
First, recall the details of the incident that got the New Black Panthers into trouble:
The New Black Panthers case stems from a Election Day 2008 incident where two members of the New Black Panther Party were filmed outside a polling place intimidating voters and poll watchers by brandishing a billy club. Justice Department lawyers investigated the case, filed charges, and when the Panthers failed to respond, a federal court in Philadelphia entered a “default” against all the Panthers defendants. But after Obama was sworn in, the Justice Department reversed course, dismissed charges against three of the defendants, and let the fourth off with a narrowly tailored restraining order.
Now here’s the latest:
A federal court in Washington, DC, held last week that political appointees appointed by President Obama did interfere with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New Black Panther Party.
[…]Obama’s DOJ had claimed Judicial Watch was not entitled to attorney’s fees since “none of the records produced in this litigation evidenced any political interference whatsoever in” how the DOJ handled the New Black Panther Party case. But United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton disagreed. Citing a “series of emails” between Obama political appointees and career Justice lawyers, Walton writes:
The documents reveal that political appointees within DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case, which would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not involved in that decision. Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials’ representations regarding the possible politicization of agency decision-making.
…
In sum, the Court concludes that three of the four fee entitlement factors weigh in favor of awarding fees to Judicial Watch. Therefore, Judicial Watch is both eligible and entitled to fees and costs, and the Court must now consider the reasonableness of Judicial Watch’s requested award.
The radical activist group ACORN “works” for the Democratic Party and deliberately promotes election fraud, ACORN employees told FBI investigators, according to an FBI document dump Wednesday.
The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, are FBI investigators’ reports related to the 2007 investigation and arrest of eight St. Louis, Mo., workers from ACORN’s Project Vote affiliate for violation of election laws. All eight employees involved in the scandal later pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.
Project Vote is ACORN’s voter registration arm. Project Vote continues to operate despite the reported dissolution of the national structure of ACORN.
The handwritten reports by FBI agents show that ACORN employees reported numerous irregularities in the nonprofit group’s business practices.
Why should we be surprised that the Obama administration would turn a blind eye to this New Black Panther incident?
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Sunday the government will scrap 70 tariff items to save Canadian businesses about $32 million a year.
“This builds on our government’s commitment in Budget 2010 to make Canada a tariff-free zone for industrial manufacturers,” Flaherty said in a statement. “By lowering costs for these businesses, we are enhancing their ability to compete in domestic and foreign markets and helping them invest and create jobs here at home.”
Various sectors — including food processing, apparel, electrical equipment and furniture — will benefit from the move.
The Conservatives had previously eliminated the duty on imported machinery and equipment in an attempt to make Canada a tariff-free zone for industrial manufacturers by 2015.
The Tories say that since 2009 they have eliminated more than 1,800 tariff items and have provided more than $435 million in annual tariff relief to Canadian businesses.
The study released Wednesday by KPMG International found Canada’s corporate tax rate has dropped by more than 16 per cent over the last 11 years.
Canadian companies are actually paying less than their American counterparts.
On average, Canadian companies pay 28 per cent of their income in federal and provincial tax, well below the 40 per cent paid by American companies.
But Canada’s corporate tax rate is higher than Europe’s 20 per cent and the OECD average of 26 per cent.
Canadian corporate taxes fell three per cent in 2011, from 31 per cent in 2010.
“Canada’s corporate tax rate falls around the middle of the pack among the OECD countries,” said Elio Luongo, KPMG’s Canadian Managing Partner for Tax.
“But Canada’s general corporate tax rate is anticipated to continue to fall in 2012, when the federal tax rate will be 15 per cent, versus 16.5 per cent in 2011.”
I’ve written before about how Democrats oppose the job creation that would occur if the United States developed energy in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and the Ohio shale. Additionally, Obama has also opposed building the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have created 20,000 jobs paid for by a Canadian company. But Canada has no problems with developing their own energy resources, because their government operates independently of the environmentalist left.
Excerpt:
As world leaders gather in South Africa to discuss climate change this week and next, Canada’s environment minister says he plans to defend Alberta’s oilsands and is willing to argue they are an “ethical” and reliable energy source.
Heading into the 17th Conference of the Parties meeting, Environment Minister Peter Kent says he will not sign on to any deals that mandate some countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions while others don’t — as his government argues was the case under the Kyoto Protocol. He is also unequivocal in his defence of northern Alberta’s bitumen production, a position he expects will be supported by Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen when she joins him at the end of the week.
“We still need to — and the industry needs to and our provincial partners need to — be aggressive in ensuring international friends and neighbours and customers recognize Alberta’s heavy oil is no different from heavy oil produced in any number of other countries which don’t receive nearly the negative attention or criticism,” he says. “It is a legitimate resource.”
Kent has made headlines in the last year by arguing that Alberta’s oil is “ethical.”
“We talk about this on quite a regular basis,” Kent says. “I think it’s important we correct where we find … misunderstanding, misinformation or deliberate ignorance to demonize, to criticize and to attempt … to create a boycott.”
In January, on his second day as environment minister, Kent referred to Alberta’s oilsands product as “ethical oil” during an interview with a newspaper reporter.
Reports immediately linked Kent’s comments to the title of conservative activist Ezra Levant’s recent book, Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands.
The book essentially compares Canada’s human rights record to those of other oil-producing countries, and argues Canada’s “ethical oil” is preferable to “conflict oil” produced in countries with poor human rights records, such as Sudan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or Iran. The argument removes environmental issues, such as greenhouse gas emissions, from the equation, though Levant notes Alberta’s data on environmental issues is more transparent than information shared by other countries.
So in total I’ve presented three reasons why the Canadian economy is booming, while the American economy is stuck in neutral. Obama opposes free trade, lower corporate taxes and domestic energy production. When you elect a socialist lawyer, you get a Greece/Spain economy. When you elect a capitalist economist, you get Canada’s booming economy, and consequently, a lower unemployment rate. Recall that our recession began exactly when we elected Nancy Pelosi to the House leadership and Harry Reid to the Senate leadership in 2007. Democrats wreck economies. There is no reason why America cannot be more prosperous than Canada, but we have to not elect an abject buffoons as our leaders.
WINTERY KNIGHT 