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The Feds’ Intrusions Into American Farms and Families

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Jay Grandin

With Mother’s Day right at our back, I want to address one of the most extreme overreaches by the federal government into American homes that I’ve seen in a long time. Then I want to call on my own 91-year-old mother, who was raised in rural Oklahoma and worked in cotton fields with her family during the Great Depression, to help set straight the rural farm and child labor record.

After a national decry by American farmers (and all of us who support them), the Obama administration has just shelved its plan to severely restrict kids younger than 16 from working on family farms. But mark my words. As the feds often do, they merely are regrouping to march again on those great American homesteads.

Part of the very words of the U.S. Department of Labor‘s “withdrawal” statement: “The Department of Labor is announcing today the withdrawal of the proposed rule dealing with children under the age of 16 who work in agricultural vocations. … To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.”

“Will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration”?

So, until Jan. 20, 2013, right?

Kudos to the bipartisan group of 98 members of Congress who sent a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis protesting this rule, which would have severely limited teenagers and younger children from learning the family trade, not to mention undermined the very business fabric of rural America. It might sound legislatively crazy if it weren’t coming from one of the most overextended federal governments in the history of the U.S.

According to The Raleigh Telegram, “the rule would have prevented children younger than 16 from doing ‘agricultural work with animals and in pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins’ while also forbidding them from using ‘power-driven equipment’ and working in the ‘cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.’”

Can you imagine? What’s next? The feds’ crackdown making it illegal for kids to wash dishes, because a knife might cut them? No grinding up food, because the garbage disposer might malfunction and start suddenly while their hand is in it? No more cooking or ironing, because their hands might get burned? No more housecleaning, because the Environmental Protection Agency has designated the mixture of certain cleaning chemicals as hazardous to touch or breathe in?

Let’s get real, folks! How far do the feds have to mingle in our manure before we say enough is enough? How far do we have to slide down the slippery slope of socialism before the descent becomes irreversible, before we say, “Welcome to Greece”?

As my mom, Wilma Norris Knight, told me on Mother’s Day, “the federal government should keep their noses out of our business! Raising kids is the responsibility of parents, not the government. My papa and mama would have marched from Oklahoma all the way to Washington, D.C., if they tried to tell us what to do on our farm.”

This past Mother’s Day weekend, many of you probably saw my mom being interviewed by Mike Huckabee, our friend the former governor of Arkansas, on his Fox News Channel show, “Huckabee.” During the interview about her new autobiography, “Acts of Kindness: My Story” (available only at http://www.ChuckNorris.com), she said it best: Kids need lots of love from their own parents and the influence of their church teachers. Our children are on loan to us from God, and he nowhere alludes to the nurturing influence of a central government!

What’s really at the heart of the Labor Department’s farm action is the continued implementation of Agenda 21, a United Nations program launched in 1992 for the nebulous purpose of reaching global “sustainable development” but which actually promotes a European socialist system that will undermine and chip away our freedoms, liberties and rights.

At the heart of that global and social change agenda is the use of nongovernmental organizations, civil resistance movements and class warfare protests, just like the ones we’ve seen with Occupy’s vow to shut down businesses and even Wall Street. One major Occupy website even embraces Agenda 21 as the agenda for its movement!

Of course, don’t look for the term Agenda 21 to show up in President Barack Obama’s re-election speeches. To the public, he will continue to pitch — as he did last week — that he is the real small-government president, even more so than former President Ronald Reagan! (I had no idea BO was running for comedian in chief.)

But what about actions like the Labor Department’s farm act? Of course, that’s not creating bigger government; it’s just the passionate concern of the federal government to swoop down like a superhero and “protect” your children.

Just what we need during this post-Mother’s Day week, the federal government’s playing some further maternal or paternal role to our children, right?

The feds’ actions prompt me to recall the wisdom of Reagan, who said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook’s “Official Chuck Norris Page.” He blogs at http://chucknorrisnews.blogspot.com. To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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Chuck Norris: Obama Triangulates on Gun Control

March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Loyal readers will recall that I warned last year of the perfect storm approaching on gun control. Now, with the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy as a steppingstone and with eyes firmly focused on his re-election, President Barack Obama has opened a campaign to appease his base on the polarizing issue.

Let me completely disclose my position: I am a strong Second Amendment advocate. I believe in protecting our fundamental rights, including our Second Amendment rights, through the political process. To that end, I serve as honorary chairman of the “Trigger The Vote” voter registration campaign.

That campaign is funded by the National Rifle Association‘s Freedom Action Foundation. We work in every election cycle to register gun owners and hunters to vote and add them to the ranks of millions of grass-roots voters who have established Second Amendment issues as the new “third rail” of American politics. Those voters and the newly registered voters we can add to their ranks between now and November 2012 will have their job cut out for them in the next election cycle.

The 2012 election now looms large for this administration. Even while the president’s top aides are deserting the White House to staff up his campaign office, those left behind seem to be working from a mandate to begin patrolling the divided Democratic base.

Up until now, the Obama White House had given a wide berth to the gun control debate, abandoning campaign promises to pursue new restrictions on our gun rights. This avoidance does not reflect any shift in position; it is merely recognition of the political reality that most members of his party have no interest in having yet another political loser of an issue crammed down their throats.

At the same time, those in Obama’s liberal base have grown restless and rancorous over his first two years in office because he hasn’t done everything they’ve wanted, at least regarding more restrictions on our Second Amendment rights. They resent the president’s avoidance of fulfilling his campaign rhetoric.

Gun control groups have thrown tantrums for months that Obama wouldn’t champion their agenda, with one group resentfully awarding him an F. So only now is Obama sticking his toes into the swirling currents of the Second Amendment debate.

His campaign kicked off in the Arizona Daily Star, with a subtle op-ed that was intentionally vague. The words could be read as a broad endorsement of proposed gun control measures; they also could be read as embracing the NRA mantra that enforcement of current laws is what’s needed. But Obama’s attempt to place himself at the center of an ideological divide over guns is pure political positioning, and it comes with the rank odor of cold, crass calculation. One can almost hear the tearing of another page from the Clinton playbook.

One thing he definitely got wrong, however, was his arrogant statement that he had “expanded” the rights of gun owners. The Bill of Rights is guaranteed and can’t be “expanded” by government, as it contains fundamental natural rights. Those rights can, however, be restricted by illegitimate government fiat, which is why the clear language of the Second Amendment prohibits even “infringement” upon it. But infringement is clearly on the agenda, despite Obama’s rhetorical vacillations.

Implementation of the goals set out in his article came via phone calls from Justice Department operatives seeking to arrange a series of “active listening” meetings for groups on both sides of the gun control debate, as well as industry companies and groups. The proposed meetings were intended to develop an agenda of new legislative and regulatory proposals for the White House to embrace and push in Congress.

Let’s tally the results thus far.

First, my friends Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox at the NRA not only declined the invitation but did so in the form of a strong letter that gave lie to many of the article’s core assertions.

Second, gun control groups eagerly attended their meeting, reporting on the process in glowing tones, which must have brought a rosy glow to the White House operatives assigned to the realignment of the political base. They continue their private muttering about a “lack of leadership” from the White House.

Third, the media panned the Obama strategy and operation. The White House must have been particularly stung by criticism from the editorial board of the Arizona Daily Star itself.

The meetings with other groups will continue. You can bet that we haven’t heard the last of this issue. But so far, all that Obama has proved is this old political adage: The only thing accomplished by sitting in the middle of the road is that you can be hit from both sides.

 

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Are We Exaggerating US Border Violence?

March 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

After a decade of playing one on television, I, along with my brother Aaron, was blessed a few months ago to become a real Texas Ranger in the presence of Gov. Rick Perry, fellow Texas Rangers and many others.

Perry mentioned at that induction: “As the drug cartels have turned up the heat on the other side of that border over the past few years, we have invested significant state resources to secure our border, looking to local police departments, county sheriffs, game wardens and even Texas Military Forces. However, when it was time to take the fight to the bad guys, there was only one choice to lead our efforts, so we formed our Ranger recon teams. It is reassuring to know that our Rangers are on the job, especially in light of ongoing reports of deteriorating conditions, with kidnappings, assassinations and terroristic acts just miles from Texas communities.”

Only weeks later, on Jan. 31, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asked public officials to stop exaggerating claims of violence on the U.S. side of the border and “be honest with the people we serve.” She added: “Let’s stick with the facts. We need to be upfront and clear about what’s really happening along our borders.”

The latest statistics show that 34,000 people have been killed in Mexico because of organized crime and drug trafficking during the past five years alone, and officials expect that number to rise. Yet we don’t expect that escalating violence to increasingly spill over into the U.S.?

Consider just a few recent tragedies in my own state of Texas:

—In April 2010, on a street in Fort Hancock, Texas, four Hudspeth County employees were working on a remote unpaved road, when an unknown gunman fired from across the Rio Grande. (In a January 2011 letter to the U.S. House of Representatives‘ Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott described the shooting as “yet another incident involving cartel-related gunfire.”)

—In June 2010, El Paso’s City Hall was struck by at least seven shots fired from across the border in Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of Mexico’s ongoing drug war.

—In August 2010, at least one stray bullet from Mexico hit a building at the University of Texas at El Paso.

—In October 2010, U.S. tourist David Hartley reportedly was shot by a Mexican gunman.

—In November, the University of Texas at Brownsville temporarily canceled classes because of ongoing gunfire across the border in Matamoros, Mexico.

And what about violence in other border states? Exaggerating border violence?

I agree with Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., who said that for cattle ranchers, the daily reality of drug and human smugglers traversing their property is “far more impacting” than Napolitano conveys. Quayle went on to say, “Statistics and averages might mean something to government bureaucrats and analysts in Washington, but try telling the people who deal with these realities every day that the violence along the border has subsided.”

Because of the feds’ ineptness and passivity, it’s no wonder that half the states in our union are taking matters into their own hands regarding border enforcement and immigration. Arizona-style laws have been proposed in approximately 24 other states. A total of 346 laws and resolutions related to immigration were approved by state lawmakers in 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than 100 immigration-related bills are pending in Texas.

Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples just launched ProtectYourTexasBorder.com, where users can upload pictures and videos about their experiences with suspected drug traffickers at the Mexican border. The goal of the website is to warn the public about not only the dangers to farmers and ranchers but also the potential impacts on the nation’s food supply.

According to the Texas Department of Agriculture, at the Texan border alone there are:

—Close to 8,200 farms and ranches, covering more than 15 million acres.

—Producers of beef, fruits and vegetables that are essential to the nation’s food supply.

—Counties that account for about half the state’s fruit and vegetable production and about 4 percent of the state’s total agricultural income.

—Farms and ranches that make more than $700 million in agricultural sales every year.

Exaggerating border violence?

The only ones exaggerating are the feds — under-exaggerating the threat and severity of border violence and over-exaggerating their success of securing the United States’ southwestern border.

In fact, this past Thursday, Napolitano continued her same Obama-victorious-song-and-dance act at the U.S.-Mexico Congressional Border Issues Conference, boasting of (as summarized by her office) the Obama administration’s “unprecedented efforts to strengthen security along the Southwest border, which include increasing the number of Border Patrol agents from approximately 10,000 in 2004 to more than 20,700 today.”

But while the Obama administration continues to embellish its record, PolitiFact pointed out that it’s actually stealing its predecessor’s glory: “President George W. Bush was responsible for adding many of the agents on the ground now.”

Paul Babeu, sheriff of Pinal County, Ariz., put it well when he said that Napolitano’s talking points about security on the border have “more to do with political pivoting for the 2012 elections than (they do) with what is happening on the border.”

Ms. Napolitano, the truth is it’s you who is misleading the public. Playing down border violence and trumping up Washington’s successes may be effective for campaign rhetoric, but it’s killing our citizens — literally. At least I can agree 100 percent with you on this point: As you said back on Jan. 31, let’s “be honest with the people we serve. … Let’s stick with the facts. We need to be upfront and clear about what’s really happening along our borders.”

 

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Stalin-Style US Public Education

March 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I love teachers. I really do. And I’m sure that most are overworked and underpaid. Certainly, no one is getting rich from teaching kids. I applaud the hardworking teachers across this land.

But, as has happened in Wisconsin, when teachers unions muscle legislators like the Mafia and Democrats abandon their voting posts because they don’t like projected outcomes, haven’t we abandoned the very foundational principles of our republic? Where were the “be civil” mainstream media police last Friday morning, when union demonstrators screamed at legislators on the floor of the Wisconsin Assembly while they voted?

More proof of union dominance and monopoly came out Feb. 22, when Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board released a report that disclosed the top 10 lobbying groups in the state. Look who is at the top of the list:

1) Wisconsin Education Association Council, 7,239 hours, $1,511,272

2) Wisconsin Insurance Alliance, 1,427 hours, $777,430

3) Forest County Potawatomi Community, 1,492 hours, $756,512

4) Altria Client Services Inc., 1,321 hours, $755,733

5) Wisconsin Hospital Association, 5,126 hours, $605,033

6) Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, 1,379 hours, $560,544

7) Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, 4,967 hours, $508,023

8) RAI Services Co., 186 hours, $466,253

9) Wisconsin Independent Businesses Inc., 7,939 hours, $458,414

10) Wisconsin Energy Corp., 1,547 hours, $387,222

The Wisconsin Education Association Council leads the pack of lobbyists, spending two times as much and five times the amount of time as its closest lobbying competitor in order to buy, bribe and bamboozle legislators to do as it wants.

What also chaps my hide is that a gigantic chunk of the WEAC’s gangster money and time is used to lobby against alternative choices in schools (including charter schools) and against tuition tax credit programs, which aid parents in sending their children to private schools.

The fact is that teachers union-sponsored protests spreading the land are not primarily about the teachers or the students. They are about the unions and feds maintaining their Mafia-style rule over education and our kids and preventing people from choosing educational alternatives.

Or are we naive enough to believe that Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, is stopping by the White House repeatedly for just tea and crumpets even though he admitted this past week: “I’m at the White House a couple times a week. … I have conversations every day with someone in the White House or in the administration”?

It brings me back to that bully educational manifesto of President Barack Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, who explained in an NPR interview, “I’m a big believer in choice and competition, but I think we can do that within the public-school framework.”

There’s something that the U.S. government and unions don’t want you to know. And it came out a short time ago in a Heritage Foundation report on education. It conveys the general public’s increasing dissatisfaction with public education and tells of the rising number of people opting for private education.

The report explains that during the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions, 44 states introduced school-choice legislation. Forty-four states! And in 2008, choices for private school were enacted into law or expanded in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. And as of 2009, 14 states and Washington, D.C., offered voucher or education tax credit programs.

Despite the growing public preference for private education, however, Congress last year canceled the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, created in 2004 to offer students from low-income families in the nation’s capital an opportunity to join the school voucher community. The law provided $14 million in scholarships to help pay tuition at private schools of their choosing. But no longer.

And why did Congress nix the program, especially when studies had shown that students receiving vouchers since the program’s inception were academically 18.9 months ahead of their peers? (All of Thurgood Marshall Academy’s charter graduates are accepted to colleges.) Why would Congress phase out a program that cost $7,500 per student annually, compared with the $15,000 it costs in Washington’s public schools to educate a child?

There’s only one reason Congress canceled the program. It’s the same reason at the heart of the teachers unions’ battle in Wisconsin. It comes down to this: control and educational indoctrination.

I wrote in the paperback expansion of my New York Times best-seller “Black Belt Patriotism: How To Reawaken America”: “The reason that government … (is) cracking down on private instruction has more to do with suppressing alternative education than assuring educational standards. The rationale is quite simple, though rarely if ever stated: control future generations and you control the future. So rather than letting parents be the primary educators of their children — either directly or by educating their children in the private schools of their choice — (government wants) to deny parental rights, establish an educational monopoly run by the state, and limit private education options. It is so simple any socialist can understand it. As Joseph Stalin once stated, ‘Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.’”

Parents deserve educational choices. Choice is what this country was founded upon.

Want to better U.S. public education? Feed the competition!

 

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Feds and Unions: Foes to Educational Reform

February 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

“The fate of our country won’t be decided on a battlefield. It will be determined in a classroom.” Do you believe that?

Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker called on 14 state Senate Democrats, who had fled the state instead of voting on a deficit-cutting anti-teachers-union bill, to return and do their jobs. Senate Republicans hold a 19-14 majority there but can’t vote on the bill unless at least one Democrat is present.

Does that sound like democracy at work to you? Do you think it’s just a coincidence that the two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, are the largest campaign contributors in the nation — $55 million in just the past two years, more than the Teamsters, the National Rifle Association or any other organization — and that 90 percent of those contributions fund only Democratic candidates?

The U.S. public education system is flailing now more than ever, and teachers unions are aiding and abetting its demise. Some teachers unions may indeed be fighting for some of our teachers, but they are failing our students by protecting adults at the expense of the reformation of a crippled and dying system.

I became even further aware of that in a big way when I recently watched the movie “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” a deeply personal look into the state of U.S. public education and how it is effecting our children. It is a movie my wife, Gena, and I encourage every American to watch. (It just came out on DVD and Blu-ray.)

“Waiting for ‘Superman’” demonstrates how:
–Teachers unions are crippling the education of our children.
–Tenure and its guaranteed jobs are perpetuating educational dysfunction.
–Existing bureaucracies in education, from the U.S. Department of Education to state school boards, are doing more harm than good.
–Many public schools have become “dropout factories” (schools with high dropout rates).
–Many public school districts are engaged in “lemon dances” (sending their worst teachers to other schools and then in turn accepting failing teachers themselves).
–Many public school districts have “rubber rooms,” places where teachers placed on disciplinary leave are waiting for hearings that could take three to four years to be heard. These teachers waste their time playing cards and other games while getting paid full salaries and benefits — to the wasted sum of $100 million a year of taxpayer money.

Think about this: If a teacher knows he can’t be fired, why should he work or care? What other profession, besides college professor, has that kind of contractual agreement? None.

Don’t misunderstand me; I fully know and believe that the majority of public-school teachers and principals are dedicated and highly qualified. I know some. But I also know that more often than not, even their hands are being tied by bureaucratic red tape, federal and state regulations, and teachers unions’ special interests, agendas and contracts. By and large, teachers are good, but government regulation and teachers unions are a menace and impediment to real public education reform.

The fact is, as “Waiting for ‘Superman’” also documents, the federal government has gone from spending $4,300 per student in 1971 to more than $9,000 today (and that’s adjusted for inflation and costs of living). In our spending double, one would think we’re getting double the results, but most of our public schools are worse off now than they were in 1971.

From coast to coast, reading and math scores have flat-lined since then. In Connecticut, only 35 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in math. In Alabama, that number is only 18 percent, and in California, it’s only 24 percent.
And when the nation’s eighth-graders were tested in reading proficiency, most states scored between 20 and 35 percent of grade level, with the absolute lowest scores in reading being in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., where only 12 percent of eighth-graders are proficient.

If our local schools aren’t imparting a quality education or reforming fast enough to do so for our children, then we must seek educational alternatives. The minds, hearts and future of our children and nation are on the line.

But choice is something the feds and teachers unions are not exactly thrilled about offering. In fact, President Barack Obama’s appointed secretary of education, Arne Duncan, explained in an NPR interview, “I’m a big believer in choice and competition, but I think we can do that within the public-school framework.”

Our children deserve the best education we can give them. We can’t be satisfied by failed government-run schools that don’t provide the level of education we want. But there are alternatives, and I would encourage you to look into them. Charter, parochial and private schools and home-school co-ops are a few. Gena and I are very committed to home-schooling our 9-year-old twins.

“Superman” is not going to rise up in the ranks of the federal government or teachers unions. He or she is going to rise up from within our homes.

In this respect, “Superman” Christopher Reeve had it right: “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

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Barbara Bush: ‘No More, You’re Killing Us’

February 17, 2011 By 1 Comment

Former first lady Barbara Bush said on Greta Van Susteren‘s “On the Record” this past week: “We’ve got a real problem in public schools. … This is a national crisis. It’s as bad as anything in our country.”

When Van Susteren was pointing out from Bush’s own op-ed piece that “Texas (is) 36th in the nation in high-school graduates (and) 3.8 million Texans don’t have a high-school diploma,” Bush said, “No more, you’re killing us.”

Bush was commendably protecting Texas pride as she told Van Susteren not to cite any further degrading statistics about the state of Lone Star education, though she herself references it in her op-ed piece:

—Texas ranks 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.

—Texas ranks 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries.

Such low verbal and literacy scores make it even more unbelievable that just this past week, some of the state’s educational administrators joined the feds in seeking to mandate Arabic classes for Texas children. No joke!

The Arabic studies program — funded by a five-year, $1.3 million Foreign Language Assistance Program federal grant — was to begin this semester at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and then spread to neighboring schools in the Mansfield Independent School District.

Thank God for the parental passions and patriot fires of the almost 200 parents who showed up at a meeting last week to question the wisdom of school officials. They are fighting in their own personal education Alamo and presently have the upper hand. For the moment, the school district has backed off plans for its Arabic studies program.

With 14 percent of American adults (32 million) incapable of reading a newspaper or instructions on a prescription bottle, don’t you think federal monies could be put to better use by helping Americans learn to read and write English?

I appreciate Bush’s non-politically correct stance on the primacy of English in America, which she echoed to Van Susteren: “I’m against English as a second language. My great-grandmother came here as a German. She didn’t have someone give her English as a second language. She learned it in three months. It’s survival. And you see it in schools all around now where you’re allowed to speak English only, and you sink or swim. And they swim, because they’re immigrants from all different countries. I’ve seen a school in Boston where they asked me to read, and I said, ‘Read? They all speak 80 different languages.’ But in three months, they learned English.”

What Bush and I (and others in this educational reform movement) are essentially calling all of us to do is fight in a local education Alamo! To square off and fight against all the negative forces that besiege our children and impede their proper education. You don’t have to have kids to engage in this culture war; you only have to be concerned about their future — America’s future.

It is people like the 200 parents helping to overturn that Texas school district’s decision to mandate classes on Arabic who are showing the way. They prove another point Bush made to Van Susteren: “I don’t think government can do everything at all. Parents, grandparents, neighbors, churches, everybody … we’ve got to get ourselves geared up and not be lazy parents and not be lazy neighbors, but we’ve got to help children.”

The only way to get America and its educational system back on track is to take back the primary role of parenting from teachers and other societal guardians (including Big Brother government). That also includes our not expecting those who lead Sunday schools to be the primary spiritual teachers of our children, rather owning that area of their maturation, as well.

What U.S. educational reform entails is that we all find a place in the battle. It might mean that you join an influential group that makes decisions in your local schools or pressures those who do.

What I’m saying is this: Be proactive. Don’t wait for first lady Michelle Obama to correct your children’s school diet before you do something about it. Ensure that civic organizations in your area, including tea party groups and churches, are activists for your public schools. Call parishioners out of the pews and into school community outreach.

My wife, Gena, and I are fighting for the next generation, and our life mission is to take physical education up a notch in public schools by offering our KickStart Kids program. For years, we also have supported The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, and we encourage you to do the same by going to its official website, at http://www.BarbaraBushFoundation.com.

It all comes down to one question every citizen in our country must answer: Are you spectating or fighting for America’s children in your local education Alamo?

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Obamacare’s Baby Death Panels (Part 2)

January 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I finished Part 1 last week informing you that in just a single year, from 2008-09, Planned Parenthood received $363.2 million in government grants and contracts, a $13.6 million increase from the previous year, which resulted in 324,800 abortions.

I then left you to ponder this question, which Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked more than a year ago: “Why should people of conscience be forced to participate in any aspect of abortion?”

That is exactly where Washington is leading us unless this 112th Congress detours from forcing pro-life citizens to pay for abortions via Obamacare or the passing of some legislation like the Freedom of Choice Act.

Thank God the pro-life cavalry has come to Washington. But it needs our help to rally our representatives.

Given that the 112th Congress is the most pro-life Congress in recent history, now is the time to act and stop government subsidies killing innocent unborn life. I’d even challenge tea parties across our country to fight for the unborn as hard as we do for fiscal frugalness and the Constitution.

In our passionate pursuit to cure our economy, are we abandoning those who one day will run it? We must fight equally for freedom fighters within the womb and those outside of it. Abortion isn’t health care!

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation establishing National Sanctity of Human Life Day, which also was issued by Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. It is held on the Sunday in January that falls closest to the day (Jan. 22) on which the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions were handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973.

This year, tens of millions will commemorate another Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (Jan. 23) in tens of thousands of churches across America. If you want to make a difference this year, here are eight excellent action items:

—Encourage your church’s leaders to join the throng of others in commemorating Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Send them this article, along with your thoughts and the contact information for the official Sanctity of Human Life Sunday website (http://www.sohls.org, 205-979-7909), so they can find out different ways they can highlight the fight for life on Jan. 23.

—Sign the Family Research Council’s latest petition to Congress. Go to http://www.frc.org, and click on “action.” Then click on “Help American taxpayers get out of the abortion business.”

—Personally contact your representative and senators at 202-224-3121 or http://www.house.gov and http://www.senate.gov, and then contact the White House (202-456-2111, fax: 202-456-2461). Tell them that as an American citizen, you demand them to fight for the rights of the unborn. Ask them to join Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., and Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., in their legislation, the Protect Life Act, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., in his reintroduction of the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, as well as Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Lipinski in their reintroduction of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

—Oppose the work and government financing of Planned Parenthood, which has just filed a restraining order trying to keep you from discovering information from a former Planned Parenthood director (Bryan, Texas) and “Employee of the Year,” Abby Johnson. There’s no doubt why; Abby already has helped to expose the multibillion-dollar marketing of abortion, in the fifth episode of the Emmy-winning series “Facing Life Head-On,” available to watch online. She also is blowing the whistle on her former employer and telling the shocking truth about everything that she saw inside the abortion industry — and why she resigned her job to join the pro-life movement — in her brand-new book, “Unplanned.” (You can get a free chapter of it athttp://UnplannedWebcast.com.)

—Join the 40 Days for Life campaign at http://40DaysForLife.com. It runs from March 9 to April 17.

—Read the article “50 Ways To Help Unborn Babies and Their Mothers,” by my friend and prolific author Randy Alcorn. It’s one of a host of great resources at his website, http://www.epm.org.

—Get involved supporting and fighting for the future generations in your local community — for example, in your schools, in your churches or through nonprofit children’s foundations, such as mine, KickStart Kids.

—And to give you hope, my wife, Gena, and I would also encourage you to visit the website http://www.IAmSecond.com, started by our dear friends Norm and Anne Miller. In particular, please listen there to the powerful testimony of Lisa Luby Ryan. It is well worth the short time it takes to view.

Washington and America don’t need to “turn the page” on culture wars such as abortion. Rather, we need to reopen the pages of our history to our Founders’ elevated views of and rights for all human beings (including those in the womb), as documented in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We need to revive and re-instill their value of humanity back into society, our children and our children’s children.

Fifty-six Founders signed the Declaration of Independence to testify that all human life is “created equal, that (all humans) are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.”

That is exactly why Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1809 at the end of his presidency, “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

Washington, could wording be any clearer?

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Obamacare’s Baby Death Panels (Part 1)

January 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

My wife, Gena, and I mourn with the rest of the nation over the murder and maiming of innocent citizens and lawmakers in Arizona this past Saturday morning. We, too, pray for the victims and survivors. It makes us even more passionate in our fight for human life and reminding the world that from the womb to the tomb, human life is precious and should be prized.

Last week, two questions dominated the political landscape regarding Obamacare. First, will the new 112th Congress repeal it? And secondly, if Obamacare didn’t offer advanced directives for end-of-life planning (aka “death panels”), then why did the Obama administration just repeal a Medicare regulation and reference for it covered under the new health care law?

Those are both great questions. But the one question being overlooked by too many is this one: If the 112th Congress fails to repeal Obamacare, will it include “baby death panels” in the future? In other words, will taxpayer money be used to provide for abortions under the new universal health care law?

It’s been coming down Washington’s political pike for two years.

Remember, during the president’s first year in office, when the Senate tabled the amendment introduced by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, which would have banned federal funds from providing for abortion in the universal health care reform bill?

Then the House and Senate, on secret Sunday sessions, passed an omnibus bill and its provision that also overturned the 1988 Dornan amendment, which prevented taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in Washington, D.C. (Tragically, that omnibus bill also appropriated $648.5 million for international family planning funding — an increase of $103 million over 2009 — and contained funding for Planned Parenthood and for the United Nations Population Fund, both of which have pro-abortion agendas.) Next will likely be the Hyde amendment, which prohibits the same when it comes to federal spending.

The 111th Congress repeatedly rejected any amendments to the universal health care bills that would have prevented taxpayer money from being used for abortions. In the end, even the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House and the Nelson-Hatch amendment in the Senate were sidestepped, on the basis that the president would sign an executive order promising that federal funds would not be used for funding abortions.

Of course, President Barack Obama’s executive orders aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Proof came this past year, when it was discovered that federal funds were, in fact, being funneled to provide for abortive services in Pennsylvania and New Mexico.

The truth is that when our country elected Obama as president, we placed a man in the highest office in the land who had the most liberal views and voting record on abortion of any president in American history. Our president, who once confessed on the campaign trail that estimating when a baby gets human rights was above his “paygrade,” has graded human life in the womb in such a way that he has zero problem signing into law a piece of legislation that will terminate the lives of millions of babies. He certainly wasn’t joking when he told Planned Parenthood during his presidential campaign that he would “turn the page” on the abortion culture war.

Planned Parenthood has just filed a restraining order trying to keep you from discovering information from a former Planned Parenthood director (Bryan, Texas) and “Employee of the Year,” Abby Johnson. There’s no doubt why; Abby already has helped to expose the multibillion-dollar marketing of abortion, in the fifth episode of the Emmy-winning series “Facing Life Head-On,” available to watch online. She also is blowing the whistle on her former employer and telling the shocking truth about everything that she saw inside the abortion industry — and why she resigned her job to join the pro-life movement — in her brand-new book, “Unplanned.” (You can get a free chapter of it at http://UnplannedWebcast.com.)

Planned Parenthood is the long arm of government for the abortion industry. In fact, consider that from 2002-08, Planned Parenthood, the largest but not the only abortion agency to receive government funds, received $657.1 million from federal taxpayers alone. And in just a single year, from 2008-09, Planned Parenthood received $363.2 million in government grants and contracts, a $13.6 million increase from the previous year, which resulted in 324,800 abortions.

The question that I keep coming back to is the one Sen. Hatch asked more than a year ago: “Why should people of conscience be forced to participate in any aspect of abortion?”

To give you hope, Gena and I would also encourage you to visit the website http://www.IAmSecond.com, started by our dear friends Norm and Anne Miller. In particular, please listen there to the powerful testimony of Lisa Luby Ryan. Please also read the article “50 Ways To Help Unborn Babies and Their Mothers,” by my friend and prolific author Randy Alcorn. It’s one of a host of great resources at his website, http://www.epm.org.

(Next week, I’ll explain not only how the pro-life cavalry has come to Washington but also how you can assist it via three particular action items, just in time for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, which is Jan. 23. I also tell how we can esteem human life in the chapter “Reclaim the Value of Human Life,” in my New York Times best-seller “Black Belt Patriotism,” a free chapter from which is available at http://www.ChuckNorrisNewBook.com.)

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Will the 112th Congress Finally Get It Right?

January 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican colleagues are intensely aware of public fury over how Congress operates. But following a lame-duck Congress that continued with business as usual, will this new Congress finally get it right?

As the 112th Congress officially convenes this week, the questions most of us have on our minds are: Will it finally…

—Reduce government spending?

—Reduce the national deficit?

—Reduce the national debt?

—Reduce earmarks and pork?

—Reduce briberies by lobbyists and special interests?

—Reduce Americans’ taxes?

—Reduce illegal immigration?

—Reduce our foreign entanglements?

—Reduce government overreach into our lives?

—Reduce government lying, cheating and corruption?

—Reduce constitutional disobedience?

…And so stabilize the nation and economy?

Nov. 2 was undoubtedly a reprimand and a repudiation of the direction Washington is going and how it is conducting government business. But it was also a big renunciation of who our politicians have become.

Getting government right isn’t merely a matter of knowing how; we’ve had plenty of that type of politician who have screwed up our country even worse. In fact, there has been one prevailing element that has been missing in recent recipes to reawaken and rebound our republic. It’s the last “E” in the three E’s to a successful government: expertise, experience and a good set of ethics.

For example, President Barack Obama made the audacious claim in the beginning of his presidency that his administration would “clean up both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue” with “the most sweeping ethics reform in history.” He repeatedly pledged that “an Obama administration is going to have the toughest ethics laws of any administration in history.”

But what we’ve seen from his administration is more of the same old government corruption — back-door deals, sidestepping constitutional protocol, manipulating the American public, buying votes, compounding broken promises, perpetuating Chicago-style politics, etc.

Good morals precede good laws, which is why government isn’t much help. Unless the people and their legislators are grounded in morality, the best of laws will be broken and the worst of laws will be made, legalizing immorality.

Our Founders knew that for a government to “get it right,” it first has to be filled with people who are “right and good.” They knew that morality and religion are essential buttresses of a good and free government. As George Washington once said, “a good moral character is the first essential in a man.” Patrick Henry wrote: “The great pillars of all government and of social life (are) virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor … and this alone, that renders us invincible.” And Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who signed the Declaration of Independence on behalf of Maryland, similarly wrote, “Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure … are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”

Our Founders had it right in the beginning, and we can, too, if we follow their footsteps. Good government is created and sustained only when we discern and elect character before charisma and promised political carrots.

That is why I endorsed Mike Huckabee a few years ago in the presidential race — because I believed, before anything else, that he is a man of integrity, someone who means what he says and says what he means. I trust his word. And right now, he is encouraging all of us in Texas to ensure the vote for Ken Paxton, who is looking to become the next speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. I echo Mike’s concern to rally citizens in local districts to call their state representatives and encourage them to vote for Ken.

As Mike and Huck PAC wrote, “soon to start his fifth term in office, Ken has twice been named ‘Texas Taxpayer Hero’ by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. Ken proudly believes in the sanctity of life, and supporting conservative family values like traditional marriage between one man and one woman. Ken recognizes that the matters of social issues directly impact our economy, and I’m confident having Ken’s conservative voice lead the new Texas House of Representatives will result in some great accomplishments.” The vote takes place Jan. 11.

On Nov. 2, many decent, good, law-abiding and God-fearing men and women were elected, in and outside Washington. And it is this moral momentum in appointing leaders that we must continue. So be active in local elections, as well as national ones, and be mindful that our representatives are often electing their own leaders, so they need our feedback then, too.

In the end, the question isn’t only whether the 112th Congress finally will get it right; it’s also whether we the people finally have gotten it right by appointing good and morally upright people to leadership positions all across our land.

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Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Drink!

December 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

On Feb. 11, 2006, in Iraq, I was honored to meet a model Marine by the name of Cpl. David Stidman. He did two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Commendably, he also left his post to come home and care for his ailing father, Dwayne Stidman, who tragically was hit and critically wounded by a drunken driver last May.

Three months later, on Aug. 2, 2010, Cpl. Stidman was killed. Not on the battlefields of the Middle East, but on his home streets of Texas while still caring for his father and family. And not by a drive-by shooter, but by another drunken driver. Cpl. Stidman was killed on his motorcycle while completely stopped at a stoplight just miles from home.

To add insult to injury, David’s killer had not one but two prior driving-while-intoxicated violations. The driver had been released repeatedly from his criminal charges and allowed to drive because of the lack of strict laws and enforcement by our liberal court systems.

(To read Dwayne’s story about his son’s service and heroism to both his country and family, go to http://www.DavidStidman.com/biography.html.)

Words cannot express the depths of what my wife, Gena, and I felt when reading David’s story. He was truly the epitome of the best our country creates. God only knows the lives he saved through his service to our country.

And even now, in his passing, his father, Dwayne, is fighting with him to save even more lives by reducing the number of drunken drivers and repeat offenders on America’s roads.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, here are three sobering statistics:

—In 2009, 10,839 people died in drunken driving crashes — one every 50 minutes.

—One in 3 people will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some point.

—An average drunken driver has driven while drunk 87 times before his first arrest.

During this holiday break, with New Year’s parties moving fast on the horizon, there’s no better time to join the fight against drunken drivers. Here’s what you can do.

First, check out MADD’s website (http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving/campaign/state-ranking), which shows how safe the roads are in your state; you may be shocked. The site also gives some action keys so that you can help to make those roads safer.

Second, if you’re a sober driver on the road over the holidays, please be very careful as you travel. At all times of the day, keep an eye out on those in your total range of vision, including in your vehicle’s blind spots.

Third, don’t be naive or dumb; don’t drink and drive. And don’t even think you can. A one-time mistake could cost you the rest of your life, as well as take the life of another.

Consider trying an alcohol-free New Year’s Eve. Train yourself to understand that you don’t need alcohol to have a great time. If you do drink, do so in moderation. And if you attend parties serving alcohol and you have no plans for moderation, then designate a sober driver before you go.

Tragically, too many people who drink don’t ask for a designated driver and don’t tell anyone whether and when they are drinking too much. Well, the way I see it is: If you don’t ask and don’t tell, then don’t drink! If you can’t responsibly handle the alcohol, then you shouldn’t handle it at all.

Fourth, please join Dwayne in his quest to crack down on drunken drivers, at http://www.DavidStidman.com.

With others’ help, Dwayne is trying to get stricter laws, get police to enforce the drinking laws we already have, and keep drunken drivers and repeat offenders from even making plea bargains. The judges and judicial system need to protect the innocent more than they do the guilty.

Dwayne also is working on a video that helps the victims of drunken drivers by providing information to help them cope with their losses, about casualty assistance, on where to find legal advice and even on how to find military support groups.

In short, Dwayne is trying to prevent other families from suffering through a holiday season like the one he’s going through, one without the physical presence of a loved one. As he put it, “we went to war over (about 3,000) Americans killed on Sept. 11, 2001, yet we allow drunks to get behind the wheel of a vehicle and take the lives of 11,773 Americans (of the 13,896 alcohol-related deaths, as reported in 2008). And let’s not forget the thousands more injured. Due to these weak laws currently in place and the lack of enforcement by the courts, thousands more will spend the rest of their lives in sorrow coping with the loss of their loved ones. … We need change! … I will not allow (David’s) sacrifice to fall on deaf ears. The laws must be changed and enforced to save the lives of thousands of Americans in the years to come. I hope you feel the same as I do.”

Again, the way I see it, at least when it comes to our military, is: Our troops are willing to sacrifice their lives in foreign territory; the least we can do when they come home is keep them safe on American soil.

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