Last week FRCAction launched a new television commercial in response to statements Senator Barack Obama made about fatherhood this past Father’s Day.  The comment that the Senator made was “We need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t just end at conception.”  While Senator Obama is correct in that many fathers need to step up more in the raising of their children and to take more responsibility, he seemed to miss the irony that if one becomes a parent at  conception, with all the responsibilities involved, what are they a parent of?  (If the Senator is reading this here is a hint: The American Heritage Dictionary defines a parent as “One who begets, gives birth to, or nurtures and raises a child; a father or mother.”

Amazingly a number of people are unaware of Senator Obama’s extreme views on the issue of abortion.  However within his record it is clear he fully supports the abortion industry and they fully support him. Read the rest of this entry »

Oil jumped to more than $140 a barrel last week, but sadly the House considered no legislation to increase the supply of American energy and lower gas prices for American working families and small businesses.

So another week has passed and Michiganders are still paying well over $4 at the pump. Congress still has yet to take action on increasing American energy production, which is unacceptable. Just as with the Manhattan Project or the race to the moon, breaking our dependence on foreign oil should be a national priority. We need a comprehensive plan that returns our energy production back to the United States and creates good paying, American jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

Congress took a crucial step last week toward ensuring the safety and security of our nation’s closest ally in the Middle East. In a time of unprecedented threats, challenges and instability in the region, Congress voted overwhelmingly to approve increased security assistance to the State of Israel.

In line with America’s new 10-year, $30 billion aid agreement with the Jewish state, the Senate on Thursday – and the House the week before – approved $170 million in increased security assistance to Israel. The funding was included as part of the Supplemental Appropriations Acts of Fiscal Years 2008 and 2009.

With Congress expected to enact a Continuing Resolution at the end of this fiscal year, keeping all programs, including aid to Israel, at fiscal year 2008 levels, bipartisan Congressional leaders decided to include Israel’s aid increase in the supplemental. Read the rest of this entry »

Zimbabwe has been allowed to operate outside the African Union (AU) and UN human rights framework for far too long. It is time for effective African and international solidarity with the victims of human rights violations in Zimbabwe. The people must not be left alone to suffer this ongoing violence. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have heard that the Bush administration is once again withholding funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).  Because UNFPA provides funding for health services, including voluntary family planning, in China where the government maintains a “one-child policy,” the Bush administration decided Thursday to unjustly withhold U.S. funding to UNFPA, as it has for the last seven years. That’s no surprise (and it’s barely even news-worthy), though it is disappointing.  Contrary to the administration’s assertions, UNFPA provides alternative and voluntary approaches to China’s compulsory family planning program.

But you may have missed the potentially even bigger news.  Now the Bush administration has threatened to dramatically expand the interpretation of the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which until now has been limited only to UNFPA, to also cut off funding to other organizations solely because they operate health programs in China. Buried in the statement released by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is the following ominous warning: Read the rest of this entry »

I get the same feeling each time I visit a gas station these days. As I fill my car’s tank, I get a cramp in my stomach as the price on the pump ticks higher and higher with each visit. I drive away from the gas station and that cramp quickly turns in to anger and frustration when I think about how Washington and Congress have provided absolutely no leadership or solutions on our energy crisis.

Gasoline, diesel, propane, heating oil and natural gas prices are at price levels never seen before in our history. The response to this crisis in Congress has been an abundance of partisan bickering and finger pointing but no plan of action.

As this crisis grows I think of Iowa families just like my daughter Jennifer’s family… with her husband and their two children and how the record prices at the pump are literally decreasing her family’s monthly income. Iowans are fed up. And they should be, because their leaders in Washington have absolutely failed them on this issue. Congress and our leadership need a wake-up call. It is time that Washington learns that finger pointing and partisan bickering will do nothing to lower the price of gasoline by a single penny. Read the rest of this entry »

Congress [last week] gave final approval to the Merida Initiative for anti-drug security assistance to Mexico and Central America and sent the bill to the White House. The plan calls for $400 million in anti-drug and security assistance for Mexico, whose government sounds happy with the plan. It also provides for $65 million to be split up between seven countries of Central America from Belize to Panama plus Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Here’s WOLA’s take.

The bill’s language recognizes the “shared responsibility between the United States and Mexico to combat drug trafficking and related violence and organized crime.” It’s good to see the U.S. Congress accept that fact, but Mérida is definitely a mixed bag and, in some ways, a missed opportunity for the United States to finally start getting it right on fighting drugs.  It has some positive things — $3 million in technical assistance to help Mexico establish a unified national police registry, $10 million for drug demand reduction and rehabilitation in Mexico — but a lot of misguided spending on military hardware ranging from helicopters to surveillance systems to aircraft platforms. And it doesn’t address at all the critical need for drug demand reduction in the United States and controls on the smuggling of firearms over the border into Mexico from  the United States. These are the twin traffics — drugs into the United States, guns into Mexico — that threaten to erase any chance Merida has of succeeding even before it starts.

The past five years has seen a dramatic surge in mining claims across the American West. Under the anemic and archaic 1872 Mining Law, a relic of frontier-era America, large international mining companies have been able to stake claims with impunity, leave taxpayers with multi-million dollar disasters that will pollute for thousands of years, and pay no royalties back to taxpayers for the resources they extract from our public lands.

One company, UK-based Vane Minerals, even received the green light to drill for uranium two miles from the Grand Canyon’s popular South Rim. In approving the action, the Forest Service said that it was powerless under the 1872 mining law to do otherwise. When an iconic national treasure is threatened and federal officials are powerless to protect it, it is clear that there is an immediate and pressing need for mining reform. Unfortunately, the mining reform movement in the Senate has been stalled. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee held a hearing on Climate Change. In my opening remarks I asked, “Is there a worldwide movement to have a centralized standard of living around high energy prices and environmental policies?” Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this year, CDF and several other organizations submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court urging the Justices to uphold the District of Columbia handgun ban. Thursday, the Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller, struck down the decades-old ban. “The Children’s Defense Fund is disappointed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down D.C.’s handgun ban,” said Susan Gates, General Counsel of Children’s Defense Fund. “Such laws not only provide reasonable restrictions but are critical to protecting children and teens vulnerable to gun violence, as highlighted by CDF’s recently released report, Protect Children, Not Guns.” Read the rest of this entry »