Monthly Archives: February 2011

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 36

February 18, 2011 – 7:30 am

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Princess Diana dancing with John Travolta in the entrance hall at the White House. 11/9/85.

Milton Friedman has been talking about wasteful government spending for years. Take a look at the clip below from the 1979 Phil Donahue Show. He was a great defender of freedom. I love his response to the question concerning those evil rich people who hoard their money!!!!

Razorback Day at the Capital on Feb 16, 2011 and my son met both Bobby Petrino and Frank Broyles. Rett told them that he had four years of eligibility left!!!!

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I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights

Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the “quality of life” ethic.

I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. American was founded by men and women who shared a vision of the value of each and every individual. They stated this vision clearly from the very start in the Declaration of Independence, using words that every schoolboy and schoolgirl can recite:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We fought a terrible war to guarantee that one category of mankind — black people in America — could not be denied the inalienable rights with which their Creator endowed them. The great champion of the sanctity of all human life in that day, Abraham Lincoln, gave us his assessment of the Declaration’s purpose. Speaking of the framers of that noble document, he said
:

This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on. . . They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.

He warned also of the danger we would face if we closed our eyes to the value of life in any category of human beings:

I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

When Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and property to all human beings, he explained that all are “entitled to the protection of American law, because its divine spirit of equality declares that all men are created equal.” He said the right guaranteed by the amendment would therefore apply to “any human being.” Justice William Brennan, writing in another case decided only the year before Roe v. Wade, referred to our society as one that “strongly affirms the sanctity of life.”

Another William Brennan — not the Justice — has reminded us of the terrible consequences that can follow when a nation rejects the sanctity of life ethic:

The cultural environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid of value and respect.

As a nation today, we have not rejected the sanctity of human life. The American people have not had an opportunity to express their view on the sanctity of human life in the unborn. I am convinced that Americans do not want to play God with the value of human life. It is not for us to decide who is worthy to live and who is not. Even the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade did not explicitly reject the traditional American idea of intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply dodged this issue.

Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 4)

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Little known presidential facts:

  1. No president has ever been an only child.j
  2. At his first inauguration, George Washington added the “so help me God” to the end of the oath of office.b
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)

Candidate #1,MN Gov Tim Pawlenty: Republican Presidential Hopefuls (part B)

February 18, 2011 – 6:46 am

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The former Minnesota governor and presidential contender takes a stand.

Jeffery Bruner wrote a piece “Tim Pawlenty tests presidential appeal,” (Dec 24, 2010) and he talks about the nationwide effort he is putting forth:

Pawlenty will kick off his tour at the National Press Club in Washington on Jan. 13. He then will travel to major presidential election states during the first month, including the early nominating contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where he already has invested lots of money and time.

Pawlenty established political action committees in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he doled out more than $118,000 to dozens of candidates for state offices in both states in the November midterm elections. He also donated about $100,000 to 48 Republican candidates for the House of Representatives and $61,000 to 22 Senate candidates through his federal Freedom First PAC, according to an analysis by the campaign finance watchdog Center for Responsive Politics.

Pawlenty’s leadership PAC has raised $3.3 million since he created it in the fall of 2009, an early sign that he was seriously considering a run for the 2012 nomination.

“We’re really proud to have played a role in conservative victories,” said Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant. “We made a lot of friends in the process and look forward to seeing many of them during the book tour.”

Conant said Pawlenty still has a March timetable for announcing his decision on the 2012 race.

Meanwhile, at least one major political publication in the nation’s capital considers Pawlenty a top-tier challenger. The Hotline, a daily political roundup published by the National Journal, had Pawlenty on its A-list in a November power ranking of 15 potential GOP contenders. The rankings were based on fundraising, campaign organization, strengths and weaknesses.

“He’s certainly got the executive experience and conservative credentials, but early reviews of his public appearances make us wonder whether he’s exciting enough to inspire a primary audience,” the magazine said in ranking Pawlenty No. 2 on its A-list.

More pointedly, Politico observed last summer that Pawlenty suffers from “a charisma deficit and (lacks) a clear rationale for why he should be president.”

Jacobs at the University of Minnesota agrees with that assessment. He said about the only way Pawlenty could gain the nomination would be through attrition.

“He’s the candidate who has least offended people, but he can’t generate any interest,” Jacobs said. Pawlenty still could win the nomination, Jacobs added, “if the other candidates continue to self-destruct and he’s the one who’s left standing.”



By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 35

February 17, 2011 – 9:21 am

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The Reagans have tea with Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the White House residence. 11/9/85 .

I remember when I visited London in July of 1981 and the whole town was getting ready for the big royal wedding between Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Above you will see them pictured with President Reagan.

I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient?

The case against abortion does not rest here, however, for medical practice confirms at every step the correctness of these moral sensibilities. Modern medicine treats the unborn child as a patient. Medical pioneers have made great breakthroughs in treating the unborn — for genetic problems, vitamin deficiencies, irregular heart rhythms, and other medical conditions. Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.

What more dramatic confirmation could we have of the real issue than the Baby Doe case in Bloomington, Indiana? The death of that tiny infant tore at the hearts of all Americans because the child was undeniably a live human being — one lying helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The real issue for the courts was not whether Baby Doe was a human being. The real issue was whether to protect the life of a human being who had Down’s Syndrome, who would probably be mentally handicapped, but who needed a routine surgical procedure to unblock his esophagus and allow him to eat. A doctor testified to the presiding judge that, even with his physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a “non-existent” possibility for “a minimally adequate quality of life” — in other words, that retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty. The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.

Federal law does not allow federally-assisted hospitals to decide that Down’s Syndrome infants are not worth treating, much less to decide to starve them to death. Accordingly, I have directed the Departments of Justice and HHS to apply civil rights regulations to protect handicapped newborns. All hospitals receiving federal funds must post notices which will clearly state that failure to feed handicapped babies is prohibited by federal law. The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion.

The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence.

Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. Some have said that only those individuals with “consciousness of self” are human beings. One such writer has followed this deadly logic and concluded that “shocking as it may seem, a newly born infant is not a human being.”

A Nobel Prize winning scientist has suggested that if a handicapped child “were not declared fully human until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice.” In other words, “quality control” to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.

Obviously, some influential people want to deny that every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist that a member of the human race must have certain qualities before they accord him or her status as a “human being.”

Events have borne out the editorial in a California medical journal which explained three years before Roe v. Wade that the social acceptance of abortion is a “defiance of the long-held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status.”

Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 3)

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Little known presidential facts:

  1. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter, the first Southerner elected to the presidency following the Civil War, restored U.S. citizenship to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.i
  2. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated the broken ankle of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth and whose name led to the saying “Your name is mud,” received a presidential pardon in 1869 from Ulysses S. Grant.i
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, Prolife, Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)

Candidate #1,MN Gov Tim Pawlenty: Republican Presidential Hopefuls (Part A)

February 17, 2011 – 8:37 am

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An ultratough new version of Tim Pawlenty showed up at CPAC to demonstrate that he’s got what it takes to save America.

Jason Tolbert reported today:

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was briefly in town this morning to meet with a select group of Arkansas Republicans.  He visited with privately with Lt. Gov. Mark Darr and Secretary of State Mark Martin along with Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb before meeting with a larger group at the Republican Party offices in Little Rock.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is pictured below with Lt Gov. Mark Darr:

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I have always heard that the Republicans choose the guy whose turn it is while the Democrats are attracted to the unknown guys like Jimmy Carter. If that holds true then Pawlenty doesn’t have a chance.

Jeffery Bruner wrote a piece “Tim Pawlenty tests presidential appeal,” (Dec 24, 2010) and he made some good points:

After spending a year traveling the country to campaign for conservative candidates and speak at Republican gatherings — in effect, testing the presidential waters — Tim Pawlenty is about to embark on a new tour as an author.

The outgoing Minnesota governor’s book tour will also be a test of his appeal as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012. So far, his star seems as dim as it was when he announced that he would not seek re-election as governor, igniting speculation that he would seek the GOP presidential nomination.

Still, some political experts say Pawlenty is making all the right moves, regardless of whether they are paying off immediately, and that could brighten his chances of breaking into the top tier of potential candidates.

“He’s taking the right steps he needs to take to run a campaign,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “But when the question is, ‘Why Pawlenty? What’s the base of support that he has that no one else has?’ It’s hard to answer that right now.”

Despite all that he’s done, Pawlenty has a lot more work to do to become competitive, said Allan Lichtman, a presidential scholar at American University in Washington.

“He’s got a lot of candidates to leapfrog over,” Lichtman said, naming 2012 potentials Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In the past three to four decades of Republican presidential primary history, no virtual unknown has emerged to capture the GOP nomination, Lichtman said. That is a phenomenon more familiar to Democrats. Capturing a party’s nomination with little national name recognition would require riding a hot issue or building a superior field operation, Lichtman said.

“Democrats have had unknowns come out from nowhere … but Republicans have no history of it,” Lichtman said. “The best model is George McGovern. He did it with both a major issue, the (Vietnam) war, and with grassroots organizing.”

In 1972, McGovern of South Dakota won the Democratic Party nomination on an anti-war platform over establishment favorite Ed Muskie of Maine.

The likelihood of Pawlenty being able to pull off a similar coup is virtually nil, Lichtman said.

“Something strange would have to happen for him to get the nomination,” he said.

But there’s nothing odd about the tour Pawlenty will begin after his book, “Courage To Stand,” in which he writes about growing up in the meatpacking town of South St. Paul, hits the shelves on Jan. 11. He follows Palin and Huckabee as potential 2012 candidates promoting a new book. Gingrich also has a book out.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Jason Tolbert | Comments (0)

Brantley:Bring Accountability to Charter Schools

February 16, 2011 – 8:39 am

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In his blog post “Charter School Accountability in Maumelle,” (Arkansas Times Blog, Feb 15, 2011), Max Brantley asserts, “It’s taken 10 years, but the state Board of Education has finally begun bringing some degree of accountability to charter schools.”

It is my view that we should encourage Charter Schools, Private Schools (through a voucher system) and public schools and let the best schools win. Pat Lynch admitted that what we are doing now in the Little Rock School District is not working.  Take a look at the video clip below that also talks about what is going on in Florida with business tax credits.

Just next door our neighbor Oklahoma just took a big step last year. James Hall wrote this fine article “School Choice Victory in the Sooner State,” (June 11, 2010, Heritage Foundation).


School choice efforts took a substantial step forward yesterday when Oklahoma’s Democratic Governor Brad Henry signed into law the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Act. Special needs children in the state will now be able to attend a school of their parents’ choice through the help of vouchers. This program will provide significant opportunity for an estimated 15 percent of Oklahoma children and their families.

Support for the new law came from both sides of the political spectrum. The principal authors of the bill, Sen. Sally Kern (R) and Rep. Jason Nelson (R) were joined by representatives Anastasia Pittman (D), Jabar Shumate (D) and Sen. Patrick Anderson (R), to maneuver the legislation through the state congress and senate before its signing by Governor Henry. Nelson thanked Governor Henry in The Daily Oklahoman for his support and explained that the bill will provide children with special needs “a chance at a better education and a better life.”

Betsy DeVos, chairman of The American Federation for Children, commented on the school choice victory:

We salute Governor Henry for his leadership in enacting this transformational new program, and we congratulate the bipartisan team of Oklahoma legislators who worked together and put politics aside for the sake of helping children with special needs.

Oklahoma joins a growing list of states who offer school choice for parents of special needs children, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Utah. The president and CEO of the Foundation for Educational Choice, Robert Enlow encouraged other states to take similar action:

Because of the governor’s and legislature’s courageous acts, Oklahoma’s children with special needs have been afforded a new, better chance to succeed in life. … Other states should emulate Oklahoma and its willingness to put the interests of kids and parents first.

Back in Washington, the Obama administration has been turning back the clock on school choice, working to phase out the highly successful and popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. But states like Oklahoma are moving forward with policies to put power in the hands of parents and opportunity in the reach of children. Many families will now have the opportunity to send their children to those schools they feel will best meet their needs. Hopefully the administration will see state choice victories as a sign that it is indeed parents – not bureaucrats or union leaders – who should have control of their children’s educational future.

James Hall is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm

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Andrew Coulson, director of the Center for Education Freedom at the Cato Institute, believes giving businesses tax credits for sending kids to private school is the most effective way to expand school choice. The regulatory and legal obstacles to charters schools and vouchers, he argues, present too many hassles to work around .

Reason.tv sat down with Coulson at the National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C. to talk about the public education tax credits and more.

This interview is part of National School Choice Week, a non-partisan initiative to raise awareness of how competition and choice can transform K-12 education.

Approximately 6 minutes. Filmed by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg, and edited by Epstein. Interview by Nick Gillespie.

Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Vouchers | Comments (0)

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 34

February 16, 2011 – 6:30 am

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Nancy Reagan photo with Lab School Honorees Tom Cruise, Bruce Jenner, Cher and Robert Rauchenberg in State Dining Room. 10/30/85.

My wife Jill loves to watch the reality show “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” Bruce Jenner who is pictured above is one of the main characters in that show since his wife is Kris Jenner is the mother of all the Kardashians.

Oh Bruce! The lovable dad and former Olympic champion is always the last to know what’s going on. Take a look.

I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

Reagan: “If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it.”

Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.

Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.

What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.

Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 2)

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Little known presidential facts:

  1. Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman did not attend college. Harry Truman is the only twentieth-century president without a college degree.b
  2. The capital of Liberia is called Monrovia after President James Monroe.k
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)

Lynch: Little Rock School District deserves criticism

February 15, 2011 – 10:31 pm

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In 1980 I watched the film series “Free to Choose” and Walter Williams was in that film series. I really liked what he had to say.

Dr. Walter Williams proposes:

Failing Public Schools – Give parents greater control over their children’s education by setting up a tuition tax credit or voucher system to broaden competition in turn revitalizing both public and non-public schools

Sweden’s Voucher System Part 1

Pat Lynch “In search of Leadership,” (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Feb 7, 2011) asserted, “Goodness knows, the Little Rock School District gets a fair amount of criticism, and a good deal of it is entirely deserved…Central Arkansas deserves better…”

It is a wonder to me that liberals never admit that maybe the voucher system is worth trying since the current public school system in Little Rock is not working.

Did you know that many of the liberals in Sweden have endorsed the voucher system put in place there? I will be posting parts of the article “Sweden’s school voucher system is a model for America,” (The Daily Caller, Jan 23, 2011) by Odd Eiken.

In 1993, Sweden introduced a system of school choice and vouchers, inspired by the ideas of American economists Milton and Rose Friedman. Even though the system was just as controversial then as any U.S. voucher proposal, the right to chose your school and bring the funding with you is today considered a natural right for families and is widely accepted by all political parties.
Even Sweden’s Social Democratic Party supports the system and recently closed an internal debate on for-profit schools by deciding that there is no virtue in running schools at a loss: schools should be judged on their academic performance, not financial.
The reason for the Swedish voucher reform was both philosophical and practical. The philosophical argument was that since taxpayers have agreed to share the cost for a free and good education, then why should some have to pay for it twice — first with taxes and then in private school fees? The more practical argument came from Swedish experience with educational reforms and innovations in the 1970s that to a large degree failed. It not only caused high costs for society and generations of students who saw few improvements, but it also created an aversion against further innovations and pedagogical experiments.
As American state legislatures begin to convene this winter and again consider education reform, they should empower families and create conditions for entrepreneurship. And as school choice gains popularity among parents and taxpayers, particularly as this is National School Choice Week in the U.S., vouchers should absolutely be on the agenda.
When we designed the Swedish voucher system, we followed the Friedmans’ advice to keep it universal and simple. The answer was a system where funding follows the student regardless of their parents’ income. Under our system, every family has the right to choose a school that’s right for their child. And every student brings with him the same amount of per pupil funding as the cost of the public school in his or her home district.
But under our system, equal terms work both ways. If a school chooses to be part of the voucher system, it has to be all-inclusive, provide national standards and have its performance monitored. And it has no right to charge its students fees beyond the voucher. The purpose was to create equal financial conditions while protecting the ultimate right of the voters and taxpayers to create a budget for spending on schools. Since the public school still often is the default choice, that means that independent schools need to be more creative, productive or academically successful with equal funding in order to compete.

Mr. Odd Eiken is Executive Vice President of Kunskapsskolan Education, the largest private school provider in Sweden. He was State Secretary of Schools in Sweden 1991-94 and helped develop the nation’s voucher reform.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Vouchers | Comments (0)

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 33

February 15, 2011 – 9:05 am

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President and Nancy Reagan posing with Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen during a state dinner for Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. 10/8/85.

I was involved in the 1980 campaign for Ronald Reagan because of several factors. One of these influences on me was the book “Free to Choose” by Milton and Rose Friedman. Below you will see a clip from Phil Donahue’s Show with Milton Friedman.

I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

Mother Teresa “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”

Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “. . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.

Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to head the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”

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Friedman, shows why he is unsurpassed in modern times in defending liberty. He cheerfully decapitates the ideas of a government-controlled economy, over a wide range of examples. His layman’s explanation as to how government intervention and the Federal Reserve control of the money supply helped cause the Great Depression is simply outstanding.

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  1. On his epitaph, which he composed, Jefferson mentions that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statuette of Virginia for Religious Freedom and that he was the father of the University of Virginia. He neglected to mention he had been the President of the United States.g
  2. Teddy Roosevelt’s last request before dying was “Please put out the light.” Thomas Jefferson’s last words were “This is the Fourth?” John Adam’s dying words were “Thomas Jefferson still survives,” unaware that Jefferson had passed away a few hours earlier.k
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)

Obama’s health care Part 5

February 15, 2011 – 6:37 am

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Obama’s health care Part 5

Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets?

Above you will see a clip from Mississippi concerning health care. My mother’s parents lived in Mississippi and I grew up going down there to visit my cousins. They were football fans and we used to go see Ole Miss take on Miss St many times in Jackson. Emory Bellard was the coach at Miss State from 1979 to 1985. Dave Campbell wrote an excellent article remembering the life of Bellard.

Emory Bellard will be remembered as the man who created the Wishbone.

As a member of Darrell Royal’s Texas Longhorn coaching staff in 1968, Bellard developed the triple-option offense that utilized three running backs lined up in an inverted “U” formation behind the quarterback.

A year later, when Texas won the national championship on the way to 30 straight wins, Bellard’s offense changed the look of college football and brought a huge number of high school teams along for the ride…

Bellard, who was head coach at A&M from 1972-78, was honored at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame last October, where his players, assistant coaches, opposing coaches, family and friends sang his praise.

The Hall of Fame in Waco opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Bellard, a 1995 inductee…

The 12th Man Kickoff Team later honored Bellard at its annual banquet. The former A&M coach was recognized at halftime of the Aggies’ win over Nebraska.

“As a young football coach, you couldn’t have a better mentor than Coach Bellard,” Slocum said. “He was an outstanding football coach, but more than that, he was a great human being. Being able to see how he handled people and situations was a great learning opportunity for me. He always thought and saw the best in people. He loved his players, and his players loved playing for him.”

Slocum had a chance last week to talk with Bellard.

“[Coach Bellard] told me, ‘I’ve led a great life. I got to do exactly what I wanted to do at some great institutions and with some great young men,'” Slocum said.

In seven years at A&M, Bellard went 48-27, leading the Aggies to two 10-win seasons. His Aggies went 10-2 and shared the Southwest Conference title in 1975, and Bellard earned the American Football Coaches Association award as the College Coach of the Year. In 1976, the Aggies closed the season ranked seventh nationally after beating Florida in the Sun Bowl 37-14 to finish 10-2 again…

Emory Bellard took over as head coach at Mississippi State from 1979-85. In seven seasons in Starkville, Miss., he posted a record of 37-42. Two of his teams finished in the Top 20. He coached the Bulldogs to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history.

His 1980 team finished 9-3 and beat top-ranked Alabama 6-3, ending Alabama’s 28-game winning streak. By the time Bellard’s teams upset the Crimson Tide, Alabama head coach Bear Bryant had long since installed the Wishbone offense for his attack.

Bellard’s Wishbone revolution became the offense of choice for 14 national championship teams.

  • Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with helping create the wishbone offense while a UT assistant. / SA
    Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with…
  • Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the 1970s. EN File. / SA
    Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the…
I just wanted to add one thing about Miss St and the cowbell. Why are the Miss St fans the only fans in the world allowed to use artificial noise makers? It bugged me back in the 1970’s and it bugs me now. I personally believe it will take them winning the SEC before enough anger is aroused by this to do something about it.

Ilya Shapiro delivered this testimony on Jan 24, 2011 to the Arkansas House of Representatives. This was later put into a paper “On the Arkansas Health Care Freedom Act and Its Relationship to Obamacare.” He stated:

The strongest legal argument — implicitly supported by the HCFA — attacks the constitutionality of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. “The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.” Cong. Budget Office, The Budgetary Treatment of an Individual Mandate to Buy Health Insurance 1 (1994). Nor has it ever said that every man and woman can be fined for declining to participate in the marketplace. And never before have courts had to consider such a breathtaking assertion of raw power under the Commerce Clause. Even at the height of the New Deal, in the infamous case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 11 (1942), the federal government claimed “merely” the power to regulate what farmers grew, not to mandate that people become farmers or require people to buy farm products.

But that should not be surprising, because ours is a government of delegated and enumerated powers and the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to force private commercial transactions. Even if the Supreme Court has broadened the scope of congressional authority under the Commerce Clause — it can now reach local activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce — never before has it allowed people to face a civil penalty for not buying a particular product.

Stated another way, every exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce has involved some form of action or transaction engaged in by an individual or legal entity. The government’s theory — that the decision not to buy insurance is an economic one that affects interstate commerce in various ways — would, for the first time ever, permit laws commanding people to engage in economic activity.

Under such a reading, which two judges in other Obamacare cases have alas accepted, Congress would be the sole arbiter of its own powers, the only checks on which would be political. The federal government would have plenary authority to compel activities ranging from eating spinach and joining gyms (in the health care realm) to buying GM cars (as part of an auto bailout). Authority so novel and sweeping would be indistinguishable from a general “police power,” which is irreconcilable with the established principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers. As Judge Henry Hudson said in striking down the individual mandate in the Virginia case, “This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by Commerce Clause jurisprudence.”


By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Healthcare | Comments (0)

Ronald Wilson Reagan (Pro-life) Part 32

February 14, 2011 – 8:29 am

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c29916-8a.jpg

President and Nancy Reagan talking to Mother Teresa in the Oval Office. 6/20/85.

Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption.

Dr. Adrian Rogers was my pastor from 1975 to 1983 and he had a big impact on me and my views on abortion. Below is a video clip from his memorial service which I attended. I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

Justice Byron White: “raw judicial power.”

The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade is a good time for us to pause and reflect. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators — not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars.

Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.

As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.

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Little known presidential facts:

  1. John Tyler (1790-1862) had more children than any other president. He had eight by his first wife and seven by his second. He was 70 when his last child, Pearl, was born. He was also the first president to get married in office, though his eight children form his first wife did not approve of the wedding and did not attend.j
  2. Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004) won the Most Nearly Perfect Male Figure Award from the University of California in 1940.k

Dr. Adrian Rogers was my pastor from 1975 to 1983 and he had a big impact on me and my views on abortion. Below is a video clip from his memorial service which I attended.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Prolife, Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)