US Postal Service Wants Out Of Government-Provided Health Insurance

By Patrick Burke - March 30, 2012

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is currently working towards delivering a private health insurance plan to its employees and wants to opt out of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP.)

“If provided the authority to do so, we believe that we can provide our employees and retirees with the same or better health coverage for significantly less cost, ” said Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Donahoe during his testimony to the House Oversight Committee.

The financially strapped USPS recently released a plan to cut costs by 2016 to adapt to a marketplace in which there is less demand for hand delivered mail.

“While I commend Mr. Donahoe for his commitment to implement cost cutting measures, the financial status of the postal service remains untenable,” said Oversight Committee Chairman Dennis Ross (R-Fla.)

“In response to this fiscal crisis, the US Postal Service recently presented its five year business plan to profitability…the centerpiece of this plan involves shifting USPS employees and their retirees from the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) to a new USPS run health plan.”

Donahoe claimed a private health plan for the USPS will result in annual savings of approximately $7 billion and will function like any other health insurance plan in the private sector.

Rep. John Lynch (D-Mass.) raised a potential concern of a lack of choice for postal employees in selecting a health insurance plan that is best for them. Donahoe assured there would be tiers of value and quality from which employees can choose, as well as options for employees who have spouses and families.

Moreover, those within the postal service who are eligible for Medicare could enter into the USPS plan as a way for them to cut costs.

“We’d like to have a plan for the current employees and then a wrap-around plan for the Medicare eligible employees that gives them excellent value at a low cost,” said Donahoe.

“So they’d used the Medicare as their primary provider and have this back-up plan from a wrap-around. That saves a lot of money.”

By Donahoe’s estimates, the USPS could implement a fully functional health insurance plan by 2014.

To demonstrate the USPS ability to provide a private health insurance plan and its commitment to saving money, Donahoe identified ways to save the post office money—namely by consolidating office locations and matching the costs of maintaining office facilities with the amount of revenue brought in by the post office each year.

However, health care expert Walton Francis testified to the Oversight Committee following Donahoe and advised against a USPS private health insurance plan.

Francis said the withdrawal of postal workers from the FEHP program would have a detrimental effect on the other federal workers who depend on FEHP for their health insurance.

“The proposal before you is essentially a proposal to dismantle the federal employees’ health benefits program. That program covers eight million people—probably half the plans in that program will be forced out effectively. All people in all those plans will be forced to move to new plans,” said Francis.

“A lot of those people are elderly—don’t want any change. They’re going to be faced with massive change,” he added.

According to Francis, a primary flaw with privately insuring the postal service is the potential cost a “postal service widow” who does not receive Medicare benefits would incur as a result of the change in coverage.

“There are tens of thousands of 80-year-old widows, postal service widows … The premium cost for one of those widows to join [Medicare] parts A and B right now under current law in the Social Security Act is over $8,000 a year – that’s what it would cost to mandate that that widow leave the postal plan she’s now in and sign up for [Medicare] A and B,” said Francis.

Although Francis adamantly disagreed with the proposal to move the USPS to a private health insurer, he did agree with most other aspects of Donahoe’s five-year plan to profitability and urged Congress to facilitate the postal service’s ability to get its fiscal house in order.

The United States Postal Service has not recorded a profit since FY 2006 and will officially be in a “cash crisis” by October of 2013 without congressional action, according to Donahoe’s own testimony.

STUDY: Earth Heated Up in Medieval Times -- Before Human CO2 Emissions

• Evidence was found in a rare mineral that records global temperatures
• Warming was global and NOT limited to Europe
• Throws doubt on orthodoxies around 'global warming'

By Ted Thornhill - March 26, 2012

Current theories of the causes and impact of global warming have been thrown into question by a new study which shows that during medieval times the whole of the planet heated up.

It then cooled down naturally and there was even a 'mini ice age'.

A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York state, has found that contrary to the ‘consensus’, the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn’t just confined to Europe.

In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica – which means that the Earth has already experience global warming without the aid of human CO2 emissions.

At present the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) argues that the Medieval Warm Period was confined to Europe – therefore that the warming we’re experiencing now is a man-made phenomenon.


More...Australia's giant kangaroos were killed off by humans, not climate change, say researchers

However, Professor Lu has shown that this isn’t true – and the evidence lies with a rare mineral called ikaite, which forms in cold waters.

‘Ikaite is an icy version of limestone,’ said Lu. ‘The crystals are only stable under cold conditions and actually melt at room temperature.’

It turns out the water that holds the crystal structure together - called the hydration water - traps information about temperatures present when the crystals formed.

This finding by Lu's research team establishes, for the first time, ikaite as a reliable way to study past climate conditions.

The scientists studied ikaite crystals from sediment cores drilled off the coast of Antarctica. The sediment layers were deposited over 2,000 years.

The scientists were particularly interested in crystals found in layers deposited during the ‘Little Ice Age,’ approximately 300 to 500 years ago, and during the Medieval Warm Period before it.


Both climate events have been documented in Northern Europe, but studies have been inconclusive as to whether the conditions in Northern Europe extended to Antarctica.

Lu’s team found that in fact, they did.

They were able to deduce this by studying the amount of heavy oxygen isotopes found in the crystals.

During cool periods there are lots, during warm periods there aren’t.

‘We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica,’ Lu says. ‘More importantly, we are extremely happy to figure out how to get a climate signal out of this peculiar mineral. A new proxy is always welcome when studying past climate changes.’

The research was recently published online in the journal Earth And Planetary Science Letters and will appear in print on April 1.

Rally for Religious Freedom

State Treasurer Don Stenberg

Republican National Committeeman Pete Ricketts

Crowds gathered to rally for religious freedom at the federal courthouses in downtown Omaha and Lincoln today.

The rally was part of a nationwide campaign themed "Stand Up For Religious Freedom—Stop the HHS Mandate!" that took place at 140 locations throughout the country at noon today.

Thousands of Americans of all faiths participated in the peaceful rallies, organized by the Pro-Life Action League and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society to oppose the new mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that requires all employers provide free contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs through their health plans, even in violation of their consciences.

The purpose of today's rally was to re-focus the issue on religious freedom and being forced to break tenants of the faith.

Arch-Bishop Lucas says he wanted the rally to show people that they are united and focused against the threats to religious freedom.

Notable Republican leaders participating in the Omaha rally include State Treasurer Don Stenberg and Republican National Committeeman Pete Ricketts.

Poll: Most back Keystone pipeline

By: MJ Lee - March 22, 2012

By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, a majority of Americans think the government should approve the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, according to a new Gallup poll Thursday.

More than half of the adults polled, 57 percent, believe the government should give the green light on the politically divisive project, while 29 percent think it shouldn’t. Fourteen percent said they had no opinion.

Support for the Canada-to-Texas pipeline is significantly higher among Republicans than Democrats — 81 percent of GOP-ers said the government should approve building it, compared with just 51 percent of independents and 44 percent of Democrats who said the same.

Americans in the Midwest and Southern regions of the country, where the proposed pipeline would travel through, were the most likely to think positively of building the pipeline — 68 percent of Midwesterners and 61 percent ofSoutherners — while 52 percent of Americans on the West Coast and 48 percent on the East Coast gave the thumbs-up.

Even though the issue has been front and center in Washington, the poll found that half of Americans are not paying much attention to news about the pipeline. One in four said they are “not at all” following news about Keystone, while another one in four said they are “not too closely” tuning into the topic. Just one out of five said they are following the news “very closely.”

The findings of the survey come as President Barack Obama is set to visit Cushing, Okla., on Thursday as part of an energy tour this week to announce that he is issuing a memorandum to expedite a portion of the pipeline.

The Gallup poll was conducted March 8-11 among 1,024 adults, and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
see Gallup poll

Rand Paul's Budget Plan to Balance Budget in FIVE Years!

Forget Paul Ryan's Budget! Rand Paul has introduced a very detailed plan to balance the budget and fix the economy within FIVE years, all without raising taxes! In fact...he proposes a 17% flat tax! Now THAT is fairness!  EVERYONE pays the SAME percentage of every dollar they make regardless of age, race, sex, religion, income, etc.  And perhaps the best part, despite Paul's reputation...he has not cut the national defense budget!  And for Medicaid for seniors...it gives all seniors the same health care plan as Members of Congress.

By Julie Borowski on March 21, 2012

Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican Chairman of the House Budget Committee, has released his new budget plan called The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal. His plan does contain some praiseworthy proposals such as cutting the corporate tax rate, repealing ObamaCare and ending forms of corporate welfare. However, it does not cut a single federal department and doesn’t balance the budget until 2040. Paul Ryan’s plan has received tons of media attention but it’s difficult for me to get very enthusiastic about a plan that would take nearly three decades to balance the federal budget.

While the Ryan plan is certainly preferable to President Obama’s budget, it is not as bold as the budget plan introduced by Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Jim DeMint in the Senate. Rand Paul’s plan known as a Platform to Revitalize America would slash four federal departments and balance the budget within five years without raising taxes. Now, we’re talking. The Department of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development would be axed under the plan. Unfortunately, the media has largely ignored this true fiscally conservative budget.

According to the CATO Institute...Paul’s plan would achieve balance by halting and reversing the historic rise in federal spending. Taxes would not be increased, but revenues would steadily increase as the economy recovers.

The following charts compare Paul’s plan versus President Obama’s recent budget submission for fiscal 2012:

While Obama intends to continue spending at a historically high level, Paul would reduce spending as a share of the economy. Paul takes the scalpel to all areas of federal spending, including discretionary, defense, and mandatory. However, it is not a radical plan. In fact, it’s a practical, common sense budget that recognizes that the federal government’s growth has become unsustainable, and thus a threat to our economic well-being and future living standards.

read more details here

The Fourth Trimester Abortion (Pro After-Birth Abortion)

By Daniel Allott - 3.21.12

The anti-life crowd gives new life to arguments for infanticide.

While political liberals are busy advancing the fiction of a conservative "war on contraception," their counterparts in academia are promoting a lie at the opposite end of the reproductive continuum. The anti-life crowd is giving new life to arguments for infanticide.

In a much-discussed recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva take the "pro-choice" argument to its logical and loathsome end. They argue that "when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible."

They propose to call the practice "after-birth abortion" rather than "infanticide" to stress their belief that the moral status of a newborn baby is no different from that of an unborn baby.

While other anti-life extremists limit their support for infanticide to those deemed genetically "unfit," Giubilini and Minerva argue that the practice might be acceptable even in "cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk."

Risks to the well-being of the family include the "unbearable burden that a child can create for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children, regardless of the condition of the fetus."

While the authors allow that both the unborn child and the newborn are "human beings," they insist that neither has a right to life because they are "potential persons" not "persons." "Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life," they assert.

Predictably, the article has generated a lot of criticism. A Conservative congressman denounced it on the House floor, and both the authors and the journal have received demands for apologies and death threats.

Pro-life advocates shouldn't be upset. Many abortion-rights supporters claim that something magical happens at the moment a baby passes through the birth canal. But the authors start from a premise that pro-lifers have long maintained: that there is no difference between the moral status of an unborn child and that of a newborn child.

The article leaves many questions unanswered. For one, if infanticide were legalized, would the law stipulate how infants could be killed? If infants are no different than unborn babies, can they also be aborted "after birth" in the same gruesome way, torn limb from limb without anesthesia? If not, why not?

Also, if newborns may be killed, why not two-year-olds, who also can have a substantial effect on the "well-being of a family." What about teenagers? What if grandpa becomes an unbearable burden? Can a family euthanize him and call it a 240th trimester abortion?

According to the authors, a rights-bearing person is "an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her." The authors claim that babies develop this self-awareness sometime "in the first days or few weeks after birth."

But research and experience demonstrate that human beings have desires, needs and personalities that emerge well before they are born. Many mothers can attest to the reaction of their child in the womb to music, voices and other stimuli.

Yet, according to the authors, "the fetus and the newborn are potential persons" whose interest "amounts to zero."

Arguments for infanticide are not new. In fact, the logic behind them has been embraced at the highest levels of government. As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as "persons" babies who survive late-term abortions.

Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother's wombs are "persons," and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

In 2009, Texas considered legislation that would have defined infanticide as a separate and lesser crime than homicide, with a maximum sentence of just two years in prison.

Parents who kill their newborns are sometimes given lighter sentences than those who murder older children. In Canada last year, a judge cited Canada's acceptance of abortion in giving a woman who strangled and killed her newborn a three-year suspended sentence.

While some advocate infanticide for the burdensome, others propose that their parents receive financial compensation. Earlier this month, parents of a child with Down syndrome in Oregon received compensation in a "wrongful birth" lawsuit.

The couple had undergone prenatal testing, which came back negative for genetic abnormalities. When their child was discovered to have Down syndrome after birth, the couple sued their health provider, arguing that they would have aborted had they known that their child would be born with the genetic condition.

The jury voted in favor of the couple, who received $3 million to cover the estimated extra life-time costs of caring for their child. This case is not an outlier. At least 28 states recognize "wrongful birth" lawsuits.

In our entitlement society, citizens are claiming a right to more than just other people's money. Increasingly, parents feel entitled to perfect children, and thus to discard, or receive compensation for, those they deem to be a burden. In such a society, the threshold for the right to life will continue to rise.

A Safer Society with Guns (a tale of two Colorado universities)

Mar 21, 2012 - Jeff Jacoby

THE COLORADO SUPREME COURT put some noses out of joint when it ruled unanimously this month that the University of Colorado's campus gun ban violated a 2003 state law that entitles residents with permits to carry concealed weapons.

One of those noses belonged to Abraham Nowels, a University of Colorado student who wrote to the Denver Post: "We're in the middle of midterms right now, and I can't think of anything I'd rather be focusing on than which of my fellow over-stressed, binge-drinking peers is carrying a concealed weapon into class with me." The Post agreed, pleading in an editorial for "legislators with enough gumption" to change the state's concealed-carry law and "give colleges the power they need to keep students safe."

To those with an emotional bias against guns, it goes without saying that more guns in private hands invariably mean more crime and violence. If the number of people carrying firearms on campus rises, then of course that campus is less safe: What could be more obvious?

But it isn't obvious at all.

While the University of Colorado spent much of the past decade resisting the state's concealed-carry law, Colorado State University complied with it. If the gun controllers are right, Colorado State should have seen a surge in crime, while its gun-banning sister institution should have been an Eden of security and lawfulness. That's not what happened. As Clayton E. Cramer and David Burnett write in a new monograph for the Cato Institute, "crime at the University of Colorado has risen 35 percent since 2004, while crime at Colorado State University has dropped 60 percent in the same time frame."

Something similar happened after the US Supreme Court's 2008 Heller decision striking down the longstanding gun ban in Washington, DC. The city's mayor predicted in dismay that "more handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence," yet crime in the nation's capital plunged. Murder nose-dived to its lowest rate in half a century, falling from 186 in 2008 to 144 in 2009 to 132 in 2010 to 108 in 2011 -- a far greater decline, as economist John Lott points out, than in the rest of the country, or in cities of comparable size.

To be sure, correlation doesn't prove causation. But the experience of Colorado and DC should come as no surprise. There is by now so much evidence that higher rates of gun ownership lead to lower rates of crime that it isn't hard to fathom why fewer and fewer Americans want to ban handguns.ording to Gallup, just 26 percent of the public now thinks the private possession of handguns should be illegal -- down from 60 percent half a century ago. Roughly 1 of every 4 Americans reports keeping a gun to protect themselves or their homes. Having a gun makes many people -- for good reason -- feel safer.

How often firearms are used defensively is a much-debated question in American criminology. Respected studies over the years have come up with estimates that range widely, from more than 100,000 defensive gun uses annually to as many as 2.5 million. Whatever the number is, it clearly isn't trivial. An enormous amount of death, bloodshed, and suffering is prevented in this country by ordinary citizens with firearms.

That doesn't mean terrible things can't sometimes happen when a gun is used for protection. Trayvon Martin, an Orlando teen, was shot dead last month by a Florida man who claims he was acting in self-defense. Yet the teen carried nothing more deadly than a bag of candy, and police told the gunman -- a Neighborhood Watch patrol member -- not to follow him.

Such tragic tales inevitably draw the spotlight. Far more common, but far less likely to be played up, are cases where guns are used to scare off, resist, or thwart a genuinely dangerous criminal. For their Cato paper, Cramer and Burnett assembled nearly 5,000 news stories reported by the media between 2003 and 2011. Their catalogue includes instances of armed customers preventing a store from being robbed, of victims fighting off would-be rapists, of senior citizens defending against a home invader, of attempted carjackings foiled because the driver had a gun -- even of self-defense against deadly animals.

Of course, most defensive gun uses never make the news at all. As Cramer and Burnett observe, "Man Scares Away Burglar, No Shots Fired," is not a very compelling headline.

But with or without headlines, millions of Americans grasp instinctively that guns make us safer. For when honest citizens carry weapons, criminals are less likely to attack -- and those who do are more likely to fail.

NY Mayor Forbids Food Donations That Don't Meet Health Requirements

March 20, 2012 by Gary DeMar

How many times have you heard government officials say that we need government funding to help the poor? You would think that anyone donating food to homeless shelters would be appreciated by any city government. Not so the city of New York.

For over a decade, Glenn Richter and his wife, Lenore, have led a team of food-delivery volunteers from Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation. They’ve brought freshly cooked, nutrient-rich surplus foods from synagogue events to homeless facilities in the neighborhood. . . . The practice of donating such surplus food to homeless shelters is common among houses of worship in the city.

These food donations are now being regulated by the mayoral task force, the Health Department, and the Department of Homeless Services. In order to be DHS compliant, the donated food must first be checked for serving sizes, salt content, fat and calorie content, and fiber minimums.

These donations don’t cost the city a penny. The food is donated. It’s not dug out of garbage bins. If a restaurant were selling it, you would probably pay top dollar for it. DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond “insists that the institutional vendors hired by the shelters serve food that meets the rules but also tastes good; it just isn’t too salty. So, says the commissioner, the homeless really don’t need any of the synagogue’s food.”

Give me a break! Give me leftover food from a pot-luck dinner anytime over some lowest-cost “institutional vendor” any day of the week.

Says Rabbi Allen Schwartz of Ohav Zedek, “Jews have been eating chulent [a traditional Jewish stew] and kugel [a noodle casserole] for a long time, and somehow we’ve managed to live long and healthy lives. All we want to do is to continue sharing these bounties with our neighbors.”

Let me tell you what this is really all about. The goal of government is to make people dependent on government. Government doesn’t like competitors, so it uses its ever-expanding authority and power to eliminate any person or agency that might inhibit its ability to be the all inclusive benefactor. It can do this through the power to tax and make laws. The city taxes the people, pays for the food with the confiscated tax dollars, and then claims credit for the handout. Herbert Schlossberg captures the scene for us in his book Idols for Destruction:

Looking to the state for sustenance is [an act of worship]; we rightly learn to expect food from parents, and when we regard the state as the source of physical provision we render to it the obeisance of idolatry. The crowds who had fed on the multiplied loaves and fishes were ready to receive Christ as their ruler, not because of who he was but because of the provision. John Howard Yoder has rightly interpreted that scene: “The distribution of bread moved the crowd to acclaim Jesus as the new Moses, the provider, the Welfare King whom they had been waiting for.”

So in the end, the people receiving the food will say, “Isn’t mayor Bloomberg generous. Look at all the food he gives us. Bless you Mayor. Long love Mayor Bloomberg! Hail Caesar, I mean, Mayor Bloomberg!”

Critical Race Theory Pushed in Omaha and Nation's Public Schools

“Open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell.” 
- Obama

With Breitbart's release of the elusive "Obama/Derrick Bell's Critical Race Theory" video on March 8th, it has come to national attention the administration's push to introduce "Critical Race Theory" (aka: Racist Indoctrination) into public school systems across the country.

Yesterday, Breitbart.com reported on a group known as Pacific Educational Group (PEG) who, with the approval of the Obama administration, and under the guise of closing achievement gaps between black and white students, is promoting teaching methods that discourage “black and brown” students from conforming to an inherently “white” -- and therefore racist -- curriculum. PEG also encourages teachers to conform to the presumed cultural backgrounds of students, rather than focusing on norms of assessment and accountability.

A promotional video for PEG explains that the organization targets “white culture” as the source of the problems that minority students face.

Critical Race Theory, which began at the margins of the legal academy, has been picked up by race-obsessed radicals and is being woven deeper into the fabric of government education--with Obama’s apparent blessing, and at taxpayer expense.

Unfortunately, Omaha does not escape the racist agenda.

Many are already aware of the push by the OPS system to begin indoctrination of students and staff. The school district has already spent more than $130,000 in taxpayer-funded federal stimulus money to purchase 8,000 copies of a book pushing racial discrimination, "The Cultural Proficiency Journey".

The book, being pushed by the Progressive Research Institute of Nebraska contends that only those educators who acknowledge the existence of white privilege in America, that "white" is a culture in America and that race "is a definer for social and economic status" can reach proficiency. Those who score poorly on a worksheet are asked in the book what they will do "to align yourself with the values expressed."

Karen Abrams, board president of the Progressive Research Institute of Nebraska, challenged OPS to implement culturally proficient practices throughout its system including hiring more teachers who reflect their students' ethnicities.

read more

It is evident that indoctrination isn't exclusive to our colleges and universities any longer.

Islam and Jihad Being Written Out of 9/11 Attacks in U.S. Textbooks

by Drew Zahn - 3/19/2012

Who perpetrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – a group of men merely fighting “for a cause,” or a band of radical Muslims bent on violent jihad?

According to a new, comprehensive study of 6th-12th grade textbooks used by schools across the country, America’s children are being taught a very different answer to that question than many alive to witness 9/11 remember.

The non-profit organization ACT! for America Education studied 38 textbooks from popular publishers like McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin, for example, to determine whether American schoolchildren are being taught the truth about Islam and its role in 9/11.

The report, titled “Education or Indoctrination? The Treatment of Islam in 6th through 12th Grade American Textbooks,” compares what it found in the textbooks with 275 historical sources, listing 375 footnoted citations, to conclude that America’s textbooks are laced with “historical revisionism.”

“This report shines a bright light on a pattern of errors, omissions and bias in the textbooks reviewed,” explained ACT! for America Education founder Brigitte Gabriel in an email. “To give you just one example of the errors our research uncovered, in discussing the 9/11 attacks, the textbooks typically fail to mention the perpetrators were Muslims or that they acted in the cause of Islamic jihad. In one book the terrorists are portrayed as people fighting for a cause.

“In just a few years after Sept. 11,” she continues, “the history of what happened on that tragic day was rewritten in our school textbooks. Omitting this vital information, that jihad was the motivation for the attacks, makes it difficult, if not impossible, for today’s young teens, who don’t remember 9/11, to really understand what happened that day – and why.”

According to the executive summary of the report, “The full report reveals a pattern of historical revisionism, omissions and bias in the presentation of all aspects devoted to Islam in these textbooks. These aspects include its theology and doctrines, its role as a world religion, its ongoing struggle with Western tradition and its intrinsic anti-Semitism.”

The summary continues, “Textbook errors identified in the report range from egregiously false historical statements to significant omissions and subtle half-truths. Some are blatant and obvious, others are subtle and deceptive. The errors in these textbooks are not grammatical or typographical. They are substantive, significant and often repetitive.”

For example, the report notes the textbook “World History: Patterns of Interaction,” published by McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin in 2007, glosses over the violent birth of Islam and paints its founder, Muhammad, in a glowing light.

“In Medina, Muhammad displayed impressive leadership skills,” the textbook asserts. “He fashioned an agreement that joined his own people with the Arabs and Jews of Medina as a single community. These groups accepted Muhammad as a political leader. As a religious leader, he drew many more converts, who found his message appealing.”

But did Muhammad win converts among and build a peace accord with the Jews? The study’s founders cite several sources and recorded histories in asserting this description is a bald-faced lie.

“This language is a gross falsification of the relationship between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina,” the report states. “Muhammad … expelled two of the Jewish tribes from Medina and destroyed the third, beheading the men and selling the women and children into slavery. This important and essential historical fact of the Medinan period is commonly omitted in the textbooks reviewed, and it is impossible for students to accurately understand the rise of Islam without it.”

The report also questioned the textbooks’ descriptions of jihad.

“An Islamic term that is often misunderstood is jihad,” asserts Houghton Mifflin’s 2003 textbook “Across the Centuries.” “The term means ‘to struggle,’ to do one’s best to resist temptation and overcome evil. Under certain conditions, the struggle to overcome evil may require action. The Qur’an and Sunna allow self-defense and participation in military conflict, but restrict it to the right to defend against aggression and persecution.”

“The term jihad is, indeed, ‘often misunderstood,’” the report replies, “primarily because faulty definitions like this are prevalent in academia and the media.

“First, this passage redundantly and incorrectly asserts that jihad warfare is solely defensive in nature,” the report continues. “According to the Qur’an , the mandate of jihad includes aggressive warfare for the explicit purpose of making Islam supreme over the entire world. For instance, Surah 9:5 commands Muslims to ‘fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, And seize them, beleaguer them, And lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)’ (parenthetical in original). Surah 9:29 commands Muslims to make war upon ‘People of the Book [Christians and Jews], Until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, And feel themselves subdued.’”

The report’s executive summary concludes, “It is clear that the textbooks examined throughout this report contain extensive amounts of material that is seriously historically flawed and often unmistakably biased.”


Specifically, the report details dozens of ways in which it contends the textbooks stray from accurately teaching about Islam, including the following list, quoted directly from the report’s summary:

•The doctrine of jihad is omitted, incorrectly defined, inaccurately described, or understated.

•Faulty description of women’s rights under Islam: The oppressive and discriminatory nature of Shari’a law with respect to women is omitted, mischaracterized or understated.

•Omission or minimization of the Islamic slave trade, in sharp contrast with what is typically an extensive and appropriately critical examination of the Atlantic slave trade operated by Europeans.

•Aggrandizement and elevation of Muhammad’s character that is contradicted by accepted historical facts.

•Omission or minimization of Muslim conquest and imperialism, in sharp contrast with what is typically an extensive and appropriately critical examination of European and other imperialism.

•False claim of Islam’s historical tolerance of Jews and Christians.

•Misrepresentation of Shari’a Law in such areas as its applicability to non-Muslims and the separation of church and state.

•False presentation of the Crusades as the cause of the animosity between Christianity and Islam.

•Faulty historical narrative of the Crusades. Muslims in the Holy Land are commonly depicted as innocent victims of unprovoked aggression who were defending “their” lands against Christian invaders, rather than what is historically accurate: (1) that Muslims invaded and conquered the Holy Land centuries prior to the Crusades; (2) that Christians and Jews were victims of Muslim conquest and aggression centuries prior to the launching of the Crusades; and (3) that the Crusades were launched to wrest back control of the Holy Land from the Muslim invaders and conquerors.

•Chronological revisionism of the historical development of Judaism, Christianity and Islam which incorrectly portrays Islam as preceding Judaism and Christianity and the Muslims/Arabs as the indigenous people in the Holy Land, resulting in the delegitizimation of Israel.

•Treatment of Islamism as though it has no origins within classical Islam and Islam’s Holy Books.

•Islamist Holocaust revisionism that attributes the creation of Israel to world guilt over the Holocaust and incorrectly maintains that Arabs were forced to give up land for the survivors of the Holocaust.

•Omission of the fact that the United Nations created a two-state partition for Palestine, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs.

•Omission of the fact that the Arabs refused to accept the offer of an independent Arab state contained in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

•False claim of Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem.

•Omission of the fact that the PLO’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist was and remains a verbal recognition only, contradicted by the unrevised PLO charter.

•Inaccurate claim that most Middle Eastern terrorist groups have roots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

•Omission of the fact that Islamic jihadists target Americans not only for their support of Israel but also for what they consider the “decadent nature” of Western way of life that threatens the spread of Islam throughout the world.

•Failure to explain why the Islamic jihadists targeted the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and to identify the fourth target as the White House.

“Perhaps the greatest disservice done to students,” the report concludes, “is the net effect of the accumulation of these errors — the creation of a faulty historical narrative that not only misrepresents Islam but creates an inaccurate comparison between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and between the Muslim world and the West. Regardless of the issue – slavery, conquest and imperialism, the Crusades, the Arab-Israeli conflict, to name a few – Islam and the Muslim world are not generally held to the same rigor of historical analysis that the textbooks apply to Christianity, Judaism and the West.”

But to many Americans, the politically correct nature of handling 9/11 may be the most surprising.

The report, for example, quotes the textbook “Horizons,” published by Harcourt in 2005: “On Sept. 11, 2001, the United States was the target of a horrible act of terrorism, or violence to further a cause.”

The report explains, “The statement that the 9/11 attack was carried out to ‘further a cause’ is left undefined. There is no mention that the ’cause’ was Islamic jihad.”

It continues, “Rarely are the terrorists identified as Muslims, and the jihadist motivations for their actions are omitted. Omitting these two critical facts leaves students with an incomplete, and thus inaccurate, understanding as to why 9/11 happened.”

ACT! for America Education claims it has sent the executive summary of its finding to over 70,000 state and local school board members nationwide. In addition, the executive summary contains a list of recommended actions on its final pages, for those who, according to Gabriel, want to “wake up America to what this report has uncovered.”

Charge: U.S. Selling Aborted Baby Body Parts

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 3/19/2012

Even though the practice is a criminal offense, one pro-lifer asserts that body parts are being harvested from aborted babies and used for research purposes in the U.S. and abroad.

After an investigation by Life Dynamics revealed the practice, Investigate Magazine, a New Zealand-based current affairs publication from a conservative Christian standpoint, went on to determine that a Maryland brokerage firm has been arranging the sale of parts of American aborted babies to the University of Auckland medical school in New Zealand for experiments.

Mark Crutcher, founder and president of Life Dynamics, says there is no excuse for this project titled "Photoreceptor-associated gene expression in human fetal and embryonic chicken retina."

"We justify all this on the concept that it might help society. It may help cure diseases. It may help do this wondrous thing and this other wondrous thing, but the fact is that we cannot profit from our own evil," he contends. "We have no right to harvest the parts of these dead babies who we intentionally kill in order to make our lives better. There has to be a limit at what you're willing to do."

And he points out that it is against U.S. law.

"It is illegal, but these people have developed a loophole around it in that, for example, when they sell baby parts, they don't sell you the part," Crutcher details. "They say we will donate the part to you. Well, that makes it legal, but then, you have to pay us to harvest the part ... to transport it ... to gather it, and get it to you, and they can set the price on that."

Part of the New Zealand research mixes human and animal cells. Investigate Magazine reports that five universities in the U.S., including the University of Washington, have been harvesting the parts.

The practice of aborted American infants being sent out of the country for this research came to light when a former abortion clinic technician revealed that clinics were harvesting body parts to sell to labs testing new drugs or procedures, or to researchers trying to find the causes of genetic disorders. According to ABC's 20/20 interview with an insider six years ago, the trafficking was taking place inside abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood, the U.S. affiliate of New Zealand's family planning organization.

Records Show Saddam Paid N.Korea for Nukes

By Stewart Stogel - 3/17/2012

NEW YORK – In his final years in power, the late Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein reached out to North Korea for help to obtain missiles, according to several U.N, U.S. and International Atomic Energy Agency officials.


Had he not been stopped, those channels might have been used to obtain nuclear weapons from North Korea, the sources said.

Saddam had been negotiating the purchase of banned rockets and possibly technology that could have revived his dormant nuclear weapons program, the sources report.

The meetings between Saddam and the North Koreans were facilitated by the current government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who himself is fighting to remain in power.

“There were several meetings between the Iraqis and North Korea in Damascus from 2001-2003,” explained David Kay.

Kay, who led a CIA-Pentagon Iraq search team shortly after the U.S. toppled Saddam, said that an agreement between the Iraqis and North Koreans had been reached and that some money changed hands.

“Everything can be had for the right price,” Kay said, referring to North Korean efforts to sell what they could to raise much-needed hard currency.

While Kay was not able to verify that Saddam was trying to revive his dormant nuclear program, he said had Saddam’s nascent missile agreement been allowed to continue, a nuclear purchase might have been possible.

According to Kay, Saddam was growing increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang, which repeatedly fell behind schedule in delivering the promised missiles.

Said Kay, “Saddam actually paid money, but the North Koreans kept on delaying and asking for more money until Saddam cut them off.”

Only weeks later, Saddam was gone and went into hiding to escape the invading U.S. and U.K. troops.

The issue of North Korean involvement in the Middle East came up during a North Korean visit to New York City last week.

“You bet it came up,” said Evans Revere, a former State Department negotiator who participated in a meeting between North Korea’s team and a group of private U.S. citizens.

Revere explained that he could not reveal the North Korean reaction under a gag rule imposed for granting the meeting.

Revere did disclose that when he was at the State Department, there was a constant concern about Pyongyang selling nuclear technology “for the right price.”

“(Nuclear) proliferation was always a constant concern, and we raised it constantly,” he said.

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council convened a rare ministerial meeting on the crisis in the Middle East.

The foreign ministers of the U.S., France, U.K., Russia, Germany and Pakistan were in attendance.

Officially, the meeting was designed to pressure Assad into a cease-fire. Unofficially, the members were struggling to seek ways to cut off continuing outside assistance to the Damascus regime.

The assistance, say diplomats, is coming from Iran and North Korea.

Dimitri Perricos, a former senior IAEA field inspector, was also the chief deputy to Hans Blix at the U.N. and succeeded Blix as the last U.N. Iraq arms inspector.

It was Perricos, while at the IAEA, who uncovered North Korea’s secret nuclear weapons program.

He suspected that Saddam might have had a plan to revive his nuclear weapons program, but it never got off the ground, thanks to the U.S.

“There has been a lot of news about the DPRK’s involvement in the supply of various material and expert knowledge in the area of nuclear material production and military use. … Any customer willing to pay could get assistance. … There was a contract with Iran found after the war that was not implemented. … In the field of proliferation, there was great competition with Khan network.”

The Khan network was the rogue operation of A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani nuclear scientist who had been placed under house arrest by the Islamabad government for illegal nuclear proliferation.

While Saddam’s attempts to revive his nuclear program remain a subject of debate, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told WND that nothing surprises him on the subject of North Korea and its arms policies.

“North Korea has teamed up with other rogue states for years, starting at least as far back as 1988 with Iran on ballistic missiles.” Bolton said. ” … No one should be surprised if the DPRK was cooperating with Saddam Hussein. The ‘axis of evil’ was always more than just a catchy phrase.”

The United Nations missions of Iraq, North Korea and South Korea had no comment on the Iraq-North Korea arms agreement.

Charles Duelfer, who succeeded Kay as the CIA-Pentagon Iraq survey director was also unreachable for comment.

What If Obamacare WAS Like Car Insurance?

Is it me? Or is the ongoing argument that the individual mandate in Obamacare is somehow the same as some states requiring proof of insurance when registering an automobile just absurd?

Can you imagine if buying car insurance was actually similar to what’s in Obamacare? It would be like absurdist theater.

States should reject Obamacare exchanges

By Nicole Kaeding - 03/14/2012

One of the most important issues facing states this legislative session is whether to create a health care exchange to implement the president’s health care law. States are being tempted by words like “flexibility” and very large grants from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to gain their compliance, but states that value health care freedom should resist and refuse to implement Obama’s health care exchanges.

Health care exchanges organized voluntarily by market participants are something that conservatives could support. Exchanges should function as a free-market mechanism allowing consumers to make informed health care purchasing decisions in a simple, innovative and transparent manner. Yet, the exchanges as created by Obamacare and HHS fail to meet this most basic standard.

These exchanges pile thousands of pages of rules, regulations and mandates on each state’s insurance markets, harming competition and consumers. Forcing insurers to provide “essential health benefits” under “qualified health plans” with little to no cost-sharing does nothing but raise premiums, a fact even acknowledged by Obamacare’s chief architect, economist Jonathan Gruber. According to a study of the Wisconsin insurance market authored by Gruber, Obamacare will push up individual premiums by an average of 30% in the Badger State.

Conservative proponents of state exchange creation, like David Merritt here at The Daily Caller, argue that states will have “flexibility” if they create exchanges themselves. A review of the facts show this statement doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Just this week, HHS released its final rule governing exchange creation. The 644-page rule included the word “must” over 1,000 times and “require” more than 320 times. The rule gets so specific as to dictate what items a state must include on its exchange website and how its call center must operate. Under the regulation, any state hoping to create an exchange must first apply to HHS using its “exchange blueprint” template. Secretary Sebelius has sole authority to approve or deny the application. Additionally, any “significant change” must also be approved by the secretary.

The rule itself says that the “minimum functions [outlined in the rule] … are a floor not a ceiling.” Proponents like Merritt argue that if a state doesn’t create an exchange, the federal government will. Under these thousands of pages of regulations and frameworks established by HHS, there is no distinction between the two. States only have the option to further concentrate control in the hands of bureaucrats, not keep it where it belongs: between patients and doctors.

After all of this, even if a state wanted to create an exchange, it would be an almost impossible task. To create exchanges, states must receive approval from HHS by January 1, 2013, which is a little more than nine months away. States would need to rush to create a large Web portal that allows insurers to market their products, helps consumers shop for and purchase insurance and interfaces with various state and federal agencies to provide eligibility and enrollment decisions in hours, not weeks. It would need to be far more complex than the Travelocity-style website proponents describe.

Finally, this whole process begs the question as to why the federal government wants the states to create the exchanges in the first place. The answer is quite simple: The federal government doesn’t have the ability or funding to create a federally operated exchange for every state. President Obama’s newest budget requests an additional $1 billion for HHS to create the federal exchange — $1 billion was previously appropriated — but this request will not pass Congress.

Additionally, due to a drafting error in the rush to pass the bill, Congress did not provide tax subsidies to aid individuals’ purchases in federal exchanges, only in state exchanges. That means businesses in states that do create state exchanges will face higher fines than businesses in states that do not. Further, the federal government isn’t even certain it can create a functioning federal exchange by open-enrollment on October 1, 2013.

The bottom line is that the promises of flexibility are illusory, and conservatives should not assist the federal takeover of health care by implementing health care exchanges. States should just say no to Obamacare.

Nicole Kaeding is the state policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity, which tracks state health care exchanges at www.AmericanHealthCareFreedom.com.

Video Exposes Just How Easy Voter Fraud Is Without ID Laws

by Christian Hartsock - 3.13.2012

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has released a new video exposing just how easy it is to commit voter fraud in Vermont.

The video, a sequel to O'Keefe's "Primary of the Living Dead" in New Hampshire, shows a Veritas agent entering various voting places around the state of Vermont, giving a different name each time. Each time, he is given a ballot without showing an ID, to his disbelief.

In the video, the agent repeatedly requests (but does not take) a Republican primary ballot. As he explained to Breitbart.com: "We wanted to remind viewers this is not a partisan issue. This is a situation wherein anyone -- Republican or Democrat -- can exploit the system."

The new video follows in the wake of a highly-politicized media attack on Mr. O’Keefe after his exposure of voter fraud in New Hampshire. Those videos resulted in calls from the left for O’Keefe’s arrest. However, the videos soon resulted in the New Hampshire State Senate passing a new bill requiring voter ID.

O'Keefe's new video from Vermont could not be more timely, coming the day after the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division blocked a Texas photo ID requirement for voters--to the applause of the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed that the law was “discriminatory” against “Latinos, African-Americans, elderly citizens, and others.”

As the Project Veritas video shows, the current system in Vermont discriminates against actual legal voters, who must face the prospect of disenfranchisement by those who would vote in their stead illegally, or have their votes cancelled out by those voting illegally in place of deceased voters who have yet to be removed from the rolls. If it is not discriminatory for Vermont citizens to be required to show ID to get married or buy alcohol, it is certainly not discriminatory to make them show ID to vote.

“It is a national disgrace that ballots can be given out in the names of dead people,” O’Keefe told Breitbart.com. “Threats of government intimidation will not stop us from protecting the integrity of the ballot box. If any state has a system which encourages ballots to be given out to the wrong person, dead or alive, we will come to your state, we will film your poll workers, and Project Veritas will put the videos on YouTube. States like Vermont and New Hampshire have to take dead people off voter registration forms and clean up their act, once and for all.”

see video

Voter ID Laws Initially Suggested by Jimmy Carter (2005) / Increased Minority Voter Turnout

Interesting that requiring an ID to vote was one of the proposals in 2005 of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by Jimmy Carter (D).

Interesting that black turnout increased in Georgia in 2008, the first election under a voter-ID law.

A study by the University of Delaware and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln concluded that “concerns about voter-identification laws affecting turnout are much ado about nothing.”

“There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters,” and “we cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters.” - liberal Justice John Paul Stevens in US Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision in 2008 upholding Indiana’s voter-ID law.

By Rich Lowry - 3/13/2012

Wherever he goes, people are required to show identification. When cashing a check. When signing up for a library card. When boarding a plane. When entering certain office buildings. When checking into hotels. When (in the case of the youthful-looking) buying a beer or cigarettes, or entering a bar. The tyranny of the photo ID is so all-encompassing that people can’t enter Holder’s own Justice Department without showing one.

Holder is outraged that in a nation where requests for photo ID are ubiquitous, more and more states are requiring that people show them when they vote. In a speech last year, Holder characterized these voter-ID laws as an assault on the voting rights that Congressman John Lewis — the hero of Edmund Pettus Bridge — fought for in the mid-1960s. Back then, blacks in the South had to fear for their safety if they showed up at the courthouse to try to register to vote. Now, states are merely asking everyone, regardless of race, to show identification that is readily available to all, regardless of race.

That Holder can equate the fight against voter ID to the struggles of the 1960s demonstrates a moral obtuseness insulting to the memory of the civil-rights pioneers. His Justice Department is now blocking a new voter-ID law in Texas, after doing the same to a South Carolina law. It argues that the Texas statute will disproportionally affect poor Latinos and therefore violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Why would the yokels in Texas do something so outrageous as ask that people prove who they are at polling places? It is obviously a basic check against fraud. Requiring an ID to vote was one of the proposals in 2005 of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, neither of whom had previously been noted for his hostility to minorities or the poor.

Analyzing Texas data, the Justice Department contends that anywhere from 6 percent to 10 percent of Hispanic registered voters don’t have ID. It piles up a parade of horribles — no cars, great distances, inconvenient hours — for why such potential voters can’t get to an office to acquire one, even though the state’s Department of Public Safety will issue election-identification certificates for free.

The experience of other states with voter-ID laws suggests that minorities are not the hapless victims that Holder’s Justice Department portrays them to be. Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation points out that black turnout increased in Georgia in 2008, the first election under a voter-ID law, more than it did in Mississippi, which didn’t have such a law. A study by the University of Delaware and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln concluded that “concerns about voter-identification laws affecting turnout are much ado about nothing.”

Before his next speech, Holder should bone up on the Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision in 2008 upholding Indiana’s voter-ID law. The liberal Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion. The Court held that “there is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters,” and “we cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters.” The decision cited the finding of a district judge that plaintiffs had “not introduced evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who will be unable to vote as a result of the law.” Presumably, if the Indiana law had represented the recrudescence of Jim Crow, the nation’s highest court would have noticed.

Not that any of this matters to Attorney General Holder. Just as the administration is manufacturing a “war on women,” he wants to manufacture a “war on voting rights.” It is the same MO of fevered rhetoric and distortions in the service of the same end of motivating key voting blocs.

Holder’s tenure as the government’s top lawyer is an ongoing disgrace.

U.N. Body Dealing With Women’s Rights Criticizes Israel, But Not Iran or Syria

I found the "third" department/organization that Gov. Perry wanted to end!!! =)

It's past time to end this anti-Semitic, anti-American organization!!!  Year after year they gang up on Israel and America while selecting the biggest violators to sit on their boards overseeing human rights violations!!!  And WE fund it!!!

By Patrick Goodenough - March 13, 2012

The U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday heard a report detailing Iranian human rights violations, including abuses against women, but just three days earlier another U.N. body – one dealing with women’s rights – ended its annual session with a measure condemning neither Iran nor its ally Syria, but Israel.

For the second consecutive year, the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) wrapped up its gathering in New York with only one country-specific resolution, which accused Israel of “systematic violation” of the human rights of Palestinian women.

No place was found on CSW’s agenda to discuss the deadly crisis in Syria or the plight of women in Iran.

The resolution criticizing Israel was adopted by a 29-2 vote, with the United States and Israel alone opposing it. Ten mostly European members abstained.

Although introduced by Algeria on behalf of Arab states, the resolution’s appearance on the agenda was not merely the work of Israel’s customary Arab-Islamic critics. In her opening address to the CSW session on February 27, U.N. Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet drew attention to the Palestinian issue, at the top of a short list of what she called “a number of important reports before us.”

Other items she listed were thematic – women hostages, women and HIV/Aids, empowerment, preventable maternal mortality and “the right to sexual and reproductive health.”

Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor questioned the CSW’s priorities, telling the Ha’aretz daily that the CSW, abetted by European members’ decisions to abstain rather than oppose, “turns its back on the tortured and murdered women of Damascus and continues to obsessively deal with Palestinian women.”

Iran is a member of the 45-country CSW. Iranian envoy Eshagh al-Habib used his speech to call Israeli treatment of Palestinian women and children “one of the gravest tragedies in modern history.”

He then went on to extol Iran’s treatment of women, highlighting life expectancy, education and employment statistics, and increased rates of female participation at decision-making levels, and saying that the “inspiring school of pure Islam” is opening new horizons for women.

In contrast to al-Habib’s comments, the Human Rights Council in Geneva Monday considered a grim report on Iran’s human rights record.

It was presented to the HRC by the U.N. “special rapporteur for human rights in Iran,” Ahmed Shaheed. The post and mandate was established by the HRC a year ago at the behest of the U.S. and other democracies, which only succeeded in getting the measure passed because Saudi Arabia led a group of Islamic states in abstaining. (China, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ecuador and Mauritania voted “no.”)

Iran has refused to cooperate with Shaheed, a former foreign minister of the Maldives, and has barred him from visiting the country.

Iranian women face abuses, discrimination

In his first annual report, presented on Monday, Shaheed said the Iranian government was engaged in a “striking pattern of violations” of human rights under international law.

Among the many he cited were those directed at women:

--A bill now under consideration allowing men to enter into multiple marriages without the knowledge or permission of their wives. Shaheed said the measure “would seriously curtail women’s marital rights and ability to determine issues that have a significant socio-economic impact on their lives.”

--Discrimination against women in Iran’s newly-ratified penal code: Although stoning as a punishment is omitted, “severe punishments may still be issued at a judge’s discretion in accordance with sharia law or fatwas.” Shaheed cited reports saying that at least 15 men and women were currently facing death by stoning for adultery.

--After eight children were severely burned in a fire in which the education ministry was found guilty of negligence, a court ruling had allocated twice as much “blood money” (a compensatory arrangement permitted under shari’a) to girl victims as they did to boys. Shaheed said the decision was only overturned after a public outcry. He urged the government to reassess all laws discriminating against women, “especially those that place unequal value on their lives and bodily parts.”

--In contrast to Iran’s assertions at the CSW about women’s participation at decision-making levels, Shaheed cited reports saying women do not hold positions as presiding judges and are deprived of the right to hold certain other offices of the state. He urged Iran to “improve female representation in decision-making positions of the judicial system and in other government offices where they are underrepresented.”

--Shaheed did comment favorably on improved female literacy, education and mortality reduction figures, but noted that women still face discriminatory practices that hinder equal access to academic and professional opportunities and quotas limiting the numbers of women who can enroll in some programs.

(Iran places near the bottom – in 125th place out of 135 countries – in the World Economic Forum’s 2011 “Global Gender Gap,” a rating of how successfully countries have closed gaps between women and men in economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival.)

The U.S. and various European members of the HRC welcomed Shaheed’s report on Monday, while Iran’s envoy called the allegations baseless.

Other members, including Cuba and Pakistan, backed Iran and said they oppose country-specific mandates and resolutions at the HRC because they are politicized and discriminatory. (Pakistan and Cuba are among the council’s strongest advocates of frequent country-specific resolutions targeting Israel.)

Planned Parenthood Accused of 87,000 Fake Claims

by Bob Unruh - 3/10/2012

A lawsuit alleging that Planned Parenthood submitted more than 87,000 fraudulent claims – and pointing out that there could be an $11,000-plus penalty for each case – has been unveiled in a Texas dispute by attorneys representing former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson.

The case alleges the nation’s abortion industry giant submitted “repeated false, fraudulent, and ineligible claims for Medicaid reimbursements” through the Texas Women’s Health Program.

“Americans deserve to know if their hard-earned tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it,” said Michael J. Norton, an ADF senior counsel. “No matter where a person stands on abortion, everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else.

“It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicaid fraud,” he said.

The case was filed originally under a federal law that allows “whistleblowers” with inside information to expose fraudulent billing by government contractors. By law, the cases are filed under seal and may not be made public while state and federal governments decide whether to join the action,

The case originally was filed in 2010 and names the Houston and Southeast Texas affiliate office of the abortion business.

Read Abby Johnson’s own story of her years inside the abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood.

Johnson is the former director of the Planned Parenthood business in Bryan/College Station. She is bringing the claims against Planned Parenthood under the Federal False Claims Act and the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act.

She fled the abortion business after she was summoned to help with an abortion and watched on a monitor as the unborn child fought for his life, and then died.

The claim is that Planned Parenthood knowingly committed Medicaid fraud from 2007 to 2009 by improperly seeking reimbursements from the Texas Women’s Health Program for billings that were not legally reimbursable by that program.

Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, now called Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, according to the lawsuit, “filed at least 87,075 false, fraudulent, or ineligible claims with the Texas Women’s Health Program.”

“As a result,” the ADF explained, “Planned Parenthood wrongfully received and retained reimbursements totaling more than $5.7 million.”

The ADF said the money pipeline for Planned Parenthood recently was closed, when the state adopted a law that bans the state’s Medicaid agency from contracting with “affiliates of entities that perform or promote elective abortions.”

The case explains that “any person who knowingly submits or causes to be submitted a false or fraudulent claim to the government for payment or approval is liable for civil penalty up to $11,000 for each such claim submitted or paid, plus three times the amount of the damages sustained by the government..”

“Liability attaches both when a defendant knowingly seeks payment that is unwarranted from the government and when false records or statements are knowingly created or caused to be used to conceal, avoid, or decrease an obligation to pay or transmit money to the government.”

In the case paperwork, it is explained that while Johnson worked for Planned Parenthood, she was responsible for entering data about individual cases, and was “able to view all patient billing information, including insurance information, charges and payments.”

It was there she became “aware of the billing practices of Planned Parenthood as described herein.”

“In 2007, Planned Parenthood claims to have provided medical services and reproductive health services to individuals participating in 82,513 patient visits from which Planned Parenthood received program service revenue in the amount of $9,230,230. … A substantial amount of said revenue was earned by provision of medical services by Planned Parenthood billed to Medicaid and [women's health] programs and thus paid for by … the United States government and/or the state of Texas.

“On information and belief, in SFY2008, Planned Parenthood recived $1,950,669 in [women's health] reimbursements from the United States government and/or the state of Texas government for treating 9,029 patients with 66,687 procedures. In SFY2009, Planned Parenthood received $3,071,727…”

But the case alleges Planned Parenthood and its employees “combined, conspired, and agreed together and with each other to defraud the United States government and the state of Texas government by knowingly submitting and causing to be submitted …. false, fraudulent and/or ineligible claims.”

The case explains that was done by submitting claims for services that were not covered because the patients “were not seeking or receiving medical services for family planning…”

That, the lawsuit alleges, was done because Planned Parenthood officials ordered workers to “turn every call and visit into a revenue-generating client.”

“Planned Parenthood intiatied a scheme of fraudulent billing to offset its operating losses. This fraudulent billing was accomplished by assigning a fraudulent purpose for a patient visit that would otherwise be non-billable,” the case explains. “For example, a woman with an infection would not be eligible for a follow-up examination paid by WHP, since the exam must be with regard to family planning services, not general obstetrical care. … As instructed by Planned Parenthood, Ms. Johnson and others falsely notated the patient’s chart with services not, in fact, provided to the patient so as to create an otherwise non-reimbursable service into a reimbursable family planning product or service.”

The Planned Parenthood employee then would notify another employee, Stephanie Shetler, “of the false chart notation, and … Shetler would further document the fraud by making an additional false notation reflecting a family planning purpose, such as, ‘Discussed birth control with patient – patient decided to retain current method.’ Planned Parenthood’s center would then bill the examination [$300] to the WHP program, as well as non-family planning services provided in conjunction with the family planning examination.”

Johnson alleges that her supervisors acknowledged the improper billing, but then directed workers not to disclose that to the government.

The case also alleges Planned Parenthood rigged its books for audits and billed for services not provided. Officials told Johnson it was such a “hassle” to refund the money, they “try not to do that.”

Planned Parenthood previously has been accused in California of overbilling, and actually faces criminal charges in Kansas over its operations there. The abortion business claims over $1 billion in assets and yearly gets hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers.

The Planned Parenthood office Houston did not respond to a WND request for comment.