The Girl at the Beach --

 

The Girl at the Beach   A couple lived near the ocean and used to walk the beach a lot.   One summer they noticed a girl who was at the beach almost every day.  She wasn't unusual, nor was the travel bag she carried, except for one thing; she would approach people who were sitting on the beach,  glance around and then speak to them.  Generally, the people would respond negatively and she would wander off.  But occasionally someone would nod and there would be a quick exchange of money and something that she carried in her bag.  The couple assumed that she was selling drugs and debated calling the cops, but since they didn't know for sure, they decided to just continue watching her.  After a couple of weeks the wife said, 'Honey, have you ever noticed that she only goes up to people with boom boxes and other electronic devices?'    He hadn't and said so.  Then she said, 'Tomorrow I want you to get a towel and our big radio and go lie out on the beach. Then we can find out what she's really doing.'  Well, the plan went off without a hitch and the wife was almost hopping up and down with anticipation when she saw the girl talk to her husband and then leave...    The man then walked up the beach and met his wife at the road.  'Well, is she selling drugs?' she asked excitedly.   'No, she's not,' he said, enjoying this probably more than he should have.  'Well, what is it then?  What does she do?' his wife fairly shrieked.  The man grinned and said, 'She's a battery salesperson.'  'Batteries?' cried the wife.  'Yes!' he replied.  PLEASE SCROLL DOWN * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * OOOOH!  You're gonna dislike me for this -  but it will make your day! * * * * * * * * * * * * * *********   ***************   ************   *********** 'She Sells C Cells down by the Seashore!'

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44-CENT ISLAM STAMP IS FOREVER. Thankfully, the Muslim-in-Chief won’t be.

Ugliest stampI ever saw. Just a bunch of pig tails on it.

New post on Bare Naked Islam 44-CENT ISLAM STAMP IS FOREVER. Thankfully, the Muslim-in-Chief won't be. by barenakedislam The 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama and Muslims are thrilled about the new blood red Muslim 44-cent Forever stamp. Make sure you don't get stuck with these when you buy a roll of Forever stamps. Demand the 'NON-TERRORIST' version. CONFIRMED BY THE USPS Divided States  (H/T SilverLady) Barack Hussein Obama, who recently proclaimed, "We are no longer a Christian nation" to the delight of Muslims worldwide as they continue their war against Judaism and Christianity, is pleased to see the final and permanent creation of a Muslim stamp commemorating the 2 most important festivals in the Islamic calendars. The final Islamic 44 cent stamp has become permanent while Obama, the 44th President, expressed his appreciation for the accomplishment in a recent Islamic relations dinner in Washington. The Muslim holidays Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha were honored on the US Postal Stamp, the "Forever Stamp" in May of 2011. On these days, Muslims wish each other Eid mubarak, (no, that's not a translation for, "We Love Mubarak". No it simply means "blessed festival."   The phrase shown in gold calligraphy on the stamp  can also be paraphrased as, "May your religious holiday be blessed."  This phrase was chosen over the proposed "Allahu Akbar" in fear that the latter might offend some Americans and Israelis who associate that phrase with Islamic Extremists who shout it just prior to launching their murderous attacks. barenakedislam | April 8, 2012 at 9:19 pm | Categories: Islam in America | URL: http://wp.me/p276zM-GKW Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://barenakedislam.com/2012/04/08/44-cent-islam-stamp-is-forever-thankfully-the-muslim-in-chief-wont-be/

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Obama’s Preemptive Strike and FDR’s Court-Packing Scheme

"The truth is not pretty. FDR's economic programs were pretty much a mirror image of what Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were in Germany, Italy, and Russia. See, for example, the book Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 by Wolfgang Schivelbusch or this review of the book by the Cato Institute's David Boaz."

Thursday, April 5, 2012
Obama's Preemptive Strike and FDR's Court-Packing Scheme
by Jacob G. Hornberger

People are taking President Obama to task for suggesting that the Supreme Court should not interfere with the will of Congress by declaring his healthcare legislation unconstitutional. Critics are reminding Obama that under our system of government it is the responsibility of the federal judiciary to determine the constitutionality of congressional enactments, including even those that are approved unanimously by Congress.

But let's give credit where credit is due. At least Obama hasn't yet done what liberal-conservative icon Franklin Roosevelt did when the Supreme Court was declaring his New Deal programs unconstitutional. FDR proposed a radical restructuring of the Court that would have enabled him to pack the Court with additional FDR legal cronies who would sustain the constitutionality of his programs.

Conservatives can call Obama a socialist all they want, but it was FDR, whom conservatives revere just as much as liberals do, who foisted both socialist and fascist programs onto the United States.

Sure, today public-school teachers and university professors refer to FDR's New Deal measures as simply "free-market reforms that saved free enterprise." That's been the official line that has been drummed into the minds of American students for decades.

The truth is not pretty. FDR's economic programs were pretty much a mirror image of what Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were in Germany, Italy, and Russia. See, for example, the book Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 by Wolfgang Schivelbusch or this review of the book by the Cato Institute's David Boaz.

Don't forget that the FDR administration, with the approval of Congress, nationalized and confiscated the gold of the American people, notwithstanding the fact that such coins had been the official money of the American people since the founding of our nation. That was no different in principle from the nationalization of private property taking place under Stalin and the communists in the Soviet Union.

FDR also brought into existence Social Security, a socialistic program in which the state takes money from one group of people ­ the young and productive ­ and redistributes it to another group, the elderly. That revolutionized American life, not only leading directly to Medicare and Medicaid but actually to the entire panoply of welfare state programs, including farm subsidies, education grants, foreign aid to dictators, and all the rest.

Where did FDR get the idea of Social Security? From German socialists. That's where the idea originated. Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Germany, had taken the idea and run with it, bringing it to Germany before FDR brought it to the United States. That's why the Social Security Administration here in the United States carries a bust of Bismarck on its website. By the time Roosevelt brought us Social Security, Hitler's Germany already had it.

FDR imposed the National Industrial Recovery Act on Americana businesses and industries. It encouraged businesses and industries to form giant cartels that had the authority to collude to set wages and prices. With its combination of business and the state, it was a fascist program straight out of Mussolini's economic playbook. In fact, FDR's infamous Blue Eagle campaign, a high-pressure propaganda campaign that came with the NIRA, would have made Mussolini proud.

Economic regulations and government-business partnerships? FDR, Hitler, and Mussolini all loved them and believed in them. Unlike Stalin, who favored complete state ownership of the means of production, FDR, Hitler and Mussolini favored leaving the means of production in private hands but subject to strict governmental regulation, control, and direction.

Obviously, FDR's socialist and fascist programs were contrary to the heritage of economic liberty on which America was founded. Thus, not surprisingly, the Supreme Court began declaring much (but, unfortunately, not all) of his New Deal programs unconstitutional.

FDR, like Obama, was outraged. How dare the Court interfere with the will of the majority? Doesn't the Court know that the United States is in a severe economic crisis, just like Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and the rest of the world? The Constitution is not a suicide pact! Desperate times require desperate measures!

But the Court's position was simply that the law was the law. The Constitution sets forth the delegated powers of government and it provides for no extraordinary powers due to economic emergency or crisis. If the Constitution did not authorize FDR's programs, it was the responsibility of the federal judiciary to declare them unconstitutional. If people didn't like that, they could amend the Constitution to authorize FDR's economic revolution.

Although FDR's court-packing scheme went down to defeat, FDR and the statists ended up winning the war. As pro-Constitution judges began retiring, FDR was able to replace them with his statist legal cronies, who promptly let it be known that the Supreme Court would never again interfere with majority will when it came to matters involving economic liberty.

Roosevelt's revolution was complete. Seizing on a temporary economic crisis, he was able to effect a permanent revolutionary transformation of American life, from one based on free enterprise and free markets to one based on socialism and fascism.

Of course, just as people in Cuba are not permitted to question or challenge Fidel Castro's communist-socialist revolution, Americans are not supposed to question or challenge FDR's socialist-fascist revolution. Everyone is expected to mentally accept and embrace that the revolutionary change that FDR brought to our land was nothing more than a much-needed reform that saved America's free-enterprise system.

Obama's pressuring of the Court to declare his healthcare program constitutional might or might not be successful. But even if the Court declares it unconstitutional, nothing fundamental will change, given that both conservative and liberal justices and judges adhere strictly to the same life of the lie that most Americans adhere to ­ a lie that revolutionized American economic life eighty years ago and that continues to do so.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-04-05.asp

The Tortuous History of Conservatives and the Individual Mandate

The Tortuous History of Conservatives and the Individual Mandate
Avik Roy, Contributor
2/07/2012 @ 3:32PM

Mitt Romney, as we know, has been catching a lot of flak from conservatives for Romneycare, because Romney's signature legislative achievement served as the model for Obamacare. But as Romney said in a debate in Las Vegas last October, "we got the idea of an individual mandate…from [Newt Gingrich], and [Newt] got it from the Heritage Foundation." Politically, it's an important point, because Romney is inaccurately being portrayed as some kind of left-wing outlier, when in fact there were some major conservative institutions (like Heritage) and figures (like Gingrich) who supported the mandate. Last weekend, long-time Heritage health-policy chief Stuart Butler took to USA Today to explain his past support for the mandate. I took the occasion to dig into the topic, and found that the mandate's provenance is more complicated than most people think.


The origins of the "free rider" problem

Before we get to Stuart's piece, let's first step back and discuss the history of the individual mandate. It all started with a piece of legislation passed in 1986 by a Democratic House and a Republican Senate and signed by Ronald Reagan, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA. (EMTALA was passed as part of a larger budget bill called the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, which is best known for allowing those who have lost their jobs to continue buying health insurance through their old employer's group plan.)

EMTALA, one of the great unfunded mandates in American history, required any hospital participating in Medicare­that is to say, nearly all of them­to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, including illegal immigrants, regardless of ability to pay. Indeed, EMTALA can be accurately said to have established universal health care in America­with nary a whimper from conservative activists.

In response, many health policy types worried about a "free rider" problem, in which people would intentionally go without health insurance, knowing that federal law required hospitals to care for them anyway.


The employer mandate as an alternative to single-payer

In addition, in those days, most proposals for universal health care that were to the right of government-run single-payer were based upon forcing employers to sponsor private-sector health coverage for all of their employees. For example, under the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan proposed by Richard Nixon in 1974, "every employer would be required to offer all full-time employees the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan. Additional benefits could then be added by mutual agreement."

Bill Clinton's 1993 proposal for universal health care revolved around an idea called " managed competition," based on the work of a group of academics and industry figures called the Jackson Hole Group. That group, led by Paul Ellwood, Alain Enthoven, and Lynn Etheredge, building on years of work by its participants, had in 1992 proposed a plan which included an employer mandate.

But the Jackson Hole group was also concerned that an employer mandate didn't address health insurance for the unemployed, so they also included sliding-scale subsidies for the unemployed. (In 2006, The Netherlands adopted a managed competition approach closely modeled after Enthoven's work.)

For what it's worth, the Jackson Hole group vociferously opposed the Clinton plan, which combined aspects of Canada's single-payer system with their managed competition idea. Clinton's plan, wrote Enthoven in the Wall Street Journal in 1993, "threatens to be a monopolistic, regulatory government agency that will cause more problems than it solves." Enthoven had once hoped that Congress could fix Hillarycare, but ended up concluding, "The first thing Congress should do is delete pages 1 through 1,342 of Clinton's 1,342-page bill."


The individual mandate as an alternative to the employer mandate

There are five obvious, and large, problems with an employer mandate. The first is that an employer mandate massively drives up the cost of hiring new employees, discouraging new hiring and increasing unemployment. The second is that forcing employers to pay for health costs increases the costs of running a business, and these increased costs are passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices for goods and services.

The third problem is that an employer mandate does nothing to address the health needs of the unemployed. The fourth is that the employer-based system insulates consumers from the value of the health care they are paying for, giving them no incentive to economize, thereby driving up the cost of health insurance. The fifth is that the employer-based system leads to "job lock," whereby people are afraid to leave their jobs if they fall ill on the job, because switching plans could mean higher premiums or denial of coverage.

Hence, some conservatives, seeking a more market-oriented path to universal coverage, began endorsing an individual mandate over an employer mandate. An individual mandate would address the "free rider" problem caused by EMTALA, by requiring people to buy their own insurance. In addition, moving to a more individual-based system from the employer-based one would significantly increase the efficiency of the health-insurance market.

With these considerations in mind, in 1989, Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation proposed a plan he called " Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans." Stuart's plan included a provision to "mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance," which he framed explicitly as a way to address the "free rider" problem and employer mandates (emphasis added):

Many states now require passengers in automobiles to wear seatbelts for their own protection. Many others require anybody driving a car to have liability insurance. But neither the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement.

This mandate is based on two important principles. First, that health care protection is a responsibility of individuals, not businesses. Thus to the extent that anybody should be required to provide coverage to a family, the household mandate assumes that it is the family that carries the first responsibility. Second, it assumes that there is an implicit contract between households and society, based on the notion that health insurance is not like other forms of insurance protection. If a young man wrecks his Porsche and has not had the foresight to obtain insurance, we may commiserate but society feels no obligation to repair his car. But health care is different. If a man is struck down by a heart attack in the street, Americans will care for him whether or not he has insurance. If we find that he has spent his money on other things rather than insurance, we may be angry but we will not deny him services­even if that means more prudent citizens end up paying the tab.

A mandate on individuals recognizes this implicit contract. Society does feel a moral obligation to insure that its citizens do not suffer from the unavailability of health care. But on the other hand, each household has the obligation, to the extent it is able, to avoid placing demands on society by protecting itself…

A mandate on households certainly would force those with adequate means to obtain insurance protection, which would end the problem of middle-class "free riders" on society's sense of obligation.

Republican support for the individual mandate

As far as I have been able to find, Stuart's 1989 brief is the first published proposal of an individual mandate in the context of private-sector-managed health systems. In 1991, Mark Pauly and others developed a proposal for George H.W. Bush that also included an individual mandate. While others credit Stanford economist Alain Enthoven with the idea, Enthoven's earliest published reference to an individual mandate was an indirect one in the 1992 Jackson Hole paper.

In 1992 and 1993, some Republicans in Congress, seeking an alternative to Hillarycare, used these ideas as a foundation for their own health-reform proposals. One such bill, the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993, or HEART, was introduced in the Senate by John Chafee (R., R.I.) and co-sponsored by 19 other Senate Republicans, including Christopher Bond, Bob Dole, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, and Arlen Specter. Given that there were 43 Republicans in the Senate of the 103rd Congress, these 20 comprised nearly half of the Republican Senate Caucus at that time. The HEART Act proposed health insurance vouchers for low-income individuals, along with an individual mandate.

Newt Gingrich, who was House Minority Leader in 1993, was also in favor of an individual mandate in those days. Gingrich continued to support a federal individual mandate as recently as May of last year.

It would seem that 1990s conservatives weren't concerned with the constitutional implications of allowing Congress to force people to buy a private product. "I don't remember that being raised at all," Mark Pauly told Ezra Klein last year. "The way it was viewed by the Congressional Budget Office in 1994 was, effectively, as a tax…So I've been surprised by that argument."


Stuart Butler's USA Today op-ed

Last October, prompted by a Wall Street Journal piece by James Taranto, I recounted how the Heritage Foundation was once the leading conservative advocate of the individual mandate. In response to various articles of this stripe, Stuart has published an op-ed in USA Today, in which he describes as a "myth" the idea that Heritage invented the mandate. "I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years," he writes. "And make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court." He notes that his proposal struck a contrast with Hillarycare, and that Milton Friedman also called for an individual mandate:

The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and I devised a viable alternative.

My view was shared at the time by many conservative experts, including American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars, as well as most non-conservative analysts. Even libertarian-conservative icon Milton Friedman, in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, advocated replacing Medicare and Medicaid "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy."

My idea was hardly new. Heritage did not invent the individual mandate.

Stuart says that Heritage's version of the individual mandate contained "three critical features" that distinguish it from Obamacare's mandate: (1) it required people to buy catastrophic coverage, rather than more expensive comprehensive coverage; (2) it was primarily financed "through the carrot of a generous health credit or voucher…rather than by a stick"; (3) Heritage's mandate "was actually the loss of certain tax breaks…not a legal requirement."

In fairness to Heritage's critics, it's worth pointing out that: (1) Heritage proposed the individual mandate in 1989, well before Bill and Hillary Clinton were on anyone's political radar screen; (2) Obamacare and Romneycare both finance individual insurance purchases through generous vouchers (via the exchanges); (3) Obamacare's mandate is "enforced," weakly, by withholding tax refunds.


Why has Heritage changed its mind?

Stuart goes on to give four reasons why he and Heritage no longer support the mandate: (1) a mandate isn't necessary because "the new field of behavioral economics taught me that default auto-enrollment in employer or nonemployer insurance plans can lead many people to buy coverage without a requirement;" (2) "advances in 'risk-adjustment' tools are improving the stability of voluntary insurance," as illustrated by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program; (3) Obamacare's mandate forces people to buy comprehensive coverage rather than catastrophic coverage; (4) Obamacare's mandate is unconstitutional.

Stuart, of course, is perfectly entitled to change his mind, and the reasons he gives for having done so are ones I'd agree with. (I would also point out, as I do repeatedly in this space, that the "free rider" problem is grossly exaggerated, and that an individual mandate actually increases free-riding.)


Many conservatives opposed the individual mandate

The fact that many prominent Republicans and conservatives supported the mandate does not, by any stretch, mean that conservatives did as a whole. Peter Ferrara, a Heritage Foundation alumnus, takes credit for "killing" the Heritage plan after he left the think-tank.

Ferrara correctly points out that a key flaw with the individual mandate is that the government is then required to define what types of insurance qualify for the mandate, and government will always be tempted to require costly, comprehensive insurance:

I had been close friends up until then with Stuart Butler, even double dating a couple of times with our girlfriends and then wives. Before he became Director of Domestic Policy [at the Heritage Foundation], Heritage had offered the job to then another friend of mine, Tony Pellechio. But I wanted Stuart to get it, because I thought Stuart was more hard core. So I talked Tony out of taking the job when he came to me to ask what I thought he should do. Sure enough, Stuart was next in line. Stuart does not know about this history almost 30 years ago to this day.

Stuart had no response to my objections to the individual mandate. But he was passionately devoted to the brilliance of the Heritage health plan. I told him it was so close to the Hillary plan, and so poorly framed as an alternative, that I predicted that President Clinton would come to point to it as the GOP alternative plan, and seek to get the Hillary plan passed as a compromise just ironing out the differences (employer pays or worker pays, generous health insurance or cheap health insurance).

Sure enough, a year later, as the Hillary plan was about to go down to defeat, President Clinton arose to point to the Heritage plan as the true GOP alternative, and offer to pass health reform by just ironing out the differences. Fortunately by then, I had already killed the Heritage health plan.

Well, I guess I won't be going to Peter for job advice, but his policy critique of the individual mandate was correct then, and is correct now. And Stuart agrees with it.

In 1994 Sen. Don Nickles (R., Okla.) and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R., Fla.) turned the Heritage plan into a bill. Peter Ferrara and others, such as Tom Miller at the Cato Institute, rallied other conservatives against the plan. "By endorsing the concept of compulsory universal insurance coverage," wrote Miller, "Nickles-Stearns undermines the traditional principles of personal liberty and individual responsibility that provide essential bulwarks against all-intrusive governmental control of health care."

Ferrara convinced 37 leaders of the conservative movement, including Phyllis Schlafly, Grover Norquist, and Paul Weyrich, to sign a petition opposing the bill. "To this day," Peter writes, "my relationship with Stuart Butler and Heritage has never recovered."


How all this relates to Obamneycare

This intra-conservative division between the pro-mandate and anti-mandate camps lasted until around 2009. Pro-mandate conservatives were concentrated in the health-policy field, where they were tasked with providing alternatives to Democratic initiatives, while anti-mandate conservatives were concentrated outside of it.

Hence, when Mitt Romney designed his health plan in Massachusetts, he did so in large part with the assistance of the Heritage Foundation, especially Bob Moffit and Ed Haislmaier. "I want to begin by saying thank you to Bob Moffit and Ed Haislmaier," said Romney at a Heritage event in 2006. "Bob and Ed worked very extensively with our team as we were developing our plan for health care." Replied Moffit, "We've been honored by your request­myself and my colleague Ed Haislmaier, who's done a lot of the work on this bill­to participate in giving our best advice and our technical assistance in designing a new and different kind of health insurance market."

But there was one twist: Romneycare, as passed by the Massachusetts legislature, included both an individual mandate and an employer mandate, making it more like Enthoven's "managed competition" plan than Heritage's individual-market plan. Romney vetoed the employer mandate, but the legislature, which was 80 percent Democratic, overrode his veto.

Hence, while it's accurate to say that Obamacare was modeled after Romneycare, one difference between the two situations was that the Democrats behind Obamacare were quite comfortable with dual mandates upon employers and individuals, whereas Mitt Romney had favored an individual mandate but opposed an employer mandate.


Hindsight is 20/20

Today, there is near-unanimity on the right that the individual mandate is an egregious violation of individual liberty. But liberal critics are right to point out that that wasn't always true. Based on my research, I see no contravening evidence to the claim that Stuart Butler and Heritage were the first people to advocate the individual mandate, in the context of a private-sector health-care system. (Obviously, single-payer plans also contain individual mandates, but to buy government-run health care.)

It's a fitting coincidence that, while many activists portray Mitt Romney as a conservative traitor for advocating the individual mandate, one of his leading rivals for the nomination­Newt Gingrich­has also supported it. The difference is that Mitt Romney continues to defend the mandate, whereas Gingrich has recently changed his mind. (There are conflicting reports regarding Rick Santorum's views on the mandate; see here.) As is often the case, it was the libertarians at John Goodman's NCPA, the Cato Institute, and the Wall Street Journal who were right at the beginning, and right in the end.

Think tankers can make mistakes, just as politicians can. The Heritage Foundation was mistaken in its support of the individual mandate. Advocates of the individual mandate were misguided in their concern about the free rider problem, and underappreciated the degree to which government is incentivized to enact an expansive, and expensive, mandate. It's worth noting that Heritage has been a major advocate of some of the key conservative health-care initiatives of the past generation, including consumer-driven health plans and health insurance tax credits for the poor.


Conservative opposition to the mandate is sincere

It's important to note, also, that the liberal critique of conservatives is partially correct­and partially false. There is something to the fact more conservatives oppose the individual mandate today in part because it was proposed by a Democratic President. The same happens in the other direction­just ask Republican advocates of premium-support-based Medicare reform, an idea that originated with left-of-center health wonks, but is now opposed by the very same people.

However, the liberal critics, like Ezra Klein, overstate the degree of political opportunism, and understate the degree of genuine change-of-heart, that has accompanied the evolution of conservative thinking on the individual mandate. Stuart Butler's op-ed is emblematic of this evolution.

Unless conservatives coalesce around a free-market vision of health reform, they will always find themselves rushing headlong into tactical policy proposals­like the individual mandate­that they haven't fully thought through. Conservatives are always playing defense, instead of offense, when it comes to improving our health-care system. For various reasons having to do with the way in which the modern conservative movement arose, health reform just hasn't been a priority for the Right. If you want to blame conservatives for something, blame them for that.


UPDATE 1: Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute, a health policy think tank, had this to say on the 1990s history of the individual mandate:

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich repeatedly insists that most conservatives once supported an individual mandate for health insurance.

I beg to differ, Mr. Speaker. The Galen Institute, and I in particular, along with many other colleagues, including the CATO Institute, NEVER have supported an individual mandate.

One of the key responsibilities of think tanks is to think through public policy initiatives and analyze their likely impact before they become law. We advise lawmakers all the time about the likely consequences of their policy ideas to help them develop good policy and avoid mistakes.

We knew from the beginning that an individual mandate was an affront to our Constitutional liberties and that it would lead to government determining what kind of health insurance we must buy, huge taxpayer-funded subsidies to help people purchase the expensive new government-mandated coverage, invasions of our privacy so the government can find out if we are complying, and a slew of mandates and regulations…

No, Newt, most conservatives never have supported an individual mandate. We thought this through and saw exactly where it would lead.

UPDATE 2: Merrill Matthews has some very useful insights on the 1990s:

In 2006, shortly after the legislation passed, Haislmaier was speaking to a group of state legislators and policy experts where he defended the Massachusetts plan and boasted of a long list of state officials who had contacted him for more information about implementing a Massachusetts-style plan in their states.

The problem is that managed competition­which was also the model for the Clinton plan­doesn't work very well, at least outside the confines of an employer. John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave published in 1994 "A Primer on Managed Competition" explaining some of the perverse economic incentives inherent in that model­such as choosing a less expensive plan until major medical care is needed and then shifting to more comprehensive and more expensive coverage­and why the government must heavily manage it.  They predicted some of the problems we're now seeing in Massachusetts.

Some Republican politicians­Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, former Vice President Dan Quayle, and of course Newt, among others­picked up on the Heritage proposal.  But virtually every other conservative or libertarian think tank or policy organization opposed it, choosing the MSA model instead.

The true conservative alternative plan was born in March of 1993, when then-Texas Senator Phil Gramm held a meeting in his office that included two econometricians, his health policy staffer and me, representing the NCPA.  Gramm resolved to take on Clintoncare and wanted as an alternative a comprehensive health care reform bill that focused on Medical Savings Accounts.  His staffer would write the bill, and he needed the rest of us to provide policy advice regarding how to make it work.  Once Gramm, accompanied by Texas Rep. Dick Armey, started preaching MSAs, they became the market-based alternative to the Clinton health plan­and they have been the key ingredient to every major Republican health care bill since.

It's worth noting that a key proponent of the Gramm bill was a young congressman named Rick Santorum.

UPDATE 3: James Taranto isn't persuaded by Stuart Butler's op-ed. Says Peter Ferrara, "This is why all the leading conservative health care experts have so vociferously opposed the Obamacare individual mandate, from John Goodman, to Betsy McCaughey, to Grace Marie Turner, to Sally Pipes, to myself."

UPDATE 4: Santorum denies that he ever supported an individual mandate; I discuss this extensively in a new post.

UPDATE 5: Ramesh Ponnuru writes a perceptive piece on this subject at National Review. As evidence for his position, he cites this 1994 article from The New Republic:

In his May/June president's message to contributors, Cato President Edward H. Crane lamented that "our friends at The Heritage Foundation have endorsed a mandated, compulsory, universal national health plan' which flies in the face of the American heritage of individual liberty and individual responsibility." Butler responded with an angry three-page letter deploring Crane's gibe as "just the latest in a series of pot-shots… Attacking Heritage for its alleged political incorrectness seems to have become a cottage industry at Cato and at NCPA."

The squabbling continued at Cato's recent tenth anniversary dinner. Introducing the honored guests, Crane pointed to Stuart Butler and said, "At first Stuart didn't want to come. So we decided to mandate that he appear." Recalls one attendee, "People didn't think it was funny. There was complete silence. Stuart was aghast. Everyone was embarrassed."

When a Heritage staffer last month wrote a paper for the conservative lobbying group Citizens for a Sound Economy that included criticism of the individual mandate, "he couldn't put his name on it," says a CSE staffer. "He knew it would destroy him at Heritage." Of the dispute, Butler will say only: "The Cato plan isn't a threat. Merely an irritation. Those who criticize us are not players."

UPDATE 6: If you're interested in how President Obama flipped from being anti-mandate in 2008 to being pro-mandate in 2009, Paul Starr has an excellent account over at The New Republic. Jonathan Cohn responds to Starr here.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/02/07/the-tortuous-conservative-history-of-the-individual-mandate/

An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh

AN OPEN LETTER TO RUSH LIMBAUGH
By L. Neil Smith < mailto:lneil@netzero.com>

Dear Mr. Limbaugh,

I began listening to you early in the Clinton Administration. For years you've said you're playing with half your brain tied behind your back "just to make it fair". For the same number of years, I've been saying (admittedly to a much smaller audience), that if you ever untied and started using the other half of your brain, you'd be a libertarian.

That was all in fun (although I do believe it). But what I have to tell you now is intended quite seriously. I've been involved in the libertarian movement for 50 years, since 1962, when I was 16 years old -- almost before the word "libertarian" was in common currency. In all of that time, we libertarians have learned to handle the Left, better, I think, than the Right does. Partly that's because we aspire to many of the same things that they do -- except that we really mean it.

And more importantly, we want to achieve it by ethical means. We want women to be safe and secure, for example. Do we give them little plastic whistles, or blue-lit telephones on college campuses, or hold candle-lit "Take back The Night" parades? We do not. We teach them to shoot.

And when we call it "Victim Disarmament" instead of "gun control", the so-called "progressives" look like they've been punched in the stomach.

We're not afraid of "taboo" topics, either, because today's "nutcase" explanations of the way the world works is tomorrow's given wisdom. Gasoline, for example, is expensive, not because it's scarcer or harder to get than it was (in fact, it's the second most abundant liquid on Earth), but for purely political reasons extremely similar to those that keep Third World people hungry on a planet awash in food.

You know global warming is a complete fraud, and talk about it frequently. So is Barack Obama -- the first illegal alien to occupy the White House -- but you appear timid, afraid to speak the plain truth about that, and a great many other critical issues of the day that would win you hordes of new listeners and the sponsors to go with them.

This young woman you're accused of having mortally insulted: you were right about her, she is a prostitute, but not in the traditional sense. She has prostituted herself politically, to the vile minions of collectivism. You should have said that, instead of apologizing and looking foolish and weak in the process, vulnerable to even more savage attacks. I believe the public would have been a great deal more sympathetic with you, and more willing to listen to your side, if you were more independent, and didn't sound like an RNC mouthpiece all the time.

I stopped listening to you shortly after the campaign season began because I got tired of hearing you mock and insult the only man in the Presidential race who is intelligent, honest, and thoroughly sane: Ron Paul. Only Dr. Paul has the courage to call out the crooks, cowards, bullies, and lunatics of which the past several governments have been very largely composed. In stark contrast, the candidates you tacitly support are little more than store dummies without an ounce of brains, spine, guts, or testicles among them. But they're a credit to Disney's Animatronics.

More to the point, not one of them has even the faintest shadow of a clue about getting America out of the mess it's in. Listening to Gingrich, Romney, or Santorum rave is almost physically painful, like hearing some maniac who wants to throw kerosene on a fire to put it out.

That's enough for now. I suppose this letter is something of an exercise in futility, unlikely to get past your gatekeepers (one reason I'm making it public), but if it should, I strongly suggest that you listen more closely to Dr. Paul from now on. I'm not a part of his campaign, I can't speak for him, but I'll bet he'd have a private conversation with you if you asked. I also suggest that you read my book _DOWN WITH POWER: Libertarian Policy In A Time Of Crisis_.

Finally, you should read a little book by Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, a 34-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, twice the recipient of the Medal of Honor, and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. The book is called _War is a Racket_; as you read it, remember that when the great Paul Harvey changed his conscience about the War in Vietnam, his audience increased, and listeners loved him even more than they had before.

L. Neil Smith
Publisher and Senior Columnist, _THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE_ Award-winning author of 33 freedom-oriented novels and books Look for me on Google, Wikipedia, Amazon.com, and B&N.com

An Open Letter to Ron Paul

"Republicans and conservatives argue that a third party campaign on your part would ensure President Obama's reelection, a scenario I don't think is all that credible. If Romney loses it will be because most people simply don't like him, don't trust him, and don't want him anywhere near the Oval Office.
...
"In short, Republicans need to be taught a lesson, one they will never forget. By disdaining the substantial and growing libertarian wing of the GOP, and ignoring the desire for peace on the part of the larger public, they have earned nothing but defeat. You have said you are trying to save the Republican party, but it's too late for that: what's needed now is for someone to save the country from the GOP."

An Open Letter to Ron Paul
by Justin Raimondo, April 06, 2012

Dear Ron,

A lot of my readers are big fans of yours: on those rare but pungent occasions when I have criticized you, I've gotten lots of " blowback" in the comments section and in emails sent directly to my inbox. Whenever I praised you, I've enjoyed a veritable avalanche of favorable feedback. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with non-libertarians who praise you to the skies. Many people beyond the narrow confines of the libertarian movement are watching your campaign with great interest, and rooting for you ­ especially those who are concerned about our foreign policy of perpetual war. A lot of these people are not actually registered Republicans – although some have registered just to be able to vote for you – and that appears to be part of the problem.

You've captured the youth vote in practically every contest, while losing among the older set and among hardcore Republican voters. In short, the demographic you do best in winning over is the least likely to be able to vote in a closed Republican primary. I would estimate that roughly two thirds to three quarters of your constituency is outside the ranks of the GOP. In view of these realities, I have a question:

What is the endgame?

Yes, yes, I know, the campaign is educating people, building a movement, and it's necessary to take the long view. Yet I also know I am not the only one wondering what will happen in the short term.

There has been a lot of speculation, not only among your friends and admirers, but also in the media, about the prospect of a "deal." This is not based on anything you have said or done: every public statement coming directly from you has indicated quite the opposite. Listening to what you actually say in interviews, in response to questions about endorsing Mitt Romney, leads one to conclude it's highly unlikely bordering on downright impossible.

So what now?

Look, we don't endorse candidates here at Antiwar.com, for a number of reasons, but I can't ignore the many emails I've gotten from my readers, who are wondering about the answer to that question.

It's been exciting, even for a non-participant like me, to watch as you mobilize thousands at rallies all across the country, cheering your call to dismantle the Empire and bring the troops home. You were the voice of the majority during the debates, calling for getting out of Afghanistan immediately – not in a year or two or three, not conditional on the generals' diktat, but now, with no conditions or excuses. That's a major reason why you have inspired many people to get involved who would never have considered supporting a Republican candidate for any office, let alone President of the United States.

Yet, as the primaries wind down, and Romney gets closer to his seemingly inevitable victory, we are hearing, time and again, that certain individuals high up in your campaign are trying to make some sort of dubious deal. Business Insider by Bob Schieffer about an endorsement is enough to convince me of that ­ not that I needed all that much convincing.

On the other hand, the last sentence in the quote above is completely accurate: after Tampa, you do have to go somewhere. And the movement you inspired wants to know where you are taking them: is it only as far as Tampa, or will you go all the way and launch a third party campaign?

"You don't have to be a math genius to know that it is going to be very hard for us to get to Tampa with 1,144 delegates," says your campaign manager, Jesse Benton. "Short of Dr. Paul being the nominee, there would be a substantial price for us to throw our support behind someone else."

I don't know what Benton considers "substantial," in this context, but I can't imagine what the Romney camp could possibly offer you in exchange for an endorsement, and neither can the Business Insider: their piece lists a number of scenarios – the promise of a cabinet position for Rand Paul, a speaking slot in Tampa, concessions on the party platform – and then dismisses each and every one.

If I were 76 years old, I know I wouldn't be sprinting around the country making speeches and tirelessly spreading the message of liberty: I'd be sitting on my deck, taking it easy, watching somebody else cut my lawn. But you're in much better shape than I am, and besides that I can see you're clearly enjoying yourself – especially the crowds of young people who cheer you wherever you go.

The fun doesn't have to end in Tampa: if you decide to run an independent campaign for the White House – a strategy some of your supporters are already urging on you – your celebration of liberty and peace can continue right on up until November, and beyond. Because a third party candidacy will leave a legacy, a lasting monument to your campaign and the movement it created: a viable third party alternative to the twin parties of war and Big Government.

Polls show you getting as much as 17 percent of the vote in a three-way race – and those are just the starting numbers. It's a long way until November, and a lot can happen: another economic crash, another war, another federal power grab so egregious it makes the PATRIOT Act seem like a mild precursor.

Republicans and conservatives argue that a third party campaign on your part would ensure President Obama's reelection, a scenario I don't think is all that credible. If Romney loses it will be because most people simply don't like him, don't trust him, and don't want him anywhere near the Oval Office.

Yet even if it's true your third party run would cost Romney the election, then isn't it clear the Republicans deserve to lose? In the face of overwhelming public opposition to their warmongering, the other three GOP presidential contenders have relentlessly advocated escalating our overseas commitments: all three have explicitly threatened to go to war with Iran. Far from listening to your warnings about the dangers inherent in such a position, it's clear they have nothing but contempt for your foreign policy views. Nor have they made any significant concessions on the domestic front: they're all big spenders, Big Government " conservatives," and if they ever got into office they would continue along the same path.

In short, Republicans need to be taught a lesson, one they will never forget. By disdaining the substantial and growing libertarian wing of the GOP, and ignoring the desire for peace on the part of the larger public, they have earned nothing but defeat. You have said you are trying to save the Republican party, but it's too late for that: what's needed now is for someone to save the country from the GOP.

Yes, the Democrats also pose a major threat to liberty and peace, but the Republicans, I would argue, pose a much deadlier menace because their leaders and much of their base are unabashed militarists and dogged opponents of the Constitution. When it  comes to foreign policy and civil liberties, the Obama administration is just as bad if not worse, but the difference is rhetorical: the Republicans openly proclaim their intent to continue and escalate our policy of permanent warfare, and take great pride in their willingness to throw the Bill of Rights overboard in the name of an endless "war on terrorism." Obama, on the other hand, is careful to sugar-coat his authoritarianism and belligerent foreign policy in terms of "liberal" bromides and appeals to "pragmatism."

The best thing that could happen would be for the GOP to split, with your supporters hiving off, leaving the GOP remnant to become a primarily southern-based regional party. This is their future, in any event, in spite of your energetic efforts to "save" them. Unfortunately – for them and for us – they don't want to be saved.

In looking at the Ron Paul web sites, of which there are several, and speaking with a number of activists, I've encountered the following argument against taking the third party route: the Paulians, they say, are in this for the very long term. They mean to take over the GOP at the local level, and eventually dominate it at the national level. One Americans Elect" nomination. Yes, I know the whole "Americans Elect" operation seems dubious on the face of it, but they qualified for ballot status in 35 states and counting. The " Ron Paul Draft" is already the top-vote getter in the Americans Elect nomination process, which runs through early May, with more than double the number of votes of the nearest competitor.

In fact, Americans Elect does not require candidates to accept their nomination until after they win their Internet primary (held in late June). Throughout May and June, you can expect your supporters to campaign for your nomination as the Americans Elect candidate, regardless of what you do right now.

There is also the independent option, which means getting on the ballot in all fifty states via petition, like Ross Perot did – but that seems prohibitively expensive.

Ron, I know you're out there speaking to huge crowds – 10,000 at UCLA, even as I write – and how thrilled you must be by this kind of reception. And I know you're remembering the time when those crowds amounted to a few dozen, at most – and I imagine how gratified you must feel. Finally, the pro-peace pro-liberty camp is making some progress – but it doesn't have to end in Tampa.  Please consider carrying the banner of peace and liberty all the way to November and beyond – because the future of the country, and the peace of the world, depends on it.

Sincerely,
Justin Raimondo
April 5, 2012

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/04/05/an-open-letter-to-ron-paul/

This Month In Fascism

This Month In Fascism
Posted on April 6, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

America Slides Into Fascism

The U.S. Supreme Court, based on the urging of the Obama administration, has ruled that any prisoner – even those arrested for offenses such as dog leash laws, peaceful protests, or driving with an expired license – can be subject to a routine strip search upon entering prison.

The government is openly saying that it will use all of our smart devices, internet connections, and tv to spy on Americans.

President Obama has issued an executive order entitled "National Defense Resources Preparedness", which instructs the heads of various U.S. agencies to be on standby for authorization of martial law under by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The order in fact gives Executive Branch immediate to power to seize and control of any and all assets declared as critical to maintain its industrial and technological base and to control the general distribution of any material (including applicable services) in the civilian market. The order further authorizes the immediate issuance of regulations to allocate, ration, or seize and all materials, including every thing from food, live stock and farm equipment to transportation, energy and even water. (However, some commentators say that this new executive order is only a minor tweak of previous executive orders dating back to 1994.)

Yawning or having goose bumps have been added to the list of things acts which might get you labeled as a potential terrorist.

Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall recently made a statement that Americans would be "stunned" if they knew how the American Government is interpreting, applying and using the Patriot Act:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NV1k8np44KI

The National Security Agency is building a $2 billion dollar facility in Utah which will use the world's most powerful supercomputer to monitor virtually all phone calls, emails, internet usage, purchases and rentals, break all encryption, and then store everyone's data permanently.

A former head of the program held his thumb and forefinger close together, and said:

We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.

Indeed.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/04/this-month-in-fascism.html

Energy Dept. offers prize to create mobile apps that already exist

April 6, 2012
Energy Dept. offers prize to create mobile apps that already exist
Published: 4:44 PM 04/05/2012
By Paul Conner

The Department of Energy announced Thursday a $100,000 prize for software developers to come up with mobile applications to tell consumers how much energy they are using.

But there's already an app for that.

A quick scan of the iTunes and Android markets shows nearly two dozen existing applications that accomplish the same purpose ­ helping users keep track of their energy consumption at home.

The uMeter app, for example, allows consumers with Wi-Fi-enabled home energy meters to "manage and optimize their energy consumptions, in order to reduce their expenses and carbon footprint," according to the description. Similarly, the Home Master app gives iPhone and iPad users the ability to control their lights and curtains from a mobile device.

"You can define lighting scenarios and get real time information on energy consumption and energy savings," the developers at Think Sample S.p.a. wrote at the iTunes App Store.

Facebook, the social media giant, released a similar app Thursday in partnership with the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council and software company Opower.

The apps Home Energy, Power Simulator, Our Green Home, pConsumpt, Electricity Cost Calculator, Watt, MeterClient, Saia S-Energy Manager and MEED also claim to provide similar services, and all were created by private developers, without the incentive of taxpayer money. (RELATED: Facebook social energy app now operational)

"The Apps for Energy competition supports the president's goals of helping consumers lower their energy costs and increasing public access to data by challenging our nation's talented software developers to create apps that provide energy usage data in the most comprehensive and accessible formats," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement touting the competition.

"Improving consumers' access to data about how they use energy in their homes will help them save money on their energy bills and reduce energy consumption," he said.

The apps would use information already provided by a group of energy and utility companies on their websites and repackage it for mobile devices.

The winning team will be awarded $30,000. Second place winners receive $15,000, and third place prize is $7,500. The Energy Department will also award applications that are built only by students. The winners will be determined by a panel of federal-government and public sector judges.



http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/05/energy-dept-offers-prize-to-create-mobile-apps-that-already-exist/#ixzz1rM8ZIYue

Attention Cell Phone Users !

New post on Fellowship of the Minds Attention Cell Phone Users ! by lowtechgrannie  Cell Phone Numbers Go Public this month REMINDER.....  all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls. .... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222 It is the National DO NOT CALL list It will only take a minute of your time.. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number. HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON. It takes about 20 seconds.    https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx H/T to my neighbor, Charlotte LTG lowtechgrannie | April 8, 2012 at 12:47 pm | Tags: cell phones, DO NOT CALL registry, telemarketing | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-dyu Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/attention-cell-phone-users/ Thanks for flying with WordPress.com

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Bulletin of Christian Persecution March 1-April 8, 2012

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

March 1, 2012 - April 8, 2012

March 1, 2012
Iraq (h/t to Doug)
Jeremish Small, of Cosmopolis, Washington, was shot to death Thursday at the Classical School of the Medes, a private Christian academy in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's most peaceful region. The [Muslim] gunman, an 18-year-old, then shot himself in the head as other students scattered from the room.

Libya (Video via MEMRI)
Armed Libyans Desecrate Christian and Jewish Graves in War Cemetery in Benghazi. More HERE.

March 2, 2012
Pakistan
A Christian woman was brutally tortured and paraded in the streets of a village in Pakistan's Punjab province by a mob for her alleged "anti-Islam views", local residents and police officials said today.

March 4, 2012
Nigeria (h/t to thereligionofpeace)
A Nigerian spokesman for the Islamic militant group Boko Haram told Bikyamasr.com on Sunday that they are planning a "war" on Christians in the next few weeks.

March 6, 2012
Egypt (h/t to JihadWatch)
A court in Edfu has sentenced Reverend Makarios Bolous, pastor of St. George's Church in the village of Elmarinab, Edfu, in the Aswan province, to six months prison and a fine of 300 pounds for violations in the height of the church building. The court also ordered the removal of the excess height.

March 8, 2012
Nigeria
A Nigeria spokesman for the Islamist militant group Boko Haram told Bikyamasr.com on Tuesday afternoon that the group has plans to begin kidnapping Christian women in a push to "liquidate" the religious group from the country. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the spokesman said that "we are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women."

Pakistan (h/t to JihadWatch)
The National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church releases a report on the tragic conditions faced by minority women. One factor in discrimination is forced conversion. One non-Muslim woman in two experiences pressures to convert to Islam, which often come with violence and coercion. Looming in the background is the blasphemy law, seen by many as the most serious obstacle to social and cultural equality. More HERE.

March 11, 2012
Nigeria (h/t to JihadWatch)
A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Catholic church in the Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday, killing at least three people attending mass, the emergency services said. The man drove his car towards St Finbar's Catholic church in the city before setting off a large explosion, killing himself and at least three churchgoers. Update HERE.

March 12, 2012
Iran (h/t to thereligionofpeace)
The Armenian Evangelical Church in Tehran has been ordered to cease its Persian Language Service on Fridays. The church is one of the few established churches in Iran which was still allowed to have Persian Language services for Persian speaking Christians.

Serving the notice, officers of the Islamic Court informed the Church officials that they are being ordered to cease Persian language services, and threatened that if this order is ignored and they continue to have Christian services on Fridays which is a sacred day for Muslims, church building will be bombed "as happens in Iraq every day".

Iran (h/t to JihadWatch)
Vice president of Tehran's city hall announced, "There are some freemasonry and Christian symbols installed on personal buildings around the city. We should control these symbols and ban their display."

Pakistan
A young mother has been falsely accused of "blaspheming" Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, because she rebuffed attempts by relatives who had converted to Islam to force her to renounce her Christian faith, family members said.

March 13, 2012
Iran (h/t to thereligionofpeace)
For the first time since his arrest in 2009, Iran has admitted publicly that Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has been convicted of religious crimes. During a United Nation Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva on Monday, Iran said Nadarkhani, who has been sentenced to death, was found guilty of three charges: building a church in his home without government permission, preaching to minors without parental consent and offending Islam, according to a meeting transcript.

March 14, 2012
Saudi Arabia (h/t to MiddleEastForum )
According to several Arabic news sources, last Monday, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region." The Grand Mufti made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from Kuwait: a Kuwaiti parliament member recently called for the "removal" of churches (he later "clarified" by saying he merely meant that no churches should be built in Kuwait), and the delegation wanted to confirm Sharia's position on churches.

Bethlem (Palestinian Authority) (h/t to thereligionofpeace)
The Palestinian Authority declared a Baptist Church in Bethlehem to be unlawful and said that it will no longer receive rights as a religious institution. This decision comes a week after Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told an audience of Evangelical Protestants that his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities.

"They said that our legitimacy as a church from a governmental point of view is not approved," said an assistant pastor at the First Baptist Church. "They said they will not recognize any legal paper work from our church. That includes birth certificates, wedding certificates and death certificates.

March 16, 2012
Egypt (h/t to thereligionofpeace)
More than 300 Muslim lawyers inside and outside a courthouse in the southern Egyptian province of Assuit today prevented defense lawyer Ahmad Sayed Gabali, who is representing the Christian Makarem Diab, from going into court. Mr. Diab was found guilty of 'Insulting the Muslim Prophet' and was scheduled today a hearing on his appeal.

Egypt
Two nuns in Upper Egypt faced "unimaginable fear" - with one later hospitalized over the emotional trauma - when 1,500 Muslim villagers brandishing swords and knives trapped them inside a guesthouse last week and threatened to burn them out.

Iran
In a rare crackdown on a concentrated area, Iranian authorities have arrested Christians living in the country's third largest city in what is seen as a tactic to discourage Muslims and converts to Christianity from attending official churches. Since last month officials have arrested about 12 Christian converts in Isfahan

March 17, 2012
Egypt
Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church who led Egypt's Christian minority for 40 years during a time of increasing tensions with Muslims, died Saturday. He was 88. His death comes as the country's estimated 10 million Christians are feeling more vulnerable than ever amid the rise of Islamic movements to political power after the toppling a year ago of President Hosni Mubarak. The months since have seen a string of attacks on the community, heightened anti-Christian rhetoric by ultraconservatives known as Salafis and fears that coming goverments will try to impose strict versions of Islamic law. More HERE.

Indonesia (h/t to GatesofVienna)
The two alleged perpetrators of the attack on a Protestant church in Indramayu were arrested within a few hours of the attack in Bandung. So far the police have not released the identities of two men known only by their initials who are in their 30s.

March 18, 2012
Yemen (h/t to therligionofpeace)
Gunmen linked to al Qaeda shot dead an American teacher in Yemen on Sunday, accusing him of Christian "proselytizing", and officials said government forces had killed a dozen militants in clashes and attacks on their strongholds.

March 20, 2012
India
A young woman was thrown out of her home this month for daring to give thanks for healing in Christ's name in a predominantly Muslim village in India's West Bengal state, and then her parents helped Islamic extremists to beat her nearly unconscious.

Sudan
The "ethnic cleansing" that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has undertaken against black Africans in the Nuba Mountains is also aimed at ridding the area of Christianity, according to humanitarian workers.

By targeting Christians among people who are also adherents of Islam and other faiths in the Nuba Mountains, military force helps the regime in Khartoum to portray the violence as "jihad" to Muslims abroad and thus raise support from Islamic nations, said one humanitarian worker on condition of anonymity.

March 21, 2012
Pakistan
Nearly 62 per cent of Hindu and Christian women fear that a majority of Muslims would not come to their aid if they were being discriminated against. This was one of the findings of the study "Life on the Margins," which was released by the National Commission for Justice and Peace at the Pakistan Medical Association House.

March 22, 2012
Kurdistan
Although economic situation in Kurdistan is better than in Iraq, Christians and other religious minorities have found that the Muslim majority is not that tolerant of them and will use oppression against them.

March 30, 2012
Sudan
After Khartoum denied that it had bombed civilians earlier this month, Sudanese aerial strikes last week were aimed at church buildings and schools in Kauda, South Kordofan state, a humanitarian aid worker said. Antonov airplanes dropped bombs on Thursday and Friday (March 22 and 23), destroying some houses and cattle near the church buildings and schools but causing no casualties, he said.

March 31, 2012
Kenya
Islamic radicals bombed an open-air worship service and killed two Christians and wounded more than 30 in the town of Mtwapa.

April 1, 2012
Turkey (h/t to JihadWatch)
Turkey's Greek Orthodox citizens living on the island of Gökçeada (Imbros) in the north Aegean cannot buy property on the island, the Taraf daily claimed on Sunday. The issue emerged when lawyer Erhan Gökçe complained in court about officials who put up difficulties before non-Muslims on the island who want to obtain property.

April 2, 2012
Egypt (h/t to Jihadwatch)
Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church has announced it is withdrawing from talks on a new constitution, saying Islamist domination of the drafting body has made its participation "pointless," Egypt's state news agency said.

April 4, 2012
Egypt
An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohammad, actions that sparked sectarian violence.

April 5, 2012
Tunsia (h/t to Raymond Ibrahim, translator)
The Christian Orthodox Church in Tunis, one of very few churches in the country of Tunisia, is being "abused" and receiving "threatening messages" from "Salafis." Church members are described as "living in a state of terror," so much so that the Russian ambassador in Tunis specifically requested the nation's Ministry of Interior to "protect the church."

The abuse has gotten to the point where "Salafis covered the cross of the church with garbage bags, telling the church members that they do not wish to see the vision of the Cross anywhere in the Islamic state of Tunisia."

April 6, 2012
Iran
Twelve Christians are to stand trial in Iran on Easter Sunday on charges including "crimes against the order", an activist assisting them with advocacy told BosNewsLife.

Sudan
Christians from South Sudan who have until Easter Sunday (April 8) to try to become citizens of Sudan or be deported fear authorities will use the occasion to rid the country of Christianity, church leaders said.

Christian leaders expressed concern that local media such as the daily Al Intibaha newspaper have been stoking hatred against predominantly Christian southern Sudanese, describing them as "cancer cells in the body of Sudan, the land of the Arab and Islam," and calling on the government to deport them.

April 7, 2012
Iran (h/t to thereligionofpeace)
According to Iranian Christian news agency, Mohabat News, a two hundred year old historical graveyard in the Ghal'e-dokhtar area in Kerman province "has completely demolished".

Tunisia (h/t to JihadWatch)
Non-Muslim places of worship are being targeted by still-unidentified individuals. After the attacks perpetrated against the Orthodox church on Avenue Mohamed V, the Russian school located behind the church as well as the Christian cemetery of Montplasir in Tunis have been vandalized.

The walls of the school were smeared with fecal matter, as also a fresco of Saint Siberian [sic] located in the back courtyard of the Orthodox church, while the cemetery's crosses were destroyed.

April 8, 2012
Nigeria (h/t to thereligionofpeace)
At least 50 people were killed when explosives concealed in two cars went off near a church during Easter Sunday services in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, eye-witnesses said. Shehu Sani, the President of Civil Rights Congress based in Kaduna, said two explosions took place at the Assemblies of God's Church near the centre of the city with a large Christian population and known as a major cultural and economic centre in Nigeria's north.


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Publisher: Bill Warner; Edited by Asma Marwan
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