Author: Personal Liberty News Desk

The Senate’s version of healthcare reform legislation was narrowly passed by the House Sunday evening after President Obama struck a late deal with Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI) and other pro-life Democrats, promising to issue an executive order clarifying abortion language in the bill.

After a dramatic week of impassioned debate and feverous name calling from both sides of the aisle, the Senate bill cleared the House by a 219-212 vote. A total of 34 dissident Democrats joined every House Republican in opposing the legislation.

Later in the evening, a second measure – which makes changes to the recently approved bill – was quickly passed by a margin of 220-211. That piece of legislation will now move to the Senate, which can approve the bill by a simple 51-vote majority by using the parliamentary tactic known as budget reconciliation.

A jubilant President Obama was relieved that his hallmark campaign measure, which seemed dead only a few months ago, is all but assured to be signed into law in the near future.

“We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests,” the president said. “We didn’t give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things.”

Meanwhile, House Republicans leaders said that the now inevitable passage of healthcare reform legislation defies the wishes of the American people.

“We have failed to listen to America,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner. “This body moves forward against their will. Shame on us.”

As the crucial healthcare vote in the House of Representatives approaches, opponents of the proposed legislation are stepping up their efforts to stop it.

Under the auspices of the American Grassroots Coalition, various anti-tax and Tea Party groups are launching the final push before the vote by holding coordinated events, including a noon rally at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, a candlelight vigil and “virtual vigil” leading up to the vote.

Some of the speakers at the Saturday event will include Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), actor and activist Jon Voight and Ben Cunningham, founder of the Tennessee Tax Revolt.

“All of the groups have a mutual goal — to band together to communicate the frustration of the people and demand the termination of this health bill legislation,” said Jennifer Hulsey, co-founder of American Grassroots Coalition. The coalition is comprised of dozens of organizations, including Americans for Tax Reform, National Taxpayers Union, Family Research Council and Institute for Liberty.

In the past two weeks, nearly 1,000 fiscal conservatives from across the country have been staging events around the capital under the Take The Town Halls To Washington initiative and met with some 30 members of Congress to express their frustration with the proposed reforms.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released a report which estimates that the updated healthcare reform bill will cost approximately $940 billion over the next 10 years.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the measure will cut the federal deficit by as much as $130 billion in the next decade, and more than $1 trillion over the following 10 years due to revenue increases and cost savings, compared to the current system.

“I think the momentum is growing for this bill,” said Hoyer. “The more and more people have looked at this bill…a greater number of people are becoming more comfortable.”

The release of the estimate may set the table for a final vote on healthcare reform in the House this Sunday. Democratic leaders plan to post the reconciliation bill online Thursday to give the public and some conservative Democrats 72 hours to review the language, Fox News reports.

The package that was considered by the budget office was the Senate bill combined with supplemental changes instituted by members of the House. If Democratic leaders decide to use the parliamentary tactic known as budget reconciliation, and all indications are that they will, Republicans will not be able to prevent the bill from getting to President Obama’s desk.

A new purified form of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid may help reduce the number and size of precancerous polyps in individuals who are at a high risk of inheriting bowel cancer, a recent study has found.

Lead investigator Mark Hull, professor at the University of Leeds in the UK, says that treatment with specially prepared fish oil appears to be as effective as Celebrex, which is prescribed to people with an elevated genetic risk of developing precancerous polyps in bowel, a condition known as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), according to Health Day News.

In the study, Hull and his colleagues monitored 55 patients who were suffering from FAP. A total of 28 patients were given a daily dose of purified omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, known as EPA, while the others were treated with a placebo.

After six months of follow-up, the research team observed a 12 percent reduction in the number of polyps in the EPA group, while the placebo group showed an increase in both the number and size of precancerous polyps.

“There is definitely a clinical need for an effective, preventative therapy that is both safe and well-tolerated, as the existing drug therapy for FAP can be associated with an increased risk of heart attack in older individuals,” concluded Hull.

Frustrated with President Obama’s broken promise to overhaul the immigration system within his first year in office, thousands of grassroots activists rallied at the National Mall in Washington March 21 to express their displeasure with the lack of progress concerning immigration reform.

In the face of heavy criticism from supporters of new legislation, Obama reiterated his campaign promises last week, stating that he will “do everything in [his] power” to put an immigration bill in front of Congress by the end of 2010.

The president also supported a reform outline authored by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), which will force undocumented workers to admit they broke the law, pay back taxes and perform community service to become legal United States residents, Fox News reports. Illegal immigrants would also need to pass a background check and an English exam before being cleared to stay in the country.

However, when asked about the administration’s current priorities, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs did not mention immigration reform and indicated that nothing would get accomplished without bipartisan support, according to ABC News.

“It’s got to be more than the president wants to get something done,” he said.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Jewish Committee and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism have filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of the University of California Hastings School of Law, whose nondiscrimination policy has been challenged by a religious group.

The case was originally brought by the Christian Legal Society (CLS) whose Hasting chapter was denied official university recognition and funding because it would have violated the law school’s anti-bias policy. CLS bars gay members from joining, and as such does not conform to the public university’s policy which prevents discrimination based on sexual orientation, Inside Higher ED reported.

“Because CLS does not need to be an official student group to communicate its message effectively to the Hastings student body the group’s First Amendment interest in discriminating against non-believers and the university’s interest in ensuring that its sanctioned extracurricular activities are open to all students are not incompatible,” the brief states.

Other organizations that have filed briefs in support of the school include American Council on Education, Lambda Legal and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD).

A controversy regarding patient’s rights is brewing in Idaho after the State House passed a bill that allows all healthcare professionals—including dieticians and pharmacists—to refuse to provide care that violates their conscience.

In addition to end-of-life care, SB 1353 extends the provisions to abortion and emergency contraception, permitting any licensed healthcare provider to refuse to provide a treatment or medication on conscience grounds.

“The intent of this legislation is not to restrict or limit in any way healthcare services to women or men in Idaho,” said lead sponsor Senator Chuck Winder, a Republican, quoted by The Spokesman Review.

He specified that he considered the bill as “an attempt to correct what we perceived to be an oversight,” as the current state law permits doctors or hospital workers to refuse to participate in treatments, but does not cover all licensed healthcare professionals.

However, critics have alleged it will allow providers to override a family’s or a patient’s decisions expressed in living wills or through advance directives.

“The Idaho House said it’s all right for healthcare professionals to ignore the wishes and instructions of their patients—and that’s a dangerous direction for healthcare in our state,” said Jim Wordelman, state director for AARP in Idaho.

The organization has urged Idahoans to contact the governor’s office and urge him to remove the contentious language or veto the bill.

After president Obama signed the newly passed healthcare reform bill into law, 14 states challenged the legislation by filing suit in Federal Court.

Twelve states joined Florida’s Attorney General in the suit filed in Pensacola’s Federal Court. They are South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Colorado and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The commonwealth of Virginia filed suit separately.

The plaintiffs claim they want to protect individuals’ freedom to pay their healthcare bills on their own rather than be forced by the federal government to buy insurance.

“This is a tax or a penalty on just living, and that’s unconstitutional,” McCollum said, adding that “there’s no provision in the Constitution of the United States giving Congress the power to do that.”

Meanwhile, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has said 38 states have either filed or announced their intentions to file ALEC’s Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act that would “stop ObamaCare at the state line.”

The act has already been passed by one legislative chamber in Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and is expected to be heard on the floor in Alabama, Kansas and Michigan.

The embattled and highly controversial community organizing group known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, announced on Monday that it will formally disband on April 1 due to declining revenues.

ACORN’s funding and reputation took a huge hit last year after a widely disseminated video showed several of the anti-poverty group’s employees giving tax advice to two conservative activists posing as a prostitute and pimp. The organization’s credibility has also been tarnished over the last 18 months following several charges of voter fraud and embezzlement.

In light of the video, which surfaced in September 2009, Congress pulled ACORN’s federal funding, while many private donors have blacklisted the organization. Officials with the group have consistently professed their innocence and have indicated that partisan attacks have forced them to close their doors.

“ACORN has faced a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded right wing attacks that are unprecedented since the McCarthy era,” said Bertha Lewis, CEO of ACORN. “The videos were a manufactured, sensational story that led to rush to judgment and an unconstitutional act by Congress.”

Although the organization will officially disband in April, several of ACORN’s affiliates broke away earlier this year and are operating under different names.

Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter signed a bill last week to prohibit Congress from mandating that every individual in his state purchase health insurance.

The Idaho Freedom Act, which was sponsored by three Republican state representatives and a state senator, requires the state attorney general to sue the federal government if it successfully pushes through healthcare reform legislation. Similar bills are currently pending in 37 other states, Fox News reports.

"I guarantee you that not a single member of the House or Senate has a complete understanding of that legislation any more than they understood all the implications of the USA PATRIOT Act back in 2001," said the governor.

"What the Idaho Health Freedom Act says is that the citizens of our state won’t be subject to another federal mandate or turn over another part of their life to government control," he added.

However, several law experts have said the bill is mostly symbolic, as federal law supersedes that of the state. The Idaho Freedom Act is expected to cost the state approximately $100,000 to implement, according to Insurance and Financial Advisor News.

Four gun violence prevention organizations have called on Virginia Governor McDonnell to veto three gun bills currently on his desk that they believe would put state residents at greater risk of gun violence.

The Virginia Center for Public Safety (VACPS), the Virginia Chapters of the Million Mom March, Protest Easy Guns (PEG) and the Angel Fund have issued a statement saying that signing SB 334, SB 408 and HB 1217 would violate the governor’s earlier declaration that "the foremost obligation of government is public safety."

SB 334 would allow concealed carry permit holders to bring loaded handguns into establishments that have a liquor license in Virginia, SB 408 would allow those without concealed carry permits to keep loaded handguns in their vehicles or boats if stored in a locked container, while HB 1217 requires the Virginia Board of Education to establish a standardized program of gun safety education for students in elementary school.

With respect to this last bill, the coalition referred to "numerous" studies that demonstrate that familiarizing children with guns makes them more likely to handle firearms when adults are not present.

"The governor talks about the importance of public safety, but in practice he has cut millions of dollars in public safety funding from the state budget and supported a number of dangerous changes to Virginia’s gun laws," said VACPS board member Lori Haas. "Commonwealth families now have one last chance to hold him to his word and insist he veto [these bills]."

McDonnell has until April 12 to make his decision.

The majority of United States infants are not receiving the recommended amount of vitamin D and should be given supplements, a new federal study has concluded.

Although the American Academy of Pediatrics raised the recommended daily standard of vitamin D for infants in 2008, a shockingly low number meet the 400 IU per day requirement for optimum health.

In the study, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Epidemic Intelligence Service collected data on infants who were younger than 10.5 months. They found that among infants who were exclusively breastfed, only 5 to 13 percent received the recommended amount of the nutrient.

For babies who were breastfed and who were also given formula, a total of 35 percent were getting enough vitamin D.

“In the past, it was assumed that children receiving formula didn’t need a vitamin D supplement, because they were getting it from the formula,” said lead researcher Cria Perrine.

However, in light of the new findings, “most infants, starting at birth, will need a vitamin D supplement,” she added.

The researchers also recommended that expectant mothers take prenatal vitamins and other approved natural supplements.

Adhering to the principle that less government is better, the GOP and some conservatives have reacted to the financial regulation bill proposal—the former by asking that the process be slowed down, and the latter by labeling it “the next government takeover.”

Last week, Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) presented the proposed legislation that would give the government new powers to break up firms that threaten the economy, and create a Financial Stability Oversight Council that could place large financial institutions under the supervision of the Federal Reserve.

However, Republicans on the banking committee said that while they remain open to a bipartisan agreement on overhauling financial regulation, they are against trying to push the bill through too quickly, according to The Washington Post.

“Given the sheer magnitude and complexity of the financial reform package, this legislation will inevitably have a substantial impact on our financial system and overall economy,” 10 members of the committee wrote in a letter to Dodd. “Accordingly, we urge you to allow for sufficient time to review the language.”

Some commentators went even further, saying the bill would “create a vast new bureaucracy” that would have unlimited powers to control the financial industry and stymie economic innovation and growth, according to Human Events, a conservative news website.

“[It] would exert unprecedented government controls over virtually every segment of the nation’s financial system,” commentator Donald Lambro wrote on the website.

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has announced that it is now part of a new international organization whose goal is the protection of firearms rights for private citizens.

Named the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR), the organization met last week in Nuremberg, Germany and brought together gun rights activists from several countries, including Sweden, Norway, Germany, the UK, Canada, Italy and the United States under the banner of Liberty and Security.

“Self-defense is a human right that is not just limited to citizens of the United States thanks to our Second Amendment,” said Alan Gottlieb, SAF executive vice president who also serves as an IAPCAR director.

“This is an important ‘first step’ in regaining much lost ground, and putting the brakes on an international movement to strip private citizens of the means to protect their most cherished right, that of self-defense,” he added.

SAF representatives have also expressed encouragement that after the Germany meeting, groups from countries such as the Philippines, Switzerland, Belgium, Argentina, Finland, India, Israel, Greece, South Africa and Australia are also interested in joining.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has joined a lawsuit filed against a Mississippi High School that announced it would cancel its prom because a lesbian student was planning to attend the event with her girlfriend.

In legal papers filed on March 16, the ACLU asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the Itawamba County School District from canceling the prom and from prohibiting Constance McMillen from bringing her girlfriend as a date and wearing a tuxedo.

“We are determined to get the prom back on the calendar and open to all students,” ACLU lawyer Christine Sun, who represents McMillen, told CNN.

“What this case comes down to is the school taking the extraordinary measure of canceling the prom, rather than live up to its legal obligation to fairly treat all students who want to come to it,” she added.

The case has attracted national attention, and offers to host or help fund an alternative independent prom have reportedly come from across the country.

A hearing on the motion has been set for March 22 at the Federal District Court in Aberdeen, Miss.

Black children with low blood levels of vitamin D may be at a significantly increased risk of developing asthma compared to those with sufficient levels of the nutrient, according to a new study.

Lead author Robert Freishtat, principal investigator at the Children’s Research Institute in Washington, D.C., and his colleagues took blood samples from 85 black children suffering from asthma and compared their vitamin D levels to 21 healthy black children of a similar age.

The researchers were surprised to find that approximately 86 percent of children with asthma had inadequate levels of vitamin D, while only 19 percent of healthy participants suffered from the nutrient deficiency.

“We were shocked to see that almost all of the African-American children with asthma that we tested had low vitamin D levels,” said Freishtat. “After adjusting for differences in age, weight, and the time of year of the testing, the odds of these kids with asthma being vitamin D deficient were nearly twenty times those of healthy kids.”

He added that parents should ensure that their children receive adequate amounts of the nutrient through milk consumption or vitamin supplementation.

A newly released policy brief from Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) contains a warning about the ecological impact of United States population growth.

The report, entitled From Big to Bigger, How Mass Immigration and Population Growth Have Exacerbated America’s Ecological Footprint, examines the impact that uncontrolled growth and high immigration levels are having on the country’s natural environment, and provides scientific evidence for why America is exhausting its natural resources.

Among its major findings, the article reveals that even as the U.S. ecological footprint continues to increase, the Earth’s biocapacity is decreasing. Moreover, if current growth trends continue, the American population will increase 43 percent by 2050, and 82 percent of that growth will result from immigration.

“[We are] living well beyond [our] ecological means and rapid population growth driven primarily by high immigration levels is aggravating the country’s ecological deficit,” says Leon Kolankiewicz, the publication’s author who is a wildlife biologist and consulting environmental planner.

“If environmentalists are serious about facing the challenge of sustainability, they must begin to address the threat of unsustainable U.S. population growth,” he adds.

The report also found that the U.S. has the third-highest ecological footprint in the world, exceeded only by two small Middle Eastern oil-producing countries.

PFIR is a nonprofit organization that seeks to educate the public about the unintended consequences of mass migration and promotes the principles of protecting workers’ rights and ensuring fair wages for America’s workforce.

As the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that aims to overturn the Chicago handgun ban, a new Rasmussen poll has revealed that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that cities have no right to impose similar bans.

Specifically, the survey found that 69 percent of the respondents say cities do not have the right to ban legal handgun ownership, while 25 percent believe they can do so.

“[This result] clearly shows that Americans have grown weary of anti-gun municipal demagoguery,” said Alan M. Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), an organization that brought the lawsuit.

“A victory in our case before the Supreme Court should send a clear signal to gun prohibitionists that arbitrarily disarming law-abiding citizens under the guise of fighting crime is an idea that has no place in this country,” he added.

SAF is joined in its case by the Illinois State Rifle Association and four Chicago residents, including Otis McDonald, for whom the Supreme Court case is named.

If the high court overturns the Chicago ban, its decision will incorporate the Second Amendment to state and local governments through provisions in the 14th Amendment.

The decision is expected some time this spring.

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) publicly lashed out at Al Gore on Monday, referring to global warming as “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” while claiming that the former vice president is “running for cover” following recent questions regarding climate change science.

“He’s under siege these days,” said Inhofe, while speaking on the Senate floor. “The credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is eroding, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding is collapsing and belief that global warming is leading to catastrophe is evaporating.”

“Gore seems to be drowning in a sea of his own global warming illusions nevertheless,” added the senator, who has been a longtime critic of the science behind climate change.

Inhofe also insinuated that Gore had gotten rich due to global warming, referring to the Nobel Peace Prize winner as the first “climate billionaire,” and said his recent op-ed piece in The New York Times was a simple act of desperation.

Meanwhile, the senator concluded his 30-minute speech by denouncing climate change legislation being authored by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), claiming that any cap-and-trade bill would adversely affect the American people.

On Wednesday, the House voted 416-0 to ban misleading mailings designed to look like official government documents, following criticism from both sides of the aisle that two Republican groups were sending out fundraising letters that appeared to be official communications from the Census Bureau.

Under the new bill, which was co-sponsored by Representatives Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), mailings using the word “census” will have to include the name and address of the sender, as well as an unambiguous disclaimer that the letter has not been authored by the federal government, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

Meanwhile, several Democratic leaders have blasted the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) for trying to confuse citizens and piggyback on the Census Bureau’s multimillion dollar advertising campaign.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has alleged that the fundraising letters, which were signed by RNC Chairman Michael Steele and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), may discourage people from completing their Census surveys, The Hill reports.

“[Boehner and Steele] have a responsibility to tell every Republican who received their fundraising solicitation that it is not an official U.S. Census form and encourage them to fill out their census form,” said DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer.

Democratic leaders in the Senate have said they plan to sign off on the bill recently approved in the Senate.