AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

After watching Huckabee on Feb.7, I wanted to share information regarding history textbook changes that are being considered for Texas public schools! Chairman of Liberty Council, Matthew Staver, was on that program explaining the fact that historic figures and events important to the forming of our nation are subject to being wiped from the new textbooks being considered. It is important to preserve our freedom by retaining the teaching of (1) our Texas State history, (2) our United States history AND (3) World history, in our education system.

Globalists’ intent is to slowly transfer out all national pride by the forming of a one-world government - - beginning with our children. So much history of our founding fathers has already been removed from our textbooks. It is so very important for every parent " every grandparent " every patriot " to protect the teaching of our children in order to preserve our freedom for the next generation. I have copied below some of the information available to you on the Learning Council website " www.lc.org. Please take the time to voice your encouragement to this small board that has so much power over what our children are taught. Texas is one of the largest customers for public school textbooks in the nation. Generally, what is accepted by this board becomes the standard for public education nationally because of its influence. We still have the opportunity to have an influence in that process. The website gives contact information that will allow you to reach each board member separately or to e-mail, snail mail, or telephone them. Please take the time to explore this website and make your concerns known to the Board before their adoption meeting in May. - - and please pass this on to others. WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Confused Texas Education Board bans kids' author from curriculum
(Traci Shurley, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 24, 2010)

What do the authors of the children's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and a 2008 book called Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation have in common?

Both are named Bill Martin and, for now, neither is being added to Texas schoolbooks.

In its haste to sort out the state's social studies curriculum standards this month, the State Board of Education tossed children's author Martin, who died in 2004, from a proposal for the third-grade section. Board member Pat Hardy, R-Weatherford, who made the motion, cited books he had written for adults that contain "very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system."

Trouble is, the Bill Martin Jr. who wrote the Brown Bear series never wrote anything political, unless you count a book that taught kids how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, his friends said. The book on Marxism was written by Bill Martin, a philosophy professor at DePaul University in Chicago.

Bill Martin Jr.'s name would have been included on a list with author Laura Ingalls Wilder and artist Carmen Lomas Garza as examples of individuals who would be studied for their cultural contributions.

Hardy said she was trusting the research of another board member, Terri Leo, R-Spring, when she made her motion and comments about Martin's writing. Leo had sent her an e-mail alerting her to Bill Martin Jr.'s listing on the Borders .com Web site as the author of Ethical Marxism. Leo's note also said she hadn't read the book.

"She said that that was what he wrote, and I said: ' ... It's a good enough reason for me to get rid of someone,' " said Hardy, who has complained vehemently about the volume of names being added to the curriculum standards.

In an e-mail exchange, Leo said she planned to make a motion to replace Bill Martin and sent Hardy a list of possible alternatives. Hardy said she thought she was doing what Leo wanted when she made the motion.

Leo, however, said she wasn't asking Hardy to make any motions. She said she didn't do any "research."

"Since I didn't check it out, I wasn't about to make the motion," Leo said, adding that she never meant for her "FYI" e-mail to Hardy to be spoken about in a public forum.

Hardy said that her interest was in paring down that list and she didn't mean to offend anyone.

For some, however, the mix-up is an indicator of a larger problem with the way the elected board members have approached the update of state curriculum standards.

Board members will take up social studies standards again in March. They plan a final vote on updates in May.

Hardy's motion is "a new low in terms of the group that's supposed to represent education having such faulty research and making such a false leap without substantiating what they're doing," said Michael Sampson, Martin's co-author on 30 children's books.

The social studies standards update, which started last spring when groups of educators met to suggest revisions, has brought criticism from the right and the left about politicizing the process. As trustees worked their way through a draft this month, political ideas like imperialism, communism and free enterprise were at the heart of some of the changes.

Parados throws up his hands and says cutting fraud and waste in the Medicare program for starters is a waste of time, I guess because he thinks it costs too much to do it!!!! No wonder people are losing faith in Democrats and liberals!!!

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18995&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
A REAL SOLUTION FOR COVERING THE UNINSURED
The uninsured can be covered at relatively modest additional net cost, without a government takeover of health care, rationing, new health care bureaucracies, or any of the other central components of Obamacare, says Peter Ferrara, Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation, and a Senior Policy Advisor on Health Care to the Heartland Institute.

Reform should start with Medicaid, which already spends over $400 billion a year providing substandard coverage for 50 million poor Americans. Congress should transform Medicaid to provide assistance to purchase private health insurance for all who otherwise could not afford coverage, ideally with health insurance vouchers, says Ferrara.

This one step would enormously benefit the poor already on Medicaid, he says:

The program today pays doctors and hospitals only 60 percent of costs for their health care services for the poor.

As a result, 40 percent of doctors and hospitals won't take Medicaid patients.
This is already a form of rationing, as Medicaid patients find obtaining health care increasingly difficult, and studies show they suffer worse health outcomes as a result.

Health insurance vouchers would free the poor from this Medicaid ghetto, enabling them to obtain the same health care as the middle class, because they would be able to buy the same health insurance in the market.
How would this be accomplished?

Ideally this would be done by changing Medicaid financing to provide the federal assistance to the states for the program through finite block grants, which would not vary to match increased state Medicaid spending as it does today.

States that innovate to reduce costs can then keep the savings; states that operate programs with continued runaway costs would pay those additional costs themselves.

Such reforms worked spectacularly well in halting the runaway costs of the old AFDC program when Congress adopted welfare reform in 1996.
Done right, this would ensure that no one would lack health insurance because they couldn't afford it, says Ferrar.

Source: Peter Ferrara, "A Real Solution for Covering the Uninsured," FOXNews, February 15, 2010.

I didn't say it shouldn't be done. I said it costs money that the GOP REFUSED to provide to cut fraud.

Okie.. The GOP REFUSED to provide funding to cut fraud...

THE GOP, okie.. What part of GOP refusing to provide funding means the Democrats are at fault?

One thing I do know for sure, conservatives and probably most Republicans would love to fund any reasonable effort to cut waste in Medicare and other bureaucracies.

Yes, I do support Evan Bayh.
I have said it before and I will say it again now, if he ever runs for President he will have my full support.
Yes, he is a democrat, and yes he is somewhat of a liberal.
And yes, I disagree with him on almost every issue.