Commentary

In an Idaho Falls debate this week, Gov. Butch Otter explained his decision to vigorously defend the Idaho Constitution from the concerted attack by homosexual activists and their allies on the federal bench. At stake is the definition of marriage and the entire social order.

His Democrat opponent, A.J. Balukoff, has been quite vocal in attacking the governor and AG Lawrence Wasden for defending Idaho’s constitutional amendment on traditional marriage in federal court. He has called the defense of marriage “discriminatory”.

The libertarian in the race, John Bujak, has essentially mimicked Balukoff’s criticism. 

This issue and how the candidates are handling it allows us a terrific opportunity to see the true philosophies of these gentlemen and how they approach the overarching questions of leadership and accountability.

All three men seek to become the most powerful elected official in Idaho. All three ask the support of Idaho voters … and, at least by implication, have pledged themselves to defend the Idaho Constitution. This is the specific oath of office one of them will take in January. Yet we must wonder from the onset whether Mr. Balukoff or Mr. Bujak are actually prepared to submit to the sovereignty of the People.

The Idaho Constitution is not simply a dusty document. It is the embodiment of the People’s sovereignty, and a precise delegation of some of that authority to those who would love to wield public power in our lives.

But we must ask: To whom will these men be accountable if granted such temporary power?

Mr. Balukoff and Mr. Bujak are demonstrating a certain contempt for the People; a disdain for the fundamental precept of a government built upon the consent of the governed. They presume they know better than the People – the most destructive liberal impulse. They both are more than ready to lecture us about how we should think and how we ought organize society – just like the radical college professors they probably studied under. They both tell us we should simply submit to the superior judgment of a handful of federal judges.

Some have criticized Governor Otter this year for “being out of touch”. Yet, it should not be lost on conservatives – and other champions of a republican form of government – that it is Butch Otter who is standing in the gap, actually fulfilling his oath of office to defend not just the Constitution but the fundamental principle of the People-as-Sovereign. It is Otter who is demonstrating a humility by fighting for the will of the People as expressed by their Constitution. It is Butch Otter who is battling the arrogance of a federal judiciary which seeks to impose their vision of a reordered society at complete odds with the moral foundation upon which this nation was laid.  And it is Butch Otter who is battling two opponents who apparently have no genuine interest in representing the views of those they seek to manage.

Regardless of your attitude on the vital question of homosexual marriage in Idaho, it should trouble you that Bujak and Balukoff hold the public in such disdain. If they are prepared to defy the People in this matter, it will be nothing to impose taxes or regulations or any other liberal agenda item against our will.

Kudos to Governor Otter for the fight he is waging on our behalf. May the Lord bless his efforts.

Pro-Lifers in the Treasure Valley will join friends across the nation this Sunday afternoon to take a stand for preborn babies and their mothers.

The annual Life Chain will be held on Milwaukee Avenue across from the Boise Mall on Sunday, October 5th.  2-4 pm.  Signs will be provided.  Prayers are welcome.

This event is designed to bring the message of God’s love from the pews to the streets. 

God tells us that we are the Light of the World.  Join us on Sunday in lifting the Light of God’s word to our neighbors.  See you there!

NEWS RELEASE                                                                    

IDAHO CHOOSES LIFE ENDORSES GOV. OTTER FOR 3^RD TERM

Otter Builds Historic Pro-Life Legacy

 The Board of Idaho Chooses Life, representing grassroots activists from across the state, voted unanimously to endorse Governor Butch Otter for another term as Idaho’s senior public official.

“The simple fact is, Governor Otter has signed more pro-Life legislation into law than any previous governor in Idaho history,” said David Ripley, ICL Executive Director, in making the endorsement decision public. “Seven major pieces of legislation have become law with his help, and that is a legacy of which all Idahoans can be proud.”

Otter has signed the following legislation into Idaho Code: 

• Idaho’s Parental Consent law, requiring parental permission before a girl can get an abortion;
• A law giving mothers the right to view an ultrasound before an abortion;
• A law making it a felony to coerce a woman into getting an abortion – the first such law in the nation;
• Idaho Code protects the Conscience Rights of Idaho health care professionals;
• Idaho prohibits the coverage of elective abortion as part of ObamaCare;
• Idaho prohibits the abortion of a baby after 20 weeks’ gestation;
• The state now makes it a crime to assist with a suicide.

“Beyond his signature on pieces of legislation adopted by the Legislature, Governor Otter has helped foster a climate in the Idaho Legislature which welcomes our effort to protect preborn babies and their mothers from the scourge of abortion,” Ripley said. “There is no doubt Otter has earned the support of pro-Life voters in November.”

By contrast, Ripley expressed grave concern about the views of Otter’s Democratic opponent, A.J. Balukoff.

“A review of Mr. Balukoff’s statements on abortion make it clear that he supports both Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton,” Ripley asserted. “Tens of thousands of Idaho babies have died as a result of these Supreme Court edicts on abortion. We are convinced that a Balukoff Administration would be hostile to the interests of preborn Idahoans and their mothers.”

 “We are asking pro-Life voters across Idaho to join us in supporting Butch Otter for another term as governor,” Ripley concluded.

 -end-

It is the duty of every good socialist to know when it is time to die for the good of the whole. Or to procreate.

That is the underlying philosophy expressed by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of ObamaCare, in an article he wrote entitled, “Why I Hope to Die at 75”. The story of his views was picked up by Alex Jones on his InfoWars website.

Dr. Emanuel writes,

                “I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a good age to aim to stop.”

Emanuel goes on to argue that after 75, the only reasonable medical treatment which ought to be given to the elderly is palliative – that is, treatments to manage pain. He claims that he will refuse any surgery or treatments designed to extend his life, and urges society to adopt his enlightened view of the matter.

Still think ObamaCare does not pose a threat to the disabled and elderly?

But Emanuel is not the only creepy dude hanging around the Oval Office. The president’s senior science advisor, John P. Holdren has similarly radical views about the question of procreation. According to the Alex Jones article, Holdren believes that society should begin implanting “sterilizing capsules” into all young women at puberty to ensure that they don’t reproduce. Governmental permission could be granted to remove the capsule should some bureaucrat decide that it is in the social interest to have more children.

Can forced abortions be very behind?

It is truly astonishing that such people have acquired so much power and influence in our national affairs.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.infowars.com/obamacare-architect-says-society-would-be-better-off-if-people-only-lived-to-age-75/

Fervent prayer for the future is this nation is urgently needed.

During the debate on Obama’s scheme to revolutionize and undermine America’s health care system, we warned that ObamaCare would lead to a major expansion of abortion in the nation. Democrats who claimed to be “pro-Life” shooed us away with a theatrical scheme to amend Obama’s bill. They would not support Obama unless they got language prohibiting the expenditure of tax dollars to pay for elective abortions.

After receiving some kind of paper from the White House, Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak declared that he had won assurances from President Obama that ObamaCare would not pay for abortions. Whamo. The nation has been reeling ever since.

Yesterday a report from the Government Accountability Office laid bare the deception: Despite language in the law requiring that companies selling subsidized ObamaCare policies do not use tax monies to pay for elective abortion – the law is being widely ignored by insurance companies.

According to an article on Politico, the GAO report that every insurance plan sold Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Vermont and Rhode Island included coverage for elective abortions. (Does anyone still consider Gov. Chris Christie a “pro-Life” governor?).

The list of states singled out should not be understood to be the limit of the taxpayer abuse.

The article further advised the public that 1038 Obama plans sold across the nation include elective abortion coverage.

In response to the GAO report, the Department of Health & Human Services said it would be sending out more instructions to various “stake holders” that abortion coverage must be paid for through separate funds. No sense of urgency here, no concern that numerous studies have proven that taxpayer subsidies increase the abortion rate. We’ll send those guys a memo.

How about an FBI investigation into the illegal use of taxpayer funds? Would fines or a prosecution be too much to hope for?

Of course it is. This is Obama’s America. And no honest American can feign surprise that the Abortion Industry is one of the chief beneficiaries of ObamaCare.

And by the way – some eager reporter found Bart Stupak to ask if he regretted his vote to impose ObamaCare on the nation given the fact that it is clearly subsidizing the destruction of innocent babies. No, he said. He is proud of his vote. 

May God take mercy upon him. More mercy than he and Obama have shown to those babies being ripped from their mothers’ wombs on our credit card.

Several Republican candidates around the nation are waging battle with the propaganda that conservatives are engaged in a “war on women”.   For several years Planned Parenthood has been leading the chorus and deceiving women – especially young women – into believing that Republicans want to strip them of birth control pills. 

Most candidates have not handled the issue well, though they might be forgiven because many in media are active partisans, involved in helping to confuse the lines between contraceptives and abortion-causing drugs. Planned Parenthood has many allies in its effort to blur lines and definitions.

Pro-Life Republican Cory Gardner, for instance, running for the Senate in Colorado, has announced that he supports making the common birth control pill available to women over the counter; that is, without a prescription from a doctor. Obviously that would make such drugs cheaper and more convenient to obtain.

Planned Parenthood pounced on his proposal: They claim it is a cynical attempt to deceive women.

That is bold. It is Planned Parenthood itself who has done more to cynically manipulate women and girls into buying its dumbed-down version of “feminism” than any other organization in the nation. In their world, “free” contraception equals freedom.

They are driving this message with a war chest worth tens of millions, provided by billionaires like George Soros, Amber Mostyn, Michael Bloomberg, in a bid to protect the power of Democrat Leader Harry Reid.

While we appreciate the necessity of educating voters on the difference between aborton-causing drugs like Plan B and common birth control pills, it is nevertheless disturbing that women are receiving so little information about the risks of birth control pills

A recently published study by Dr. Elisabeth Beaber of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found that women using the Pill had a 50% higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who did not use the hormone to manage conception. Proposals to make these drugs more easily available – without medical supervision – are no particular favor to women.

Your tax dollars at work – with a little help from Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

On Monday, Idaho Public TV will air a special called “After Tiller”, depicting the life and times of notorious baby killer, George Tiller. Before his death, Tiller was the nation’s leading late-term abortionist, operating under the legal and political protection of Kathleen Sebelius back when she was governor of Kansas.

Tiller’s operation was so vast that he had his own backyard incinerator to dispose of the little babies he butchered in his clinic. We remember the ashes of preborn children descending upon the shoulders and hair of pro-Life protesters outside his abortuary.

Public Broadcasting will “celebrate” George Tiller on Monday evening (10 pm, Boise time) and apparently mourn his passing.

ALL’s Judie Brown issued a blistering commentary about the matter on Friday morning. She has, of course, not yet seen the broadcast. But she has carefully the promotional materials PBS is using to encourage viewership. She also ran across an interview with the producer, Lana Wilson. She defended her work, arguing that people like Tiller deserve “to have more compassion… instead of judging”.

Mrs. Brown also uncovered the uncomfortable fact that the production of this dark propaganda effort came from America’s abortion industry.

We certainly don’t recommend that our readers take the time to watch this ugly “documentary”. Your time would be better spent asking your legislator whether the State of Idaho should continue to underwrite the operation of Idaho Public TV as a public relations vehicle for Planned Parenthood.

The recent ruling by judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals represents a major threat to the entire structure of ObamaCare. It is, by far, the most serious threat yet to Obama’s agenda.

Media outlets have focused on the issue of tax funded subsidies flowing throughout the ObamaCare enterprise to individuals and insurance companies. The fact that the Appeals Court struck down those subsidies in the majority of states who did not create a “state exchange” is certainly a major blow. Among other implications, it would seem obvious that the ruling – if upheld on certain appeal to the Supreme Court – will have the effect of invalidating most of the individual contracts being purchased to date through the federal exchange.

The aspect of the ruling receiving less attention – that federal exchanges cannot impose penalties on individuals and companies – seems to be the most important. Unless the federal government retains the coercive power to impose ObamaCare on people and businesses, there is no possibility that ObamaCare can function. This is the part of ObamaCare which has spread fear and loathing throughout the private sector as business leaders face the prospect of IRS agents swooping down upon small and medium businesses to impose draconian penalties if they failed to comply with the insurance mandates.

Of course the Obama Regime has been fighting madly to deny that their law made any meaningful distinction between a “federal” exchange and a “state” exchange. At most, they have argued, the absence of language to impose penalties or give away tax dollars in the code section creating a federal exchange is a “typo”. 

But, of course, laws are laws. They say what they say, regardless of post-hoc constructions. The legislation Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass in order to actually read does not say anything about the federal exchange’s power to impose penalties. All of that language is in the sections dealing with state-based exchanges.

And, it turns out, this is no accident. The intrepid Rush Limbaugh has uncovered public statements by the law’s leading architect, one Jonathan Gruber. The man is an economics professor at MIT. Mr. Limbaugh has two video clips on his website right now in which Professor Gruber clearly explains that the ObamaCare law was written to coerce states into partnering with Obama in remaking America. There were the incentives of subsidies … and the sticks of penalties. Professor Gruber makes it clear that Obama & Company never envisioned that a majority of states would declined their gracious offer. This is a key piece of the backstory over ObamaCare’s disastrous roll-out.

This whole issue was hotly debated when the Idaho Legislature considered creating a state exchange. We were among those telling legislators that the ObamaCare law was badly written and that there was every chance that Idaho’s employers could be protected from serious sanctions if Idaho stood firm against Obama and his agenda. We were scoffed at by proponents.

At the very least, it seems clear that Idaho made a serious mistake in rushing to create a state exchange. On the other hand, the problem may be a more serious one for those who voted to partner with Obama.

The ruling by the DC Circuit demonstrates that our concerns were not only valid, they were very serious.

The matter will not be settled until the Supreme Court considers Obama’s over-reach and sleight of hand in pretending that the ObamaCare law gives the IRS enormous powers to regulate American enterprise. Our bet is that Obama is going to lose this fight, meaning that he will have to wait upon Congress to amend the law or abandon the whole scheme.

Such a ruling will not, tragically enough, bring any relief to the citizens or businesses operating in Idaho since the Legislature has made its pact with the devil. In that event, pressure will be fierce for the Legislature to repeal the state exchange.

Thank You Lord.

Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case was of tremendous importance to the pro-Life movement. At stake was the question of whether a president of the United States could force private employers, against their wills and conscience, to pay for the destruction of innocent preborn children.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court upheld the sacred principle that the whims of those holding political power do not trump religious freedom. (Remember that the “Obama Mandate” is not the result of legislation duly enacted by the Congress and signed into law by the President – but a gross abuse by Mr. Obama of his executive authority).

It is chilling, indeed, to consider the consequences for America had the Court failed to recognize and uphold the First Amendment, which is the founding notion of this nation.

Among those joining us in celebrating the victory is Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association: “We are very thankful that the Supreme Court acted to protect family businesses from government coercion and fines for simply honoring the tenets of their faith. This is a much-needed victory for faith freedoms, because this Administration continues its assault on the values of the faith community. We are witnessing increasing attempts by the government to coerce the faith community to adopt the government’s viewpoint in matters of conscience.”

Idaho’s Governor Butch Otter also issued a statement yesterday:

“As governor of one of the states weighing in on this case, I’m encouraged to see religious liberty trumping ObamaCare’s headlong rush to impose a contraceptive mandate on the American people. Today’s ruling confirms once against the President Obama’s policies – when left unchecked – are eroding our Constitutional rights. I remain committed to challenging that misguided course at every opportunity, and I’m grateful to courageous individuals and employers willing to stand up and be counted.”

The governor’s acknowledgement of the Green Family is mroe than appropriate. They are patriots who have stood in the breach not only for the Christian community in America – but for that golden idea which inspired a new and great nation.