Alert Readers know that Your Business Blogger(R) teaches at the Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria and Arlington. Jill Biden, The Second Lady, is an enthusiastic supporter of the Community College system and proves it two days a week.

By teaching English at the Alexandria campus.

Even if one disagrees with her politics, everyone agrees on one thing about Dr. Biden:

She is authentic.

Following is her interview on CBS.

(Sarah Palin never got a softball interview like this. Goodness, this is typical of interviews JOE Biden lounges through...)

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Article here, Jill Biden: Second Lady of the Land; Exclusive Interview With Wife of Vice President, Who Talks About Family, Career, and Advocating for Military Families

Thank you (foot)notes:

Botox, hair plugs, capped teeth. Why does the media love Joe Biden? Because he's authentic too...

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 8:15 AM | Permalink
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Be sure to get your personal avatar when you visit www.virtualmarchforlife.com

And bloggers get the code for a banner.

Posted at 8:52 PM | Permalink
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Cash for KidsDon't Like Abortion?
Don't Have One.
Pro-Choice Bumper Sticker

Like abortion or not, soon we may all have to pay for them.

Down baby?
"It's Girl, but I want a boy."
Bad Hair Day?

Whatever the reason abortion is legal.

Now Pro-Lifers will fund abortions. (A simple follow-on tax: we already fund Planned Parenthood offices with our tax dollars.)

Charmaine sends this along,

Dear Friend of Life,

They did it. On Christmas Eve, the Senate pushed through the largest expansion of federally-funded abortion since Roe v. Wade. This reckless bill will subsidize insurance plans that cover elective abortions - and your tax dollars will be paying for it.

Americans United for Life is fighting back against taxpayer-funded abortions. Will you stand with us against Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Planned Parenthood by making a year-end, tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250 or more?

The taking of innocent life is indefensible, and now they want to force you to pay for it. Your tax dollars should never be used to pay for abortions.

For the first time in history, this irresponsible bill actually imposes a mandatory abortion tax on unwilling Americans. Even if you never intend to have an abortion, this bill forces you to pay for elective abortion coverage with your tax dollars! However there is still time to prevent this tragedy.

Please help us fight back against taxpayer-funded abortions with an urgently needed year-end, tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250 or more. I'm counting on your financial support so we can continue our life-saving work today.

We urgently need you to stand with us and the millions of pro-life Americans who will be funding abortions every time we pay our federal income taxes. The pro-abortion forces and their supporters in Congress have been emboldened by this government takeover of health care. They are rolling back decades of pro-life law and will not stop. As we enter the New Year, we will continue to stand for the cause of life and against these pro-abortion forces that are on the march.

Yours for Life,
For Life,


Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life

P.S. This is your last chance to make a year-end, tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250 or more. Every dollar of your generous donation is 100% tax-deductible.

With your support, we'll continue working to ensure that your tax dollars are never used to pay for abortions.

655 15th St NW | Ste 410 | Washington, DC 20005

310 S Peoria Street | Ste 500 | Chicago, IL 60607

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 10:55 AM | Permalink
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The Y2K Bug
Credit: Hannah YoestThe world was coming to an end at midnight 31 December, 1999.

We had planned for it for years. It was, as one techno-wag said, "a disaster with a deadline."

The Year 2000 roll-over was going to be big; world wide. No escape.

We knew this would be no mere technology challenge to be solved with exceptional American ingenuity. Y2K was problematic with unknown unknowns.

The internet would crash. Cell phones dead. The power grid dark.

Armageddon.

In the late 1990's one-half of the world's internet traffic passed through the Commonwealth of Virginia, thanks to America On Line -- AOL.com. And maybe another Northern Virginia entity in Arlington: the Pentagon. I think that was a secret.

Your Business Blogger(R) had the Y2K responsibility for Health and Human Resources, a $5 billion enterprise in the Virginia government. The boss, governor Jim Gilmore, a former military intelligence officer, knew what we could and couldn't do to combat the Y2K Bug.

There was a lot we couldn't do. And it wasn't all technology.

It was a condition of continued employment that there were to be no interruptions or adverse incidents to the citizens of the Commonwealth and the rest of the World.

(We worker-bees could not get it wrong. The world ends AND get a bad employee appraisal. A sub-par job performance would not be a simple career-ending/world-ending mistake. Going out with a bang, so to say.)

Business literature notes the adrenaline rush of the "peak experience." The Governor of Virginia had this as he had The Whole World In His Hands.

The web had to run for the wide world and more: Virginia's hospital doors had to remain open; the prison doors closed. Fresh water and waste water valves had to direct flow in the correct and desired directions.

Local first responders had to be able to coordinate communications across jurisdictional silos. Governor Gilmore was among the first to realize the importance of seamless radio traffic between Fed-State-Local law enforcement. (It still wouldn't be fixed years later. Re: 9.11).

Lots of challenges beyond government resources. So Gilmore hired the biggest IT consulting firms on the planet and bought their solutions packages. In my weekly staff meetings I had a dozen of the smartest experts in the business. I was not one of them.

They let me think I was in control at the head of the table. And maybe so. But these consultants wouldn't let me, a mere bureaucrat, make a mistake.

But there were some mistakes the professional tech-gurus could not save me from.

One of the first steps was to inventory hardware, software for both the public sector and those private vendors who supplied the government. Every computer and bit of software that touched the government had to be inspected and brought into a procedure for standardized compliance. Verified with a form. With signatures. Every laptop. Everywhere.

I started by reviewing the vendors for the $400 million Department of Health. It had over 11,000 suppliers.

---Easy MBA 101 stuff---

So I directed the staff to report on the number of vendors that did most of the business with us, say 80-90% of the dollar volume.

---More smarty-pants MBA inquiries---

To no one's shock and awe, save mine, we learned that 900 vendors did 90% of the business with that government agency.

I addressed the staff. "You mean," says I, "We have to manage over 10,000 vendors to deliver 10% of our purchase orders?" My chin thrust with smug disbelief.

"So?" the staff asked as one man.

---Shortly, know-it-all MBA would meet political realities---

I strongly suggested that we should look to consolidate some vendors and look at ways to reduce the number of transactions and paper work. Time and motion studies demonstrated that processing each purchase order cost $150. I would fix this! The efficiency of Frederick Taylor.

The staff left the room. Slowly. They knew something I did not.

But they got on the job and the machinery of government began to move. I so pride myself on getting completed staff work.

The staff saw the wisdom of my directives. The efficiency! The simplicity! The savings!

I leaned back in chair pleased with the MBA-intellect the governor hired.

The Governor would have done better to hire a politician.

In mere hours the calls came in. No, not from disgruntled vendors, but from locally elected officials representing the disgruntled vendors who were about to be shut out of government business.

No one was happy that rice bowls were going to be broken.

And the fact that this all took less than a day alerted me that back channels were working at the speed of light.

The vendors and the politicians were aided and abetted by an army of helpful bureaucrats who pushed all that paper around.

The populace clamors for efficient government as long as suppliers and jobs are cut in someone else's backyard.

I didn't have a chance. Nor did the citizens' tax dollars.

This was my first rude lesson in 'multiple points of accountability.' In government a civil servant answers to his boss, of course. But he also must be mindful of other politicians, the press, the public, the unions, the lobbyists and peers making a grab for his budget.

The supply chain efficiency fight wasn't worth the political capital necessary to win. There are real reasons why governments seem to be so inefficient.

My lesson learned, I quickly moved on to other battles where I had half a chance.

Virginia spent $215 million and nothing happened here or the rest of the world. There were some problems in Nigeria. We now think it was some kind of scam.

Nothing crashed. Except for that super-secret three-letter-agency satellite...and some defibrillators. Not my fault. No one died.

The lesson learned was that managing technology was the easy part. The real challenge was in managing people.

It always is.

Jack Yoest is an adjunct professor at the Northern Virginia Community College. He teaches management, sales, marketing and new media.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 2:34 PM | Permalink
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Alert Reader Terry, one of the sharpest lawyers in DC, sends this along,

To My Liberal Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful,personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.

Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere .

Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.

To My Conservative Friends:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 9:55 PM | Permalink
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Merry Christmas.

NSFW

Politically Incorrect. At the Yoest house this morning we are getting reading for the health care vote -- getting ready to watch government run amuck.

The Senators are advancing the health care bill that covers pre-existing conditions. This is not insurance.

Insurance is the management and calculating for risk. Covering and paying for pre-existing conditions is not insurance -- it is charity. Once an adverse health condition is known there is no risk to manage and insurance companies do not need to be involved. The care of the currently sick is the job of health care providers and can be paid and provided for by philanthropy.

Not the insurance companies. Not the taxpayer.

To be precise, if ObamaCare demands to cover pre-existing conditions, then Pelosi-Reid should should remove insurance companies as middle man and force the taxpayers to fund the unfortunate, unwilling and unknowing directly. But.

But this would be charity. Such philanthropy is not the purpose of government. Charity is a test of the human heart -- not government coercion. And worse:

The Senate will force taxpayers to pay for abortions through insurance companies -- pre-existing or not.

The Senate has confused Health Insurance with Health Care.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Americans United for Life does not take a position on insurance or the insurance industry. AUL is a law firm concerned with protecting Life-at conception, abortion and rights of conscience. AUL and AUL Action opposes abortion and its public funding as written in the Senate's current proposed legislation. The opinion here is from Jack Yoest and no other.

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 8:42 AM | Permalink
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Merry Christmas. Charmaine with Jack and
The Penta-Posse in her DC office

Senator Ben Nelson (D) of Nebraska doesn't seem to fully understand that your tax dollars will go into the US Treasury and can come out as abortions.

Senator Dr. Tom Coburn noted an analogy: Just as taxpayer dollars go into the Treasury and come out as Social Security, all taxpayer funds are co-mingled and fungible.

To help clarify the cash flow, Charmaine sent this letter to Senator Nelson

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At 4:45 pm today on the floor of the United States Senate, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska made the following statement:

"...even though they [pro-life advocates] cannot constructively point out how it doesn't prohibit the use of federal funds or wall off those funds or keep them totally segregated. They just didn't like the language..."

As a result of this statement, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life, directed her legal team to contact the Senator's office and offer to provide an urgent briefing to clarify the facts about abortion provisions in the bill. In addition, she has issued this statement:

Senator Nelson has a strong, consistent pro-life voting record, and his vote for the manager's amendment was a surprise to all of us.

We have contacted his office and have offered to send our top legal team to fully brief him as soon as he has an opportunity. I believe it is absolutely critical that Senator Nelson has all of the facts before he casts his final vote on Christmas Eve.

The facts demonstrate that this bill will create the largest single expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade and impose a first-ever abortion tax on the American people.

As of this posting, Nelson's office has not agreed to meet with the AUL legal eagles, standing by even over these Christmas holidays. The Senator has been a bit busy with constituent concerns.

FOR THE FACTS, CLICK BELOW

http://blog.aul.org/2009/12/20/the-abortion-tax-and-other-problems-in-senator-reid%E2%80%99s-amendment/

http://blog.aul.org/2009/12/19/legal-analysis-of-life-concerns-in-managers-amendment/

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Michelle Malkin has More Nebraska voters call out Cornhuckster Ben Nelson

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 1:46 PM | Permalink
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You'd think there'd be parking in Your Nation's Capital in the dead of night.

You'd be wrong.

16 inches of snow and the Senate vote forced Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine into an unconventional parking spot for our Monster SUV with its enormous (carbon) footprint.

No. Every Senate Staffer worked all weekend and not because the DC snowplowpersons buried their cars.

(If the boss is working, the staff better be working. More than just business etiquette.)

So. Senate rules allow for 30 hours of debate from dropped bill to vote taking. 30 hours was up at 1am last night. Reid got his speedy vote on health care reform. They broke it. They bought it.

The baby is split.

Both Americans United for Life and Planned Parenthood now oppose ObamaCare.

What makes for such strange, well, bedfellows?

Our liberal pro-choice friends want abortion at any time, for any reason, at an everyday low price, funded by tax payers.

Conservative pro-lifers do not want any tax dollars to pay for abortion. As well as that other stuff; like the science that life begins at conception...

Both sides are unhappy with the bill. This is not a reason for our legislators to be happy.

Yes, some cynics-- ok, me-- suggest that pro-choice Planned Parenthood is not genuinely against ObamaCare. Liberals are planning to hang the abortion ornament on the healthcare Christmas tree on later laps. The Alert Reader will note that AUL had a statement up immediately after the vote. Planned Parenthood, as of this writing, has not updated there website.

The Senate Democrats have proved that they are indeed, the Party of Death. Let us work to show that the House Democrats are not.

This is how bad the Senate Democrats miscalculated: An Alert Reader sends this last night,

I was not for Huckabee last year, but watching him in Nebraska, [home of Nelson(D)] I would definitely like to vote for him in 2012. Merry Christmas!

Conservatives, who outnumber liberals 2 to 1 are now mad and mobilized. And so are pro-choicers. Planned Parenthood and Huckabee are surely planning joint appearances.

Here is Charmaine's statement, 60 Senators Just Made History...

60 U.S. Senators just made history by voting to move forward with a bill that imposes a first-ever mandatory abortion tax on the American people.

Majority Leader Reid held this vote in the middle of the night because he knows that the vast majority of Americans don't want this new tax and don't want tax dollars bankrolling insurance plans that cover abortion.

A 'yes' vote is a solid 'yes' to the expansion of federal funding for abortion.

We will be making this tragic decision clear to those constituents who have been misinformed that their Senator is pro-life.

ObamaCare cloture is not something that a Solomon would do.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 8:12 AM | Permalink
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Some 26,000 good-guys registered to listen to the WebCast that was conducted this past Tuesday night in Charmaine's offices at Americans United for Life.

Following is the follow-up letter from the Stop the Abortion Mandate coalition.

Webcast presenters: L to R Tony Perkins, Family Research Council; Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America; Kristan Hawkins, Students for Life; David Bereit, 40 Days for Life; Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life Marjorie Dannenfelser, Susan B. Anthony List; and Douglas Johnson, National Right to Life.
Photo Credit: Hannah Yoest

"Help stop the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade..."
Listen to the recording of the URGENT nationwide webcast to prevent Washington D.C. bureaucrats and abortion industry lobbyists from using GOVERNMENT FUNDS to pay for abortions and bailout the failing abortion industry!

Despite the fact that most Americans do NOT want our government to pay for abortion with their money, the Senate caved in to pressure from Planned Parenthood and abortion industry lobbyists.

The Senate health care bill -- if passed into law -- will result in a MASSIVE government-funded bailout of the abortion industry -- and the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade!

To respond swiftly to this crisis, the 70+ pro-life and pro-family organizations that make up the Stop the Abortion Mandate Coalition joined together on Tuesday, December 15, for a huge nationwide webcast, featuring a panel of expert presenters:
Webcast presenters: Tony Perkins, Wendy Wright, Kristan Hawkins, David Bereit, Charmaine Yoest, Marjorie Dannenfelser, and Douglas Johnson

The entire webcast event was recorded, and as you listen to the audio, you will discover:

* The LATEST UPDATES straight from our nation's capital...

* The shocking implications of the bill that the abortion industry is trying to ram through the United States Senate RIGHT NOW...

* Why respected leaders, national organizations, and pro-life people are joining together in record numbers to BLOCK this attempted power-grab...

* How YOU can make a difference at this crucial moment...

Listen now -- click here

Download MP3 file here

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment (see the actual language here) which passed in U.S. House of Representatives verison of health care reform ensures that government money will not be used to fund abortions. The Stupak Amendment clearly maintains the current status quo keeping in line with the already in-place Hyde Amendment. However, some are falsely saying that that the Stupak Amendment goes beyond Hyde. Check out our chart below which compares Stupak to Hyde and read this op-ed by the Con. Bart Stupak on what exactly his amendment does.

Stupak vs Hyde Chart

For more info, see Americans United for Life blog.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 11:04 PM | Permalink
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Charmaine recently sent this letter on the challenges of the government take-over of healthcare,

Dear Friend of Life,

NARAL Pro-Choice America claims to have 41 solidly pro-choice Senators and 185 pro-choice Congressmen. These pro-abortion politicians and the pro-abortion special interests are working around the clock to tear down pro-life safeguards that have been in place for decades.

ObamaCare Cash for Kids Abortion Bailout

These pro-abortion efforts have intensified recently with the government takeover of health care and we expect them to ramp up even more in the weeks and months to come. You have been invaluable to the pro-life effort - including your help in getting the Stupak-Pitts Amendment passed in the House but we need your help now more than ever. We have lost key votes in the Senate and need to act now to prevent more.

Pro-abortion activists are intensifying their efforts - will you help us ramp up our efforts with your tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250 or more to Americans United for Life? We urgently need your help now in 2009 to continue our work in the coming weeks and plan for our much-needed larger efforts in the coming months.

Americans United for Life (AUL) is our nation's first national pro-life group, but we don't have anywhere near the $1 billion annual budget that Planned Parenthood does. We simply have the support of pro-life families and individuals like you. We know you have been bombarded with fund raising appeals as the New Year approaches - including appeals from us - but this battle to roll back decades of existing pro-life law cannot go unchallenged. We must get our pro-life message out to as many people as possible.

We urgently need the support of you and friends of life around the nation to stand with us and support our life saving efforts before the end of 2009. Our immediate challenge is the very real prospect of taxpayer-funded abortion. For decades, the "Hyde Amendment" has served as a cornerstone of pro-life policy in preventing the government from subsidizing abortion. The number of babies saved by the Hyde Amendment numbers in the hundreds-of-thousands or even millions. And it is under relentless attack by the pro-abortion lobby.

How much does Planned Parenthood - the world's largest abortion provider (with an annual budget in excess of $1 billion) - stand to profit from this tragedy? Planned Parenthood, and its national network of abortion clinics, generated $85 million in profit last year! How many more lives will be lost with taxpayer dollars being used to fund abortion-on-demand?

As Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and their pro-abortion allies race towards government-run health care, we move perilously close to a new world in which taxpayers will foot the bill for abortion-on-demand. This is unacceptable. The taking of innocent life is not health care. And you should never be forced to pay for abortions! This tragedy of increased abortions funded by taxpayer dollars will happen without the intensified efforts of Americans United for Life and pro-life families across our nation standing in opposition.

Will you help us ramp up our year end efforts with your urgent, tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250 or more to Americans United for Life?

Sincerely,

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life

P.S. Founded in 1971, AUL is the first national pro-life organization in America. As we enter our fourth decade of pro-life work, we'll continue to make sure your tax dollars are never used to pay for abortions. I'm counting on your urgent year-end, tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250 or more so AUL can continue our efforts!

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 9:46 PM | Permalink
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Charmaine is hosting the Stop The Abortion Mandate WebCast from her offices in Your Nation's Capital across from the Treasury building.

Interesting venue. The US Treasury is where our tax dollars will flow into - and out of - to pay for abortions under ObamaCare. Register and listen in tonight.

Obama's Cash for Kids Program Abortion is horror enough. Now we have to pay for it. Cash for Kids.

Even Pro-Choice liberals don't care for this...

Charmaine's letter follows.

Dear Friend,

We desperately need your help as the U.S. Senate moves on pro-abortion health care legislation, so please join us for a Stop the Abortion Mandate Coalition live audiocast roundtable - Tuesday night, December 15th at 9 p.m. ET - to find out what you can do to take action on this urgent issue.

LIVE AUDIOCAST DETAILS:

WHAT: Stop the Abortion Mandate Urgent Audiocast

DATE: Tuesday, December 15th

TIME: 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central, 7 PM Mountain, 6 PM Pacific

Register now at: www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com/audiocast

Expert presenters include:

CHARMAINE YOEST, Americans United for Life

MARJORIE DANNENFELSER, Susan B. Anthony List

TONY PERKINS, Family Research Council

KRISTAN HAWKINS, Students for Life of America

DOUGLAS JOHNSON, National Right to Life Committee

KRISTEN DAY, Democrats for Life

WENDY WRIGHT, Concerned Women for America

DAVID BEREIT, 40 Days for Life

JOIN US TO HEAR...

The LATEST UPDATES on abortion and its inclusion in the Senate health care
legislation...

What's at stake if the abortion industry successfully pushes their agenda through passage of this pro-abortion bill...

What you can do SPECIFICALLY to help us BLOCK this NOW.

We hope you can join us. Thank you for helping defend life!

For Life,

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO

P.S. Even if you can't participate in this live audiocast, you can contact Congress today by clicking here and call your Senator at (202) 224-3121.

P.S.S. Please forward this email to at least one friend.

http://stoptheabortionmandate.com/webcast/

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 6:11 AM | Permalink
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Senator Hatch reads Americans United for Life Action's Score Letter about Abortion in Health Care, by Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.. A "score" is the report card used by non-profits to grade politicians on each vote. Watch the short video:

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity and at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Posted at 2:50 PM | Permalink
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Alert Reader Stan H sends this along, circulating on the 'net:

Dear Employees:

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%.

But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead. This has really been bothering me since I believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who would have to go.

So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lots and found sixty 'Obama' bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem.

They voted for change...... I gave it to them.

I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

THE BOSS

Are all managers really like this? Or is this boss simply more honest?

Posted at 1:45 PM | Permalink
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Charmaine has an article up this morning on your tax dollars going to pay for abortions. Only 13 percent of the American public approves of tax-payer funding of abortion.

* OPINION
* OCTOBER 14, 2009, 6:57 P.M. ET

Tax Dollars Shouldn't Fund Abortion
Every Democratic health bill so far on offer would change 30 years of federal practice.
By CHARMAINE YOEST [Ph.D.]

The debate over health-care reform is now entering a new phase. This week, the Senate Finance Committee voted for Sen. Max Baucus's health-care bill, which sets up a possible Senate vote on the legislation later this month. Aggressive negotiations are underway on how to handle abortion funding.

Democratic leaders claim that all they want is to maintain the "status quo" on abortion. In reality, maintaining what we have now isn't even on the table. To do that, a health-care bill would have to explicitly prevent federal dollars from being used for elective abortions. Provisions that would have done that were killed by all five committees that have handled health-care reform bills this year. Instead, the abortion compromise in the works is a provision modeled on an amendment Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif.) added to the House bill.

The Capps Amendment is a radical departure from the status quo. As it stands now, the federal government does not pay into health-care plans that cover elective abortions. What's more, no government health plans cover elective abortion, period. That includes Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and other programs.

Continued at the jump. Be sure to read the comments on the original article on WSJ.com.

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @CharmaineYoest and @JackYoest

Continue Reading »

Posted at 11:44 AM | Permalink
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John Howland, who runs the USNA-AT-Large sends this along -- it deserves a wide audience.

What the President's Attack on the CIA Really Means, By Herbert Meyer, August 26, 2009

There is now just one group of people exempt from President Obama's worldwide ban on torture: the men and women of the CIA.

By authorizing Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to determine whether a full criminal investigation of CIA employees and contractors is warranted for the manner in which they interrogated captured terrorists, the President has thrown his power and support behind those far-left ideologues -- in Congress and elsewhere -- who believe that the CIA is a bigger threat to our country than al Qaeda.

I know the men and women of the CIA -- I had the honor of working with them during the Reagan Administration -- and they would rather have their fingernails pulled out with pliers or have holes drilled into their knees (neither of which they did to captured terrorists, as the Justice Department's hot-shot investigators will learn) than be thought of as anything other than honorable patriots doing their best, under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, to protect our country from its enemies.

It will be excruciating for them to face their colleagues each morning under the strain of looming criminal prosecutions that will destroy their careers and deplete their meager savings accounts -- and, even worse, to come home to their families each evening with the stench of President Obama's contempt for their honor in the air.

Also read the INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING FOR Chief Executive Officers By HERBERT MEYER

Continue Reading »

Posted at 2:39 PM | Permalink
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Charmaine will be appearing on the 700 Club tomorrow discussing abortion and healthcare.

(What an odd juxtaposition of words: Abortion -- Healthcare; 'abortion' takes the life of a baby and 'healthcare' preserves life.) (Except in ObamaCare where there is denial-of-care for newborns and, now, the elderly.)

As Your Business Blogger(R) tells my students, "The best indication of future performance...is past performance."

The clip can be watched now on the CBN website. Click here: What is the Truth About Abortions and Health Care Reform?

Please watch and let us know what you think. And how you think Charmaine's hair looks...


Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Reagan Conservatives

Stop the Abortion Mandate

And watch the Bloodmoney trailer:

In reducing abortions, House bills diverge.

Americans United For Life Welcomes South Dakota Decision Affirming a Woman's Right to Know.

Posted at 8:23 PM | Permalink
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A must-read book suggestion for our deadly times: The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy. It has been a long-time favorite of ours.

It will soon be everyone's favorite.

From a few years ago...

Winston Churchill said that if a book is not worth reading twice, it's not worth reading once. Charmaine has a book suggestion that deserves double coverage.

Cross Posted at Reasoned Audacity by Charmaine:

I love nothing better as a Christmas present than a good book. (Unless, of course, the present sparkles.) After all the paper has been ripped apart, discarded, and finally cleaned up. . . to sit down with a cup of tea, ignore the kids (who are fighting, hopefully, playing happily with new toys) and lose yourself in another world. . .That's Christmas cheer for me.

If that's you, or someone you love, then National Review has the list for you! Kathryn put up today NRO's annual Christmas book-buying guide.

There are some terrific suggestions from Ralph McInerny, Michael Novak, Victor Davis Hanson, Mary Ann Glendon, and, well, me.

My own suggestion is The Thanatos Syndrome, by Walker Percy. First, it's just a great story. But with Percy, there's always two more layers. He's such an unusual craftsman with words, that it's a joy to read him, technically -- to sit back and just watch the words march across the page. It's almost like watching Percy play.

More importantly, however, I called this novel "subversive" because it's not until the end of the book that the full import of the story becomes clear. He subtly pulls the reader along for a ride, then weaves a pro-life message into the book's wackiness.

I was bemused at the end -- I remember turning to Jack and saying, "Wow, how did he do that?" The book won a National Book Award!

Did I mention the underlying pro-life message??

What a hoot.

I think this Christmas, I'll reread it.

* * *

Now it's your turn. What else should I be reading this Christmas??

Cross-posted at Zeitgeist.

From Ralph C. Wood,

...Percy likens late 20th-century American life to the Weimar Republic. He finds harrowing parallels between our own behaviorists and the German scientists who practiced eugenics while quoting Rilke and Goethe and Schiller.

Our culture shares with theirs, Percy suggests. a mere utilitarian regard for human life.

The logical conclusion of that view is that those who are "useless" to themselves or the world -- unwanted infants, nursing home residents and victims of severe mongolism, epilepsy, encephalitis, arteriosclerosis, progressive neurological disease and hopeless schizophrenia -- ought to be "compassionately" eliminated.

In the absence of a "life with dignity," reasons one of Percy's humanist technicians, those who make no 'contribution" to society should all be accorded their right to a "death with dignity."

The sickness-unto-death that first manifested itself at Verdun and the Somme did not end with Dachau and Hiroshima; it has penetrated to the very core of American culture.

Percy gives our spiritual disease terrifying expression by having a team of well-meaning humanists enact their own deceptively decent form of demonry.

Follow Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine Yoest on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Posted at 10:15 PM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R) served a tour of duty in government and quickly learned that the two most important words in looking at a law were:

Shall, and
May

May meant, well, nothing. If there is a budget... It'd be nice... You have the option... Whatever. I could ignore it.

And like any time-starved senior manager I was desperate to find anything I could ignore.

But what I couldn't ignore was that four letter word, "Shall." (We also couldn't ignore any campaign promises.)

(In the days before Obama...)

Anyway,

Shall sounded nice. A breezy word; sounding like: shallow or sanguine. Simple.

Not.

Yes, those two little words used to dominate my public service life:

May

Shall

Shall or May. In crafting legislation, policy and procedure my two little buddies could dictate or suggest.

Directive or suggestive.

"Shall" was not the first word in a question. 'Shall' did not ask, did not seek permission, did not offer options. 'Shall' is not squeeshy legalese.

Shall would appear as an ordinary word. But it is not. It is SHALL. It is the Scriptural equivalent of the GREAT I AM.

'SHALL' shall not be disobeyed. It meant that the text which follows 'Shall' directs that ITS WILL WILL BE DONE.

"Shall" indicated that an action was to be followed. Concrete Action.

'May' was a sandy suggestion. An option. An idea whose time may or may not have come.

Whole government departments and the livelihoods of 100's of thousands of (expensive) bureaucrats hinged on 'shall' and 'may.'

Under Obama's Health Care proposal. Gary Bauer sends this along,

"Obama's Death Panel"

Sarah Palin is making headlines again, this time by expressing her views on the national debate over healthcare reform. In a Facebook blog entry, Palin wrote, "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." I think it's clear where she stands!

Over the weekend, Washington Post columnist Charles Lane explored the legislation at the root of this particularly controversial aspect of healthcare reform -- Section 1233 on end-of-life decisions. Here are some excerpts of his column:

"...at least as I read it, Section 1233 is not totally innocuous. ...Section 1233, however, addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones. ...If it's all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what's it doing in a measure to 'bend the curve' on health-care costs? "...the [end-of-life] consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite 'purely voluntary,'... Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that's an incentive to insist. ...

"What's more, Section 1233 dictates, at some length, the content of the consultation.

The doctor 'shall' [SHALL] discuss 'advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to'; ... and 'a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families.'

...Who belongs on 'a list' of helpful 'resources'? The Roman Catholic Church? Jack Kevorkian?"

Emphasis mine.

Lotsa power in SHALL. That's why "Congress shall make no law..." is so popular.

Lotsa liberty lost in SHALL.

Shall will soon dominate all our lives if Obama has his "health care" way.

Follow us on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Posted at 7:25 AM | Permalink

A few decades ago I had a boss who demanded that I brush my teeth. Another supervisor from the same organization didn't like my haircut. Or how my shirt was starched. Another manager monitored my weight.

What organization can make those demands?

A Fortune 500?

FOX Cable News?

No. The US Army. Only the very large government organization could make and enforce these demands.

The Army was providing my (free) dental care and demanded that I sit thru tooth maintenance classes.

The Army was providing my (free) health care and demanded that my weight be within government prescribed limits.

That was the deal: The country would would give me all I needed; I would give all.

There was not much Freedom for the Fighters for Freedom.

Here is the deal of ObamaCare: You will be given all: Obama will take all.

There will not be much freedom.

Your Business Blogger(R) as a Second Lieutenant.

Obama will deny care to the elderly to accommodate the 50 million new people added to the health care system. Who will get in line to demand their "free health care."

But Obama will limit resources to fulfill this vast increase in demand.

ObamaCare will deny health care to our elderly patients. No hip replacement for mom...

Alert Reader Larry C. sends the following,

The following is a brief outline of this bill put together by Mat Staver of the Freedom Foundation and Liberty Counsel (contact info is at the end). The comments by the brief are Mat's,

Obama Health Care Plan Details

HR 3200 currently under consideration in the House of Representatives

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!

Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!

Pg 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

Pg 58HC Bill - Gov't will have real-time access to individual's finances & a National ID Health care card will be issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your banks accts for electronic funds transfer.

Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community orgs (ACORN).

Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating an HC Exchange to bring priv HC plans under Govt control.

Pg 84 Sec 203 HC bill - Govt mandates ALL benefit packages for private Health Care plans in the Exchange

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare!

Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Govt mandates linguistic appropriate services.

Example - Translation for illegal aliens.

Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members - Your Health Care WILL be rationed

Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automat.enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.

Pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue Govt on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monopoly.

Pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The Govt will tell YOU what you can make.

Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for HC for part time employees AND their families.

Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer w/ payroll 400k & above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll

Pg 150 Lines 9-13 Biz w payroll btw 251k & 400k who doesnt provide public opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesnt have acceptable HC according to Govt will be taxed 2.5% of income.

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay).

Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans financial and personal records.

Pg 203 Line 14-15 HC - "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that. Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Govt will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.

Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same.

Pg 253 Line 10-18 Govt sets value of Dr's time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.

Pg 265 Sec 1131Govt mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries.

Pg 268 Sec 1141 Fed Govt regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs.

Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals - Cancer patients - welcome to rationing!

Page 280 Sec 1151 The Govt will penalize hospitals for what Govt deems preventable readmissions. (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release.)

Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Drs, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission-Govt will penalize you.

Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Drs. what/how much they can own.

Pg 317-318 lines 21-25,1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Govt is mandating hospitals cannot expand.

pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!

Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 - Govt mandates established of outcome based measures. HC the way they want. Rationing.

Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Govt has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Govt plan.

Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people!

Pg 379 Sec 1191 Govt creates more bureaucracy - Telehealth Advisory Committee. HC by phone/Internet?

Pg 425 Lines 4-12 Govt mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life.

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory!

Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Gov't provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.

Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Govt mandates program for orders for end of life. The Gov't has a say in how your life ends.

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "adv. care planning consult" will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.

Pg 429 Lines 10-12 "adv. care consultation" may incl an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOV

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Govt will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life

(NOTE FROM RJ: The above really does give the government the authority to determine who lives and dies, and when. A government bureaucrat really will be making this decision for you and your loved ones.)

Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Svcs here!!?

Pg 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?

Pg 489 Sec 1308 The Govt will cover Marriage & Family therapy. They will insert Government into your marriage. Pg 494-498 Govt will cover Mental Health Svcs including defining, creating, rationing those svcs

PG 502 Sec 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. - Hello Big Brother - Literally.

Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Gov't will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic med records.

Pg 503 lines 21-25 Gov't may secure data directly from any depart or agency of the US including your data.

Pg 504 Lines 6-10 The "Center" will collect data both published & unpublished (that means public & your private info)

PG 506 Lines 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data.

PG 518 Lines 21-25 The Commission will have input from HC consumer reps - Can you say unions & ACORN?

PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.

PG 621 Lines 20-25 Gov't will define what Quality means in HC. Since when does Gov't know about quality?

Pg 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the Quality Standards, Govt will transfer $$ from to other Govt Trust Funds. More Taxes.

PG 624 "Quality" measures shall be designed to assess outcomes & functional status of patients.

PG 624 "Quality" measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc

Pg 628 Sec 1443 Gov't will give "Multi-Stake Holders" Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of "Quality" Measures.

Pg 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those Multi-stake holder groups incl. Unions & groups like ACORN deciding HC quality.

Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Gov't may implement any "Quality measure" of HC Services as they see fit.

PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed "Quality Measures" for Physician Services & Dialysis Services.

Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision - Gov't wants to shine sunlight on Docs but not Govt.

Pg 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections - Looks okay.

PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency - Gov't will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you'll live.

Pg 676-686 Gov't will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, incl. teaching hospitals.

Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the Gov't with an $18 million website?

PGs 701-704 Sec 1619 If your part of HC plan isn't in Gov't HC Exchange but you qualify for Fed aid, no payment.

PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secr gets complaints (ACORN) on HC provider or supplier, Gov't can do background check.

PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny HC providers/ suppliers admittance into HC Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.

Pg 719-720 Sec 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable med equip or home med services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.

PG 722 Sec 1639 Gov't MANDATES Doctors must have face to face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Svcs.

PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same Gov't certifications will apply to Medicaid & CHIP (your kids)

PG 724 Lines 16-22 Gov't reserves rt to apply face to face certification for patient to ANY other HC service.

Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforce. proposes the Secretary-HHS will give Atty General access to ALL data.

PG 740-757 Gov't sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (Thats your tax dollars people)

Pg 757-762 Fed gov't will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)

Pg 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin

Pg 765 Sec 1711 Gov't will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)

Pg 768 Sec 1713 Gov't - Nurse Home Visitation Svcs (Hello union paybacks)

Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Svcs include-economic self-sufficiency, employ adv, school-readiness.

Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services - "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies." Govt ABORTIONS anyone

Pg 770 SEC 1714 Fed Gov't mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion & State Sovereign.

Pg 789-797 Gov't will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought to market. Bye innovation.

Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control Drs' education.

PG 801 Sec 1751 The Govt will decide which Health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!

Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc req. to register. Gov't takes over private payment sys.

Pg 820-824 Sec 1801 Govt will identify individ. ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.

Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Govt Sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research= Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.

PG 829-833 Gov't will impose a fee on ALL private health ins. plans incl. self insured to pay for Trust Fund!

PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by Gov't for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.

Pg 838-840 Gov't will design & implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids & families expect kids.

PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Prog. includes Gov't coming into your house & telling you how to parent!!!

Pg 859 Gov't will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes that's Billion.

Pg 865 The Gov't will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.

PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where Drs. perform mandatory HC for 2yrs for part loan repayment.

PG 876-892 The govt takes over the education of our Med students and Drs.

PG 898 The Govt will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure supply of public health prof.

PG 898 The Public health workforce corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.

PG 898 The Public health workforce corps shall consist of officers of Regular & Reserve Corps of Service.

PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.

PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular & Reserve Officers. HC Draft?

PG 910 The Govt will develop, build & run Public Health Training Centers.

PG 913-914 Govt starts a HC affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.

PG 915 SEC. 2251. Govt MANDDATES Cultural & linguistic competency training for HC professionals.

Pg 932 The Govt will estab Preventative & Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000-Billion.

PG 935 21-22 Govt will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Control YOU!!

PG 936 Govt will develop "Healthy People & National Public Health Perform. Standards" Tell me what to eat?

PG 942 Lines 22-25 More Gov't? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Svc, Minority Health, Women's Health

PG 950- 980 BIG GOV'T core pub health infrastructure including workforce capacity, lab systems; health info sys, etc

PG 993 Gov't will establish school based health clinics. Your kids won't have a chance.

PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say GOVT Brainwash!

PG 1001 The Govt will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

Licensed in Florida and the District of Columbia

Take Action Now.www.stoptheabortionmandate.org

Be sure to follow us on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

Posted at 9:30 AM | Permalink
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A paper delivered by Charmaine at UVA in 1997.

Foundations of the American Presidency: From Character to Charisma... and Cherry Trees to Big Macs,

"The pious ruler is by far the most likely to promote the public good."

Introduction: The Question of Character

On the 50th anniversary of Meet The Press, moderator Tim Russert told his special guest, President Bill Clinton, about an NBC poll that had asked "What is the image you have of Bill Clinton?"

Forty-two of the respondents replied "playing the saxophone;" six percent replied "eating at McDonald's." The President laughed. "It's funny," he replied. "And I haven't eaten at McDonald's a single time since I've been president."(2)

Presidency-watchers sprang into action and produced photographs of President Clinton leaving McDonald's, Big Mac in bag, on several occasions.

The following week, Russert brought up the discrepancy. Russert, obviously amused, commented that the President's spokesperson had explained that President Clinton meant he hadn't eaten AT a McDonald's in the last six years.

Russert's colleague, Lisa Myers queried, laughing, "Does this mean that when I get fires at the drive-thru, they don't count?" Russert turned to his guest, radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh and asked his opinion.

Limbaugh replied that he wondered how we could believe the President when he talks about Iraq if we can't believe what he says about Big Macs. The two venerable members of the Fourth Estate, Russert and Myers, just kept laughing.(3)

This incident illustrates Clinton's tendency to take liberties with the truth. No one, with the possible exception of Ray Kroc's heirs, really cares whether or not the President eats at McDonald's.

The episode, therefore, is significant only insofar as it gives us any insight into the President himself, his character.

It provides an occasion to ask: Does honesty in the chief executive, as an element of his character, matter?

Russert and Myers answered by laughing.

***
Continue reading at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 3:50 PM | Permalink
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Charmaine sends this out to the AUL good-guy list,

It's nearly Independence Day, and, here in the Yoest household, that means a road trip!

Friday afternoon, Jack and I are filling up our black Suburban and taking our 'Penta-posse' -- our five kids -- to Charlottesville, VA, for our 14-year-old son John's all-star baseball tournament. How wonderful to spend July 4th in a city steeped in American history near the University of Virginia (my alma mater!), which was founded by Thomas Jefferson just a few miles from his Monticello home.

John Yoest, age 14
[Pitched a no hitter on his JV team -- as an 8th grader]
Photo Credit: Hannah Yoest

But although the calendar -- and the heat index -- says it's July 4, in my heart it feels like late November.

Independence Day has always been a kind of early Thanksgiving for me. I think about the sacrifices made by the Founding Fathers and their families, and of the blood shed by patriots so that America could be free, and I am so very thankful to be able to raise my children in the greatest country in the world.

The Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

In naming three inalienable rights as endowed by humanity's Creator, the Declaration's authors were recognizing something unique and beautiful about being human. Taken together, those rights enable all the goods necessary for human flourishing.

More than that, the order in which the Founders listed the rights carries special meaning; it reveals the way one right flows from another. The right to liberty -- the freedom to thrive -- flows from the right to life, and from that liberty flows the ability to seek the happiness that will give one's life meaning and purpose.

I'm so honored to be working with the AUL team to further the understanding that the right to life enshrined in our Declaration extends to all humanity and includes the unborn.

The right to life is the foundation of all the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. This is what we must teach our children on this family holiday, so that they and their children and their children's children may continue to live in a free country long after you and I have left this world.

My friend and AUL colleague Bob told me today about a wonderful Fourth of July tradition in his family. Every year, he and his wife host a barbecue that is highlighted by having one of the children present, usually his own daughter, read out loud the entire Declaration of Independence.

Jack and I like that idea so much that we are adopting this as a Yoest family tradition. I think we'll have Helena, our 12-year-old who has a dramatic flair, read the Declaration of Independence before we watch the fireworks after John's baseball game. If you'd like join us in that tradition, click here for a printable copy of the Declaration.

Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy Fourth,

Charmaine, and the Yoest family

P.S. On Monday, the AUL team will be back at the job of defending the right to life, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. For the latest news on President Obama's high-court nominee, visit Sotomayor411.com. It's a one-stop resource we've created to share in-depth background and analysis from our legal team on Judge Sotomayor, including detailed information on why she is worse on life issues than retiring Justice David Souter.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Follow us on Twitter.

Pro-Abortion Hispanic Group: Sotomayor Set Policy, Not Involved in Legal Briefs, by Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com Editor, July 1, 2009,

"Although the Senate will have a significant amount of materials to wade through, Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, has seen enough to say Sotomayor is pro-abortion and worse than Justice David Souter, whom she would replace.

Yoest points out that, during Sotomayor's time on the PRLDEF's board, its efforts "included no less than six briefs in five abortion-related cases before the Supreme Court -- pushing aggressively for an interpretation of abortion rights that would eliminate most or all state and federal abortion regulations while requiring state and federal funding of abortion."

In two of the legal briefs, "the PRLDEF's briefs took positions more extreme than those of Justice Souter, who joined with the court's majority to uphold restrictions the fund wanted struck down," Yoest added.

Ultimately, "Justice Sotomayor has never disavowed any of the PRLDEF's briefs, which are packed with the kind of extreme rhetoric more typical of left-wing blogs than of serious legal documents." "

U.S. appeals court upholds Virginia's ban on partial-birth abortion, By Catholic News Service

RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia's ban on partial-birth abortion is constitutional, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 6-5 decision June 24.

"The head of Americans United for Life, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case and assisted the state with the litigation, said the "ban protects not only the unborn, but also the health and welfare of women."

"We are thrilled that the 4th Circuit followed clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent and upheld Virginia's ban on partial-birth abortion - which is more accurately called partial-birth infanticide," said Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO.

"It is a law that the vast majority of Americans are justified in supporting," she said. Opponents of the ban are expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appellate court's decision.

The 2003 Virginia law makes it a felony to perform a partial-birth abortion, but it never went into effect because its constitutionality was challenged by a Richmond doctor who said the procedure can be necessary to protect the life of the mother. He also said the ban could prevent doctors from performing legal procedures for fear they would be prosecuted. "

From PA Pundits - International
"the relentless pursuit of common sense" - A Variety of Opinions From Various Writers -
"Only the pro-life group Americans United for Life has made a significant campaign against Sotomayor's ascension to the high court, calling her record on abortion rights "worse than [current Justice David] Souter's." Still, the fight should pick up once Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin July 13."

Posted at 4:05 PM | Permalink
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Most people know very little about Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor. Americans United for Life will be alerting the public about the Pro-Abortion-Choice affinities of Sotomayor and the abortion agenda of president Obama.

AUL has published a new website www.Sotomayor411.com.

Click on the banner for outstanding research and analysis to learn about Sotomayor's judicial activism and the personnel policies of president Obama.

Alert Readers know that Charmaine served in presidential personnel in the (real) West Wing of the White House in the Ronald Reagan Administration. The direction from The Gipper was to hire carefully. Personnel is Policy.

President Obama shares more that oratorical elegance with Reagan. Obama also knows that Personnel is Policy.

Sotomayor is the personification of Obama's abortion policy.

Follow us on Twitter: jackyoest and charmaineyoest

Posted at 7:55 PM | Permalink
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The Editorial page writer at The Washington Times has done some valuable research that will advance the debate on Sotomayor. The nominee is not Pro-Life.

EDITORIAL: Sotomayor's abortion ties, Don't believe disinformation that she's pro-life

The most basic evidence of the judge's support for Roe comes in the triple combination of White House assurances to that effect, of pro-choice senators declaring after meeting with her that they are sure she agrees with them, and of her entire jurisprudential approach of broadly construing anything characterized as "women's rights."



Other evidence is more direct. Consider that from 1980 until October 1992, Judge Sotomayor served on the board -- at times as vice president and at times as chairman of the litigation committee -- of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. The New York Times in 1992 described her as "a top policy maker on the board." During that time period, the fund filed briefs in not one, not two, but at least six prominent court cases in strong support of "abortion rights."

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Read Sotomayor: Who Sleeps Better at Night, AUL or NARAL?

Follow Jack and Charmaine on Twitter: @jackyoest and @charmaineyoest

Posted at 9:26 PM | Permalink
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Be sure to get Charrmaine's media updates on Twitter from Your Business Blogger(R) and @charmaineyoest

Pro-life leaders, groups condemn murder of Kansas abortion doctor, By Chaz Muth at the Catholic News Service reports,

WASHINGTON - Pro-life advocates universally condemned the May 31 murder of a Kansas abortion doctor, with officials from several U.S. right-to-life groups saying such extreme acts only hurt the pro-life cause.

"We condemn this lawless act of violence," said Charmaine Yoest, president of the Americans United for Life. "The foundational right to life that our work is dedicated to extends to everyone. Whoever is responsible for this reprehensible violence must be brought to justice under the law."

Dr. George Tiller, 67, of Wichita, Kan., was fatally shot while serving as an usher at the city's Formation Lutheran Church during morning services, according to The Associated Press

David Brody at CBN reports, Randall Terry Is Not Spokesman for Pro-Life Movement,

Let's start with a reality check. Randall Terry does not speak for the broader pro-life movement. It's important to note that just because Randall Terry from Operation Rescue speaks out forcefully againt abortion doctor George Tiller that does not mean his sentiment is shared among mainstream pro-life groups.

You don't need to believe me. Just compare Operation Rescue's website with Concerned Women for America or Americans United for Life and on and on. The sanctity of life message is the underlying theme but the tactics and language are different. Much different.

Colleen Raezler at NewsBusters reports
Media: Tiller a Martyr, Abortion Not Killing and Pro-Lifers are Crazy

Tiller as Abortion Rights Martyr

Broadcast networks painted Tiller as a man willing to die in defense of women's rights.

All of the broadcast coverage noted past attempts people have made to disrupt Tiller's work - a bombing of his clinic in the 1980s and a 1993 attack in which he was shot in both arms - which, while pertinent to the story, also increased the aura of martyrdom that now surrounds him.
...
Statements from major pro-life organizations revealed a different story: that the pro-life community truly views all loss of human life as a tragedy.

Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, said "The foundational right to life that our work is dedicated to extends to everyone."

Opposing Views has Murder Not Justified, Pro-Life Leaders Say, By Baptist Press , News With a Christian Perspective

Among those issuing statements condemning the killing were representatives of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, Care Net, Susan B. Anthony List, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, American Life League, Operation Rescue, Christian Defense Coalition, 40 Days for Life, Stand True, Priests for Life and Pro-life Action League.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Follow Jack and Charmaine on Twitter, @jackyoest and @charmaineyoest

Posted at 9:28 PM | Permalink
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AUL will be conducting a press conference tomorrow, Thursday. It's going to be good.

Americans United for Life has released a review of the potential Supreme Court Nominees.

The concern of AUL, the country's oldest Pro-Life public interest law firm, is that nominees might be "empathetic" to petitioners to the Supreme Court -- rather than honoring the Justices' oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."

Your Business Blogger(R) served as an Armored Cavalry Officer and at commissioning -- becoming an officer and gentleman -- also took an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution." The oath of commissioned military officers is to the document not to the president -- to a piece of paper, not to a person.

(It quite literally took an act of Congress to make Your Business Blogger (R) a gentleman...)

None of Obama's short list of nominees seem to understand this distinction on the job of a Supreme Court Justice: To be faithful to the Constitution and NOT to show "empathy" to any person or case before the Court.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Get on Twitter and follow Jack and Charmaine, @JackYoest @CharmaineYoest

Read America's Unsettled Conscience on Abortion.

Visit Ultrasound Technology, Laws Credited for Pro-life Shift.

Lots of Links and good writing at Roundup: Obama Starts Conversations with Potential Supreme Court Picks.

Ultrasound technology and laws credited for pro-life shift, quotes Charmaine; always a good idea...

DEACON FOR LIFE

Read how numbers can be presented, Slight Majority Of U.S. Residents Call Themselves 'Pro-life;' 76% Say Abortion Should Be Legal, Poll Shows.

Conservatives, Interest Groups Gear Up for SCotUS Battle

New Gallup Poll Says Majority of Americans are Pro-Life, By Focus on the Family

Saint Luke, "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative...", Life and the Supreme Court

The Oath of office

Posted at 10:08 PM | Permalink
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The household of Your Business Blogger(R) has been involved in a number of studies -- commissioning statistical polling.

A number of years ago, Charmaine's dissertation centered on data gathered with a $230,000 budget. To pass academic peer-reviewed scrutiny, she was most careful in 'framing questions' to get unbiased responses. And she had an expert team study the study so that all the actors involved in the questioning understood the questions.

The Little Woman knows statistical sampling and polling pit-falls.

It was of great interest to learn about the new Gallup poll showing a move of America from Pro-Choice to Pro-Life. Reporters began calling.

Charmaine did an outstanding interview with the LA Times reporter, Robin Abcarian, who was engaging and fair. (I know this 'cause I was driving while they talked on the phone...) The interview follows later.

I wanted to know more on the cause of the dramatic shift to America's current Pro-Life self-identification. So I asked Charmaine, Why such a big change?

This passes for pillow talk in our house...

She says that America has always been Pro-Life and there are four reasons for the poll shift:

Reframing Pro-Choice,
Obama Backlash,
Advances in Technology,
Financial Independence

Reframing Pro-Choice

How polling questions are framed can prompt a particular answer. But this was not the challenge of Gallup: They have asked the same question for years. The issue may well be the question itself. It seems that the public is beginning to understand when an abortion occurs -- in which trimester -- is important to being Are you Pro-Life or Pro-Choice in this black and white question. No shade of gray.

So. If a Pro-Choicer recoils at partial birth abortion, as do all normal humans, can she still be Pro-Choice? The question (and Cecile Richards at Planned Parenthood) does not allow this.

Or, more likely, if the Pro-Choicer is confused about any abortion after viability, is she no longer Pro-Choice? Maybe. If I am not Pro-Choice, then I am Pro-Life.

Charmaine's work reminds us that most Americans have always been Pro-life. But only now have the extremists of the Pro-Choicer agenda -- of abortion on demand -- pushed the public out of the comfortable gray area -- the mushy middle -- into a stark admission: I am not a part of any group who holds for partial birth abortion.

The public perception -- the shifting of the frame of the question -- changed.

It was: Yes, I am Pro-Choice because a woman can abort her baby in the first trimester.


It is: No, I am not Pro-Choice because there is no reason to abort in the third trimester.

The shift was not in the framing of the question but in the understanding of when the abortion was taking place during the pregnancy.

This demonstrates that the incremental strategy of changing law state-by-state in universal, common-sense regulation is what all Americans want. The incremental strategy of Americans United for Life is working.

Obama Backlash

This is why Planned Parenthood was so insistent that Candidate Obama push and pass The Freedom of Choice Act or FOCA. This law would kill all incremental controls passed by local lawmakers on abortion. The public is not happy with the extremism of the current Executive Order allowing Federal funding for abortions overseas. Americans don't want to pay for abortions in any country.

Americans do not want to pay for any abortion bailout.

President Obama has installed radical pro-abortion political appointees to implement Planned Parenthood's abortion on demand agenda -- abortion at any place; at any time; for any reason; at taxpayer expense. People don't like this. This makes self-identification as Pro-Choice unpalatable.

The Obama Backlash began when Jill Stanek documented his position against Infants Born Alive. What politician dare be against legislation protecting infants born alive?

Advances in Technology

Four Dimension Sonogram -- where the mother can watch her baby move about in real time. 85% of women who see the sonogram do not go through with a planned abortion -- which is why Planned Parenthood doesn't care for the science of the sonogram: It kills profits.

Babies can now survive at very young stages. Years ago Your Business Blogger(R) worked with aggressive technologies to help neonates with underdeveloped lungs to 'breathe' and to live. The public understands the new survival rates and is beginning to understand the illogical of aborting a child who could, today, survive outside the womb, where, a few years ago, could not.

Financial Independence

Most legal scholars -- even Obama short-listers -- agree that Roe v Wade was poorly reasoned and poorly decided. Even back then, the Justices cited a compelling state interest against third trimester abortions.

But recent Supreme Court cases have shifted from the healthy viability of the baby to the financial viability of the mother, a "reliance interest." The Court has now ruled that abortion is necessary so that women can break the glass ceiling.

And this is why liberals are so unhappy with Sarah Palin: She could have lotsa babies and still be a governor. Palin proves that financial success is compatible with motherhood (X 5).

(No, it is not easy. Do not just drop by our house unless you want to help do laundry...)

51% identify as 'pro-life' in U.S. It's the first time the Gallup Poll finds 'pro-choice' outweighed -- at 42% -- and a near-reversal of last year's figures, By Robin Abcarian,May 16, 2009

At a time when President Obama is trying to convince opponents in the abortion battle that they can find middle ground -- in rhetoric, if not reality -- a new Gallup Poll shows that more Americans describe themselves as "pro-life" than "pro-choice."

For the first time since it began asking the question in 1995, Gallup reported Friday, a majority of adults questioned for its annual survey on values and beliefs -- 51% -- said that when it comes to abortion, they consider themselves "pro-life"; 42% consider themselves "pro-choice." (The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.)

...antiabortion activists think they have more than the new poll on their side. "This isn't new," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. "It tracks pretty much with what we've always known: People generally are pro-life depending on how you ask the question."

But Yoest said abortion foes were not placated. "There has been such an avalanche of pro-abortion activity that it's jaw-dropping. It's not just that his rhetoric doesn't square with reality; the gap is Grand Canyon-size. I think this administration has fundamentally miscalculated how out of step they are with the American people."

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

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Thank you (foot)notes:
From the Gallup organization,

May 15, 2009, More Americans "Pro-Life" Than "Pro-Choice" for First Time
Also, fewer think abortion should be legal "under any circumstances," by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.

Follow us on Twitter: @JackYoest @CharmaineYoest

Posted at 8:39 PM | Permalink
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Each year in May Your Business Blogger(R) remembers the Cold War loss of submarine Scorpion. We are so lucky to have such brave men. And their families.

Our prayer is that our current Commander-in-Chief would know the culture of our warriors.


In Remembrance of
those in the
Submarine Service Some 40 Years ago the USS Scorpion was due in my hometown, Norfolk, VA. She never returned.

She is, as the veterans say, on Eternal Patrol.

Your Business Blogger(R) wrote an article for National Review Online about those left behind from the loss of the USS Scorpion.

Five Days in May: The loss of the USS Scorpion.

By Jack Yoest

Yolanda Mazzuchi was about the prettiest girl in our school class. Our dads were in the Navy, often gone for months at a time. And they would be welcomed home at dockside with cheers and homemade signs. These gatherings at the D&S Piers at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia, were a regular part of our lives growing up. Families often took children out of school to celebrate a ship's homecoming.

At 1 in the afternoon on Monday, May 27, 1968, at the height of the Cold War the USS Scorpion was due in port.

Yolanda didn't know it then, but her dad was already dead....

Continue reading here.

John Howland at USNA-AT-LARGE has set up a group for the boat,

Dedicated to and in honor of the 99 U.S. Navy submariners who perished in the loss of SCORPION in May 1968. The 40th Anniversary of that tragedy ...[is] (May 2008), yet the cause(s) of the loss remain a complete mystery.

USS Scorpion
40 Years on Eternal Patrol

This lack of clarity and closure has created a void into which charlatans now have full play in creating bogus theories for profit.

This unsatisfactory situation may result in the SCORPION 99 going into history forever at the mercy of the unscrupulous.

The solution that this group will work toward will be to encourage the U.S. Navy to, at the very least, put to rest the loss scenarios which have MINIMAL TO NO PROBABILITY of having actually occurred.

###

Thank you (foot)notes:

Follow Jack and Charmaine on Twitter: @JackYoest and @CharmaineYoest

More from BubbleHead.

And read about the Loss of the Bonefish.

Your Business Blogger(R) of Management Training of DC, LLC, is a licensed agent for the William Oncken Corporation, presenters of Managing Management Time(TM) fondly known as Monkey Management.

Remember Me at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 9:43 AM | Permalink
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Amy Harder, writing at the National Journal, interviewed Charmaine on the on-line battle on the up-coming Supreme Court Nomination. Also see nice quote from David All.

Online SCOTUS Rumble Sets Stage For Nomination Fight
Interest Groups And Media Observers Weigh In On What Influence The Internet Will Have On Upcoming High Court Battle, by Amy Harder, Thursday, May 14, 2009,

Americans United For Life says it has already seen an overwhelming response from its online supporters in discussions anticipating a nominee. "We had to upgrade the back end of our computer operation because we've seen such an outpouring of interest being more active on these issues," said Charmaine Yoest, the anti-abortion group's president. Her organization echoes a common concern on the right that Obama will nominate a judicial activist who will trigger a "dramatic shift in public understanding of the role of the courts," Yoest said. "When you go down the path of accepting judicial activism as the norm, that dramatically increases the amount of power judges have."

Yoest said her group will be ready to go right out of the gate once a nominee is announced. She said its "robust" online advocacy program, Facebook community and new IT system will mean "better, faster and cheaper" communication with supporters. "We're ready whenever they bring it out," she said. "There won't be a huge delay."

Charmaine predicts that the next Supreme Court Justice nominee will be a woman. a pro-choice, abortion advocate. See the AUL analysis here.

See Charmaine's writing on "The Woman's Chair."

Tiny URL: http://tiny.cc/YIeWC

Follow us on Twitter: @JackYoest @CharmaineYoest

Posted at 10:57 AM | Permalink
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Washington Wire, Political Insight and Analysis From The Wall Street Journal's Capital Bureau, Judicial Advocacy Groups Prepare for Supreme Court Battle, Susan Davis reports on politics,

Judicial advocacy groups are already drawing battle lines for a Supreme Court fight following news that Justice David Souter will retire at the end of the term.

Americans United for Life, a group that opposes abortion rights, said they will oppose any nominee who supports the Freedom of Choice Act to "elevate abortion to a fundamental right on the same place as the freedom of speech," said president Dr. Charmaine Yoest. Adding: "Justice Souter's retirement also represents a test for the Senate: will they uphold their duty to raise serious questions over a nominee's judicial philosophy?"

Republicans warned Tuesday against rushing a Supreme Court nominee through the Senate, even as Democrats said no announcement of a successor to Justice David H. Souter would come this week.

In timing his first nomination to the nation's highest court, President Obama is balancing competing political imperatives: He needs to wait long enough that key senators in both parties feel that he seriously entertained their suggestions and weighed their advice. But waiting too long would give his conservative critics the opportunity to mobilize and to attack potential candidates pre-emptively -- making it more difficult for the Senate to confirm a new justice prior to the August recess....

Conservative activists urged Republicans not to allow Democrats to rush the process. Charmaine Yoest, [Ph.D.] president of Americans United for Life, urged Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Judiciary Committee's new ranking Republican, "to begin your role as ranking minority member by putting the brakes on rushing through a Supreme Court nominee."

Battle lines over President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee were quickly solidifying Friday morning, even as the White House and Capitol Hill continued to wait for the official word that Justice David Souter would retire this summer...

While politicians at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue may be waiting to comment until Obama receives a formal communication on Souter's intentions, interest groups were wasting no time drawing lines in the sand over a looming Senate confirmation fight.

Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, warned in a statement Friday morning that anti-abortion-rights organizations would vigorously oppose any nominee that interprets the Constitution to include protections for abortion.

"We will work to oppose any nominee for the Supreme Court who will read the Freedom of Choice Act into the Constitution in order to elevate abortion to a fundamental right on the same plane as the freedom of speech. In his search for a replacement for Justice Souter, President Obama should avoid a pro-abortion litmus test," Yoest said.

Marge Baker, executive vice president at People for the American Way, urged Obama to stick by his campaign pledge to tap nominees who bring a level of empathy for minorities, the poor and women.

UPI, Abortion key issue in replacing Souter,

WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Abortion rights will occupy a prominent place in the political battle to replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, say those on each side of the issue.

"Without a doubt, opponents of women's freedom and privacy will use a vacancy on the court as an opportunity to further their attacks on nominees who have taken pro-choice positions, " said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group.

Difficulties encountered by several of President Barack Obama's choices for federal posts prove anti-abortion groups retain the power to derail the president's agenda, despite the Democratic majority in Congress, said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.

"This new administration and the congressional majority may support radical abortion rights, but the American people as a whole do not," Yoest said.

WASHINGTON -- A full-scale battle on Capitol Hill over the next Supreme Court nominee could still be months away, but small skirmishes have been taking place all year...

Groups that oppose abortion rights have been testing their political viability since Obama took office, and they say the difficulties encountered by Johnsen and others show they retain the power to derail the Obama agenda, despite large Democratic majorities.

"This new administration and the congressional majority may support radical abortion rights, but the American people as a whole do not," said Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life. "Canny political observers and politicians know this."

HotAir,

One of the organizers of the Justice Sunday rallies in 2005 has sent a letter to the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanding that Patrick Leahy ensure against confirming a judicial activist to replace David Souter. Dr. Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life reminds Leahy that Americans around the country have put reasonable restrictions on abortion, and that any judge that would undo those through legislative fiat should not get sent to the highest court...

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Jack and Charmaine also blog at Reasoned Audacity. Your Business Blogger(R) of Management Training of DC, LLC, is an adjunct professor of business at the Northern Community College and is a licensed agent for the William Oncken Corporation, presenters of Managing Management Time(TM) fondly known as Monkey Management.

Tiny URL: http://tiny.cc/Z7ahw

Learn how our household learned to manage teamwork at http://tiny.cc/8SVkS

Posted at 8:14 AM | Permalink
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"People don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care," Jack Kemp often said.

Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine crossed paths with the QB/Compassionate-Politico a number of times.

We talked with him when he was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He told us that he spent $60,000 dollars on pictures for the HUD building. A tremendous sum even back then.

60K for pictures? we asked.

The old dull gray HUD walls were festooned(?) with old dull gray photos of housing developments -- government run tenement slums.

The first thing he did was to take down pictures of those monstrosities and replace them with pictures of hope.

Instead of apartment buildings, visitors now saw majestic pictures of Lincoln.

He said words to the effect, "I wanted to give people a vision of the future, of home ownership..."

If you wanted real change you'd pick a QB who could move the ball down the field and win games.

Charmaine's parents worked on his first run for congress in Buffalo in the early 70's. Kemp was a gentleman with a kind word for everyone.

No one didn't like Jack Kemp.

Jack Kemp, RIP.

Posted at 8:19 AM | Permalink
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"Our mailing list has exploded. ... We are also in the process of adding staff and hiring," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United For Life, a conservative organization that opposes abortion rights.

Ed Stoddard interviewed Charmaine and offered his Analysis in Reuters,

DALLAS (Reuters) - The Texas governor ponders secession from the United States, anti-tax "tea parties" are held and some states snub federal economic "stimulus" funds.

The U.S. Republican Party's conservative base is fired up and taking aim at the old target of "big government" as its opposition hardens to the agenda of President Barack Obama and a U.S. Congress controlled by his fellow Democrats.

AUL's direct competitor in the market-place of abortion law is Planned Parenthood;

Life vs. Death
AUL vs. PP
Charmaine vs. Cecile Richards.

Planned Parenthood takes in a billion dollars and some 400 million in your tax dollars for the Richards Abortion bailout.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Cecile Richards is pushing for FOCA, the Freedom of Choice Act. But even our liberal friends are fighting FOCA.

Also see Pro-Choice Democrats FightFOCA

So liberals love science? Not the science of the sonogram; read Charmaine Quoted in The Wall Street Journal;
Planned Parenthood Forbids the Science of the Sonogram

Posted at 8:54 AM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R) teaches business at the local college and loves the 'continuous learning' life style. So when Jack Welch, Ph.D., former CEO of GE has something to say about management, this student takes notes.

Welch appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning and graded president Obama on leadership.

Welch said Obama on leadership earned an "A."

(On leadership, said Welch; Not so on policy...)

Personnel is Policy, Ronald Reagan & Charmaine

Welch mentioned his criteria: Vision, Mission, Communication and Team Building.

Welch explained the value of having the right people on the president's team -- and how well the team works together because they each share the vision and mission of Obama's America.

This is what president Reagan talked about in "Personnel is Policy" when Charmaine worked in the West Wing. You hire people who think as you would think -- the boss should hire like minded deputies.

And this is exactly what Obama has done. Jack Welch is right. Obama's managers want us all to love and worship Obama's world (view).

So when an Obama Deputy - Napolitano -- publishes a directive to law enforcement officials -- those with the power to arrest -- that Pro-Lifers and Veterans are a danger to America; all Americans know that this is exactly how Obama thinks.

What happens next? Obama is dividing our nation. People are not buying Obama's vision for America. Texas talks about seceding (again). But this time the abolitionists Pro-Lifers will be in the south -- not Massachusetts. Salena Zito writes,

Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week declared the federal government had become "oppressive in its size, intrusion into the lives of our citizens and its interference with the affairs of our state."

Obama will push for the so called 'Freedom of Choice Act' or FOCA. Which will remove all local regulation of abortion and the offices where abortions are preformed. A social worker in a dirty back alley could do the baby-cutting.

Obama will allow open homosexuals to serve in the military which will destroy unit cohesion and effect our ability to complete any mission and will certainly cost American lives.

But red-blooded Americans are fighting back.

Charmaine was interviewed by Politico on the Obama backlash. CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN writes in Obama boosts anti-abortion efforts,

The first hint of a stir came just after Election Day, when the computer servers at Americans United for Life crashed. People were swamping the Web site to sign a petition urging President-elect Barack Obama to stand firm against abortion.

"I got a call from one of our guys, 'We have a problem,' " said Charmaine Yoest, the group's president and chief executive officer. "And I was like, 'The problem would be what?'"

Tech-savvy Charmaine knows that servers being overwhelmed with internet traffic is a high-quality problem.

Obama does not care for veterans such as Your Business Blogger(R) nor the Pro-Lifers such as Americans United for Life.
.


Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

An Alert Reader, fred5676 writes on Michele Malkin's Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real,

So NumbersUSA and Americans United for Life are terrorist groups??? COUNT ME IN!!

Visit the Baptist Bulletin world news.

See the Pregnancy Resource Center at UAB; A student organization serving pregnant and parenting students on our campus,

More than 261,000 people have signed an online petition calling on Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation for Obama to speak at the Catholic university's May 17 commencement. The petition says Obama has carried out "some of the most anti-life actions of any American president," including expanding taxpayer-funded research on embryonic stem cells.

And Americans United for Life plans to expand its plans to expand its staff in Washington and, after the post-election crash, recently upgraded its computer system to handle the bump in online activism.

The King's Good Servant and God's First

Jill Stanek has excellent analysis at Anti-life (on steroids) Obama energizes pro-life movement

See Peter Shinn from Pro-Life Unity interview Dr. Charmaine Yoest.

Fight for Life here.

AUL Defends Doctors and Nurses

Oklahoma legislature would allow pregnant mother to use deadly force to protect unborn

Love Life no matter how small.

Catholic Pro-Life Committee

CNA -- Oklahoma legislature would allow pregnant mother to use deadly force to protect unborn

Posted at 1:33 PM | Permalink
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George Weigel says that the real winner in the last election was...

the 1960's.

The Woodstock-er Flower Power, Free Love-Hippy-Hypocrites are having children and presidents of their own.

Love Hypocrites? Yep.

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with!

Sex sells as nothing else. But only sex. Nothing else.

Your Business Blogger(R) was at a local high school sporting event in the stands next to another doting dad who truly cares about his daughter. (Note: this story is essentially true; some details have been changed for obvious reasons.)

I know about the daughter. A lot. Too much.

Charmaine and I regularly monitor The (teenaged) Dreamer's and the Dude's Facebook friends. And saw pictures of someone else's daughter that would not get her hired in any company I advise.

I gently suggest to the Dad that Facebook is a good source to learn if teenage daughters are well, "active."

He says. "I don't want to know." I am perplexed.

He smiles, "They are just going to do it anyway."

He didn't want to know about his daughter's (potential) amorous adventurous.

But he might get concerned...

If he learned that she might be smoking.

And without a doubt, if her football friends were drinking and driving.

Sex: OK anytime.

Smoking: BAD anytime.

Drinking: BAD while driving.

Facebook: WHAT?

Woodstock-ers don't mind if their daughter's are sexually active, as long as they really care about their health: no smoking and don't drive while drunk.

(I'm still waiting for the public school system Safe Smoking Class; the Safe Drinking Class.)

The contraceptive pill known as Plan B soon will be made available without prescription to minors without parental consent . . .

This is Woodstock-ing your children.

NATASHA SINGER writes in The New York Times, Contraception Pill Strictures Are Eased by a Judge

A federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to make the Plan B morning-after birth control pill available without prescription to women as young as 17....

The agency has 30 days to comply with the order, in which the judge also urged the agency to consider removing all restrictions on over-the-counter sales of Plan B. The drug consists of two pills that prevent conception if taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse...

Not until 2006 did the F.D.A. rule, saying that the drug could be sold without a prescription only to women over 18. In order to enforce the age restriction, the agency also ordered that Plan B be stocked behind pharmacy counters, in contrast to other over-the-counter contraceptives like condoms.

Washington, DC - Today, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York unilaterally determined in Tummino v. Torti that 17 year old girls should have unrestricted, over-the-counter access to Plan B or so-called "emergency contraception." In doing so, the court overruled a previous decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requiring that minors first obtain a valid prescription for the potentially dangerous drug.

The Obama Administration is widely expected to welcome the ruling and not pursue a meaningful appeal in the case.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President & CEO of Americans United for Life said, "Given legitimate concerns about the safety of self-medicating with Plan B, it is incomprehensible that we would allow a minor to walk into any pharmacy and obtain this drug without medical oversight or parental involvement."

So where did this new nonsense originate?

Sam & Dave sum it up,

I was educated at Woodstock
When I start lovin', oh, I just can't stop

Join Fight FOCA Maybe the Obama administration is right:

Kids are going to do it anyway:

They just can't stop.

But they better not have a cigarette after...

The Woodstock-administration is working to promote prescription pills to underage girls.

Abortions are coming next.

Stop the Woodstock-ers.

Fight FOCA.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Some versions From the Blues Brothers have,
I was educated from good stock
When I start lovin' I just cant stop

The Woodstock-ers have created the party of death.

Alert Readers know that Your Business Blogger(R) spent a number of decades in pharmaceutical and medical device companies and had to work with FDA requirements.

The FDA has its reasoning upside down, backwards, wrong.

That is to say: They are making political -- not a medical -- decision.

The normal contraceptive Pill requires a prescription from a licensed physician.

Plan B IS the Pill, except much, much stronger.

Now Plan B will require no prescription, but its stronger dose twin does?

This is lunacy. This is anti-science. This is anti-health.

This is the new administration.

See Truthspeaker's Weblog

Visit Court Gives 17-Year-Old Girls Unrestricted Access to Morning-After Pill
Tuesday, By Susan Jones, Senior Editor

Posted at 6:41 AM | Permalink
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When does life begin? Obama wasn't sure, but the science is settled.

Life begins at conception.

Charmaine on an earlier appearance on C-SPAN

From an article by William L. Saunders, Jr., graduate of Harvard Law School, in the Fordham Urban Law Journal,

Lethal Experimentation on Human Beings: Roe's Effect on Bioethics,

There is no mystery about when human life begins. It is only within the political and ideological context that this matter is contested...

When the matter is not being debated in a courtroom or on the floor of the Congress, when it is left for scientific analysis, the resolution is clear.

Human life begins, in the normal, ordinary case, at "conception," that is to say, at fertilization...

See, e.g., C.R. Austin, Fertilization, in Germ Cells and Fertilization 103, 103 (C.R. Austin & Short eds., 1972).

Charmaine is scheduled to debate against Embryonic Stem Cell Research and for Adult Stem Cell Research on Fox and Friends on Sunday morning the 8th.

Note this is not the Sunday morning Fox with Chris Wallace.

Hit time estimate is 8am eastern.

Thank you (foot)notes,

See Adult Stem Cell Research: Benefits and Successes

The Politico Quotes Yoest on Embryonic Stem Cell Legislation
Charmaine Quoted in Congressional Quarterly on Stem Cell Research

West Wing propaganda on stem cell research

What's a Blastocyst, Anyway?

Posted at 7:18 PM | Permalink
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Charmaine at AUL was interviewed by the Associated Press by phone while we were in Laguna Niguel over the weekend.

Sebelius, credit: Tony's Kansas City

JOHN HANN writes, Abortion foes vow to fight a Sebelius nomination,

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- National anti-abortion groups promise a vigorous fight if President Barack Obama nominates Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as U.S. health and human services secretary....

"It's not just that she has a pro-abortion rights viewpoint," said Charmaine Yoest, president and chief executive officer of Americans United for Life Action. "It's her very close association with one of the most infamous abortionists in this country."...

Abortion foes said Friday an important issue is a reception Sebelius once had with a late-term abortion provider who's now facing criminal charges.

Administration officials disputed the idea that abortion is an issue as to whether Obama nominates Sebelius. She is considered a leading candidate for the HHS job, although the White House has said others are being considered.

Abortion opponents acknowledged Friday that they'll probably be uncomfortable with nearly anyone Obama nominates, but they're particularly upset by the prospect of Sebelius.

A major reason is an event in April 2007 at the governor's residence with Dr. George Tiller and his Wichita clinic's staff. Abortion foes eventually obtained photos from the reception and posted them last year on the Internet.

Charmaine's reports that Sebelius opposes and has voted against Parental Notification and safe, clinical standards for abortion offices. See the Americans United for Life Action blog,

The need for this critical legislation was predicated, in large part, on evidence of shocking conditions in Kansas abortion clinics.

For example, two inspections of the same Topeka abortion clinic discovered fetal remains stored in the same refrigerator as food;

a dead rodent in the clinic hallway;

overflowing, uncovered disposal bins containing medical waste;

unlabeled, pre-drawn syringes with controlled substances in an unlocked refrigerator;

improperly labeled and expired medicines; carpeted floor in the surgical procedure room; and visible dirt and general disarray throughout the clinic.

Dr. Krishna Rajanna, who operated the unsanitary clinic, also consistently violated the practice guidelines for conscious sedation.

These unsanitary medical practices would close a restaurant, let alone an abortion office. Other issues that disqualify Sebelius,

On balance, Gov. Sebelius' record demonstrates that she is unfit to serve as HHS Secretary and should not be in a position to make such important policy determinations including:

* Whether to rescind, modify, or retain HHS rules requiring that recipients of certain federal funding certify their compliance with existing federal law supporting healthcare fights of conscience;

* Whether to expand the over-the-counter availability of abortifacients such as "Plan B" (so-called "emergency contraception") to allow minors to obtain these controversial and dangerous drugs without a prescription or doctor's involvement; and

* Whether to rescind approval for or, at a minimum, review the safety and efficacy of RU-486 ("the abortion pill") which has killed at least 7 women in the U.S. since it was approved by the FDA in September 2000.

Alert Readers know that Your Business Blogger(R) worked in a restaurant as a teenager. My boss was always worried that the Health Department Inspector might find some random rat dropping. My restaurant manager would have nothing to fear if Sebelius was the governor. Sebelius is not qualified to oversee a food service business. And she is not qualified to run Health and Human Resources.

See KansasCity.com

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Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine are spending a few days at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel for a series of meetings.

This Ritz sold us in the first two minutes.

The car valet attendant took our car and offered assistance with our bags. Walking thru the front entrance, the staff welcomed us.

By name.

We are escorted to the check-in counter (of magnificent stone) and Charmaine addresses the lovely clerk (young, but mature and a happily married mother we soon learn),

Charmaine asks, "How did the door man know our names?"

She looks up. "He's got special powers," she replied matter of factly.

Funny. Smart. Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen.

The Ritz knows how to sell. The lifetime value of each regular guest of the hotel is over $300,000.

Commitment, Attention to Detail, Immediate Follow-up: Selling.

Save the Date:

Question: What lost Vietnam?

Answer: A failed sales presentation.

Well-run organizations have decision makers and influencers who are sales professionals at every level. People who persuade.

They sell to customers, superiors and peers. They are 'salesmen' who work to control events - both inside and outside the organization. Salesmen in business development who are account managers.

Who: Professionals and life-long students in management or in business development - sales, fund-raising, leadership.

What: The seminar will equip the attendee with background on how to manage and how to sell both tangibles and intangibles -- To sell ideas, and products, and services.

When: Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 11:00pm to 12:15pm

Where: Northern Virginia Community College,
Alexandria Campus, campus map
The new Bisdorf Auditorium, room 196
3001 North Beauregard Street, Alexandria, VA 22311 street map

Why: Increase sales, Increase funding,
Sell an idea, Save the world.

Cost: No Charge. Register here at JYoest@NVCC.edu. Space is limited.

Suggested class reading:

Selling your skills, Do You Have An Incompetent Manager? From The Washington Post.

Management_Time__Who_s_Got_the_Monkey___HBR_OnPoint_Enhanced_Edition_.pdf Harvard Business Review. How not to sell in the office.

One Minute YouTube Introduction: Office Politics: Someone is always selling, Someone is always buying.

Come to this class. You might be the one to prevent another Vietnam.

Jack Yoest
202.215.2434
Adjunct Professor

Posted at 11:05 AM | Permalink
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Alert Readers have noted that Charmaine did not make a number of points about the Octo-mom on Huckabee.

The segment was edited down for time. But Charmaine at AUL and some media outlets are reporting about the need for regulation of fertility clinics and Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART).

Cheryl Wetzstein writes
WETZSTEIN: Fertility industry in need of rules in the Washington Times,

Lawmakers in a hurry might want to consider model ART legislation from the pro-life Americans United for Life (AUL).

The bill recommends limiting the transfer of embryos to two at a time and encourages using frozen embryos before creating new ones, AUL official Mailee Smith said. It also would require comprehensive informed consent, so women can understand the range of health risks associated with multiple births, she said.

Charmaine was scheduled to appear on Larry King Live to continue the fertility debate, but was canceled.

Thank you (foot)notes,

See more of AUL's incremental abortion strategy in, MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH New trend: Ultrasounds before abortion 12 states may require doctors to offer image of baby prior to terminating life, By Chelsea Schilling, © 2009 WorldNetDaily. For example, in,

Missouri: Physicians and other "professionals" performing abortions must provide information about free ultrasound services, allow the woman access to an ultrasound and provide her with a chance to listen to the heartbeat of her unborn baby.

Currently, a patient must be informed of risks of abortions 24 hours before terminating her pregnancy. Doctors must have written parental consent or a court order to perform abortions on minors.

According to Americans United for Life, the state's General Assembly "has found that the life of each human being begins at conception." The state prohibits partial-birth abortion throughout pregnancy.

Most fertility clinics break the rules.

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Charmaine was busy with media interviews while she marched in the March for Life.

(This was quite an act: no child was left behind...) Obama is beginning to fulfill his campaign promises to bail out the abortion business.

Baby Boo working the crowd at the March for Life

If you support abortion or not, you are now going to pay for abortion...the world over.

Your Business Blogger(R) does not care for the government bail out of any business. Especially not the abortion business.

Obama lifts restrictions on abortion funding, 24 Jan 2009, Source: Reuters

By Jeff Mason and Deborah Charles (Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard)

WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday lifted restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, reversing a policy of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush...

"When we wake up every morning to a deepening financial crisis, it is an insult to the American people to bail out the abortion industry," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.

"Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar company and they do not need additional resources to burden the American taxpayer."...

The United States spends more than $400 million on overseas family planning assistance each year.

Jon Ward writes in The Washington Times, Obama changes policy on abortion, Saturday, January 24, 2009

"What a terrible way to begin a new administration: with an abortion business bailout that will exploit women in developing countries for political ends," said Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life Action.
...
Mr. Obama's promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would repeal all state and local restrictions on abortion, such as parental notification laws and measures allowing physicians to deny abortions based on their own faith convictions, came under fire Thursday from congressional Republicans.

Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, thinks the change in policy amounts to U.S. tax dollars funding abortion and sees no positive outcome.

LifeNews.com Editor, Steven Ertelt, reports
Pro-Life Advocates: Obama Has Already Betrayed Promise to Reduce Abortions January 23, 2009,

Charmaine Yoest, [Ph.D.] the president of Americans United for Life, also responded to the news.

"What a terrible way to begin a new administration: with an abortion business bailout that will exploit women in developing countries for political ends," she told LifeNews.com.


"We should not export the tragedy of abortion to other nations, and we certainly shouldn't do so via the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers," she said.

Denise Burke, [Americans United for Life] Vice President of Legal Affairs said the move also creates foreign policy headaches because it has the U.S. funding pro-abortion groups that are actively lobbying other nations to reverse their long-standing pro-life laws.

"Pro-abortion organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation are actively working to impose radically pro-abortion laws on developing nations, showing no regard for the will of the people in these countries," she said. "This move is a significant step backwards in respecting the sovereignty of nations, in empowering women, and in protecting unborn."

Thank you (foot)notes,

Notae Zuinglii, Bible and Theology writes, Legitimizing Murder
Yes we can, use your money to fund abortions
"The time has come to set aside childish things." Barak H. Obama 1/20/09

See Mike's Noise, We Surrender! "Bailout" plan is now law

Visit Tradition Catholic Reflections

President Bush writes,

In 2002, I was honored to sign into law the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which extends legal protection to children who survive an abortion attempt.

Republican Leader John Boehner is blogging. Read his post at Americans United for Life Action, Mr. President: Reconsider FOCA

January 22, 2009

A Guest Post by Republican Leader John Boehner

Yesterday, on the eve of the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v Wade decision, 105 Members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama requesting that he reconsider his support for overturning pro-life laws--even laws enacted by the States. Specifically we asked the President to withdraw his pledge to sign the so-named Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would in one tragic act overturn virtually all pro-life laws nationwide, and to refuse to support policies that incrementally enact the FOCA agenda by rescinding or weakening existing pro-life laws....

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While we were marching in yesterday's March for Life, Charmaine was interviewed by the WSJ on the Obama Abortion Bail Out executive order.

Cecile Richards, from Planned Parenthood and Obama

The reporter, LAURA MECKLER, asked about the current Mexico City Accord which prohibits USA taxpayers funding education on "reproductive freedom" to other countries. (The Alert Reader knows well that reproductive freedom/education is code for abortion.) The reporter also asked about Obama's "sensitivity" on not signing the abortion bailout on the anniversary of Roe v Wade; 22 January -- a day Pro-Lifers yearly recognize as the day the Supreme Court legalized abortion in all 57 50 states. Abortion is now legal through all nine months of pregnancy.

Meckler wrote,

...[A]bortion opponents were not mollified. Charmaine Yoest, [Ph.D.] president of Americans United for Life, thinks the change in policy amounts to U.S. tax dollars funding abortion and sees no positive outcome. But she called the delayed timing "a politically savvy move" by the White House.

Meckler also interviewed Cecile Richards,

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which offers abortion and family planning, says she doesn't care when President Obama changes the policy, as long as it is changed. "He has clearly stated his opposition to the global gag rule and his intention to overturn it," she said.

Cecile Richards makes money selling and preforming abortions. If women and other countries cannot afford an abortion. The American tax payer will now pay for them in a Planned Parenthood office.

There is one gag rule that Cecile Richards demands that Obama not change: No pregnant woman should see a sonogram of her baby.

85 percent of women who see the first picture of the child, do not have an abortion.

Planned Parenthood cannot have the science of the sonogram help women to choose.

Over 530,000 have signed the Americans United for Life petition to Fight FOCA. Be sure to sign up!

Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine spend time yesterday talking with Lila Rose who regularly captures on video Planned Parenthood covering up rapes. See
Planned Parenthood Rape Cover-up: Is a Sting Operation Ethical?

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Your Business Blogger(R), Charmaine and the Penta-Posse joined some 300,000 of our closest friends and marched for life "celebrated" each January 22nd. Charmaine worked the event with her team from Americans United for Life.

It took over three hours for the March to pass.

Obama was invited.

He didn't show.

The Yoests and Dan McConchie supporting AUL's FightFOCA
at the March for Life 2009

But Obama did offer to make nice: He won't sign an abortion bailout executive order...until tomorrow, Friday.

Tomorrow, the 23rd, he is expected to issue by presidential fiat an order which will permit your tax dollars to pay for abortions around the world.

We all may differ on when life begins. Or if a baby is being aborted. Or if there is a link between breast cancer and abortion.

But most of the country does not want our tax dollars to pay for abortions. Especially overseas.

No one wants a bail out for the off shore affiliates of Planned Parenthood.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:
See the post from PoliPundit, LIVE From Blogs 4 Life

Visit Blogs 4 Life.

Professor Robert George of Princeton writes,

Obama is being served and abetted by a small number of Catholic and Evangelical intellectuals and activists who have been peddling the claim that Obama, despite his pro-abortion extremism, is effectively pro-life because of his allegedly enlightened economic and social policies will reduce the number of abortions. This is delusional.

The truth is that Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to serve in the United States Senate or seek the Office of President of the United States.

The revocation of the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy, funding limitations on embryo-destructive research, informed consent laws, parental notification statutes--all of which Obama has promised to his pro-abortion base--will dramatically increase the number of abortions, and will do so for reasons that have been articulated by the abortion lobby itself.

It is the pro-abortion side that tells us that the Hyde Amendment alone has resulted in 300,000 fewer abortions each year than would otherwise be performed--and that is why they so desperately want it to be repealed. Yet the putatively pro-life Obama apologists claim that the man who pledges to repeal it is going to reduce the number of abortions. Let me say it again: this is delusional.

Why Obama Really Voted For Infanticide from National Review

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People are divided. The country is divided.

However one feels, Obama has promised to make this division worse. He has promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act or FOCA.

The Coweta-FayetteRTL blog reminds us that FOCA would,

* Provide for taxpayer-funded abortion on demand at all 9 months of pregnancy

* Grant abortionists protections from legal action

* Allow abortionists to perform abortion on minors without parental notification

* Deny health care workers the right to refuse to make abortion referrals as a matter of conscience

* Take away legal protection from religiously-affiliated hospitals who refuse to allow abortions within their facilities

* Overturn laws requiring abortions to be performed by a licensed physician

In April 2007 the Senate considered FOCA. Read the bill foca_2007_senate.pdf.

The Supreme Court has allowed abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. Obama goes further (and later) and supports post-birth abortion. A civilized people will not stand for the destruction of its most defenseless citizens. Obama is in for a fight.

Join Fight FOCA

December before last Your Business Blogger(R) followed Charmaine as she worked on the Huckabee presidential campaign. I drove the Penta-Posse in the monster Huck-a-truck and we lived out (lots!) of suitcases across Arkansas, Iowa, New Hampshire.

All of the campaigners, liberal and conservative, stayed in the same hotels. We often crossed paths and chatted in the elevators.

Sometimes we'd compliment the Obama team. "He's a very attractive candidate," I remember saying to an Obama worker at one time...

Anybody was better than Hillary.

Now we have both of them.

So what do we do now with the coming socialists? Waiting for the party of death?

Sign FightFOCA, to start.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Be sure to see Charmaine speak at Blogs 4 Life this Thursday, the 22nd in Your Nation's Capital.

Random Thoughts has graphics of partial birth abortion, which would be permitted under Obama's Freedom of Choice Act.

Thank you to NRL for the FOCA legislative link.

Please sign the petition. Almost 470,000 have signed to date.

Pro-Life and Pro-Obama?

See the Americans United for Life blog.

See Major Scoop on FOCA.

Read Father Jim,

As Catholics, we must oppose passage of the evil "Freedom of Choice Act." To read more about our U.S. Bishops' opposition to FOCA, visit www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/FOCA. Americans United For Life is also encouraging pro-lifers to sign a petition against FOCA at www.fightfoca.com. Also certain to arise soon is the issue of federal judgeship nominations. President Obama's picks for these key positions are all expected to be pro-choice, as are his choices for the Supreme Court. Committed pro-life Catholics have ample opportunity to pray for our nation, the very anti-life direction we are going towards now and our new President. God help America!

Abortion and FOCA is uniting all different religious traditions. See Making My Own Colors.

Be sure to bookmark Jill Stanek. We will need her insight over the next 4 years.

Obama: Abortion & The Death of a Live Birth, "Let all the babies be born. Then let us drown those we do not like."

Watch the videos on Lisa's blog. And thank her for installing the FightFOCA code on her template.

ComMITTed to Romney has Sign FightFOCA.com's Petition to Protect Human Life!

A former submariner is Fighting FOCA.

A and A have got the code.

Barbara takes on "Choice."

Abortions are decreasing.

And no, Abortion is not a right.

Tom McMahon asks about The Change.

2nd Cup of Coffee has Just One Wish.

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Question: Who Declared Jan 22nd as National Sanctity of Human Life Day?

Answer: Ronald Reagan.

January 22nd is commemorated each year as National Sanctity of Human Life Day; the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision of Roe vs Wade.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Sunday, January 22, 1984, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day.

I call upon the citizens of this blessed land to gather on that day in homes and places of worship to give thanks for the gift of life, and to reaffirm our commitment to the dignity of every human being and the sanctity of each human life.

No wonder liberals hate Ronald Reagan.

Join Fight FOCA Charmaine was interviewed for Moody Bible Radio on the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), Sanctity of Life Sunday and The March for Life.

Visit Paul Butler's blog for the audio link. Good stuff.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Paul Butler at Paul Butler's Production Blog points us to Ronald Reagan's proclamation of January 22nd.

Reagan issued the Proclamation on January 13, 1984,

"The values and freedoms we cherish as Americans rest on our fundamental commitment to the sanctity of human life.

The first of the "unalienable rights'' affirmed by our Declaration of Independence is the right to life itself, a right the Declaration states has been endowed by our Creator on all human beings -- whether young or old, weak or strong, healthy or handicapped."

Conservatives are now the protectors of the "little guy."

The text of Reagan's proclamation at the jump.

Continue Reading »

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Sanctity of Life Sunday is being celebrated on the 18th -- before the March for Life on Thursday, January 22nd.

In between these two dates, the most pro-abortion president in history, Barack Obama, will be sworn in on Tuesday the 20th.

What a week.

Americans United for Life has a church bulletin insert available to alert voters on the Obama abortion agenda. See the full page insert here. Read Charmaine's letter at the jump.

The Family Research Council writes,

"Blogs for Life is scheduled to take place the day of the 36th annual March for Life, during which hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates gather in the nation's capitol to celebrate life and demand the reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

The conference will feature several prominent conservative voices including Senator Sam Brownback, Amanda Carpenter, Jill Stanek, Michael New, Ph.D., Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., Michael Illions, Chris Gacek, J.D. and Martha Shuping, M.D. all speaking with bloggers live from Family Research Council headquarters."

Join Fight FOCA To date almost 425,000 people have signed the FightFOCA petition.

It just might get Obama's attention.

Because it is the right thing to do.

How can Your Business Blogger(R) be so sure?

Because Chuck Norris approves of FightFOCA.

Chuck Norris writes at Human Events,

"Please, before FOCA flies onto the congressional floor in the upcoming days, sign the online petition to fight FOCA (www.fightfoca.com), and then contact your representatives and senators to tell them how you expect them to vote on the bill."

Chuck Norris is always right. He's smart. As The Dude says, 'Chuck Norris can divide by zero.'

Thank you (foot)notes:

The Dude worked backstage with Chuck Norris on the Huckabee presidential campaign trail in December 2007.

Pro-Choice abortion-approver Christina doesn't care much for the Fight against FOCA. She used to work for Planned Parenthood and says there is no such procedure as a partial birth abortion. I don't think she's seen the pictures...warning: graphic dead baby unwanted human tissue.

The Secular Heretic telling the news as it really is, has the FightFOCA code in his template. A good-guy.

UPDATE: Blogs 4 Life is on the Right Wing Watch list from People for the American Way. The anti-American PfAW has more time for abortion, now that Obama will soon be surrendering in Iraq and to Iran.

Continue Reading »

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The church was full to overflowing. Even visiting priests had to stand in the aisle.

I'm sure this exceeded the Fire Marshal's Max Occupancy. But no NYFDer was going to stop this Mass demonstration.

Father Richard John Neuhaus was buried today. We were reminded of his final writings on abortion. That we would never tire nor grow weary in defending Life.

Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine talked about the funeral on the train back to DC. Pleased and humbled and encouraged by what Father Richard accomplished.

We were resolved to do two things to help carry on his work:

1) Continue to fight the good fight for the sanctity of Life. And,

2) Have more dinner parties.

We will pass on the cigars.

The abortion debate will have some challenges during the Obama administration.

Sarah Pulliam writes in Christianity Today, Battle Fatigue
Abortion opponents head into Obama presidency after big losses

"The first thing I'd do as President," Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood in 2007, "is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." The bill would remove almost all state and federal restrictions on abortion. But observers wonder if the anti-abortion movement has enough life in it to successfully fight the legislation or similar measures...

Signs of fatigue aside, observers agree that abortion will remain a major political issue.

"People are still energized and ready to fight a radical agenda on abortion as it comes down the pipe," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.

[She should have said 'pike' not 'pipe.' She has a delightful way of mixing the metaphor: Belly up to the plate; Step up to the bar, Easy as cake, It's a piece of pie. She is a fun woman to live with...]

Polls and other research suggest that younger evangelicals are more supportive of abortion restrictions than older evangelicals are. A 2007 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that 70 percent of younger white evangelicals favor "making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion," compared with 55 percent of older white evangelicals.

The Pro-Life Movement as the Politics of the 1960s by Richard John Neuhaus

Copyright (c) 2009 First Things (January 2009).

Whatever else it is, the pro-life movement of the last thirty-plus years is one of the most massive and sustained expressions of citizen participation in the history of the United States. Since the 1960s, citizen participation and the remoralizing of politics have been central goals of the left. Is it not odd, then, that the pro-life movement is viewed as a right-wing cause?...

These are the issues addressed in a remarkable new book out this month from Princeton University Press, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, by Jon Shields, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College...

The pro-life movement is a movement for change, indeed for what some view as the radical change of eliminating the unlimited abortion license. "Meanwhile," writes Shields, "the pro-choice movement is a conservative movement defending the status quo. Pro-choicers have little to gain from engaging their opponents and from the deliberative norms that facilitate persuasion."

...the abortion battle is over abortion and whether the unborn child counts as a human person, but where one comes out on that question is, I believe, powerfully influenced by a host of other beliefs and attitudes aptly summarized in the pro-life language of a culture of death versus a culture of life. There are two cultures, one focused on rights and laws and the other on rights and wrongs; one focused on maximizing individual self-expression and the other on reinforcing community and responsibility....

"One of the great political ironies of the past few decades," writes Shields, "is that the Christian Right has been much more successful than its political rivals at fulfilling New Left hopes for American democracy. Far more than any movement since the early campaign for civil rights, the Christian Right has helped revive participatory democracy in America by overcoming citizens' alienation from politics." As one has all too many occasions to observe, history has many ironies in the fire. To the 1960s proponents of participatory democracy, the maxim applies: Be careful what you hope for. To those flirting with despair in the face of an Obama presidency, the advice is offered: You might want to get a copy of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right by Jon Shields. And all of us would do well to ponder the wisdom in the observation that there are no permanently lost causes because there are no permanently won causes.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

We had dinner last night at the Algonquin Hotel, birthplace of the New Yorker. Where writers and what-not would gather at the The Roundtable in the 1920's and 30's. We sat at The Roundtable and learned about the literary giants who walked those floors and sat at these places. We stared at the large wooden table and marveled and mumbled something about history to the waiter.

"The Table? Nevermind. It's a replica. Dunno where the real one is," he said. "New owners did something with it..."

The table was a fake. Made us think about all those authentic pro-choicers at the New Yorker.

Read more from First Things at the jump.

Vital Signs also recommends First Things.

Also see Wake for Father Richard John Neuhaus.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 7:40 PM | Permalink
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Just before the election, Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) attended an intimate off-the-record lunch with Karl Rove.

Karl Rove, Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R)

Rove talked about election strategy and the Obama wish list.

Obama promised Planned Parenthood that the 'Freedom of Choice Act' or FOCA would be the first item of legislation he would sign.

Karl Rove has some experience against the Planned Parenthood machine -- the billion dollar enterprise that will push for FOCA; for the removal of any regulation of abortion on demand: Partial birth, parental notification, clinical standards, physician standards. It is possible to win against Planned Parenthood.

Rove has beaten a Richards before.

Rove was the, well, architect of the Bush victory over Ann Richards for Texas governor. The late Ann Richards is the mother of Cecile Richards, the present president of Planned Parenthood. Richards the younger has been trained in the workings political machinery.

To beat the current wily Richards (let's not call her "Tricky Dick"), Rove might suggest tactics he's done before to win. This time to FightFOCA; simple as 1-2-3,

1. Unify
2. Target
3. Turnout

1. Knowledge is good; and a winner. Conservative Pro-Lifers will be able to unify and bring together even Pro-Choicers who are concerned about knowing if their daughters are going to have an abortion. Pro-Abortionists would approve of the abortion. But all parents want to know if their children are playing with edged weapons and more so if they go under the knife. FightFOCA brings together Pro-Choice and Pro-Life voters. Obama would indeed be a 'uniter.'

2. Rove would suggest targeting this constituency who would have a passionate position on knowing if their children are going to have surgery by strangers. And who would be paying for the abortion. No parent would allow a stranger to give candy to their children; parents would not allow a stranger to operate on their child. Rove would identify this group, persuade them and then prompt them to action. The best sales process involves acknowledging pain -- avoiding the pain and providing a solution to solve the problem. The fear that mom and dad will lose control over the health decisions of their child is worrisome enough without Uncle Sam stepping in.

3. During an election the Rove strategy was to get a segment to the polls -- he knew he didn't need all the voters, only 50 percent + one to win a state. The action to FightFOCA is to bring the voters to movement -- so that Obama would have to delay the FOCA coming from Reid and Pelosi. This will be a challenge: Cecile Richards served as Pelosi's deputy chief-of-staff a few years ago. The tactic would be to make FOCA a costly, bloody fight of Obama against parents. Win or lose, Obama would be severely weakened in approval polls. And 'Pro-Life' Senator Reid, a Mormon, is not doing so well in his re-election polling from his home state of Nevada. His approval is 38 percent; negatives at 54.

Alert Readers know that it is nearly impossible for a candidate to win an election with negatives above 40 percent. Reid is in trouble.

Reducing abortion now polls very well for Lifers. Parental involvement polls at 70 percent approval. No liberal, finger-in-the-wind president fights this trend in the polling numbers.

At least not in his first term. Obama will delay if there is any chance that key voting groups of groups would vote against him in 2012 -- from Pro-Choice parents to Pro-Life activists; from liberal Catholics to conservative Evangelicals.

Not all agree. Alert Reader SoMG sends this counter-analysis on FOCA

Obama has everything to gain by passing FOCA. It will establish him as someone who means what he says. His friends will rejoice in his smile and his enemies will tremble at his frown.

The payoff will swamp the investment in political capital. Any honest right-winger from Machiavelli to Pat Buchanan to Carl Rove would say the same. What does he have to lose? Right-to-Lifers in general and the Catholic Church Hierarchy in particular declared war against him more than a year ago and their prosecution of their war has been limited only by fear of losing tax-exempt status and after the election by not knowing how vengeful he might turn out to be. He has nothing to lose.

As much as Obama wants chaos so that he can attempt to consolidate power in a single payer national health care system, he cannot lose the health care capacity in the near term of the closing of the Catholic hospitals. One hospital in 8 is controlled by the Catholic Church. And close they will if FOCA passes.

SoMG continues,

I count a filibuster-proof pro-FOCA majority in the Senate. Fifty-seven Dems, plus two Independents, minus RTL Dem Casey, plus three pro-choice Republicans makes sixty-one and that's assuming the scheisskopf beats the clown in Minnesota which doesn't look so likely given that if the recount's too close the US Senate decides...

My prediction about FOCA: with great pomp and circumstance (to coin a phrase) the Congress will amend FOCA to specify that it doesn't mean Catholic hospitals have to refer for abortions in order to get paid by the government.

That's the most likely interpretation anyway--the Act forbids governments, not the providers paid by the governments, from discriminating against (or for) abortion.

If your client gets an equal choice between a Catholic hospital that doesn't do abortions, and an abortion clinic that doesn't do live births, you're not discriminating, right? But they'll write it in explicitly.

Then the GOP will take credit for saving the Catholics from abortion, the Dems will take credit for being reasonable in victory (much more so than the Republicans were), women in the armed forces will be able to get abortions without going off site which it's very stupid for them to have to do.

Everybody will win. Right-to-lifers will rejoice in new Federal protection for the right to refuse abortion and grow your pregnancy, which will be increasingly important as we continue our ongoing transfer to government health care and government acquires a greater interest in aborting problem pregnancies.

Conservatives and the Catholic Church have picked FOCA as the hill to live or die on -- if FOCA passes with religious exceptions, conservatives know that this would be a liberal incremental step to first minimize, then marginalize and finally eliminate the church in the public square.

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Read the commentary at Eternity Matters with post, Fight the Freedom of Choice Act by Neil.

Visit DeaconJohn about FOCA.

Obama and how he will FOCA women and children. Obama's Abortion Bombshell:
Unrestricted Abortion Over Wishes of Individual States a Priority for Presidency.

See Online Prayer Requests by our friend Horace Cooper.

Social conservatives have long road ahead, by Ed Stoddard at Reuters.

Fight FOCA at Spreading Joy.

Visit rosettasister.

Visit Fight FOCA at Streams From The Rock. This writer is worth knowing.

See Austin's Everyone Should Know.

Get Informed at The Old House Spill.

Can Obama keep up with all his promises? asks dmweblife.

Visit AbortionAbout.com, and thank them for posting the FighFOCA code, Against the Holocaust of Our Unborn Children

Posted at 8:19 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

The other day Bill O'Reilly, on the FOX No Spin Zone, asked a guest,

Who's the Chairman of the Republican National Committee?

He was wondering about the leadership of the GOP.

It was not a rhetorical question.

His guest didn't know.

O'Reilly didn't know.

O'Reilly answered his own question with his not-knowing.

The GOP has some leadership challenges.

And changes might be a-coming.

Join Fight FOCA

Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) and Baby Boo wanted to know about the future of the conservative movement and the future of the GOP.

So we headed over to the Press Club in Your Nation's Capital to hear each of the candidates interview for the RNC Chairman job. Hosted by Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform.

90 minutes and only one word from each of the candidates on the Life issue.

One question.

One word.

Grover Norquist asked, "Are you Pro-Life?"

They each replied, "Yes."

That was it. One word on Life. The biggest issue of our generation. The GOP has a Pro-Life plank. The Democrats and Obama represent the party of death.

Some 26 percent of the Jesus Followers followed Obama. And none of the RNC candidates talked about it. And how to persuade Life-Lovers to vote again with the Life Party.

We needed to hear more about what the new guy would do to Fight FOCA. And defend Life.

Dan Gilgoff at USNews & World Report though this was odd also and quoted Charmaine all a-Twitter, Would-Be Republican Party Chairmen Quiet on Faith at Candidate's Forum. Charmaine observed,

"It's nice that all the GOP candidates said 'yes' they are 'pro-life.' But there is slightly more to it than that."

The Republican party is the party of limited government, low taxes, strong defense, pro-life and pro-marriage. But we heard precious little of how conservative values differ from Obama and the Party of Abortion.

###

Thank you (foot)notes:

Visit Value Voters News, FightFoca campaign's first call to action is a success....

We appreciate Visionary Womanhood with As We Prepare for an Obama Administration . . .

Posted at 8:48 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

King Kong in New York CityFrom time to time, Your Business Blogger(R) works out of a client's offices at the edifice at 350 Fifth Avenue in NYC.

Also known as The Empire State Building.

It is still standing.

So what didn't happen on New Year's Eve?

What did not happen in 2008?

Nothing.

Enemy Jihadists didn't blow anything up on USA soil. And they didn't touch Times Square packed with people at midnite 31 December.

President George Bush has been keeping all Americans safe since 9.11.

Even Michael Moore.

Even Jeremiah Wright.

We have been safe for some 2,800 days. Will this continue?

Vice President Elect Joe Biden has promised us that we will be attacked when Barack Obama is president. Americans will be killed by jihadist terrorists.

This is a campaign promise of the Obama administration. One that Obama is sure to keep.

Alert Readers know that our household lives down wind in the blast zone of Your Nation's Capital. A dirty bomb in DC is a bit of a concern for us.

If you voted for Obama, you voted for changing the landscape in Washington, DC.

Literally.

Be sure to thank Bush for keeping us safe.

9.11 How Would Liberals Have Protected Us?

We have not been attacked since 9.11.01. It is nearly impossible, in war, in politics, to make nothing happen.

So the liberals are right when they say to George Bush,

"Thanks for nothing..."

See Nine Possibilities Heading Into 2009

Visit Bush Kept Us Safe Since 9.11.

Posted at 8:57 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Charmaine sends this along,

As we prepare for an Obama Administration...

As we look toward celebrating the New Year on Wednesday night, my email box is filling up with end-of-year appeals, and I know yours is too.

Let me then be plain in telling you how much we appreciate your partnership with AUL this past year and as we head into the new one.

Many people have been asking me how things stand, and what our strategy will be, with an incoming presidential administration that has taken such a radical stance supporting abortion. The short answer: I am, frankly, heartened by the tremendous response of our AUL supporters each time we've asked you to stand for life.

First, we saw the remarkable response to AUL Action's FightFOCA petition. Pro-lifers are not giving in!

The signatures have continued rising, even over the Christmas
holiday, and now stand at over 350,000!

If you haven't signed yet, take a minute and add your voice at: www.FightFOCA.com.

I am also heartened by the response of AUL supporters to the 55-page Wish List pro-abortion forces sent to President-elect Obama. We asked you to enter comments on the document and now there are nearly 3,000 comments, mostly pro-life, on the site.

You can read them here: http://change.gov/open_government/entry/advancing_reproductive_rights_and_health_in_a_new_administration.

US News and World Report noted the surge in comments and observed that:

(http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2008/12/23/pro-lifers-inundate-obama-website-with-comments.html)

That's encouraging!

Of course, a realist must acknowledge that no one really knows what the ground game will look like once we begin confronting an administration so radical that its leader, President-elect Obama, could not bring himself to vote in favor of protecting babies born alive after an abortion. And he is unwaveringly supported by the current leader of the world's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood and its President Cecile Richards, who was the deputy chief of staff to the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi only three years ago.

Even so -- even so! -- I remain hopeful. I have on my fireplace mantle a copy of the classic work, Streams in the Desert, which belonged to my grandparents. The entry to be read each January 6th, addresses the perennial question of uncertainty and recounts the example of the self-opening gate:

There is a self-opening gate which is sometimes used in country roads. It stands fast and firm across the road as a traveler approaches it. If he stops before he gets to it, it will not open. But if he will drive right at it, his wagon wheels press the springs below the roadway, and the gate swings back to let him through. He must push right on at the closed gate, or it will continue to be closed.

Then the author, Lettie Cowman, sums up by saying, "This illustrates the way to pass every barrier on the road of duty."

Duty is an old-fashioned word, rarely heard today. But the AUL team believes that it is indeed our duty, and a high calling, to stand against those who would promote the Culture of Death with every last resource that God grants us, regardless of the barriers that block the road ahead.

We will pray for wisdom, direction, and discernment. And then, we intend to run straight at the gate.

These are difficult times. I've talked with so many of you recently who have told me that you are standing with us, despite financial challenges. We are humbled -- and emboldened -- by your commitment.

Thank you for your faithful support which enables us to "press on and step out boldly."

Yours for life,

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life

PS: If you haven't yet made an end-of-year contribution, please do so today!

"As thou goest, step by step, I will open up the way. . ."

Proverbs 4:12 (Hebrew translation)

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Don't Drink the King's Wine, has AUL President's Encouragement Heading Into The New Year

Visit The Reagan Conservatives Blog.

See Beltway Blips.

Prayer Request for Our Nation!!! FOCA Act to be signed by President Obama :(

Why not Serve the Lord

Make a comment on Obama's web-site concerning FOCA and the 55 page pro-abortion mandate posted there....

See TruthSeekers

Thank you to Pro-Life Blogs, AUL President's Encouraging Anecdote Heading Into The New Year

Posted at 11:30 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Charmaine sent this out to a few hundred thousand of her closest friends. Please sign the FightFOCA petition today.

Tell Obama To Stop Supporting FOCA

Pro-abortion forces have given President-elect Obama 55 pages of instructions on what to do when he becomes President. A top priority? The "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA).

Some insist FOCA isn't a real threat, that we can stop it easily. But that's not what pro-life leaders on Capitol Hill are saying.

Last week, I was in a meeting with Representative Mike Pence of Indiana -- one of the key incoming House leaders -- and he listed FOCA as one of the top four threats he sees in the next few months.

The Obama transition website has posted the 55-page pro-abortion marching order and opened it up for comment.

Let's tell him to ignore it.

Click here to ask President-elect Obama to stop supporting FOCA. FOCA would eliminate every abortion-related law nationwide -- even common-sense laws that protect women and minors -- and force us to pay for the radical pro-abortion agenda with our tax dollars.

We can do it!

May you and your family have a Blessed Christmas.

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life Action
FightFOCA.com
FightFOCA@FightFOCA.com

P.S. -- The fight against FOCA is just beginning. Please forward this email to friends and family members who can help us Fight FOCA. And please consider making an end-of-year contribution to help us tell even more people about the dangers of FOCA.

________________________________

Join Fight FOCAQuick Links
FightFOCA Petition
FightFOCA FAQ
About FightFOCA
About AUL Action

FightFOCA.com is a project of AUL Action

Chicago Office:
310 S Peoria St | Ste 500 | Chicago, IL 60607

DC Office:
1413 K Street, NW | Ste 1000 | Washington, DC 20005

A Project of AUL Action

Thank you (foot)notes:

As of tonight, Monday nite, there are almost 700 comments on Obama's website -- most comments look to be pro-life against FOCA. Tell Obama To Stop FOCA and protect our little girls.

See Involving the Parents by Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO.

See "Right of Conscience" Rule Passed. What's Next? By Anna Boyd

Brad Feld writes,

As I work my way through Vonnegut, my inner cynic is rewarded with gems from 40 years ago. For example:

Kilgore Trout (near the end of the book): "The problem is this: How to love people who have no use? In time, almost all men and women will become worthless as producers of goods, food, services, and more machines, as sources of practical ideas in the areas of economics, engineering, and probably medicine, too. So - if we can't find reasons and methods for treasuring human beings because they are human beings, then we might as well, as has so often been suggested, rub them out."

Don't try to understand it - it won't really make any sense without the context of the rest of the book. But - if you want a good jolt, read the book. One thing is for certain: Vonnegut knows how to string words together in a magical way.

Brad is a hi-tech, very bright, successful entrepreneur from Colorado. He supports abortion on demand: Abortion anytime for any reason; we might as well, as has so often been suggested, rub them out... Liberals are not logical.

Posted at 9:05 PM | Permalink
Comments (8)

If you fight against IL Gov. Rod Blagojevich, you might be a good-guy.

If you win against IL Gov. Rod Blagojevich, you might be on the side of the angels.

Charmaine was interviewed for CitizenLink, a division of Focus on the Family, Good News: Illinois Pharmacists Can Challenge Discriminatory Rule,

"This is a huge victory for the freedom of conscience of all health care providers," said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life. "Pharmacists now have proper recourse against a discriminatory law that would force them to check their constitutional rights at the workplace door."

Here's how it started against Illinois governor Blago,

CitizenLink also quotes AUL's legal eagle Denise Burke,

in Good News: Regulations Protect Doctors' Freedom of Conscience

Life advocates are praising the timing of new government rules that protect health care providers' freedom of conscience.

The Department of Health and Human Services put the regulations in place last week to reinforce rules that protect doctors from being forced to participate in abortion and other anti-life practices.

"By releasing them now, they will be in the federal register for 30 days before the Obama administration takes office," said Denise Burke, vice president and legal director for Americans United for Life. "For that reason, the Obama administration cannot simply erase these rules."

Join Fight FOCA

"We are shocked that the Bush administration chose to finalize its midnight regulation and to take this parting shot at women's health and ignore patients' rights to receive critical healthcare services and information they deserve," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement. "We look forward to working with President-elect Obama and leaders in Congress to repeal this disastrous rule and expand patients' access to full healthcare information and services, not limit it."

Many of the abortions at Planned Parenthood are performed to rid the world of African-American babies. This is one lucky baby girl.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Other related news,

LifeSiteNews reports, Illinois Supreme Court Decision Supports Conscience Rights of Pharmacists

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life (AUL) President and CEO, responded to the Supreme Court decision, stating, "This is a huge victory for the freedom of conscience of all healthcare providers. Pharmacists now have proper recourse against a discriminatory law that would force them to check their constitutional rights at the workplace door."

See the Americans United for Life Amicus Curiae Brief

CathNewsUSA writes, "Conscience" rule to cover health providers

Not everyone believes in conscientious objection. Not liberals, anyway. See, Are There Limits to the So-Called "Conscience Rule?"

Visit (and bookmark) Jill Stanek, Breaking news: IL Supreme Court rules for pharmacists/against Blagojevich

See AUL's press release, Americans United for Life Applauds Illinois Supreme Court Decision Supporting Constitutional Rights of Pharmacists

Deep Thoughts doesn't like the conscience clause either -- But note: Mojoey does refer to the Pro-Life position as, well, Pro-Life. An honest liberal! Who knew?

Alert the (Mainstream) Media!

...

Never mind.

See The Center blog.

Visit Social Developments Americans United for Life Applauds Adoption of HHS Rules Protecting Freedom of Conscience, Urges Vigilance in Protecting Both Providers and Healthcare Access

More from AUL on HHS conscience protection.

Posted at 10:29 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Paul Weyrich died last night too young at 66. He was the first president of the Heritage Foundation and was founder and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

At a tribute for Weyrich on Sept 10, 2008, George Will recounted a special encouragement from Paul decades ago.

George Will has a son with Down Syndrome. When he was born, Paul called him. "George," said Paul, "You are so lucky. Your son is like the angels." George hesitated. Every parent would think this of his newborn son. But a child with Down Syndrome?

"He is like the angels because he will never know sin..."

Those same angels carried Weyrich home.

Weyrich was a pioneer in the conservative movement. He assembled and managed a talented team -- he had content and was a pioneer in focusing on communicating the message.

One of his ventures in the early nineties was National Empowerment Television, NET. C-Span with an attitude. Charmaine appeared a number of times on his show. She says, "He was always so gracious; a gentleman." We were excited to get his signed Christmas cards over the years.

See Rob Bluey at the Heritage blog.

Full Disclosure: Your Business Blogger(R) conducted management training at Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation facility. He made the space available for the good of the conservative community. At no charge. We will miss his leadership and generous spirit.

Posted at 8:56 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

The Commonwealth of Virginia is a terrific state to do business.

Alert Readers and my students well know the bias of Your Business Blogger(R) has toward Virginia -- a talented labor pool, low taxes, and a right to work state (re: employees don't have to join a union).

Virginia has had a business friendly culture since the county's founding. A few decades ago the beliefs were memorialized.

A Code for Virginians
Developed by a special committee of the Virginian State Chamber of Commerce and adopted by the membership in annual session at Roanoke on April 9, 1942

Preamble

Virginia was the scene of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. In its colonial legislative halls the fundamental principles of a new democracy were developed. Here the pattern of a government for a free people was evolved.

Patrick Henry sounded the keynote of the Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Deceleration of Independence. George Washington led the army that made the formation of the United States a possibility. James Madison fathered the Constitution. George Mason's Virginia Bill of Rights. Here in Virginia was launched the struggle for freedom that gave birth to a new government conceived and fostered by the sons of its soil.

It is fitting, then, that we who enjoy and seek to preserve the benefits that our forefathers provided for us, should reaffirm our faith in the principles upon which this nation was founded. We should pledge our support and dedicate ourselves, our institutions, our organizations, and our individual businesses to the principles whose adoption has brought our nation and our people to be the exemplars and leaders of the civilized world.

Since a system of free enterprise is not based upon any fundamental human right, the obligation rests upon our conduct of business that under this system the public welfare is best served.
To Virginians and Virginia institutions has come the opportunity to raise anew the battle cry of freedom, to crystallize into fulfilling action the tenets that have made of this a promised land. They who gave to us this priceless heritage will not sleep if we who now enjoy it let it slip from our grasp.

[Free enterprise may not be based on an enumerated right, but capitalism is Biblically based. The Commandment Thou shall not steal is a protection for private property and that property can only change hands -- legally -- with a willing buyer and seller.]

That we may express our faith in and pledge our support of our system of private enterprise the following code has been adopted by the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce to be displayed by all its members and proclaimed to the people pf this state and nation.

1. Business in all its forms, in all its activities, must command the respect, confidence, and support of the public and its own personnel. to this end it must keep its own house in order. only through the adoption and self-enforcement of ethical standards of conduct can business justify the right to freedom of action. By this means business can minimize the need of governmental regulation.

[Any human behavior needs to be protected from evil. Many cultures use government. We are blessed with self-government with self-regulation...enforced not with brute government, but with 'intermediating institutions' -- associations between citizens and government.]

2. The privilege of doing business in Virginia is freely acquired. It is a license to serve which imposes obligations upon business to deal fairly, openly, and honestly with the public, the employee, the investor, and the government.

[Virginia has low taxes and low barriers to entry to open a business.]

3. Laws regarding business should be based on the principle of guaranteeing freedom of action to all. They should prevent the abuse of power. Fulfillment of the statutes in spirit as well as in letter in an obligation of business.

[President Jefferson said that the purpose of government is to restrain evil -- not to do good.]

4. The freedom enjoyed by individuals in a democracy imposes commensurate obligations, applying equally to those engaged in business, professional, and governmental activity. All business enterprises, enjoying rights guaranteed to persons, must recognize the same obligation as are required of the individual.

5. The foundations of our established form of government rest upon the preservation of the fundamental, inalienable rights of the individual expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of the United States of America. These rights can best be preserved under a system of free enterprise.

Posted at 3:25 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Join Fight FOCA Yes, unless we stop it.

Unfortunately the proposed law has got friends.

FOCA is the proposed legislation that would eliminate all regulation and oversight of abortion. No parental notification for minors. No licensed doctors doing the cutting.

So how can we be so sure FOCA might be a-coming?

Because of the relationships of Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.

I've had both a dot gov email address and ran a dot com software company; now I teach.

At the start of every semester, Your Business Blogger(R) instructs my class on how Business Gets Done.

It is not technique. It is not brilliance. It is not killer apps. It is not resources. It is not capital.

Business Gets Done thru relationships.

The Business of Politics is no different.

Barack Obama promised Cecile Richards that FOCA would be the first item of law that Obama would sign.

Obama will sign FOCA because it will be forced thru congress.

It will be forced thru congress because Nancy Pelosi wants FOCA.

Nancy Pelosi wants FOCA because Cecile Richards wants FOCA.

Here is where Cecile Richards earns her million dollar salary:

Cecile and Nancy are very close. And not because Planned Parenthood gives campaign donations to Democrats.

Cecile Richards used to work for Nancy Pelosi.

Cecile Richards served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Pelosi when Nancy was House Minority Leader.

Cecile served her boss well. Pelosi will reward Cecile Richard's loyal service; good friends. Kindred spirits. Pro-Abortion.

Relationships. Get Business Done.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Stop them both: Please visit fightFOCA and sign the petition.

The petition has almost reached 299,000. If you are number 300,000, please let us know for a special treat.
If FOCA gets anywhere get ready for a cultural battle!!!

See Ladies for Life

Why I decided not to be an abortionist.

Something Matters

What Planet are you living on?

See Americans United for Life blog.

Posted at 9:41 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Join Fight FOCA Liberals whine,
Don't Like abortion?
Don't have one.

Conservatives remind,
Don't like abortion?
Don't pay for one.

Obama's so called "Freedom of [abortion] Choice Act" (FOCA) would force taxpayers to buy abortions here and abroad.

And it would appear that there will be tax increases to fund abortions on demand.

FOCA would eradicate state and federal laws that the majority of Americans support, such as:

* Bans on Partial Birth Abortion * Requirements that women be given information about the risks of getting an abortion * Only licensed physicians can perform abortions * Parents must be informed and give consent to their minor daughter's abortion

FOCA would erase these laws and prevent states from enacting similar protective measures in the future.

Please visit FightFOCA

Currents signers number over 293,000. When you sign, you will be able to see your number. Let us know if you've signed and what you number was -- we are looking for number 300,000. You will be recognized!

Following and at the jump are websites that have mentioned the petition by Americans United for Life.

Thank you (foot)notes:

If Your Business Blogger(R) has missed your citation for the FightFOCA petition.

Wikipedia

Don't Drink the King's Wine

JIMMY AKIN.ORG: Fight FOCA

Reflections of a Paralytic » Fight FOCA, Sign the petition to help AUL fight FOCA. ...

Fight FOCA Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
Nov 15, 2008 ... Please read the expert analysis by Americans United for Life (AUL) and sign the Fight FOCA petition at: http://www.FightFOCA.com. Thank you! ...

Les Femmes - the truth: FIGHT FOCA!

ADF Alliance Alert Campaign To Fight FOCA Under Way

Care2 - Sign the Fight FOCA Petition
Americans United for Life (AUL) , a pro-life law and policy organization; Please add your name to the Fight FOCA petition and let your friends know ...

FIGHT FOCA - Please read even if you are Pro-Choice - *Taking Back ...
Please read the expert analysis by Americans United for Life (AUL) and sign the Fight FOCA petition at: http://www.FightFOCA.com ...

Continue Reading »

Posted at 7:42 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

So Obama keeps Bush man Gates as SecDef. Some hints at not raising taxes. Wants to reduce abortion.

Is Obama governing like a, gasp, Republican?

Will Obama not push for the so called "Freedom of Choice Act" FOCA?

No.

Obama might surrender in Iraq and to Iran even with Gates, but Obama will never surrender on FOCA.

Cecile Richards and Barack Obama

Three reasons why Obama will fight for FOCA,

Obama will sign whatever Reid-Pelosi pass thru congress.

Obama will not veto FOCA. He does not have the political capital nor the political will to resist. Planned Parenthood paid too much money to be ignored. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood will earn her million dollar W-2. And Hillary will not let him forget FOCA.

FOCA will be the first legislation Obama will sign. When Your Business Blogger(R) did a tour of duty in government the fixed point, guiding star were Campaign Promises. They were a matter a public record and private integrity. If the candidate promised, The Honorable delivered.

But, then again, I worked for a Republican...

The religion of the abortionists appears in the book, The Sacrament of Abortion by pro-abortion Ginette Paris and Joanna Mott

The Alert Reader would well know that abortion is a religious tenet of the Democrat party. To proselytize for the abortionists is, well, Biblical:
they not only continue to do [evil] but also approve of those who practice them Romans 1:32.

Detractors Downplay Pro-Abortion FOCA Bill's Reach, Say Pro-Lifers Exaggerate
Kathryn Jean Lopez, the editor of National Review Online, responded Tuesday to the attempts to downplay the concerns about FOCA.

"Though it's often referred to as a mere codification of Roe, FOCA, as currently drafted, actually goes well beyond that," she explains.

She quotes information from pro-abortion Sen. Barbara Boxer who, in a statement on her web site, explains that FOCA would nullify all existing laws and regulations that limit abortion in any way, up to the time of fetal viability.

"While there is strenuous debate among legal experts on the matter, many believe the act would invalidate the freedom-of-conscience laws on the books in 46 states," Lopez said.

Please sign the petition.

Pro-Abortion Melinda Henneberger from Slate writes,

Lose-Lose on Abortion; Obama's threat to Catholic hospitals and their very serious counterthreat,

There are also serious questions about whether FOCA as currently drafted exceeds congressional authority. But when Obama was campaigning on FOCA, he didn't say anything about wanting to change it.

The FOCA fight will continue.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Please note The Warner Family. And see what four fun kids would look like.

The Sacrament
of Abortion Post details: Fight FOCA!

Visit Twenty Items of Interest (v.40)

Read what An Huynh said, in Fighting FOCA.

Real Choice has a better video on Only Women Bleed than seen on Reasoned Audacity.

Ou phoneuseis teknon en phthora ("Thou shalt not murder by abortion")
Didache, late first or early second century, AD. (Yes, Anno Domini, Latin for The Year Of Our Lord, NOT CE Common Era)

Read an Amazon reviewer's comment on the confusion of abortion and The Sacrament of Abortion at the jump,

Continue Reading »

Posted at 12:04 PM | Permalink
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So begins Chapter 1 of Joseph W. Dellapenna's benchmark book on abortion, Dispelling Myths of Abortion History.

It belongs on every thinking thought leader's desk.

Dispelling the Myths
of Abortion HistoryGo Ask Alice.

During the early 1970's Your Business Blogger(R) worked in show business and watched a number of acts.

As a security guard...

One of the most bizarre performances was a gentleman/group named Alice Cooper. Mascara and Monsters. Decapitations were the crowd pleasers -- then as today.

I think there was blood: real -- imagined. As with Ozzie Osborne in Black Sabbath.

We have less of that today, I think. Less Blood on stage.

There is hope for civilization. Maybe.

Alice was the pre-curser to Marilyn Mason with the male-to-female make-up.

Alice Cooper was an act. Not so sure about Marilyn.

Alice and Marilyn are no mere metrosexual girlie-boys without manhood like Obama.

They are the real thing.

They are what Hollywood calls this gender-free entertainment: Authentic.

The sex-less who deal in pain. In angst. In the blood.

Wait a minute...maybe Alice and Marilyn and Obama are the same.

Except these girls can't have abortions.

Hollywood becomes Washington.

Well, maybe not Alice Cooper: He is Pro-Life.

Only Women Bleed Lyrics at the jump,

Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

Alice Cooper, Only Women Bleed

An Alert Reader writes into Stop the ACLU,

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

Vincent Fournier aka Alice Cooper

Follow Jack on Twitter @JackYoest and Charmaine @CharmaineYoest

Continue Reading »

Posted at 11:17 AM | Permalink
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ANALYSIS-Activists hope Obama acts on abortion rights By Ed Stoddard,

DALLAS, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Abortion rights activists, an important component of the Democratic Party's base, expect to advance their agenda under U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, signaling fresh battles over the highly charged issue.

Changes could take place in areas from judicial appointments to overseas aid. Obama strongly supports abortion rights, in stark contrast to President George W. Bush, a social conservative who often talked of a "culture of life" -- code for opposition to abortion.

Obama supports his Party of Death. Bush supports the "Culture of Life." In policy as well as "code word."

Reuters continues,

On the policy front, activists and analysts say an early skirmish could come over federal funding for nongovernmental organizations that offer abortion operations or counseling in family planning services abroad.

"Family planning services" are "code words" for abortion on demand through all nine months and beyond -- if the infant is born alive.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told Reuters in interviews that rolling back the rule was among their top political priorities.

Abortion rights opponents, many of whom on religious grounds regard the procedure as murder, see any move on that front as the next shot in the abortion wars.

"To reintroduce funding for it internationally is very offensive because there are even people who describe themselves as pro-choice, but don't want to be involved in public funding for it," said Charmaine Yoest, [Ph.D.] president of Americans United for Life Action, which opposes abortion rights.

Ed Stoddard notes in FightFOCA.com that,


Join Fight FOCA

"FOCA has been like a red flag to social conservatives who say it will sweep aside most restrictions on abortion rights, such as parental notification laws and the Partial-Birth Abortion Act that bans a certain late-term procedure.

Americans United for Life Action said that as of Friday, it had more than 230,000 signatures on an anti-FOCA petition on its website fightfoca.com --- virtually all since the election."

Thank you (foot)notes:

When Charmaine worked in the West Wing of the Ronald Reagan White House, one of the first things she was taught was that Personnel is Policy.

Obama, a good politico, knows this. MIKE ALLEN from Politico reports in Labor ally to head Obama communications,

Ellen Moran, executive director of EMILY's List, was named White House communications director by President-elect Obama on Saturday.

Moran, a well-known grassroots organizer, has also managed statewide Democratic campaigns and managed the Wal-Mart corporate accountability campaign for the AFL-CIO.

Morgan is a pro-abortionist and hates Wal-Mart. She will be the face and voice of Obama's administration. Expect little compromise from ObamAbortionists.

Jon at Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia has Fight FOCA.

A Culture 11 pro, Jillian Bandes, has Freedom of Choice Act Roundup at LadyBlog.

Be sure to check out This Post in this post from David Brooks,

FOCA is the Freedom of Choice Act; an Act that would sweep away all restrictions on abortions, all parental notification laws, all rights of hospitals and doctors to not perform abortions.

It is the duty of every Christian to resist the enactment of this brutal, vile piece of legislation.

Michelle (not Obama) writes, Urgent... please read,

Hello! I am sending this out to everyone...about the FOCA bill ...President Elect Obama has as one of his first bills to pass. Below are some of the stats taken off of the web site. I encourage everyone to sign. Thanks for reading!

The nation's premier pro-life legal organization has launched a new project aimed at stopping passage of the most radical pro-abortion legislation in the nation's history. With the full support of President- elect Barack Obama, congressional Democrats are poised to pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a law that will make abortion a "fundamental right" much the same as the right to vote and the right to free speech. By doing so, this new federal law would automatically invalidate every federal, state and local law placing even the most common sense restrictions on abortion.

And more.

PERSEVERANCE REQUIRED ! ! !

Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel for Americans United for Life believes the election was about the economy and, in no way, a repudiation of pro-life principles.

"It is very difficult to keep pro-life and other issues of justice at the center of public life in the midst of war and economic crisis," he told Zenit News Service.

"William Wilberforce's campaign against the slave trade in Great Britain during the 1790s -- which was derailed by the French Revolution, war with France, economic crises and terrible harvests -- is a good example. But Wilberforce (and his allies) persevered and things turned around over considerable time"

Read The Reads in Rockwall.

Posted at 2:52 PM | Permalink
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Join Fight FOCA Log on.
Take a number.
Hit the lottery.

Sign on at www.FightFOCA.com and let us know if your number is 250,000.

A quarter million is a nice number. Will it be yours?

Dollars?

Nope.

Maybe something better -- if you are for Life.

FightFOCA is an on-line petition to persuade our national leadership: President-Elect Obama, Senator Majority Leader Reid and House Majority Leader Pelosi that limiting states rights is not what the voters want.

[Correction: Alert Readers will note that Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, Democrat Steny Hoyer from Maryland is the House Majority Leader.]

The public wants the financial market regulated.

The public wants the abortion market regulated.

The public wants common sense oversight of abortion.

Parents want to know if their child is having an abortion.

Women want all surgical procedures to be to the highest medical standards.

The public wants licensed doctors doing surgery; not social workers.

Women want information about their babies through the science of sonograms.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, is against all these regulations. Why?

Quo Bono?

Follow the money. Planned Parenthood grosses -- so to say -- a billion (that's B as in Billion) (a 1,000 million) dollars each year.

L: A Baby
R: A BabyPlanned Parenthood profits from abortion.

Planned Parenthood gets a $300 million bailout each each year from the taxpayer.

Planned Parenthood wants a blind eye on their abortion money-machine.

Your Business Blogger(R) is a capitalistic-for profit kind of guy -- but who would want to earn earnings from the slave trade?

Or abortion?

If you want your state's rights to guard your child's health, sign the petition.

Their will be a special recognition for the 250,000 milestone.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Robert was Number 45,704. An early adopter, as we say in marketing...

FOCA Would Wipe Away Every Restriction on Abortion Nationwide.

This would eradicate state and federal laws that the majority of Americans support, such as:

* Bans on Partial Birth Abortion
* Requirements that women be given information about the risks of getting an abortion
* Only licensed physicians can perform abortions
* Parents must be informed and give consent to their minor daughter's abortion

FOCA would erase these laws and prevent states from enacting similar protective measures in the future.

Be sure to visit the Americans United for Life blog.

Even our liberal friends are noticing the work of Americans United for Life. Right Wing Watch writes,

"Any time you have a loss like that, you have an opportunity to reassess and come back stronger," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. "If they want to see this as a big loss that will set us back, that's OK. Our people are very energized, and ready for Round Two."

Visit The Webbs, Fight for Life.

LifeNews.com, Election Results Don't Mean Pro-Life Movement to Stop, Limit Abortions is Dead.

ZENIT, Life and the Elections,

In 2008, 45 states considered nearly 450 measures related to abortion alone. Among 2008 pro-life victories are:

-- An omnibus measure in Oklahoma, requiring that a woman undergo an ultrasound prior to an abortion, regulating the provision of RU-486, and prohibiting coerced abortions;

-- New laws in Ohio, South Carolina, and South Dakota requiring that abortion providers offer a woman the opportunity to view an ultrasound prior to an abortion;

-- Legislatures in Colorado, Maryland, and Michigan limiting the use of taxpayer funding for abortions and abortion counseling;

-- Idaho lawmakers strengthening the state's informed consent law and prohibiting coerced abortions;

-- Meaningful funding of abortion alternatives in Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

DFW Catholic posts, Fighting the Freedom of Choice Act. And visit ProLife Dallas.

The international All News Web reports, Abortion: Obama's nightmare,

Obama has promised to restore federal funding to international family planning services, that is, his administration will financially support institutions around the globe that perform abortions. Obama has also promised to sign FOCA or the Freedom of Choice Act. Anti-abortion activists are mobilising for a battle as they now realise they no longer have an ally in the White House.

Americans United for Life is gathering up signatures at a frantic pace to oppose FOCA.

CNSNews.com has Catholics Who Vote for Freedom of Choice Act Could Face Automatic Excommunication, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago says,

"Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. Abortion clinics would be deregulated," said George.

"The Hyde Amendment restricting the federal funding of abortions would be abrogated. FOCA would have lethal consequences for prenatal human life," he said.

"FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children," George continued.

"It would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would further divide our country, and the Church should be intent on opposing evil. On this issue, the legal protection of the unborn, the bishops are of one mind with Catholics and others of good will."

The liberal, etiquette-ly challenged Low and Left Part Deux will not link to Americans United for Life, behaving more like the liberal main stream media than a hard-working blogger. Spiteful when he should be cite-ful...The Pushback and 2012 Has Started. Note the link.

TIM DRAKE, Senior Writer at the National Catholic Register writes, The Abortion President? Pro-Lifers Sound Warning on Freedom of Choice Act.

Kenrick Social Justice blogs, Americans United for Life has Petition Against FOCA.

Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, Study to show thyself approved unto God... (2 Tim. 2:15), writes, Fight FOCA.

Good links at Random Junk from an Intellectual Wannabe.

Vivificat! posted the code.

Women of Faith and Culture has FOCA on the Family. Bringing Faith and Reason to Life.

If you have posted the FightFOCA.com code on your template, please email us! We will be in your debt.

Posted at 11:43 AM | Permalink
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Warning: Adult material. Safe for work, maybe. Charmaine's had a dozen gigs on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. The following episode features Hustler Magazine publisher, Larry Flynt, Musician Edwin McCain (no relation to John McCain) and Actor Steve Hytner.

Charmaine was on to flog her book Mother in the Middle: Searching for Peace in the Mommy Wars.

Jesus-loving normal mom on the same set as a porn-peddler.

Only in America.

The work an author has to do these days...

Bill Maher, Politically Incorrect
Charmaine Yoest on the right,
of course... The topic was kiddie pornography. Re: Chester the Molester .

So it was four Hollywood liberals against one normal conservative.

About even.

Thank you (foot)notes:

This show originally aired on February 2, 2000 on the ABC network.

Your Business Blogger(R) recommends Kiddie P*rn: Dirty Old Men Are Slow Learners

Also see Charmaine on CNN Debating Condoms;
Obama Will Export Abortion-Condom Funding Overseas

Posted at 9:41 PM | Permalink
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Warning: The Condom Commercial is for mature audiences.

In the 1990's CNN had a terrific talking-heads-shouting-show called Crossfire. Regular Hosts included Michael Kinsley, liberal, then moved to Slate. Pat Buchanan, conservative, former GOP, now gone from the Republican Club but still Pro-Life.

The show ran five nights a week for 30 minutes. Hosts earned about $200K and were worth every dime.

Charmaine appeared in a number of segments. In this episode she debated Kristine Gebbie from the Clinton administration on the marketing and efficacy of condoms. Charmaine's points are valid today -- truth is, well, timeless. John Sununu is in the conservative chair, on the right, of course.

Oddly, liberals demand that conservatives use science in any debate -- but whenever a conservative uses real science with real data, we are then accused of "imposing our values." A liberal pivot.

The actual condom failure rate is some 20 percent. The cost of failure could be pregnancy. Could be death.

This is described by anti-science liberals as "fear based sex ed."

So what will Obama do about abortion and condoms?

Even before Obama gets legislation from congress on abortion, Obama will, by Executive Order, repeal the The Mexico City Policy (1984) which,

Prohibits the use of federal funding for organizations and programs "which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations."

Media Alert: Obama may very well use the Clinton's Dancing Condom Marketing Campaign. For the Domestic and International markets.

Watch the video and let us know what you think.

Join Fight FOCA

Sign up on FightFOCA. Your Business Blogger(R) did.

Thank you (foot)notes:
CatholicCitizens writes,

For starters, we may expect removal of the present administration's ban on destructive embryonic research, and rejection of the Mexico City accords which restrained abortion and eugenics.

Crossfire: The Condom Campaign first aired on January 4, 1994.

Posted at 8:58 PM | Permalink
Comments (8)

Americans United for Life recently started a campaign to encourage the public to Fight FOCA through the FightFOCA website.

US News & World Report reports, Abortion Foes Mobilize Against Obama
Activists seek to prevent new administration from reversing Bush administration policies, by Paul Bedard, Posted November 14, 2008

The antiabortion movement is mobilizing its forces to challenge President-elect Barack Obama should he move quickly to restore federal funding of international family planning services and make good his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, or FOCA.

Americans United for Life has been in the lead on this battle,

Led by Americans United for Life and other antiabortion groups, the movement is gathering signatures to fight FOCA and meeting this weekend to map out a strategy. [Yep, we are here now...]

There are some pundits who feel that Obama will not push for FOCA in his first term. But what is certain is that Obama will not veto any legislation coming out of the Reid-Pelosi legislative machine.

While it is unclear if Obama will move swiftly on the abortion issue, activists on both sides expect him to reverse a Bush executive order implementing the so-called Mexico City language that bars nongovernmental family planning organizations from using federal money to perform abortion services in other countries or to inform patients there about such procedures.

The activists expect that move to propel action in Congress on FOCA, which sets in law a woman's right to choose and challenges recent Supreme Court rulings on the issue.

According to foes, the new strategy to fight both will seek to capitalize on taxpayer anger at the recent Wall Street bailout.

"Our strategy will be, 'Do we want to use federal tax dollars to bail out the abortion industry?' " says one of the activists working to build a coalition to fight Obama. "Why are we using taxpayer money to fund abortion services overseas?" he said. (However, federal funding has not been used in the past to directly fund abortions overseas.)

Cecile Richards and Barack Obama

Cecile Richards is the president of the one billion dollar Planned Parenthood. Tax dollars indirectly fund Cecil Richards' $1,000,000 annual salary. The tax payer provides the abortion provider over $300,000,000 each year. Your money. Funds Abortion. Three Hundred Million Dollars.

USN&WR closes,

While it's an issue that was largely avoided in the presidential campaign, conservatives see it as a key test of which way Obama will move on social issues in his first year.

We Pro-Life conservatives know exactly how Obama will move -- he will payback his backers, his buddies. To those he's beholden. Cecile Richards is first in line.

So who exactly is Cecile Richards, who would deserve this liberal Democrat payback?

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, contributor to all issues liberal is a very special liberal Democrat.

She is the daughter of liberal Democrat Ann Richards.

Fight FOCAThe fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. And like Eve, Planned Parenthood is coming for a bigger bite of the apple.

Payback is coming to Planned Parenthood.

But the taxpayer, the voter is fighting back.

Fight FOCA.

Thank you (foot)notes,

Your Business Blogger(R) recommends, Obama Transition Team in Lockstep with Planned Parenthood

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., is president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

See Our Journey.

Visit Jimmy Akin at FightFOCA.

Ten Reasons

Jay Anderson, a smart guy from University of Virginia Law School (redundant, I know), Fight FOCA.

25 year-old Chelsea Zimmerman from Holts Summit, Missouri has a perspective on life and on Life well beyond her years. The world is a better place for her blogging.

Ronald L. Caravan has a compelling article in The Valley News Online, Between the Lines: How ironic that Obama action might threaten 'separation of church and state' Liberals make little sense...,

In simple terms, under the Freedom of Choice Act, Catholic hospitals would eventually be forced to perform abortions or go out of business, and Catholic bishops this week were signaling that they would go out of business before they would start aborting babies.

"This is not a matter of political compromise," Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio was quoted in news reports. "It's a matter of absolutes."

Commenting on Catholic elected officials, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City stated, "They cannot call themselves Catholic when they violate such a core belief as the dignity of the unborn."

And Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago frankly stated that if Catholic hospitals were given no choice but to perform abortions, they would close rather than comply.

The Freedom of Choice Act is not a brand new proposal. So why the heightened concern now? Because of what President-elect Obama announced at a Planned Parenthood banquet in July of 2007: "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.... On this fundamental issue, I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield."

...

"Freedom of Choice sounds so benign, but people have simply no comprehension of what a radical piece of legislation this is," stated Daniel McConchie of Americans United for Life. "The bottom line is that if FOCA passes, you'll have abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason in all 50 states and pay for it with our taxes."...

Unlike the continuous left-leaning efforts to obliterate God from all aspects of public life in the name of "separation of church and state"--which it is not--the Freedom of Choice Act actually does threaten to impose government interference on a church--exactly what Thomas Jefferson promised would not be done when he coined the "separation" phrase in a letter to a church in Danbury, Connecticut so many years ago.

Leave it to the relativistic left to wrongly accuse everyone else of violating a principle, then commit that very sin themselves.

more at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:53 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Artwork by
Bagram Ibatoulline

The White House invitation arrived in a hand addressed envelope on heavy parchment. With a First Class stamp.

A first class act.

Posted at 10:11 PM | Permalink
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Conservatives are giving voice to moving ideas to govern. Heidi Brennan developed this article which deserves a wide audience.

Obama: Did we elect a president?
or a logo?
A man?
or a Brand?

Proposal for Action by Conservative Organizations
By Heidi L. Brennan

The results of last week's national election are being endlessly dissected and discussed in news rooms, board rooms, and living rooms, but the following should be clear:

The loss of the White House and substantial losses in both houses of Congress are NOT due to a failure of conservative policy. They are the failure of those in the Republican Party who neutralized, ignored, and/or fought every conservative principle over the past eight years.

The Democratic Party outspent and outmaneuvered Republicans, especially at the grassroots level and in sophisticated internet communications strategy.

The two most interesting people to emerge in this campaign are: Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.

The current collapse of our economy is shrinking everyone's budget, and the consequences will include reduction of donations to non-profit advocacy institutions, including those promoting conservative values. Though funding will lessen (initially), a strong conservative values base continues to exist and will make every effort to contribute to dynamic advocacy. Conservative voters are poised to become new community activists. They may rightfully expect new ideas and strategies for promoting enduring principles. Education and policy organizations must find ways to engage these grassroots conservative values advocates with new resources, developing simplified ways to deliver timely political information along with easily usable policy research information.

Palin and the Plumber captured the enthusiastic support of voters because they transcended debate by doing more than espousing basic conservative principles. They told their personal stories in an authentic, simple manner effectively linked to election debate. There were no gimmicks, and no controlled published biographies in advance. Today's most successful public relations and marketing plans tell a story, engaging the targeted consumer, voter, or client so that they are motivated to act.

Conservative organizations should consider the following:

· Prepare stories and recruit/prepare effective storytellers to reflect their mission/values.

Assess current databases and develop others, especially directed at grassroots conservative activism.

Increase the use of internet-based media/information-sharing tools.

Expand leadership training opportunities beyond the college age population, to include high school and middle school students.

Recognizing that all parents are their children's primary teachers, especially of moral and civic values, develop easily-accessible internet-based materials for parents to utilize within their families.

Conservatives cannot afford to wait until January's inauguration of our next President and Congress to implement new thinking and approaches. Organization development should begin now.

more at the jump

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:21 PM | Permalink
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"The hospital can get me the operation now?" Charmaine asked.

"Sure," I said. "Where do you think you are, England?"

Charmaine's gall bladder removal was uneventful and, more important, immediate. There was no rationing of health care -- which we will get under an ObamaNation Health Plan.

That was exactly one week ago -- the latest surgical techniques have made recovery times shorter, less painful and less expensive. Good ol' American know-how.

Alert Readers will recall that Your Business Blogger(R) ran a number of medical device start up companies where we risked investors' investments to lower a patient's hospital 'length of stay' or LOS.

And the products and services made the world a better place as we improved patient care in a cost effective manner.

We assumed a risk in hope of a big payday, a big reward. Obama will kill this golden goose of innovative entrepreneurship.

Charmaine will be discussing the future on The Live Desk panel this afternoon. The other panelists will be Doug Schoen and Alex Burns.

The topics will be:

1) Obama's Administration - a recreation of the Clinton Administration? What's in store for Obama and his new team? and

2) A discussion on how Sarah Palin handled the campaign.

Obama Congratulates McCain YouTube.

Hit time will be at 2:30pm eastern. Please tune or tivo and let us know what you think.

Background at the jump, Obama, Candidate of Change, Looks to Old Hands from Clinton Era By Catherine Dodge and Kristin Jensen,

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, elected president as an agent of change, is building his new team with old hands from the Clinton administration.

His first appointment, chief of staff, went to Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois representative and veteran of the last Democratic White House. Leading Obama's transition team is John Podesta, who was President Bill Clinton's chief of staff.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 11:21 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Charmaine was interviewed by CitizenLink, a publication of Focus on the Family.

Friday Five: Pro-Life Hero Charmaine Yoest

by Devon Williams, associate editor



'With Barack Obama in the White House and Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi controlling Congress, we confront a very difficult pro-abortion political situation.'




As the nation prepares for the most pro-abortion president in history, Charmaine Yoest vows to continue the fight to protect women and preborn children.

The new president and CEO of Americans United for Life (AUL) said she's hopeful that, despite the challenges, life advocates will recharge and re-energize their efforts at the state and federal levels.

"The life movement will reassess and regroup for the next election cycle with new ways to communicate that even the weakest amongst us should be welcomed in life and defended in law," Yoest said Wednesday.

Yoest spoke with CitizenLink about her pro-life work and her hopes for the future.

Read the entire interview here.

Charmaine also participated on a conference call with 60-some pro-life leaders across the country. Click here to listen. Forgive the extra click to the Americans United for Life web site.

Please Join
Fight FOCACandidate Obama promised Planned Parenthood that the first legislation that he would sign is the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" aka FOCA.

Over 12,000 people have signed the Fight FOCA petition. Sign up today.

Bloggers: please lift the code and paste on your site -- and let us know!

Thank you (foot)notes:

How does the party of death do it? How do they sell abortion? And how will Life win? See The Obama Abortion Marketing Machine, by Your Business Blogger(R).

"The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it," Margaret Sanger, Founder Planned Parenthood

See VERITATEM IN CARITATE

WOW

Jer 1:5, Pro-life

Little Saints in the Making

Meditations by Night

Posted at 8:38 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Charmaine is quoted in the aftermath of the election; after her surgery...

Steven Ertelt at LifeNews reports Pro-Life Advocates Urged to Renew Efforts Against Abortion After Election Loss,

Several pro-life leaders are hoping the majority of Americans who take a pro-life position on abortion will re-charge and re-energize following Tuesday night's election defeats. They say the pro-life movement must prepare themselves to take on a pro-abortion president and renew educational efforts.

"We have long known that the work of advancing a culture of life is not a short-term project," Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest told LifeNews.com.

"Recall that William Wilberforce fought against the slave trade for 45 years before he ultimately prevailed in his defense of life," she said.

"In 2008, it is clear that, despite the challenges still remaining, the pro-life message is steadily gaining ground," Yoest contends. "Momentum in the states has enabled us to make significant gains in protecting women and unborn children. Young people today self-report as pro life at a higher rate than their parents' generation."

Bob McCarty Writes, Post-Election Statements Offer Glimpse of Future,

"Over the course of this historic campaign, President-elect Obama and his surrogates argued for a 'common ground' on abortion rights. At the same time, he promised Planned Parenthood that his first act as President will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)." -- Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO, Americans United for Life. (The culture of life faces a perilous near-term future.)

Jennifer Riley, Christian Post Reporter writes, Christians Respond to Obama as President

Former FRC staff Dr. Charmaine Yoest, who is now president and CEO of Americans United for Life, congratulated Sen. Obama on his win, but pointed out his contradictory actions on abortion rights.

While Obama has called for "common ground" on abortion rights during his campaign, Yoest said, he promised Planned Parenthood that his first act as president will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would eliminate every state and federal law regulating abortion.

"We will continue working in the days ahead to educate Americans about the threat to common sense that FOCA poses," the AUL president vowed. "And we will make common cause with defenders of life in both the Democrat and Republican parties, fully committed to the ultimate goal of seeing both parties dedicated to the defense of life."

Disappointing Night for Pro-Life Americans By Susan Jones, Senior Editor at CNSNews.com,

Advancing a culture of life never was a short-term project, and it will continue despite Barack Obama's "extreme" position on abortion, a pro-life group said on Wednesday.




Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, congratulated Obama on his election victory. She also reminded him that during the course of his campaign, he and his surrogates "argued for 'common ground' on abortion rights."




Yoest noted that Obama promised Planned Parenthood that his first act as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a proposed law that would nullify virtually all federal and state limitations on abortion, including partial-birth abortion.




"In contrast to his moderate rhetoric, his support for FOCA -- which would eradicate every state and federal law regulating abortion -- is extreme," Yoest said. "His support for FOCA stands in contradiction to the common-ground, common-sense abortion regulations that the majority of Americans support and that this radical legislation would
eliminate."




Yoest said it's clear that the pro-life message is "steadily gaining ground," even though challenges remain.




"We will continue working in the days ahead to educate Americans about the threat to common sense that FOCA poses. And we will make common cause with defenders of life in both the Democrat and Republican parties, fully committed to the ultimate goal of seeing both parties dedicated to the defense of life," Yoest said.




"We continue to hold as self-evident the truth that all were endowed with the unalienable right to life, and that governments are instituted to secure this first right. We look forward to fully realizing this truth in our day."

SunHerald, Americans United for Life Responds to the Presidential Election: We Will Continue to Work to Advance a Culture of Life

See Values Voter News

See Suricou Raven from the United Kingdom Moronality

A Constitutional analysis of FOCA is available at www.aul.org/foca.

Americans United for Life issued the following statement on the recent election at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 9:02 PM | Permalink
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We spent time on the presidential primary campaign trail.

We can tell you: Sarah Palin has never eaten a donut.

Sarah Palin, mother of 5
Impossibly thin
credit: The Dude

We saw Sarah Palin up close and learned what is most important to Hollywood and others -- that the TV screen adds 10 pounds...and that even more that being smart is being thin.

Palin is impossibly thin for a woman with five wee ones. Marathoner or not.

Alert Readers know that Charmaine also has five children and has run three marathons. Charmaine knows about the work needed for women of a certain age to maintain an ideal weight.

Sarah Palin thinness does not come easy.

The thinness we witnessed is the result of solid discipline and hard work. A real prerequisite for high office.

Old:
Men don't make passes
To a girl who wears glasses.

New:
Liberal men don't make passes
To a girl who surpasses.

Smart women are now Republicans. Has to be true: A Democrat said so.

See Sarah Palin's a Brainiac by Elaine Lafferty,

Elaine Lafferty is a former staff correspondent at Time magazine and the Irish Times of Dublin, features editor at MORE magazine, editor in chief of Ms magazine. The former editor in chief of Ms. magazine (and a Democrat) on what she learned on a campaign plane with the would-be VP.,

Now by "smart," I don't refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don't really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a "quick study"; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her "confidence" is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

As Charmaine has said, "Palin is authentic."

Your Business Blogger(R) took the Penta-Posse on the past two Republican rallies here in Northern Virgina: Fairfax and Leesburg.

23,000 showed up for McCain and Palin in Fairfax. Some 9,000 showed in rural Leesburg -- a third more than expected, traffic jams at 6am. (In contrast, 400 show up for Democrat VP nominee Joe Biden.)

The Penta-Posse were volunteering until shunted off to the bleachers as the cute kid backdrop behind the podium. They loved it. They love politics.

Republicans are now
the party of the working man

The offspring know where to sit and why: young political animals, Roe Effect on the way.

The Dude is taking pictures of the line-up of politicians, learning who's who on the GOP bench. Then Pro-Life Frank Wolf gets up to speak.

"Get his picture," I say to The Dude. "It's Frank Wolf!"

The (pre-teen) Diva turns to me and asks, "It he married to Naomi?"

"Not likely..."

These are five fun kids.

The Yoests outside the McCain national headquarters in Northern Virginia.

Bob Livingston working the phones at the McCain HQ in Virginia.
photo credit: The Dreamer

Posted at 2:45 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

We had a film crew from South Africa at the house today interviewing Charmaine on the campaign.

The rest of the world is confused at our continuing frictional discourse on abortion. Most of the world has real restrictions on abortion on national levels. The world does not understand that we do not.

The USA is one of the few countries in the world that has abortion on demand for any reason through all nine months (and longer under the Obama Born Alive Abortion Plan). Including China where the government makes the demand -- not the mother.

Unless the baby is a girl -- then everyone wants the child dead...

Or in India where abortion also is used for sex selection to allow only male babies born. Because boys are superior to girls as all advanced nations know.

USA abortion proponents tell us that the "health of the mother" is the only exception. Scare quotes are used in print and air quotes are used in conversation as John McCain does.

The quoting is used because the "health" issue is the exception that swallows the rule as Clarke Forsythe at Americans United for Life reminds us. Because anything, anything can be interpreted as "health." As in mental health. As in a bad hair day. Any reason is sufficient reason to abort.

There are no exceptions.

The Supreme Court has so ruled. Not we the people.

This was the background for the reporting by Joan Biskupic at USA TODAY in
Election comes at key point for high court's stance on abortion,

"This is a historic election," says Charmaine Yoest, [Ph.D.] president of Americans United for Life. "With the next president having the opportunity to appoint one, two or even more justices," she adds, the election could change the law "on the life issue."

Ed Stoddard at Reuters writes, Win Or Lose, Sarah Palin To Be A Political Force,

If McCain loses the exit polls will be scoured but many pundits seem likely to blame it on centrist concerns about Palin during a financial crisis.

"It's really clear that there are some people out there who would like to make her a scapegoat if things don't go their way Tuesday," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life Action, which opposes abortion rights.

"But she's has very clearly connected with the base of the party and the life and family voters and I think that is going to give her a really strong base going forward whatever happens," she said.

Jessica Arons writing at the Huffington Post has the best summation of the state-by-state, incremental Pro-Life strategy in Not All Politics Is Local: Connecting the Dots on Abortion Initiatives,

California Proposition 4 is endorsed by Americans United for Life, among others.

This is an organization that has worked to slowly erode women's access to abortion care with bills that limit available abortion methods after 12 to 13 weeks of pregnancy; require waiting periods, biased counseling, and ultrasound viewings prior to an abortion; create burdensome and medically unnecessary regulations for abortion clinics; assert that fetuses feel pain during an abortion; and allow health care employees to refuse to counsel, refer, or treat patients for any service to which they object.

She intends it to be dire and evil, but it comes out good and accurate. Something Biblical in there...

Deacon Keith Fournier at Catholic On Line has SPECIAL: Interview with AUL Action's Charmaine Yoest on 'Open Letter to Barack Obama'

Your Business Blogger(R) also recommends Values Voters

CatholicWifeAndMom

Obama the Abortionist

Makeup of U.S. Supreme Court Hangs in the Balance

J. Margaret Datiles, staff counsel for Americans United for Life representing the interests of the weakest citizens of the United States and abroad has an article in The Washington Times, A price on your head. Good read. Would get us ready for money saving suicide plans under an Obama administration.

Posted at 3:31 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

The easiest tactic to sell anything is to find Pain. Maximize it, magnify it, monetize it.

We Are The Change, election night 1988

There is some economic Pain in the American people. Obama promises to heal this nation and heal this pain with Change.

Change from Capitalism to Marxism. To "spread the wealth around."

As Wes Pruden writes in A game-changer by Obama, we are at the close of the biggest sales and marketing pitch in history. Pruden reports,

To redistribute wealth, you first have to confiscate it from those who earned it with hard work, and the way to do that is with confiscatory taxes. Then you give it to those who didn't earn it.

But do the American people really want to change to a new economic system? A centrally controlled economy? A Change to Marxism?

Even with a half-billion dollar marketing campaign and its extension in the compliant main stream media and a single quarter of negative growth, the voters have still not bought the Barack bill of goods. Pain as bad as it's been in decades.

Barack Obama has trouble selling this Change to more than 50 percent of the public.

This means that there is still hope for capitalism in our country. Hope for our 200 year-old tradition.

Every new presidential candidate runs on some version of change. Your Business Blogger(R) joyfully attended the Election Night victory party on November 8, 1988.

The theme of the celebration? "We Are The Change." And this was from Reagan to Bush. (A Republican rockin' party...no alcohol was served 'til after 8pm.)

The word "Change" has come to mean a bit more in this campaign season in the Obama sales pitch.

We enjoy an orderly transition of power every few years. Let us pray that change is only in political individuals.

Not in an economic tradition.

This week, I asked my college business class when the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith was written.

"1930...?" guessed one of my better students. This was as far back as she would dare recede into ancient history. Not the 200 years to 1776.

Two hundred years of tradition that unleashed the individual's spirit to create and to provide and to enrich. Centuries of building an economic powerhouse that dominates the world. Created by American Exceptionalism.

Quin Hillyer writes at The American Spectator,

There is something special about this country. The United States is exceptional. We are blessed by the good Lord, and in turn we have done more, far more, than any other people to spread freedom across the globe, and prosperity across the globe, and human rights across this great good Earth. We are a particularly good people...

Benjamin Franklin wondered if we, a good and virtuous people, could keep a republic, a system of government that would enable the system of capitalism.

Obama promises a change to Marxism. Other changes are sure to follow, if he is elected.

Thank you (foot)notes,

Hillyer continues comparing McCain to Obama,

We are a particularly good people -- and John McCain understands all this and believes it with every fiber of his being, down to his very marrow, in a way that is deeply spiritual in nature.

There is nothing fake about McCain's belief in American Exceptionalism. His belief in this is as genuine, and as deeply felt, as is a son's love for his father. He will defend this country, fight for this country, with every last breath in his body...

So there you have it: John McCain as a patriot firmly rooted in the American traditions of free enterprise, limited government, strong defense, personal accountability, and a decent respect for the cultural standards of the broad middle of the American public.

Those are the constituent elements of American exceptionalism -- and to his great credit, John McCain is an American exceptionalist, and an exceptional American.

Posted at 9:55 AM | Permalink
Comments (5)

Yesterday, Charmaine says, "We got hate mail."

"Success!" I replied.

Your Business(R) Blogger teaches marketing at the local college and advises clients on the effectiveness of advertising.

AUL's Open Letter to Obama

The return on investment (ROI) in the for-profit businesses should be sales generated.

But not-for-profits have a different type of "product" peddled. The purpose of a non-profit is to improve the human condition.

So when a non-profit places a media buy, how does Your Business Blogger(R) suggest measuring success?

Hate Mail.

In for-profit, we measure love.
In non-profits, we measure hate.

Our country is evenly and bitterly divided into two competing world views. The animosity is so great and the two camps have opinions so different that we all might as well be on different planets.

We non-profit marketers are now interplanetary ambassadors. Captain Kirk never had it so hard.

So measure the "good" ad with "bad" feedback.

The Alert Reader might suggest that media hits could be an immediate proxy for any ad campaign effectiveness. But here in the non-profit world, the marketing manager should measure opposing, hateful articles, not the friendlies. Getting your friends to agree is helpful, to be sure. Getting the opposition reacting is better.

On Reasoned Audacity we limit, moderate and edit hate-comments, because most are not helpful and make for atrocious reading. Motto: Delectare et Docere.

To Please and To Instruct.

Hate-mail is not pleasing to read. A wise marketer measures this mail, crunches this data, but uses only for internals, not public consumption -- which would look like whining. Complaining about all the stoopid people on that other planet.

As Jack Welch advises: Never be a victim.

And as politicians are wont to say, "Throw a rock into a pack of dogs: the one that yelps is the one that got hit."

Measure the hits by the number of yelps.

Americans United for Life Action published an open letter in a full page in the Dayton Daily News, an Ohio newspaper . Back page, section A. Good size and location. Marketers would prefer more frequency than a one-time media buy. But a good ad "sells" in more than the buy in a particular geographic location.

Today, effective prints ads are picked up by alternative media and broadcast-cable outlets.

(Goodness, during the Huckabee campaign, Ed Rollins got media attention for an ad he didn't even run.)

See Charmaine's Open Letter to Senator Obama here and at the jump.

Read the ad and let us know if you think it "sells" -- if it persuades.

###

Thank you (foot)notes:

Letter to Obama Asks for Answer on Parental Involvement Laws

Group Reminds Voters Barack Obama Wants All Pro-Life Laws Overturned.

The patron saint of marketing John Wanamaker once quipped that "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." Sometime a manager just gets lucky.

See LifeNew.com.

Americans United for Life Action Press Release.

From The Family Foundation.

Anglicans Ablaze.

Value Voters

Alliance Alert from ADF

Save the Little Humans.

Catholic Fire.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 5:58 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

FOX reporter Molly Henneberg is doing a story on Sarah Palin's speech on Special Needs Children for Special Report tonight Friday, 24 October. Hit time is 6pm.

A baby within its mother

Charmaine will be discussing Sarah Palin's passion on this Pro-Life issue. From RealClearPolitics,

One of the most wonderful experiences in this campaign has been to see all the families of children with special needs who come out to rallies and events just like this. We have a bond there. We know that children with special needs inspire a special love. You bring your sons and daughters with you, because you are proud of them, as I am of my son.

My little fella sleeps during most of these rallies, even when they get pretty rowdy. He would be amazed to know how many folks come out to see him instead of me.

When I learned that Trig would have special needs, honestly, I had to prepare my heart. At first I was scared, and Todd and I had to ask for strength and understanding. I did a lot of praying for that understanding, and strength, and to see purpose.

And what's been confirmed in me is every child has something to contribute to the world, if we give them that chance. You know that there are the world's standards of perfection, and then there are God's, and these are the final measure. Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake. And the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are most vulnerable.

As for our baby boy, Trig, for Todd and me he is only more precious because he is vulnerable. In some ways, I think we stand to learn more from him than he does from us. When we hold Trig and care for him, we don't feel scared anymore. We feel blessed...

John McCain and I have a vision in which every child is loved and cherished, and that is the spirit I want to bring to Washington.

Every Child. Born and Unborn. Please watch and let us know what you think.

Posted at 5:38 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Charmaine was interviewed by Family News in Focus (called "FiNIF") a short radio program produced by James Dobson's Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. It will run on Monday, 27 October, 2008.

The Yoests and

The Dobsons

A print version of the conversation is available on Citizen Link

Life Advocates Challenge Obama over Pro-Abortion Priorities

Americans United for Life Action is calling on Sen. Barack Obama to explain why he opposes parental-involvement laws, which are designed to protect girls from sexual predators.

The letter to Obama recounts the true story of a 14-year-old Cincinnati girl who was impregnated by her 21-year-old soccer coach. The coach, who signed in place of her parents for her to have an abortion, is in jail. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of AUL Action, said the story underscores the need for parental-involvement laws.

Yet, according to a promise made to Planned Parenthood, the first thing Obama would do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act -- a sweeping piece of legislation that could wipe away every federal, state and local law limiting or regulating abortion.

"I'd like to know why it he supports such radical legislation that would make it impossible for us to put any limitations whatsoever on abortion," Yoest said.

-- Family News in Focus

Pro-Life Michelle Bachmann is running for re-election to Congress in a close race. We spoke to Michelle during the GOP convention in Minnesota. She believes in limited government, low taxes, winning the war and the sanctity of life.

Charmaine on Roger Hedgecock's radio program with Michelle Bachmann

She is authentic. And not liked by the liberals in media and in congress. See her short clip on condemning Planned Parenthood on the floor of Congress.

Michelle, like Sarah Palin is real. They each have five children. Adding up the Bachmanns, the Palins and our Penta-Posse, we could fix Social Security all by our selves...

Not counting Michelle and her husband Marcus's 23 foster children.

That is public service. That is love.

Charmaine spars with David Gregory at the GOP convention.

Also check out this clip at Concerned Women for America:

Your Business Blogger(R) teaches sales and marketing at the Northern Virginia Community College. The CWA clip is a world class example that appeals to this sight and sound generation.

Posted at 7:26 AM | Permalink
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Charmaine and Jonah at National Review both had speaking gigs at major schools.

Q: Who Knew?
A: No one.

Charmaine lecturing on campus

I drove the wife and The Dreamer, The Dude, The Diva, The Dancer, and Baby Boo* down to Mr. Jefferson's University so Charmaine could speak on women in leadership at Darden, UVa's business school. The first thing we see are well-armed police.

Uniformed dark blue. Unsmiling.

I ask the sergeant about his job and the small gaggle of 150 women, "Crowd control?"

He looks me over. I'm holding a four-year old's hand: I am not a threat.

I am the conservative.

The cop's face moves a millimeter into what passes for a smile. His head shakes a millimeter into what passes for no.

His eyes return to the assembly. He's looking for trouble.

I speak to one of the organizers about the number of attendees, the marketing of the event...the security. (Your Business Blogger(R) cares about such things; teaching Business at the Northern Virginia Community College. Where James Carville also taught.)

The event planner whispers, "We didn't publicize the event...we weren't sure who would come..."

Even though Charmaine spent ten years at UVA, earned her Ph.D. and taught (Politics and the Family) the organizers were fearful. Charmaine, a woman and a conservative who worked for Huckabee, Pro-Life, now a president and CEO of a law firm, might cause two horrors on the Campus Grounds:

1) A violent campus protest, or, worse,

2) A good conservative turn out.

The police were out in force to keep pie throwing liberals away from the conservative speaker.

Or keep a woman from making a citizen's arrest.

Or having a Democrat scratch KKK on our monster SUV, the Huck-a-Truck.

Jonah Goldberg
and wife Jessica Gavora

The police were there to protect us from the Brown Shirts with the party of death.

The police are on the side of law and order...so far.

We have been lucky with Charmaine's public speaking in academia.

It's particularly odd because the majority of the time I speak on a college campus -- even when debating a liberal -- I'm told that I'm the first conservative they've had there for a while and that I was brought in for "balance."
You'd think if that were the case, the various administrations would at least want some credit for providing equal time.
Even though, even a brief perusal of almost any college or university's events calendar will quickly show that they could have the entire masthead of National Review speak month after month and it still wouldn't equal balance...but the idea that simply inviting one or two objectively conservative speakers every couple years provides ideological balance is just absurd.

The joke is even bigger when you discover as I have at numerous schools that many professors tell their students they shouldn't go hear conservative speakers.

Jonah Goldberg gets this right: students should get both sides of any debate.

That would be, well, Fair and Balanced...

* Alert Readers know our five children are also known as the Penta-Posse.

Posted at 7:48 AM | Permalink
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Charmaine recently debated Eleanor Smeal from the Feminist Majority Foundation on Abortion restrictions in the United Kingdom.

Alert Readers will note that the CNN International host identified Charmaine as Pro-Life. Something that never happens on this side of the pond.

The host did get a bit confused about fetus and baby. Impossible for the abortion supporter to say "baby" or "mother."

This debate becomes important here in US of A because of Obama's promise to eliminate parental notification state laws and any waiting periods. Obama does not want to regular the clinical cleanliness of abortion facilities.

The GOP is the party of life. Obama is the party of death.

Charmaine is now president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

This is a media war: abortion vs pro-life; liberal vs conservative; Obama vs McCain.

So. Your Business Blogger(R) homestead watched Family Guy last night.

We wanted to follow-up on the Fast Company article by Josh Dean on the Seth MacFarlane success and his $100 million deal with FOX.

The episode: Stewie, the British-accented baby and Brian the talking dog time travel back to September 1, 1939 when N@zi Germany invaded Poland. Stewie and Brian end up in Storm Trooper uniforms...with a McCain-Palin campaign button.

Funny.

But this speaks to the projection the liberals make of their world view.

Conservative politicians want to protect life. Liberals want abortion, euthanasia, denial of care.
Conservative politicians want people to keep their own money. Liberals want high taxes and your money.
Conservatives want abortion clinics regulated. Liberals want home schoolers regulated
Conservatives want to be left alone. Liberals demand power and intrusion.

Is it possible that the H!tler Youth of the 1930's might be more comfortable in today's Party of Death than with the Rascally Republicans?

Liberals have abortion clinics to get rid of unwanted life. The National Socialists had gas ovens to get rid of unwanted life.

Not that there is any connection...

Posted at 9:54 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

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Posted at 10:54 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Obama will not salute our flag Your Business Blogger(R) did a tour of duty in combat arms.

One of the first tasks to learn on assuming a military position was

(as Bill Clinton was slow to learn) the military salute.

Another Democrat, Obama

and the war hero,
the war injured McCain

have one thing in common with the military.

If either is elected, neither will salute.

Obama: Because he won't.

McCain: Because he can't.

It was a delight to be in a very large room with with people with big ideas. Each who loves his country.

One of the Hosts, Colin Hanna, from Let Freedom Ring, was about to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and reminded us of legislation allowing veterans to render a hand salute, even if out of uniform, even if separated from active service.

The law was made possible by Senator Jim Inhoufe of Oklahoma -- a Republican, of course.

A conservative, of course. Who loves Jesus. Clinging to his religion and his guns...

So the next time you are at a ball game look for veterans during the National Anthem.

They'll be the ones saluting.

Inhofe Legislation Allows Veterans to Salute the Flag

By Ryan Cassin,
Thursday July 26, 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) today praised the
passage by unanimous consent of his bill (S.1877) clarifying U.S. law to allow veterans
and servicemen not in uniform to salute the flag.

Current law (US Code Title 4, Chapter 1) states that veterans and servicemen not in
uniform should place their hand over their heart without clarifying whether they can or
should salute the flag.

"The salute is a form of honor and respect, representing pride in one's military service," Senator Inhofe said.

"Veterans and service members continue representing the military services even when not in uniform.

"Unfortunately, current U.S. law leaves confusion as to whether veterans and service members out of uniform can or should salute the flag. My legislation will clarify this regulation, allowing veterans and servicemen alike to salute the flag, whether they are in uniform or not.

"I look forward to seeing those who have served saluting proudly at baseball games, parades, and formal events. I believe this is an appropriate way to honor and recognize the 25 million veterans in the United States who have served in the military and remain as role models to others citizens.

Those who are currently serving or have served in the military have earned this right, and their recognition will be an inspiration to others."

See
Gold Star Moms
Visit a cranky vet
Respect for the Flag

Alert Readers have also noticed that Barack Obama has no American Flag on his campaign aircraft. It is not known if he will remove the flag from Air Force One, if he is elected...

Barack Obama also demonstrates that it is impossible for him to support the troops. He took millions from Bill Ayers, the domestic terrorist who attempted to blow up the Pentagon.

How can Obama support the troops and support a terrorist who tried to kill the troops? Obama is not qualified to be commander in chief.

From NRO,

"There's reason to doubt that oft-repeated pledge of 'supporting the troops' when you've worked for a man who tried to kill the troops."

UPDATE on new regs at the jump.

UPDATE: 23 Dec 2008, New York Times, Obama Tries Out His Salute, By Jeff Zeleny,

KAILUA, Hawaii - He's not the commander in chief yet, but was President-elect Barack Obama briefly practicing his salute on Sunday?

On the first morning of his vacation here, Mr. Obama arrived at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii for his daily workout. As he walked out of the Semper Fit Center, his gray T-shirt soaked in sweat, he lifted his right hand and gave a quick salute to two Marines in fatigues who were standing in the distance.

[Reagan knew how to salute; it was within his experience.
The Cubscout is saluting.
Expect homosexuals in both the military and the Boyscouts
under Obama.]

The brief moment was not captured by cameras. Photographs and video were not permitted to be taken on the military base, according to campaign aides.

Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, opened their day with a 45-minute workout inside a large gymnasium at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, which is located on the Mokapu Penninsula on the windward side of Oahu, about 30 minutes outside Honolulu. It is sunny and warm here, a world away, at least in terms of the weather, from Chicago.

Alert Readers well know that Reagan served in uniform, like most patriots, in WWII.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 7:44 AM | Permalink
Comments (5)

Politically Incorrect, Part 1 Over Christmas in 2000 Charmaine appeared on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect.

With John Salley (LA Lakers), Joshua Morrow (Young and Restless) and ...Andrew Dice Clay (Face Down @ss Up).

Andrew Dice Clay made a living performing stand-up as misogynist and and more (or less). This first segment may be the only time the Alert Reader will see someone smoke a cigarette live on a network broadcast. Politically Incorrect...

Watch all three segments and learn why most of Charmaine's female talking-head friends do not do Bill Maher's shows.

Politically Incorrect, Part 2 I don't know why I let her go on a dozen times either.

Anyway. Andrew Dice Clay. Your Business Blogger(R) was the Charmaine Sherpa on this gig handling the baggage and baby. It was The Dancer, I believe. Names and birthdays kinda run together with 5 wee ones.

And we met Andrew Dice Clay and his wife and 2 kids. In the Green Room, they almost looked like a normal family, a happily married couple. If, say, a gorgeous (not that I noticed) buxom Vegas show girl were to marry your plumber.

Politically Incorrect, Part 3 Watch the third the segment for the Pro-Life debate.

Please comment and let us know what you think.

I would wager that you might be more polite and certainly more helpful than the normal liberal YouTube commentary...

Posted at 10:16 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Last Thursday AUL held their annual fund raising event at the Palmer House in Chicago.

The Henry J. Hyde Defender of Life Award was presented to Jessica Shanahan, president for New Yorkers for Parental Rights. (Obama has promised that Parental Rights would be the first right to be outlawed under his administration.)

Ramesh Ponnuru from National Review gave the keynote. Key Takeaway: "What mother wants to introduce her son, The Abortionist...?"

Abortion is on the decline because of the work of AUL and the public's awareness that that abortion kills a baby.

Charmaine gave a spell-binding presentation. (Biased Opinion, Your Business Blogger(R).) PowerPoint and her notes here: AUL gala 10-9-08.ppt.

James M. Kushiner, the Executive Editor at Touchstone Magazine attended and blogged. Read his outstanding commentary at Obama Lied Fewer Died. Good Read.

Not everyone wants babies to live. See Leslie Bradshaw's list. AUL made it. This is proof of a pro-live organization's effectiveness.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 1:26 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Bill Maher doesn't care much for babies. And less for marriage.

Charmaine on PI
with (the liberal) Bishop Spong.
Part One, circa 2002 Charmaine made over a dozen appearances on his old Politically Incorrect show.

So all our paths have crossed a time or two in the Green Room in his LA studio.

Usually after Your Business Blogger® just changed a stinky diaper on one of the infant Penta-Posse .

I probably did not make a compelling case for fatherhood...

Anyway.

Charmaine did work on Bill Maher's eternal perspective.

At one point Maher asked us, not rhetorically, "So what is death; a dirt nap?"

Maher sums up neatly the atheist's worldview: there is no God, no Heaven.

No Hell.

At death, it all ends on this celestial sphere. A dirt nap in a grave.

Dinesh D'Souza addresses atheism in his New York Times best seller, What's So Great About Christianity?,

From page 274,

What's So Great
About Christianity?"If sex is unhooked from the old moral restraints [marriage], there are going to be unwanted pregnancies [babies]. Here we get to atheism's second sacrament, which is abortion. [The first sacrament is orgasm.] The real horror of abortion is not that a woman kills an unborn child

but

that a woman kills her own unborn child. [Emphasis mine.]

The guilt in doing this, for all morally healthy persons, can only be tremendous.

So it is necessary for atheism to pave the way for abortion with a clear conscience.

The first step is to get rid of God, because then there is no spirit of the dead child to disturb the conscience, no hell to pay for violating the commandment against the deliberate taking of life."

Politically Incorrect,
Part 2One pregnancy in five ends in a miscarriage.

Charmaine and I had one. We still dream of that baby. Now safe on the other side.

The death still hurts and time does heal. But how much more would the hurt be if the mother was responsible for the loss of the baby?

How much more the pain if the mother murdered her baby?

The guilt these women feel must be horrendous.

Can Obama feel no pain?

I will take their heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.

Posted at 11:13 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

The liberal Mark Warner is running against conservative Jim Gilmore for Senate in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Mark Warner says that the "Right to Lifers" and the National Rifle Association and Homeschoolers and the Christian Coalition is,

Why do these liberals hate normal people?

Warner and Obama believe in abortion on demand through nine or ten months.
Warner and Obama do not believe in the right to bear arms.
Warner and Obama do not believe parents should educate their children.
Warner and Obama believe in homosexual marriage.
Warner and Obama believe in our surrender in the wars.
Warner and Obama believe in raising our taxes.

This is normal?

Listen to the short audio clip of Mark Warner, his voice dripping with disdain, on our conservative values,

Full Disclosure: Your Business Blogger(R) served as Assistant Secretary in Health and Human Resources in governor James Gilmore's administration.

L to R: Roxane and Jim Gilmore; Charmaine and Jack Yoest

"I was told that if I voted for Barry Goldwater that there would be war in Southeast Asia.

And sure enough, I voted for Barry Goldwater and there was war in Southeast Asia," went the popular joke after Democrat Lyndon Johnson was elected president.

We are now told that if we vote for John McCain we will have endless war in Iraq. I will vote for John McCain...and if Obama steals the election -- we will, indeed, have endless war in Iraq...

Posted at 5:27 PM | Permalink
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The following video clip is based on the actual Obama-cult song recorded by (non-aborted) children who were manipulated into supporting a presidential candidate...and, of course, a clip from the famous movie "Cabaret."

This might be a more accurate representation than the letter sent to the Americans United for Life office in Chicago this week. From the Party of Death.

Eyeblast at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 2:03 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

The best indication of future performance is past performance.

We don't know exactly who Obama will nominate for the courts, but we do know who -- and what -- he likes.

Watch Wendy Long in this compelling 60 second spot by the good-guys at the Judicial Confirmation Network:

Posted at 12:01 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Charmaine participated in a panel discussion on the Palin phenomenon. The Harbour League sends us the audio clip.

Listen Here.

The Harbour League has received numerous requests for the audio from our most recent conference call entitled "What Sarah Palin Means for Conservatives".

Charmaine, Your Business Blogger(R), The Diva, circa 1997

We are therefore pleased to let you know that the audio can be found at www.TheHarbourLeague.org/past.htm.

Presenters include:

Herb London, Hudson Institute President & THL Trustee, will take a look at Sarah Palin and her exposure to Foreign Policy.

Grover Norquist, American's for Tax Reform President & THL Trustee, will give an overview what Gov. Palin offers to conservatives and why all the concern from the left.

Mark Hyman, Syndicated TV Commentator & THL Trustee, will discuss the media's attention to Sarah Palin.

Allison Kasic, Director of The R. Gaull Silberman Center for Collegiate Studies at Independent Women's Forum, will address what the nomination of Gov. Palin means to conservative women.

Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life President, will discuss what Sarah Palin means and would as Vice President mean to the pro-life movement.

Rarely do Vice-Presidential candidates get the attention that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is currently receiving. No other vice presidential candidate in modern history has excited their base and caused such concern and scrutiny into leadership experience, foreign policy and national security qualifications, and family values by the other party as has Sarah Palin.

Please take the time to listen to and forward on this important Harbour League conference call to discussing what Governor Sarah Palin means to the Conservative movement.

Please Note: The Harbour League is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. This call is not intended to be an endorsement or in support of any candidate.

Sincerely,

The Harbour League

Listen to the audio clip here.

Media Alert: Your Business Blogger(R) was interviewed for The Washington Post on management, bad bosses and sub-par employees. Should run this Sunday, Sept 28th.

Posted at 8:56 PM | Permalink
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Charmaine recently debated Sarah Flowers a consultant from Planned Parenthood. They compared the abortion positions of Obama and McCain.

Obama favors abortion through all three -- or four trimesters, as Laura Ingraham quips -- and McCain votes for Life.

Watch the clip and let us know what you think.

Thank you footnotes,

BornAliveTruth.org all over the news and Kansas Abortion Timeline as the first ever Attorney General to take on Planned Parenthood and Dr Tiller

Planned Parenthood, AUL debate Obama on Born Alive

BornAliveTruth.org all over the news Jill Stanek writes,

I cannot even keep up with all the articles and news shows reporting on BornAliveTruth.org, Barack Obama's opposition to the IL Born Alive Infants Protection Act, our Gianna ad, and Obama's anti-Gianna ad.

Barack Obama Faith Tour Flops With Pro-Life Voters in Jerry Falwell's Backyard
Lynchburg, VA (LifeNews.com)

For the new Barack Obama "faith tour" to have any success, it needs to be able to draw young and evangelical voters.

Yet, at its first stop in the Virginia back yard of well-known pastor Jerry Falwell, just 15 people showed up for the event.

The Obama campaign has signed up evangelical author Donald Miller, Pepperdine University professor Doug Kmiec and former Indiana Congressman Tim Roemer, for the "Barack Obama: Faith, Family and Values Tour."




The trio made a stop at Liberty University, which is home to over 10,000 evangelical students from across the county and a conservative bastion in a state Obama is targeting heavily in this election. Yet, his "faith tour" failed to resonate with people there.

Billy Valentine, director of Catholics for McCain, a grassroots organization of young Catholics not affiliated with the McCain campaign, told LifeNews.com he's not surprised the event flopped.

"Young Evangelicals and Catholics alike can't be deceived by Obama's empty rhetoric, and instead realize that an Obama administration would laugh in the face of the human rights issues they passionately fight for, such as the right to life," he said.

See more on Obama and Planned Parenthood, let the man speak for himself.

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D. is president and CEO of Americans United for Life with offices in Washington, DC, Chicago and Austin.

Posted at 12:41 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Presidential Candidate wives: How influential are women in decision making?

What is Michelle and Cindy's involvement in the presidential race?

Janet Huckabee, in red plaid
with 2 of the 3 First Hucka-Dogs
Iowa, credit: The Dreamer

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., President and CEO, Americans United for Life; Former Huckabee Spokesperson; Former Ronald Reagan West Wing White House Staffer will be interviewed on the importance of women's issues and influence in this presidential election.

How does the wife's opinion on abortion affect the candidate?

Hit time: 2:30pm eastern

Show: Fox News Live Desk

Please tune in or TiVo and let us know what you think.

We do apologize for the short lead time. The presidential campaign coverage and analysis is moving at a record pace -- important topics are now produced faster than ever.

Baby Boo, Working hard for the Mommy
Huckabee Iowa campaign HQ, Dec 2007

Also keep in mind that the topic is developing -- the segment producer may very well change the topic and guest line up at the last second.

Posted at 12:39 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Gianna Jessen,
abortion survivor Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) have run a number of marathons. Charmaine always cries the last 4 miles. It always hurts -- both the physical and mental. Real Pain.

But at least Charmaine's mom didn't try to murder her...

Gianna Jessen is an abortion survivor and also runs marathons. It takes her 8 hours. (If we were on the same course, she would be the only one behind me and Charmaine.)

Watch Gianna's 30 second video
on protecting Infants Born Alive. Gianna needs a third of a day to complete the 26.2 miles because she has, as she says, "the gift of cerebral palsy."

It is a "gift" because the alternative, the intention of the mother and her "doctor" was death for Gianna.

It is not known if the "doctor" is a Democrat. But abortion is a sacrament of The Party of Death.

Gianna lived to tell her story, was adopted, and is an advocate for Infant Born Alive protections.

Our Aunt Carol spoke with Gianna and has an update.

Bookmark Americans United for Life.

"If Barack Obama had his way I would not be here," says Gianna. Visit BornAliveTruth.com.

Read more at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 9:36 AM | Permalink
Comments (6)

The Dude broke his hand in a football game for the Yorktown Patriots. Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) and Baby Boo sat with him yesterday as a cast was applied and immobilized his hand.

The Dude was not in especially good spirits. And friends rallied around him to encourage and commiserate. To lightly cheer him on.

Teenagers who showed compassion?

Lots of adults, too showed real interest -- and not just the coaches....

Lyndon LaPlante It seems that The Dude was indeed lifted up. But Charmaine and I noticed something more. The giving, the compassion, the caring did more for the giver than the getter.

The Dude was injured and would play again in a few weeks. However, we were able to get the briefest glimpse of the good, the Divine that is seen in small acts of charity.

Life's real challenges are designed, it seems, not for the afflicted but for those who surround the sufferer. Life's pitfalls, large and small, reveal the character of the bystander.

Does the onlooker render care or complain? What does the Good Samaritan do?

Another football story, a few years ago, came out of Texas. It's the story of Lyndon LaPlante who scored a touchdown. Lyndon has Down syndrome . The Dallas Morning News reports:

Keller Senior with Down Syndrome Fulfills Dream

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

By TIM MacMAHON / The Dallas Morning News

The home crowd at Keller ISD Stadium rose to its feet as soon as Lyndon LaPlante jogged onto the field during the fourth quarter Friday night.

The fans went wild during LaPlante's 99-yard touchdown run, which ended with him being mobbed in the end zone by his Keller teammates.

Never mind that the pre-arranged play didn't count. It fulfilled a dream for LaPlante, a senior who has . . .

Watch the video clip here.

Continue reading at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 11:42 AM | Permalink
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Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) will be getting the Penta-Posse a real education by pulling them out of the public schools...for a day.

Alert Readers will recall that we went homeschooling last winter during the primary campaign to Arkansas, up to Iowa and across to New Hampshire.

We will not have to drive as many miles to see the next president of the USA.

It has just been announced that John McCain and Sarah Palin will campaign in Northern Virginia on Wednesday, September 10, at Fairfax High School, at 10:00 am.

You can obtain tickets by going to the McCain Virginia website at Virginia.JohnMcCain.com, or by visiting the Virginia Victory offices in Arlington (1235 S. Clark Street, First Floor, 703-955-4255), Fairfax (4246 Chain Bridge Road, 703-766-4467), Prince William (4431 Prince William Parkway, 703-680-7388), or Loudoun (46950 Community Plaza, Unit # 201A, 703-340-0702).

You can pick tickets up in person today from noon until 9:00 pm, or tomorrow, from 9:00 am until 9:00 pm.

The Rally begins at 10 am on September 10; Doors open at 8:00 am. Fairfax High School is located at 3501 Rebel Run in Fairfax City.

The easiest method to get tickets is to go on-line and print out the number of tickets you want.

Please let us know if you will be coming by. Look for the happily married couple with five children...with the McCain - Palin signs.

Alert Readers will recall that Charmaine served as Senior Advisor to the Huckabee campaign,
Bringing In The New Year With Mike Huckabee

The C-4 side of Charmaine will be attending the rally.

Posted at 5:51 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

In the Yoest household kitchen Answer: She's not married to Todd Palin.

On CNN yesterday Charmaine reinforced the point that women can succeed in any position at any level, if she has a deep support system. Beyond the government safety net.

The best support system is to marry a guy who will embrace the family mission, the family business. A husband who is not distracted by interns at 2am.

And will lift up his wife when her time comes...

And I'm not just talking pregnancy.

About half of all women who enter into a Ph.D. program do not finish. When Charmaine was working on her disertation at the University of Virginia, Your Business Blogger(R), MBA, and Charmaine's parents, Mom, Ph.D; Dad, Ph.D; Brother, Ph.D. and Penta-Posse gathered together and strategized on the path to make sure that Charmaine was in the half that got 'hooded.'

The extended family decided to invest in Charmaine.

Money was key but not the entire issue. Wisdom and logistical support were the real needs of house hold and five little ones.

Extended family and a hubby who will sacrifice for the family mission is the solution to whatever success the family, the mother, the mission will achieve.

Todd Palin is my kind of guy. Like me, he married way over his head and is not afraid to let the world know.

We are both married to CEO's who advance the family mission. Our extended families have made sacrifices and investments to advance very talented women, very talented wives.

If more feminists had devoted husbands, maybe they'd enjoy more success. As well as the other benefits of marital bliss (re Five Children...).

And this is the real reason the liberals hate Sarah Palin. She is normal.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Fish on a bicycle by Ray Troll Feminist icon Gloria Steinem can be blamed for a lot problems these days in verbiage and communication in the battle of men vs women.

But not this phrase.

Gloria Steinem writes to Time Magazine,

"In your note on my new and happy marital partnership with David Bale, you credit me with the witticism A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. In fact, Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician, coined the phrase back in 1970 when she was a student at the University of Sydney."

Credit should go to Irina Dunn, graffiti artist and Australian Senator from the Nuclear Disarmament Party.

And made popular more by U2.

Posted at 10:31 AM | Permalink
Comments (10)

Our liberal leftist friends do not know what to make of Sarah Palin.

They do not understand her faith in Jesus Christ.
They do not understand her leadership.
They do not understand her family.
They do not understand her husband.
They do not understand her ability to persuade.
They do not understand her politics.
They do not understand her ability to win.
They do not understand her love of the military.
They do not understand her motherhood of 5.
They do not understand her balancing work and home.
They do not understand her love of small-town America.
They do not understand her pro-life (com)passion.

Watch her short talk in a church in Alaska,

GOP strategist Ed Rollins called her performance last nite at the convention "magical."

Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes observes that her manner of communication is natural and cannot be taught. Sarah Palin has both content and style.

Charmaines is quoted:

ChristianityToday.com has a substantial interview, From discouragement to excitement, by Sarah Pulliam

Americans United for Life Action president Charmaine Yoest is both relieved and excited about Sen. John McCain's vice presidential pick. Yoest spoke with me about the difference between last week and this week.

Last week, you saw the conservative base of the Republican Party really demoralized and discouraged when they were hearing all the talk about putting in a pro-abortion vice presidential pick. Now with such a solid platform coming out of the deliberations last week and a solid pro-life ticket, everybody's really excited.

People have been talking about the broadening of the evangelical agenda. Do you think that's happening?

As the leader of a pro-life organization, I find it really troubling when people try to juxtapose a pro-life agenda with other issues, like poverty, and saying there's some sort of zero-sum gain, that if you concentrate on life issues that doesn't mean you don't care about other issues as much.

13 WMAZ, For McCain, 6 Keys to Victory,

"There is an authentic McCain voice on these issues," says Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. "He has to find it and use it."

On CNN HeadLine News, yesterday afternoon, Charmaine said that Sarah's husband, "Is being airbushed out of the picture," by the unhappy feminists.

LifeNews.com writes, Republican Party Cmte OK Strong Pro-Life Platform Condemning Abortion

"We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes" and a "ban on all embryonic stem-cell research, public or private."

Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, updated LifeNews.com on the changes.

"Very late in the day, a pro-life ally advanced an argument which opened the door to embryonic-destructive stem cell research. The amendment offered would have undermined the section's clear language banning embryonic stem cell research," she said.

"As you can imagine, the discussion became pretty intense," she added.

"After significant back-and-forth among the delegates -- which was punctuated by an adjournment to a side conference in a hallway where the delegates standing up for a strong ban were 'encouraged' to give way -- the final language remained firm on an unequivocal ban on embryonic-destructive research and experimentation," Yoest said.

"We can take deep satisfaction tonight in knowing that the platform recommended to the party by the committee will be a strong pro-life document," she told LifeNews.com.

Values Voter News writes,

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, said although this is not what Sarah Palin wished for her daughter, "the way we react to life's challenges is the true testament to our character." But all this attention has brought to light an important issue!!! "Until Monday, teen pregnancy and sex education were not issues in the national political campaign. According to the Associated Press, Sarah Palin -- in a 2006 questionnaire distributed to gubernatorial candidates -- said that "explicit sex-ed program will not find my support."

Not everyone is happy. McCain's Capitulation to the Religious Right Now Complete,

Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life: "And then when [Palin] was announced -- it was like you couldn't breathe. [We] were grabbing each other and jumping up and down."

The Canberrra Times from Austrialia reports Palin's teen daughter pregnant,

Charmaine Yoest, Head of Americans United for Life, said, "We join them in welcoming this new life."

She closes at 2pm this morning summing up the Sarah speech, emailing, It was amazing! She was so great! Just came out of the CNN after-party, now stuck in the shuttle cause of protestors!!

A high-tech liberal abortion advocate who lives in both Alaska and Colorado (no, I'm sure that he doesn't vote in both states...) says, I'm speechless. I don't think I even know how to process this anymore.

OK, so Your Business Blogger(R) would not approve of tatoos. If this is her first born's biggest "fault" then the country will be just fine under a McCain administration. See Looking For A Job...With Tattoos? and Scars Are Tattoos...With Better Stories.

Alert Readers will recall that we are the biggest fans of Ed Rollins when Charmaine worked with him on the Huckabee campaign.

Posted at 7:19 AM | Permalink
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Tom McMahon is the best on the planet on presenting complicated ideas simply.

Here he compares Obama and Palin's position on THE issue of our times: Abortion.

The only improvement one could make would be that Obama calls a baby a "punishment" not just a "burden." But you get the idea.

Review Tom's matrix and decide this day who you would trust.

Visit Tom McMahon's 4-Block World

Posted at 10:15 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Charmaine has been interviewed by a number of media outlets on John McCain's VP Palin pick and the announcement today that Palin's daughter is getting married and is pregnant.

Statement from Dr. Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life, on Palin Daughter's Pregnancy

Last update: 3:04 p.m. EDT Sept. 1, 2008 CHICAGO, Sept 01, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of Americans United for Life, issued the following statement in response to news that the daughter of McCain running mate Sarah Palin is pregnant:

"As the mother of five children, I know this situation is not the ideal Sarah Palin wished for her daughter.

But the way we react to life's challenges is the true testament to our character. The Palin family is displaying courage and constancy.

We join them in welcoming this new life. Our prayers are with the entire Palin family as they deal with this in the intense glare of the media spotlight."

In Politico, Palin electrifies conservative base
By JONATHAN MARTIN, 8/31/08 7:16 AM EST

By tapping the anti-abortion and pro-gun Alaska governor just ahead of his convention, which is set to start here Monday, McCain hasn't just won approval from a skeptical Republican base - he's ignited a wave of elation and emotion that has led some grass-roots activists to weep with joy.

Serious questions remain about McCain's pick - exactly how much he knows about her and her positions, past and present, on key issues. But for the worker bee core of the party that is essential to any Republican victory, there are no doubts.

"I woke up and my e-mail was just going crazy," said Charmaine Yoest, head of the legislative arm of Americans United for Life and a former top official in Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign. "And then when it was announced - it was like you couldn't breathe."

The Independent from the UK, McCain's choice of running mate heads off potential rebellion, by David Usborne in St Paul, Sunday, 31 August 2008

Republican officials think that Mr McCain has solved that problem with the Palin pick. And they are cheered even more by the belief that it is the evangelical Christians who are most electrified - the same people who did so well by Mr Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Charmaine Yoest, a former top aide to presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee and a leading voice among conservative Republican women said the reaction to Mrs Palin has been beyond ecstatic. "I woke up and my e-mail was just going crazy," she said here in St Paul. "And then when it was announced - it was like you couldn't breathe."

LifeNews writes, Pro-Life Groups Say Sarah Palin's Abortion Rejection Reminds of McCain's' Adoption

Yoest told LifeNews.com that McCain's and Palin's actions and words point to the key differences between them and their pro-abortion rivals Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

"The Republican ticket stands in stark contrast to the stridently pro-abortion ticket put forth by the Democratic party," she said. "You can be sure the vice presidential selections will have far-reaching ramifications in this race."

Obama came under fire for appearing to back a potential decision by his daughters to seek an abortion saying he wouldn't "punish" them with a baby.

Thank you (foot)notes,

In related international abortion news,
LifeNews, Mexico Supreme Court's Decision to Allow Capital City Abortions Upsets Pro-Life Groups

Mexico City, Mexico (LifeNews.com) -- The decision by the highest court in Mexico to uphold the law allowing abortions up to 12 weeks into pregnancy is drawing sharp criticism from leading pro-life groups. The Mexico Supreme Court voted 8-3 this past week to uphold a federal district law allowing abortions and paying for them at taxpayer expense through the government health care program.

Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life tells LifeNews.com that the ruling ignores the negative impact of abortion on women and is a devastating step toward abortion on demand for other Latin American nations.

Yoest's organization was one of the American pro-life groups to file an amicus brief with the Mexico Supreme Court in the case that could have ramifications throughout the region.

"We are dismayed the Mexican Supreme Court would ignore the overwhelming evidence that abortion hurts women. Upholding this law demonstrates a total lack of concern for the health and welfare of Mexican women," she said.

Posted at 3:19 PM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R) just returned from meeting a number of conservative friends in Minneapolis-St. Paul in preparation for the GOP convention. It was exciting to talk with the good-guys from across the country especially during the Palin pick for VP.

I ran into my good friend Morton Blackwell who has run conservative politics in Virginia for decades and heads up the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia.

Recently, I was honored to give a brief presentation on management to LI. The overview requested was on Managing Management Time(TM) created and developed by The William Oncken Corporation.

LI also asked about some time management techiques and I certainly obliged.

But.

But Alert Readers will know that Managing Management Time(tm) is a philosophy created to teach managers to be more effective; to control events. MMT is NOT a time management course.

The briefing is divided into four short segments.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Thankyou foot(notes):

Full Disclosure: Your Business Blogger(R) is a licensed agent for The William Oncken Corporation.

Charmaine and I spent last week in Minneapolis and we just put her back on a plane this afternoon to attend the GOP convention. See her quotes in The Wall Street Journal. She is the president and CEO of Americans United for Life and former senior advisor to the Huckabee for president campaign.

Posted at 9:15 AM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine flew back from Minneapolis after meeting with 300 of our closest conservative friends -- she will be flying back for the convention on Monday for the official nomination of the next president of the USA: John McCain.

We had a chance to celebrate with Charlie Black, Frank Donatelli and Bob Heckman who may have been just a bit surprised by the overwhelming emotional reaction, the tears, the standing O's when Palin was picked.

McCain's pick for VP, Sarah Palin, is exciting the conservative pro-life base.

Polling has McCain up over Obama by 2 -- 47 percent to 45. Obama got a bounce after his convention -- what the economists call a 'dead cat bounce.' But Obama's temple talk didn't survive Palin's passion.

Look for McCain to continue his lead.

The McCain campaign has taken in over $7 million in the 24 hours since the announcement of Palin as VP.

Charmaine's observations have been picked up by a number of news outlets.

The Wall Street Journal

PAGE ONE
McCain's Surprise V.P. Choice
Alaska's Gov. Palin Targets Those Stung
By Clinton's Loss
By LAURA MECKLER, ELIZABETH HOLMES and JIM CARLTON
August 30, 2008; Page A1

Sen. John McCain chose first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, little known on the national stage, as his vice-presidential running mate -- a surprise stroke aimed at attracting Hillary Clinton supporters, but which could undercut the campaign's key theme of experience...

"We are thrilled," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life Action, an anti-abortion group. In an email message, she wrote: "It's a BRILLIANT pick. In one move he energizes pro-lifers AND reaches out to Hillary supporters." Overall, the pick went over well with the Republican Party's conservative base -- long wary of Sen. McCain, who has struggled during the campaign to keep party loyalists in line.

Reuters

Palin brings God and guns to Republican ticket

By Ed Stoddard - Analysis Reuters - Saturday, August 30 01:46 pm

DALLAS (Reuters) - Conservative Republican prayers for the November 4 presidential election may have been answered.

John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate sends a clear message to the party's conservative religious base: God and guns are on the ticket...

Palin's status as a "working mom," whose children range in age from 5 months to 18 years, could be one drawback in the eyes of some conservative U.S. Christians who strongly believe that a mother's place is in the home. But others give her credit for being a devoted mother who they say has been able to balance career and family.

"I have five kids too and I think it is exciting when you see someone who is working actively to make her family a part of her mission," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life Action, an anti-abortion group.

"And her decision to have her child when she knew he had Down's syndrome is a beautiful, beautiful story," Yoest said.

FOX News

Instant Reaction to the Palin Selection as GOP VP Pick

Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest: "With this bold and inspired selection, Sen. McCain has verified his stated commitment to assembling a truly pro-life administration. The Republican ticket stands in stark contrast to the stridently pro-abortion ticket put forth by the Democratic Party. You can be sure the vice presidential selections will have far-reaching ramifications in this race."

Charmaine had no early information but some Twitter tweets were most generous in giving her credit for something she didn't do on McCain's picking Palin,

I actually think that Huckabee's senior adviser Charmaine Yoest had something to do with this pick

here's what Yoest wrote http://tinyurl.com/5ctnmj McCain was hugely problematic for this contingent

Posted at 9:46 PM | Permalink
Comments (3)

Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) spent most of the week here in Minneapolis getting ready for the convention next week while the Penta-posse was in the care of the grandparents.

We got an idea, as did Alert Readers that it was Palin when FOX reported that a jet was bringing the Palins et al to Dayton. Yes, the McCain professionals were using misdirection to keep the VP pick a secret. But chartering a Gulf Stream 4 from Alaska is a $50,000 head fake.

Conservatives don't spend money like that.

So Charmaine and her AUL team in Chicago and Minneapolis were researching and drafting talking points and a press release the instant Carl Cameron, from FOX of course, would confirm his early clues and make the call.

We watched the announcement in our hotel room. We cried (501C-4) tears.

Later, we ran into Dan Coats who spoke to a luncheon today. The McCain people asked him to speak and talk about the VP selection.

The challenge was that Coats didn't know who the VP nominee was -- so he wrote two speeches -- and gave the "better speech." It was a very happy, happy room full of conservatives.

Follows is the AUL Action press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUGUST 29, 2008

Media Contact
Matthew Eppinette
202-289-1479
matthew.eppinette@aulaction.org

AUL Action Enthusiastically Welcomes McCain's Strong Pro-Life Pick for Vice President

Chicago, Illinois -- Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee Sen. John McCain today announced that his Vice Presidential running mate will be Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.<