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Professor Sir Richard Gardner, a leading scientist for stem cell research at Oxford University, England, proposed using parts of aborted fetuses as transplantable material for the ill last week causing great concern for those believing in the sanctity of human life.

Sir Richard called for studies into the feasibility of transplanting fetal organs into adults and found it curious that it hasn't been done already. He claimed it would take much research to prove the feasibility of the idea.

Imagine what this concept would result in, however. Who cannot realize the Pandora's box of horrors that would be opened with this idea? Should such an idea take hold we necessarily would find doctors telling mothers that it is OK to abort their children because it "might save a life" all so that researchers would have more fetal material to study.

And it could get even worse if such research would find the idea feasible. We would then end up with doctors pushing abortion so that we could begin to disseminate fetal tissue to prolong other people's lives. We would therefore be setting up a system of purposefully killing infants to prolong the lives of older humans.

What sort of society kills its young to provide spare parts to make older people live longer?

Add to that the typical human endeavor generally called a black market economy. Who can doubt that at some point people of means would easily be able to buy babies in order to kill them for spare parts once it is proven that fetal tissues can prolong life?

We already have China, one of the world's largest nations, dealing in black market organs as they kill off political dissidents and criminals in order to sell body parts on the underground market. Without a basic respect for the sanctity of human life, we will get to such a point world wide. It isn't merely a possibility, it is assured. Human nature must lead to this end -- power corrupting absolutely and all.

Where does it stop? What sort of human life is sacred? What type of human life is worth keeping alive with heroic measures and what type of human life is only worth the spare parts it might lend to others? Where does that line get drawn?

How do we know the difference between a fetus that was "going to be aborted anyway" and one that was aborted solely to satisfy transplant needs? How do we know that the mother of that fetus was properly informed of the choices before her and not just cajoled into an abortion to supply "science" with necessary study materials?

Whose fetuses will be aborted most often? Minorities? Will they find their children murdered to supply science at a greater rate than the majority in any given country? How do we assure whose babies are killed with "good" reason?

Well, the issues that this sort of research will open up is a veritable cabinet of Doctor Mengele.

Science is a great thing, we all know. But science cut free of the moorings of morality and a respect for human life is a destructive force that will lead to our demise as a species. Professor Sir Richard Gardner should be excoriated for his inhuman, Mengele-esque musings.

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One of the most odious aspects of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is the card check feature. This feature gives unions the "option" to supplant a secret ballot election held among workers for instituting a union with a publicly signed card that announces the voter's intentions for all to see. In this way, unions claim, "elections" will be easier. Unions also point out that the language of the act still makes provision for the normal secret ballot election should all involved still so desire.

Because the act does not specifically say in plain language that the secret ballot will necessarily be eliminated in all cases, union activists and apologists claim that fears of the elimination of the ages old democratic practice of the secret ballot to assure a fair election isn't being eliminated. They claim that opponents of this act are merely engaging in hyperbole and fearmongering by claiming the secret ballot will be a thing of the past if the EFCA is passed.

Critics rightly see this feature as a way to eliminate the secret ballot without expressly saying so, however. As varied interests as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Heritage Foundation, and sundry business groups on one hand and many of America's newspaper editorial boards and George McGovern on the other, stand against the EFCA. Opposition to this bill has made strange bedfellows of groups often allied against each other on most other issues.

For instance, Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institute says that no matter the language of the act the secret ballot will likely be displaced by the coercive card check process in all cases. Currently, he says, a union will not call an election unless they have yes pledges from workers well in excess of 50% of the workforce. Unions know that some that say yes in public (via a pledge) will likely say no in the privacy of the voting booth. So, unions need a cushion to be assured of success after the secret ballot.

"It follows, therefore, that no rational unions would risk the election if they have in their possession authorization cards from just over 50% of the members of the unit they seek to represent." With open ballots -- the card-check system -- union supporters could coerce and intimidate employees who otherwise might change their votes in the course of a campaign.

But who to believe? It is strictly true that, as the union activists say, the EFCA does not completely outlaw the secret ballot. Yet, anti-EFCA groups say that no matter what, the secret ballot will be quashed.

Even with such assumptions and assurances as Epstein’s how can we accept the claims of anti-EFCA advocates and just accept as gospel that the secret ballot will be eliminated despite that the act itself does not expressly say that it will? Why be so pessimistic?

Aside from the well over 100 year history of corruption, mob infestation, violence and intimidation that has accompanied unions in this country we can also look to another historical precedent to explain what the likely outcome of the EFCA might be. And that example is only 43 years in our past.

In 1966 the Supreme Court ruled against poll taxes in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections saying that implementing taxes on voters to allow them access to the voting booth violated the 14th Amendment. That ruling eliminated poll taxes imposed as part of Jim Crow rules aimed at disenfranchising blacks from the vote.

Essentially, a poll tax is a tax imposed at such a level that certain lower classes would be prohibited from voting because they could not afford to pay the tax in order to do so. But, cynically, these poll tax statutes never expressly outlined the true desired effect. No poll tax statute ever contained language that said "this law is to prevent Negroes from voting." Those that crafted these laws were too smart for that.

Instead, the advocates of the poll tax could legitimately claim in wide-eyed innocence that the poll tax statute didn't say certain people could not vote. But these same people also knew that the tax provision was high enough that poor people could not afford to pay the tax in order to vote. These crafty racists also realized that the tax mostly affected poor blacks. That being the case, the poll tax statues didn't have to say that blacks would not be allowed to vote because the tax itself served to make that a defacto truth.

So, poll tax advocates and implementers of Jim Crow had their cake and could eat it, too. They could put on the show of innocence and claim they were not disenfranchising anyone yet still eliminate the right to vote from an entire segment of the citizenry.

This is precisely the same crafty, exclusionary, and un-American method being adopted by unions. Today, with the card check feature, unions are effectively using Jim Crow-like rules to disenfranchise millions of America's workers from being allowed to vote, all the while being able to claim they aren't doing so.

And there is a cruel irony in this cynical attempt by unions to destroy the oldest democratic process in western history. What does it say about labor unions, a movement that has often taken the mantle of civil rights as its own, that they are employing Jim Crow tactics to take away rights of their own potential membership?

How disheartening is it that unions are the new-age purveyors of Jim Crow rules? And how horrifying is it that the Democratic Party is once again reverting to its original intent of encouraging Jim Crow styled lawmaking?

The card check bill is un-American and must be defeated. I urge you to call your federal representatives and voice your opinion.

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Add to this informative video a recent Barron's editorial by Jim McTeague and we can see more of why card check is un-American and anti-democratic.

McTeague makes some fantastic points in his piece at Barron's, here are a few excerpts.

Obama's stance on the Employee Free Choice Act, introduced in Congress last week and likely to be retooled many times before coming to a vote, is outrageously backward for a man who says he's a progressive change agent. With the stroke of a pen, our president would reverse one of the great, unsung civil-rights movements in the history of Western democracies, a battle that set liberal reformers against corrupt, vested interests who controlled the general electorate through bribery and intimidation, and consequently accrued outsized political and financial power. The secret ballot (the anonymous ballot used today in the elections of modern democracies) finally broke the corrupt grip of these despicable men. They no longer knew with certainty if the voter whom they'd either blackmailed or bribed had cast his ballot as promised. Paying for votes immediately became a mug's game.

Unions want to destroy the rights of the worker.

However, University of Chicago law professor Richard A. Epstein -- who wrote a pro-business paper on the topic for the very conservative, pronouncedly Republican Hoover Institution at Stanford University -- predicts that the card-check option likely would displace the secret ballot in all cases. Why? Currently, unions will not file to have an organizing election until they accumulate signed authorization cards from well in excess 50% of a targeted unit's workers. "They need that cushion, because they know that worker defections will take place during the course of any election campaign in which management can present its own case."

He adds, "It follows, therefore, that no rational unions would risk the election if they have in their possession authorization cards from just over 50% of the members of the unit they seek to represent." With open ballots -- the card-check system -- union supporters could coerce and intimidate employees who otherwise might change their votes in the course of a campaign.

As I said in a reply to one of our more extremely left leaning posters here on TheNextRight, the best example is the poll taxes imposed on black voters in the South during Jim Crow days. Writers of the laws could give a wide-eyed, innocent demeanor claiming that the poll taxes didn't stop anyone from voting. They were right to the letter of the law. But these racists knew that it would effectively stop blacks from voting anyway.

So in this day, the card check act is the new Jim Crow poll taxes pretending that secret ballots are still available while effectively eliminating them in truth.

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The City Wire of Fort Smith, Arkansas, published a piece giving a former union leader space to announce that he opposes the elimination of the secret ballot that is the card check feature of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

His reasoning is spot on with why card check is a bad idea that will materially hurt American workers.

And then there is Neal Catlett, a former president of the union representing workers at Whirlpool’s Fort Smith plant who has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the local union.

Catlett, now retired from Whirlpool, opposes card check. He told The City Wire that he has seen plenty of “nonsense” among Whirlpool leaders and union leaders to know that anything other than a secret ballot will lead to intimidation, coercion and corruption on all sides.

“I strongly support secret ballots. Period. It doesn’t matter at what level, whether it is voting for a union or the president or your congressman,” Catlett said. “Your ideas should be personal as to if you want a union or don’t want a union.”

Catlett doesn’t argue with union leaders who say the current labor rules make it too tough and are tilted in the favor of business. But he says card check is the wrong way to create a more level playing field. And he also says unions use the same coercion and intimidation used by business owners.

“Doing away with the secret ballot is not good for the unions. It’s not good for any business. ... Open voting creates an atmosphere of intimidation. It creates an atmosphere where people will use your opinion against you. I’ve seen the threats and I’ve actually seen the physical conflict, if you know what I mean, come from the business side and from the union side,” Catlett said. “I just don’t see how any process that is not private will protect the worker.”

Right from the mouth of a former union boss and right on. Union thugs will be unleashed by this bill. It needs to be torpedoed.

There's still much work ahead to defeat this un-American and anti-democratic law.

Why are Democrats such liars? I know that sounds harsh, but this penchant for labeling a law, act, or bill with a lie as a title is gallingly Orwellian and it's getting tiresome. We have the "Employee Free Choice Act" that takes away employee choice, the "Freedom of Choice Act" that takes away the freedom NOT to chose abortion, and now we have the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" that takes away the public's fair access to scientific research papers without having to first spend a ton of money to access it.

In all the three laws above noted, we have either "free," "Freedom," or "fair" in the bill title and yet not one of these pieces of legislation is free, fair or assures any freedoms -- in fact, quite the opposite. It's like calling a crap sandwich corned beef on rye! It's getting so that all we have to do is read a bill's title and imagine the direct opposite effect to learn what the bill is about.

Naturally it all seems to come down to campaign cash. Michigan's John Conyers (D) is sponsoring this "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" and not surprisingly when Discover Magazine did a bit of research into where Conyers was getting his campaign contributions, it turned out that he is getting 4 times more contributions from scientific journal publishers than anyone else in Congress. Why is that significant? Read on, McDuff...

Conyers' "The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" will make it illegal for government agencies like the NIH and other scientists (such as those at universities that take federal money) to put scientific research online for the public to access for free. And guess where Conyers wants to force all research papers to be put? That's right, in journals published by scientific journal publishers. You know, the same ones that gave 4 times more campaign cash to Conyers than they do to everyone else?

Why is this a big deal? Simply put wide access to scientific research spurs more research and helps serve as a sort of quality control agent. Without free access to others' research, scientists might waste time and money on dead ends that others have already mined or replicate needlessly findings already found. Plus, like any other human endeavor, when information grows so does knowledge.

On top of that simple logic, forcing all scientific research into printed journals will also end up limiting the ability of everyone to access scientific research papers because of the exorbitant cost of the journals.

As Discover Magazine writes:

his may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive. They can cost a fortune: The Astrophysical Journal costs over $2000/year, and they charge scientists to publish in them! So this bill would force scientists to spend money to publish, and force you to spend money to read them.

John Conyers wants to hinder scientific research, quash the public's easy access to research results, and make science even more prohibitively expensive than it already is.

All for a few campaign dollars.

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Why are Democrats liars? And why do they hate science?

We've talked about it several times here on the blog; the hostile takeover of smaller unions. It has been Andy Stern's main modus operandi (President of the Service Employees International Union or SEIU). The idea is to roll into the territory of a local, smaller union, make back room deals with the employers to get their assistance, and then lead a forced take over of that smaller union eventually to vote it out of existence. Thereby the little unions that might stand in the way of the mega unions are eliminated and the mega unions now controlling everything from the top down get more even more massive.

It's a perfectly legitimate strategy, of course... except for the fact that it makes the lie to every purported "principle" that unions claim to have. Local control becomes dashed and democracy summarily eliminate, yet local control and democratic process are the central themes of unionism. Without them they are little different than the supposedly evil corporate maters bent on domination that union claim their employers are. If a union member cannot feel that his local representatives are actually there for him then that impersonal attitude is no different than uncaring masters of industry.

Yet, this strong-arm takeovers of smaller unions is the current rage among big unions. And it is being noticed.

Last week there was a big pow wow of 12 of the nation's biggest unions. They mean to join together to work toward enlarging unionism in the American workplace. But the smaller unions are balking because they know that the larger the union group is the more chance they will be eliminated.

The 12 could not agree upon a plan to create a governing council and one of the reasons is power.

The larger unions want to create a powerful executive committee, and one divisive issue is how much power medium-size and small unions would have. The small unions oppose demands that they be forced to merge into larger unions.

And they are right, too. If this council or umbrella organization is created it will naturally tend to aggregate more and more power unto itself and that power WILL tend to eliminate smaller, weaker entities.

If unions start such an group, small unions are doomed. And, we will see that unions aren't at all interested in democracy or local control. They are only interested in amassing power, the sort of power that will corrupt unions hopelessly.

Let's hope these smaller unions are smart enough to understand that.

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The Senate has secret elections for its leaders. The House of Representatives also uses a closed ballot, one not open to public view, for its own members. We all, you and I, have a secret ballot when we vote for president or for our local officials at our local polling place. It's one of the oldest aspects of the democratic system.

Yet, Democrats want to take that oldest part of the democratic process away from 105 million Americans.

For their support in the last election Democrats are poised to launch an effort to force a payback to Big Unions through Congress, perhaps as early as Tuesday. That payback will be in the form of the woefully misnamed "Employee Free Choice Act" -- which is neither free nor any choice. In this legislation, unions can dispense with the ages old secret ballot for union members and force them to sign public cards revealing their personal vote to everyone. Naturally, when a voter’s choice is known to everyone, pressure will be greater to conform and the conscience of the union member can easily take a back seat to that of getting along with union bosses.

In an effort to inform as many people as possible on this unAmerican payoff to corrupt Big Labor Associated Builders and Contractors and Contractors Free Enterprise Alliance is launching www.cardcheckquiz.com.

Right now, Congress is considering the misnamed "Employee Free Choice Act." But it would strip an estimated 105 million working Americans of the right to a private ballot in union elections. Instead, employees would be subject to "card check" -- a process that's pen to coercion, confusion, and intimidation.

Take the quiz to find out if EFCA will steal your private vote.

Why do Democrats want to take away the very access to a secret ballot that they jealously guard for themselves? As a corrupt bargain for the millions upon millions that Big Labor pumped into Democratic Party campaign coffers, of course.

And if the Democratic Party gets its way, union thugs will be intimidating union voters with impunity.

It’s up to us to stop them and save the conscience vote for millions of American workers.

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-By Senator Chris Lauzen, Illinois State Legislature

Corruption, waste, and now an ill-advised, ill-timed 33% income tax increase during a deep and long recession on already struggling typical families have made Illinois a political laughingstock and butt of humor across the country. I have had enough - - I bet you have, too.

On this coming Tuesday at 1 P.M. in the Senate Elections Committee at the State Capitol in Springfield, a defining vote will take place. Nine senators will decide whether we will debate the question in front of the entire State Senate, “Should the power to vote for political party leadership be restored to Illinois Republicans?”

In Senate Bill 600, I insist that every person who votes in a Republican Primary should have the right to select the equivalent of the Board of Directors of the Republican Party. For many decades before 1988, when then-Governor Jim Thompson consolidated his grip on power by removing our right to vote for leaders, Illinois Republicans voted for their leaders. Basically, Illinois Democrats have always retained their right to vote this way.

The sad decline of the Republican Party in Illinois can be traced back to this decision to disconnect our leadership from accountability to voters. The tragicomedy of Andy McKenna (the current chairman of the Republican Party) helping to shove U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald out of public service, the selection of out-of-state Alan Keyes as the Republican nominee to replace him, the uncontested and undisputed meteoric ascension to power of Barack Obama, the Kjellander-Cellini-Hastert-Ryan fundraising and earmark scandals, the unsatisfactory choices for Governor in 2006 between Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka, and now impeachment and tax increases in Illinois with historically staggering debt and broken commitments in Washington, D.C. - - all began with the violation of the basic American value of one-person-one-vote in one party in one State on the American Union.

We either believe in the singular principle of “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed”, “We, the People”, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth” . . . or we don’t.

I refuse to dishonor the sacrifices of my father in World War II, my friends in Korea and Vietnam, and my sons in Iraq and Afghanistan by turning our sacred tradition of self-government to a handful of self-serving, officious, lying, arrogant thugs who enrich themselves and their pals in public office while teaching their children to be lobbyists, rather than soldiers and teachers.

These few and domineering parasites get away with their crimes because we don’t care enough to generate better choices for leaders. We want our right to vote!

If we are going to restore the checks-and-balance of a legitimate two-party system in Illinois, I need your help to call those nine senators who will decide on whether we will broaden and energize our base for more competitive political campaigns.

I say that the same people who are banging the drum for “Special Election, Special Election” for Roland Burris should recognize the irony and hypocrisy of not submitting themselves to that same political discipline of popular election by the people whom they are supposed to serve.

Please call these nine senators and ask them to vote “Yes” on SB600, then call me to let me personally thank you.

Dale Righter …………………..217/235-6033  

Maggie Crotty…………………708/687-9696  

Lou Viverito…………………..708/430-2510  

Randy Hultgren……………….630/682-8100  

Michael Bond…………………847/752-7004  

Terry Link……………………..847/735-8181  

Dave Luechtefeld……………...618/243-9014  

James Meeks…………………...708/862-1515  

Dan Rutherford………………..815/842-3632

Senator Chris Lauzen  

25th District  

630/264-2334

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I know, I know... it's getting sickening to see the Illinois GOP flopping around like a dying mackerel, but if we don't air this garbage it'll never come out in the wash. These examples of the fecklessness of the Illinois GOP is the reason the party cannot capitalize on the most corrupt opponents in the Union; Illinois Democrats.

Anyway, this time we have the sort of double dealing and flip flopping that simply makes a candidate look foolish. You all have seen my discussions of SB600, the bill that will resurrect the policy of elections for party leadership positions of the state GOP central committee. You also may remember that the power players currently controlling the party want to prevent the rank and file from having the opportunity to vote them into or out of power.

Well, here is the next part of this twisted and disheartening saga. We have a State Senator, Bill Brady (R, 44th Dist), that has already run for governor without success. He was bested the last time by long-time party operative Judy Baar Topinka (last state treasurer) who got the party nod through the primary -- and from the party leadership before hand -- to face the criminal Rod Blagojevich in the race for governor. Since he lost to Topinka, Brady will be running for governor again for the 2010 elections.

Now, flash back to SB600. Brady had signed on as a co-sponsor for SB600 and seemed to be in agreement for the last four years that the rank and file should be allowed to vote for party leadership. Again, as I already mentioned, that same party leadership has pulled out all the stops to quash SB600 and apparently they've gotten to Brady because Senator Brady suddenly and without explanation pulled his support of SB600 even though he stood side-by-side at the press conference when main sponsor Senator Chris Lauzen introduced the bill in 2005. Not only has he now pulled his support but he's also now begun to work to defeat the measure. Now THAT is a head spinning flip flop. From hearty supportor to frenzied detractor all in a week's time.

Now, I have less problem with a man that has been a stalwart against SB600 and been consistent on the matter. Ill. GOP chairman Andy McKenna has been against it since day one, for instance. I think he's wrong and only cynically trying to save his chairmanship by disallowing the people to vote on his efforts, but at least he's been consistently against the idea from the start.

On the other had, what we have with Senator Brady, the erstwhile next GOP candidate for governor, is a giant flip flop that can ONLY be interpreted as one made to ingratiate himself to powerful politicos. How else can we judge why Brady supported SB600 for so long then all of a sudden pulls his support AND is now working to defeat the measure?

Where are Brady's principles? What are Brady's principles? Why did he support the measure before but so suddenly withdraw when party leaders rang him up and gave him new marching orders? What does this say about his believability factor? Do we believe his stance FOR the bill before party leaders told him in no uncertain terms that he'd better cave, or do we believe his new position that he stands against the bill and wants to work to defeat it?

Even worse, do we believe that Bill Brady is a strong enough leader to stand on his principles or should we rather imagine that just any pressure on him will make him cave in? And, if the later, what does that say about his strength as a possible governor? Will he cave in every time the going gets tough as he sits in Springfield, or can we expect him to stand by his decisions?

And if we cannot expect Bill Brady to side with the voter... well, what can one say about that? Will he always take a stand for powermongers in the party even if that stance puts him at odds with the voters? Can we expect a governor Brady that will pay no heed to voters only to continue good old boy, power politics and angle to conduct business as usual in a state where such conventions have made it the laughing stock of the nation?

Like I said, if Brady was against SB600 from the start and had never signed on as a co sponsor before, at least we could write that off to a considered opinion. But this sudden flip flop to play power politics makes him look weak, cynical and unconcerned with the rank and file. I think we've had enough Illinois politicians that act like that, don't you? On top of all of that, Brady voted yes in 2005 the last time SB600 came up for a vote!

The sad thing is that up until this very action I was not necessarily against Bill Brady's candidacy. Unfortunately, now all I can see is a fool instead of a good candidate.

As The Joker in the first Batman movie, Jack Nicholson quipped "this town needs an enema." That was a funny line back then. There is a lot in the Illinois GOP that needs a good flush but unfortunately an enema is far too tame a prescription to clean out the problem. I mean, doesn't it say something when Illinois Republicans can't even beat known criminals in elections?

If you are interested, here is a video of bill sponsor Senator Chris Lauzen talking about this effort.

Anyway, I write these stories not because I enjoy the conflict. In fact, it makes me sad and frustrated. It really is just pitiful. However, it is instructive and might help explain to the rest of the nation why the Illinois GOP just can't beat the many criminals in the Illinois Democrat Party. Let this be an object lesson for all of us.

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Captain Adam Kinzinger, 30, officer in the Air National Guard, was enjoying a night on the town in Milwaukee in May of 2007 when he saw before him a woman clutching her neck and bleeding profusely, a man with a knife standing behind her. Acting quickly, then Lt. Kinzinger subdued the man and stopped any further harm from coming to the unknown woman.

Others also came to his aid to keep the attacker subdued and still others whisked the injured woman off to a local hospital for treatment. It is reported to have taken about 100 stitches to close the wound. The attacker is in jail awaiting trial for the assault.

Immediately after the incident, Lt. Kinzinger was off to Iraq to serve his country, not to meet the woman whose life he saved until much later. In the meantime, Lt. Kinzinger won the Valley Forge Cross for Heroism for his service in Iraq among other accolades.

Then came the day when he finally met the woman he so selflessly helped on that night in Milwaukee.

And now Adam Kinzinger is considering a run to defeat a Democrat in the 11th Congressional District in Illinois, a seat now held by Debbie Halvosron. This is the sort of man we should helping to elect! http://www.adamkinzinger.com/

As a Lt. He was named Hero of the year by the Milwaukee Red Cross

The young Lt. addresses a McLean County rally for the troops:

Bio:

Adam Kinzinger was elected to the McLean County Board as a Sophomore at Illinois State University in 1998 beating a 12 year incumbent Democrat. He was re-elected four years later. Shortly after 9-11 he decided to join the Air Force. Since then he has completed Pilot training and participated in missions to Afghanistan and Iraq numerous times. When he has not been deployed overseas he has flown missions on our Southern borders in the War on Drugs. As of February 16th, 2009 Adam has returned to Iraq for another mission that will last till early May. Upon his return he will be hitting the trail, as a near full time candidate. He will retain his Air Force Reserve Status and if elected will be part of only a handful of Representatives in Washington DC that serve as Reservists.

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