Insights, Issues & Istook

Big Brother is everywhere, and now federal databases could cost seniors their guns. And that's just one of the problems from Big Brother's Big Data.   Behind the scenes, the Social Security Administration is preparing to add millions of seniors to the FBI's list of people disqualified from owning a gun.   These are seniors who have relatives handle their benefits and finances for them. The  reports the White House claims the mental competency of such people is questionable, making them a potential threat to others.   Obama will grab any excuse to ignore the Second Amendment and establish gun control   Like the Social Security list, Obama uses other gigantic federal databases to snoop on our personal finances, and to micro-manage where we live. Bureaucrats will insist on re-zoning and other local changes wherever there is a mostly-minority population.    But housing usually reflects income, not prejudice. And wanting help with your finances does not mean you are mentally unstable.   But Big Brother is everywhe

Political correctness has become a threat to national defense.   The Pentagon's leaders, hand-picked by President Obama, are reversing the long-time rule that transgenders have mental issues and cannot serve.    The official and stupid explanation is that ending this debate will free commanders from distractions. This is actually the start of endless new distractions; it was the former policy that avoided those.   Start with uniforms: If a man thinks he's Caitlyn Jenner, does he dress like G.I. Joe or G.I. Jane?   Fitness tests are gender-normed so women need not run as far or as fast, or do as many pushups. But what are the fitness numbers for a male body that calls itself Sheila?   What becomes of common showers and bunking arrangements?    Now hear this: They plan for military medicine to cover hormone treatment and sex-reassignment surgery. That guarantees a lot of wannabe-whatevers will want to enlist to get an extreme makeover at taxpayer expense.   This is not avoiding distractions. This is creating a

Even when you're innocent, government can find you guilty.   By 5-4, the Supreme Court says you can be punished for civil rights violations, even when you never intended to discriminate illegally. They don't want equal opportunity; they want equal results.    How? They call it disparate impact. You can be perfectly fair and neutral, but if a minority claims they did not get a fair share of jobs, raises, housing, or loans, then the reasons why don't matter. You can base decisions purely on poor education, lousy credit, bad job performance, even a criminal record, but it doesn't matter.   Unless your results show the approved ratios, you must pay.    You also can be punished in advance if a statistician or some expert predicts unequal results will eventually occur.   The mortgage meltdown that collapsed our economy occurred because lenders were required to make bad loans. With disparate impact, the Supreme Court may make another meltdown happen.   Find more insights online at    Former Congressman Ernest Istoo

If you like your religion, can you keep it?   President Obama said in 2008 that too many Americans cling bitterly to their guns and their religion.   He recently repeated his calls for gun control. Now Obama seems to want people to give up their faith as well. At least the part that conflicts with his politics.   The President made the remarks shortly after the Supreme Court proclaimed a new Constitutional right to same-sex marriage. The document has no clear language that says so, unless it's written in invisible ink, like something out of a National Treasure movie.   Obama noted how religious people often oppose gay marriage. Then he called for activists to “help them,” presumably help to overcome our faith.   Obama once wooed the faithful by saying he believed in one-man, one-woman marriage. Now he brags like he supported same-sex marriage all along. Maybe, just maybe, he lied to get elected.   Find more insights online at    Former Congressman Ernest Istook is president of . 

We lose the democratic process when courts make our biggest decisions for us.   Our Constitution provides clear limits on the powers of government. Instead, the Supreme Court uses  the Constitution to reduce our ability to make our own decisions through elections.   By ignoring public votes and duly-enacted laws, the Supreme Court has given America a new definition of marriage that ignores biology and contradicts the natural marriage of a man and a woman. We are told that centuries-old standards must fall if someone complains that their dignity is at stake.    It's the same word games as when Bruce Jenner claims to be Caitlin Jenner because he 'feels' like a woman. We have to wonder what a woman is, if biology means nothing. Now it's the same for marriage.   But this new 'tolerance' does not permit dissent. They're already cracking down on anyone, including churches, that fails to celebrate same-sex marriage.   Find more insights online at    Former Congressman Ernest Istook is president of . .  

Once it was Army uniforms that were green. Now it's the whole Pentagon.   Global warming is a major national security issue, according to President Obama and his hand-picked general who now run the Pentagon.   We still have no strategy to deal with the threats from the Islamic State, but our troops now have a Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap. Over 7,000 bases are under orders to factor-in global warming in all that they do. Evidently the climate impact must be considered before America's troops can even twitch a muscle.    , but .  Military budgets suffer, but the Navy converts its ships to more-expensive and inefficient green fuels. The same thing for naval aviation.   As commander-in-chief, Barack Obama is transforming our troops from war fighters into guardians of the green.   Find more insights online at 

Tragedies grow worse when politicians pile on. The minister was one of nine killed at a black church in South Carolina. The horrid murders clearly involved a sick person filled with racial hatred.  But before funerals could be planned, politicians jumped to urge gun control on all 320-million Americans. Others claimed it proves that most white people are racists. This was a racial attack, but those are less common than activists claim. Cries of hate crime or hate speech are thrown around loosely. Blacks and other minorities commit race-based crimes, also; it's not just whites. More laws will not cure mental illness. False claims that most of us are closet racists will not bring us together. Yes, firearms are used in killings,  A wicked act by a racist is not good reason to remove the rights from millions. Find more insights online at 

Artificial trans fats are being banned. Trans fat occurs naturally in milk products and in meats like beef. Those are not restricted by the FDA's new ban. Only the “artificial” trans fat is banned. But the grocers and restaurants began phasing those out years ago. What will replace it, and how will it taste? The substitute could be something that itself gets banned years from now. After all, trans fats came in vogue after the feds banned some saturated fats 30 years ago. A better question is the FDA's proper role. Transfat may not be healthy but it's not poison. The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to decide whether things are safe, not whether they're healthy. So watch out, next they'll restrict sugar, salt, and caffeine.  If they can tell us what we cannot eat, then they can tell us what we must eat. So bring on the broccoli. Find more insights online at .  Former Congressman Istook is president of .

Headlines show that law and order could be collapsing:   Murders and shootings are up in big cities where police pulled back after accusations of racist law enforcement. Homicides are up 20 percent in New York City. Shootings have doubled in Baltimore. Shouldn't civil rights protesters aim some of their anger at the thugs who violate the rights of their victims?   Since 2010, 121 murders nationwide have been committed by illegal aliens set free instead of detained pending deportation. Didn't President Obama say immigration resources would be focused on dangerous people? Instead, his officials are skipping several steps on checking whether someone is dangerous or not.   And Obama's amnesty for illegal aliens extends to the employers who hire them. Enforcement is down to near nothing of the law against employing illegal aliens.   When you stop enforcing one law, people figure they don't have to obey the other laws either.   Find more insights online at 

Political correctness is at new levels of absurdity   A man has surgery to look like a woman. He competed in the Olympics. He fathered children. He forever has male DNA. Yet we're told it's shameful unless we call him a her.   A white woman leads a chapter of the NAACP. She was born Caucasian. She attended a black university--but sued them claiming mistreatment because she wasn't black. But now she says she's black. So does her opinion about herself override the facts?   Are imaginary friends real, because somebody believes in them? Or fairies, like Tinker Belle in Peter Pan?    America is now a land of make-believe.   TV shows that are taped in exotic locations, with situations created by producers, and edited heavily before airing—are called reality TV.   Thinking or desiring something does not make it real. It's time for America to wake up and realize that.   You'll find more insights online at 

'Tis the season for Washington, DC, to roll out the gimmicks. News stories might make you yawn, saying the House or the Senate just approved a bill to spend umpteen billions of dollars. Now's the time when Congress considers the appropriations bills. Is there any control on spending? No, not much. Most spending is on automatic pilot. Programs like Medicaid, Medicare, disability and Social Security are the biggest programs, and Congress doesn't even vote anymore on the amounts they get. When they do vote, you will hear claims that some program's spending is being cut—to some that's a brag and to others it's a tragedy. But usually, there isn't any real reduction. Washington has its own foreign language: Even if the amount spent on something is more than last year, so long as it's less than somebody hoped to spend, they label it a cut. Gimmicks. For more insights, just go online to 

It's hard to get ahead when prices keep climbing. There's a link between rising prices and runaway regulations. Higher costs of doing business hurt the whole economy, and fewer jobs get created. But billions in red tape costs get tacked onto the prices that all us consumers must pay. Most of that is higher energy costs and more expensive automobiles, appliances, and everything that the government says must be more energy-efficient. That means your toasters, washers, dryers, refrigerators, and everything else cost more.  They also tend to wear out before any energy savings make up for the higher prices you paid. So ask yourself, have you gotten back your $11,000 that you pay due to new regulations? Or the thousands more you pay for the old regulations?

Say goodbye to your restroom privacy. Employers should let people use the restroom of their choice, according to new federal instructions. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration calls “guidance” rather than a legal requirement. They won't even admit that men and women are different. Instead, they write that our sex “assigned at birth” can be disregarded. We're told to be sensitive to the emotions of someone who feels trapped in the wrong body, so a male who considers himself female can use the women's bathrooms. The emotions of a transgender person are given more importance than everybody else's right to privacy. It's not just OSHA. The EEOC and some states are forcing schools to let people use whatever restroom they want. And the Obama Administration has decreed that sex change surgery will now be paid for by Medicare. This transgender stuff has gotten mighty messy. 

Honey, they've shrunk the middle class. Upward mobility first requires gaining a middle class income, on your way to a higher standard of living. What happened? Government. Low incomes were exempted from income taxes, then taxes hit hard when you approach middle class. Plus you lose the public assistance benefits awarded to lower incomes.  Welfare reform? Abandoned. Also, runaway regulations raise prices, making it harder to make ends meet. Failure to enforce immigration laws increases the ratio of low incomes. First, millions of illegal immigrants arrive poor, although hopeful. Second, they drive down wages, so others find it more difficult to find work. Government encourages low incomes, but punishes efforts to become self-sufficient.

Lots of people getting Obamacare say they still cannot afford health care. A liberal group reports that one-fourth of people covered by Obamacare still avoid seeing a doctor or having tests done because they cannot afford the deductibles or co-pays. That shows how bureaucratic the law is, because even after raising insurance premiums it also raises other out-of-pocket costs. To the left, that's a reason to abolish co-pays. But look closer. Almost every political proposal does nothing about the real problem—that health care costs too much. Sending the bills to government does not make anything more affordable; it only shifts who pays, namely taxpayers. Health care and insurance cost so much because the government controls them with a mountain of red tape. That doesn't improve care; it just adds to the costs. Obamacare created thousands more pages of regulations; red tape makes things more expensive, not more affordable.

If you want to be called PeeWee, then smoking dope is for you. Another medical study confirms that marijuana stunts growth as well as causing brain damage in youth. Boys who smoke marijuana are 4 inches shorter by age 20 than their counterparts, on average. That can earn them nicknames like PeeWee or Runt. But the drug legalization crowd continues to pooh-pooh the medical studies. They ignore the report from the National Institute for Drug Abuse that youth who use weed end up with lower IQ's and less ability to think. It harms memory, ability to learn, and impulse control. So the stereotype of becoming a 'stoner' is based in fact, not fiction. But advocates for legalization are using children, claiming that sick kids need marijuana for medicinal purposes. That foot-in-the-door approach to full legalization puts kids at risk for brain damage and stunted growth.

Imagine arresting a student for supporting the Second Amendment. Students who don't toe the liberal line may face arrest like a West Virginia teenager suffered. A school secretary objected to his T-shirt bearing the logo of the National Rifle Association and told him to turn it inside out. Knowing his rights, the teenager said no. He was hauled to the principal's office and ultimately arrested. The charges got thrown out of court, but now the teen's family is suing the school and its officials for violating free speech rights and unlawful arrest. Sadly, schools promoting leftist agendas often try to suppress any other values. One catchall accusation is that other students feel uncomfortable or somehow it “disrupts” the educational environment. But the same could be said about left-wing ideas. True intellectual freedom allows opposing viewpoints. That standard should not be too hard to teach, and also to follow.

America's divides cannot heal when agitators invent new ways to act offended. At Harvard University, a soda machine made in Israel was removed from campus because Palestinian students claimed it was a microaggression against them. The University of Illinois reports that minorities sense microaggression just from being in a room full of white people. That's even when the white people aren't doing anything. The study says therefore all whites should take sensitivity training. Microaggression is the latest mumbo-jumbo term for being thin-skinned, for getting upset because you presume somebody will discriminate against you. The grievance industry makes its living by preventing harmony between races or nationalities. We get pushed to take make-believe offenses seriously. But when all of attention gets spent on made-up grievances, it makes it tougher to address the real ones when they happen. It's like the boy who cried wolf, except now he cries “Microaggression!”

According to Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, President Obama's goal is to leave a legacy of ending America's use of fossil fuels. That includes coal, natural gas, and oil.   Obama condemns anyone who disagrees that global warming is the biggest threat to mankind, above even terrorism. Obama's solution is spending billions of dollars in crony capitalism to reward his friends.    The warnings don't match the facts, such as 18 years now of global cooling.   Meantime, major oil and gas discoveries have created economic booms across the U.S. The push is on to export more and to lead the world in oil and gas production. We could reap the economic bonanza that boosted the MidEast for a generation.   President Obama and his group want to deny us that prosperity. Do you believe Obama? If you like his global warming theories, you can keep them.  

Many Americans who bought electric cars are now disenchanted.   Billions of tax dollars were spent to induce you to buy an electric car, or at least a hybrid. That includes a $7,500 per car federal incentive, plus state subsidies. Despite the government checks, these remain expensive vehicles.   Buyers soon learn that electric cars have limited range because big batteries are super-heavy and a charge won't take you very far. Performance also lags as other cars accelerate past you.    Fuel savings? With high gasoline prices it took five years to make up for the costlier sticker price of the car. With gas prices down, now it takes ten years—longer than most people keep a car. No, you do NOT recover the higher purchase price by saving on gasoline.     President Obama promised one million electric vehicles would be on our roads by now. Despite the billions spent, we're still 800-thousand cars short. When Americans choose for themselves, they are not choosing the electric cars. Maybe someday those vehicles will i