Fresh opportunity for prison reform

PrisonCrowd1Our state leaders boast, and rightly so, about what is called “The Oklahoma Standard” — the compassion, speed and effectiveness of responses to natural disasters like spring’s tornadoes and acts of terror like the A.P. Murrah Building bombing in 1995.

Let’s apply that standard to counter the financial time bomb that lies at the end of the state’s unsustainable prison policies. Making the standard work for prison reform is both practical and principled — a moral response to a legal problem eating at the fabric of our society.

Oklahoma remains disastrously lost in the mire of one of America’s highest prison incarceration rates.
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Live Blog: Tea Party’s IRS, Immigration Rallies

Citizens rally to oppose, IRS, NSA, Immigration and other liberal policies

Citizens rally today in Washington

Breitbart.com and CSPAN are covering the Tea Party IRS, and Immigration rallies in Washington with live blogs and video.  Despite the early start on a day in the middle of the week, a couple hundred activists attended the beginning of the event and more are coming by the hour. It is a sign of growing anxiety in the grass-roots over the Senate amnesty legislation.

“Border security, Rule of Law Members of Congress are unlikely to get a full debate inside the halls of Congress,” King said. “So we are taking the debate outside it’s halls.”
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Obamacare will share private health info

HHS Secretary Sebelius with President Obama

HHS Secretary Sebelius with President Obama

A new 253-page Obamacare rule issued late Friday requires state, federal and local agencies as well as health insurers to swap the protected personal health information of anybody seeking to join the new health care program that will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service.

Protected health information, or PHI, is highly protected under federal law, but the latest ruling from the Department of Health and Human Services allows agencies to trade the information to verify that Obamacare applicants are getting the minimum amount of health insurance coverage they need from the health “exchanges.”

The ruling, explained on pages 72-73 of the book-thick guidance, does not mention any requirement that applicants first OK the release of their PHI. HHS already allows some exchange of PHI without an individual’s pre-approval, especially when for a “government program providing public benefits.” Officials said the swapping of information is simply meant to help figure the best insurance coverge of Obamacare users.
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CNN Polls IRS targeting

InternalRevenueServiceA growing number of Americans believe that senior White House officials ordered the Internal Revenue Service to target conservative political groups, according to a new national poll by the left-leaning CNN.

The CNN/ORC International survey released Tuesday morning indicates that a majority of the public says the controversy, which involves increased IRS scrutiny of tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, is very important to the nation.
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Senators praise Hope Act

Sen. Tom Coburn

Sen. Tom Coburn

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) praised the Senate’s passage last night of the HOPE Act (HIV Organ Policy Equity Act), legislation that would end the federal ban on research into organ donations from HIV-positive donors to HIV-positive recipients.

The bipartisan measure – which is also sponsored by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rand Paul (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Carl Levin (D-MI) – would open a pathway for the eventual transplantation of these organs, offering hope to thousands of HIV-positive patients who are on waiting lists for life-saving organs. Currently, even researching the feasibility of these potentially life-saving transplants is banned under federal law.
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