Last month President Obama became the first sitting president to address the national convention of Planned Parenthood. Many thought his appearance was poorly timed, since it took place while Kermit Gosnell was on trial. He could have used theopportunity to condemn the horrible actions of Gosnell, but President Obama ignored what was happening in the Philadelphia trial. To make it even worse, he ended his speech by thanking Planned Parenthood and asking God to bless that institution. I don’t believe God will bless the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Unfortunately, many Americans don’t know enough about Planned Parenthood. A poll released by the National Right to Life Committee demonstrates that. The survey found that a majority of registered voters were familiar with Planned Parenthood and had a favorable impression of the organization. The same poll, however, found that a majority did not know Planned Parenthood performs abortion. This illustrates how effective their public relations campaign has been.

Specifically 88 percent said they were familiar with Planned Parenthood. That breaks down to 41 percent that say there were “very familiar” and 47 percent saying they were “somewhat familiar.” Nearly two-thirds said they had a favorable opinion ofPlanned Parenthood.

More than a majority (55%) of those polled did not know that Planned Parenthood performs abortion. Even more discouraging was the fact that half (50%) of people who identified themselves as pro-life did not know that Planned Parenthood performs abortions.

For the record, Planned Parenthood performed 333,964 abortions in 2011. That accounts for just over 27 percent of all abortions performed in the United States. It is also worth noting that even among those who knew that Planned Parenthood performed abortions, only a very small percentage knew they performed more than 300,000 abortions each year.

This latest survey illustrates why we need to educate Americans about abortion and the practices of Planned Parenthood.

A week ago, I shocked many of my listeners when I explained how many
Muslims view foreign aid and welfare. First, let me give credit to Andrew McCarthy. He
is the man responsible for the prosecution of the mastermind behind the 1993 World
Trade Center bombing. He explains in a recent column that a sheikh in Egypt considers
U.S. aid to Egypt as a jizya.

The jizya is a tax that the Qu’ran requires non-Muslims to pay for the privilege of
living in a Muslim country ruled by Sharia. This is described in sura 9:29 in the Qur’an.
It is not enough to conquer infidels, they must pay a tribute “with willing submission”
and, they must “feel themselves subdued.” This is the social status known as dhimmitude.

It turns out that many Muslims consider the foreign aid we send to them as a
jizya. Now you might wonder why they believe that since Muslims have not conquered
us. Nevertheless, the sheikh considers America’s aid as jizya and argues that America
owes it to Egypt so that Muslims “can leave them alone.” In fact, he says, “Egypt must
impose on America to pay aid as jizya.”

Not only do many of these Muslims consider foreign aid to be a jizya; they also
consider welfare payments to be a jizya. Andrew McCarthy quotes from an Islamic cleric
in the United Kingdom. In a secretly taped lecture to a Muslim audience, he encourages
them to follow his example and get “Jihad Seeker’s Allowance” from the government.
That is a pun on a “Job Seeker’s Allowance.” This father of four receives more than
25,000 pounds annually. He also refers to the British taxpayers as “slaves.”

Let’s now apply this to the Boston bombers. Documents sent to a House
subcommittee documents that the parents of the two bombing suspects, the two suspects
themselves and their extended family received “every conceivable public benefit
available.”

Put simply, when we give foreign aid to Muslim countries or welfare benefits to
individuals Muslims, many of them see it as a jizya and a sign of weakness.

Congress has been debating the merits of the Marketplace Fairness Act, which
would institute an Internet sales tax. The White House and many brick-and-mortar
businesses have endorsed the bill so that it would “level the playing field for local
retailers.” After all, goes the argument, local businesses must collect sales taxes from
customers while online retailers do not have to collect the same taxes.

Opponents of an Internet tax point out that online sales include shipping charges
that often exceed the cost of sales taxes. And e-commerce shoppers aren’t going online to
avoid local sales tax. They go online because they are looking for a product that may not
be in the stores in their area while comparing price.

Opponents also point out that a brick-and-mortar store would only have to be
concerned about one tax scheme, while an online retailer would have to worry about
thousands. According to the Tax Foundation, there are 9,646 different sales-tax
jurisdictions in the United States.

Back in 2005 when Congress considered an Internet tax, proponents argued that
the law would only come into effect after the states streamlined and standardized their
tax system. Although there is a Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, the laws are as
confusing as ever.

Gordon Covitz writes that there is a 1,400-word regulation in Wisconsin on when
the sale of ice-cream cake is taxable. Candy bars are taxable in New York, but not New
Jersey. Large pretzels in Texas are tax-exempt baked goods, but not small pretzels. Iowa
charges a sales tax on decorative pumpkins but not edible ones.

The debate on Internet taxes surfaced a larger issue: the byzantine tax structure of
America. If you think it is confusing for a local store, imagine the challenge for an online
retailer faced with nearly 10,000 taxing jurisdictions. That’s reason enough to reject an
Internet tax and a good reason to move ahead with tax simplification.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the federal income tax. In fact, it may surprise many people that the federal government did quite well without an income tax for 124 years.

Brian Vanyou in his article on “Federal Income Tax Turns 100” reminds us that there wasn’t a really good argument at the time for an income tax. “Total federal tax revenue was at an all-time high in 1913, and tax receipts that were almost 25 percent higher than they were in 1909, the year Congress submitted the Sixteenth Amendment to the states for ratification.”

Even though there was no real need for another source of federal revenue, proponents argued that Congress might need it some day. Perhaps the government could tap into it during “national emergencies” or at other unspecified times. Of course, others saw this as a way to transform the national government and grow government.

Two months after the Sixteen Amendment was ratified, President Woodrow Wilson called a special session of Congress to ask for new taxes on income. The country was not at war. There was no national emergency. Nevertheless, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1913, and a number of wealthy Americans started paying a federal income tax.

Five year later, the tax exemption level dropped below the median income. Now, lots of people were paying a federal income tax, with a top income-tax rate of 77 percent. Similar income tax expansions took place under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. By 1944, the top income-tax rate was 90 percent.

Over the last few decades, the highest tax rates decreased, but the tax burden on the American people increased. More than $2 trillion is collected under the federal income tax. Of course, this does not include the enormous number of hours private individuals, businesses, and corporations must spend in tax compliance.

The federal income tax is 100 years old. I don’t know that too many people are celebrating its birthday.

Today is the National Day of Prayer. It is a vital part of our American heritage.
The first call to prayer happened before the American Revolution. In 1775, the
Continental Congress called on the colonists to pray for wisdom as they considered how
they would respond to the King of England.

Perhaps one of the most powerful calls to prayer came from President Abraham
Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1863, he issued a proclamation for a day of
“humiliation, fasting and prayer.” Here is some of that proclamation:

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been
preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth
and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have
forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and
strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all
these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the
necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

In 1952, Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed a resolution which
declared an annual, national day of prayer. In 1988, President Reagan signed into law a
bill that designated the first Thursday of May as the time for the National Day of Prayer.
That is why various celebrations throughout this country are taking place today.

It is estimated that there have been more than 130 national calls to prayer,
humiliation, fasting, and thanksgiving by presidents of the United States. There have
been 60 Presidential Proclamations for a National Day of Prayer because every president
has signed these proclamations. And there have been almost 1,000 state and federal calls
for national prayer since 1775.

Today is the National Day of Prayer. Please pray for this nation and its leaders.

Technology certainly played a role in catching the Boston terrorists. But this
revelation is also heating up a debate about how much surveillance is too much. We now
know how helpful all this new technology was in catching them. Smartphone pictures
identified them. Infrared cameras verified that the brother was in a backyard boat. The
best evidence came from a Lord and Taylor department store security camera.

I might also mention that this isn’t the first time surveillance technology has
helped catch terrorists and evildoers. Cameras in London helped identify the terrorists in
2005. Surveillance video captured the Tucson shootings in 2011. No doubt Big Data and
surveillance technology are potent weapons against terrorism.

What about our privacy? Representative Peter King (R-NY) explains: “If you
walk down the street, anyone can look at you, anyone can see where you are going. You
have no expectation of privacy when you are out in public.”

While that may be true, video surveillance is much more intrusive than that. Most
of us have been in a shopping mall or a building and needed to adjust our clothing, clean
our nose, whatever. We go around the corner thinking we are in private to attend to that
need. Then we look up afterward and see a video camera that has recorded everything we
just did. Maybe you were doing something silly or embarrassing only to look up and see
a crowd of people taking pictures or videos of you with their phones.

Each year we seem to accept more video surveillance at the expense of our civil
liberties. Think about it, in airports and government buildings you are ALWAYS on
camera, except perhaps when you are a bathroom stall. With more cameras on street
corners, we are approaching a level of video surveillance that reminds me of the movie
“The Truman Show.”

I believe we need to have a debate about the balance between security and
privacy. We shouldn’t have to give up all our privacy in the name of security. I’m Kerby
Anderson, and that’s my point of view.