The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders has taken the position that illegal immigrants (who are overwhelmingly Hispanic) should not fill out the census forms arriving in the mail. The rationale for this position, said Reverend Miguel Rivera, the chairman of the coalition, is to create pressure for a process which would allow illegal immigrants to become citizens.

The objectivity of judges is an essential component of the American constitutional system. When Elena Kagan was Solicitor General of the United States, she and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe had e-mail exchanges, which were obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act, that suggest that she could not be impartial in ruling on Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because she has taken a position for the bill.

In response to the fact that some health insurance companies stopped issuing child-only health policies because under ObamaCare's rules they had to issue policies to children regardless of pre-exisiting conditions — meaning parents could wait until their children were sick or injured and then enroll them, essentially mandating that insurance companies lose money on children's insurance — the Obama administration has reinterpreted the new healthcare law and said insurance companies may consider pre-existing conditions in issuing insurance until 2014, when issurers will be required to accept all applicants regardless of pre-existing conditions.

The Food and Drug Administration is pondering placing restrictions on the purchase of cough suppressants such as Robitussin and NyQuil because these, and a number of other similar over-the-counter medications that contain dextromethorphan, can be used to obtain a drug euphoria known as “robotripping.” Taking the drug as prescribed will not cause that effect, but 25 times the recommended dosage can induce robotripping.

Louisiana has passed two new statutory requirements regarding abortion. One requirement would provide that women who plan to have an abortion first have an ultrasound examination. The second would prevent medical malpractice insurance for doctors who perform elective abortions (abortions in which the life of the mother is not in danger.) A group of abortion clinics have filed suit in federal court to block implementation of these new laws.

The government seems intent upon forcing itself into our own health issues, rather like in 1984, wherein the slaves of Oceania were compelled to exercise before the video-screen, regardless of whether the individual wished to or not. Obamacare — socialized medicine — has been the dream of statists for a long time. They wish to reduce man to the status of animals. We may, perhaps, be well cared for cattle, but we are cattle nonetheless.

The new fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association may define several new psychiatric disorders. Some of these do not sound like varieties of mental illness at all, but rather opinions and attitudes. What would “oppositional defiant disorder,” for example, represent?

McNeil Consumer Healthcare, which is a division of the Johnson and Johnson Corporation, recalled 43 different over-the-counter children’s medications. This action was taken after an FDA inspection showed that some of the drugs might have been contaminated or the dosage miscalculated.

The Washington Post has reported that federal regulators are planning to push for the gradual reduction in the amount of salt in foods that Americans consume. This plan would address the amount of salt in processed food, although the federally allowable salt limits had not yet been set. The Food and Drug Administration plans to work in concert with the United States Department of Agriculture to reduce salt consumption by Americans.

Meeting on the sidelines of the second Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, on March 25, President Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss sending supplies to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria that is opposing the Assad regime.