Patriots of Truth and Inspiration

ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER

2010-07-05T18:59:00.001-07:00

One stormy night many years ago, an elderly man and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia .

Trying to get out of the rain, the couple approached the front desk hoping to get some shelter for the night.

"Could you possibly give us a room here?" the husband asked. The clerk, a friendly man with a winning smile, looked at the couple and explained that there were three conventions in town during that time.

"All of our rooms are taken," the clerk said. "But, I cannot send a nice couple like you out into the rain at one o'clock in the morning. Would you, perhaps, be willing to sleep in my room? It's not exactly a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night."

When the couple declined, the young man pressed on. "Don't worry about me; I'll make out just fine," the clerk told them with confidence and assurance.

Rather hesitant, the couple agreed and stayed for the night. The following morning as the elderly man paid his bill at the check-out counter, the man said to the helpful clerk, "You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States . Maybe, someday, I'll build one for you."

The clerk looked at them amusingly and smiled. The three of them had a good laugh.

As the couple drove away, the elderly man agreed that the helpful clerk was indeed exceptional, as finding people who are both friendly and helpful is not easy.

Two years had passed. The clerk had almost forgotten about the incident when one morning he received a letter from the old man. The note recalled that stormy night and the old men enclosed a round-trip ticket to New York , asking the young man to pay them a visit.

The helpful clerk in the Philadelphia hotel obliged and one day took the trip to New York where the old man met him and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street in the fashionable commercial district of Manhattan. The old man casually pointed to a great new building right in the middle of town, a palace of reddish stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the sky. Rather an impressive structure.

"That," said the older man, "is the hotel I have just built for YOU to manage."

"You must be joking," the young man said rather amazed.

"I can assure you I am not," said the older man, a sly smile playing on his face.

The older man's name was William Waldorf Astor, and the magnificent structure was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, New York .

The young clerk who eventually became the first manager of Waldorf Astoria was George C. Boldt. This young hotel clerk from Philadelphia never foresaw the turn of events that would one day lead him to become the first manager of one of the world's most glamorous, impressive hotels.

Many religions teach us that we are not to turn our backs on those who are in need, for we might be entertaining angels after all.
And remember - Life is more accurately measured by the lives you touch than the things you acquire. -- Author Unknown

They keep saying "Give Obama Time"

2010-07-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

The liberals are asking us to give Obama time. We agree . . . and think 25 to life would be appropriate.

--Jay Leno

America needs Obama-care like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask.

--Jay Leno

Q: Have you heard about McDonald's' new Obama Value Meal?

A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it.

--Conan O'Brien

Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon?

A: A fund raiser.

--Jay Leno

Q: What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary?

A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers, and threats to society. The other is for housing prisoners.

--David Letterman

Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink, who would be saved?

A: America !

--Jimmy Fallon

Q: What's the difference between Obama and his dog, Bo?

A: Bo has papers.

--Jimmy Kimmel

Q: What was the most positive result of the "Cash for Clunkers" program?

A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper stickers off the road.

--David Letterman

RUN THROUGH THE RAIN

2010-07-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

She had been shopping with her Mom in Wal-Mart. She must have been 6 years old, this beautiful red haired, freckle faced image of innocence. It was pouring outside. The kind of rain that gushes over the top of rain gutters, so much in a hurry to hit the earth it has no time to flow down the spout. We all stood there under the awning and just inside the door of the Wal-Mart. We waited, some patiently, others irritated because nature messed up their hurried day. I am always mesmerized by rainfall. I got lost in the sound and sight of the heavens washing away the dirt and dust of the world. Memories were a welcome reprieve from the worries of my day.

Her voice was so sweet as it broke the hypnotic trance we were all caught in, "Mom, let's run through the rain," she said. "What?" Mom asked. "Let's run through the rain!" She repeated. "No, honey. We'll wait until it slows down a bit," Mom replied. This young child waited about another minute and repeated: "Mom, let's run through the rain." "We'll get soaked if we do," Mom said. "No, we won't, Mom. That's not what you said this morning," the young girl said as she tugged at her Mom's arm.

"This morning? When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?" "Don't you remember? When you were talking to Daddy about his cancer, you said, 'If God can get us through this, he can get us through anything!" The entire crowd stopped dead silent. I swear you couldn't hear anything but the rain. We all stood silently. No one came or left in the next few minutes.

Mom paused and thought for a moment about what she would say. Now some would laugh it off and scold her for being silly. Some might even ignore what was said. But this was a moment of affirmation in a young child's life. A time when innocent trust can be nurtured so that it will bloom into faith. "Honey, you are absolutely right. Let's run through the rain. If GOD let's us get wet, well maybe we just needed washing," Mom said. Then off they ran. We all stood watching, smiling and laughing as they darted past the cars and yes, through the puddles. They held their shopping bags over their heads just in case. They got soaked. But they were followed by a few who screamed and laughed like children all the way to their cars. And yes, I did. I ran. I got wet. I needed washing.

Circumstances or people can take away your material possessions, they can take away your money, and they can take away your health. But no one can ever take away your precious memories...So, don't forget to make time and take the opportunities to make memories everyday. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. A friend sent this to me to remind me of life.

I HOPE YOU STILL TAKE THE TIME TO RUN THROUGH THE RAIN.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them. Keep in touch with your friends; you never know when you'll need each other.

Author Unknown

The New Orleans Beating: Real Violence, Real Evidence, No Media

2010-04-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

The Hayride publisher finds vast circumstantial evidence of politically motivated mayhem, putting the MSM narrative on trial — if they ever dare talk about it.

April 20, 2010 - by Scott McKay at Pajamas Media

A brutal beating in New Orleans following the Southern Republican Leadership Conference — held in that city from April 8-11 — has challenged the myth regarding the preferred residence of political thuggery.

Circumstantial evidence is piling up that far-left anarchists viciously attacked a staffer to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, putting Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend Joe Brown in the hospital with broken bones. The story has been, unsurprisingly, ignored.

Bautsch, a rising star in Republican politics and just 25 years old, helped organize a $10,000-a-plate GOP fundraiser at the legendary Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans. Jindal attended the affair, as did Republican Governors Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Rick Perry of Texas.

The event drew a hostile protest from a group which had initially assembled to protest the SRLC at the Hilton Riverside Hotel, a half-mile away. That protest, which had purportedly focused on state budget cuts to higher education and health care, was organized by the Iron Rail Book Collective. The Iron Rail is a self-described anarchist commune, boasting of holding book-study groups on violent revolutionary literature and having vandalized French Quarter banks in recent months.

Iron Rail members engaged in rhetoric which, had it been used by conservative protesters, would have headlined that week’s coverage.

Video of their demonstration at Brennan’s shows a protest barely short of a riot. Attendees at the fundraiser were subjected to intense verbal abuse upon arriving and leaving the restaurant.

After Jindal, Barbour, and Perry had departed the restaurant from a rear entrance, an employee of Brennan’s announced to the demonstrators that the three were no longer present. The protesters refused to either leave or to cease the abusive chanting. Sometime either before or shortly after the New Orleans Police were called in a semi-successful effort to break up the protest, Louisiana GOP Chairman Roger Villere found himself blocked from exiting the restaurant’s front door. When Villere then tried to exit through the rear, he was chased by protesters. He made a narrow escape into a waiting taxi.

About an hour later, Bautsch and Brown exited through the front door into what appeared to be a dwindling demonstration. The duo were immediately “catcalled” by the remaining protesters, and were followed by a group of approximately five white males bearing a “counterculture” appearance. The pursuers made repeated insulting comments based largely in class-warfare rhetoric: “little blond bitch,” “you think you’re f***ing special.”

Brown told Bautsch to hurry towards their car. When they reached the 600 block of St. Louis Street, a block and a half from Brennan’s, Brown turned to gauge their progress.

At that time, the attack began.

Brown was immediately set upon by four of the assailants, thrown into a wrought-iron fence. Another assailant attacked Bautsch, knocking her to the ground and stomping on her leg. She suffered four breaks in the leg, requiring a steel rod during extensive surgery on April 10, and faces three months of recuperation.

Brown suffered a broken nose and jaw, and a concussion.

Both are deeply traumatized from the attack. And both have said that while they can’t prove the attack was an explicitly political one, they believe it was exactly that, and furthermore, was committed by the protesters.

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The Democrats were right - First time for everything

2010-02-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

Much as it pains me to say this, I have to admit it - my Democratic friends
were right.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the nation's hope would deteriorate, and sure enough there has been a 20 point drop in the Consumer Confidence Index since the election, reaching a lower point than any time during the Bush administration.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the US would become more deeply embroiled in the Middle East, and now, tens of thousands of additional troops are scheduled to be deployed into Afghanistan .

My Democratic Party friends told me if I voted for McCain, that the economy would get worse and sure enough unemployment is approaching double digits and the new stimulus packages implemented recently have sent the stock market lower than at any time since the Islamic Terrorists attacks of 9-11.

They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more "crooks" in high ranking positions in Federal government and sure enough, several cabinet nominees and Senate appointments revealed resumes of scandal, bribery and tax fraud.

They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more "Pork at the trough" in Federal government and sure enough, over 17,500 "Pork Bills" showed up in Congress since January 2009...

I was also told by my Democratic friends that if I voted for McCain, we would see more deficit spending in Washington D.C. , and sure enough, Obama spent more in just 30 days than all other Presidents altogether - in the entire history of the US.

Well I voted for McCain in November and my Democratic friends were right... all of their predictions have come true!

The Enemy Within: The Hidden Agenda Of The Rockefeller, Carnegie & Ford Foundations

2010-01-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

from SliderOnTheBlack.com by SliderOnTheBlack

In 1954 Congress formed the Reece Committee to investigate the influence the large tax exempt foundations such as the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford Foundations were wielding over America’s foreign policy, governmental affairs, and education system.

This is the story of Norman Dodd, who was the chief investigator of the Reece Committee. And what follows are two interviews with Norman Dodd, one conducted by G. Edward Griffin and the other by Dr. Stan Monteith.

Before you dismiss this as Red Scare hyperbole, or recycled McCarthyism, let me share a portion of the interview where Rowan Gaither, the President of the Ford Foundation, who upon learning of the Reece Committee’s investigation, asked Mr. Dodd to come to his office in New York and openly admitted the agenda of the large tax exempt foundations…Read the rest HERE

The End of Global Warming Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2006

2010-01-09T04:05:00.000-08:00

By Art Horn is a meteorologist who has worked for CBS, NBC and ABC
From: http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2665

Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2006. By: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization

The story of manmade global warming is over. In reality it never existed except in the minds and hearts of grant-seeking scientists and academics, ratings-obsessed television networks and their misinformed viewers and opportunistic eco-activists.

That said, climate change is real. The earth has been coming out of a 450-year cold era known as the “Little Ice Age” since it bottomed out in the late 1600s. Hundreds of studies have verified the existence of this cold period. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tried to erase the climate history of the last 1,000 years in its 2001 report. They replaced all the peer-reviewed studies of past climate with one that fit their needs. The now-discredited “hockey stick” graph showed virtually no significant change in temperature of the world over the last 1,000 years. Conveniently, the graph then showed a rapid and abrupt increase in global temperature during the last 100 years. This is, of course, due to our sin of burning fossil fuels and stoking the fires of global warming.

The only evidence that human activity is causing global warming comes from computer models. These models take what the people who develop them know about how the earth’s climate system works and attempt to predict the future. Computer models are not evidence. Evidence is something real, something concrete that is not subject to change. Computer models can be changed by their creator. In fact the creator of the model can make it say whatever the creator wants it to say by adjusting parameters. That is not evidence.

In 2007, a study showed the failings of computer model forecasts. The models showed that there exists a global warming “fingerprint” in the air. This fingerprint is a dramatic warming of the atmosphere, not on the ground, but 20,000 to 50,000 feet in the air above the tropics. The 2007 study revealed that real-world temperature observations by weather balloons over a 50-year period showed no global warming fingerprint at all, none. The computer models had grossly overestimated the warming over the tropics. Real world observations trump computer models. Despite this revelation the climate alarmists continued to trumpet the coming doom if we don’t change our sinful ways. To do otherwise would threaten government grants to colleges and universities, research facilities and government agencies. Large corporations are developing eco-friendly technologies to replace fossil fuels and brokerage houses are looking to cash in big time on the evolving carbon trading markets. The United Nations is looking to use climate treaties to wrestle control of carbon emissions from independent nations. This will elevate the United Nations and its leaders to the role of effectively ruling the world’s energy consumption through one world-government authority.

The greenhouse/global warming theory states that as more carbon dioxide is pumped into the air, the atmosphere’s ability to vent excess heat to space will diminish. This is the mantra of global warming alarmism. More carbon dioxide means more heat gets clogged up in the climate system and the earth gets warmer and warmer. From this we have conjured up all the various climate disasters, movies, concerts, fixes, and swindles, with their varied political and economic benefactors and victims.

Enter 2009 and a new study by Dr. Richard Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi from MIT that uses temperature data from satellites. As background we start with the predictions. The climate models say that as the oceans warmed by one degree Celsius from the 1980s into the 1990s, the amount of heat escaping to space would decrease. More heat would be trapped in the atmosphere, ultimately due to the burning of fossil fuels. The warming of the oceans was natural and part of the large multi-decadal temperature changes that have been known for years. Now if only we had a way to measure the amount of heat going out to space, then we could get some answers. We do, it’s called the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment Satellite (ERBE). It was in orbit above the earth measuring outgoing long wave radiation (heat) for 16 years from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s. This is very significant. Now we had a tool, and real world data, that we could compare to the computer model predictions. It is the ultimate climate system umpire.

The results from the Lindzen and Choi study were stunning. The computer models, all 11 of them, predicted that as the oceans and atmosphere warmed, the amount of heat escaping to space should decrease by 3 watts per square meter. If this were true, then the theory of manmade global warming would have a strong footing. But the satellite data used by the Lindzen and Choi inflicted a bone crushing blow to this assumption. As the oceans and atmosphere warmed, the measurements showed that the amount of heat escaping to space increased by 4 watts per square meter from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s. All the computer models were wrong. If the atmosphere is not trapping heat generated by warming oceans then there is no manmade global warming taking place.

The atmosphere compensated for the additional heat by opening the window a little more. The theory of global warming is lying on the canvas bloodied and dying. Alarmists will attempt to revive the carcass with even louder cries of impending doom and calls to repent. But this clamoring will fall on deaf ears. Science will ultimately prove the winner and the world will bury global warming in an icy grave where it belongs.

Art Horn is a meteorologist who has worked for CBS, NBC and ABC

50 Examples of Government Waste

2009-12-29T16:29:00.000-08:00

From Heritage.org

Soaring government spending and trillion-dollar budget deficits have brought fiscal responsibility--and reducing government waste--back onto the national agenda. President Obama recently identified 0.004 of 1 percent of the federal budget as wasteful and proposed eliminating this $140 million from his $3.6 trillion fiscal year 2010 budget request. Aiming higher, the President recently proposed partially offsetting a costly new government health entitlement by reducing $622 billion in Medicare and Medicaid "waste and inefficiencies" over the next decade. Taxpayers may wonder why reducing such waste is now merely a bargaining chip for new spending rather than an end in itself.

It is possible to reduce spending and balance the budget. In the 1980s and 1990s, Washington consistently spent $21,000 per household (adjusted for inflation). Simply returning to that level would balance the budget by 2012 without any tax hikes. Alternatively, merely returning to the 2008 (pre-recession) spending level of $25,000 per household (adjusted for inflation) would likely balance the budget by 2019 without any tax hikes.

Not Easy, but Necessary

Reducing wasteful spending is not easy. Even the most useless programs are passionately supported by the armies of recipients, administrators, and lobbyists that benefit from their existence. Identifying inefficiencies and abuses is much easier than devising a system to fix them. Many lawmakers focus more on bringing home earmarks than on performing the less exciting task of government oversight. Exasperated taxpayers see the cost of government rise with no end in sight.

Of course, eliminating waste cannot balance the budget. Lawmakers must also rein in spending by reforming Social Security and Medicare and by eliminating government activities that are no longer affordable. Yet government waste is the low-hanging fruit that lawmakers must clean up in order to build credibility with the public for larger reforms.

Congress has allowed government employees to spend tax dollars on iPods, jewelry, gambling, exotic dance clubs, and $13,500 steak dinners. If lawmakers cannot even reduce this kind of waste, fraud, and abuse, taxpayers will be less likely to trust them to reform Social Security and Medicare.

Six Categories of Waste

The six categories of wasteful and unnecessary spending are:

Programs that should be devolved to state and local governments;
Programs that could be better performed by the private sector;
Mistargeted programs whose recipients should not be entitled to government benefits;
Outdated and unnecessary programs;
Duplicative programs; and
Inefficiency, mismanagement, and fraud.

The first four categories are generally subjective, and reasonable people can disagree on whether a given federal program falls under their purview. Yet the final two categories--duplication and inefficiency, mismanagement, and fraud--are comparatively easy to identify and oppose. Thus, they are heavily represented in the examples of government waste below:

The federal government made at least $72 billion in improper payments in 2008.[1]
Washington spends $92 billion on corporate welfare (excluding TARP) versus $71 billion on homeland security.[2]
Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.[3]
Government auditors spent the past five years examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them--costing taxpayers a total of $123 billion annually--fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve.[4]
The Congressional Budget Office published a "Budget Options" series identifying more than $100 billion in potential spending cuts.[5]

Read 45 more examples at Heritage.org

The liberal plot against American education

2009-12-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

By Robert Weissberg @ American Thinker

I am usually skeptical about conspiracy theories, but American education's sorrowful state has increasingly pushed me in that direction. Some background: I've analyzed K-12 schooling for years and observed an odd pattern: We increasingly spend billions to improve it (with much of the increase directed toward uplifting blacks and Hispanics), but progress is miniscule. Setting aside sheer stupidity as an explanation, this blatant wastefulness is a prime candidate for a nefarious "dark forces" account. But more importantly, if this is indeed something other than stupidity (or the Illuminati, Freemasons, the Tri-Lateral Commission, and the like)...then could it be a "whodunit"?

My first inclination was to round up the usual suspects: liberals. After all, all the outward signs of the "crime" point to this familiar culprit. There is the usual hasty fiscal extravagance, a muddle-brained potpourri of unreachable aims, the reflexive expansion of state power, and a commitment to "progress," absent boundaries. More telling, there is the signature dependency-for-life outcome where youngsters migrate from one government program to the next. But would this circumstantial evidence warrant a grand jury indictment, let alone a conviction? Harder evidence was required: if not a smoking gun, then at least a theory of the crime (to use some prosecutorial lingo).

A dot-connecting "eureka" moment occurred when I read a November 29, 2009 New York Times editorial titled "Over-Punishment in Schools." In an instant, I now possessed a valuable clue -- an Exhibit A -- to offer the jury to demonstrate how liberals are intentionally destroying American education so as to "help" minorities.

The editorial claimed that increased school policing (as opposed to informal intervention by principals or guidance counselors who consult parents) is disproportionally hindering the education of blacks and Hispanics. To wit, "[c]hildren who are singled out for arrest and suspension are at greater risk of dropping out and becoming permanently entangled with the criminal justice system. It is especially troublesome that these children tend to be disproportionately black and Hispanic, and have emotional problems or learning disabilities." The editorial then praised a New York City proposal ensuring greater accountability and transparency in school discipline while making it easier for parents, students, and teachers to lodge complaints against school security officers.

Make no mistake -- the race/ethnic-related pattern in school discipline is genuine and widening. An Education Week (November 23, 2009) article summarized school suspension data by race and reported that from 1999 to 2000 and from 2007 to 2008, the overall suspension rate increased by 47%. More specifically, for whites, the rate declined by 5.4%; for blacks, it soared by 74.5%; and the figure for Hispanics was 114.7%. In 2007-2008, whites comprised 28.3% of all suspensions, while blacks made up 51.3% of the total. The data for expulsions are similar. Between 1999-2000 and 2007-2008, expulsions rose by 43.7%; and while this increase affected all groups, the rate for blacks was more than three times that of whites (the Hispanic increase was five times that of whites). And as one might predict, blacks were nearly half (45.7%) of those expelled. Actually, since local civil rights groups -- not to mention the ACLU -- are quick to protest strict disciplinary measures directed against blacks, especially by white teachers and administrators, these figures probably underestimate racial discrepancies.

This is pretty good proof of liberal intent. Begin with the obvious: Keeping troublemakers in school hinders learning for everyone, including African-Americans. Indeed, the single most effective cure for academic insufficiency is exiling all troublemakers, not rescuing them. Teachers can hardly teach when students loudly socialize or heap abuse on the teacher or annoy classmates inclined to learn. Why attend a school with rampant bullying or threats of bodily injury? Moreover, faced with numerous troublemakers, prudent teachers just keep a lid on school violence by ignoring petty transgressions (e.g., classroom cell phone use). And forget about high academic standards, since these might keep miscreants a year longer or instigate disruptive demonstrations.

All the transparency and "fairness" demanded by the Times further undermine education by adding yet more administrative burdens to schools already challenged in performing basic bureaucratic functions, let alone properly instructing their students. We are talking about schools struggling with compiling honest enrollment figures, accurate graduation statistics, and updated student information, to say nothing of tracking books and equipment. Now, with the threat of legal action hanging over their heads, hard-pressed school administrators will have to document disciplinary procedures to withstand assaults from self-appointed "community activists" and ACLU-type lawyers convinced that due process outranks learning.

In fact, to avoid a financially ruinous class action lawsuit, schools may now impose court-like judicial proceedings, complete with written transcripts, multiple witnesses, and similar time-consuming procedures that must inevitably undermine the school's core mission. So rather than immediately expel someone who hit a teacher, wise school administrators, like doctors fearing frivolous malpractice suits, will instead generate paperwork as the first line of defense. And rest assured that troublemakers will soon notice and exploit this paralysis. Teaching becomes a game to avoid the problems that inevitably occur when imposing the law and order vital to imparting knowledge.

Further forget about attracting dedicated teachers to troubled schools. Experienced, capable teachers enjoy multiple opportunities, but who would willingly teach at a school where establishing discipline can become a risky bureaucratic nightmare? What teacher wants every action put under the legal microscope? Only about-to-retire zombie lifers might survive in such settings.

It should be equally obvious that this self-imposed destruction of learning is also a windfall for those feeding off the education colossus. It is, ladies and gentleman, the Great Society incarnate. With troublemakers enjoying near-diplomatic immunity from punishment, schools have no choice but to hire armies of workers to mitigate their impact...and as in any well-formulated, government-financed, make-work scheme, everyone receives a turn at the trough. There will be more social workers, mental health counselors, anti-violence program supervisors and coordinators, role models, and mentors for at-risk students, right on down to more janitors skilled in graffiti removal, school safety officers, technicians to repair vandalized surveillance equipment, classroom assistants to keep an eye on the mischief-makers, and whatever else it takes to staff these prison-like schools. Some experts have demanded special training so teachers can "understand" the troubled world of these miscreants. Put bluntly, keeping a few criminally inclined students in school regardless of the damage can probably feed countless families who might otherwise go unemployed.

These extra bodies necessary for maintain dangerous schools are also a windfall for the Democratic Party and its expand-the-state policies. Bloated school payrolls guarantee more dues-paying members to education unions like the NEA and AFT, both central to Democratic fundraising and voting drives. (These unions also supply many delegates to the party's presidential nominating convention.) They are also a ready-made voter base for erstwhile "education" mayors and governors "committed to helping the children" who all the while push government farther into fiscal insolvency.

So can any reasonable person honestly believe that liberals are sincerely committed to improving American education when they insist that chronic, often violent troublemakers should be kept in school at all costs? Nobody can be that stupid -- not even those who write editorials for the New York Times.

Robert Weissberg is Professor Emeritus of political science at University of Illinois-Urbana.

The Communists Behind Obama’s Health Care Goals

2009-12-24T04:10:00.000-08:00

Posted By John Perazzo , December 23, 2009 , Front Page.

The polls ^[1] have been clear for quite some time: By a substantial margin, Americans oppose the efforts of Barack Obama ^[2] and Congressional Democrats to enact a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, one that would greatly expand the federal government’s role ^[3].

Significantly, the President’s deeply held positions on healthcare were derived largely from the influence of a politically aggressive group of longtime Marxists whose worldviews were consistent with those Obama had already developed from other radical influences in his life. But before we examine who those particular Marxists were, let us establish, with certainty, what Obama’s long-term objectives for healthcare actually are.

As an Illinois state senator in 2003, Obama unambiguously told an AFL-CIO conference:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal healthcare ^[4] [plan]…. That’s what I’d like to see.”

In a single-payer system, a government-run organization ^[5] would manage the healthcare of every man, woman, and child in the United States—collecting all related fees and paying out all related costs.

At an SEIU ^[6] Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, Obama sang the same tune^[4]—though this time he conceded that the attainment of his ultimate vision might require a gradual, incremental approach:

“There’s going to be, potentially, some transition process. I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out…”

In the summer of 2008, when a campaign audience member asked him to comment^[7] on single-payer healthcare, Obama candidly replied:

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.”

Earlier this year, however, the President—recognizing the American public’s opposition to such a system, as reflected in every reputable opinion poll—made a calculated political move to withdraw the single-payer option from the bargaining table. In its stead, he argued in favor of a so-called “public option ^[8],” where a government plan would be set up to “compete” with private insurers—and would undoubtedly drive many of those insurers out of business ^[8]. In an effort to assuage people’s fear that he was seeking to transform the world’s finest healthcare system into a government-run reflection of his own socialist ideals, Obama said this on June 15:

“What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system.… So, when you hear the nay-sayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this—they are not telling the truth.”

But in light of his earlier quotes, this was less than candid. Obama’s pre-opinion poll position on the matter of single-payer healthcare was clear and unwavering. His more recent departure from that position is perfectly consistent with the tactics advocated by his political guru, the late Saul Alinsky ^[9], who counseled revolutionaries to conceal their real motives; to say and do whatever is necessary to allay the fears and suspicions of the middle class; and to pursue incremental change where overnight transformation is not possible—knowing they can always agitate for additional change at some point in the future.

Notwithstanding his concession to political practicality, it is clear that the ultimate objective of President Obama’s self-identified quest to “fundamentally transform the United States of America ^[10],” is to move the nation as far as possible, albeit incrementally, toward a single-payer system. How did Obama come to embrace the single-payer ideal as the best of all possible options? Thanks to some extraordinary research Trevor Loudon ^[11] and Brenda J. Elliott ^[12], among others, we know the answer.

The primary figure who delivered Obama to the single-payer camp was Quentin Young, an 86-year-old retired physician who was a longtime friend and neighbor of Obama in Chicago. Young joined ^[11] the Young Communist League ^[13] as a teenager in the late 1930s. From the mid-1940s through the mid-1970s, he was closely associated with the Communist Party. In October 1968 he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was probing the extent of his knowledge about the riots that had erupted at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago two months earlier. The Committee accused Young of belonging to the Bethune Club, an organization for communist doctors; the group was named after Norman Bethune, a communist physician who devoted his services to the totalitarian regime of Mao Zedong ^[14].

Dr. Young was active in the radical movements of the Sixties and Seventies and led^[11] a small delegation to Communist North Vietnam in 1972. In the late 1970s, Young became associated ^[11] with a Marxist organization known as the New American Movement, which was initially convened by Michael Lerner ^[15], an America-hating radical who counseled young people to explore the use of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs as portals to a greater comprehension of socialist principles.

In 1980 Young founded the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, a single-payer lobby group ^[16] whose Board of Directors he chairs to this day. In 1982 Young helped establish the Democratic Socialists of America ^[17], which, as the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, asserts ^[18] that “many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed.” In 1987 Young co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), a single-payer advocacy organization where he currently serves as national coordinator. In PNHP’s view, government-run healthcare “should be financed by truly progressive taxation ^[19].”

In 1995 Young attended ^[11] the now-famous meeting at the Hyde Park home of former Weather Underground ^[20] terrorists Bill Ayers ^[21] and Bernardine Dohrn ^[22], where Barack Obama was first introduced to influential locals as the hand-picked successor to Alice Palmer ^[23], a pro-Soviet radical who planned to vacate her Illinois State Senate seat in pursuit of a higher elected office. Young quickly became a friend and political ally of Obama, teaching ^[24] the latter about the merits of single-payer healthcare. In a 2009 interview ^[25] with Amy Goodman ^[26] of Democracy Now! ^[27], Young reminisced about the germination of his ideological kinship with the young Obama:

“Barack Obama, in those early days [as a state senator]—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning [Democratic] majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion….”

Another noteworthy influence on Obama’s views vis à vis healthcare has been Dr. Peter Orris, who co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program with Quentin Young. The son of a Communist Party member, Orris in the 1960s was a leader of Harvard University’s campus chapter of Students for a Democratic Society ^[28], the New Leftist organization that aspired to overthrow America’s democratic institutions and remake the nation’s government in a Marxist image. He later joined the Communist Party (CP) for more than two decades, before ultimately shifting his allegiance to the CP splinter group, Committees of Correspondence, where he remains a prominent figure to this day.

Other leading PNHP activists (and thus, key shapers of President Obama’s healthcare agendas) include the following ^[11]:

Joanne Landy, a high-ranking member of the Democratic Socialists of America
Mark Almberg, a prominent member of the Illinois Communist Party since the 1970s
Oliver Fein (PNHP President) and Steffi Woolhandler (PNHP Secretary), both of whom have spoken in favor of a single-payer healthcare system at the annualSocialist Scholars Conferences ^[29] in New York City

The Communist influences on President Obama’s healthcare objectives do not end with the foregoing list of PNHP leaders. In 2004, PNHP collaborated with a number of likeminded, far-left organizations to form a wider coalition, Healthcare-NOW!, which likewise promotes single-payer reform (and, notably, enjoys the strong support ^[30] of the Socialist Party USA). Obama’s friend and mentor, Quentin Young, is a central figure in Healthcare-NOW!, serving as the network’s national coordinator and co-chair^[31]. Other prominent members of Healthcare-NOW!’s Board of Directors ^[31]—who, like their counterparts at PNHP, exert a major influence on President Obama—include^[11]:

Medea Benjamin ^[32], the pro-Castro ^[33], America-hating co-founder of Global Exchange ^[34], Code Pink for Peace ^[35], and Iraq Occupation Watch ^[36]
Michael Lighty, a longtime member (and former chairman) ^[31] of the Democratic Socialists of America
Flavio Casoy, a San Francisco-based doctor and a prominent member of the Communist Party USA
Rev. Lucius Walker ^[37], the pro-Castro executive director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization ^[38], and a longtime supporter of Communist Party USA activities ^[31]

Barack Obama did not conceive of socialized medicine on his own. His acceptance of such a system was cultivated and nurtured by the same types of Marxist revolutionaries with whom he has surrounded himself throughout his entire adult life – and who are now shaping the major policy agendas of his administration.

James Inhofe, the fine Republican Senator from Oklahoma, says that global warming is a "hoax."

2009-11-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

James Inhofe, the fine Republican Senator from Oklahoma, says that global warming is a "hoax." Perhaps the fact that the earth has been COOLING for a decade has impressed Inhofe in a way that it apparently has not struck Al Gore and Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prizer winners who have been rewarded . . . for spreading false inforamtion on climate change.

Am I right on this issue, and is Sen. Inhofe right? The evidence -- the data, the facts, the scientific reality -- demonstrate that our view is correct. This is NOT a matter of opinion, any more than two plus two equals four is a question of opinion.

When someone makes a statement, the key point to ask is: does the evidence verfiy the assertion? That's the approach John Tierney, the superb science reporter for the New York Times takes. Tierney may qualify as the "last honest man" at the leftist Times.

The following material is from Tierney's oustanding blog. These are not Tierney's "opinions." They are verifiable facts, as opposed to Gore's and Obama's fantasies. Tierney is citing findings by the federal Climate Change Science Program:

"1. Over the long-term, U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.
2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.
3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation . . . there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).
4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms.
5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor'easters.
6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.

{Here's how Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., of the University of Colorado, the best of the best in environmentla science, summarizes the findings:] "Until the climate science community cleans up its act on this subject it will continue to give legitimate opportunities for opponents to action to criticize the climate science community."

In the vice-presidential debate last year, Gov. Sarah Palin said she was not convinced of man-caused global warming. Joe Biden, one of the biggest dunces in Washington, criticized her as some sort of dimwit. Biden was wrong (objectively) and Palin was right.

John Tierney says, correctly, that if greenhouse gases do turn out to be a problem, there are "other ways" to deal with it than through draconian cap-and-trade policies. If you haven't heard about these "other ways" (plural), you're not alone. Tierney says that developing technologies offer the possibility of "cooling" the earth if that proves necessary (which it apparently will not). More about that at a future date . . .

In the 1970s, John Holdren, now Obama's key science advisor, predicted a "new Ice Age." He was dead wrong. Now, of course, he's predicting the exact opposite. He is dumber than a doorknob.

The communists, crackpots, and human coo-coo clocks Obama has appointed are doing their very best to dismantle everything that is good about this country.

That Will Never Happen In America

2009-07-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

Ironically just after I wrote the article for Historic News entitled "The History of Complacency" I got this in my e-mail , and I figured it dovetailed pretty nicely with the Glenn Beck video that on "Change Blindness".

"C'mon, that will never happen in America."

“What would you say if I gave you 11 reasons why the elections in 2010 will be the most important in the history of the United States?

1. What if I had told you in October 2008, before the last presidential election, that before Barack Obama's first 100 days in office, the federal government would be in control of both the mortgage and the banking industries? That 19 of America's largest banks would be forced to undergo stress tests by the federal government which would determine if they were insufficiently capitalized, so they must be supervised by the government?

Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

2. What if I had told you that within Barack Obama's first 100 days in office the federal government would be the largest shareholder in the US Big-Three automakers: Ford, GM, and Chrysler? That the government would kick out the CEO's of these companies and appoint hand-picked executives with zero experience in the auto industry and that executive compensation would be determined, not by a Board of Directors, but by the government?

Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

3. What if I had told you that Barack Obama would appoint 21 Czars, without congressional approval, accountable only to him, not to the voters, who would have control over a wide range of US policy decisions. That there would be a Stimulus Accountability Czar, an Urban Czar, a Compensation Czar, an Iran Czar, an Auto Industry Czar, a Cyber Security Czar, an Energy Czar, a Bank Bailout Czar, and more than a dozen other government bureaucrats with unchecked regulatory powers over US domestic and foreign policy.

Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

4. What if I had told you that the federal deficit would be $915 billion in the first six months of the Obama presidency - with a projected annual deficit of $1.75 trillion - triple the $454.8 billion in 2008, for which the previous administration was highly criticized by Obama and his fellow Democrats. That congress would pass Obama's $3.53 trillion federal budget for fiscal 2010. That the projected deficit over the next ten years would be greater than $10 trillion.

Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

5. What if I had told you that the Obama Justice Department would order FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high-value detainees captured on the battlefield and held at US military detention facilities in Afghanistan. That Obama would order the closing of the Guantanamo detention facility with no plan for the disposition of the 200-plus individuals held there. That several of the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo would be sent to live in freedom in Bermuda at the expense of the US government. That our returning US veterans would be labeled terrorists and put on a watch list.

Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

6. What if I had told you that the federal government would seek powers to seize key companies whose failures could jeopardize the financial system. That a new regulatory agency would be proposed by Obama to control loans, credit cards, mortgage-backed securities, and other financial products offered to the public.

Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

7. What if I had told you that Obama would travel to the Middle East, bow before the Saudi king, and repeatedly apologize for America's past actions. That he would travel to Latin America where he would warmly greet Venezuela's strongman Hugo Chavez and sit passively in the audience while Nicaraguan Marxist thug Daniel Ortega charged America with terrorist aggression in Central America.

Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

8. Okay, now what if I were to tell you that Obama wants to dismantle conservative talk radio through the imposition of a new "Fairness Doctrine." That he wants to curtail the First Amendment rights of those who may disagree with his policies via internet blogs, cable news networks, or advocacy ads. That most major network television and most newspapers will only sing his phrases like state-run media in communist countries?

Would you say, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

9. What if I were to tell you that the Obama Justice Department is doing everything it can to limit your Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. That the federal government wants to reinstate the so-called assault weapons ban which would prohibit the sale of any type of firearm that requires the shooter to pull the trigger every time a round is fired. That Obama's Attorney General wants to eliminate the sale of virtually all handguns and ammunition, which most citizens choose for self-defense.

Would you say, "C’mon that will never happen in America."

10. What if I were to tell you that the Obama plan is to eliminate states rights guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment and give the federal government sweeping new powers over policies currently under the province of local and state governments and voted on by the people. That Obama plans to control the schools, energy production, the environment, health care, and the wealth of every US citizen.

Would you say, "C'mon, that will never happen in America."

11. What if I were to tell you that the president, the courts, and the federal government have ignored the US Constitution and have seized powers which=2 0the founders of our country fought to restrict. That our last presidential election may have been our last truly free election for some time to come. That our next presidential election may look similar to the one recently held in Iran. (And maybe under review by ACORN.)

I know - I know what you will say. That will never happen in America.

Yeah, that's pretty much what we've been warning people about since Barack emerged as a candidate, but people called us crazy right wing nutjobs. I wish it was just my imagination, but sadly it's all too real.

And now for the icing on the cake.....

Five Simple Arguments Against Government Healthcare

2009-07-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

by Hunter Baker @ RedState

The argument from federalism: One of the great benefits of federalism is that the states can act as the laboratories of democracy. If a new public policy is tried in the states and works (as happened with welfare reform in Michigan and Wisconsin), then a similar program has a good chance of succeeding at the national level. The welfare reform went national and proved to be one of the most successful public policy initiatives of the last half century. On the other hand, major governmental healthcare initiatives have been tried in Tennessee and Massachusetts. Neither of those have panned out. That should be a cautionary sign to avoid rushing ahead to just get a bill done!

The argument from misery: I cannot think of any encounter with my government that I willingly seek out. I hate going to the DMV. I hate going to the post office. I hate getting my car inspected. I hate getting a passport renewed. All of these things eat up productive time in my day and are filled with useless, inefficient waiting. This basic situation also applies to people who rely on the government for their healthcare. When my wife did indigent care in Houston, her clients did not pay for her services. They paid with their time. LOTS OF WAITING. I don’t need more waiting in my life. And because government employees are typically unionized, I don’t need to be at the mercy of a bunch of unionized employees any more than I already am.

The argument from incentivization: If the government provides the care too cheaply, then there will be a glut of clients who overwhelm the system and create the nightmare of waiting as the price to pay. If the government offers the care too expensively, people will opt out which is exactly what they wanted to avoid. If the government tries to control utilization by deciding what services you can and can’t have, then you are up against a far worse foe than the worst HMO you ever faced. And the government will go where the insurance companies fear to tread. They will decide who should live or die.

The argument from missing the verdammten point: It is exceedingly clear that a huge reason for the skyrocketing costs of medicine is the problem of predatory litigation driven by lawyers looking for 30-40% of a bloody fortune from an industry thought to be able to afford it. Between the cost of malpractice insurance, the payouts, and the defensive medicine that must be practiced to ward off lawsuits, it is easy to see why healthcare is outrageously expensive. Yet, the president very clearly said he would not seek to deal with that problem in the legislation. WHAT? WHY? Because the trial lawyers are very good political donors? Not a compelling reason for the formation of a particular public policy.

The argument from economic theory: Look at two sectors of the healthcare market that are typically paid out of pocket without the influence of insurance providers or the government. I am thinking of plastic surgery and lasik procedures for improving eyesight. Both of those services are becoming less expensive in real dollars rather than skyrocketing out of control. This happens to be the portion of the healthcare industry where actual market conditions apply. Customers pay for and receive value at a price that is becoming more reasonable all the time.

The Federal Reserve Threatens Congress To Raise Interest Rates if Audited (Video)

2009-07-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

The Federal Reserve Threatens Congress To Raise Interest Rates if Audited (Video)

Fox News Channel

Judge Napolitano talks about how the Federal Reserve is threatening congress with higher interest rates if they should pass a bill requiring them to be audited.
This is out and out extortion.
Guests include Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, etc.
It's a 6 part video series which are each 10 minutes in length.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...

Obama Signs Executive Order Barring Release Of His Birth Certificate

2009-07-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

From Freedom Medium

First, we did a story about an Army Major who filed suit regarding his deployment to Afghanistan on the grounds that Obama was not America’s legitimate Commander-In Chief.
World Net Daily thought highly enough of this article to link to it on their front page.
Then we did an article pointing out the differences between a Birth Cerificate and a Certification Of Live Birth.

Some of the biggest names in conservative news have weighed in on this topic, such as Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and numerous others have offered their opinions.
One of the people at the forefront of this issue is Joseph Farah and his staff over at World Net Daily.

They are even running an online petition demanding Obama produce a long-form birth certificate.

Thanks to the alertness of our great friend and loyal supporter Erica, who gave us the heads-up on this. it appears that the issue of Obama being forced to produce a copy of his birth certificate may prove to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
On January 21st, 2009, his very first day in office, Barack Obama implemented and signed into law Executive Order 13489.

For those of you who can’t take the time to read it. here is the section that applies:
"Sec.2
Notice Of Intent To Disclose Presidential Records
When the Archivist provides notice to the incumbent and former Presidents of his intent to disclose Presidential records pursuant to section 1270.46 of the NARA regulations, the Archivist, using any guidelines providied by the incumbent and former Presidents, shall identify any specific materials, the disclosure of which he believes may raise a substantial question of executive privilege.”

Now for all of you who commented on our previous articles that we were no more that right-wing nut jobs, that this thing about Obama’s birth certificate was a non-issue, and those of you who tried to shift the focus of the stories, doesn’t this strike you as just a little odd?
That the first order of business Obama took care of on day one of his Presidency was to sign off on an Executive Order that states that only the records he chooses to be made public will be released?

This is the subject that was at the absolute top of his agenda?

If this isn’t proof that Obama is hiding something, I don’t know what is.

Obama Plan 58% Tax Increase

2009-07-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

From Townhall.com

I was asked this past Thursday morning on Fox News about the impact of President Obama spending the day in New Jersey campaigning for the immensely unpopular sitting governor Jon Corzine. I was asked if it was a good use of the President's time. I was asked if there were bigger things he should be focused on. I was asked if it might not even backfire against Corzine or other candidates in the immediate electoral future. Obama dedicated not just a speech, but the entire day to the Corzine cause.

My response is simple, "It's what he has to do."
President Obama now finds himself facing a political divorce on his policies while most Americans still find him a likable guy.

"But job performance counts, words mean things, and elections have consequences," I proffered.
And when the most read New York daily newspaper plasters its front page with the new startling fact that the marginal tax rates for small businesses will be jumping from 35% to 58%, we can understand one other important truth. President Obama is hurting working class people.
Let me break it down for you with some common sense. If a small business owner has revenue of $250,000 for a year of business and is forced to cough up the current top tax rate of 35%, said business owner is left with $162,000. Doing nothing but letting the Bush tax relief for small businesses expire, the business owner will have only $155,000 left. But bumping the rate to the suggested 58% (according to the Tax Foundation) the small business man is left with only $105,000 of the original $250,000 of revenue. And what did the Obama administration do to help that business owner earn the $250,000 in revenue?

Nada...

So why are they entitled to nearly six dollars out of every ten that a small business owner earns?
A top margin tax rate of 6 cents out of every 10 cents earned sort of ceases to be taxation and begins to look like outright theft. This stunts growth, slows production, eliminates jobs, and brings markets to abrupt halts.

If the administration also does as it has implied, that business owner might also then be forced to offer expensive health insurance programs to workers who may or may not wish to be covered by the company's plan. Of course the employees would also then be taxed for those benefits.
Let's also be clear: this is not a debate between the left and right. Democrats spoke at both of the recent Tea Parties I keynoted. And little hole-in-the-wall eateries in the meatpacking district of Manhattan have to make a payroll just as the Christian book shop owner in Texas does.

Continued...

40 Yrs ago today -- Dem Leader Ted Kennedy Kills Mary Jo Kopechne

2009-07-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

Please say a Prayer for Mary Jo's Family today. Everytime they see Ted Kennedy's name or see him on T.V. they have to live this all over again. This is the second-biggest proof (hmmmm. guess what the first is), that money buys power, not just here, but anywhere. Ironically Ted Kennedy is taking part in planning the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans with his Health care Bill.

As the media marks the tenth anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., it's worth recalling the overwrought coverage of ten years ago. Here is an op-ed by MRC's Brent Baker, originally published in Human Events on August 6, 1999 detailing the media elite's reaction to Kennedy's demise.

Recently "Hardball"Promoted Ted Kennedy's HBO History, But Completely Left Out Death at Chappaquiddick, (I'm schocked, NOT),

Yes, 40 Years Ago Today (Gateway pundit)....... Teddy Kennedy killed Mary Jo Kepechne after a party on July 18, 1969.

Her body was found early in the morning on July 19, 1969.

Senator Kennedy's car is dragged by a wrecker out of Poucha Pond. (Ytedk)

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA)killed girl . He left her in pond to drown. Today
he is second longest serving member (next to the former kleagle) in the Senate.
Rest in Peace Mary Jo.

More here.

Crossposted at United American Tea Party and Your Rights Your Freedoms

Let's Put Some Real Faces on the Casualties of Obamacare

2009-07-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the President and his Democratic allies in Congress intend to force small business with payrolls more than $250,000 per year to provide health insurance to their employees. Failure to do so would be punishable by a fine up to 8 percent of payroll. The article also noted that there are approximately one million businesses with between five and nine employees and average payrolls comfortably in the Democrats' target range and that only about half of those provide health insurance.

Those are the raw numbers and they are bad enough. However, to drive home the real cost to real people, I decided to do some quick "back of the envelope" calculations to see just what kinds of businesses might have to start firing people if the President's health care scheme becomes law.

Consider Company A, which employs seven people: a manager, an assistant manager, and five workers. The owner pays himself a salary of $70,000 per year (about $35/hour), the manager $52,000 ($25/hour), the assistant manager $35,000 ($20/hour), and the five employees $21,000 (about $10/hour). That makes a payroll of $262,000. Now, the article doesn't say how much the fine for a payroll that size would be, so I'll assume either 6 percent ($15,720) or 4 percent ($10,480). The lowest total, as you can see, is more than half the salary of one of the worker bees and the higher figure is even worse. If I were running that business, I'd say the easiest way to solve my problem would be to fire one of the worker bees. That would reduce my payroll to escape the fine and it would leave me with more money as well. Sure, my business would be less productive, but it's not terribly difficult to get make up for that one lost employee by having my other six work a little bit harder.

So what kind of businesses might fit Company A's profile? How about a small restaurant or a neighborhood grocery store? Many franchised convenience stores could meet that description, as could any number of local insurance companies, construction companies, and contractors.
Let's up the ante a little bit. Company B consists of an owner, who also doubles as general manager (and pays herself a rather modest $80,000 per year), and ten part-time employees who each make $35,000, for a payroll of $430,000. That's large enough to trigger the full 8 percent penalty, which comes to $34,400. Well, that's just about one employee's salary, so out he goes, which not only covers the fine but also brings Company B under the $400,000 threshold, which means a potential smaller fine next year. Bonus!

Company B could easily be a car dealership, a local insurance office, a mid-sized construction company or contractor, or a retail store where the salespeople work at least partly on commission. This could be the final straw that convinces the owner to say "To hell with it."
This isn't just a thought exercise, though. There's an action component as well. Look at the businesses you patronize regularly or even just the ones you drive past on the way to work. Look at your own employer, or the businesses where your friends and family work. How many of them will face the choice of firing someone to pay for the Obamacare fine or to limbo their payroll under the Democrats' bar? Will that perpetually-cheerful cashier at the local convenience sore still be there this time next year if Obamacare passes? How about that electrician with the young wife and baby who always does great work and let you slide on a service call that one time? Shouldn't they know what could be coming their way?

Now that you have this information, you can help educate them. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper (and toss in the possibility that the newly-fired will have to find insurance somewhere or face a fine themselves). Strike up a conversation while the plumber replaces that leaky pipe. Bring up the matter the next time your local Chamber of Commerce or Optimist Club has a meeting. Tell your friends and family and invite them to come right here and read for themselves.

The President's health care plan is expensive and it's going to cost us more than mere money. It's time we said "no more". Putting a real face on the casualties Obamacare will cause could go a long way toward stopping it before it happens.

(WSJ link via memeorandum)

Americans Ask "Where are the Jobs?" As Dems Push $700 Million Welfare Program for Horses

2009-07-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

Americans Ask "Where are the Jobs?" As Dems Push $700 Million Welfare Program for Horses GOP Rep. Hastings: "Instead of Restoring American Mustangs, Let's Restore American Jobs & Put the Horsepower Back Into Our Economy"

Washington, Jul 17 - With unemployment at 9.5 percent, more than two million Americans out of work since the trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending bill became law, and a federal budget deficit topping $1 trillion, House Democratic leaders today plan to bring to the House floor a $700 million welfare program for … wild horses and burros.

Yes, you read that correctly. As middle-class families and small businesses across the country continue to ask, “Where are the Jobs?” House Democrats are proving just how out of touch Washington has become. House committees continue work on a massive government takeover of health care that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says drive taxpayers into deeper debt and increase Americans’ health care costs, while the Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisor’s own methodology predicts the plan will destroy 4.7 million jobs. And yes, the business of the day in the ‘People’s House” is of a decidedly equine persuasion. Environment and Energy Daily reports: Read the Rest at Boehners Website

The Rules For Revolution

2009-07-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

"The Communist/Socialist Rules for Revolution"

The following piece has been discredited by some, but one thing for sure is that no matter what you have to take into account how truly "Scary" it is that we are headed down this road.

HISTORICAL NOTE: It is our understanding that an earlier version of this frightening document was first unearthed in Dusseldorf, Germany in the early part of the year of 1919. It was exposed, later in that year, in the "Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise" in the state of Oklahoma (USA).

It is also our understanding that in 1946, the attorney general of Florida obtained a copy of a later version of the document from a member of the American Communist Party. We have also been informed that a more current version appeared in "The Los Angeles Times" on Nov. 9, 1998. It has since been brought to light by other concerned citizens across America. It also now periodically makes the rounds on the Internet.

If you are not aware of this disturbing set of rules of engagement and conquest, or even if you have heard of it and might wish to be reminded of it once again — here is the basic essence of what it is and what it strives to accomplish.

The Rules for Revolution

CORRUPT THE YOUNG. Intensify their exposure to violence, sex and drugs. Draw them away from religion. Support a greater development of all of their superficialities.

INFILTRATE THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. Become deeply involved with the educational system of the nation. It must always be remembered that one of the first things that must be done in order to take and retain control, is to subvert and dominate the minds of the youth of the nation.

GET CONTROL OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION. Infiltrate the schools of journalism. Move into the areas of management of the metropolitan newspapers and the broadcast networks. Infiltrate the motion picture industry.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER. Press for even greater divisions of the people into hostile groups. Divide them by race, nationality, sex religion, age, financial position, culture or anything else that can be used to create serious fractures within the social order.

DESTROY RELIGION. Do all that can be done to remove religion from all public areas. Isolate all that remains and promote any competing alternates that can be used to eliminate whatever is left.

USE LANGUAGE AS A WEAPON. Speak of supporting democracy (in the name of liberalism) and stand up for what you claim as good values, but use every method possible to pervert, destroy or take them over. Create the new order in their names, since Communism and Socialism are not always labels that are appreciated as are other terms.

USE THE GULLIBLE AND IDEALISTIC. They are practically begging to be exploited in the name of whatever they feel emotionally attached to. Use what they think they believe, to better use them for your purposes.

INCITE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Create labor unrest and strikes whenever possible. Promote mob demonstrations and demands for everything that will undermine the national stability.

DESTROY HUMAN VALUES. Do all that you can to undermine the old moral values. Recognize personal discipline and integrity as conditions that must be eradicated. Do not forget that chaos is the goal. To reach this goal, it will be necessary to strip away all inhibitions.

COMMAND THE POLITICAL ARENA. Get into American politics and identify those who can be used and those who must be eliminated. Stop those who fight against the Communist and Socialist agenda with everything from character assassination, to any other creative fictions that can be deployed to put doubt in the minds of the voters.

APPLY THE ART OF GRADUAL REDUCTION. Institute all the changes necessary to reduce the freedoms and rights of the people. Sudden removal is almost never possible. Gradual removal over extended periods of time can almost always be counted on to be successful.

AFTERTHOUGHT: It is not difficult to recognize a considerable number of these "rules" as they are being applied throughout our nation and in so many areas of our public and our private lives.
It is also disturbingly easy to see the debilitating effects that are thus caused by such actions. But it is most disturbing of all to realize that the vast majority of the population does not wish to be concerned, even as our social and political structure begins to collapse all around us — even as we move so clearly into our decline.

Something to think about. Hat Tip Johnathon West - GettingAmericaBack.org

Looking down on Palin

2009-07-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

Beltway elites can't figure out why the hoi polloi like her

By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

What do Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius and Jon Huntsman have in common? All were governors who resigned this year to pursue other opportunities, and did so without a peep of criticism from journalists or their fellow pols for "quitting" on the peoples of Arizona, Kansas and Utah, respectively.

I write not to belabor the news media's double standards with regard to Democrats and Republicans, or between other politicians and Sarah Palin. I want to highlight an observation made by Princeton Professor Angelo Codevilla:

"The distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, are being overshadowed by that between what we might call the 'Court Party' -- made up of the well-connected ... who see themselves as potters of the great American clay -- and the 'Country Party' -- the many more who are tired of being treated as clay," Mr. Codevilla wrote in National Review Online.

Ms. Napolitano, Ms. Sebelius and Mr. Huntsman weren't criticized for resigning to pursue other opportunities because the other opportunities they're pursuing are in government -- as secretary of homeland security, secretary of health and human services, and ambassador to China, respectively.

In the Court Party, the only thing more important than holding public office is seeking a higher one. Barack Obama in effect quit his day job as a U.S. senator (while still drawing his paycheck) for two years in order to seek the presidency. Mr. Obama drew little criticism for this, mostly because what he did was so commonplace. Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain did much the same thing.

And in the Court Party, the only place to be is at Court. This is why -- until a scandal derailed him -- Bill Richardson was planning to resign as New Mexico's governor to accept a relatively minor Cabinet post (secretary of commerce).

People in the Court Party think it proper they should decide what kind of cars the hoi polloi in flyover country should drive and how much medical care they may have. Theirs is an aristocracy not of birth but of connections, connections forged mostly by where they went to school. Every president since Ronald Reagan (Eureka College, 1932) went to Harvard or Yale.

For members of the Court Party, where you went to school is more important than what you learned there. Mr. Obama is said to be brilliant because he went to Columbia and to Harvard Law School. Someone who went to, say, the University of Idaho would be mocked mercilessly for thinking "Austrian" is a foreign language, that the United States is one of the largest Muslim countries or that Canada has a president.

Most in the Court Party are Democrats, but there are plenty of Republicans, too, chiefly those who have been in Washington for a long time. The divide between the Court Party and the Country Party is illustrated by the political Rorschach test Sarah Palin has become.
"If you want to run for president ... the forum of a governorship would be a better forum than just being a private citizen," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who's been in Washington for 28 years, when asked about Sarah Palin's resignation.

"In that phrase, 'just being a private citizen,' Sen. Grassley encapsulates both why Sarah Palin is so phenomenally appealing to the Republican base and how divorced the national Republican apparatus is from the core values of party members," wrote Jim Prevor in the Weekly Standard. "This massive base thinks that by paying the taxes and doing the work, starting the businesses and rearing the children, caring for the parents and fighting the wars, they are doing the crucial stuff that sustains our country."

Prof. Codevilla put it this way: "The upscale folks who look down on the rest of us and upon themselves as saviors of the planet -- these are the people who made Palin into a political force by making her a symbol of everything they are not."

The hoi polloi in flyover country are watching the self-styled best and brightest ruin the economy while feathering their own nests. If this leads to a revolt at the polls in 2010 and 2012, the hoi polloi are more likely to look for leadership from the person who best exemplifies their values and expresses their anger than to persons who, by the Court Party's definition, are more qualified.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09193/983092-373.stm?cmpid=bcpanel3#ixzz0L3K9u4Kg&C

How Much of This Hope and Change Disaster Can Americans Take?

2009-07-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

By: Jim Hoft

It's time to put down the Kool-Aid. It's time to quit chasing unicorns. It's time to stop the Hopey-Changey advertising campaigns. It's time for reporters to quit bowing and for legs to stop tingling. Hope and Change may have made a good slogan, but as policy, it's a disaster. Sadly, not everyone understands this. Rasmussen reports released their latest economic polling this past weekend. Rasmussen reported on Sunday that democrats actually believe the economy is better today than it was a year ago:

Over the past year, overall levels of consumer confidence have bounced around a lot but ended up with little change. For the full month June 2008, the Rasmussen Consumer Index was at 71.9. In June, 2009, that number was 72:0.

But underneath those stable top line numbers is a dramatic shift along party lines. A year ago, Republicans were far more confident than Democrats. Today, the reverse is true.
Among Democrats, the Rasmussen Consumer Index jumped from 53.7 a year ago to 79.5 in 2009.

Among Republicans, confidence was at 99.4 a year ago and it’s fallen to 68.6 today.
It's hard to believe that anyone would think the economy is better today than it was a year ago. But, that's what the polling is telling us. Democrat's confidence in the economy jumped from 53.7 percent a year ago to 79.5 percent this year. This is really unbelievable. Granted it would be difficult to persuade these diehards otherwise, but let's take a look at the economic numbers. These results should tell us a thing or two about these fanatics.

Unemployment:
The US lost over 2.5 million jobs in the first four months of this year under the Obama Administration. The US economy lost 598,000 jobs in January, 706,000 jobs in February, 742,000 jobs in March, 545,000 jobs in April, 485,000 jobs in May, and 473,000 jobs in June. That's a total of 3,549,000 lost jobs since the beginning of this year. The US unemployment rate has risen from 7.6 percent to 9.5 percent under Obama, the highest rate in 26 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Sweetness and Light, released a map of the unemployment rate over the last ten years. It's not pretty. The US has lost 16,000 jobs each day since Democrats passed their non-Stimulus bill, the largest redistribution of wealth from the private sector to government officials in US history. President Obama promised that the unemployment rate would not rise above 8.0 percent with the Stimulus. Today, he says it will climb over 10 percent.

National Deficit:
Obama will more than quadruple the US budget deficit his first year in office. Obama inherited a 2008 budget deficit of 459 billion dollars. He voted for the 700 billion dollar bank rescue in the fall. He was left $350 billion from this spending bill when he took office. He then spent 787 billion dollars on a Stimulus Bill, 33 billion dollars on the SCHIP bill, and 410 billion dollars on his record-setting Omnibus Bill. The CBO estimated that the Obama budget deficit would total an astounding 13.1 percent of GDP this year. As a comparison, under George Bush, the federal deficit for 2008 was 3.2 percent of GDP. (See chart here) Obama says he loses sleep over his record spending but he still intends to spend trillions more for his nationalized health care program. Even Colin Powell and Der Spiegel understand that we can't continue to spend like this.
Gross Domestic Product:
By any measurement, GDP growth is far below what it was last year. Gross Domestic Product fell at a 5.5 percent annual rate in 2009's first financial quarter. Federal debt under Obama's White House is 41 percent of GDP, almost half the overall value of the economic production of the United States. According to national economists, the debt will rise to 81 percent of GDP in 10 years. And, Obama's cap and tax bill is a GDP killer. The Heritage Foundation reported that cumulative GDP losses for 2010 to 2029 approach $7 trillion. Single-year losses exceed $600 billion in 2029, more than $5,000 per household. Job losses are expected to exceed 800,000 in some years, and exceed at least 500,000 from 2015 through 2026.

Stock Market:
The stock market is down 3,000 points from a year ago, and nearly a thousand points since the 2009 Inauguration. Investors have not restored their confidence in the stock market and the massive government spending hasn't helped.
Inflation and Interest Rates:
With all of the irresponsible spending by democrats, most economists understand that we will likely see a huge rise in inflation and interest rates. The Telegraph reported that the US economy is lunging towards crisis as long-term interest rates are on course to double in size. This would cripple the country’s ability to pay its debts and could plunge the economy into another recession before the nation fully recovers from the current one. The information for this study reported by The Telegraph comes from the US Federal Reserve:
In a 2003 paper, Thomas Laubach, the US Federal Reserve’s senior economist, calculated the impact on long-term interest rates of rising fiscal deficits and soaring national debt. Applying his assumptions to the recent spike in the US fiscal deficit and national debt, long-term interests rates will double from their current 3.5pc.

The impact would be devastating by making it punitively expensive to finance national borrowings and leading to what Tim Congdon, founder of Lombard Street Research, called a “debt explosion”. Mr Laubach’s study has implications for the UK, too, as public debt is soaring. A US crisis would have implications for the rest of the world, in any case.
Global economic leaders are also concerned about the future of the dollar. Brazil, Russia, India and China called for a "more diversified" currency system in June. This news caused the dollar to drop.

In summary, President Obama promised hope and change last year during the election and he kept his word. The economy changed and is in the sewer since he and his democratic cohorts decided to spend their way out of a recession. Although democrats believe we are better off than we were a year ago, their opinion isn't based on reality. Democrats are misinformed, ignorant, or lying. It's time to put down the Kool-Aid.

Jim Hoft's Bio
Jim Hoft is the proprietor of Gateway Pundit , a blog named one of the top 100 collective news resources at Memeorandum and listed as one of the top 100 blogs in a Carnegie Mellon University study. A million readers come to Gateway Pundit each month to read stories and news that are frequently missed by mainstream media outlets.

President Obama’s Top Five Health Care Lies

2009-07-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

from PoliPundit by wcvarones

From the Reason Foundation:

Lie One: No one will be compelled to buy coverage.

Lie Two: No new taxes on employer benefits.

Lie Three: Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector.

Lie Four: A public plan won’t be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly.

Lie Five: Patients don’t have to fear rationing.

Click on over for the details on each lie.

Regrets Media Didn't Memorialize a Soldier Killed Same Day Jackson Died

2009-07-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

from NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias by Brent Baker

Army 1st Lt. Brian N. Bradshaw was killed in Afghanistan, fighting in a war to protect all Americans, the same day that Michael Jackson died, prompting a letter to the Washington Post, which the paper published on Sunday, from Bradshaw's aunt, Martha Gillis, who scolded media priorities:

My nephew, Brian Bradshaw, was killed by an explosive device in Afghanistan on June 25, the same day that Michael Jackson died. Mr. Jackson received days of wall-to-wall coverage in the media. Where was the coverage of my nephew or the other soldiers who died that week? There were several of them, and our family crossed paths with the family of another fallen soldier at Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies come “home.” Only the media in Brian's hometown [in Washington State] and where he was stationed before his deployment [Alaska] covered his death.

In the letter the Post headlined, “A Life of Worth, Overlooked,” Gillis, a resident of the Washington, DC suburb of Springfield, Virginia, fondly recalled: “He had old-fashioned values and believed that military service was patriotic and that actions counted more than talk. He wasn't much for talking, although he could communicate volumes with a raised eyebrow.”
She then asked:

He was a search-and-rescue volunteer, an altar boy, a camp counselor. He carried the hopes and dreams of his parents willingly on his shoulders. What more than that did Michael Jackson do or represent that earned him memorial 'shrines,' while this soldier's death goes unheralded? It makes me want to scream.

What CNN Didn't Ask About Canada Health Care Rationing

2009-07-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

from NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias by Mike Sargent

On July 6, CNN’s American Morning may have positioned themselves as a fly in the White House’s public health-care ointment. In a story on Senator Mitch McConnell’s recent comments regarding Canadian national health care, CNN traveled to Canada to investigate whether this vision of long queues in health care was warranted. In investigating, however, CNN neglected to ask an important question of their own story, regarding the possible rationing of the healthcare of cancer patients.

The hospital singled out for Senator McConnell’s rhetorical wrath is Kingston General in Ontario, Canada. CNN’s Dana Bash traveled there under guise of inquiring whether McConnell’s view of Kingston was accurate.

Senator MITCH MCCONNELL: Knee replacements. Well, at Kingston General, the average wait is about 340 days.

BASH: Zelt's response, McConnell is exaggerating.

DR. DAVID ZELT, Chief-of-staff, KINGSTON GEN. HOSPITAL: Average time to get a knee replacement here is 91 days.

This may prove to be an accurate assessment. Oddly, however, this seems to be almost an afterthought in Bash’s report – choosing instead to highlight two anecdotes within Canadian health care.

Bash first interviewed Shana Holmes, a Canadian who was diagnosed with a brain tumor roughly four years ago. At the time, Bash reported, Holmes faced quite a wait for treatment:
BASH: (voice over): For Shana Holmes, simple pleasures, playing with her dog, walking in her garden, are a gift. Four years ago, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Told if it wasn't removed she could go blind or die.

SHANA HOLMES: I realized right after the surgery how bad my vision was.
BASH: Shana is Canadian, but for her surgery she went to the U.S. because it would have taken four to six months just to see specialists in Canada's government-run health system, the only option here.

And how much did Holmes’ surgery cost?

BASH (voice-over): Shana's bills at the Mayo Clinic where she was treated total $100,000. She borrowed from family and friends.

That, incidentally, is in addition to the higher taxes Holmes still has paid over the course of her life – for free health care.

However, not all Canadian cancer patients must wait so long for treatment. Bash then interviewed another Canadian, who was treated almost immediately for the tumor in his leg:
Despite Shana Holmes' horror story, Canadian officials insist most patients with life threatening problems are treated quickly. Doug Wright can attest to that. He has cancer, a tumor on his leg. He's got the money to get care in the U.S., but says there's no reason.

DOUG WRIGHT, CANADIAN PATIENT: I've not had to wait. I've seen, you know, some of the best specialists in the country.

That sounds quite acceptable, at first blush. However, Bash neglected to ask the question staring her starkly in the face: Of the two patients featured, whose procedure cost more? Holmes required brain surgery for a tumor that was leaning on her ocular nerve, while Wright required surgery on his leg. Both were suffering from tumors, but Wright’s may have been easier – not to mention less costly – to remove.

One wonders why the issue of cost-rationing was not addressed in Bash’s report.

Sensenbrenner calls the cops on GM and Chrysler's green lobbying

2009-06-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

From the Washington Examiner

Today, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, wrote Atty. Gen. Eric Holder to ask if bailed-out, taxpayer-owned carmakers General Motors and Chrysler are breaking any laws by continuing to lobby the federal government while owned by the federal government, Sensenbrenner's office has told me.

Specifically, Sensenbrenner singled out GM's and Chrysler's membership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of Fortune 500 companies and environmental non-profits dedicated to lobbying for federal restrictions on greenhouse gas--specifically, the sort of cap-and-trade scheme at the heart of the Waxman-Markey bill currently before the House.

A quote from the letter:

It makes no sense that taxpayer dollars could go towards a lobbying effort that will essentially raise taxes.... US CAP is advocating a carbon regulation scheme I call cap-and-tax. Higher manufacturing costs will be one of the many consequences of this bad policy, which will raise energy costs and increase the prices of many goods and services. The last thing the auto companies need are higher costs and it’s absurd that GM and Chrysler would use taxpayer dollars to press the case for pricier manufacturing.

GM announced it is cancelling all of its outside lobbying contracts--that is, firing all of the lobbying firms it retains--but has said it does not plan to close its in-house lobbying shop, which last quarter, amounted to about 83% of the company's $2.8 million lobbying budget in January, February, and March of this year.

I wouldn't expect any action from the DOJ, and it's not clear what law these companies could be breaking, but Sensenbrenner's move shows Republicans see plenty of opportunity in these auto bailouts to call shenanigans on the corporate-government alliance. . . . . .read the rest
at washingtonexaminer.com ...

The push for National Healthcare

2009-06-12T05:05:00.000-07:00

By: Travis Christensen of the Northeast 9-12 Project

The advocates of big government brag about transparency, but move forward under a cloak of secrecy. Look at the web pages of the Health subcommittees of the Senate and House;
you will see many health bills, but nothing about THE big health reform bill. The White House website contains nothing more than an advertisement for health reform. It proclaims the benefits of healthcare reform, it warns of dire consequences if no reform is made, but gives no details about changes in law or regulations, how much it will cost taxpayers, how it will affect health care availability or how it will impact a patient's choice in healthcare. It's as if Government wants to give America a surprise present.

It's hard to argue against healthcare reform when these advocates won't disclose what they have planned, and then they pursue discrediting their detractors. There are two types of people who
support the expansion of government. The first are the "true believers," the ones who really believe in hope and change. In regards to healthcare they believe the government can actually find a way to care for more people with less expense, and can do so without impacting patient choice or the availability of healthcare. I seriously doubt such a thing is possible. Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA hospitals are all government run, and they are all inefficient and a drain on the taxpayer. I might be more favorably inclined towards healthcare reform if I knew more about it, but they won't tell us the plan until after it's been voted on. The government has been
deeply involved in funding and regulating healthcare, so if there is currently a healthcare crisis, it stands to reason that government had a hand in creating the problem. It is wrong-headed to think that more government is the answer to a problem government helped create. The second advocate of big government is the special interest groups. These people are not concerned
with social ideology and helping the poor, their primary goal is money and power. They are not interested in socialism; they want a big, bloated, dominant government that will use its power to serve special interest needs. Limited government passes few laws and distributes few funds and special interests groups gain no advantage in advocating for this, so to them a larger government equals big money and big power.

One group is Organizing for America , which is at the ground-level supplying the troops for healthcare reform and on June 6 began promoting all over America. These are the true believers in hope and change. How closely connected with the Democratic Party is this group? Well, their web address is barackobama.com and the bottom of their web page states that they are a project of the Democratic National Committee. This is astroturfing at its finest, an unprecedented effort by hardcore Obama supporters to gain
popular support for the President's plan (whatever that plan is) and to push legislators to socialize the healthcare system in America. Another would be SEIU(Service Employees International Union); this is one of America's largest unions with a very large percentage of their members working in the healthcare field. Union dues make the SEIU an economic powerhouse, and it has taken a role in the healthcare debate. As a union the SEIU's supposed purpose is to represent the interests of workers against
management, but the dynamic changes when government becomes involved. The passing of nationalized healthcare would give SEIU a distinct advantage in negotiations because they would be in virtual collusion with the big government bureaucracy that would regulate healthcare. More importantly, groups like these consider the federal government to be a bottomless pit of
money. I believe that SEIU intends to suck every possible dime of Federal money out of the healthcare industry so as to secure their union jobs and keep those dues rolling in.

Case in point: SEIU is currently fighting the elimination of state-funded home-care jobs in California from the cut-backs brought forth by the states running out of money and if the federal government would step in; those jobs would no longer be solely dependent upon the state alone. Groups like this love a strong central government to which they play the system allowing them access to more funds from a larger group of taxpayers and have more influence than they could ever squeeze out of a state government. As the National Debt grows it is believed that any problem can be solved by drowning the problem in money; special interests groups want them to think this is so, because these groups reap the benefits of the cash deluge. Spending money you do not have often creates new problems, and more often than not fails to solve the original problem.

Many grassroots organizations are fighting against the socialization of healthcare. I have nothing but admiration for these groups and individuals. Relying on little more than the courage of their convictions they wage a battle against the giant that is government and the giants that
support the expansion of government. It takes a mixture of anger, patriotism, and optimism to make a grassroots activist. One of these activist groups is Conservatives for Patient's Rights (CPR). They have been running a 30 minute documentary concerning the effects of government-run health care. According to the SEIU site, they gathered 68,000 petitions from union members and presented them to NBC in an effort to prevent the network from airing the "Conservatives for Patient's Rights" documentary in Washington DC. In my opinion, SEIU was extremely defamatory towards "Conservatives for Patient's Rights" and suggested that NBC might be liable to civil action for airing the documentary.

Click HERE for the 9-12 Newsletter

Coulter does the abortion math: 49 million to 5

2009-06-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

By Ann Coulter at World Net Daily

In the wake of the shooting of late-term abortionist George Tiller, President Barack Obama sent out a welcome message that this nation would not tolerate attacks on pro-lifers or any other Americans because of their religion or beliefs.

Ha ha! Just kidding. That was the lead sentence – with minor edits – of a New York Times editorial warning about theoretical hate crimes against Muslims published eight months after 9/11. Can pro-lifers get a hate crimes bill passed and oceans of ink devoted to assuring Americans that "most pro-lifers are peaceful"?

For years, we've had to hear about the grave threat that Americans might overreact to a terrorist attack committed by 19 Muslims shouting "Allahu akbar" as they flew commercial jets into American skyscrapers. That would be the equivalent of 19 pro-lifers shouting "Abortion kills a beating heart!" as they gunned down thousands of innocent citizens in Wichita, Kan.

Why aren't liberals rushing to assure us this time that "most pro-lifers are peaceful"? Unlike Muslims, pro-lifers actually are peaceful.

According to recent polling, a majority of Americans oppose abortion – which is consistent with liberals' hysterical refusal to allow us to vote on the subject. In a country with approximately 150 million pro-lifers, five abortionists have been killed since Roe v. Wade.

Read the rest HERE

Rush Limbaugh Recognizes Young Patriot

2009-05-30T18:24:00.000-07:00

From Gateway Pundit by Gateway Pundit

Jane forwarded this photo earlier of one of those dangerous right wing radicals that Janet Napolitano warned us about. In April the Obama administration released a memo released warning about "rightwing extremism in the United States." The memo included not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority, "It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." And, the report also said that authorities needed to keep an eye on returning veterans.
Yesterday I received this in my email and thought I would post it:

Dear Jim,I believe you are the person I need to thank for passing this photo on to Rush Limbaugh?I just can't tell you how exciting it was for me to be listening that day (4/15, 3rd hour :o) when he suddenly described MY daughter and read the words of the sign. It was really incredible; and I felt it was our tiny contribution to
support freedom in America.Well, thank you again for posting this and for passing it along.Your blog-- and Rush --are one of the few things that keeps me going, and gives me authentic hope that America may yet still triumph over the Marxist takeover now underway.May God bless your efforts and may God bless America!
-Jane from Kansas

Thanks Jane- And, thanks for the wonderful photo.

Noonan, Cornyn, Steele, Krauthammer: Don’t go nuclear on Sotomayor

2009-05-30T05:02:00.000-07:00

From HotAir

Your meme du jour in four flavors.

Krauthammer makes the case to the base that this isn’t worth a war; Noonan
makes the case to Senate Republicans that it’s a golden opportunity for
gravitas; Cornyn makes the case to Limbaugh and Gingrich that throwing grenades
about racism isn’t helping; and Steele makes the case to, er, whoever Steele
imagines his audience is. For all the sound and fury over a conservative split
on how hard to hit Sotomayor, the differences between the two camps signify
practically nothing. The Noonan camp isn’t saying she shouldn’t be pressed on
her “wise Latina” and “courts make policy” comments, they’re merely asking the
GOP to avoid unnecessarily inflammatory lines of attack. (See Andy McCarthy’s
musings about

Sotomayor as a potential juror for one clever, non-inflammatory
possibility.) The real fault line between the two sides is whether the GOP
should filibuster, but that’s not worth debating since it’ll never, ever happen.
Even if Snowe and Collins shock the world by voting no, McCain will be wary of
alienating Arizona’s Hispanic voters ahead of his reelection bid. She’s going to
be confirmed. The only question is whether the GOP can use the confirmation
process as a tutorial on the defects of liberal jurisprudence without getting bogged down in debating whether she’s a racist or not.

If you missed Noonan’s op-ed about this today, don’t treat the video clip as a fair
substitute or else you’ll miss her all but declaring that right-wing blog
readers are a conservative nutroots. Heart-ache. Click the images to
watch.

March to Socialism: Out of Money

2009-05-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

From Glenn Beck

GLENN: President Obama was recently asked a tough question. Yes,
believe it or not they will happen once in a while. The interviewer, C
Span hosts Steve Scully, asking about soaring trillion dollar deficits
and said at what point do we run out of money? Here's what Barack Obama
said.

VOICE: You know the number's $1.8 trillion debt, a national deficit of
$11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?

GLENN: Well, the way we print and spend money, I would expect President
Obama just to respond, well, we're not going to, et cetera, et cetera.
Here's what he said.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we're out of money now.

GLENN: So the hang on. This is critical. The Messiah knows that we're
out of money now. That's weird, you know, that he's aware of that
because he's spending trillions of dollars. That's like going to the
mall and your wife is in the Prada store and you are like, honey, at
what point do we run out of money? And she's got all these purses and
everything and she's bringing them up to the counter and she's like, oh,
honey, we're out of money now. Why are we in the Prada store then?
Apparently Obama knew he said something that scenario at the Prada
store, something true but crazy. As Mr. Brilliant politician man, he
should have known you can't just say it that way. So he started to
backtrack.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: We're operating in deep deficits not caused by any
decisions we've made on healthcare so far.

GLENN: Okay. So that's your wife standing in the Prada store: Honey, at
what point do we run out of money? Oh, my gosh, we are I mean, we're out
of money now. But not because of any bad decisions we've made in the
past on buying purses or anything like that, no. It's not our fault, you
see. I love this explanation. Not caused by any decisions that we've
made on health, so far. He doesn't even consider that all of the other
spending has contributed to the problem of, you know, being out of
money. So in other words, this might be the first time your wife had a
purse she doesn't have a purse problem. She hasn't been spending money
on purses. She's been spending it on shoes. "Honey, we're out of money
now but not because of the purses." "Yeah, I know, but because you were
spending it on shoes." "Honey, we haven't been spending it on purses. If
I just buy enough purses, then we'll be okay."

Here's Barack Obama once again.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: This is as a consequence of the crisis that we've seen
and, in fact, our failure to make some good decisions on healthcare over
the last several decades.

GLENN: See, the problem with the deficit is we didn't have enough
spending over the past several decades on the right stuff. If we would
have only given away free healthcare to every citizen, visitor, illegal
alien, exchange student, maybe, then just maybe everything would be
okay. Is anybody buying this? How? I'd love an explanation. I mean, what
would have been a good decision in the past? Should we have bankrupt our
country back then? It's socialism. Socialism. Not happy with the speed
which we're destroying our country; we can do it even faster. Let's step
on the gas and accelerate right into that red brick wall at the end of
the road we like to call problem solved. What? We're not speeding out of
control anymore. Isn't it great?

VOICE: That was even more overwhelming evidence that we are destined to
be a bunch of socialist pigs very, very soon on the Glenn Beck program.

Also read Glenn Beck: Socialism - Stimulus saves day?

Team Obama Drops Charges Against Stick-Wielding

2009-05-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

From Gateway Pundit by Gateway Pundit

Don Surber figured out why Team Obama will not prosecute the New
Black Panther thugs who were intimidating voters on election day with nightsticks.

Don says Obama is looking out for his supporters. That's all.
Here's video of the Black Panthers with nightsticks at a Philadelphia polling station:

From the video: Black Panthers standing outside the polling station in
Philidelphia, one is holding a nightstick. And they say that republicans
are intimidating voters?

SEIU Calling the Shots (and proud of it) After It Spent $60 Million to Get Obama Elected

2009-05-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

From Gateway Pundit by Gateway Pundit

Bought and paid for--SEIU President Andy Stern on the election of Barack Obama:
"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we're proud of it."They ought to be proud.The SEIU's massive investment in Barack Obama appears to have paid off already.The Service Employees International Union inappropriately lobbied Team Obama to withhold billions of dollars in federal stimulus money from California if the state does not reverse a scheduled wage cut for the labor group's workers.The LA Times reported, via Free Republic:
Officials in the governor's office say a politically powerful union may have had inappropriate influence over the Obama administration's decision to withhold billions of dollars in federal stimulus money from California if the state does not reverse a scheduled wage cut for the labor group's workers. The officials say they are particularly troubled that the Service Employees International Union, which lobbied the federal government to step in, was included in a conference call in which state and federal officials reviewed the wage cut and the terms of the stimulus package. California Secretary of Health and Human Services Kim Belshe said she could not recall another instance in which the federal government invited a significant stakeholder group into such government-to-government negotiations."The involvement of a stakeholder in this kind of state-federal deliberative process is unusual at best," she said. "This was really atypical and outside any norm I am familiar with."In addition to several state and federal officials, participants in the April 15 conference call included an SEIU associate general counsel in Washington, a lobbyist for SEIU in California and a representative from SEIU's policy staff in California, according to a list provided by the Schwarzenegger administration.

Barney Frank Repudiates Own Anti-ACORN Support

2009-05-12T04:28:00.000-07:00

Todd Huston at Stopthe ACLU

The Association of Community Activists for Reform Now (ACORN) is still racking up indictments and convictions for voter fraud across the nation. ACORN is closely tied to President Obama, he having worked for them when he lived in Chicago and they having heavily supported his candidacy. Additionally, former ACORN members have flocked to the Obama administration since his win in November last.

For instance, in Obama’s old home state of Illinois, a woman that works for an ACORN offshoot group has been charged by Lake County officials (the County just north of Chicago’s Cook County) with filing fake voter registration cards.

Jannette Sims, 46, a resident of Chicago, is charged with mutilation of election materials and faces up to three years in prison.

Sims worked for a voter-registration drive sponsored by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The voter-registration group which was likely trained by ACORN. The Obama-tied community group has numerous associations with the SEIU through many such training programs.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto filed charges against ACORN alleging that the group was brazen enough about its voter fraud to institute policies requiring employees to sign up 20 new voters per day or face termination of employment. Such quotas are against Nevada election law.

Of these recent charges in Nevada, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, says, “The Nevada raid marked the third time in weeks that the Chicago-based group got busted for falsifying voter registration forms during the 2008 presidential campaign. Weeks earlier ACORN submitted fraudulent voter registration cards in the key battleground state of Florida and in New Mexico’s most populous county (Bernalillo). “

ACORN has been in trouble for falsifying information to register new voters in numerous other states, including Milwaukee, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado to name a few. In 2007 the group settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State after seven workers were caught submitting about 2,000 fake registration forms.

Along with the many shady financial misdeeds in which ACORN is involved, the community group shows no signs that it will any time soon cease its efforts to destroy the integrity of the democratic process through voter fraud.

Read more at Red State about Barney Frank repudiates his ACORN Support

Read more about Barney Franks Call for Conservative Democrats to be Kicked Out of the Party

Prison Awaiting Hostile Bloggers

2009-05-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

From Wired.com By David Kravets

Proposed congressional legislation would demand up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to “coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”

Australian prison cell found on Flickr. Your cell may vary.

Instead of prison, perhaps we should say gulag.
The proposal by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Los Angeles, would never pass First Amendment muster, unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing. So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal, are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying.

The meaasure, H.R. 1966, is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act. It’s designed to target the behavior that led to last year’s suicide of the 13-year-old Meier.

In response to Meier’s suicide, prosecutors turned to an anti-hacking statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and prosecuted Lori Drew. She was accused of violating MySpace’s terms of service agreement in what prosecutors said was a complex conspiracy to harass Meier via a fake MySpace online profile.

The judge presiding over the case is weighing a motion to nullify the jury’s verdict on allegations the authorities failed to prove Drew knew the MySpace terms of service existed — allegations that would be mooted had Drew been prosecuted under Sanchez’s proposal. Drew’s case was the nation’s first cyberbullying prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Sanchez’s bill goes way beyond cyberbullying and comes close to making it a federal offense to log onto the internet or use the telephone. The methods of communication where hostile speech is banned include e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages.
We can’t say what we think of Sanchez’s proposal. Doing so would clearly get us two years in solitary confinement.

The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Should Lady Justice Drop Her Blindfold

2009-05-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, Expose Obama.com

Obama wants judges to be partial-
As Barack Obama sees it, Lady Justice should be peeking out from underneath the blindfold when she makes legal decisions.

Lady Justice is often depicted wearing a blindfold. This represents the traditional American belief that all should be equal before the law. Justice is — or should be — meted out objectively, without bias, favor or fear, regardless of power, weakness or identity.

Barack Obama doesn’t agree justice should be blind. He looks to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court with a judge whom he says has “empathy and understanding.” Other criteria he wants in a jurist is “somebody with a sharp and independent mind “(code for a willingness to buck tradition), “and a record of excellence and integrity.”

Read the rest HERE

Obama's Brown Shirts courtesy of Acorn

2009-05-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Hat tip to A.G. Passaro who sent this to me:

http://rsc.tomprice.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=116380

This is a condensed view of the bill - it was passed and was signed by Obama into law 3/31 I googled us house of representatives and then entered the bill # HR1388 on their search engine. Up popped pages upon pages of places to go to read info on the bill. I did not read every line but this condensed view does not mention the items listed below and I think they would have been mentioned. I have not heard anything about this until now but will watch for any info. My boss is state legislature not federal so I don't get this type of feedback from him. I will ask him next week when I go to work. It sounds to me like an expansion of the Peace Corps for local instead of foreign volunteering.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Bill goes to the Senate for a vote and then on to President Obama.
This bill is called “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education” (GIVE).
It forms what some are calling “Obama’s Youth Brigade.” Obama’s plan is require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade. His goal is one million youth! Hitler formed his "Brown Shirts" is a similar manner. This has serious Nazi Germany overtones to it.

The Bill would forbid any student, while in the brigade from participation in “engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.”
That means no church attendance or witnessing. Again, is this what America voted for?
Here is part of the HR1388 Bill’s wording:

SEC. 1304. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS. Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows:

SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
(1) Attempting to influence legislation.
(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.
(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.
Here are some additional sources of info on the is subject.

http://www.rules.house.gov/111/cbo/cbo_estimate_hr1388.pdf
http://rsc.tomprice.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=115008
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/story/tucked_into_obama_s_civil_service_bill_hr_1388_no/ http://rightsoup.com/tucked-into-obamas-civil-service-bill-h-r-1388-no-protesting-allowed/
http://catsden.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/hr-1388-educating-students-in-service-part-ii-chicago-school-reform-1995-2001/http://www.tsrn.u/
http://thefinalhour.blogspot.com/2009/03/hr-1388-bans-national-service.html

How Far We've Come

2009-05-03T10:25:00.001-07:00

From wewantliberty.com

A coworker of mine recently gave me an old stamp collection she found in her attic. Sure, there's some cool historic stamps - like ones from Nazi Germany - but I wouldn't say I've had anything valuable dropped in my lap. However, there is something extraordinary about the storage binder that came with this stamp collection.

The binder has its pages separated by nation or territory. Some nations are historic and no longer exist (even by the standards of the early 1960s when this binder was printed). As I flipped through the pages, I couldn't help but notice that except for the USSR and some of their satellites, there wasn't any mention of communist countries! The China listed in this book was the China that we now call 'Taiwan.' They only listed South Korea and South Vietnam. I thought this was amazing, especially in the light of today's society.

I wrote an entry shortly after Obama's election that quoted Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture. Listen to how he characterized the communists: I have talked face to face with the godless communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Kruschev for a half day when he visited the United States, not that I'm proud of it. I opposed his coming then, and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor.

Godless. Atheistic murderers.

Stalin killed more people that Hitler. Mao killed more people than Stalin. But here we are today begging Communist China for scraps, normalizing relations with Cuba, and even becoming socialists ourselves.

After all, we must remember what Kruschev said to the Secretary of Agriculture during that historic visit. He said: You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like overripe fruit into our hands!

Communism and socialism are immoral. They stifle freedom, liberty, and God's natural law. I don't care what dog & pony show those governments show the world - I remember the forced abortions of Communist China (of which the American taxpayer is now paying for). I remember the North Koreans working in Soviet-style prison camps as their leader continues to hold world superpowers in his hands. I think of the socialist dominoes falling in Latin America, where presidents are celebrated and churches are being bombed and burned to the ground.

Flipping through this stamp collection, I see that these atheistic murderers may not have changed very much, but we sure have.

And I couldn't be more ashamed.

Click on the pic above to read the pamphlet.

Illegal Immigrants Deported To Escape Justice

2009-05-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

When I first read about Illegals Aliens being deported instead of tying up the courts system I said to my self, "Whats wrong with that?", then I removed myself from my own blonde blind spot and said, "Duh, if they want to be here, they are just going to come back the same way they came in before...........illegally!".

Back in 2006 WND reported that "Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001." In the meantime Courts and Sanctuary Cities are killing more Americans than ever, Just a few days ago bloggerbase wrote an article about this:

Tessa Tranchant was 16 years old when she was struck and killed by a drunk illegal alien who had been arrested twice already but never deported. Denver police officer Don Young was executed by an illegal alien who had been arrested and released on three prior occasions. In Los Angeles, a promising student athlete named Jamil Shaw was killed by an illegal alien who had been arrested previously and then released instead of being deported. And the list goes on an on.

In 2003 the GAO released a report on a study of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities during that year and found the following:

Of the 55,322 illegal aliens studied, researchers found that they were arrested a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien.

· They were arrested for a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses, averaging about 13 offenses per illegal alien.

· 49% had previously been convicted of a felony, 20% of a drug offense; 18% a violent offense, and 11%, other felony offenses.

· 81% of the arrests occurred after 1990· 56% of those charged with a reentry offense had previously been convicted on at least 5 prior occasions.

· Defendants charged with unlawful reentry had the most extensive criminal histories. 90% had been previously arrested. Of those with a prior arrest, 50% had been arrested for violent or drug-related felonies.

Now I think I can venture to say that these numbers have only gotten worse over the years and now with the recent ~~Swine Flu~~ H1N1 Flu Scare you would think that our Alarmist Vice President would be pushing to get the borders closed, silly me for thinking, right? Oh no, Congress continues to trudge forward to push their Amnesty agenda. Our Secretary for Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano has even ordered the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to cease their workplace investigations. I mean after all illegal aliens don't have the potential to be terrorists, right?......only us "Tea Party/Right Wing Extremists and War Veterans" do. Of course you won't read this story in the Lame Stream Media but you can read it at Canada Free Press and of course good conservative news sources like Michigan News.

In the Michigan news article they quote political strategist Mike Baker:

"This is classic Stalinist behavior: change the meaningof the term Un-American. It now means any patriot who wants US immigration laws enforced is Un-American, while lawbreakers are called patriots. It's newspeak at its worst,"

The following article JUdicial Watch Blog, gives us some insight to our court systems and their stance on Illegal Immigrants.

New Jersey’s Supreme Court may soon decide whether or not to eliminate a loophole that allows illegal immigrants to avoid facing criminal charges in local courts by choosing deportation.

The key issue is: Should county prosecutors be allowed to increase the bail of an illegal immigrant charged with a heinous crime to prevent fleeing before facing justice? The state’s High Court is pondering the answer after hearing arguments this week involving a Honduran man charged with molesting a 9-year-old girl.

The illegal immigrant, Manuel Fajardo-Santos, was indicted by a grand jury in December for sexually molesting a Wharton girl. Prosecutors in Morris County, located about 25 miles west of New York City, originally set bail at $75,000. When the illegal alien eventually posted bail in January prosecutors learned that federal immigration officials had placed a detainer and his deportation was imminent.

Prosecutors convinced a Superior Court judge in Morristown to reset bail at $300,000 so that the accused child molester could be returned to the county jail to face trial. His public defender appealed and, in late January, a state appellate court reversed the higher bail and reinstated the original amount of $75,000. Prosecutors appealed to the state’s Supreme Court and this week justices heard the case but didn’t issue a ruling.

Local authorities took action because, in a similar case last year, an illegal alien also charged with sexually assaulting a child agreed to be deported to escape prosecution. In that case a different Honduran man was deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after posting bail in the county and prosecutors were determined not to let that situation repeat itself.

Sadly we as activists with the Tea Party Movement are slowly losing our rights while the Illegal Aliens are gaining theirs, its a was a sad day back in February when The Democratic leadership of our federal government made it clear that there has been no change from eight years of a Republican White House that let the Chamber of Commerce call the shots on immigration.

But the extent to which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can continue to call the shots on using illegal foreign workers and importing additional authorized foreign workers will depend on how hard each of you reading this will work to spread this story in every newspaper, talk show and website. (Source: Numbers USA)

If you haven't joined Numbers USA, please do so today, stand up and be heard and take back our rights to speak out and protect our country from the onslaught of criminal activity from Illegal Immigrants. Join in and use their free fax-sending system to make your opinions known.

Racist, Anti-Immigrant Conservatives Spread Hate

2009-05-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

from NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias by Rusty Weiss

Brian Alexander, an MSNBC.com contributor with his Sexploration column, has apparently delved into the world of political commentary with this new piece which ties conservatives to viral racism in the media.

The title itself is a little misleading:

Amid swine flu outbreak, racism goes viral

Anti-immigrant hatred spreads on talk radio,
Web sites

If we're targeting conservative talk radio, and Alexander is, then the term ‘anti-immigrant' should be corrected. Conservatives aren't anti-immigrant, they're anti-criminal, much like liberals are anti-tax filing. Loving your country enough to request that anyone who wishes to be a member abide by their immigration laws, is not anti-immigrant, and making such an assessment by accusing the entire conservative philosophy as being racist is... well ... anti-intellectual. But then, that is the norm for commentary presented

by MSNBC.

Further down in the column, Alexander explains that the real problem isn't just talk radio and Web sites in general. No, the main problem is actually racist conservatives (emphasis mine
throughout):

"While the war of words is mainly between the conservative commentariat and Latino advocacy groups..."

Alexander strategically adds emphasis to other sections in his anti-conservative hit piece.

Ignorant beyond the pale
Blaming ‘the other'
Fighting racism with information

Carefully chosen words to be sure. Of course, sprinkled throughout the column are out of context excerpts from talk show host Michael Savage, and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin.

The very first quote from Savage demonstrates that the conservative banter is not anti-immigrant, but rather, opposed to illegal immigration:

"No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!" Conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu.

Mr. Alexander, please direct your little eyes to a word you might have accidentally missed, or chose to ignore - illegal. Now feel free to head to the

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Web site, where it is clearly spelled out that, in order to gain legal citizenship, one must understand that:

Most applicants for adjustment of status are required to have a medical examination. The medical examination must be conducted by a civil surgeon who has been designated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Here again, those who go through proper immigration procedures, will have had a medical examination as opposed to those who are crossing our borders through tunnels dug into the ground, who might have a disease or flu in tow.

Alexander then sets his sights on Michelle Malkin, quoting her April 25th column regarding swine flu and the borders:

"I've blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration," conservative columnist Michelle Malkin wrote on her Web site. "9/11 didn't convince the open-borders zealots to put down their race cards and confront reality. Maybe the threat of their sons or daughters contracting a deadly virus spread from south of the border to their Manhattan prep schools will."

For some biased reason, most likely the desire for continued employment at MSNBC, Alexander neglected to add a few key sentences

from Malkin's article. Here is the actual portion of the column which was being taken out of context (omitted statements in bold):

I've blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration. We've heard for years from reckless open-borders ideologues who continue to insist there's nothing to
worry about. And we've heard for years that calling any attention to the dangers of allowing untold numbers of people to pass across our borders and through our other ports of entry without proper medical screening - as required of every legal visitor/immigrant to this country - is RAAAACIST.

9/11 didn't convince the open-borders zealots to put down their race cards and confront reality.Maybe the threat of their sons or daughters contracting a deadly virus spread from south of the border to their Manhattan prep schools will.

Funny that the omitted portion involves two key items which present the argument as wholly without prejudice: The concern for having proper medical screenings, and the adherence to U.S. laws by - and say it with me - legal immigrants.

Alexander further insults Malkin, by adding the comments of a one Sergio Ornelas who says,

"People who do not really know anything are creating ideas that don't really exist."

Savage and Malkin don't really know anything. And yet, when they talk about illegal immigration, millions of people are rightfully listening. When Americans demand border control and reject
amnesty-granting policies, they are also listening, conservative or otherwise. Securing our country's borders is not racist, it's American.

Perhaps Mr. Alexander would be better served if he ceased trying to explore the realm of political commentary, and stick to sexploring topics with which he is familiar.

NYT Corrects Article Gore Cited in Congressional Testimony

2009-05-03T06:17:00.000-07:00

from NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias by Noel Sheppard

In today's You Really Can't Make This Stuff Up moment, the New York Times has issued a correction to a front page article that was highlighted by Nobel Laureate Al Gore in his recent climate change testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on April 24.

Sen. Warner made reference in his opening statement to the story on the front page of the New York Times this morning. Absolutely incredible. The largest corporate carbon polluters in America, 14 years ago, asked their own people to conduct a review of all of this science. And their own people told them, “What the international scientific community is saying is correct, there is no legitimate basis for denying it.” Then, these large polluters committed a massive fraud far larger than Bernie Madoff’s fraud. They are the Bernie Madoffs of global warming. They ordered the censoring and removal of the scientific review that they themselves conducted, and like Bernie Madoff, they lied to the people who trusted them in order to make money.

Eight days later, Marc Morano reported at Climate Depot that the Times has issued a correction:

The New York Times and reporter Andrew Revkin have now admitted the article “erred” on a key point. Revkin wrote about the now defunct Global Climate Coalition and documents that suggest the group had scientists on board in the 1990's who claimed “the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.” Revkin's article came under immediate fire from scientists and others who called into question the central claims and the accuracy of the story.

In a May 2, 2009 post titled “A Climate Correction”, Revkin and the New York Times wrote: “The article cited a 'backgrounder' that laid out the coalition's public stance, published in the early 1990s and distributed widely to lawmakers and journalists. However, the article failed to note a later version of the backgrounder that included language that conformed to the scientific advisory committee's conclusion. The amended version, which was brought to the attention of The Times by a reader, acknowledged the consensus that greenhouse gases could contribute to warming. What scientists disagreed about, it said, was 'the rate and magnitude of the 'enhanced greenhouse effect' (warming) that will result.'"

Readers are advised NOT to hold their breath waiting for Gore to issue a correction.

We Will Not Be Silenced in "Stealth Care" Debate

2009-05-02T05:05:00.000-07:00

By CPRAF Staff @ CPRAction
It looks like we have gotten under the skin of the leading proponents of government-run health care.

The Service Employees International Union wants to end the debate by gagging the CPR Action Fund. The SEIU has asked CNN and Fox News to stop airing our ads because they reveal what would happen to health care in America if the government takes control. Apparently, they think if the public learns the truth about "stealth care" they won't be able to sneak through a government takeover of your health care.

We will not sit quietly while national health boards are sneaked in to economic stimulus legislation.

We will not look the other way when the President proposes spending $634 billion on health care reform without providing any specific details of his plan.

We will not cower in the corner as the SEIU and its liberal allies inside the Beltway conspire with their friends on Capitol Hill to enact "stealth care" legislation.

We will not be silenced. Our voices must be heard. The voices of the victims of government-run health care in countries that have already tried it, like the UK and Canada, must be heard.

Patients have a right to know that government-run health care means government bureaucrats making health care decisions for them. This leads to rationing of care, waiting lists, fewer choices, and higher costs.

UPDATE: Read our related item "Who Fact Checks FactCheck.org?"

DO YOU KNOW THE PREAMBLE TO YOUR STATE'S CONSTITUTION?

2009-05-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

DO YOU KNOW THE PREAMBLE TO YOUR STATE'S CONSTITUTION?

*Some states actually incorporated God in their Bill of Rights, or the text of their constitutions.

After reviewing acknowledgments of God from all 50 state constitutions, one is faced with the prospect that maybe, the ACLU and the out-of-control federal courts are wrong! If you found this to be 'Food for thought' send to as many as you think will be enlightened as I hope you were.

(Please note that at no time is anyone told that they MUST worship God.)

'Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.'
~William Penn~

The current fiasco in control of this country proves this point.

Look how "God" or a reference to "God" is in almost every single Preamble of every state?

Alabama 1901, Preamble
We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking
the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the
following Constitution...

Alaska 1956, Preamble
We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to
those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land...

Arizona 1911, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Arizona,
grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this
Constitution...

Arkansas 1874, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Arkansas,
grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of
government...

California 1879, Preamble
We, the People of the State of California,
grateful to Almighty God for our freedom...

Colorado 1876, Preamble
We, the people of Colorado, with profound
reverence for the Supreme Ruler of Universe...

Connecticut 1818, Preamble.
The People of Connecticut, acknowledging
with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy...

Delaware 1897, Preamble
Through Divine Goodness all men have, by
nature, the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator according to
the dictates of their consciences...

Florida 1885, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Florida,
grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty, establish this
Constitution...

Georgia 1777, Preamble
We, the people of Georgia, relying upon
protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this
Constitution...

Hawaii 1959, Preamble
We, the people of Hawaii, Grateful for Divine
Guidance... Establish this Constitution...

Idaho 1889, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings...

Illinois 1870, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty
which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors...

Indiana 1851, Preamble
We, the People of the State of Indiana, grateful to Almighty God for the free exerc ise of the right to choose
our form of government...

Iowa 1857, Preamble
We, the People of the State of Iowa, grateful to
the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our
dependence on Him for a continuation of these blessings, establish this
Constitution...

Kansas 1859, Preamble
We, the people of Kansas, grateful to Almighty
God for our civil and religious privileges establish this Constitution...

Kentucky 1891, Preamble.
We, the people of the Commonwealth are
grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious
liberties...

Louisiana 1921, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Louisiana,
grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious
liberties we enjoy...

Maine 1820, Preamble
We the People of Maine acknowledging with
grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in
affording us an opportunity.. And imploring His aid and direction...

Maryland 1776, Preamble
We, the people of the state of Maryland,
grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty...

Massachusetts 1780, Preamble
We, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator
of the Universe In the course of His Providence, an opportunity and devoutly imploring His direction...

Michigan 1908, Preamble.
We, the people of the State of Michigan, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of freedom, establish this
Constitution...

Minnesota, 1857, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to
perpetuate its blessings...

Mississippi 1890, Preamble
We, the people of Mississippi in convention assembled, grateful to Almighty God, and invoking His blessing on our work...

Missouri 1845, Preamble
We, the people of Missouri, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and grateful for His
goodness. Establish this Constitution...

Montana 1889, Preamble.
We, the people of Montana, grateful to almighty God for the blessings of liberty establish this Constitution..

Nebraska 1875, Preamble
We, the people, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom. Establish this Constitution...

Nevada 1864, Preamble
We the people of the State of Nevada, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, establish this Constitution...

New Hampshire 1792,
Part I. Art. I. Sec. V
Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience...

New Jersey 1844, Preamble
We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath
so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors...

New Mexico 1911, Preamble
We, the People of New Mexico, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty..

New York 1846, Preamble
We, the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its
blessings...

North Carolina 1868, Preamble
We the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for
our civil, political, and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those...

North Dakota 1889, Preamble
We, the people of North Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, do
ordain...

Ohio 1852, Preamble
We the people of the state of Ohio, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and to promote our common...

Oklahoma 1907, Preamble
Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessings of liberty, establish this..

Oregon 1857,
Bill of Rights, Article I Section 2.
All men shall be secure in the Natural right, to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences...

Pennsylvania 1776, Preamble
We, the people of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and
humbly invoking His guidance....

Rhode Island 1842, Preamble.
We the People of the State of Rhode Island grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty
which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing...

South Carolina, 1778, Preamble
We, the people of he State of South Carolina grateful to God for our liberties, do ordain and establish this
Constitution.

South Dakota 1889, Preamble
We, the people of South Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberties.

Tennessee 1796,
Art. XI.III.
That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of
their conscience...

Texas 1845, Preamble
We the People of the Republic of Texas, acknowledging, with gratitude, the grace and beneficence of God...

Utah 1896, Preamble
Grateful to Almighty God for life and liberty, we establish this Constitution...

Vermont 1777, Preamble
Whereas all government ought to enable the individuals who compose it to enjoy their natural rights, and other
blessings which the Author of Existence has bestowed on man...

Virginia 1776,
Bill of Rights, XVI
Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator can be directed only by Reason and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love and Charity towards each other...

Washington 1889, Preamble
We the People of the State of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do
ordain this Constitution...

West Virginia 1872, Preamble
Since through Divine Providence we enjoy the blessings of civil, political and religious liberty, we, the people
of West Virginia reaffirm our faith in and constant reliance upon God...

Wisconsin 1848, Preamble
We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, domestic tranquility...

Wyoming 1890, Preamble
We, the people of the State of Wyoming, grateful to God for our civil, political, and religious liberties,
establish this Constitution...

After reviewing acknowledgments of God from all 50 state constitutions, one is faced with the prospect that maybe, the ACLU and the out-of-control federal courts are wrong! If you found this to be 'Food for thought' send to as many as you think will be enlightened as I hope you were.

(Please note that at no time is anyone told that they MUST worship God.)

'Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.'
~William Penn~

BLESSED IS THE NATION WHOSE GOD IS THE LORD... PSALM 33:12

RETURN TO THE CENTER

2009-04-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

Posted by Barbara at United American Tea Party Blog

Tonight we were privileged to be part of history in the making in our historical city. Thanks to Bree Lee and her wonderful crew, we had a great meeting and I hope everyone who came felt as energized and heartened as my husband and I did.

The enemies of our country are very, very slick at calling all their initiatives by warm, fuzzy names, such "Freedom of Choice Act" and "Fairness Doctrine", masking their true agenda. We should learn from them! Unfortunately the public is accustomed to bumper sticker mentality and we must avoid getting too much into details. Here is a suggestion for a slogan that captures what we're about, but avoids the pitfalls and traps our enemies are setting for us.

RETURN TO THE CENTER

The Constitution of the United States of America is neither right-wing nor left-wing. It is not Republican or Democratic. It is certainly not extremist. It is the strong center upon which our great country, unique among nations, was founded.

For too long, we have allowed the media and the politicians to split us up and this is a serious mistake. By allowing ourselves to be subdivided and pitted against one another we have been manipulated and weakened. We have grown tired of the politicians playing up the old Democrat vs. Republican rivalry, while they joined together to pick our pockets once they were in office. The two party system in our country has degenerated to the point where it has less credibility than professional wrestling and it isn’t even as entertaining.

All across our country there are millions of people who are not extremists, they are not activists, they are simply Americans and they want their country back. We need to offer them our program for a return to the center—the Constitution of the United States of America. Let’s join together to return our country to its Constitutional Center.

NOTE: As soon as we allow ourselves to be labeled, we have lost a large part of the battle. The forces working to overthrow our country want to divide and conquer. They want to label us as extremists. There is nothing extremist about the Constitution of our country. The last thing in the world that our enemies want is for us to actually wake up and energize the great slumbering giant of the American people. They hope if they can paint us a “right-wing extremists” the public will just roll over and go back to sleep.

As for our talking points, I really think that the devil is in the details. The more precise we are, the easier it will be for the enemy to pick us off from one another, splinter us into interest groups. Let’s just keep it simple—return to the Constitutional center. Limited government (without getting too specific), more individual responsibility, a simplified tax code, and reduce deficit spending. We are battling for the hearts of our countrymen. Don’t give too much detail for people to quibble over. Just get their attentions, then their imaginations, then get them working.

ABOVE ALL ELSE, WE MUST BE VERY CAREFUL OF INFILTRATORS WHO WANT TO HIJACK US FOR THEIR OWN PURPOSES. THERE WILL BE PEOPLE TRYING TO PROMOTE VIOLENCE AND WE MUST BE VIGILANT AGAINST THEM. ANYONE WHO PROMOTES VIOLENCE OR DISREGARD FOR THE RIGHTS OF OTHER AMERICAN HAS NO PLACE WITH US.

Obama Says Grandmother’s Hip Replacement Raises Cost Questions

2009-04-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

By Hans Nichols @ Bloomberg

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.

The president’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had a hip replaced after she was diagnosed with cancer, Obama said in an interview with the New York Times magazine that was published today. Dunham, who lived in Honolulu, died at the age of 86 on Nov. 2, 2008, two days before her grandson’s election victory.
“I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost,” Obama said in the interview. “I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother.”

Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill.

“That’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues,” he said in the April 14 interview. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”

Obama promised during his presidential campaign that a health-care overhaul would be a top priority, and he said at a Missouri town hall meeting today that he hopes Congress will pass health-care legislation this year.

The issue has been divisive, and finding an answer that will keep costs down while extending coverage to the estimated 46 million Americans without health insurance has eluded past presidents.

‘Ruthless Pragmatism’

Obama also said his economic advisers aren’t constrained by ideology or connections to former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. “What I’ve been constantly searching for is a ruthless pragmatism when it comes to economic policy,” he said, in the interview.

Obama also pointed to Canada as an example of a country that has effectively regulated commercial and investment banking without requiring legal separation of those activities.

“When it comes to something like investment banking versus commercial banking, the experience in a country like Canada would indicate that good, strong regulation that focuses less on the legal form of the institution and more on the functions that they’re carrying out is probably the right approach to take,” he said.

Muslims: 'We Do That On First Dates'

2009-04-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

by Ann Coulter at HumanEvents

Without any pretense of an argument, which liberals are neurologically incapable of, the mainstream media are now asserting that our wussy interrogation techniques at Guantanamo constituted "torture" and have irreparably harmed America's image abroad.

Only the second of those alleged facts is true: The president's release of the Department of Justice interrogation memos undoubtedly hurt America's image abroad, as we are snickered at in capitals around the world, where they know what real torture is. The Arabs surely view these memos as a pack of lies. What about the pills Americans have to turn us gay?

The techniques used against the most stalwart al-Qaida members, such as Abu Zubaydah, included one terrifying procedure referred to as "the attention grasp." As described in horrifying detail in the Justice Department memo, the "attention grasp" consisted of:

"(G)rasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator."

The end.

There are rumors that Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney wanted to take away the interrogators' Altoids before they administered "the grasp," but Department of Justice lawyers deemed this too cruel.

And that's not all! As the torments were gradually increased, next up the interrogation ladder came "walling." This involves pushing the terrorist against a flexible wall, during which his "head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to prevent whiplash."

People pay to have a lot rougher stuff done to them at Six Flags Great Adventure. Indeed, with plastic walls and soft neck collars, "walling" may be the world's first method of "torture" in which all the implements were made by Fisher-Price.

As the memo darkly notes, walling doesn't cause any pain, but is supposed to induce terror by making a "loud noise": "(T)he false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will further shock and surprise." (!!!)

If you need a few minutes to compose yourself after being subjected to that horror, feel free to take a break from reading now. Sometimes a cold compress on the forehead is helpful, but don't let it drip or you might end up waterboarding yourself.

The CIA's interrogation techniques couldn't be more ridiculous if they were out of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch:

Cardinal! Poke her with the soft cushions! ...
Hmm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch ... THE COMFY CHAIR!

So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair! ...

Now -- you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunchtime, with only a cup of coffee at 11.

Further up the torture ladder -- from Guantanamo, not Monty Python -- comes the "insult slap," which is designed to be virtually painless, but involves the interrogator invading "the individual's personal space."

If that doesn't work, the interrogator shows up the next day wearing the same outfit as the terrorist. (Awkward.)

I will spare you the gruesome details of the CIA's other comical interrogation techniques and leap directly to the penultimate "torture" in their arsenal: the caterpillar.

In this unspeakable brutality, a harmless caterpillar is placed in the terrorist's cell. Justice Department lawyers expressly denied the interrogators' request to trick the terrorist into believing the caterpillar was a "stinging insect."

Human rights groups have variously described being trapped in a cell with a live caterpillar as "brutal," "soul-wrenching" and, of course, "adorable."

If the terrorist manages to survive the non-stinging caterpillar maneuver -- the most fiendish method of torture ever devised by the human mind that didn't involve being forced to watch "The View" -- CIA interrogators had another sadistic trick up their sleeves.

I am not at liberty to divulge the details, except to mention the procedure's terror-inducing name: "the ladybug."

Finally, the most savage interrogation technique at Guantanamo was "waterboarding," which is only slightly rougher than the Comfy Chair.

Tens of thousands of our troops were waterboarded over the past three decades as part of their training, but not until it was done to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- mastermind of the 9/11 attack on America -- were liberal consciences shocked.

I think they were mostly shocked because they couldn't figure out how Joey Buttafuoco ended up in Guantanamo.

As non-uniformed combatants, all of the detainees at Guantanamo could have been summarily shot on the battlefield under the Laws of War.

Instead, we gave them comfy chairs, free lawyers, better food than is served in Afghani caves, prayer rugs, recreational activities and top-flight medical care -- including one terrorist who was released, whereupon he rejoined the jihad against America, after being fitted for an expensive artificial leg at Guantanamo, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

Only three terrorists -- who could have been shot -- were waterboarded. This is not nearly as bad as "snowboarding," which is known to cause massive buttocks pain and results in approximately 10 deaths per year.

Normal human beings -- especially those who grew up with my older brother, Jimmy -- can't read the interrogation memos without laughing.

At Al-Jazeera, they don't believe these interrogation memos are for real. Muslims look at them and say: THIS IS ALL THEY'RE DOING? We do that for practice. We do that to our friends.

But The New York Times is populated with people who can't believe they live in a country where people would put a caterpillar in a terrorist's cell.

Say It's Osama. What If He Won't Talk?

2009-04-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

By Michael Scheuer at Washington Post

In surprisingly good English, the captive quietly answers: 'Yes, all thanks to God, I do know when the mujaheddin will, with God's permission, detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States, and I also know how many and in which cities."

Americans should keep this worst-case scenario in mind as they watch the tragicomic spectacle taking place in the wake of the publication of the Justice Department's interrogation memos. It will help them recognize this episode of political theater as another major step in the bipartisan dismantling of America's defenses based on the requirements of presidential ideology. George W. Bush's democracy-spreading philosophy yielded the invasion of Iraq and set the United States at war with much of the Muslim world. Bush's worldview thereby produced an enemy that quickly outpaced the limited but proven threat-containing capacities of the major U.S. counterterrorism programs -- rendition, interrogation and unmanned aerial vehicle attacks

Read the rest HERE

President "Thin-Skin" Threatens GOP... Will Nationalize Healthcare Without Them

2009-04-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

from Gateway Pundit by Gateway Pundit

President Thin-Skin met with House leaders today and reminded them over and over and over again that not 1 Republican in the House voted for his outrageous spending bills that will quadruple the national deficit this year.

Because of this, Obama promised to nationalize healthcare without their input.

The Huffington Post reported:

In a meeting with House Republicans at the White House Thursday,President Obama reminded the minority that the last time he reached out to them, they reacted with zero votes -- twice -- for his stimulus package. And then he reminded them again. And again. And again. A GOP source familiar with the meeting said that the president was extremely sensitive -- even "thin-skinned" -- to the fact that the stimulus bill received no GOP votes in the House. He continually brought it up throughout the meeting.Obama also offered payback for that goose egg. A major overhaul of the health care system, he told the Republican leadership, would be done using a legislative process known as reconciliation, meaning that the GOP won't be able to filibuster it. Congress has until October 15 to pass health care or student lending reform under the normal process. If it doesn't, reconciliation can be used to eliminate the 60-vote requirement.

Evidently, the fact that Obama met with GOP leaders to tell them what he was going to do counts in his mind as reaching out to the opposition.

Amnesty would cost up to 70 times as much as enforcing existing law.

2009-04-25T05:20:00.000-07:00

The cost of amnesty: $999 billion.
The cost of attrition by enforcement: as little as $14 billion.
Amnesty would cost up to 70 times as much as enforcing existing law.

$999 billion cost of Amnesty (Mass Legalization)

Source: The Heritage Foundation
Summary: The Heritage Foundation issued two studies in 2007 pointing out that the big problem with mass legalization is that (a) most illegal aliens are low-skilled and therefore do not earn enough money to pay enough taxes to cover the government benefits they receive; and (b), amnesty would eventually make them eligible for the full array of welfare and medical benefits offered by local, state and federal governments. They found the cost of allowing illegal aliens to remain in the United States, and eventually to become citizens, would be $3.7 trillion through the year 2056. That works out to a present cost of $1 trillion, at a 5 percent discount rate. In other words, immediately upon passage of an amnesty bill, the United States government would need to put $1 trillion into an investment earning 5 percent per year if it were honest about paying for the costs of amnesty.

$14 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #1.

Source: Congressional Budget office Estimate for H.R. 4437.
Summary: This option is the bill H.R. 4437 sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner that passed the House of Representatives in 2005. This bill would have been so effective in combating illegal immigration that some 1 million illegal aliens marched in cities around the United States on May 1, 2006 to protest it. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $1.9 billion over the 5 years 2006-2010, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure. The resulting cost was actually $13.5 billion, which we round up to $14 billion to facilitate comparison to the other cost figures.

$177 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #2.

Source: Congressional Budget Office Estimate for H.R. 4088.
Summary: This option is the SAVE Act (Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act) that was introduced in the House of Representatives in 2007. This is a strong attrition through enforcement bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $40.7 billion over the 10 years 2009-2018, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure.

Detailed Explanation:

Amnesty Would Have a Present Cost of $1 Trillion

In 2007, the Heritage Foundation issued two studies, one on the cost of low-skilled immigration and one on the cost of amnesty. The study on the cost of low-skilled immigration noted that low-skilled immigrants do work hard: “It is important to note, these families are rarely idle; they consistently work and pay taxes. However, the taxes they pay are seldom, if ever, sufficient to cover the cost of the government benefits they receive. In consequence, these households must be continually subsidized by other taxpayers.” The Heritage study concluded that low-skilled immigrant households will cost native born U.S. taxpayers $89.1 billion per year over each of the next 30 years.

PLEASE finsish the article HERE

Strong Attrition Through Enforcement Would Have a Present Cost of $177 Billion The SAVE Act (Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement) Act was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on November 6, 2007. It never made it to a vote because the House leadership would not allow it. Among the key provisions of the bill were:

-mandatory E-Verify 4 years from the date of enactment;
-increased employer sanctions for those knowingly employing illegal aliens;
-a "National Birth and Death Registration System" to reduce stolen identities;

-140 additional Criminal Alien Program (CAP) officers to identify and remove criminal aliens detained in federal, state and local facilities;
-training at least 250 state and local law enforcement officers on how to perform Federal immigration enforcement procedures;
-8,000 additional beds for illegal aliens detained by immigration officials;
-13 additional federal district judges in border states to increase the flow of deportations, including 4 for the District of Arizona and 5 for the Southern District of California;

Sources:

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill would cost $40.7 billion over the 10 years between 2009-2018.5

Robert E. Rector and Christine Kim, The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer, Special Report #14, May 22, 2007, The Heritage Foundation.

Robert E. Rector, Amnesty Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers At Least $2.6 Trillion, Web Memo #1490, June 6, 2007, The Heritage Foundation.

See The Congressional Record – House – December 16, 2005, H11951-11953.

The CBO report can be found by searching http://www.cbo.gov/ for H.R. 4437.

The CBO report can be found by searching http://www.cbo.gov/ for H.R. 4088.

A Backdoor Nationalization The latest Treasury brainstorm will retarrd a banking recovery

2009-04-23T04:11:00.000-07:00

I started doing my research on this after watching Glenn Beck on Monday with his guest Michelle Bachman. Congress woman Bachman explained it so well and described how Obama is talking about squeezing more money out of the TARP Funds for the banks by stretching what is left of the existing 700 Billion dollar bailout by converting it to "Common Stocks".

Well if your like me, I had no idea what a "Common Share" was as opposed to a shall we say, "Non-Common Share", but its not called a "Non-Common Share", its actually called a "Preffered Share". You see with "Common Shares" there are no beneifits for us the taxpayers, after all it is our money, right? However, if it remains "Preferred Shares" as it is now, than there are dividends to be had technically by us the taxpayers.

Also another key issue is that when the shares change from Preffered to Common and no longer recieve dividends than in the long run ,(real long run, I'm sure) when eventually the banks do return to making money, and paying dividends, than the taxpayers don't get their share of the dividends either. But if the shares remain as Preffered than the taxpayers are first in line to get paid back, or in plain english our Tax Kitty is the first thing to get paid back, persae.

The big kicker is that the Common Shares have the voting rights, so essentially the Gvoernemnt will own those banks that take or took the TARP money.

This is just another dirty ploy to nationalize the banks, as Glenn Beck described it, it is "Back Door Nationalization", another form of Progressivism, where all buisinesses and banks are controlled by the Federal Governmnet.

From WSJ

Just when you think the political class may have lear
ned something in months of trying to fix the banking system, the ghost of Hank Paulson returns to haunt the Treasury. The latest Beltway blunder -- and it would be a big one -- is the Obama Administration's weekend news leak that it may insist on converting its preferred shares in some of the nation's largest banks into common equity.

The stock market promptly tumbled by more than 3.5% yesterday, with J.P. Morgan falling 10% and financial stocks as a group off 9%, as measured by the NYSE Financials index. Note to White House: Sneaky nationalizations aren't any more popular with investors than the straightforward kind.

The occasion for this latest nationalization trial balloon is the looming result of the Treasury's bank strip-tease -- a.k.a. "stress tests." Treasury is worried, with cause, that some of the largest banks lack the capital to ride out future credit losses. Yet Secretary Timothy Geithner and the White House have concluded that they can't risk asking Congress for more bailout cash.

Voila, they propose a preferred-for-common swap, which can conjure up an extra $100 billion in bank tangible common equity, a core measure of bank capital. Not that this really adds any new capital; it merely shifts the deck chairs on bank balance sheets. Why Treasury thinks anyone would find this reassuring is a mystery. The opposite is the more likely result, since it signals that Treasury no longer believes it can tap more public capital to support the financial system if the losses keep building.

Worse, wholesale equity conversion would mean the government owns a larger share of more banks and is more entangled than ever in their operations. Giving Barney Frank more voting power is more likely to induce panic than restore confidence. Simply look at the reluctance of some banks -- notably J.P. Morgan Chase -- to participate in Mr. Geithner's private-public toxic asset sale plan. The plan is rigged so taxpayers assume nearly all the downside risk, but the banks still don't want to play lest Congress they become even more subject to political whim.

A backdoor nationalization also creates more uncertainty, not less, by offering the specter of an even lengthier period of federal control over the banking system. And it creates the fear of even more intrusive government influence over bank lending and the allocation of capital. These fears have only been enhanced by the refusal of Treasury to let more banks repay their Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money.

Read the rest HERE

Tea Parties to Political Parties

2009-04-23T03:59:00.000-07:00

From Tea Parties to Political Parties By Larrey Anderson at AmericanThinker

So nearly half a million Americans finally "took to the streets." Moms pushed baby carriages. Men and women skipped a day of work (some of their kids skipped school). Some entrepreneurs closed down their businesses. Almost half a million Americans had a multitude of tea parties and the mainstream media either ignored them or misrepresented them. So where does this leave us?

The most important thing that should emerge from this tea party movement is fresh political leadership. If a person can organize, on short notice a political protest attended by thousands of people in a small town or medium-sized city, then that person is more than qualified to run for public office.

The real world political meaning of the tea parties has nothing to do with what anthem to pick, or exactly which principles were or were not being protested. The actual political opportunity that arose on April 15th is the possibility of a whole slew of new candidates for political office.
There are some fundamental misunderstandings people have about politicians. Let me clear those up:

(1) Politicians are not smart. Most of them have average IQs -- if they are lucky.
(2) Politicians are extraordinarily egocentric. They run for office because they love to see their face on the TV and they love to hear themselves talk. (President Obama is example #1 of this principle.)
(3) At the national level, politicians are (1) + (2) and they either have a lot of personal wealth -- or they have worked their way up the system (running for local office first) by selling their souls to lobbyists on either the left or the right.

That's it. That's all you need to know about today's average American politician.

Returning to the tea parties: If Americans are serious about taking back their country, then they had better get even more serious about running for public office. I have already described the kind of citizens who need to step up to the plate and run for office:

Let's take this bull by the horns. Conservatives need to start running for office. I know. I know. This is a daunting idea. But stop and think about it for a moment. If Nancy Pelosi is fit to be the Speaker of the House, then at least 90% of the rest of America's citizens are qualified to run for some public office. (This includes 99.99% of America's conservative stay at home moms. Run ladies run!)

Which conservatives should run? Mothers whose children have left the nest, retired, or soon to be retired, business owners or workers, young conservatives who have been successful in business and can afford to sacrifice a few years in public office to help get the ship of state back on course, etc.

I don't want to pat myself on the back too hard, but I will bet you that the people across the country who organized the tea parties were, for the most part, the people I described in that last paragraph. (Stay at home mothers with children also played a huge role in setting up the tea parties. These women should seriously consider running for public office. If Sarah Palin can run for mayor ... so can you.)

What the tea parties did, in real political terms, was teach a whole new set of potential candidates that organizing and becoming actively involved in on the ground politics is a lot of work ... but it is NOT rocket science.
Read the rest HERE

I guess we're all "Terrorists" now.

2009-04-16T16:04:00.000-07:00

From Cagle Cartoons

Michelle Malkin wrote a great article about this , here's an excerpt;

In Obama land there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.

At RLC.org Dave Nalle writes about the recent Homeland Security Report:
I worry because this document is just a starting point for a much wider exploration of the idea that the right wing is a haven for terrorists. It is the unfortunate but perhaps inevitable outcome of the security measures taken after 9/11, where the legitimate need to monitor real threats begins to come under the sway of politics. The report concludes by declaring that:

“DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in right wing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive right wing extremist radicalization.”

This is a frighteningly broad mandate. The biggest factor driving “right wing extremist radicalization” could very well be the activity of government in stigmatizing the political right, classing them as extremists and terrorists and launching partisan investigations of anyone who speaks out against the current administration and its policies.

When our government starts labeling discontent and disenfranchised citizens as radicals and extremists simply because the bureaucrats disagree with their political beliefs, it is the first step towards driving them to become what they are unfairly accused of being.

CrossPosted at United American Tea Party

In shock and awe, what an amazing Tax Day Tea Party

2009-04-16T15:20:00.000-07:00

I am still in shock and awe over the attendance at our Tax Day Tea Party in Historic St. Augustine, Fl.

I have received so many phone calls and so many emails from people thanking us for Organizing this event.

The St. Augustine Record did give us front page headlines, even if they did under-report the numbers in attendance.

Thank you Moultrie Creek for the great video of the crowd that tells the TRUE numbers.

The outpouring of emotions and donations is so overwhelming and in my wildest dreams I could not have asked for a better turnout on an absolutely beautiful day.

Our Volunteers were amazing, the people that attended were amazing, Brian from SolarStik was our dream come true coming through with the power for us. Old City Web Services got us our Security Tags, and donated free printing on some of the materials we handed out. Paul Porter from WFOY 1240 spent 2 hours with us on a live feed and if I left anyone out I'm sorry, my mind is still reeling and I am so grateful to everyone.

We are already planning our next event for July 5th at the Castillo De San Marcos, where will stand strong to take back our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

St. Augustine Record got the numbers wrong they said 200, the article was half way decent, but they way down played the numbers. We'll see if they post a correction.

I have really got to work on our website we are getting alot of hits and I really need to spruce it up, I threw it up quickly when I started organizing this event, so now its time to make it more "Presentable".

The next few days will be filled with inputting names in a database, and sending emails out to all attendees.

We want to plan a get together here in a couple of weeks, send me suggestions on a good location to meet, I was thinking about something like "Treaty Park" off Wildwood Dr. between US1 and 207 that could be a central location. We could do like a Sunday Afternoon, and do a Pot Luck (do they still call it that?), make it a family get together and put our heads together and discusses what worked what didn't and how we can continue to improve.

Keep up the good work, keep the faith my fellow Patriots, we will prevail!!

Sidenote: Blue Collar gal posted at comment at WND in response to Pelosi's outlandish claim that we at the Tax Day Tea Party Protest were corporate millionaires disguised as regular citizens. Too funny!1

"As the person put in charge of the sign up sheets at the St. Augustine (FL) Tea Party, I would like to thank the over 1,000 “billionaire corporate interests and entities” that showed up at the event yesterday. Cleverly disguised as mere citizens, most wearing simple clothing (jeans and t-shirts) and carrying home-made signs protesting the massive irresponsible federal spending, they surreptitiously made individual donations toward our next event. While some donated a few dollars, a few made “outrageously” lavish donations of (gasp) $20!!! Wait until Nancy Pelosi hears about this! Clearly, this “astroturfing” must stop!"

CNN 'journalist' shows true colors at Tea Party

2009-04-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

I cannot beleive that this woman made herself look like such a complete "Koolaid Drinker", all she could do was spew "Talking Points" right out of Washington DC and not even let the man complete a sentence, and the man had a child in his arms. What does that tell you about our Lame Stream Media's lack of respect for our 1st Amendment rights.

CNN has lowered itself to a new level, lets find out who their advertisers are and do our best to buy someone elses product instead of theirs. I know boycotting doesn't always work but it sure can't hurt, they only way you can hurt CNN is in their pocket.

From Glen Beck

GLENN: And then, of course, we have this report from CNN. Listen, listen to this report from CNN. There is an anchor. She is walking up to a guy who's this clean‑cut regular Schmo, standing there with his 2‑year‑old daughter. Now, the people around, you don't have any idea. Like last night when I was doing the television show, I was doing interviews, et cetera, et cetera. You can't hear. And when people are shouting, you know, "USA, USA," it's very, it's difficult to do if you're a professional like me. If you are a nervous per son that's not used to being on television and people are screaming and shouting things all around, it's very hard to be able to have a conversation with somebody because you're very distracted by what's going on, okay? She didn't even give this guy a chance. Listen to the way this interview went.

VOICE: Okay, let's see. You're here with your 2‑year‑old and you're already in debt. Why are you here today, sir?

VOICE: Because I hear a president say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln's primary thing was he believed that people had the right to liberty and had the right ‑‑

VOICE: Sir, what does this have to do with taxes? What does this have to do with your taxes? Do you realize that you are eligible for a $400 credit ‑‑

VOICE: Let me finish my point. Lincoln ‑‑ Lincoln believed that people had the right to share in the fruits of their own labor and that government should not take it, and we have clearly gotten to that point.

VOICE: Wait. Did you know that ‑‑ did you know that the State of Lincoln gets $50 billion out of this stimulus? That's $50 billion for this state, sir.

VOICE: Ma'am. Ma'am, ma'am, I ‑‑ can you stop this, sir? Hold on.

VOICE: Okay, well, we'll move on over here. I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti‑government, anti‑CNN, since this is highly promoted by the rightwing conservative network Fox. And since I can't really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing, toss it back to you.

GLENN: This isn't family viewing. I mean, I can't believe this. This isn't family ‑‑ he's standing there with his 2‑year‑old. I mean, what is that? Unbelievable. I would like to take this from the beginning but I want to stop and start this. I want to take this apart. Go ahead.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

VOICE: Okay. Let's see. You are here with your 2‑year‑old and you are already in debt. Why are you here, sir?

VOICE: Because I heard the president say he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Link even's primary thing was he believed that people had the right to liberty and had the right ‑‑

VOICE: Sir, what does this have to do with taxes?

GLENN: Stop, stop.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GLENN: This shows the ignorance of this reporter. She doesn't have any clue as to what this man is talking about. What this man is talking about is Abraham Lincoln saying it is immoral to pull down the house of one to build another house for someone else. You can't do that. He thought it was immoral, he thought it was unconstitutional. You do not take the fruits of the labor of one person and give them to someone else. He was very clear. But she didn't even know where he was going with this because she clearly doesn't understand and she's like, well, what does this even have to do with taxes? That was the point of Abraham Lincoln! You cannot take and tear down the house of one to build a house for another. That has everything to do with taxes. That is the point that Abraham Lincoln was trying to make.

STU: What's that got to do with taxes? He's talking about houses. It doesn't make any sense. It's not family‑friendly at all.

GLENN: I know, I know. Well, we're just, what is it, apoplectic brainiacs. So what do we know. Okay. So go ahead. Lynn to what she has in response.

VOICE: Sir, what does this have to do with taxes? What does this have to do with your taxes? Do you realize that you're eligible ‑‑

GLENN: Stop, stop, stop.

(END AUDIO CLIP).

GLENN: Now remember, I'm not a journalist. They always make fun of me: Glenn Beck, he's a pseudojournalist. No, I'm not a journalist. I never claimed to be a journalist. I am an opinion person. Listen to what she did. She moved now clearly not just in the way she was handling everything but by what she just did, from journalist to opinion maker. What she did is she said, "What does this have to do with taxes?" Question, period. What does this have to do with taxes. Well, let me explain: Abraham Lincoln said you can't tear down the house of one person to build another, okay? That's what it has to do with taxes. But she wasn't interested in the actual answer. She wanted to make her point. That's what an opinion maker does, not a journalist. Listen to what she says on her point: What does this have to do with taxes?

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

VOICE: What does this have to do with your taxes? Do you realize that you're he eligible for a $400 credit ‑‑

VOICE: Let me finish my point.

GLENN: Stop, stop.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GLENN: Do you realize you're eligible for a $400 tax credit. Okay, she's shilling the DNC talking points. She is selling. She's now moved from opinion maker to saleswoman. She is now selling something that they are again so clueless, they don't understand who we are. We didn't want the eligibility for a tax rebate when Bush gave it to us. We don't want tax breaks. We want lower taxes. We want lower spending. But see, the DNC, CNN, all of these leftwingers, you can buy them. We're not for sale. They are. When you say to somebody, you know, on the left, "Hey, all you have to do is sell out your values and you'll get this in exchange," they'll do it. Some rightwingers will do it as well. The people who gathered on the streets yesterday won't. Their credibility, their Constitution is not for sale. This is why I said you've got to make it about principles and values because she's now trying to sell you on, "Get out, get out." But wait. There's more.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

VOICE: Lincoln, Lincoln believed that people had the right to share in the fruits of their own labor and that government should not take it, and we have clearly gotten to that point.

VOICE: Wait, did you know that ‑‑ did you know that the State of Lincoln gets $50 billion out of this stimulus? That's $50 billion for this state, sir.

VOICE: Ma'am. Ma'am, ma'am.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GLENN: I mean, I can't believe it. The only thing she could tie to Lincoln and the State of Illinois and the only reason she could do that is because it's on a license plate. I mean, this woman is amazing to me. "Did you know that it's not only you are eligible for this, but wait, there's more. Now how much would you pay for that Constitution?" It's really, truly incredible. I don't think we need to go all the way to the end of, "It's an anti‑CNN rally." No, it's not. There are a lot of good people there and unfortunately that are too many like this there that have absolute contempt for you, absolute contempt for what you believe, I believe contempt for the American dream as our founders saw it.

END Transcript

CrossPosted at United American Tea Party

Morning Bell: Hail to the Sham Wow Guy

2009-04-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports this morning: “He is not a mortgage broker. But for a time on Thursday, President Obama seemed to be playing one on television, urging Americans not to miss out on rock-bottom refinancing rates. … Seldom has the president sounded so much like the host of a late-night infomercial, stopping just shy of imploring people to call the toll-free number at the bottom of their television screens.”

We don’t get to say this very often, but the New York Times is dead right. Here are some actual quotes from the President of the United States speaking from the Roosevelt Room of the White House yesterday:

[I]f you are having problems with your mortgage, and even if you’re not andyou just want to save some money, you can go to MakingHomeAffordable.gov —
MakingHomeAffordable.gov — and the way the web site is designed, you can plug in your information and immediately find out whether or not you are potentially eligible for one of these — one of these mortgage refinancings.

…Again, the web site is MakingHomeAffordable.gov — is that right?MakingHomeAffordable.gov — so get on the web site, find out what’s available.…

So take advantage of MakingHomeAffordable.gov and that willallow you to figure out exactly how to proceed on this in a way that’s making you money, saving you money, as opposed to costing you money.

You following me camera guy?Continue reading…

Let's All Surrender Our Weapons -- You First!

2009-04-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

by Ann Coulter

The rash of recent shooting incidents has led people who wouldn't know an AK-47 from a paintball gun to issue demands for more restrictions on guns. To be sure, it's hard to find any factor in these shootings that could be responsible -- other than the gun.

So far, this year's public multiple shootings were committed by:

-- Richard Poplawski, 23, product of a broken family, expelled from high school and dishonorably discharged from the Marines, who killed three policemen in Pittsburgh.

-- Former crack addict Jiverly Wong, 41, who told co-workers "America sucks" yet somehow was not offered a job as a speechwriter for Barack Obama, who blockaded his victims in a civic center in Binghamton, N.Y., and shot as many people as he could, before killing himself.

-- Robert Stewart, 45, a three-time divorcee and high school dropout with "violent tendencies" -- according to one of his ex-wives -- who shot up the nursing home in Carthage, N.C., where his newly estranged wife worked.

-- Lovelle Mixon, 26, a paroled felon, struggling to get his life back on track by pimping, who shot four cops in Oakland, Calif. -- before eventually being shot himself.

-- Twenty-eight-year-old Michael McLendon, child of divorce, living with his mother and boycotting family funerals because he hated his relatives, who killed 10 of those relatives and their neighbors in Samson, Ala.

It might make more sense to outlaw men than guns. Or divorce. Or crack. Or to prohibit felons from having guns. Except we already outlaw crack and felons owning guns and yet still, somehow, Wong got crack and Mixon got a gun.

After being pulled over for a routine traffic violation, Lovelle Mixon did exactly what they teach in driver's ed by immediately shooting four cops. Mixon's supporters held a posthumous rally in his honor, claiming he shot the cops only in "self-defense," which I take it includes the cop Mixon shot while the officer was lying on the ground.

I guess Mixon also raped that 12-year-old girl in "self-defense." Clearly, the pimping industry has lost a good man. I wish I'd known him. I tip my green velvet fedora with the dollar signs all over it to him. Why do the good ones always die young? Pimps, I mean.

Liberals tolerate rallies on behalf of cop-killers, but they prohibit law-abiding citizens working at community centers in Binghamton, N.Y., from being armed to defend themselves from disturbed, crack-addicted America-haters like Jiverly Wong.

It's something in liberals' DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama's response to North Korea's openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile this week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament.

If the SAT test were used to determine how stupid a liberal is, one question would be: "The best defense against lawless rogues who possess _______ is for law-abiding individuals to surrender their own _______________."

Correct answer: Guns. We would also have accepted nuclear weapons.

Obama explained that "the United States has a moral responsibility" to lead disarmament efforts because America is "the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon."

So don't go feeling all morally superior to a country whose business model consists of exporting heroin, nuclear bombs and counterfeit U.S. dollars, and of importing Swedish prostitutes, you yahoo Americans with your little flag lapel pins.

On the other hand, the Japanese haven't acted up much in the last, say, 64 years ...

Fortunately, our sailors didn't wait around for Obama to save them when Somali pirates boarded their ship this week. Stop right now or I'll ask the U.N. to remind the "international community" that "the U.S. is not at war with Somali pirates."

Gun-toting Americans are clearly more self-sufficient than the sissy Europeans. This is great news for everyone except Barney Frank, who's always secretly wondered what it would be like to be taken by a Somali pirate.

Police -- whom I gather liberals intend to continue having guns -- and intrepid U.N. resolution drafters can't be everywhere, all the time.

If a single civilian in that Binghamton community center had been armed, instead of 14 dead, there might have only been one or two -- including the shooter. In the end, the cops didn't stop Wong. His killing spree ended only when he decided to stop, and he killed himself.

"The shooter will eventually run out of ammo" strategy may not be the best one for stopping deranged multiple murderers.

But it's highly unlikely that any community center in the entire state would be safe from a disturbed former crack-addict like Wong because New York's restrictive gun laws require a citizen to prove he has a need for a gun to obtain a concealed carry permit.

Instead of having Planned Parenthood distribute condoms in schools, they ought get the NRA to pass out revolvers. It would save more lives.

ACORN, HuffPo Organizing Efforts to Infiltrate Tax Day Tea Parties FNC's

2009-04-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute
Acts of protest tend to be synonymous with the left and are usually considered unsurprising on the right. However, when conservatives demonstrate – liberals take notice in a big way.

On Fox News Channel’s April 7 “Your World,” host Neil Cavuto reported that the Tax Day tea party protests on April 15 will be “infiltrated” by their political opponents and led by left-wing activist organizations. He specifically named Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

“Only eight days before a nationwide tea party, some over-caffeinated crashers aiming to lay waste to it,” Cavuto said. “Reports of very well-organized infiltrators trying to mix in and rain on this parade. Talk about taxing.”

One organizer, Mark Meckler of the Sacramento Tea Party, dismissed the counter efforts and said they were to be expected.

“We don’t take them seriously at all, and I’ll tell you why,” “It’s not that they don’t exist – we expect people to attempt to infiltrate,” Meckler said. “We expect people to attempt to disturb what we are doing, but the reality is that this is a very broad-based grassroots movement. There is no leader at the top. There is no individual event that they can disturb that would cause us a problem nationwide.”

Meckler explained that everyone was invited – even if they come to promote a philosophy that runs counter to what the tea party movement is attempting to convey.

“So also, the people – we trust the grassroots,” Meckler continued. “We know, the people are skeptical of anyone approaching at these events, and we believe that people are going to handle it well. And in fact, we invite everybody to come to our events. We don’t care if they are from ACORN, The Huffington Post or the Daily Kos. We want them all there. We’re excited to have them attend.”

In fact, The Huffington Post has even set up a Web site for so-called citizen journalists to infiltrate the protests.

“The Huffington Post wants to have citizen journalists at as many of these events as possible,” Arthur Delaney wrote for The Huffington Post on April 7. “If you think you'd be interested in attending one of the Tea Parties and reporting back to us with dispatches, photos, or video, click here to sign up. We'll contact you shortly with further instructions.”

If you sign-up, you receive an automated message from Matthew Palevsky, the Huffington Post’s associate editor of citizen journalism.

“Thanks for becoming a Tea Party Reporter,” the e-mail from Palevsky says. “This e-mail is just a quick confirmation that we have received your contact info and will email you our plans during the coming week. In the meantime, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Whether they be questions, suggestions or story ideas, share them with us at submissions+ideas@ huffingtonpost.com.”

John O’Hara, organizer of the Chicago Tea Party said he wasn’t worried either about these sorts of efforts and specifically named ACORN, calling them out of touch with mainstream America.

“Neil, I’m not worried about it at all,” O’Hara said. “This is a genuine grassroots movement. If ACORN wants to send some of their paid, pretend activists to show up – that’s fine. They don’t have a message that resonates with the American people or resonates with this broad coalition that’s upset with this spending that’s going on in Washington.”

Cavuto explained the early reports of the “so-called infiltration plan” were an attempt to make it look like fringe-group efforts and in some case appears as a “racist undertaking.”

“The people understand what these movements are about,” Meckler said. “The people who are involved understand that they’re not racist. They are not fringe. They’re not even partisan. I mean, these are events where we have people across the board – Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, Libertarians – you name it.”

Bailout Fail: Ford Drops Debt, while GM and Chrysler Flounder

2009-04-08T09:12:00.001-07:00

From Heritage.org

After months of pressure from the federal government to push down General Motors’s and Chrysler’s debt loads, a deal remains far out of reach. With the promise of further federal bailouts, no debt-holders wants to make concessions—accepting just 30 or 40 cents on the dollar, and much of that in possibly worthless stock—when holdouts could wind up paid in full.

Bailout-free Ford announced yesterday that investors agreed to swap nearly $10 billion dollars in its debt for cash and stock, reducing its total debt burden by 28 percent. The price: about 38 cents on the dollar. After the late-afternoon announcement, Ford stock rallied, gaining 16 percent. Continue reading…

Who Is Going To Pay Off Obama’s Debt? Our Kids

2009-04-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

From Heritage.org

Employment took another hit in march, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with job losses climbing another 0.4 of a percentage point to 8.5 percent, the highest level since 1983. What should we do? Heritage scholars James Sherk and J.D. Foster have an idea:

These discouraging numbers underscore that Congress should not embark on an anti-growth taxing and spending frenzy. Unfortunately President Obama’s budget currently before Congress would do just that, increasing spending by more than $1,000,000,000,000–one trillion dollars–over the next decade.

This is precisely the wrong time to burden the economy with higher taxes and additional wasteful government spending. Remember, if government spending got us out of recessions, why would we ever have recessions? We’d just spend out way out of everything.

But no matter. If worse come to worse, and we can’t pay off all our debt, we’ve got this whole group of cheap, unskilled laborers to pick up the slack:

Florida Governor Crist is Feeling the Heat...Again!!!

2009-04-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

By Javier Manjarres @ RedCountry.com

Florida Governor Charlie Crist is in store for one very colorful primary. Remember back in February when our esteemed Governor stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our Liberal Democrat President Barack Hussein Obama? Well, his little back-patting media event to promote the ‘porkulus package’ has turned out to be Governor Crist’s Dukakis moment.

As events begin to unfold, Governor Crist will most likely announce that he will run for the U.S. Senate seat being left vacant in 2010. I am going to assume that he sees this as being a safe race for him to win. The people of Florida have been duped by Governor Crist and are looking for other options. The Conservative base feels especially betrayed.

The writing is written loudly on the wall both in Spanish and English. The change he so supported is blowing his way. He better strap in!

There are a couple of strong contenders vying for the Senate seat as well. Dr. Marion Thorpe and Fmr. Speaker Marco Rubio have thrown their hats into the race. The Rubio factor continues to loom large, as his stock continues to rise among Conservatives. The sleeping giant may have woken up.

Governor Crist’s approval ratings have been steadily dropping over the past year or so. So, why have the ratings dropped?

Let’s make a list:

•Half-baked attempt to cut the Florida property tax

•His Socialist idea of having the government control property insurance premiums

•The California-lite, tree-hugging energy policy that will turn to be costlier than any other proposed plan

•Let’s not forget the recent appointment of the Liberal Supreme Court Justice James Perry

•Supporting President Obama’s ‘porkulus package’

•He would consider reparations for slavery

•He also would consider reinstating voting rights to convicted felons

He truly is the gift that keeps giving.

The politico just put out a very interesting piece today about this very issue.

Take a peak.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0409/A_CristRubio_Senate_primary.html

Your Local Tax Day Tea Party

2009-04-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

Well our Tax Day Tea Party is St. Augustine is moving right along, you can get the latest update at this link

http://unitedamericanteaparty.ning.com/profiles/blogs/tea-party-update

Here's a list of Florida Tea Partys if you are in another state than you can go to www.TaxDayTeaParty.com and find your state's events

FreedomWorks is working with grassroots leaders to organize Taxpayer Tea Parties in Florida this April. With all the outrageous government spending in Washington and Tallahassee, along with high taxes and attempts to limit our freedom, there is no better time than NOW to come out and make your voice heard. So mark your calendar for Tax Day, April 15th, and join the national movement to take our country back from the politicians.

Please attend theTea Party closest to you!

City: Crestview
When: April 15 @ 4-6pm
Where: Main Street in front of the courthouse, downtown Crestview

City: DeLand / Daytona Beach
When: April 15, 12:00 pm
Where: City Hall

City: Ft. Lauderdale
When: April 15, 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Where: Federal Building, 299 East Broward Boulevard

City: Ft. Myers
When: April 15, 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Where: Centennial Park, 1st Street

City: Fort Walton Beach
When: April 15, 4:00pm - 8:00pm
Where: Fort Walton Beach Landing

City: Jacksonville
When: April 15, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Where: The Jacksonville Landing

City: Lakeland
When: April 15, 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Where: Kryger Overlook Park (Lake Mirror) 1 block from City Hall

City: Live Oak
When: April 15, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Where: Millenium Park

City: Miami
When: April 15, 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Where: Bayfront Park (near the Fountain and Kennedy Memorial)

City: Naples
When: April 15, Noon - 2:00pm
Where: Pine Ridge Road and US 41

City: New Port Richey
When: April 15, TBA
Where: TBA

City: Ocala
When: April 15, Noon
Where: Downtown Ocala at the Square

City: Orlando
When: April 15, 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Where: Orlando City Hall, 400 South Orange Avenue

City: Panama City
When: April 15, 3:00 pm - Dark
Where: Sherman Avenue Post Office

City: Pensacola
When: April 15, 3:00pm - 6:00pm
Where: Downtown Courthouse, Palafox Street and E. Garden St.

City: Port Richey
When: April 15, 4:00pm - 7:00pm
Where: Gulfview Square Mall, at the southwest corner of U.S. 19 & Embassy

City: Punta Gorda
When: April 15, 5:00pm - 6:30pm
Where: Gilchrist Park, 400 W. Retta Esplanade

City: Saint Augustine
When: April 15, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Where: Historic Downtown, Castillo De San Marco’s Park grounds on The Bayfront

City: Sarasota
When: April 15, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Where: Sarasota County Courthouse, 2000 Main Street

City: Stuart
When: April 15, 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Where: Main Post Office, Johnson Street

City: Tallahassee
When: April 15, 5-7pm
Where: Florida’s Old Capitol Building - 400 S. Monroe St, Tallahassee (corner of Monroe & Appalachee Pkwy)

Huge Win! DeMint Health Care Freedom amendment passed!

2009-04-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

By Max Pappas @ FREEDOMWORKS

Thank you FreedomWorks activists for your hard work and congratulations on your big victory for America (but the fight’s not over, please read on)!

The Health Care Freedom amendment to the Senate budget resolution, introduced by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), just passed the Senate by voice vote. This is a big victory in the fight against government controlled health care, and for democracy—as long as we hold the Senate to its word.

FreedomWorks sent to the Senate earlier today a Key Vote notice on behalf of all of our members asking Senators to support this amendment. Also, through a national online campaign, we helped connect people from around the country to their representatives so we would be heard. Our activists flooded the Senate with emails, faxes and phone calls asking Senators to support the DeMint amendment and, in so doing, oppose the use of “reconciliation” for health care reform—reconciliation being a way around the traditional 60 vote requirement in the Senate.

One of the most effective aspects of the campaign was the comment board we hosted where over 6500 people so far have left comments about the budget and the use of the reconciliation rule to limit future debate on health care reform (it would have allowed the Senate to pass health care reform with just 51 votes rather than 60, silencing the voice of the minority and the millions of people they represent—not very becoming of the legislative body that considers itself the most deliberative in the world).

But the fight is not over!

The budget passed by the House would allow for the reconciliation tactic to be used to pass health care. The Senate and House will now meet and hash out the differences between their bills.

We MUST make it clear to the Senate that a budget agreement with the House that allows debate-limiting ”reconciliation” to be used for health care reform is UNACCEPTABLE! This is too big an issue to push through on a narrow partisan majority without meaningful debate.

What can you do?

Keep up the pressure! Your Senator will be home for the next two weeks. During this time, you should:

1. Stop by your Senator’s local office

2. Call your Senator’s local office

3. And please keep leaving comments here for us to share with Capitol Hill

Keep up the good work!

NRA Offering Free Memberships

2009-03-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

In response to increasing attacks on our 2nd Amendment right by Democrats, the NRA is offering free 1 year memberships. Link to sign up: National Rifle Association

8 States Consider Drug Testing For Welfare Recipients

2009-03-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

Finally someone's coming to their senses. Don't get me wrong I don't have a problem with temporary government assistance for people down on their luck, key word being "temporary". But I do have a problem with the abuse especially when I'm in a grocery store line and they are buying T-Bones while I am buying Ground Turkey and Frozen Fish Sticks.

Anyone recieving Governement assitance should be required to pass a drug test. Think about it, it is not unusual for drug testing to get a job, yes the job that pays you money and gives you benefits. Well what does the Government do for people on welfare, thats right, ding ding ding, we have a winner, they give them money and give them benefits. So I ask you, what is the difference?

from Stop The ACLU by William Teach

Don’t these states know they are messing with one of the Democrat’s major voting blocks?

Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs.

Lawmakers in at least eight states want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing.

The effort comes as more Americans turn to these safety nets to ride out the recession. Poverty and civil liberties advocates fear the strategy could backfire, discouraging some people from seeking financial aid and making already desperate situations worse.

Or, those people could stop doing drugs. Simple solution. Cue the ACLU in 3…2…1….

“Nobody’s being forced into these assistance programs,” said Craig Blair, a Republican in the West Virginia Legislature who has created a Web site — notwithmytaxdollars.com — that bears a bobble-headed likeness of himself advocating this position. “If so many jobs require random drug tests these days, why not these benefits?”

Looks like Kansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri and Hawaii. A similar measure in Tennessee failed. Maybe someone should require that companies getting bailout money have their head folks tested, too.

Related Posts:
Betray Your Principles, Get a Check!: Why state governors are turning down federal cash

Good News! Gitmo Detainees Released in US Will Get Welfare

Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families...

New Stanek WND column, "How USA Today used me (and I let it)"

2009-03-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

By jill stanek @ WORLDNETDAILY

I don't know who I'm madder at, USA Today or myself.

Last week USA Today editorial writer Louise Branson e-mailed me a request to:

... write a short piece for us about the regulation of fertility clinics in the aftermath of the octuplets scandal, and praising the proposed GA legislation as the standard that should be set nationwide. The piece would need to be around 350 words. It would be an opposing view to our editorial that would warn against the kind of regulation that brings anti-abortion politics into the issue.

"Absolutely," I responded. With a pro-abortion audience in mind, I wrote a piece explaining the harm of egg harvesting to women, the vast number of human embryos killed throughout the in vitro fertilization process, and how human embryo research proponents use the "leftover" embryos excuse to push their agenda. I closed by describing common sense regulations.

I received this response:

Sorry to be a pain, but could I get you to re-do it a bit.... We were hoping to see a piece that would... say the best way to prevent another Suleman case would be to limit the number of embryos that could be implanted and also define an embryo as a person.... We would be less interested in all the medical details as our debate is on how best to regulate fertility clinics.

I was taken aback. USA Today was telling me how and what to write? I responded...

Continue reading, "How USA Today used me (and I let it)," at WorldNetDaily.com.

Born Alive, Then Thrown Away

2009-03-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

From voiceofreedom

A Florida woman named Tonuya Rainey has been jailed for illegally aborting her daughter's 24 week old baby boy and throwing him in the trash, and is now facing charges of "illegally terminating a pregnancy, child abuse and improper disposal of human remains." Her daughter said that the baby was "breathing and moving his arms after birth," a piece of information that horrified the presiding judge, causing him to increase her bail by over $170,000 for what that he called a crime "tantamount to murder."

Following is the story:

According to police and prosecutors, [Rainey] gave her 16-year-old daughter a pregnancy-ending combination of drugs, then disposed of the fetus in a plastic garbage bag, police and prosecutors said.

But, according to a search warrant that's part of the case, Rainey's daughter told police her baby, a boy, was breathing and moving his arms after birth. Though Rainey hasn't been charged with murder, that detail made the Broward County Click here for restaurant inspection reports Court judge balk at allowing Rainey's release after she posted $14,000 bond.

"I believe that what has allegedly occurred is tantamount to murder," Hurley said at a bond hearing Friday...

When [Rainey's daughter] told her mother she was about 24 weeks pregnant, her mother gave her "round, white pills" to terminate the pregnancy, the police document said.

According to Miramar police spokeswoman Yessenia Diaz, those pills were a two-drug combination, once known as RU-486, that is now sold under prescription to induce abortions at home. Rainey did not get the pills from her workplace, Diaz said.

The teen told police she experienced severe cramps, then at 3 a.m. on March 6 gave birth while seated on a toilet. She said she lay the infant on a bed and saw him breathing and his arms moving. She did not hear the baby cry. Rainey and a friend then picked up the newborn and took him to the bathroom, according to the search warrant application.

Matthews Calls Bachmann the 'Mata Hari of Minnesota'; Rolling Stone's Taibbi Says 'Guy Huffing Glue'

2009-03-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

From Newsbusters by Jeff Poor

There seems to be a new "derangement syndrome" that has infected the crew at MSNBC - Michele Bachmann Derangement Syndrome.

On the MSNBC March 27 "Hardball with Chris Matthews," host Chris Matthews questioned Rep. Michele Bachman's effort to protect the United States dollar.

"It's not clear why she did it since nobody on the planet, least of here in America is talking about switching to some new multinational currency here," Matthews said.

Matthews also got worked up about an interview Bachmann did on conservative talk show host Sean Hannity's radio show earlier this week when she referred to her job as being a "foreign correspondent behind enemy lines" and called Obama's policies "economic Marxism."

"In other words, the people who disagree with her are the enemy," Matthews said, referring to her as an exotic dancer accused of spying for the Germans in France during World War I. "She is the Mata Hari of Minnesota."

Matt Taibbi, editor of Rolling Stone magazine, took it a step further and suggested she had less mental capacity than someone under the influence household chemicals.

"It's funny, this morning outside of Penn Station, I saw a guy huffing glue out of a paper bag and he was making more sense than Michele Bachmann was making," Taibbi said, drawing laughter from Matthews and Michelle Bernard, MSNBC contributor and president of the Independent Women's Voice. "I can't believe - you need to pass a written test to drive a car in this country, but I bet this woman can't even write her name in the ground with a stick. It's unbelievable to me that this person is in the Congress."

Matthews attempted to psychoanalyze Bachmann, suggesting she was paranoid someone was going to "come sweeping into to our local candy stores and our whatever, our supermarkets and replace all the dollars with some strange looking new currency."

Although Matthews dismisses Bachmann as a lunatic for her concern, there has been talk of a North American currency, the Amero. And, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said he was open to changing the dollar's role in the global economy. Nonetheless, Matthews and company continued their critique of the Minnesota congresswoman's "better-safe-than-sorry" proposition.

"She seems to have been completely confused by China's request on monetary policy and what the reserve dollar was going to be - the basis of the reserve would be," Bernard said, following up on Matthews comments. "I don't understand where she is going with this, where the confusion would be, but there's a lot of confusion."

HR 1388 The Obama Youth Brigade Obama Youth Brigade: Church Attendance Forbidden

2009-03-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

By Jonas Clark @ UnitedConservative

SEC. 1304. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows:

SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
(a) Prohibited Activities-A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:

(1) Attempting to influence legislation. (No calling your congressman to tell him/her to vote yes or no)

(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes. (No grassroots organizing, no parades, no protests, no Grassfire.)

(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.
(So if you're Muslim, you can forget about praying 5 times a day)

Is this the change you really voted for? President Obama has only been in office for two mos. Now we have HR 1388. The Bill was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) with 37 others. The Bill was introduced to the floor of the House of Representatives where both Republicans and Democrats voted 321-105 in favor.

Next it goes to the Senate for a vote and then on to President Obama.

This bill's title is called Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE). It forms what some are calling Obama's Youth Brigade. Obama's plan is to require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade. His goal is one million youth! This has serious Nazi Germany overtones to it.

So when you accept government funds for your education, you surrender every right gauranteed under the Bill of Rights.

Yeah, I'm down with that. NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Protecting Freedom for Health Care Providers

2009-03-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

From Heritage.org

Religious institutions have long been an essential part of health care delivery in our nation. Long before government programs began monopolizing the health care industry, religious institutions were providing care to the poor and most vulnerable. Today, Catholic health care facilities alone make up a third of the nation’s hospitals. As the federal government has encroached further and further into health care decision making, religious freedom advocates have passed a number of laws designed to protect the consciences of health care providers. But these laws have rarely been enforced.

Seeking to better end discrimination against health care providers who object to participating in controversial medical procedures, the Bush Administration issued a regulation intended to increase awareness among health care professionals of their rights, finally assign proper enforcement responsibility within HHS, and bring needed clarity to laws that have essentially been gathering dust for decades.

Just five weeks into his presidency, the Obama Administration officially signaled their intention to rescind this regulation. An Obama HHS official explained to the Washington Post: “We’ve been concerned that the way the Bush rule is written, it could make it harder for women to get the care they need. It is worded so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family-planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care.” But as Heritage fellow Randy Pate argues the regulation clarified the law for the first time and assigned an enforcement home within HHS. Pate continues:

[T]he proposed rescission would do away with the progress that has been made and replace it with nothing. Because the conscience protection laws themselves aren’t going away, rescinding the regulation would result in real ambiguity and confusion. … Why rush to roll back conscience protections for health care professionals? If the Obama Administration is genuinely concerned about potential confusion here—rather than just pandering to the extreme pro-abortion lobby—the proper course is to let the regulations operate for a while and see what happens. Instead, the proposed rescission is an attempt to impose a “gag rule” that prevents meaningful enforcement of conscience laws and leaves health care professionals in the dark about their rights.

The head of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations David Stevens went even further, telling the Washington Post: “It is open season to again discriminate against health-care professionals. Our Founding Fathers, who bled and died to guarantee our religious freedom, are turning over in their graves.”

Federal law requires the Obama Administration to solicit comments from the American people and substantively respond to them before any regulation can attain the force of law. You can contact the Department of Health and Human Services and let them know how you feel about Obama’s destruction of the conscience clause here at A Doctor’s Right.

You have until April 9 to have your voice heard.

Reid: Specter card-check switch closes door to Dems

2009-03-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

Could Spector be trying to salvage his reputation? Spector knows he's down for the count when it comes to re-election

By Alexander Bolton From TheHill.com

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday that Sen. Arlen Specter’s (R-Pa.) decision to reject “card-check” legislation has ended any chance of a party switch.

Reid as well as Vice President Biden, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) and Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) have tried recently to persuade Specter to leave the GOP.

Specter, a liberal Republican who has often voted with Democrats, is expected to face an extremely difficult primary rematch next year against former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Specter defeated Toomey by just 2 percentage points (17,000 votes) in 2004.

Since then, as many as 200,000 centrist Republicans have switched their party registration to Democratic in Pennsylvania, according to Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin and Marshall College.

This had given Reid and other Democrats hope that they could persuade Specter to join their ranks, or at least leave the GOP to become an Independent.

But Specter smashed those hopes by declaring this week that he would vote against any effort to quash a filibuster of the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as the card-check bill.

“Yes, I’ve talked to him,” Reid told reporters Friday of his efforts to convince Specter to leave the Republican Party.

“But he, in coming out against card-check, stopped everyone from being able to help him.”

Specter had previously supported a motion to proceed to debate on the card-check legislation, which is organized labor’s top priority. Some political analysts believe he has declared his opposition to the controversial bill to bolster his prospects in next year’s GOP primary.

But Reid said that Specter’s move has not helped him politically.

“His move to change his position on card-check hasn’t helped him,” said Reid during a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. “Polls out in Pennsylvania show him 26 percent behind in a Republican primary.”

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted from March 19 to 23 showed Specter trailing Toomey by 14 percentage points, 41 percent to 27, in a hypothetical primary match-up with Toomey.

Reid said that Democrats are now courting other centrist Republicans to side with them in the charged fight over card-check.

Specter was one of only three Republicans in Congress to vote for President Obama’s economic stimulus bill.

In an interview with The Hill earlier this month, Specter did not rule out the possibility of running as an Independent next year.

HR1388, nicely titled the GIVE act. Tucked Into Obama’s Civil Service Bill H R 1388: No Protesting Allowed!

2009-03-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

This bill boils down to YOUR children performing a mandatory term of “community service.”

They claim that the participants will be volunteers, but yet it is a mandatory program.

Tucked Into Obama’s Civil Service Bill H R 1388: No Protesting Allowed! Ya we are getting tucked alright, tucked right up our a$$

H.Amdt 49 to H.R. 1388 Prohibits Organizations From Influencing… Legislation, Protesting or Petitioning.

SEC. 1304. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows: `SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

`(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:

`(1) Attempting to influence legislation.

`(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.

`(3) Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing.

`(4) Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements.

`(5) Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office.

`(6) Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed
legislation, or elected officials.

`(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or
operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of
religious proselytization.

`(8) Providing a direct benefit to–

`(A) a business organized for profit;

`(B) a labor organization;

`(C) a partisan political organization;

`(D) a nonprofit organization that fails to comply with the restrictions contained in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 except that nothing in this section shall be
construed to prevent participants from engaging in advocacy activities undertaken at their own initiative; and

`(E) an organization engaged in the religious activities described in paragraph (7), unless Corporation assistance is not used to support those religious activities.

`(9) Conducting a voter registration drive or using Corporation funds to conduct a voter registration drive.

`(10) Such other activities as the Corporation may prohibit.

READ FULL STORY HERE Organizing For America…AKA
Obama’s Civilian Security Force HR 1388 GIVE act.

OpenCongress Summary:

SEE FULL REPORT HERE

American Tea Party; The Song

2009-03-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is so Awesome, Its going to part of the music to be played at the St. Augustine Tea party.

From OneBigdogblog

My very talented friend Lloyd Marcus has a new song out entitled American Tea Party. You can listen to the song by clicking here:

Lloyd said that people are free to post the song on blogs and send it around via email. He wants it to get around.

Cao also put together a video using the song:

Related Posts;
Major Media Refuses to Report on Thousands of Anti-Bailout Tea Party Protesters

National TEA Party Day - Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Thanks Barack... Dollar Sees Worst Drop In Value in 25 Years

2009-03-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

from Gateway Pundit by Gateway Pundit

It was just last year that Barack Obama linked the dollar's steep slide to imbalances in the U.S. economy and Bush administration policies.But, it will be hard for Barry to blame Bush now.This week the dollar dropped the most against foreign currencies in 25 years.Hope. Change. Poverty.Bloomberg reported:

The dollar dropped the most against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners since the Plaza Accord almost a quarter-century ago as the Federal Reserve’s plan to purchase Treasuries spurred speculation that it’s debasing the greenback.

“What it introduces is the problem of the currency to the extent that the Fed is buying what isn’t desired by foreign holders,” said Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., in an interview on Bloomberg Television on March 19. “The Fed can keep interest rates where they want to keep them, at least for a 6- to 12- to 18-month period of time, but it will have consequences down the road.”

The U.S. currency weakened beyond $1.37 per euro this week for the first time since January as the central bank’s decision to increase its balance sheet by $1.15 trillion lowered yields, making American assets less attractive. The Norwegian krone and the New Zealand dollar rallied as the Fed’s move spurred advances in commodities.

The dollar depreciated 4.8 percent to $1.3582 per euro yesterday, from $1.2928 on March 13. The U.S. currency touched $1.3738 on March 19, the weakest level since Jan. 9. The dollar also fell 2.1 percent to 95.94 yen from 97.95. The euro increased for a fifth week versus the yen, gaining 2.9 percent to 130.29 after touching 130.49 yesterday, the highest level since Dec. 18.

The ICE’s trade-weighted Dollar Index dropped 4.1 percent this week to 83.84, the biggest decrease since the week in September 1985 when the U.S., U.K., France, Japan and West Germany agreed at New York’s Plaza Hotel to coordinate the devaluation of the dollar against the yen and deutsche mark.

Meanwhile, a U.N. panel will recommend this week that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies

Major Media Refuses to Report on Thousands of Anti-Bailout Tea Party Protesters

2009-03-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

From GatewayPundit by GatewayPundit

Major media outlets refused to report on the thousands of "tea party" protesters who gathered again this weekend at several events across the nation to protest the Democrat's historic binge spending.

But, the 40 anti-AIG protesters made headlines.

Glenn Reynolds has the graphic:

More than 4,000 people gathered yesterday at the Orlando Tea Party protest.
More than 200 turned out in Raleigh.
300 in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
1,200 turned out in Lexington, Kentucky.

Meanwhile, Tax Day Tea Party planning is in full swing.

Related Posts:
National TEA Party Day - Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

CRITICISM OF BIG MEDIA for paying so little attention to the “tea party” protests.

L.A. Times refused to report 15k Fullterton anti-tax protest, but features A.N.S.W.E.R.’s anti-AIG/anti-war events before they happen

Boston Tea Party to your neighborhood pork protest

Democrook Watch: Dodd's Wife Is a Former Director of Bermuda-Based AIG Controlled Company

2009-03-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

from Gateway Pundit by Gateway Pundit

Chris and Jackie Dodd shared a fondness for AIG.

Not only was Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) one of AIG's favorite recipients of campaign donations but his wife Jackie was a director of an AIG Bermuda-based company.Real Clear Politics reported, via LGF:

No wonder Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) went wobbly last week when asked about his February amendment ratifying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at insurance giant AIG. Dodd has been one of the company's favorite recipients of campaign contributions. But it turns out that Senator Dodd's wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well.

From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an "outside" director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG. IPC, which provides property casualty catastrophe insurance coverage, was formed in 1993 and currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion and trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IPCR. In 2001, in addition to a public offering of 15 million shares of stock that raised $380 million, IPC raised more than $109 million through a simultaneous private placement sale of 5.6 million shares of stock to AIG - giving AIG a 20% stake in IPC. (AIG sold its 13.397 million shares in IPC in August, 2006.)

Clegg was compensated for her duties to the company, which was managed by a subsidiary of AIG. In 2003, according to a proxy statement, Clegg received $12,000 per year and an additional $1,000 for each Directors' and committee meeting she attended. Clegg served on the Audit and Investment committees during her final year on the board.

These self-inflicted wounds are starting to take a toll on Dodd.The one-time Democratic Party National Chairman has been in re-election trouble for some months now.

Meanwhile... The Wall Street Journal reported today that senior Gaither aides worked with AIG for months on bonuses.

Another rough weekend in the headlines for President Obama

2009-03-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

From IHateTheMedia

Ouch. It’s getting rough out there. The fawning press seems to be doing less fawning and a little more…uh..reporting. Yeah, that’s a good word. Reporting.

• Orlando ‘Tea Party’ rally draws thousands

• CITI, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chiefs Criticize Limits on Bonuses

• Alarm over US moves for punitive taxes

• Venezuela’s Chavez calls Obama ‘ignoramus’

• Biden pokes fun at his boss during Gridiron

• Dollar Posts Largest Weekly Drop Since 1985

• Senator Gregg: Obama Budget Will Bankrupt USA

• Resistance grows to Obama’s bigger government; mistrust of central control

• Obama Administration Regroups After Rough Couple of Weeks

• Geithner on ‘Shaky Grounds’

• Obama Insults Special Olympics

• AIG Scandal May Be Last Straw for Chris Dodd’s Career

• Iran’s Supreme Leader Dismisses Obama Overtures

• Senator Shelby Losing Confidence in Geithner

Geithner Knew About AIG Bonuses; Treasury & Dodd Protected ThemGeithner Completely Upends the Democrats' AIG Narrative. We Need Answers.

2009-03-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

Cartoon from Cagle.com

Posted by Brian Faughnan @RedSate.com

Today Treasury Secretary Geithner gave an interview to CNN in an attempt to head off further inquiries into the Democrats’ handling of the AIG mess. What he admits is stunning:

Velshi: One of the issues CNN and other news organizations have reported since late January, that AIG was going to pay about $450 million to about 400 employees of the AIG financial productions unit, which is really at the heart of AIG’s problems, an otherwise healthy company.

There is some dispute as to who knew when what. AIG’s CEO said that you might have known about this earlier than you did. When did you learn about this, and what did you learn?

Geithner: I was informed by my staff of the full scale of these specific things on Tuesday, March 10th. And as soon as I heard about the full scale of these things, we moved very actively to explore every possible avenue — legal avenue — to address this problem, to make sure that, again, the assistance we were providing was not going to unduly benefit these people.

And, you know, we moved very quickly. We’ve made it clear that the payments going forward had to be renegotiated, and we’re going to make sure that the taxpayer is compensated for any payments we can’t recoup. And we’re exploring all legal means to recoup those payments.

Velshi: But you’re pretty certain on the advice that you’ve been given that we can’t just legally not give these — or get any of these bonuses back?

Geithner: Absolutely. That our best judgment at the time was we had no legal ability to block a set of those payments, but those that we had the capacity to affect, we insisted or renegotiated.

In any case, we’re going to go back and try to recoup the payments that were already made [that] we had no legal ability to block at that time.

Velshi: As far as you can remember, though, you did not know about this before March 10th?

Geithner: On Tuesday, I was informed about the full scale and scope of these specific bonus problems. And again, as soon as I did — but, you know, it’s my responsibility, I was in a position where I didn’t know about those sooner, I take full responsibility for that…

Velshi asks who at Treasury requested that Dodd put in the provision to protect the AIG bonuses.

Geithner: This provision? We expressed concern about this specific version. We wanted to make sure it was strong enough to survive legal challenge. But we also worked with him to strengthen the overall framework, and his bill has this very important provision we’re relying on now to go back and see if we can recoup payments that were made that there was no legal ability to block…

Geithner: No, again, what we did is just express concern about the vulnerability of a specific part of this provision, the legal challenge, as you would expect us to do, that’s part of the legislative process, but again, his bill also has this very important provision that allows us to go back and see if we can recoup these payments, and we’re going to explore that, but in any case, we’re going to make sure that the American people are compensated for any payments we can recoup.

Geithner twice says that he did not learn of ‘the full scale and scope’ of the AIG payments until Tuesday, March 10. He needs to tell us what he did know. What does ‘full scale and scope’ mean? He could have known everything but the precise number of bonus payments, or the exact overall total. ‘Full scale and scope’ is a weasel phrase, designed to cloud the issue, rather than to clarify what Geithner knew. He might as well have asked what the definition of ‘is’ is.

Geithner might have known essentially everything about the bonus payments, but still be able to claim not to have known ‘the full scale and scope.’ He needs to explain what he knew, and when he knew it.

Further, Geithner all but admits that the changes made to Dodd’s compensation amendment were designed to protect AIG’s bonus program. He repeats a few times that Treasury wanted to ensure that Dodd’s amendment withstood ‘legal challenges’ and links that to concerns about payments for which ‘there was no legal ability to block.’ It seems safe to assume that the changes that Treasury made to the Dodd amendment were specifically geared to allowing those AIG bonuses, because Treasury believed they lacked the legal authority to block them.

Geithner said he did not speak to Dodd about the amendment, but he doesn’t say whether he was aware of the question at the time. But he is the Secretary of the Treasury; it was his job to know everything about the centerpiece of the president’s agenda. He must have known that there were questions about the constitutionality of a major provision of the bill. He must have known that Treasury staff were working with Dodd to straighten it out. Did Geithner sign off on a change intended to allow AIG’s bonuses to go through? There seems to be no other logical conclusion. After all, he was essentially the only senior staffer at Treasury in this period, and he could not have left the matter to career staff.

Geithner’s interview raises more questions than it answers. Among them:

What did Geithner know about the AIG bonuses, and when did he know it?

Was he aware that AIG was paying hundreds of millions in bonuses to employees who were already well-compensated?

Did he approve of changes to Dodd’s amendment to allow AIG to award these bonuses?

Did he inform (or have staff inform) either the White House or the Congress that AIG’s bonuses were specifically sanctioned by the revised Dodd amendment?

Read the rest HERE

Make big bucks with Obama’s Magic Money Machine™

2009-03-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

From IHateTheMedia

Down on your luck? Out of work? Bank foreclosing on your house? Wish you had a source of unlimited money?

Well, now you do! It’s called Obama’s Magic Money Machine™. And you can have one of your very own for just three easy payments of $19.95 per month. In fact, forget that. Obama’s Magic Money Machine will pay youuuuuuu.

But wait, there’s more! Call now and in addition to Obama’s Magic Money Machine™, we’ll give you a ShamWow and a Snuggie absolutely freeeeeee! But you must call now, because this special offer is only good for the first 300,000,000 callers. Not an American citizen? That’s no problem, either. Just swim across the river and give us a call because we hablamos español, senors y senoritas!

Obama’s Magic Money Machine™. Personally endorsed by Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd. Call now 1-800-IHATETHEMEDIA.COM.

*Obama’s Magic Money Machine™ is a registered trademark of IHateTheMedia.com.

NOTE: This is a freakin’ parody. Do not call that phone number. For all we know, it belongs to some porn operation in Bangkok

IHateTheMedia.com files Freedom of Information Act request seeking video of President’s latest teleprompter mishap

2009-03-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

IHateTheMedia.com files Freedom of Information Act request seeking video of President’s latest teleprompter mishap
From IHateTheMedia

The White House normally rushes video of all the President’s speeches to the media. But they have not yet released video of last night’s teleprompter mishap in which the President mistakenly read the Irish Prime Minister’s speech and thanked himself for inviting himself to the White House.

As a result of the White House’s attempt to cover up Obama’s gaffe, IHateTheMedia.com is officially requesting a copy of the video through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed with the White House Office of Administration of the Executive Office of the President.

“We hope this action will force the White House to end its blatant cover-up and release the footage of the President’s faux pas,” a spokesman for IHateTheMedia.com said. “We know the liberal press would already be howling for congressional investigations if the Bush White House had delayed release of similar footage.”

“We didn’t want to take this action,” the spokesman continued, “but the Obama White House must learn that it is not above the law.”

Let’s see if this will force the White House to release the potentially embarrassing footage.

Check back at IHateTheMedia.com for the latest updates.

Here is the text of the FOIA letter:

Click for the -TEXT OF LETTER — and the rest of the article