Suspected at the time and now being investigated, it appears that malfeasance was committed in order to get Al Franken elected as Senator for Minnesota in the 2008 elections. The state’s Attorney General at the time seemed to portend that a way would be found to elect Franken which ultimately was the case. Facilitating the course of events was corrupt involvement by ACORN.
The manipulation and violation of our laws and the election process by well orchestrated corrupt actions of ACORN, SEIU and other unions and dishonest partisan Democrats and the news media’s malpractice in ignoring such transgressions, presents sever threats to our rights and freedoms.
Demand for probe into MN felon voting grows
Ed Morrissey July 16, 2010
Minnesota Majority spokesman Dan McGrath appeared on the Twin Cities Fox affiliate last night to explain their latest report on felon voting in Minnesota, and to expand on their demand for law enforcement action. According to their meticulous research of voting and conviction records, as many as 1,000 felons may have voted in the 2008 election in Minnesota. That would have been more than enough to swing the US Senate election to Al Franken, who prevailed by just over 300 votes in a protracted recount and election challenge over Norm Coleman. Noting that the data won’t have any impact on the 2008 results, McGrath wants action to ensure the integrity of the upcoming November election, but doesn’t appear to be getting much cooperation:
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to subtract felon voters once the ballots have been cast. That’s why federal law requires states to regularly audit and cleanse their voting rolls to remove the dead and ineligible, in order to protect the value of eligible votes.
The Department of Justice has become disinterested in enforcing this part of the Motor Voter Act, a fact pointed out specific to Minnesota by J. Christian Adams last week on a local talk-radio show. Ramsey County, which includes the capital city of St. Paul, has researched a few of the cases but as noted by Fox 9 reporter Jeff Passolt, doesn’t appear to consider it a priority.
Even if the Minnesota Majority report is entirely correct — and it appears very solid — it wouldn’t provide a basis of overturning Franken’s election. McGrath is right in that the report should be considered in the context of the future instead of the past, and all sides should be demanding enforcement of voter eligibility in order to ensure clean elections. To the extent that enthusiasm lacks, it’s worth asking how much value some people put in clean elections, both inside and outside of Minnesota.
Even a more than 230 year history of democracy in America and a Constitution that champions individual freedom and rights while proscribing those of a federal government won’t prevent the hijacking or transformation of our government into an oppressive one. Unfortunately, we are witnessing and experiencing this firsthand now.
Start with a corrupt and ideologically perverted cabal of well connected individuals, add an adulating and negligent far-left press, influential and implacable liberals and idealists, a benighted populating that is more concerned with hedonistic pursuits than education and politics and you have the perfect storm for such an occurrence. Of course, it helps when the offending politicians have full and functionally unopposable powers in the legislative branch.
Most recently, this has occurred in Russia and Cuba. Let’s forcefully thwart it here before it is too late!
Castro, Obama and the Rule of Law
Floyd and Mary Beth Brown 7/10/2010
This week we had the pleasure of sharing a summer barbecue with a refugee from Cuba. Our dinner conversation was starkly different than most.
This refugee came to the United States as a young boy in the early 1960s. His family was more fortunate than most as they were able to bring a suitcase and $100 when they fled Castro's newly formed revolutionary paradise.
Our dinner consisted of all-American fare: hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and fresh ears of sweet corn. This is a menu shared with family and friends nationwide, while celebrating the birth of our beloved America on the Fourth of July.
We began with a simple discussion about our country and the direction it has taken since Barack Obama came to power. We shared the usual complaints about the sour economy and liberal social engineering emanating from the rulers in Washington.
But then he said it. The sentence came naturally. I assume it was unplanned. But it carried the weight of a freight train.
"You know when Castro took power, none of us knew he was a Communist."
We sat stunned. He continued, "Yes, we all thought he was a patriot, a nationalist. Before the revolution he didn't sound like a radical."
The comparison at this point was easy, and I interjected, "You mean just like Barack Obama?"
He responded, "Yes, just like Barack Obama."
He continued, "We were all shocked as the government just continued to grab more power. First they said the revolution is over, so please turn in your guns. We all complied."
"I remember my uncle saying after it started, 'Castro will only nationalize some of the big industries, he will never come and take our family hardware store.' But that is exactly what happened, Castro started with the sugar mills and the large industries, but they eventually came and knocked on the door of our family hardware store. My family had run this store for generations. They said we now own the hardware store, you work for us.
And that nice, large four-bedroom home you own, it is now our property also, and you can move yourself and five children into two rooms of the house because others are moving in with you."
The lesson learned from this discussion is a lesson most Americans refuse to hear. Political leaders can lie about their agenda and once in office they can take totally unexpected turns.
If you had asked us three years ago if we thought General Motors would be nationalized, we would have never believed it. We could never contemplate a country where the rule of law, the most fundamental building block of a justice society would be evaporating just like it did in Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s.
But the news of injustice keeps increasing. Black Panthers are not charged with wrongdoing by the U.S. Department of Justice because their crimes are against whites. The bondholders of GM are stripped of their assets without due process by the government.
Governmental leaders are bribed in full daylight only to have all investigation of the crimes stifled by the Attorney General. The U.S. borders are overrun with crime and illegal activity and the leaders in D.C. act as if it is important to protect the lawbreakers while the innocent are killed and overrun. When local communities attempt to enforce the law, they are ridiculed and threatened as racists and bigots. They are sued by the very administration entrusted with enforcing the law.
Without the rule of law the U.S. Constitution is a sham. Without the rule of law our beloved America is swiftly becoming a country where only the well connected and politically powerful will be safe. As Michelle Malkin has so eloquently explained in her recent book, a culture of corruption has replaced honest government.
The only way this problem will be fixed is by massive citizen action. All honest citizens that want to be treated equally must come together and demand that the favoritism, the bribes, the uneven enforcement of law end now. And yes, it can happen here.
In a more thorough interview with Megan Kelly, he exposed the rampant attitude of pro-black racism in the Justice Dept. as well as the arrogance, incompetence and culture of corruption present there.
This is an eye-opener … and another reason why the Democrats need to be voted out of office in November and why Obama must be vigorously opposed and ultimately removed as President.
We have always vehemently felt that the dismissal by the Obama Administration of voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party was evidence of their racist, double-standard ideology and not because of lack of evidence. The U.S. had all but won the case yet when it was dismissed, black Attorney General Eric Holder stonewalled all who sought an explanation for the action.
Finally, we now have an answer provided by an attorney within the Justice Dept. who was directly involved in the case. This attorney, J. Christian Adams, has provided explicit inside information on this particular case as well as the mindset and ideologies of those within the Justice Dept. What he reveals in an excoriating expose is precisely what we expected and what is at the ideological core of Obama and his Administration: anti-White racism and a double-standard of ignoring minority perpetrated acts of lawlessness while prosecuting those where Whites were the violators.
This should come as no surprise to those who have investigated or paid close attention to even parts of Obama’s past. His 20 years in the Black Nationalist, anti-White, anti-American Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago which was led by Rev. Wright and honored and revered the despicably racist, anti-Semitic and anti-American Nation of Islam leader Louis Farakkhan. (See video as refresher). His associations with many other black racists over much of his life (check the category Reverse Racism for more).
The endemic (reverse) racism in the government fostered, facilitated and condoned by Obama and his appointees MUST NOT BE TOLERATED!
We must widely expose, condemn and attack this corrupt and illegal attitude and behavior which starts at the top: Obama
OBAMA MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE!!
Inside the Black Panther case Anger, ignorance and lies
By J. Christian Adams June 25, 2010
On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers.
After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.
The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.
The federal voter-intimidation statutes we used against the New Black Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial equality in elections. Threats of violence characterized elections from the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote, and those aiding them, were victims of violence and intimidation. But unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not discriminate. Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of their cause. Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs and in one case in Philadelphia, Miss., they were buried together in an earthen dam.
Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal and the DOJ's skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under subpoena to testify, but the department ordered us to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo.
The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Tom Perez, has testified repeatedly that the "facts and law" did not support this case. That claim is false. If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute voter intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of an actual outbreak of violence at the polls. Let's all hope this administration has not invited that outcome through the corrupt dismissal.
Most corrupt of all, the lawyers who ordered the dismissal - Loretta King, the Obama-appointed acting head of the Civil Rights Division, and Steve Rosenbaum - did not even read the internal Justice Department memorandums supporting the case and investigation. Just as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. admitted that he did not read the Arizona immigration law before he condemned it, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he had not bothered to read the most important department documents detailing the investigative facts and applicable law in the New Black Panther case. Christopher Coates, the former Voting Section chief, was so outraged at this dereliction of responsibility that he actually threw the memos at Mr. Rosenbaum in the meeting where they were discussing the dismissal of the case. The department subsequently removed all of Mr. Coates' responsibilities and sent him to South Carolina.
Mr. Perez also inaccurately testified to the House Judiciary Committee that federal "Rule 11" required the dismissal of the lawsuit. Lawyers know that Rule 11 is an ethical obligation to bring only meritorious claims, and such a charge by Mr. Perez effectively challenges the ethics and professionalism of the five attorneys who commenced the case. Yet the attorneys who brought the case were voting rights experts and would never pursue a frivolous matter. Their experience in election law far surpassed the experience of the officials who ordered the dismissal.
Some have called the actions in Philadelphia an isolated incident, not worthy of federal attention. To the contrary, the Black Panthers in October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. In any event, the law clearly prohibits even isolated incidents of voter intimidation.
Others have falsely claimed that no voters were affected. Not only did the evidence rebut this claim, but the law does not require a successful effort to intimidate; it punishes even the attempt.
Most disturbing, the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these types of cases.
Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.
Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending on their race. Core American principles of equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination are at risk. Hopefully, equal enforcement of the law is still a point of bipartisan, if not universal, agreement. However, after my experience with the New Black Panther dismissal and the attitudes held by officials in the Civil Rights Division, I am beginning to fear the era of agreement over these core American principles has passed.
J. Christian Adams is a lawyer based in Virginia who served as a voting rights attorney at the Justice Department until this month. He blogs at electionlawcenter.com.
Obama’s dereliction of duty regarding expeditiously and appropriately responding to the Gulf oil spill is now being compensated for by strong-arm threats from him and other Administration officials. The American public, including much of his fawning liberal support base, find these to be offensive, unwarranted and not constructive. They are repulsed by his initial actions of sending lawyers through Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate legal infractions rather than marshalling clean-up and stop-up crews.
His most recent response was to form a committee filled with his appointees to deal with the spill two months after it occurred. And who are the members of it? Oil industry experts? Individuals with maritime expertise?
Of course not! They are bureaucrats, environmentalist and political insiders – Obama ideologues. There is no real world experience related to this scenario but that is not the least bit surprising with this arrogant, corrupt, incompetent and ideologically rigid and radical administration.
And these are just a few of the infinite reasons that Obama’s support continues to plummet even among his previously most ardent supports.
Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
Michael Barone June 20, 2010
Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's Gulf oil spill.
Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his "boot on the neck" of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet.
Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts "so I know whose ass to kick." Attacking others is a standard campaign tactic when you're in political trouble, and certainly BP, which appears to have taken unwise shortcuts in the Gulf, is an attractive target.
But you don't always win arguments that way. The Obama White House gleefully took on Dick Cheney on the issue of terrorist interrogations. It turned out that more Americans agreed with Cheney's stand, despite his low poll numbers, than Obama's.
Then there is Obama's decision to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf. This penalizes companies with better safety records than BP's and will result in many advanced drilling rigs being sent to offshore oil fields abroad.
The justification offered was an Interior Department report supposedly "peer reviewed" by "experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." But it turned out the drafts the experts saw didn't include any recommendation for a moratorium. Eight of the cited experts have said they oppose the moratorium as more economically devastating than the oil spill and "counterproductive" to safety.
This was blatant dishonesty by the administration, on an Orwellian scale. In defense of a policy that has all the earmarks of mindless panic, that penalizes firms and individuals guilty of no wrongdoing and that will worsen rather than improve our energy situation. Ineffective thuggery.
And what about the decision not to waive the Jones Act, which bars foreign-flag vessels from coming to the aid of the Gulf cleanup? The Bush administration promptly waived it after Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration hasn't and claims unconvincingly that, gee, there aren't really any foreign vessels that could help.
The more plausible explanation is that this is a sop to the maritime unions, part of the union movement that gave Obama and other Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle. It's the Chicago way: Dance with the girl that brung ya.
Or the decision to deny Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to deploy barges to skim oil from the Gulf's surface. Can't do that until we see if they've got enough life preservers and fire equipment. That inspired blogger Rand Simberg to write a blog post he dated June 1, 1940: "The evacuation of British and French troops from the besieged French city of Dunkirk was halted today, over concerns that many of the private vessels that had been deployed for the task were unsafe for troop transport."
Finally, the $20 billion escrow fund that Obama pried out of the BP treasury at the White House when he talked for the first time, 57 days after the rig exploded, with BP Chairman Tony Hayward. It's pleasing to think that those injured by BP will be paid off speedily, but House Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a "shakedown."
For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply.
So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.
Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command "no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law."
Obama doesn't. "If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so," write the editors of the Economist, who then suggest that markets see Obama as "an American version of Vladimir Putin." Except that Putin is an effective thug.
The above image, posted on www.imaksim.com, captures the essence of the depravity and arrogance (with humor), that suffuses our government under total Democrat control.
For the large interactive image with descriptions, click here
The magnitude of corruption in the Obama Administration seems to be limitless yet nary a word has been written on it by the general news media. However, others largely outside of the “mainstream” have ferreted out these scandals, providing many of the American public with important information.
The following expose reveals additional “convenient” relationships between ostensible opposing parties in the Gulf oil spill, BP and the Obama Administration.
The ties that bind. Remember Rahm Emanuel's rent-free D.C. apartment? The owner: A BP adviser
June 7, 2010
In case you were tempted to buy the faux Washington outrage at BP and its gulf oil spill in recent days, here's a story that reveals a little-known corporate political connection and the quiet way the inner political circles intersect, protect and care for one another in the nation's capital. And Chicago.
We already knew that BP and its folks were significant contributors to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama's 2007-08 campaign.
Now, we learn the details of a connection of Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man and ex-Windy City political machine go-fer.
Shortly after Obama's happy inaugural, eyebrows rose slightly upon word that, as a House member, Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and her husband, Stanley Greenberg.
For an ordinary American, that would likely raise some obvious tax liability questions. But like Emanuel, the guy overseeing the Internal Revenue Service now is another Obama insider, Tim Geithner, who had his own outstanding tax problems but skated through confirmation anyway by the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Remember this was all before the letters BP stood for Huge Mess. Even before the Obama administration gave BP a safety award.
Now follow these standard Washington links if you can:
Greenberg's consulting firm was a prime architect of BP's recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan "Beyond Petroleum."
Greenberg's company is also closely tied to a sister Democratic outfit -- GCS, named for the last initials of Greenberg, James Carville, another Clinton advisor, and Bob Shrum, John Kerry's 2004 campaign manager.
According to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Probably just a crazy coincidence. But you'll never guess who was the chairman of that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispensing those huge polling contracts to his kindly rent-free landlord.
Could the winds be shifting in favor of the American people?
Maybe.
The alleged bribe/enticement of Rep. Joe Sestak so he would not challenge Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter for his seat by someone in the Obama Administration is a serious crime and impeachable offense. Someone in the Administration may ultimately take the fall and be the sacrificial lamb for the individual from which this illegality probably originated - Obama.
We would all prefer that Obama be prosecuted directly and be impeached.
October Surprise: Rahm Emanuel Goes to Jail for Obama
Michelle Oddis 05/26/2010
After months of staying mum, according to Fox News the White House is reportedly going address Joe Sestak’s claims that the Obama administration offered him a high-profile position if he would end his candidacy for the Senate seat held by Arlen Specter.
If these allegations prove true, it is a felony to bribe or entice a candidate to withdraw from a race and or interfere with an election process for federal office and someone is going to have to fall on the sword for Obama.
So who made the offer? Obama’s list of thugs and cronies is endless. Strategically the White House should address the issue as soon as possible, as we approach midterms the White House already has a plethora of situations working against them and faces another summer of discontent.
*an oil spill that has been handled poorly by the administration “since day one,” and continues to worsen each day.
*yesterdays’s proposed $200 billion more in tax payer dollars to promote job creation while voters, by a 50-44 margin, still disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy according to a poll released today.
*North Korea likely preparing to lob missiles at South Korea once again. (Obama has even directed military commanders "to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression.")
*Obama's indignation toward Arizona for the new illegal immigration law that nationally 61% of the population backs.
Now let’s potentially add a jail sentence for his chief of staff. This years "October surprise" looks more and more each day to be one that will favor Republicans.
The following is a video from “Hannity” on 5/25/201 which involves conservative attorneys, Victoria Toensing and Jay Sekulow who took a look at the law and charges that White House officials could face:
In the 1950’s, Ronald Reagan warned us that health care could be used as a means to introduce and implement socialism. His words were quite prescient.
Though the public was and is vehemently against government run health care, the Obama Administration, Pelosi and Reid used bribery of corrupt politicians, and threats, lies or disingenuous arguments with feckless other in order to acquire enough votes to pass the legislation.
Again this was done in spite of overwhelming sentiment by the public against socialized medicine. It was a coup by a power hungry and ideologically driven government that disdains its citizens.
Now it is our turn …!
Obamacare Equals Socialism on Steroids
David Limbaugh May 13, 2010
We knew Obama was prevaricating when he told us his purpose to cram through Obamacare was to provide universal access to coverage and reduce costs, but how many people did he manage to fool? How many are still fooled?
He repeatedly complained that America spent more on healthcare than other nations "but wasn't any healthier." He grossly distorted the numbers of chronically uninsured. He lied about his support for a single-payer plan and in denying that the "public option" was a Trojan horse for such a plan. He misled us concerning his intention to federally fund abortions and the coverage of illegals.
He deceitfully insisted that he wouldn't interfere with the patient-doctor relationship, that patients could choose to keep their own plans, that his plan wouldn't lead to rationing and that it would increase the quality of care.
Perhaps his most cynical fraud was his line that he would not sign a bill that would add one single dime to the federal deficit. Along with the uninsured canard, this was his biggest selling point for Obamacare: Healthcare costs were skyrocketing, and he had the magic bullet to remedy that.
Well, we already have objective proof (courtesy of a delinquent Congressional Budget Office pronouncement) that this, too, was a lie.
Obama and congressional Democrats moved budgetary mountains (in the way David Copperfield moves mountains onstage) to create the CBO-supported illusion that his bill wouldn't increase federal budget deficits.
By asking the CBO to make absurd assumptions and by borrowing from other mythical funds (Medicare), Obamacrats were finally able to make the numbers balance, just long enough to give Obama cover to sign the bill.
But less than two months after he signed the bill into law, the CBO, in response to Rep. Jerry Lewis' request for a rescoring based on realistic assumptions instead of the bogus ones Democrats submitted, has already admitted its estimate didn't take into account "discretionary" expenditures that will add some $115 billion worth of costs.
With the publication of this news, the administration is now making noise, threatening not to fund the bill unless Congress finds sufficient savings elsewhere to nullify that "unexpected" cost increase.
Give me a break. Just how stupid can these people think we are? They knew about these false assumptions before Obama signed the bill, and they're not about to withdraw their wholesale endorsement for Obama's crowning legislative "achievement."
But as bad as Obama's lies were about the costs of his plan, many of us warned that a greater evil in Obamacare was its guaranteed path to reducing our freedoms.
Ronald Reagan was not just issuing platitudes when he said, "One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project . . . From here, it's a short step to all the rest of socialism."
No truer words were ever spoken, and you can be sure that Obama believes it, too, which is exactly why he misrepresented almost every aspect of his plan in order to get it passed — and even then, just barely.
His real purpose, as many of us have been telling you ad nauseam, is to greatly increase the size and scope of government and government control and, in the process, further radically redistribute wealth. He's a socialist. These aren't just words. He really is.
As it turns out, we don't have to wait any longer to prove we were correct about this, too. Obama has nominated Donald Berwick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
I discovered in research on my upcoming book that experts believe that under Obamacare, the role of the CMS will be greatly expanded to define the quality of healthcare for every insurance plan, set reimbursement rates for physicians in Medicare and Medicaid, and decide how valuable certain treatments are.
According to Robert M. Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, Berwick essentially "will get control of the practice of medicine."
It would be scary enough for a bureaucrat of normal sensibilities and saner politics to have such control, but RedState has uncovered the extent of Berwick's radicalism — like so many of Obama's other appointees.
Berwick is an Ivy League academic who loves wealth redistribution and believes that healthcare is an ideal vehicle to achieve it.
Berwick said: "Any healthcare funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must . . . redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition redistributional."
Berwick also lusts after the British system of socialized medicine, saying that America's healthcare system runs in the "darkness of private enterprise."
Instead of reporting all relevant stories in order to inform the public, the media have become fervent supporters and cheerleaders for Obama and the Democratic Party. Instead of their role as anticipated by the Founding Fathers to protect the people from the government and expose malfeasance, they countenance nearly all behavior by liberal politicians and function as a de facto wing of the Democratic Party – a P.R. one.
This collusion with and protection of the favored Obama and Democrats is corrupt, pernicious and threatens the survival of capitalism and democracy in this country. Unless more Americans wake up to this reality and strongly react, our future looks abysmal.
One-Sidedness Now Epidemic In Newsrooms
By Larry Elder 05/04/2010
Obama Double Standard Disease: an affliction that causes the media to ignore, rationalize or trivialize to defend, support and advance the tax-the-rich, spread-the-wealth, expand-the-government agenda of the president and his party.
This stands in stark contrast with media treatment of those who refuse to embrace the left-wing, America-bullies-world, dissenters-are-racist, pro-amnesty, gay-marriage-is-a-right, pro-Roe worldview.
ODSD is pandemic. Here are just a few cases.
When the economy recovered under President George W. Bush, the major media pronounced it a "jobless recovery." Now, despite unemployment stalled at 9.7% for several months, the same media call it a "surprising" or "unexpected" recovery.
Obama urged passage of an $800 billion "stimulus" package to prevent unemployment from reaching 8%. Post-stimulus passage, unemployment reached 10%. Consider how the media would have treated Bush had he given varying predictions about, and then varying accounts of, the number of jobs supposedly "created or saved" — a laughably unprovable yardstick.
Obama brazenly claims that under his policies, 95% of "working Americans" received a "tax cut." But nearly half of American workers pay absolutely nothing in income taxes. And after exemptions, tax credits and other deductions, the Obama tax cut even exceeded many workers' payroll taxes. How does a check, given to someone who pays little or no taxes, become a "tax cut"?
The National Rifle Association backed the 2000 presidential candidacy of George W. Bush. Describing the organization's relationship with Bush as "unbelievably friendly," an NRA official said a Bush victory would mean "a president where we work out of their office." The media pounced.
Typical of the coverage was a Washington Post article with this headline: "The NRA Brags That They'll Work Out Of President GW Bush's Oval Office." The Post pointed out that the NRA gave more than $500,000 in 1999 and 2000 to the GOP and expected to spend between $12 million and $15 million more on the 2000 election.
The Service Employees International Union, to elect Obama and other Democrats in 2008, spent $85 million. And in support of corporate bailouts, ObamaCare and higher taxes to "spread the wealth differently," SEIU President Andy Stern said, "Western Europe, as much as we used to make fun of it, has made different trade-offs which may have ended with a little more unemployment but a lot more equality."
NBC's Matt Lauer did not ask Obama about the incredible willingness of the SEIU — his biggest financial supporter — to accept fewer jobs for "a lot more equality." CBS' Katie Couric did no story on the union's admission that higher taxes mean fewer jobs. No Washington Post editorial page asked how Stern's "trade-off" of fewer jobs squares with what Obama said about the importance of creating jobs: "That's the single most important thing we can do."
Acorn strongly endorsed Obama. The group's CEO, Bertha Lewis, gave a speech at the winter conference of the Young Democratic Socialists. She said: "Any group that says, 'I'm young, I'm Democratic and I'm a socialist,' is all right with me.
"You know, that's no light thing to do, to actually say, 'I'm a socialist.' ... Right now, we are living in a time which is going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It's going to dwarf the internments during World War II. We are right now in a time that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation.
Did the media ask Obama about Lewis' lunatic attack on those who disagree or about her open embrace of socialism? Did the media ask if Obama cared to comment on his promise, made during the campaign, to allow Acorn to "shape the agenda" of his presidency? Did they ask why Obama dismisses critics who call his agenda "socialism" — even as one of his biggest backers uses that very word?
ODSD ravages the country. It guarantees a pass is given to an administration that refuses to use the term "Islamofascism"; that offends traditional allies like Israel and new ones like Poland and the Czech Republic; that apparently accepts a nuclear Iran; that ignores government's role in the housing meltdown while blaming Wall Street "greed"; and that makes appeals to voters along racial lines.
It means the harmful consequences of the exploding welfare state get ignored, trivialized or disputed. It means "experts" hand-picked by the media overwhelmingly support the administration's income-equality agenda. It means that inconvenient news stories questioning "bigger and better" government or showing another side are downplayed, underreported or dismissed.
The Obama Double Standard Disease is a pre-existing illness — not covered, even under ObamaCare.
Now that Obamacare has passed, we are discovering more of the outrageous dictates that were part of the legislation. The article below contains just a few of the tax related issues some of which were previously publicized. One tax in particular which is galling is a 3.8 % tax on all real estate transactions.
The greedy, corrupt tentacles of the federal government are reaching everywhere for more money to feed its spending addiction.
(Note: The following article was written in Washington State so "Washingtonians" refers to residents of that state)
Health law’s heavy impact
Paul Guppy March 28, 2010 The Spokesman-Review Washington State
In the days leading up to the dramatic late-night vote on President Barack Obama’s health plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it …” Now that ObamaCare has passed, it is slowly dawning on people what the new law means for the country and for Washington state.
ObamaCare sweeps away a host of state regulations and permanently alters our state’s insurance market. From now on, the federal government will manage the health care of all Washingtonians. The 2,700-page law contains a complex web of mandates, directives, price controls, tax increases and subsidies.
Federal officials will now decide what kind of insurance people in Washington must have, what medicines will be covered, what treatments are allowed and which are not. Early reports indicate, however, that President Obama, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, senior members of Congress and leadership staff are exempt.
The new law falls well short of universal coverage. ObamaCare will leave about 6 percent of Washington residents without coverage. The measure is conservatively expected to cost $2.4 trillion in its first full decade. Thousands of older Washingtonians will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage, and the state’s 120,000 Health Savings Account holders may need to buy new policies or face stiff penalties.
Washington residents will begin paying ObamaCare taxes this year, while most benefits don’t start until 2014. The law includes some 19 new taxes. Here’s a rundown of what Washingtonians can expect in the coming years.
Penalties on individuals. Individuals will pay a yearly penalty of $695, or up to 2.5 percent of their annual income, if they cannot show they have purchased a government-approved health policy.
Penalties on families. Families will pay a yearly penalty of $347 per child, up to $2,250 per family, if parents cannot show they have purchased a government- approved policy.
Penalties on employers. Business owners with more than 50 employees must buy government- acceptable health coverage or pay a yearly penalty of $2,000 per employee if at least one employee receives a tax credit.
Tax on investment income. ObamaCare imposes a 3.8 percent annual tax on investment income of individuals making $200,000 or more and on families making $250,000 or more. The new tax is not indexed to inflation, so more people will fall under it each year. Seniors on fixed incomes and people with IRAs and 401(k) plans will be hit particularly hard.
Tax on “Cadillac” health plans. Starting in 2018, imposes a 40 percent annual tax on health care plans valued at $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families.
Medicare tax increase. Requires single people earning $200,000 or more and couples earning $250,000 or more to pay an additional 0.9 percent in Medicare taxes.
Tax on Home Sales. Imposes a 3.8 percent tax on home sales and other real estate transactions. Middle-income people must pay the full tax even if they are “rich” for only one day – the day they sell their house and buy a new one.
Tax on medical aid devices. Creates a new 2.9 percent tax on medical aid devices. Certain items intended for personal use are exempt.
Tax on tanning. Imposes a 10 percent tax on services at tanning salons. Business owners will collect the tax from customers and send it to the federal government. This appears to be the first federal sales tax in the United States.
ObamaCare will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service. The tax agency plans to hire 16,500 new auditors, agents and investigators, and to increase enforcement audits. The IRS can confiscate tax refunds, place liens on property and seek jail time if health-related penalties and taxes are not paid.
President Obama had said people could keep their coverage if they want, yet the Congressional Budget Office estimates that under ObamaCare 8 million to 9 million people will lose their employer-provided coverage.
The ObamaCare law passed over bipartisan opposition in Congress. Republicans say they will run on a “repeal and replace” platform this fall, and Washington has joined 12 other states in a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s power to force state residents to buy a product – insurance – from private companies. The long-term prospects of ObamaCare are unclear. In the meantime, Washingtonians should prepare for major changes in their tax burden.
(Paul Guppy is vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center, a research organization with offices in Spokane, Seattle, Olympia and the Tri-Cities ( www.washingtonpolicy.org).)
Probably by now, many people are aware of the exclusion from Obamcare that Congress granted itself, staff members, the President and Vice President. As has been stated myriad times, if the legislation was so utterly fantastic for the American people, why is it not good enough for Congress and the President?
We all know that the political rhetoric which was employed for the bill’s passage was not merely disingenuous but overtly and despicably dishonest and criminal. As stated in a previous post, these politicians see themselves as elitists, members of a privileged class much as was extant in Russia in the 1970’s and early 1980’s – the nomeklatura.
As their employers (at least on paper), we must now revoke their privileges, limit their unrestrained actions, mandate that they abide by the same laws as the rest of us, and vote the offenders out of office.
No Obamacare for Obama
THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 23, 2010
President Obama declared that the new health care law "is going to be affecting every American family." Except his own, of course.
The new health care law exempts the president from having to participate in it. Leadership and committee staffers in the House and Senate who wrote the bill are exempted as well. A weasel-worded definition of "staff" includes only the members' personal staff in the new system; the committee staff that drafted the legislation opted themselves out. Because they were more familiar with the contents of the law than anyone in the country, it says a lot that they carved out their own special loophole. Anyway, the law is intended to affect "ordinary Americans," according to Vice President Joe Biden (who - being a heartbeat away from the presidency - also is not covered), not Washington insiders.
Mr. Obama frequently tossed around the talking point that the new law gave people the same type of coverage as Congress enjoyed. In his March 20 health care pep talk to wavering Democrats on Capitol Hill, the president said one of the advantages of the health care legislation was that "people will have choice and competition just like members of Congress have choice and competition." At yesterday's signing ceremony, Mr. Obama said Americans will be "part of a big pool, just like federal employees are part of a big pool. They'll have the same choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves." But the American people will have a public pool; the executive branch and congressional staffers kept their country-club pool private.
Last year, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, spearheaded efforts to have all Americans included in the plan, but he ran into heavy opposition from unions representing federal workers - the same unions that were pro-Obamacare stalwarts. In September, the Senate approved a scaled-down amendment that covered members of Congress and their staff. When this provision later emerged from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office, the leadership and committee staff loophole had appeared. A move in December by Mr. Grassley and Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, to close this loophole and to extend the law to senior members of the executive branch - including the president, vice president and Cabinet members - was blocked by Senate Democratic leaders.
Mr. Grassley has introduced an amendment to the Senate health care reconciliation bill that also will apply the law to the upper tier of the executive branch and all Capitol Hill staffers, but it remains to be seen whether Democrats will let this measure move forward.
The special exemptions slipped into the health care law are another example of how those statists who rule consider themselves a privileged class, imposing burdens on the country that they will not accept themselves. Candidates for office in 2010 should pledge to close these and other loopholes in the law that impose unequal burdens and create exclusive privileged classes in America. Meanwhile, we await Mr. Obama's explanation why if his "historic" health care law is so great for America, it's not good enough for him and his family.
America under Obama is devolving into the Russia of the early 1980’s as most recently evidenced by the audacious and manifestly corrupt passage of the Obamacare legislation which also excludes Obama, members of Congress and their staffs from having to use it. They will continue to have available to them a gold-plated plan with freedom of choice.
The rest of America won’t – we will either have to wait for it or die waiting.
And Obama doesn’t intend to end his pursuit of increasing control and domination by the Federal Government over the lives of us Americans.
America's New Nomenklatura
Investors Business Daily 03/29/2010
Government: With the passage of health care reform and the ongoing boom in federal hiring, it's becoming increasingly clear that America is now run by a new, privileged class of bureaucrats.
For those who remember the old Soviet Union, it was a grim place — at least for average citizens. But not so for those in government. Contrary to the official ideals of equality and a classless society that the ruling communist regime espoused, the USSR created a privileged class of party members inside government — the nomenklatura.
This semipermanent bureaucracy earned higher incomes, got better health care, ate better food and had greater job security than average Russians, the much-despised proletarians. Today, our bloated federal government seems, in significant ways, to be creating this same dynamic.
Take the just-passed health care bill that carefully excluded the White House, congressional leaders and their staffs from having to live under the reforms' restrictions.
"President Obama will not have to live under the Obama health care reforms, and neither will the congressional staff who helped to write the overhaul," said Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. "The message to the people at the grass roots is that it's good enough for you, but not for us."
The hypocrisy of these officials and the contempt they show for average Americans is bad enough. But Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public can also go to jail or be fined up to $250,000 for not buying insurance. And the government is spending $10 billion to hire 16,500 new IRS agents to make sure they don't escape the new system.
Under current budget plans, this won't end soon. With $45 trillion in new government spending planned over the next decade, this new privileged governing class can only grow.
Today, as we witness a massive shift of resources from the private to the public sector, the only place adding jobs is government. Since the start of last year, the federal government has added 81,000 jobs. By contrast, private-sector payrolls have shed 4.71 million.
Big government is the place to be these days. Federal workers are some of the country's best-paid, earning far in excess of their counterparts in the private sector. A recent report in Politico.com, for example, noted that 2,000 congressional staffers now have incomes in excess of $100,000, and that 43 make the $172,500 maximum.
But the bureaucrats — that silent, permanent government that now exceeds 2.8 million in number — make out just as well.
USA Today recently looked at federal pay vs. private pay in 2008 for specific occupations ranging from airline pilot and cook to computer manager and registered nurse. What they found was more than a little disquieting for those in the private sector.
The average federal worker that year took home on average $67,691 in salary, compared with $60,046 in the private sector — a difference of $7,645. Not that much, you say? Well, that was before benefits are factored.
The average government worker gets a whopping $40,785 a year in health care, pension and other benefits compared to $9,882 for a private worker. The difference in total compensation widens to $38,548 a year — for the same job with the same duties.
Anyone who has visited the slow-moving Post Office, talked to the surly and often hostile IRS agent or even gone to the local DMV to spend time in waiting-room hell can tell you that pay gap doesn't represent productivity, training or ability.
What it does represent is the new Nomenklatura — the privileged apparatchiks who now run our government and with it, sadly, much of our lives. This is very much a result of years of "progressive" thinking that has pushed the Democratic Party sharply leftward across the political spectrum.
Since the Civil War, the so-called Progressive Movement's dream has been to exalt bureaucratic expertise and control over free-market efficiency. With the new administration, their dream has become our nightmare.
Obama is “changing” the Constitution by both by ignoring it and with insidious maneuvering. Activist judicial verdicts further pervert the original intent, reducing citizens’ rights and expanding government power and intrusion. What we need now are explicit Amendments to further delineate and proscribe federal government overreach.
Why should Congress regularly pass legislation that all Americans are mandated to follow but it is exempt from, most notably but not limited to Obamacare? What about the generous perks that they vote for themselves such as regular raises in salary and munificent retirement packages? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the average American could also say” I deserve a pay increase this year so I am going to give it to myself”- and they then do.
This corruption, greed and lack of accountability must be extinguished. Elections alone are not the answer.
Now may just may be the perfect storm for these monumentally important changes to be made.
Will Gov't Health Takeover Bring Constitutional 'Hope And Change'?
By Larry Elder 03/25/2010
We live in a fundamentally different country from that which existed only days ago. The government now requires every American to buy health insurance. The Constitution has been attacked, interpreted in a way beyond its original intent.
Therefore, we must change it.
Ignoring the will of the majority of Americans, the discouraging experiences of countries with socialized medicine, and the already staggering amount of entitlement debt, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats "reformed" health care.
Once a nation under a Constitution that restricted government intrusion, we now want government to provide for our "needs" by calling them "rights."
We now ask government to prop up failing businesses, make student loans, guarantee mortgages, build and maintain public housing, financially support state education from preschool though graduate school, fund private research, provide disaster relief and aid, pay "volunteers" and on and on.
Many in our nation happily submit to this bargain. They consider the Big Three entitlements — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — "rights," their absence unimaginable in a modern "caring" society. It is out of the question to expect people, families and communities to plan for retirement.
It's beyond reason to expect medical care, like any other commodity, to follow the laws of supply and demand — for prices and choices to allocate resources and competition to drive down prices and improve quality. It's too much to expect the compassion, morality and spirituality of humankind to aid those unable to care for themselves.
We ignore history's examples of how good intentions produce bad results. Almost 50 years ago, another "transformative" president launched a War on Poverty. But for many welfare recipients and their families, poverty became "structural."
People became dependent on government.
After the government finally placed some restrictions on welfare, dependency declined. Much to the surprise of those who denounced welfare reform as cruel, people changed their behavior.
We ignore the experience of price controls. Government can dictate prices, but cannot dictate costs. Price controls result in rationing, drive producers out of business and cause lower quality and less innovation. America, because its citizens enjoyed greater economic freedom, built a superior health care system — which ObamaCare now threatens to dismantle.
Communism collapsed under the romantic but bankrupt notion of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive does damage to the incentive of both parties.
European countries — "social justice" democracies — produce comparatively few private-sector jobs. Europe suffers from high taxes, choking union deals that make it virtually impossible to fire workers, and government policies that mandate paid vacations and other job-killing benefits.
Into this statist abyss we willingly jump.
Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern left the Senate after 18 years and bought a small business. It went under. He wrote: "(I) wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. ... Legislators and government regulators must more carefully consider the economic and management burdens we have been imposing on U.S. businesses. ... Many businesses ... simply can't pass such costs on to their customers and remain competitive or profitable."
President Obama, like many in Congress, has little experience in or understanding of the private free-market economy.
Obama never started a business, ran one or struggled to meet a payroll. He shows little respect for the hard, long hours people put in to build successful businesses that hire people. He believes unequal outcomes are unjust and government exists to right this wrong by "spreading the wealth."
If this means telling doctors how to practice, so what? If this means people will be less likely to improve themselves through education and training to get "good" jobs with benefits, so what? If this means we make employers less likely to hire for fear of fines should they fail to offer health insurance, so what? And if the "wealthy" invest less and create fewer jobs because of higher taxes and expensive regulations, so what?
Now what? As many as 39 state legislatures have taken or will take action to block the mandate. Thirteen state attorneys general immediately filed suit, arguing, among other things, that ObamaCare's insurance mandate violates the Constitution's commerce clause. Expect more states to sue.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court broadly interprets the commerce clause — wildly beyond the intent of the Founders — to allow just about anything.
So, the Constitution must be changed. It must be amended to make what was once clear absolutely, positively, unavoidably clear.
Two-thirds of the states can call for a constitutional convention, where an amendment can be proposed to prohibit the forced purchase of health insurance. Three-fourths of the states could then ratify it.
Where were these companies and why weren’t the potential costs widely and vehemently exposed while the legislation was still being “debated”? Inexcusable silence by thousands of companies and millions of citizens engendered the passage of Obamacare with less resistance than should have been the case? This is not to say that Americans were not outraged and didn’t translate this into positive and productive action – they unequivocally did with their letter writing, email and telephone calling campaigns and of course, with the Tea Party movement.
Some corporations might have stayed silent out of fear of government retribution, greed or diaphanous promises by politicians … but now we will all pay the price.
Now that many companies have “elected” to reveal the real devastating financial consequences of Obamacare (driven to a sizable extent by their legal obligations as public companies to release the information), several prominent Democrats are egregiously seeking retribution against them for exposing the gargantuan financial fraud that has been perpetrated with the healthcare legislation.
Our government has abrogated many of our rights and freedoms while aggrandizing their power … and continues to thirst for more. This is the evil addiction and corruption of power which must be vanquished and reversed.
This must not be the new America that we have to live in!
Dems Threaten Congressional Show Trials After US Companies Leak Real Economic Damage of Obamacare
Jim Hoft March 28, 2010
Late last week several US corporations leaked how the democrat’s health care bill will kill their businesses. The radicals in Congress were not pleased that these corporations would go public with this devastating information. In response, democrats threatened to call for Congressional show trials to publicly humiliate these corporations.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.
This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”
…Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”
In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden.
Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.
On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.
The last paragraph says it all about the democrat’s trickery:
The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don’t make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.
Byron York at The Washington Examiner has more on the show trials.
Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances — a move one committee Republicans describes as “an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats’ flawed health care reform legislation.”
…Waxman has ordered the executives to explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee. That subcommittee just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who held out his vote on health care reform until a few hours before final passage on March 21, giving the bill’s opponents the unfounded hope that he might vote against it.
Waxman’s demands came Friday in letters to several executives. “After the president signed the health care reform bill into law, your company announced that provisions in the law could adversely affect your ability to provide health insurance,” Waxman wrote to Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. A few hours before Waxman sent his letter, AT&T announced it will take a $1 billion charge against earnings because of the tax provision in the new health bill. AT&T also said it will be “evaluating prospective changes” to its health care benefits for all workers…
Waxman’s request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.
These democrats in Washington are nothing but thugs. They’ll try anything to keep the truth from coming out about their disastrous legislation.
It seems that wherever one looks at in the Obama Administration, there are quixotic ideologues and corrupt, arrogant, contemptuous, radical and inept individuals. Rather than serving the public, they are elitists that see the American public as their servants. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod are quintessential examples but unbelievably, may not be the worst offenders. This dubious distinction goes to Attorney General Eric Holder. Not enumerated in the following editorial was his galling and indefensible dropping of voter intimidation charges by the Dept. of Justice against two individuals of the New Black Panther Party who were already prepared to plead guilty. His racism appears to be the only motivation behind this action which he refuses to elaborate on.
The Self-Righteous Haplessness Of Eric Holder
By Michael Gerson 03/18/2010
Attorney General Eric Holder is controversial on the left for preserving much of the Bush administration's legal structure for conducting the war on terror. He is controversial on the right for overturning portions of that structure in ways that seem both clueless and reckless.
But Holder is the most endangered member of the Obama Cabinet for a different reason: Just about everything he has touched has backfired. The list is oddly impressive.
First, there was the decision to release Bush-era interrogation memos and reopen the investigation of CIA interrogators after they already had been cleared by career prosecutors. Holder assumed that these actions would rally public outrage. Instead, he started a national security debate he has pretty much lost.
Seven former CIA directors — serving under Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 — sent Holder a letter warning that his actions could "help al-Qaida elude U.S. intelligence and plan future operations." Holder opened a serious, ongoing rift between the Department of Justice and the intelligence community.
Trial Of The Century
Second, there was Holder's repudiation in the matter of John Yoo and Jay Bybee — the Bush administration lawyers who provided the legal justification for enhanced interrogations. Holder appointees had determined the two lawyers guilty of professional misconduct. But the Justice Department's senior career attorney cleared Yoo and Bybee of the charge, embarrassing Holder in the process.
Third, there was the handling of the underwear bomber case. It is fortunate that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab eventually resumed cooperation. It is also evident that Holder's decision to Mirandize him after 50 minutes was hasty and based on minimal consultation with intelligence officials. Holder treated a national security judgment as a purely legal one.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair later told Congress: "That unit (the High Value Interrogation Group) was created exactly for this purpose — to make a decision on whether a certain person who's detained should be treated as a case for federal prosecution or for some of the other means. We did not invoke the HIG in this case; we should have."
In fact, Blair was unaware that the High Value Interrogation Group did not yet exist.
Fourth, there is the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and the civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 conspirators in Manhattan. Under Holder's direction, this process has collapsed.
There is no serious plan to close Guantanamo. Holder has been unable to articulate reasons why some terrorism cases are referred to civilian courts while others are tried in military tribunals. And his groundwork for a "trial of the century" was botched in almost every respect.
The White House, having lost faith in Holder's ability to manage terrorism trials, has assumed direct control of the process. Civilian trials for the 9/11 terrorists now seem unlikely anywhere in the U.S.
But backing down on that commitment will have a cost. "If this stunning reversal comes to pass," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, "President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values."
While a military trial for KSM would hardly be a mortal blow to American ideals, Holder's initial announcement has created a political expectation on the left that may be impossible to fulfill.
Finally, there are the Supreme Court briefs filed by Holder that he failed to disclose to Congress during his confirmation — likely to be the focus of a congressional oversight hearing in which Holder will testify on Tuesday.
Public Blunders
Holder's spokesman says this omission was inadvertent. But one of those briefs opposed the detention of Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, leading Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to wonder, "Are we expected to believe that then-nominee Holder, with only a handful of Supreme Court briefs to his name, forgot about his role in one of this country's most publicized terrorism cases?"
Holder's briefs preview his later decisions on the underwear bomber and KSM. Few in Congress or the White House have leapt to defend Holder's convenient omission.
Add to all of this a series of public gaffes. America is a "nation of cowards." The possibility of capturing Osama bin Laden alive "simply does not exist."
Sometimes haplessness can provoke sympathy. But Holder mixes ineptness with self-righteousness. Critics of his questionable choices, he says, "cower." They lack "confidence in the American system of justice."
But there is another possibility. Perhaps Holder's critics — in Congress, in the country and even within the White House — just lack confidence in his judgment.
• Gerson, a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group, was head speechwriter and a policy adviser for George W. Bush from 1999 to 2006.
It is difficult if not impossible to find a period of time in our history where our government is as corrupt and hell-bent on abrogating the freedoms and rights of its citizens. This is the anathema of a one party rule without countervailing opposition. What we are witnessing is a revolution by corrupt and unconstitutional legislation perpetrated by “our” government which must be stopped.
The next few days are the most critical for all of us. We urge you to call, e-mail and fax Senators and Representatives across the country and give them a piece of your mind. Then in November, these corruptocrats need to be ousted wholesale.
Not Even A Vote?!
Investors Business Daily 03/16/2010
Health Reform: Using a parliamentary trick ironically known as the "self-executing rule," Democrats plan on passing their massive health bill without voting. In November, they'll learn just how "self-executing" it was.
Just when you thought Washington couldn't get more corrupt, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week seems intent on trampling representative government itself. Unable to get the votes to pass their U.S. health care revolution, she and her fellow Democratic leaders have figured out a way to pass it without a vote.
The "self-executing rule" has been "used to adopt concurrent resolutions correcting the enrollment of measures or to make other technical changes to legislation," according to the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.
It's "a two-for-one procedure," as the CRS describes it, because the House of Representatives always must pass a rule, written by the House Rules Committee (where Democrats hold a 9-to-4 majority), setting the terms of debate on a particular piece of legislation. In this case, it's been rigged so that if the rule passes, the legislation passes too.
The trick has been used before, as cited by the CRS, on obscure measures like the prohibition of smoking on airline flights in 1989, an employee verification program regarding illegal aliens in 1996, the blocking of the use of statistical sampling for the 2000 census until federal courts could determine its constitutionality, and an IRS overhaul in 1997.
But never on anything approaching such landmark legislation.
Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, is among a number of legal scholars who believe this Slaughter Solution, named after House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., "would stand a very good chance of being tossed out by the U.S. Supreme Court."
In the 1998 Clinton v. City of New York ruling on the line-item veto, liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for a 6-to-3 majority, "laid a likely road map for how the court might rule on a challenge to the constitutionality of the Slaughter Solution," according to Ridenour.
Stevens made note of "three procedural steps" that must be taken before a bill becomes law: The "exact text" must be "approved by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives"; the Senate must approve "precisely the same text"; and the same text must be "signed into law by the president. The Constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may become a law."
Indeed, Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution couldn't be clearer: "The votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively."
Michael McConnell, a former federal judge and director of Stanford University's Constitutional Law Center, writing in the Wall Street Journal this week, declared the trick unconstitutional because "this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form." Talk radio host and Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin warned of its use sparking "the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War."
The president, the speaker and the rest of those involved in one-party rule in Washington may think they know what's good for the American people better than the people do.
Do they also think they know better than the framers of the Constitution and their naive ideas of one man, one vote?
If anything could swell the ranks of the populist Tea Party movement and make it friendlier to Republican candidates this November, it's executing the "self-executing rule."
Americans don’t need a government controlled, bureaucratic, bloated, corrupt, inherently inefficient and unnecessarily costly healthcare system. And that’s not even considering Obamacare. There are many relatively simple solutions that can make the whole system less costly, complex and more efficient for everyone.
The only problem is that these possibilities may remove some of the potential to promulgate corrupt deals and legislation by Obama and Congress.
A Modest And Effective Health Reform
By Benjamin Zycher
Notwithstanding the election outcome in Massachusetts last month, efforts inside the Beltway to "reform" the health insurance system — that is, to centralize the rules and outcomes of health coverage — will continue, and still may prove successful if the drumbeat for "compromise" with fatally flawed ideas is heeded.
This centralization would be a disaster because government does not have patients. It has interest groups, an eternal truth that casts a shadow long and dark in the context of a federal takeover of the health insurance market.
Decentralization — a reduction in the role of government — is the only path that can lead toward reduced cost pressures and increased choices for patients with vastly heterogeneous needs and preferences.
One straightforward reform that could be adopted quickly is the implementation of a nationally available "entrepreneurs" health coverage policy freed from the many benefit mandates imposed upon the health insurance market.
State governments, responsible for regulating health insurers, for years have required health insurance policies to cover particular services and categories of providers. This means that individuals must pay for such mandated coverage even if they otherwise might choose not to do so.
The average state imposes about 35 such mandates, and a conservative estimate of the marginal cost of each is about 0.3% of premiums. Premiums thus are forced up by about $1,294 per year in the average state for a group (employer-based) family policy, ranging from $260 per year in Idaho, the state with the fewest mandates (8), to $2,486 per year in Rhode Island, the state with the most mandates (62).
The specifics of coverage policies freed from such mandates would be determined by competition in the market. But premiums incontrovertibly would fall.
A new study from the Pacific Research Institute shows that these policies would enroll about 13.6 million individuals now covered by private insurance, and, very conservatively, about 3.2 million of those now uninsured. This represents about 8% of those insured privately or uninsured for the U.S. as a whole, ranging from about 1.6% for Idaho to about 11.9% for Rhode Island.
By eliminating the many benefit and provider mandates now imposed by state laws, entrepreneurs' coverage would reduce the degree to which consumers treat health insurance as a way to shift known costs onto others, rather than as a way to pool the risks of future adverse health events.
This would be an important step toward restoring health insurance as protection against catastrophic events rather than prepayment for anticipated medical services, and so would strengthen incentives to economize on the use of health care resources.
More generally, such a reform would be driven by market forces — the preferences of consumers and the costs faced by insurers — and so would decentralize and depoliticize the system.
Because representative democracy is the art of wealth redistribution, and because resources are limited always and everywhere even (or especially) for the federal government, a system of health coverage centralized in the Beltway inexorably would be transformed into a massive tug-of-war among groups seeking both increased allocations for the treatments in which they are particularly interested, and a shift of costs onto others.
Merely consider the tempest over breast mammograms that erupted late last year. Mammograms, of course, are hardly the only medical service for which there is a constituency, and enactment of centralized "reform" legislation would be the beginning rather than the end of such interest-group competition.
Thus would insurance coverage — and therefore the delivery — of various medical procedures increasingly come to be politicized over time.
A new public policy allowing individuals and groups to escape the constraints imposed by state benefit mandates would have the opposite effect, and thus would represent real reform.
Other important reforms include:
• Elimination of the tax preference that now favors coverage purchased in the group (employer) market over the non-group market.
• A rollback of the rules and tax preferences that induce groups and individuals to purchase expensive coverage with low deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket maximums.
• An end to the regulatory restrictions that prevent interstate competition in health insurance.
In greater and lesser degrees, such sensible reforms would decentralize decision-making and unleash the competitive processes that offer consumers expanded choice among myriad alternative insurance contracts, thus improving the efficiency of resource use in the health care sector, and restoring the doctor-patient relationship as the final authority with respect to medical decisions.
• Zycher is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute.
The feeding frenzy by the Federal government and the news media regarding Toyota illustrates the dangers and threats to rights of “non-preferred” groups and companies that a too powerful, corrupt central government presents. It should serve as a warning for all of us including those who may still support Obamacare and government take-overs of other areas of our economy.
You can be sure if this were a problem with GM or Chrysler vehicles which the government presently owns, we would not be witnessing such a spectacle. In fact, these two companies have had decades of history of woefully inferior and flawed vehicles that have been subject to countless recalls yet Congress rarely besmirched them as they are doing with Toyota right now. During most of this period, Toyota has been the paragon of excellence and a great employer for hundreds of thousands of workers.
This is not to say that Toyota is innocent of charges. They are not. But, the Federal government, now with the Democrats in charge, clearly has a severe conflict of interest and is paying back and going to bat for one of its largest and most powerful constituencies, the labor unions. You see, Toyota has its plants in non-union right to work states, a situation that the labor unions and their leaders abhor.
Congress Puts Toyota On Show Trial
Investors Business Daily 02/23/2010
Commerce: Toyota's leaders are in for nasty star-chamber hearings in Congress, with politicians grandstanding and regulators pointing fingers. It's no way to treat a big employer that contributes so much to our economy.
When Toyota first came to the U.S. in the 1950s and took out TV ads in the 1960s, the Japan-based company was ridiculed. How could its dinky little cars compete with the mighty Big Three automakers for the American market?
But by the 1970s, word got out that Toyota was making a superior energy-efficient product and it won the public over.
That success seems to be why Toyota is being singled out for loud hearings by two congressional panels for its recent recall of nearly 650,000 cars. "While Honda recalled 636,000 models last month and Ford recalled more than 4 million vehicles last year, neither company was subjected to a Congressional Hearing," noted Americans for Tax Reform in a statement.
Small wonder then that a Toyota internal memo declared the current climate in Washington is "not industry friendly."
That's a fact.
The problem is that while beating up Toyota may serve the political aims of some, its real effect will be to kill jobs, corrupt any semblance of impartial regulatory action, discourage foreign investment, and defund cities and towns whose tax bases depend much on Toyota dealers. In short, the show trial will make us all poorer.
For starters, Toyota employs over 200,000 Americans across the spectrum of the auto industry. Parts plants, assembly plants, dealerships and repair shops all owe their existence to Toyota.
Already plants are shutting down and employees are being laid off, beyond all proportion to the recall problem, because of the congressional effort to drag Toyota through the mud.
City governments take in significant revenues from these operations. Don't think they won't feel the impact of these hearings.
Yet there's more than a whiff of Saul Alinsky's community organizing principles in this noisy government campaign against Toyota — "Pick a target, personalize it, freeze it, polarize it."
So now Congressional committees are hauling in Toyota's president Akio Toyoda all the way from Tokyo to testify. It's a sorry spectacle because Toyota has tried to be a good corporate citizen.
Recall that the first complaint against Toyota in the 1970s was that it imported cars to the U.S. instead of built them here.
So, Toyota built plants here, employing some 30,000 U.S. citizens directly. In the process, it also subcontracted to American companies — such as the one that makes the pedals in question now — all to make the "Buy American" crowd happy.
Toyota also bowed down to Jesse Jackson's race-baiting corporate shakedowns, giving him much of the $7.8 billion it set aside for "diversity" to hand out to his favored groups for his programs.
Now with the recent events — including Toyota's president making an unprecedented apology for the recall of 8.5 million vehicles with suspect accelerator pedals, a humiliating loss of face in Asian culture — Toyota officials must be wondering why they even tried.
The effort to take them down continues because of one thing the unions — and the union-friendly Obama administration — can't forgive: Toyota's choice of states for its plants, states with good investment climates and nonunion right-to-work laws.
As U.S. rivals like GM and Chrysler survive on government bailout money and continue to employ inefficient and expensive union labor, and their U.S. government owners try to regain market share for them, what better way than to discredit Toyota out of all proportion to its supposed sins by using Alinsky-style tactics?
Evidence is piling up that this is political.
First, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has a conflicting dual role as both regulator and owner of rival auto companies, advised Americans not to drive Toyotas.
Now Politico reports that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee is calling for an investigation of Transportation department officials' e-mails. These may show they improperly conferred with insurance agency officials about congressional testimony to cover up for Transportation Department neglect of its regulatory duties.
In an atmosphere like this, why would Toyota want to invest more, hire more or try to please political powers as a good corporate citizen? Or any other company?
As Congress tries to discredit Toyota and destroy its market share out of all proportion to its transgressions, the ultimate effect will be to hurt America's interests most.
The news media and “our” liberal politicians see themselves as so elitist and righteous that they are resorting to attacking the American people who disagree with their policies. They disparage us as ignorant or benighted simply because we are exercising our Constitutional (and inherent) rights to oppose their far-left positions. Democracy has suddenly become an inconvenience for them as it has made passage of their various bills which would further restrict and control our rights and freedoms and plunder more of our hard earned wealth, nearly impossible.
This is also exactly why they are viciously attacking and denigrating the Tea Party Movement, a grass roots movement that represents an angry middle America. We are sick and tired of politicians imperiously foisting expensive and irresponsibly solutions on us, ransacking ever increasing amounts of the fruits of our labor, and destroying our economy, jobs and freedoms yet they live by another set of rules (including their gold plated healthcare plan), corruptly aggrandize themselves with our tax dollars and evince a general antipathy toward the people who are suppose to be their bosses.
This must stop. These despicable, arrogant, corrupt politicians must be voted out of office ASAP!
As for much of the news media, a boycott of their products and programs can be quite effective. In the following article alone, several of these are quoted from that excoriate Americans that we can place on this list:
Times Magazine, Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker
To this we can add other far-left media like: MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS
Money, or the lack of it, talks. Let’s be quite loud on this issue!
Blame Americans First
Democrats lose patience with democracy.
By Matthew Continetti March 1, 2010
What’s the clearest sign the Obama agenda is in trouble? That’s easy: the string of jeremiads in the pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets of fashionable opinion. Unable to tout the administration’s successes, and worried about Republican ascendancy, liberals have assigned responsibility for the mess they’re in neither to their program nor to their methods but to larger, structural faults in American politics and society. Beginning with you.
You aren’t too bright, for one thing. After all, opines Jacob Weisberg in Newsweek, the “biggest culprit” behind “our political paralysis” is the “childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.” You simply do not know what’s good for you. “On many issues these days,” writes the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein, “the American people are badly confused.” “The people may have spoken,” writes the New -Yorker’s James Surowiecki. “It’s just not clear that they’re making any sense.” In a blog post titled “Too Dumb to Thrive,” Time magazine’s Joe Klein cuts to the chase: “It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you’re a nation of dodos.”
The problem, as Weisberg sees it, is that America “simultaneously demands and rejects action on unemployment, deficits, health care, and other problems.” Note the myopia. For Weisberg, the only conceivable “action” on any issue is limited to the policy preferences of liberal Democrats. No other options spring to mind.
This is nonsense. Just because the public says the economy is important does not necessarily mean it has to support a stimulus measure that has added massively to the debt without much benefit. Just because the public is concerned with rising health care costs does not mean that it has to support a bill that could alter existing health care arrangements and increase costs in the long-term. Steven Pearlstein writes that Americans “want to do something about global warming.” No they don’t. Global warming came dead last in a recent Pew survey of public priorities.
The reason health care, cap and trade, and the other blocks of Obama’s New Foundation are unpopular isn’t public ignorance. It’s that the public sees them as counterproductive—and in many cases beside the point. The people’s representatives have responded to a variety of signals, from falling poll numbers, to town hall protests, to GOP victories in -Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Which is precisely how democracy is supposed to function.
And that’s the problem, says Kurt Andersen in New York magazine. “American democracy has gotten way too democratic.” The “thoughtful, educated, well-off, well-regarded gentlemen” who designed our Constitution “wanted a government run by an American elite like themselves.” But the “populist impulse” abroad in the land today has scared legislators into obeying the people’s demands.
It was not always thus. “In the old days,” Andersen laments, “the elite media really did control the national political discourse” and “presidents and congressional leaders could pretty well manage the policy conversations” without the public trying to butt in. But there’s no going back now; “maybe our republic’s constitutional operating system simply can’t scale up to deal satisfactorily with a heterogenous population of 310 million.”
This liberal uneasiness with democracy is not new. In 2003, in The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria made the case against too much public involvement in government. In 2008, in Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas Friedman dreamed of America becoming “China for a day” so that he could impose his environmental agenda on a truculent populace. In a 2009 New York Times column, Friedman wrote that a dictatorship, “when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today,” has “great advantages” over democratic systems. In the Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows writes that “whatever is wrong with today’s Communist leadership [in Beijing], it is widely seen as pulling the country nearer to its full potential rather than pushing it away.” Nevertheless, the Democrats probably aren’t going to run on “Communist China Does It Better.”
What makes the liberal jeremiads confusing is that they work at cross purposes. On one hand, you’ve got the attacks on the people’s intelligence and representative government. On the other, you’ve got the attacks on American institutions for not being representative enough. Which is it? Are the people the problem, or is their government? According to Fallows, it’s the latter: “Our government is old and broken and dysfunctional, and may even be beyond repair.”
The culprit is the Senate, which gives equal say to states with small populations and requires 60 votes to pass legislation. Fallows says these minority rights have turned the Senate “into a deep freeze and a dead weight.” “America is not yet lost,” Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times, “but the Senate is working on it.” In a Huffington Post blog, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, writes that special interests are “using the filibuster to stop legislation that would benefit the little guy,” whether the little guy likes it or not.
You can make a persuasive argument that the filibuster has been deployed too frequently in recent years, especially when it has prevented presidents, Republican and Democrat, from staffing their administrations. Nevertheless, the Senate and the filibuster are there for good reasons: to defuse momentary passions that could have unintended and harmful consequences for the country.
The system is designed to ensure broad consensus before Congress enacts major reforms. Such consensus existed during the New Deal and Great Society. And there was consensus behind certain elements of Reagan’s and Bush’s and Clinton’s programs, as well. That was not the case when George W. Bush attempted to overhaul Social Security, however. The public agreed with Bush that there was a problem, but it did not like his solution. It has had the same reaction to Obama’s proposals.
The liberal program is in disarray because liberals have failed to establish general agreement. They have found that simple majorities do not automatically translate into programmatic success. And when they are met with public opposition and institutional resistance, they do what comes naturally. They blame Americans first.
Matthew Continetti is associate editor of The Weekly Standard and the author, most recently, of The Persecution of Sarah Palin (Sentinel Books).
We have come to expect as routine, duplicitous politicians who want to “have it both ways” when dealing with different elements of their constituencies. It is a sad commentary but infinitely true. Unfortunately, like an aggressively metastasizing cancer, this wanton lack of integrity and sincerity has increasingly invaded other areas of our culture that had previously been somewhat respected.
Most recently, we have witnessed the global collusion of numerous scientists involved in the Climategate scandal, manufacturing or cherry picking data in order to fraudulently substantiate their flawed, perverted beliefs and ideologies. If their schemes hadn’t been uncovered, it could have cost this country tens of trillions of dollars and strangled our economy and standard of living.
In the past, you might have figured a Nobel Laureate should be worthy of respect, a person who has achieved so much in their field and who, by definition, has made supreme contributions to the world or society.
No more! It has largely become a sham with many of these individuals possessing the same ethics as your white collar criminal though on a more grandiose scale.
To wit: Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and Yassar Arafat all receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. And let’s not forget the epitome of corruption and a vacuum of morals, Al (Global Warming) Gore.
There is another member of this pantheon of corrupt and dishonest intellectuals: left wing economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.
It is most evident that in the world we live today, we are forced by circumstances to teach our children to be infinitely cynical, trust no one, and that “facts” including “scientific discoveries” may just be fiction. We can’t believe our Government and have witnessed far too much egregious behavior, absence of integrity, and intellectual dishonesty to trust our teachers, scientists, clergy, etc.
Bush's Deficit Bad, Obama's Deficit Good: So Sayeth Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate
By Larry Elder 02/11/2010
Left-wing economist, Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman hates deficits in tough economic times — when the president of the United States is named George W. Bush.
In a November 2004 interview, Krugman criticized the "enormous" Bush deficit.
"We have a world-class budget deficit," he said, "not just as in absolute terms, of course — it's the biggest budget deficit in the history of the world — but it's a budget deficit that, as a share of GDP, is right up there."
The deficit in fiscal 2004 was $413 billion, or 3.5% of gross domestic product.
Back then, a disapproving Krugman called the deficit "comparable to the worst we've ever seen in this country. ... The only time postwar that the United States has had anything like these deficits is the middle Reagan years, and that was with unemployment close to 10%."
Take away the Social Security surplus spent by the government, he said, and "we're running at a deficit of more than 6% of GDP, and that is unprecedented."
He considered the Bush tax cuts irresponsible and a major contributor — along with two wars — to the deficit. But he also warned of the growing cost of autopilot entitlements:
"We have the huge bulge in the population that starts to collect benefits. ... If there isn't a clear path towards fiscal sanity well before (the next decade), then I think the financial markets are going to say, 'Well, gee, where is this going?'"
Three months earlier, Krugman had said, "Here we are more than 2 1/2 years after the official end of the recession, and we're still well below, of course, pre-Bush employment."
In October 2004, unemployment was 5.5% and continued to slowly decline. At the time, Krugman described the economy as "weak," with "job creation ... essentially nonexistent."
How bad would it get? If we don't get our "financial house in order," he said, "I think we're looking for a collapse of confidence some time in the not-too-distant future."
Fast-forward to 2010.
The projected deficit for fiscal year 2010 is over $1.5 trillion, or more than 10% of GDP. This sets a post-WWII record in both absolute numbers and as a percentage of GDP. And if the Obama administration's optimistic projections of economic growth fall short, things will get much worse.
So what does Krugman say now? We must guard against "deficit hysteria." In "Fiscal Scare Tactics," his recent column, Krugman writes:
"These days it's hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we're told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world.
"These claims generally aren't stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they're reported as if they were facts, plain and simple."
He continues: "And fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction."
Krugman believes Bush lied us into the Iraq War. Just as people unreasonably feared Saddam Hussein, they now have an unwarranted fear of today's deficit.
Questions:
• Didn't Krugman, less than six years ago, call the deficit "enormous"?
• Wouldn't he, therefore, consider a $1.5 trillion deficit at 10% of GDP mega-normous?
• Didn't he describe the economy with 5.5% unemployment as "weak"? Isn't the current economy, at 9.7% unemployment, even weaker?
• If the 2004 deficit was "comparable to the worst we've ever seen in this country," wouldn't today's much bigger deficit cause even more heartburn?
Nope. Now a huge deficit is actually a good thing: "The point is that running big deficits in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930s is actually the right thing to do. If anything, deficits should be bigger than they are because the government should be doing more than it is to create jobs."
The deficit "should be bigger"?!
Long term, Krugman says, we've got concerns about revenue and spending. But as for now:
"There's no reason to panic about budget prospects for the next few years, or even for the next decade."
In 2004, Krugman warned that without a "clear path towards fiscal sanity" before "the next decade," we faced a "crunch."
Presumably, we now have this "clear path."
Let's review. In 2004, an unhappy Krugman criticized Bush's "weak" economy and "miserable" job creation. Running an "enormous" deficit was a bad thing. Times were awful — "by a large margin" the worst job crash and performance since Herbert Hoover.
Today the deficit is four times as large in an even weaker economy with much higher unemployment. Times are awful. Now, though, the deficit is a good thing and should be even bigger.
Krugman's flip-flop on the deficit demonstrates a modern economic equation. Hatred of Bush + love for Obama = intellectual dishonesty.
In an article posted by Bob Unruh in WorldNetDaily.com on Jan. 29th, he exposed the despicable profligacy and unfettered arrogance of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. As noted:
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, which investigates and prosecutes government corruption, show Pelosi incurred expenses of some $2.1 million for her use of Air Force jets for travel over that time.
"Speaker Pelosi has a history of wasting taxpayer funds with her boorish demands for military travel," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said today. "And these documents suggest the Speaker's congressional delegations are more about partying than anything else."
It may seem tiring and redundant to continue to hear and read about the global warming fraud but in the end if we don’t fight hard enough to figuratively “bury” the issue, the all too willing corrupt and ideological perverted Congressional Democrats and Obama will “bury” us instead with massive taxation and severe restrictions of our choices and activities at all levels. A majority of Americans recognize this political and scientific scam for what it is … and there is surely an over abundance of incriminating evidence.
The following outlines some additional and important revelations regarding this malfeasance.
Climate Flimflam Flaming Out
Investors Business Daily 01/25/2010
Environment: The United Nations makes a claim that can't be supported by science, and U.S. researchers ignore temperature data from frigid regions. The crack-up of the global warming fraud is picking up speed.
With so much of the science behind climate change coming under attack, especially among scientists, it's been a harsh winter for the global warming crowd:
• In late November, thousands of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were leaked to the public. The evidence strongly suggests that researchers colluded to prove the global warming scientific "consensus" by rigging, burying and destroying data that ran counter to their political agenda.
• Last week, the public learned that claims made by the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change were not based on science, but on speculation. Specifically, the IPCC's 2007 report said the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035 due to man-made global warming.
The claim, used at the U.N. Copenhagen climate change conference in cold and snowy December to rush through a restrictive greenhouse-gas-emissions treaty, was not based on a scientific study. It was based on a telephone call that a reporter had with a scientist who was speculating.
The IPCC has withdrawn the claim. Murari Lal, the scientist who included the contention in the U.N. report, admitted that he knew it wasn't based on peer-reviewed scientific research.
• Also in the last week, it was revealed that U.S. researchers working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are excluding temperature data from cold regions for a database used by the U.N. in its global warming scare campaign.
Canwest News Service, a Canadian agency that also owns a chain of newspapers, reported Friday, "In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada.
"Worse, only one station — at Eureka on Ellesmere Island — is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle.
"The Canadian government, meanwhile, operates 1,400 surface weather stations across the country, and more than 100 above the Arctic Circle, according to Environment Canada."
Canwest also reports that Americans Joseph D'Aleo, a meteorologist, and E. Michael Smith, a computer programmer, say that the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies has "reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database" and has "cherry-picked" the stations.
The NASA agency uses data from "sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea — which has a warming effect on winter weather."
In a paper published on the Science and Public Policy Institute Web site, D'Aleo and Smith say the "NOAA ... systematically eliminated 75% of the world's stations with a clear bias toward removing higher-latitude, high-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.
"The thermometers, in a sense, marched toward the tropics, the sea and to airport tarmacs."
• Then, just last weekend, we find that same 2007 IPCC report included another phony claim: that "the rapidly rising costs" of natural disasters since the 1970s is linked to global warming.
British newspapers reported Sunday that that assertion was neither peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific paper when the IPCC report was issued. When the paper that the claim was based on was published in 2008, its authors said:
"We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."
Now the IPCC says it is "reassessing the evidence."
All threads of fiction unravel eventually, and the deterioration flies out of control as the end nears.
Is this what we are seeing with the contention that man-made greenhouse-gas emissions are causing the planet to overheat?
We can't see into the future, but this myth has taken so many hits from the truth that its survival is in doubt.
The scientific malfeasance perpetrated by United States weather “researchers” under the auspices of NASA is nothing short of audaciously and abominably corrupt. This should surprise no one as we have already exposed the Climategate fraud perpetrated by the Climate Research Unit in Great Britain in collusion with scientists from around the world. The offense that they have committed is similar to the British based fraud: deleting data that did not support the global warming ideology, cherry –picking data, and largely using monitoring stations in locations which would naturally provide warmer data.
And our politicians wonder why Americans are thoroughly cynical and distrustful of our government in record high numbers? Those scientists involved in this fraud should be fired and receive no benefits. To think that we were so close to having Cap and Trade pass based on manipulated and factitious data for venal, corrupt and ideological purposes which would have cost our country tens of trillions of dollars, dramatically reduced our standard of living, burden future generations with incomprehensible debt and ultimately bankrupt us.
By the way, where is all the liberal media outrage over this outrageous fraud? Have you even seen or heard one story aside from Fox News?
Just another reason the liberal media is fast becoming inconsequential!
A U.S. ClimateGate?
Investors Business Daily 01/22/2010
Hoaxes: Climate researchers and the Weather Channel's founder accuse NASA of the same data manipulation as Britain's Climate Research Unit. Were weather stations cherry-picked to hide the temperature drop?
We recently commented on how our space agency for two years refused Freedom of Information requests on why it has had to repeatedly correct its climate figures.
In a report on global warming on KUSI television by Weather Channel founder and iconic TV weatherman John Coleman, that reticence has been traced to the deliberate manipulation and distortion of climate data by NASA.
As Coleman noted in a KUSI press release, NASA's two primary climate centers, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C., and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University in New York City, are accused of "creating a strong bias toward warmer temperatures through a system that dramatically trimmed the number and cherry-picked the locations of weather observation stations they use to produce the data set on which temperature record reports are based."
Joseph D'Aleo, of Icecap.us, said the analysis found NASA "systematically eliminated 75% of the world's stations with a clear bias toward removing higher-latitude, high-altitude and rural locations." The number of actual weather stations used to calculate average global temperatures was reduced from about 6,000 in the 1970s to about 1,500 today. The number of reporting stations in Canada dropped from 600 to 35.
E. Michael Smith, a computer programming expert who worked with D'Aleo, said he found "patterns in the input data from NCDC that looked liked dramatic and selective deletions of thermometers from cold locations." The more he looked, the more he found "patterns of deletion that could not be accidental."
Stations in places such as the Andes and Bolivia have virtually vanished, meaning, according to D'Aleo, temperatures from these areas are now "determined by interpolation from stations hundreds of miles away on the coast or in the Amazon." He says it's as if Minneapolis stopped reporting and its average temperature was extrapolated from readings in St. Louis and Kansas City.
Smith argues that the decrease in stations used and the selectivity of locations make NASA's data and conclusions suspect. D'Aleo goes further, saying such cherry-picking and data manipulation are a "scientific travesty" committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.
To us, it looks like just another example of ideologically driven climate deceit following the Climate Research Unit scandal and the fraudulent claim by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Himalayan glaciers would soon vanish.
The unadulterated evidence reveals irrefutably that the earth is not in a death spiral of global warming that will destroy humanity and nature. In fact, it appears that over approximately the last ten years there has been a cooling trend. All you need to do is check the trend of worldwide record low temperatures and massive snowfalls including in places which don’t normally experience such events.
This is not to say that man has no effect on the environment which we do. However, the scam being perpetrated in the name of global warming is not based on reality but instead on corrupt and venal motives of individuals, corporations and governments for a multitude of reasons. The most notable face at the forefront of this worldwide fraud is Al Gore who has enriched himself tremendously.
As a consequence of Obama’s unwavering adherence to his radical and inimical ideologies, his glaring lack of previous executive experiences, and his prodigious and destructive arrogance and narcissism which preclude him from dispassionately assessing all angles of situations, he has set America to pay dearly this and in coming years. Exacerbating this situation further is his innate corruptness, scheming dishonesty and expressed profound disdain for America and most of its citizens (excluding the chosen minorities in specific and his constituency in general).
If you have any doubt about this, just consider all the mandated minority preferences in Obamacare and other legislation (which are racist and should be unconstitutional), wealth transfer beneficiaries, the dropping of charges against the New Black Panther Party regarding voter intimidation during the Presidential election, and even his racist tact in response to the Henry Gates – Cambridge police office incident, etc.
The following editorial enumerates some of the issues or incidents that Obama’s inept or ideologically blinded responses, attitude or inactions will ultimately lead to bad outcomes for America. Aside from a few exceptions, you won't see incisive assessments like this in the sycophantic liberal news media
Chickens Of '09 Coming Home To Roost In '10
By Victor Davis Hanson
Plenty of our chickens will be coming home to roost this year.
Take foreign relations. In 2009, the new administration assumed that George W. Bush was largely responsible for global tensions. As a remedy, we loudly reached out to our foes and those with whom we had uneasy relationships.
But so far these leaders — like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Russia's Vladimir Putin — have only interpreted Barack Obama's serial goodwill gestures as weaknesses to be exploited. They play the part of the pushy class bully, we the whiny nerd.
In the waning days of 2009, Iran has announced it has no intention of dismantling its nuclear facilities and ignored the latest Obama deadline to cease. There's no reason not to expect the theocracy to make significant strides in its nuclear program in 2010, while continuing without rebuke to beat and murder democratic dissidents in its streets.
Russia has announced plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons — and scoffed at our polite suggestions that it should pressure Iran to stop its nuclear development.
Venezuela brags of its own similar program to come — an act that could threaten all the neighboring democracies in the region.
The administration courted China on a much-heralded Asian tour. President Obama has even said he would be our first "Pacific president."
Unfortunately, China was not impressed. It declined our advice about reducing its carbon footprint and instead reminded Americans that we owe the Chinese people nearly $1 trillion. Expect much more of that hectoring in 2010 as our debt to China grows.
Consider also the threat of Islamic terrorism. In 2009, some in the Obama administration decided "war on terror" was too provocative a label for what might be better dubbed "overseas contingency operations." Apparently, they were thinking a kinder, gentler image would discourage terrorists.
Accordingly, the self-confessed architect of Sept. 11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was promised a civil trial in New York rather than a military tribunal normally accorded to out-of-uniform murderous terrorists. Expect a lot of soapbox speechmaking about America's sins during his testimony in 2010.
As part of our efforts to break with the Bush anti-terrorism past, President Obama also vowed he would close the facility at Guantanamo Bay by Jan. 22, 2010 — another deadline that won't be met.
But as 2009 ended, we were reminded that radical Islamic terrorists still want to kill us for who we are, and what we represent, rather than any particular thing we do.
Maj. Nidal Hasan, nursed on radical Islamic doctrine, murdered 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian at Ford Hood, Texas.
Five would-be terrorists with U.S. citizenship were arrested in Pakistan on their way to link up with Islamist militant groups. And Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was stopped in flight from Amsterdam before he could blow up an American passenger jet.
Note that all these recent terrorists were not poor, lived in the hospitable West — and cared little that the Obama administration has been critical of prior U.S. war-on-terror policies.
So, while we assured the world in 2009 that we wouldn't be overzealous in our various efforts to stop terrorists, the terrorists proved that they most certainly would be in theirs to kill us.
Meanwhile, at home we operated on the same naive assumptions. The Obama administration inherited a $500 billion deficit and expanded it threefold. Its planned mega-deficits may well grow the aggregate national debt over the next decade to over $20 trillion.
But the administration's 2009 calculations on how to service the growing red ink are based on continued cheap interest. Yet in 2010, it is likely we will see rising inflation, rising interest rates — and rising costs to the continual self-destructive borrowing.
We were given a financial break on energy prices in 2009. The worldwide recession sent oil down to about $50 a barrel.
But America did little during the year's reprieve to rush into production newly discovered domestic gas and oil fields, to tap existing finds in Alaska, or to license new nuclear plants.
By year's end, oil was creeping back up to $80. If the economic upswing continues, in 2010 it may near its old high of nearly $150 a barrel. Soon we will wish we had done something concrete in 2009 rather than offering more stale rhetoric about wind and solar power.
In other words, 2009 may seem to have ended relatively quietly. But in our foreign relations, in the war against terror, in our massive borrowing and in our energy policies, we created chickens that soon will come home to roost in 2010.
You undoubtedly have learned about the corrupt deal recently consummated between the labor unions, a major constituency of the Democratic party, and the Congressional Democrats in order to shore up their support for Obamacare. This latest outrageous perversion of power will preferentially exclude all members of these labor unions such as of the SEIU from having to pay a hefty 40% punitive tax on health insurance plans whose annual costs exceed a selected annual dollar amount. All other Americans will still be legally coerced to pay this tax PLUS be responsible for the amount the government won’t be collecting from union members!
Further adding insult to injury, it would be egregious enough if this were the only example of such corruption but IT IS NOT! This is the modus operandi of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the Democrats. Stimulus money going exceedingly disproportionately to the Democrat supporting blue states; blatant disregard for any consideration for tort reform that could save tens of billions of dollars annually from the cost of healthcare – as payback to attorneys who almost monolithically support and contribute to the Democratic party; the Sen. Ben Nelson Nebraska Cornhusker kickback and Sen. Mary Landrieu Louisiana Purchase bribe – using our tax dollars – in order to acquire critical support for the passage of the healthcare legislation; ETC.
THIS CORRUPTION, ARROGANCE AND CONTEMPTUOUSNESS BY DEMOCRATS MUST BE STOPPED!!
We must unite in our cause and vote them out of office as soon as possible!
Another rank deal
By Rich Lowry January 15, 2010
What happens when the irresistible force of the Democratic urge to tax runs up against the immovable object of Democratic loyalty to the labor unions? Another ugly deal in a health-care bill that already was a grotesquerie of payoffs to favored politicians and interests.
The levy in question is a 40 percent excise tax on high-end employer-provided insurance plans that -- typically -- has been sold as a tax on "the rich." It's called the "Cadillac tax," a name redolent of corporate executives cackling in their Escalades over their cushy benefits.
The unions, which make it a point to negotiate generous insurance plans with their employers (to the point of bankrupting them), were chagrined to learn that for purposes of this tax, they're among the rich. They howled in terms that could have been drawn from Henry Hazlitt's free-market classic "Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics."
The excise tax is supposed to be paid by evil insurers and employers. Except in this one case affecting their self-interest directly, the unions see through the fiction and understand that the tax will trickle down onto them. How disorienting to hear unions implicitly recognize that corporations ultimately don't pay taxes, their customers and employees do.
"While the excise tax is slated to be imposed on the insurers on so-called high cost plans, the tax will be passed on to enrollees in the form of higher premiums, co-pays or reduced benefits," a coalition of public-employee unions wrote congressional leaders. "Characterizing this tax proposal as a 'Cadillac tax' is a misnomer. It hits the average blue collar and white collar employee."
The unions also bristled at a fairly typical trick of liberal taxation -- bracket creep. The Cadillac tax affects few people when it begins in 2013. Since it's not indexed to account for the ever-rising expense of health care, though, it will catch more and more people over time.
This is why New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called it "a middle-class tax time bomb," and Nancy Pelosi made an oblique reference to President Obama breaking his promise not to increase taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year. Obama's support for the Cadillac tax not only violates that forlorn pledge, but also directly contradicts one of his chief lines of attack against John McCain in the 2008 campaign.
McCain wanted to end the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance coverage and compensate people with a tax credit to buy their own plans -- a systematic approach to controlling costs and increasing choice. Obama's plan will increase costs and reduce choice, but he needs $150 billion in revenue over 10 years to try to make it look deficit-neutral so he's -- as he put it in his unrelenting anti-McCain ads -- "taxing health benefits for the first time in history."
But pressure from the unions has now forced the White House to agree to raise the $23,000-per-household threshold of the tax slightly and -- more importantly -- exempt insurance plans that are the product of collective-bargaining agreements until 2018. This Labor Loophole stands in the finest tradition of the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback. With no possible public-policy justification, it puts the awesome power to tax and spend at the service of nakedly political ends.
Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said that taxes are the price of civilization. In this case, taxes are the price of not belonging to a group that pours countless millions of dollars into the Democratic coffers. Under the Cadillac tax, there's one set of rules for the Service Employees International Union and another for everyone else.
Obama is currently haranguing the banks so he doesn't get pegged as a "Wall Street Liberal." The more dangerous rubric for him is a "Washington Liberal," a politician knee-deep in the special-interest politics of the Beltway as he pushes an unpopular agenda of rapid government expansion. Obama's style of politics has gone from inspiring to revolting in the space of a year.
We are all aware and incensed at the unparalleled contemptuous that Congress in general and certain individuals in particular (Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Barney Frank, John Murtha, etc.) have for the American public and even the democratic process. They are running the government as a dictatorial aristocracy, imposing legislation on unwilling citizens seemingly at times by fiat. They are cognizant of their unfettered, completely unstoppable powers which is further abetted and protected by a sycophantic far left news media (except for Fox News).
The Democrats have a super-majority in the Senate which makes any legislation they formulate filibuster proof. To add insult to injury, they will use whatever means necessary to pass their bills – heavy handed threats, illegal procedural maneuvers, specious information and interminable corruption and bribery (using our tax dollars) as we have witnessed in their attempting to pass Obamacare.
One glimmer of hope is present and it involves the special election being held in Massachusetts this coming Tuesday, January 19th to determine who will fill the vacant Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy. The Republican candidate for Senator, Scott Brown, an extremely intelligent, shrewd, articulate and photogenic conservative aided by prodigious grassroots support of angry voters not only from Massachusetts but also from across the country, has incredibly turned this race into a statistical tie in the nation’s most liberal state. This is a manifest indictment and rejection of the policies and attitudes of the Obama Administration and the Congressional Democrats.
We all need to give Scott Brown our firm support – financially and verbally – IMMEDIATELY! Contact everyone that you know in Massachusetts and friends who know voters there. They must be informed of the supreme importance of this election and need to vote for Republican candidate Scott Brown. Financial contributions can be made through the following websites:
The following video detailing the perfidy, deception, arrogance, contemptuousness and corruptness of Obama and the Democrats is eminently provocative, both emotionally and intellectually. The dramatic, percussive music redolent of the testosterone suffused "Batman Returns" themes helps deliver a powerful and serious message that should serve to galvanize outraged Americans to take productive actions to depose our imperious Democratic politicians. Maybe some of these same elitists will begin to appreiciate the magnitude of our fury and realize that they are here as our elected representatives to serve us – not rule over us!
As the ObamaCare legislation is being scrutinized by the public, innumerable insidious, discriminatory, restrictive, unconstitutional, and generally outrageous clauses and mandates are being discovered that were intentionally hidden because they were either “illegal”, reflective of corruption or egregiously bad for the public. We also suspect that not one politician who voted for the legislation has read the entire bill. What unalloyed arrogance! These contemptuous politicians all need to be voted out office at their next elections.
More Reasons For Killing Off Health Reform
Phyllis Schlafly 12/29/2009
New reasons emerge almost daily as to why ObamaCare can and must be defeated.
1. Americans oppose ObamaCare by almost 2 to 1 in the latest CNN poll. Other polls show lopsided opposition to passing either the Senate or House health care bill.
Public opinion is against the bill because of its obscene costs in higher taxes, burdensome debt, anti-freedom mandates, rationing and reduced care for seniors. The American people have awakened to the fact that ObamaCare is transformational legislation that will drag us against popular will into European-style socialism.
2. The Democrats' double-counting of ObamaCare's financial benefits has been exposed as a colossal lie. Harry Reid told the Senate that his bill strengthens our future by both "cutting our towering national deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years" and "strengthening Medicare and extending its life by nearly a decade."
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) refuted that assertion. CBO said the claim that ObamaCare would provide these benefits simultaneously "would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position."
3. ObamaCare is unconstitutional because of its mandate that all individuals must carry "approved" health insurance and all businesses must give health insurance to their employees whether or not the company can afford it. "Universal" coverage will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service with power to punish those who don't have such a plan.
Constitutional lawyers say the Commerce Clause does not give Congress authority to force Americans to buy health insurance as a condition of living in the U.S. because personal health insurance is not "commerce." The CBO wrote that "a mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action"; the Supreme Court has never upheld any requirement that an individual must participate in economic activity.
4. Since the Senate bill imposes sharp limits on health insurance companies' ability to raise fees or exclude coverage, it likely will force many of them out of business. ObamaCare is unconstitutional because it violates the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law.
5. Other ObamaCare provisions blatantly legislate racial and other forms of discrimination. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sent two letters to the president and congressional leaders warning about the obnoxious requirements for racist and sexist quotas.
The Senate bill requires that "priority" for federal grants be given to institutions offering "preferential" admissions to minorities (race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation and religion).
Institutions training social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, behavioral pediatricians, psychiatric nurses and counselors will be ineligible for federal grants unless they enroll "individuals and groups from different racial, ethnic, cultural, geographic, religious, linguistic and class backgrounds, and different genders and sexual orientations."
6. Obama's claim that "everybody" will now be covered creates few winners but lots of losers. Universal health insurance will be achieved by forcing young people to pay the additional costs (insurance for the youngest third of the population would rise by 35%), and by restricting and rationing care for the elderly.
7. According to columnist Robert Samuelson, the "wild card is immigration." From 1999 to 2008, 60% of the increase in the uninsured occurred among Hispanics, and Obama's refusal to close our borders will make this problem more costly every year.
8. ObamaCare gives Medicare bureaucrats the power to ration health care by forcing doctors to prescribe cheaper medical devices and drugs. In the recent case of Hays v. Sebelius, the court ruled that Medicare doesn't have the right to make this rule, but ObamaCare takes jurisdiction away from the courts to hear any appeal from decisions of the new Medicare Commission.
The "stick" applied to primary-care doctors is imposing financial penalties if they refer too many patients to specialists. The "carrot" is financial rewards to doctors who give up small practices and join into larger medical groups or become salaried employees of hospitals or other large institutions.
9. The Senate bill contains at least a dozen of what can be described as bribes. Sen. Mary Landrieu received a $300 million increase in Medicaid funding for her state (known as the Second Louisiana Purchase), and a $100 million bribe to Sen. Ben Nelson gives Nebraska a permanent exemption from the costs of Medicaid expansion.
10. The Senate bill even has a four-page section artfully written to enable Acorn to get federal health care grants. This section describes grant recipients as "community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups" having "existing relationships ... with uninsured and underinsured consumers."
The following list formulated by Judicial Watch is one that no politician wants to appear on: the ten most corrupt Washington politicians of 2009. Nine of the ten are Democrats with three being part of the Obama Administration. Fortunately for these latter three (President Obama, Sec. of Treasury Tim Geithner and Atty. General Eric Holder), there is not a list for the ten most incompetent Washington politicians because they would also populate this one as well!
Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2009
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:
1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch's complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.
2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year’s worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: “The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…” The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign's office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.
3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also "under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use." Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a "federal regulator," and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank’s intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: "I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury." Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
4. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn’t until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash. Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008. However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009. The timing is important. According to CNN: “Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG's impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned ‘full details’ of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG.” Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed “household help” ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington” list.
5. Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won’t be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro’s Cuba. Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism. Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton’s scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers. His record in the current administration is no better. As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House. For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder’s former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations. Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama. There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign. And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. Holder’s controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Holder’s politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.
6. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama’s then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal: Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named "Senate Candidate A" in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama's seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich. Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat. According to Reuters: “Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich -- later charged with trying to sell Obama's Senate seat -- at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor's aides about his desire to be appointed.” Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.
7. President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. Consider just a few Obama administration “lowlights” from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to sell the President’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.) Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade "artists" to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of "czars" in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President’s bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control -- through fiat and threats -- large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: “The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.” Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors – this is Obama’s “ethics” record -- and we haven't even gotten through the first year of his presidency.
8. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2008 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline. These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi's numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker's 11th hour cancellations and changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA's use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise. Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list. (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)
9. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman's largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks -- tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA's offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, "Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills." When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, "cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file.” The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha’s nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: "Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military.”
10. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly "forget" to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property. He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He somehow “forgot” about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making "campaign contributions" to dig his way out of trouble. According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate: “The reigning member of Congress' top tax committee is apparently ‘wrangling’ other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles...Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.” Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it. That’s why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional
In the following expose, Michelle Malkin uncovers and delineates some of the more notable examples of corruption perpetrated by the Senate this past year. Such actions are reprehensible and should not be tolerated by us. These entrenched criminals need to be ousted!
Senate Payoffs Top 2009 Tree Of Corruption
By Michelle Malkin
Democrats are right: Sleazy bribes and pork payoffs didn't start with their government health care takeover bill. They've been doling out taxpayer-funded goodies for votes all year. Harry Reid's latest Cash for Cloture deals are the culmination of a shopping spree at our expense.
Go back to January and February. The multitrillion-dollar stimulus bill was the mother of all legislative Christmas trees. The ruling party used the economic downturn to redistribute wealth from struggling Americans to favored congressional districts, phantom districts and special interests from golf-cart makers to beauty salons.
According to a new study from George Mason University, Democratic districts have raked in nearly twice as much porkulus money as GOP districts — without regard to the actual economic suffering and job loss in those districts. In fact, the researchers found that far more stimulus money went to higher-income areas than to lower-income areas.
That includes Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's backyard — where a $54 million no-bid contract was awarded to a firm with little experience to relocate a luxury Bay Area wine train due to flood concerns.
And it includes Barack Obama's home state of Illinois, which reaped the single biggest earmark — $1 billion for the FutureGen near-zero emissions "clean coal" plant earmark championed by disgraced Democrat and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin.
And it includes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's backyard — where he secured billions in high-speed rail stimulus earmarks from which he plans to fund a pie-in-the-sky public transportation line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
When taxpayers objected to business as usual masquerading as economic recovery, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer sneered: "You lost." He jibed on the Senate floor while wagging a grabby finger, "And let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments: The American people really don't care."
The "American people" Schumer was referring to, of course, were the privileged minority of stimulus beneficiaries — not the rest of us "chattering" dissenters stuck with the bill for those billions in "little, tiny, yes, porky amendments."
No legislation has been immune to congressional shakedown.
After the Congressional Black Caucus balked loudly enough, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank — chairman of the House Financial Services Committee — larded up the majority's Wall Street regulatory "reform" bill with $4 billion in payoffs to minority special interests — including former failed Air America radio partner Inner City Broadcasting Corp.
The cash-strapped firm is run by Percy Sutton, a New York City crony of Charlie Rangel's and Al Sharpton's. The money will come out of the ever-morphing TARP bank bailout fund — which went from a toxic assets purchase plan to a capital injection plan, back to a toxic assets purchase plan, then to a life insurance company bailout and on to an auto-supplier bailout.
Leading the charge for the Cash for Cronies of Color drive: California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who had already extracted $12 million in TARP funds for OneUnited, a minority-owned bank that is one of her key campaign donors and a company in which both Waters and her husband own massive amounts of stock.
Which brings us to the wealth redistribution scheme disguised as health reform.
In addition to the infamous $300 million "Louisiana Purchase" for Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and the (at least) $45 million "Cornhusker Kickback" for sellout Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Reid threw around other, less-publicized gobs of cash for cloture votes to cut off debate and ram the bill through.
He tossed in a Hospital Helper of $100 million to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., whose re-election bid is in hot water. There are bennies for insurance companies and hospitals in Michigan, and "frontier freebies" for hospitals in Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming.
Combined with Nebraska's tab, the exclusive clique's payoffs will cost taxpayers at least $1.2 billion over 10 years.
There's also an Acorn/community organizer-friendly provision for minority health bureaucracies that was sought by Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill. And there's a $10 billion socialized medicine sop to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for "community health clinics" serving in essence as universal health care satellite offices.
"We are talking about a revolution," Sanders enthused during the Senate's sneaky Sunday session.
No, revolution will come when taxpayers have a chance to kick these reverse Santa Clauses posing as saviors out of office.
The magnitude of corruption, bribery with our tax dollars and complete contempt and disregard for the wishes of the American people that occurred in the process of trying to legislate healthcare reform is essentially unprecedented in national politics. Congress’ responses to questions of Constitutionality of some of the mandates and clauses are dismissive. Obama and these Democrats are telling us: We don’t give a damn about what you want or don’t want and we will do as we please.
As we have been warming for a long time, this has become a dictatorial government that will trample over our rights and freedoms, steal and deal our tax dollars, and impose at will whatever legislation they deem important in order to satisfy their ideological goals.
We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!
Forever Gone
Investors Business Daily 12/22/2009
DeMint: Is health care reform even constitutional? AP Photo
Any law can be repealed, but the Democrats' radical health bill contains unprecedented language that could wreck the U.S. health system permanently. It's one of the dirtiest tricks yet.
'Page 1,020" — it may soon be a mantra for one of the most disturbing abuses of legislative power in history. In setting up an Independent Medicare Advisory Board, that page of the Senate health overhaul bill passed in the dead of night early Monday says, "It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."
This enters the realm of "hyperlaw" or "laws on steroids."
As Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed out on the Senate floor, it isn't lawmaking, but rather "creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law."
DeMint is "not even sure that it's constitutional," since it affects "the fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future Congresses."
Clearly liberal Democratic leaders will stoop to record depths to expand the federal government's powers.
Public support plummets well down into the 30s? They don't bat an eyelash.
Mandating an individual's purchase of a private service like insurance tramples the Constitution? Just watch them do it.
Bribe Senators Tom, Dick and Ben? Here's the cash.
As John Steele Gordon noted in Commentary, the Medicaid bribe that bought the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is so unprecedented it may not withstand constitutional muster.
According to Gordon, "one could argue that Nebraskans will be getting what amounts to a rebate on federal taxes through the backdoor of lower state taxes," which might violate Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution requiring government collections to be "uniform throughout the United States."
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid admits, "I don't know that there's a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that isn't important to them," adding that "if they don't have something in it important to them, then it doesn't speak well of them."
That is the arrogance of the mind-set dominating the legislative and executive branches: Your money is really theirs, to be handed out like a Mob-backed union boss toting a bag of cash on the waterfront.
When you put together Medicare and Medicaid recipients, government employees and contractors, and active and former military members and their dependents, over 40% of Americans receive government-subsidized health care. The Democrats' health care revolution would up that to a solid majority of our citizens.
American history shows that once an entitlement is enacted, it's next to impossible to erase. Catastrophic health care for seniors, passed 20 years ago, is the only such program ever repealed; the 1996 welfare reform severely limited that socially destructive entitlement.
The statists may now finally have bitten off more than they will be able to chew politically. If Republicans act like Republicans and convince the populist Tea Party movement not to go the suicidal third-party route, the coming public backlash will see to it that the greatest health care system in the world is not gone for good.
Look for demonstrators to start burning copies of Page 1,020 the way '60s radicals used to burn their draft cards.
The ever increasing magnitude of anger that is being generated by American citizens in response to what we see as an imperious, arrogant, dictatorial government is nothing short of remarkable. We are being treated contemptuously by a Government that disregards the will of the people, seeks to tax us to oblivion and “legally” redistribute the fruits of our labors, and aims to insinuate itself in every activity of our daily lives, restricting our freedoms and rights. Our present political and socioeconomic milieu is far more dire and repressive than what the Colonists contended with under King George just before the American Revolution.
Unfortunately, we are in the midst of a political perfect storm which threatens the whole underpinnings of our culture, rights, freedoms, and economic system. Our government has been hijacked by the extreme far left which has malevolent intentions for America. It has a super-majority that is essentially unstoppable legislatively but is also willing to employ corrupt, heavy handed tactics if warranted. Complicit in this and facilitating the situation is the vast majority of the press whose role in the past had always been to serve as a watchdog to protect the average American and keep the government more honest and in check.
Millions of Americans are not only concerned by our present situation but also by the perceived malignant intentions of our government starting with Obama on down. The rhetoric of these politicians is indisputably incongruous with their legislative actions whether it pertains to healthcare reform, the national debt or even our rights. These Democrats and radicals are actively and aggressively seeking to destroy the free America we knew and instead, transform it into a pseudo-dictatorship with the likes of Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Frank and Schumer at the helm.
It is imperative that we all understand the gravity of our present circumstances and then aggressively and pertinaciously act in whatever manner necessary to oppose and reverse this course. Unfortunately, with the Government’s relentless consolidation of power by means of unfettered legislative actions, a political solution may be difficult if not impossible to obtain.
We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!
The following article brilliantly, insightful and thoroughly explains why what we see as illogical actions by Obama and other “representatives of the people” are instead intentional, calculated, rational but malignant moves that can and may destroy America. This is a must read!
Cloward-Piven Government
By James Simpson
It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact.
In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then, the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck television show, Bill O'Reilly, and now Mark Levin.
The methodology is known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and we can all be grateful to David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks for originally exposing and explaining it to us. He describes it as:
The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were two lifelong members of Democratic Socialists of America who taught sociology at Columbia University (Piven later went on to City University of New York). In a May 1966 Nation magazine article titled "The Weight of the Poor," they outlined their strategy, proposing to use grassroots radical organizations to push ever more strident demands for public services at all levels of government.
The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces ... for major economic reform at the national level."
They implemented the strategy by creating a succession of radical organizations, most notable among them the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with the help of veteran organizer Wade Rathke. Their crowning achievement was the "Motor Voter" act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 with Cloward and Piven standing behind him.
As we now know, ACORN was one of the chief drivers of high-risk mortgage lending that eventually led to the financial crisis. But the Motor Voter law was another component of the strategy. It created vast vulnerabilities in our electoral system, which ACORN then exploited.
ACORN's vote registration scandals throughout the U.S. are predictable fallout.
The Motor Voter law has also been used to open another vulnerability in the system: the registration of vast numbers of illegal aliens, who then reliably vote Democrat. Herein lies the real reason Democrats are so anxious for open borders, security be damned.
It should be clear to anyone with a mind and two eyes that this president and this Congress do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emmanuel said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."
The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.
This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Barney Frank said, "the middle class will be too distracted to fight."
These people are our enemies. They don't use guns, yet, but they are just as dangerous, determined, and duplicitous as the communists we faced in the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and bush wars across the globe, and the Nazis we faced in World War II.
It is time we fully internalized and digested this fact, with all its ugly ramifications. These people have violated countless laws and could be prosecuted, had we the political power. Not only are their policies unconstitutional, but deliberately so -- the goal being to make the Constitution irrelevant. Their spending is off the charts and will drive us into hyperinflation, but it could be rescinded, had we the political power. These policies are toxic, but they could be stopped and reversed, had we the political power. Their ideologies are poisonous, but they could be exposed for what they are, with long jail sentences as an object lesson, had we the political power.
Every single citizen who cares about this country should be spending every minute of his or her spare time lobbying, organizing, writing, and planning. Fight every initiative they launch. It is all destructive. If we are to root out this evil, it is critical that in 2010 we elect competent, principled leaders willing to defend our Constitution and our country. Otherwise, the malevolent cabal that occupies the government today will become too entrenched.
After that, all bets are off.
Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst.
On Monday, Dec. 7th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repugnantly, contemptuously and irresponsibly compared Republican opponents of the healthcare reform with those individuals who supported slavery in the 1800’s before the Civil War. This racist and destructive vituperation should not be uttered by any member of Congress but having the Senate Majority Leader perpetrating such an offense is intolerable. He should be censured immediately and mandated to make an official retraction.
Unfortunately, the vitriol and intolerance by the Democrats of opposing points of view has become the norm with the most egregious offenders being the “leaders” of the Democratic Party including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Charles Schumer and, of course, Barack Obama . These individuals have been corrupted by power and seek to acquire absolute power over the American people. They are not legislating as in a benign democracy but rather as in an oppressive totalitarian government.
We must relentlessly work to remove these corrupt politicians from office. Vigorously support the Tea Parties and alternative candidates before we reach the point of no return which we are fast approaching
and IMPEACH OBAMA!
Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery
FOXNews.com December 07, 2009
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women's suffrage and the civil rights movement -- even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.
Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid's comments "offensive" and "unbelievable."
But Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era.
"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday.
"When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"
He continued: "When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right.
"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."
That seemed to be a reference to Thurmond's famous 1957 filibuster -- the late senator switched parties several years later.
Reid's office stood by the remarks, with spokesman Jim Manley saying Republicans have "done nothing but obstruct health care" in the Senate.
"Today's feigned outrage is nothing but a ploy to distract from the fact they have no plan to lower the cost of health care, stop insurance company abuses or protect Medicare," Manley said.
But Republicans said they were genuinely appalled. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Reid's remarks were over the top.
"That is extremely offensive," he told Fox News. "It's language that should never be used, never be used. ... Those days are not here now."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who on the Senate floor read from this FoxNews.com article and asked that it be placed in the record, called on Reid to return to the floor and, if not apologize, at least explain what he meant.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., suggested Reid was starting to "crack" under the pressure of the health care reform debate.
"I think it's beneath the dignity of the majority leader," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said. "I personally am insulted."
A real repugnant scammer who has immorally stolen more than $100 million using his political connections, deceptions of the public, manipulations of data and corrupt colluding scientists. Now with passage of Cap and Trade a possibility, possible mandates from a Copenhagen Treaty, Americans may be on the hook for trillions of dollars.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued new recommendations regarding obtaining mammograms that are irresponsible, shocking and not evidenced based but are concordant with requisite rationing for Obamanocare. The following editorial assesses this morally corrupt pronouncement.
Rationing's First Step
Investors Business Daily 11/18/2009
Health Care: A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work.
We have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing. New recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer and the necessity for early and frequent mammograms do not convince us otherwise.
Just six months ago, the panel, which works under the Health and Human Services Department as a "best practices" study group, was shouting its concern about a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showing a 1% drop in the number of women regularly undergoing such screening and prevention.
The task force was saying that women older than 40 should get a mammogram every one to two years. It found that frequent screening lowered death rates from breast cancer mostly for women ages 50 to 69. But that was then, and this is now.
"We're not saying women shouldn't get screened. Screening does save lives," Diana Petiti, task force vice chairman, said of the recommendations published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine. "But we are recommending against routine screening."
Now the panel recommends that women in their 40s stop having routine annual mammograms and that older women should cut back to every two years. The concern allegedly is that too frequent testing can result in increased anxiety, false positives, unneeded follow-up tests and possibly disfiguring biopsies. Preventing breast cancer and saving lives almost get lost in the new analysis.
"I have a particular concern in this case about who was involved in this task force," says Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., who was a heart surgeon in private life. "There are no surgeons or oncologists who deal directly with breast cancer or even radiologists. ... I've seen far too many young women develop late-stage breast cancer because they didn't have adequate screening."
Little, if anything, has happened medically in the last six months to cause such a shift. A lot, however, has happened politically as a health care overhaul has limped forward on life support. The Congressional Budget Office has been busy pricing these various bills, a process that includes screening and prevention.
As we have warned, the growing emphasis seems to be on cost containment rather than quality of care. About 39 million women undergo mammograms each year in America, costing the health care system more than $5 billion.
"The American Cancer Society continues to recommend annual screening using mammography and clinical breast examination for all women beginning at age 40," says Otis Brawley, its chief medical officer. "Our experts make this recommendation having reviewed virtually all the same data reviewed by the USPSTF, but also additional data that the USPSTF did not consider."
Daniel Kopans, a radiology professor at Harvard Medical School, says: "Tens of thousands of lives are being saved by mammography screening, and those idiots want to do away with it. It's crazy — unethical, really."
This, sadly, appears to be the future of medicine under government-run health care. Aside from taxes on insurers, providers and device manufacturers, we'll be up to our eyeballs in cost-effectiveness boards that will decide who gets what tests and treatments, when and if. These are only recommendations for now, but they are the shape of things to come.
If these egregious errors were due to the irresponsibility of your surgeon, he or she would lose their license to practice medicine. In contrast, politicians and lawyers (often the same animal) divorce themselves from any personal responsibility and are not subject to legal actions. Elections are too infrequent to be of immediate consequence.
So the results are ... More of the same incompetence, arrogance, greed, corruption,self-serving legislation and wasting of our money!
A “Climategate” has been exposed with the recent public release of hacked e-mails and data revealing that the global warming hysteria is founded on egregious, expansive multinational fraud using manufactured (fake) data in order to support the position. It has been perpetrated by collusion among well connected and influential individuals (Al Gore and more) who used this movement for wealth, power and ideological reasons.
With all this now public, Sen. James Inhofe (R. – Oklahoma) is launching an inquiry into this global warming scandal.
View: ‘Bigger Than ACORN’: Senator Launches Inquiry Into Leaked ‘Climategate’ Emails
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