ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100319

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable

Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!



Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.



"Daily Motivations"

Knowing your peace of mind is up to you, not the world, is the most powerful and secure state of mind you can achieve. -- Dr. Lee Jampolsky

"Language is the dress of thought; every time you talk your mind is on parade." -- Dr Samuel Johnson

"What will your children remember? Moments spent listening, talking, playing and sharing together may be the most important times of all." -- Gloria Gaither



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

God has reserved a priceless inheritance for His children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. (1 Peter 1:4)

Once during a speaking engagement in Switzerland, I stayed at a beautiful hotel, compliments of the conference host. Each day, as I walked through the lobby, I passed the hotel's lavish dining room and smelled the wonderful aromas of delicious entrees and desserts. But, determined to save money, I bought fruit, cheese, and crackers from a local market and lived on that all week. As I was packing to leave, my host asked me how I had enjoyed the cuisine. I stared at him in amazement. He had not informed me upon my arrival that my meals were included! The hotel had one of the finest chefs in the entire country. I could have eaten like a king.

Likewise, if we are unaware of our wonderful spiritual inheritance, we will miss out on a bountiful banquet which God has prepared for us. Satan loves to keep us in the dark.

But simply understanding our spiritual inheritance is not enough. Many of us live like spiritual paupers because we do not really believe God. We do not take Him at His Word. But if God really is absolute truth, then we can and should stake our very lives on His Word.

Satan will do anything to prevent us from fully experiencing the blessings we inherit as God's dearly loved children. He will try to convince us that the treasure is worthless. Or, he will sow seeds of insecurity and guilt so we feel undeserving. But we must not believe his lies!

Trusting in God's absolute truthfulness releases His riches. The treasures of heaven that we inherit are claimed by faith here on earth.

Your View of God Really Matters …

Find a promise in God's Word to fulfill a valid need in your life. Make a decision to believe it, and hold on to God's promise by faith without wavering.



"The Patriot Post"

Pulling the Plug on our Constitution

Mark Alexander, Publisher, PatriotPost.US

"If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people ... must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify." --Federalist No. 33

Democrat LeadershipOur Constitution is on life support, and House Democrats are about to pull the plug.

Leaders of the Democrat Party ("Progressives" as they call themselves, Leftists as we call them) have been unable to garner popular or even Democrat Party support for their plan to socialize our health care system. Fortunately, Republicans are united in their opposition to this one issue.

Barack Hussein Obama, titular head of the Demos, proclaimed, "I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing."

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concludes, "Nobody wants to vote for the Senate bill."

She is proposing to overtly circumvent our Constitution by way of the "Slaughter Solution." Rep. Louise Slaughter, chairman of the House Rules Committee, proposes to pass legislation using the "self-executing rule," which will allow the House to accept the already-passed Senate health care bill by presumption alone, thus negating a formal up-or-down vote by House members.

Pelosi confessed, "I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

Unfortunately, there is precedent in invoking the "self-executing rule" -- by Republicans, no less -- concerning "mundane" legislation agreed to by House leaders of both parties. Unconstitutional as these precedents are, there is nothing "mundane" about ObamaCare.

"Slaughter" and "self-executing" may describe both the process and the electoral future of many Democrats in the House.

Most of the Leftist-controlled political and popular debate about the Democrat proposal to turn over to the central government control of more than 17 percent of the U.S. economy, is focused on one question or another -- what will it cost or save, who will pay and who won't, who will be covered and for what, will there be enough physicians to support this in 10 years, will federal funds be used for abortion, can our economy afford another trillion dollar boondoggle, does it really address the entitlement cost tsunami we're facing, ad infinitum.

These might be interesting topics for debate, but none are germane.

The only relevant debate must begin with First Principles, our Constitution and Rule of Law.

Does our Constitution allow the Executive and Legislative branches to collaborate to confer authority upon the federal government over, in this case, so-called "health care reform"?

Those who laid the Foundation of our Constitution were crystal clear about its enumeration of both the authority and limits upon the central government.

James Madison, our Constitution's primary author, wrote, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce."

Madison continued, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

To that point, Thomas Jefferson asserted: "[G]iving [Congress] a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole [Constitution] to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly, no such universal power was meant to be given them. [The Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

Clearly, our Constitution, does not authorize Congress to nationalize health care, anymore than it authorizes Congress to do most of what it does today.

That notwithstanding, Obama and his Leftist cadres in the House and Senate are moving forward with their endeavor to inflict socialized medicine upon the United States.

They have again, one and all, abandoned their oaths to "support and defend" our Constitution.

Democrat "leaders" have all been questioned about constitutional authority, and have uniformly asserted that the question is irrelevant.

Typical of their non-responses was this indignant question from Speaker Pelosi: "Are you serious? Are you serious?"

Such utter contempt for our Constitution explains why Democrats refuse to support any measure to cite constitutional authority for legislation. For example, the Enumerated Powers Act (HR 1359) would require that "Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act," but for years, insurmountable obstacles have prevented passage of HR 1359 -- and you know who they are.

Circumventing Rule of Law (see the larger version).As for the Slaughter Solution, Article 1 Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates, "Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, and that in all such Cases 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."

Typical of Republican protests about this effort to evade the Constitution's prescription for passage of legislation, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) called the ruse "the acme of arrogance" and the "shredding the U.S. Constitution."

Unfortunately, more than a few Republicans have dabbled in such unconstitutional chicanery. Thus, I am reminded of the admonition regarding hypocrisy in Matthew 7:4-5. In contemporary terms, Republicans must first demonstrably abide by First Principles before calling on Democrats to do the same.

The only silver lining to this cloud: If Democrats pass ObamaCare, every medical complaint by a Democrat constituent will be hung around their necks.

Fellow Patriots, stand firm for Essential Liberty for we still hold these Truths.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!



1934 Cartoon

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2232052/posts



"The Web"

Without Firing a Shot?

By David Limbaugh

http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147492745

During the height of the Cold War, some feared the communists would take over the United States without firing a shot. Could it be that nearly a half-century later, we're on the verge of that becoming a reality?

President Barack Obama and Democratic congressmen won their respective elections -- no shots were fired -- and they are feverishly attempting to dismantle this nation's institutions, brick by brick.

The American people are getting a bird's-eye view of what the left, which completely dominates the Democratic Party, thinks of the Constitution, freedom and the right of the people to self-governance.

The people now attempting to govern us with an iron fist are Marxist-leaning in terms of not only the policies they support but also the ruthless tactics they employ to enact those policies into law.

As long as it served Obama's Machiavellian purposes to maintain a semblance of unity for his ambitious agenda, he donned his bipartisan cap. But as soon as he encountered intractable opposition from Republicans, God bless them, he began to show his true political colors.

Barack Obama's congenial, compromising facade has disappeared. What remains, in plain view, is a narcissistic, arrogant and inflexibly ideological man who is determined to cram his socialist agenda down our throats by whatever means necessary -- irrespective of the legality of the procedures he utilizes, the truth of the words he speaks and the will of the people.

Obama doesn't care what we think -- and I'm not just talking about the majority of Americans who oppose Obamacare. Everyone who gets in his way is expendable, including principled Democrats who dare to oppose him.

Obama and his congressional cronies are systematically subverting the Constitution to advance their agenda. They have tried every trick in the book to pass Obamacare, such as lying about many substantive provisions in the bill and their inevitable effects on quality, price and choice.

They are also using accounting shenanigans to make the bill look budget-neutral. One such distortion is to count $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues that are reserved for Social Security benefits as offsets. Another is to rob a half-trillion dollars from Medicare to subsidize Obamacare, which Medicare's chief actuary estimates would cause 20 percent of Medicare's providers to either go out of business or discontinue seeing Medicare beneficiaries. Another is to defer certain outlays for about four years while beginning taxes immediately in order to achieve an artificial fiscal balance the first 10 years. There are many others.

But none of their chicanery has worked to fool the American people into allowing them to pass the bill through proper procedures. So they are prepared to do it illegally through improper application of the reconciliation process. If that fails, they're considering the even more outrageous idea of a "Slaughter Solution," which would deem the Senate's bill as having passed the House, even when it hasn't.

Remember Obama's showing contempt for the Constitution and Senate rules during his silly health care summit, when he flippantly argued that people care more about results than process, as if the Constitution were just an annoying little detail? His senior adviser David Axelrod showed similar contempt for the people when he said on NBC's "Meet the Press," "The one thing I am sure of is that the American people don't know or care much about the sequencing of parliamentary procedures."

Just look at how this administration is trying to do an end run around the people by having the Environmental Protection Agency impose stringent regulations when it couldn't even get the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress to pass the socialist cap-and-trade bill. And if its underhanded efforts to pass Obamacare in Congress fail, it reportedly has contingency plans to implement parts of it through a series of executive orders and administrative regulations -- just as it is planning to do, by its own admission, "across a front of issues."

Liberal cynicism aside, the Constitution's safeguards to limit government will only work if the ruling class remains honorable. If it continues to ignore its constitutional restraints and no one holds it accountable, the Constitution will degenerate into meaninglessness and be powerless to preserve our liberties.

Indeed, as fiscally devastating as Obamacare would be, cost is not the most important reason to oppose the monstrosity.

Obamacare is about government versus the people. It is about achieving that tipping point from a free market economy to a socialized one and from constitutional self-governance to something far less democratic.

The recklessness of Obamacrats in trying to shove through another -- and by far the biggest -- government entitlement at a time when existing entitlements and other government expenditures threaten to bankrupt the nation is staggering.

But they're just getting warmed up. Stay tuned for their education and immigration "overhauls."



Lawsuit set to challenge health "care" steamroller

Also...Idaho first state to say "butt out"

By Wes Vernon

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/vernon/100318

Since our last visit earlier this week, House Democrats — in collaboration with the White House — have plotted what appears to be the ultimate end-run around the Constitution of the United States.

This is the so-called (and aptly nicknamed) Slaughter rule. What it comes down to is this: You don't think you'll have the votes in the House to pass a clear path to government takeover of the nation's health care system? No problem; we'll just "deem" it to have passed anyway. And already there is some legal pushback — both against this attempted overthrow (albeit nonviolent) of constitutional order — and from state-level objections to the substance of the bill itself.

Slaughtering the Constitution

Mark R. Levin, President of the Landmark Legal Foundation, said his organization has prepared a lawsuit aimed at negating this power grab by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her minions on Capitol Hill. Levin — also a popular radio talkshow host — says his legal action will be filed "the moment the House acts."

As of Wednesday night, the score in the House — according to a head-count by those responsible for keeping track — was 205 "no" votes against the Senate-passed health bill, 198 "yes" votes for it, and 28 undecided. Speaker Pelosi needs 216 "yes" votes to pass the Senate bill through the House.

The Slaughter rule — so nicknamed for Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, who chairs the powerful House Rules Committee — invokes a procedure by which the House will have "deemed" to have passed the Senate's Christmas Eve health takeover bill — without an actual vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.

We warned in this space a few days ago that all the talk by Democrats in Washington that they "will" have the votes to pass the measure was a head fake — designed to convey a false message that backers of the bill had it locked up and that you might as well give up and not waste your time calling your congressman.

Already that vain hope was going nowhere as bloggers, radio and TV commentators, editorialists, and columnists (including this one) urged to you to continue letting your representative know that you are aware of the shenanigans going on in this city, that you don't appreciate it, and that you want Congress to scrap this bill and start over on reforming the health care system. But then on Tuesday — for only the second time in his show's 22-year history — Rush Limbaugh urged his listeners to phone the Capitol, and that ushered an already overwhelmed switchboard into a tsunami-like bombardment.

The Levin protest

In announcing his planned legal action, Levin declared, "Such a brazen violation of the core functions of Congress simply cannot be ignored. Article 1, Section 7, of the Constitution is clear respecting the manner in which a bill becomes law. Members are required to vote on this bill, not claim they did when they didn't. The Speaker of the House and her lieutenants are temporary custodians of congressional authority. They are not empowered to do permanent violence to our Constitution."

In the draft of his lawsuit, the nightly radio host and onetime Reagan administration official cited the precise constitutional wording that a law is enacted in conformance with the Constitution only if it (1) "containing its exact text, was approved by a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives; (2) the Senate approved exactly the same text; and (3) that text was signed into law by the President."

Continuing with Article 1, Section 7, here is the clincher: "But in all such cases, 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 in the journal of each House respectively."

It would seem that those acquainted with the most elemental construct of the plain English language would accept this reading as about as clear an intent of the Framers as one could imagine. Dictatorships the world over have managed to ride to power by ignoring such constraints on government authority.

Your congressman ducks the issue?

This ruse is not going to work with the public. If anything, it will backfire and raise the level of public disgust with Washington to stratospheric proportions. The monkey business involved here is political fodder for the Tea Party movement, which was founded on and continues to gain momentum on precisely this kind of official chicanery. Fat chance a tea partier will let his congressmen off the hook when he shrugs his shoulders and explains, "Hey, don't look at me. I didn't vote for that horrible Senate bill. I just voted to 'deem' that it had been passed by the House."

Any congressman who thinks his constituents are that stupid is likely to find out they see "deem" as just another word for "pretend."

Apparently President Obama doesn't think you care. He told TV anchor Brett Baier on Fox News that "I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or in the Senate." To a born and raised Marxist, the Constitution is part of some arcane "procedural" spat — a flyspeck to be ignored.

There are those oppressives in Washington who will comfort themselves in a belief that the great unwashed in the provinces view congressional rulemaking disputes as somewhat opaque, or that that constituents simply don't give a "deem" (if we may be permitted that play on words).

However that scenario may have played out in the past, it is no longer the case. Columnist Tony Blankley said on the Washington Times syndicated radio talkshow Wednesday that when Washington officials or writers speak to audiences in other parts of the country, they are likely to run into questions from locals citing "Document A, Section 219" of which the guest speaker may not have an answer. It's remarkable how the internet has advanced public awareness of what goes on in government.

That outrage just adds to the widespread indignation with the substance of the bill itself — many times outlined in this space — i.e., forcing you to purchase health insurance, jobs-killing tax increases, the debt it piles on our children and grandchildren, etc.

Defiance in the precincts

Meanwhile, Idaho became the first state to go officially on record in the nationwide fight against the 2700-page Senate-passed monstrosity. Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter signed a measure requiring the state attorney general to sue the federal government if its residents are forced to buy health insurance.

Governor Otter — himself a former member of Congress — told reporters in Boise, "The ivory tower folks will tell you, 'No, they're not going anywhere. But I'll tell you what; you get 36 states, that's a critical mass. That's a constitutional mass."

Actually, according to the AP, similar defiant legislation is pending in 37 states across this land. Virginia lawmakers have taken similar action, but Idaho is the first to reach the goal of a governor's signature on the legislation.

We have not begun to fight

This is going to play itself out over the years if the great pretend process in Congress is successful and gets President Obama's signature.

The Republicans have vowed that if that happens, they will campaign in the fall elections promising to repeal the law. The problem with that, of course, is that even if the GOP regains control of Congress, the president will still be in the White House, and overriding a veto with a two-thirds majority in both houses is very difficult even under the most favorable circumstances.

That is why every freedom-loving citizen needs to keep the pressure going full-tilt. This is the week to stop the legislative assault on the American people. Contact your congressman — now. (See the end of our March 15 column for contact information.)

© Wes Vernon



Obama: 'Procedural' Spat Over Health Bill Vote Doesn't Worry Me

FOXNews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/17/obama-tells-fox-news-procedural-spat-health-vote-doesnt-worry/

President Obama is not worried about the "procedural" debate over whether House Democratic leaders should go ahead with a plan to approve health care reform without a traditional vote, he told Fox News on Wednesday.

President Obama speaks with 'Special Report' host Bret Baier March 17 at the White House. (FNC)

President Obama is not worried -- and doesn't think Americans should worry -- about the "procedural" debate over whether House Democratic leaders should go ahead with a plan to approve health care reform without a traditional vote, he told Fox News on Wednesday.

The president, in an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, responded for the first time to the controversy over a plan to use a parliamentary maneuver to allow the House to pass the Senate's health care bill without forcing members to vote for it directly.

The esoteric procedure has drawn fierce protest from Republicans, who say Democrats are trying to avoid accountability. But the president said there will be no doubt about where lawmakers stand on health care reform.

"I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or Senate," Obama said. "What I can tell you is that the vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform. And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform. And I don't think we should pretend otherwise. And if they don't, if they vote against it, then they're going to be voting against health care reform and they're going to be voting in favor of the status quo.

"So Washington gets very concerned with these procedures in Congress, whether Republicans are in charge or Democrats are in charge," he said.

Indeed, House lawmakers would be going on record for health care reform. But they wouldn't be casting a vote for the Senate bill alone.

Instead, under a process called a "self-executing rule," the House could simultaneously approve the Senate bill while voting on a package of changes to it. This would "deem" the Senate bill to be passed, without compelling members to vote for it directly.

Democratic leaders are considering the option because many House Democrats don't want to cast a vote in favor of the unaltered Senate bill, which they oppose for numerous reasons. But the House must pass the Senate bill in order to move on to the package of changes intended to correct all the things about it that they don't like.

The tactic would allow members to temporarily accept the Senate version while keeping it at arm's length.

Obama brushed off concerns about the special deals that helped get the Senate bill passed.

"By the time the vote has taken place, not only I will know what's in it, you'll know what's in it because it's going to be posted and everybody's going to be able to evaluate it on the merits," he said.

Obama said the the debate over the deals "ends up being a little frustrating is because the focus entirely is on Washington process."

Throughout the interview, the president repeatedly deflected questions about process.

Asked to respond to a viewer's e-mail question about why he has to "bribe Congress to pass it," Obama said, "I've got the same exact e-mails that I could show you that talk about why haven't we done something to make sure that I, a small business person, am getting as good a deal as members of Congress are getting, and don't have my insurance rates jacked up 40 percent?"

Obama later added, "I've got to say to you, there are a lot more people who are concerned about the fact that they may be losing their house or going bankrupt because of health care."

Obama expressed confidence that the health care bill will pass.

"And the reason I'm confident that it's going to pass is because it's the right thing to do," he said.

"And yes, I have said that this is an ugly process," he said. "It was ugly when Republicans were in charge. It was ugly when Democrats were in charge."



If there were a Nobel Prize for Gaffetastic-ity…

By Michelle Malkin

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/18/if-there-were-a-nobel-prize-for-gaffetastic-ity/

Ed Morrissey has done a terrific job at Hot Air chronicling President Obama’s malapropisms, blunders, fantasy math, and history-flubbing with his “Obamateurisms” series. It’s a gaffe-a-minute with the supposedly silver-tongued emir of eloquence.
If there were a Nobel Prize for Gaffetastic-ity, Obama would be a deserving recipient (for once).

Now comes this bizarro statement from tonight’s interview with FNC’s Bret Baier — a hands-down winner for tomorrow’s Obamateurism of the Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq2yXrXWhyw&feature=player_embedded

Transcript:

BAIER: Do you know which specific deals are in or out, as of today?

OBAMA: I am certain that we’ve made sure, for example, that any burdens on states are alleviated, when it comes to what they’re going to have to chip in to make sure that we’re giving subsidies to small businesses, and subsidies to individuals, for example.

BAIER: So the Connecticut deal is still in?

OBAMA: So that’s not — that’s not going to be something that is going to be in this final package. I think the same is true on all of these provisions. I’ll give you some exceptions though.

Something that was called a special deal was for Louisiana. It was said that there were billions — millions of dollars going to Louisiana, this was a special deal. Well, in fact, that provision, which I think should remain in, said that if a state has been affected by a natural catastrophe, that has created a special health care emergency in that state, they should get help. Louisiana, obviously, went through Katrina, and they’re still trying to deal with the enormous challenges that were faced because of that.

(CROSS TALK)

OBAMA: That also — I’m giving you an example of one that I consider important. It also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake. So that’s not just a Louisiana provision. That is a provision that affects every state that is going through a natural catastrophe.

Now I have said that there are certain provisions, like this Nebraska one, that don’t make sense. And they needed to be out. And we have removed those. So, at the end of the day, what people are going to be able to say is that this legislation is going to be providing help to small businesses and individuals, across the board, in an even handed way, and providing people relief from a status quo that’s just not working.

Cassy Fiano and Allahpundit intrepidly attempt to decipher:

Apparently, there was a devastating earthquake in Hawaii that we all somehow missed.

Oh, wait, no. That’s right. There was no earthquake, and Obama is just totally clueless, as usual. In fact, the last earthquake in Hawaii to cause any deaths at all was in 1975, and two people died.

In any case, why is he using this argument, anyways? He’s turned this health care bill into a one-size-fits-all solution for everything. Not only will it fix our health care, but it will apparently create jobs and give disaster relief around the country!

…Update (AP): …My guess is Obama meant to say that Hawaii went through a tsunami caused by the quake in Chile and got distracted in his irritation at Baier. But who knows what goes on in his mind at this point? This is a guy who thinks universal health care is going to reduce the deficit.



Breaking the Obama Code: The Green Money Machine

By Patti Villacorta

As a few dozen dot-com billionaires gathered in a Palo Alto living room one evening in early 2007, then-Senator Obama rallied potential new donors over the speakerphone. After the call, host John Roos, a prominent lawyer, emphasized what most of his guests already knew. The clean-energy revolution was gaining momentum. The election in 2008 would be the critical moment. The ethics-based green revolution could be passed into law, and Obama was their guy. Roos raised much money and opened many doors for Obama that evening. In May 2009, despite initial criticism from Japan, Roos was given the plum appointment of U.S. Ambassador.

Roos, who had handpicked his guest list carefully, was a kingmaker in the progressive, green, and Bay Area billionaires club. The polls showing America's rising concerns about ocean levels reflected the hard work of Silicon Valley hedge fund managers and venture capitalists.

The Obama Exploratory Team had formed, and the candidacy announcement was scheduled for early February. But Jude Barry, a political strategist and software programmer, wasn't one to hedge his bets. In late December of 2006, he quietly filed paperwork and created the Obama for America Draft Committee (FEC ID #C00431130).

Jude Barry is one of many Howard Dean loyalists who helped Obama win the White House. Once labeled as a "self-styled Machiavellian apparatchik" by the San José political press, Barry helped develop Dean's netroots campaign that unraveled with a scream in Iowa. Still, the political landscape had been changed forever by Barry and fellow Deaniacs including Christopher Edley, UC Berkeley Law School Dean; Patrick Gaspard, Obama's political director; Jeremy Ben Ami, former Clinton staffer and founder of the anti-Israel J Street; and assistant attorney general Ron Weich.

Co-founder of Catapult Strategies with Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, Barry became well-known in Silicon Valley political circles, where he grew up and attended Catholic school with another assistant attorney general: Tony West. West is the Bay Area lawyer recently revealed as defense attorney for American Taliban member John Walker Lindh.

Barry collected six $5,000 donations from 12/28/06 and 12/30/06, including one from eBay millionaire Tom Adams III. At the same time, Steven Churchwell, a partner at DLA Piper LLC's Government Affairs Group in Sacramento, listed himself as PAC Treasurer. Churchwell's bio states that he "assists clients through the challenging waters of California government and politics." Areas of concentration include Ballot Measures, Internal Investigations, and PAC Regulations.

Obama's courtship with the high-tech crowd had begun back in early 2005. Within weeks of his swearing-in, the new United States senator launched his Hopefund Pac and then flew west to mingle. At the time, Jude Barry was managing Obama-backer Steve Westley's gubernatorial primary against Phil Angelides, the national chair of the Apollo Alliance. Other Apollo Board members include Dan Reicher, Google's Director of Climate Change; Robert Redford; and Van Jones, Obama's ex-Green Czar. Jones worked on Arianna Huffington's brief run for governor.

Obama scored big. Eileen Chamberlain-Donahue, wife of eBay CEO John Donahue, took a liking to Obama. She went on to become Chairwoman of the National Women for Obama Finance Committee and won an invitation to watch his Denver speech from a luxury suite with Penny Pritzker and Oprah.

By November 2006 Hopefund had raised $2.5 million. Some of Obama's early donors include the Warren Buffetts; co-founder of Espirit clothing company Susie Buell; Steven Spielberg; Attorney General Eric Holder; FCC Chair Julius Genachowski; Christina Romer, the Chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers; Craig's List CEO Craig Newmark; David Geffen; and Jon Gruber, the MIT economist criticized recently for failing to disclose HHS consultancy contracts.

Edward Robinson's piece on the fundraising scene in the wealthy Bay Area points out:

Venture capitalists ... are struggling with an investing climate that's the gloomiest since the bust of 2000 and '01. In the first half of 2008, only five venture-backed companies went public ... the poorest showing in five years. "Almost everybody who's been in the Valley for any period of time is pursuing cleantech now," says Dixon Doll.
That's where VCs see Obama coming in. In his policy proposal, the senator pledged to invest $150 billion over ten years to develop solar farms in the Sunbelt, plug-in hybrid cars that get 150 miles per gallon (64 kilometers per liter), and clean coal that doesn't spew carbon.

Obama knew that he needed California to win, and green billionaires knew that they needed Obama. A new loophole, the Unauthorized Independent Expenditure (IE), could make it happen. IEs can spend and raise unlimited money as long as there is no coordination with the candidate. An IE at its most brazen is SEIU's Committee on Political Education (SEIU COPE), formed in order to raise $26,009,685.53 in support of Obama and $3,163,276.29 to oppose McCain.

The 2008 report "Independent Expenditures: The Giant Gorilla in Campaign Finance" reveals that million-dollar contributions and multimillion-dollar expenditures are common. Californians for a Better Government (CPG), the highly controversial IE formed for the Angelides campaign, collected $10,015,643, with $8.7 million coming from one pocket: Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulous and his daughter Eleni Tsakopolous-Kournalakis. Married to the President Emeritus of The Washington Monthly, Ms Tsakopolous-Kournalakis now serves as Ambassador to Hungary.

CPG hired Steve Churchwell as Treasurer, just as the Obama for America Draft Committee would a few months later. Churchwell landed at the center of a probe involving incorporation irregularities. The Barry/Churchwell team continues making news. Along with a cryptography and electronic signature expert, they recently unveiled Verafirma Inc., and then they filed suit requiring San Mateo Superior Court to accept electronic signatures on an initiative petition.

Although Angelides lost to Schwarzenegger, he received a campaign donation from Paul Pelosi (Nancy's husband). In January 2009, Angelides delivered billions in stimulus money for Apollo's big "new" green revolution initiative. First unveiled at a 2006 Conference co- sponsored with Bob Borosage, Angelides' friend from Jesse Jackson's campaign, Apollo's green revolution-themed conference featured Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Obama, and others vowing to take the party back from the centrist DLC.

In May 2009, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid selected Angelides to chair their Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) tasked with investigating the cause of the 2007-2010 financial crisis. The Angelides pick prompted complaints of conflicts of interest, mainly around issues like pension funds. Strangely, Angelides' seat on the Board of the Climate Prosperity Alliance (CPA) went unmentioned.

CPA describes itself as a "global network of financiers, businesses, economic development authorities, scientists and NGO's." Marc Weiss, CPA Chair, served as Special Assistant to Andrew Cuomo and Henry Cisneros under Bill Clinton. CPA endorses the expansive policies of the U.N. General Assembly's 2009 "Global Green New Deal." CPA also advocates $1 trillion of green investments per year in order to "re-deploy assets" and solve "worldwide financial instability."

Weeks before falsified documents surfaced confirming global warming as little more than another far-left power-grab, a CPA report celebrated $1,248,740,645,930.00 invested since 2007. The monies came from finance institutes and corporations in North America, Europe, China, India, Japan and Brazil.

Welcome to the ethics-based global revolution. The tangle of corrupt, hypocritical liars is made far worse by the growing realization of just how badly America was duped.



Tax Scam Uncle Sam? You Oughta Be Fired! Says Utah Rep. Chaffetz

Chaffetz Wants to 'Ferret Out' Federal Workers With Unpaid Taxes

By DEVIN DWYER

WASHINGTON

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Tax/100000-federal-employees-owe-irs-back-taxes/story?id=10125860&page=1

Working for Uncle Sam comes with some great perks, like job stability, posh benefits packages, and in many cases, average salaries that are higher than what the same job pays in the private sector.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz from Utah opts to sleep on a cot in his D.C. office.
That's why Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, is irked that nearly 100,000 civilian federal employees owe the IRS $962 million in back taxes. He thinks they should pay up or be fired.

Chaffetz has introduced a bill that calls for the federal government to "ferret out" civilian employees who have "seriously delinquent tax debt" and prevent the hiring of other tax delinquents.

More than 3 percent of the 2.8 million federal civilian employees owed the Treasury unpaid federal income taxes in 2008, according to the IRS. If you include retirees and military service members, the numbers go from nearly 100,000 up to 276,000 current or former workers who owe $3 billion in taxes.

"If you get to the point where the government is putting a lien on their property and they've exhausted their appeals… the right thing to do is fire them as a federal worker," said Chaffetz. "If you're going to take federal tax dollars, you should be paying your federal taxes."

Currently, only IRS employees can be terminated for non-payment of federal income taxes -- a measure Chaffetz wants extended to all federal agencies. The IRS has the lowest level of tax delinquency among its employees than at any other federal agencies, according to the most recent statistics.

But skeptics of Chaffetz's plan argue firing the delinquents en masse circumvents due process and could only hamper efforts to recoup the cash.

Firing federal employees as soon as a lien is imposed by the IRS would be "prior to any due process hearing," said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce.

"We have a system that's in place. For a federal employee, we have the [IRS] garnish their pay at 15 percent -- which is higher than for the regular taxpayer," he said. "We're getting the money back."

Wade Morrow, assistant general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employees union, said workers should be held to account for back taxes but that Chaffetz's rule would not accommodate the complexities of individual cases.

"There may be other facts and circumstances that you should consider," he said, adding that some individuals may have become delinquent due to sickness or divorce complications or due to a mistake in tax filings. Morrow also said the most serious offenders could face termination under existing guidelines if the tax delinquencies interfere with their jobs.

"Getting them to pay back what they owe is preferable to having them all fired, in which case you're not going to get anything at all," said Morrow.

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, wants the federal government to "ferret out" civilian employees who have "seriously delinquent tax debt" and prevent the hiring of other tax delinquents. He introduced a bill in the House earlier this month.
(AP Photo)

Chaffetz: Firing Federal Employee Tax Delinquents Aligns With Obama in Principle
Chaffetz conceded the terminations would probably make it harder for the individuals to pay their tax bills and said employees appealing to the IRS or "making a good faith effort" to repay them should be spared.

But he said a broad purge of tax delinquents is still justified and consistent with a principle laid out by President Obama for contractors employed by the federal government.

Earlier this year, Obama ordered federal agencies to terminate contracts with companies who don't pay federal taxes.

It's simply wrong for companies to take taxpayer dollars and not be taxpayers themselves," the president said Jan. 20. "We need to insist on the same sense of responsibility in Washington that so many of you strive to uphold in your own lives, in your own families and in your own businesses."

Democrats in both the House and the Senate have introduced legislation codifying new rules for federal contractors who don't pay their taxes. Chaffetz is the first and only Republican so far to co-sponsor the House version.
"I think the president's right in the case [of companies] and now I'd like it expanded to federal workers as well," he said. "If you're going to take federal tax dollars, you should be paying your federal taxes."

The bill is currently under consideration by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.



"The e-mail Bag"

Healthcare According to Maxine

Posted by Asst Natl Dir Mellie

http://www.resistnet.com/profiles/blogs/healthcare-according-to-maxine

Let me get this straight......we're trying to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also is exempt from it and hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be
overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.

What the hell could possibly go wrong?