ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100406

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable

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



Tell Congress: Sign the No Pork Pledge!

http://www.cagw.org/ccagw/

Since 1991, Citizens Against Government Waste’s Congressional Pig Book has documented more than 100,000 pork-barrel projects costing taxpayers $290 billion. The proliferation of pork-barrel earmarks over the past 20 years has corresponded with the debasement of the federal budgetary process and Americans’ growing mistrust of their elected officials. As lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) have illustrated, lawmakers and lobbyists trade in earmarks as their “currency of corruption,” undermining our democratic system of government.

Congress has enacted several reform measures since 2007 to reduce pork barreling and increase earmark accountability and transparency, yet earmarks continue to figure prominently in one scandal after another on Capitol Hill. In an effort to encourage more members of Congress and candidates for office to kick the earmarking habit, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) has created the No Pork Pledge

(House version) http://www.cagw.org/assets/earmark-reform-pledge-house-final-10-31-07.pdf

(Senate version) http://www.cagw.org/assets/earmark-reform-pledge-senate-final-10-31-07.pdf.

As signatories to CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge, incumbents and candidates vow not to request any pork-barrel earmark, which is defined as meeting one of the following criteria:

Requested by only one chamber of Congress

Not specifically authorized

Not competitively awarded

Not requested by the President

Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding

Not the subject of congressional hearings

Serves only a local or special interest

Please tell your Representative and Senators today to sign CCAGW's No Pork Pledge! https://secure2.convio.net/cagw/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=615



"Daily Motivations"

I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do. -- Helen Keller

"We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free." -- Epictetus

"Nobody will believe in you unless you believe in yourself." -- Liberace



Action Steps for Enhancing Your Integrity

Establish integrity as your top priority. Make it the cornerstone of all your actions and decisions.

Never compromise your integrity by rationalizing a situation as an “isolated incident.” People are watching everything you do – there are no “isolated incidents.” Firmly decide where your boundaries are, communicate those boundaries, and then stay within them.

Never allow achieving results to become more important than the means to their achievement. For long-term sustained results, how you win is just as important as winning, itself.

For greater success as a leader, maintain your integrity and keep earning employee trust by continually asking yourself these three questions:

1. Are integrity and trust my top priorities? Do I subject my life and work to the highest scrutiny each and every day?
2. Are there areas of conflict between what I believe, what I say, and how I behave?
3. Has compromise crept into my day-to-day life … “under the radar



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in us ... patience .... (Galatians 5:22)

My good friend and spiritual mentor from many years ago, Dr. Henrietta Mears, firmly believed as a young woman that God would call her to go overseas as a missionary. But she was not blessed with good eyesight, which she recognized would be an obstacle to her service overseas. In time she realized God was not calling her into missions.

Ultimately Dr. Mears became the Director of Christian Education at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, California. From that position she had a global impact. She certainly had a tremendous influence on Vonette and me, as well as Richard Halverson (who would become Chaplain of the United States Senate), Billy Graham, and thousands of others.

She founded Gospel Light Publications and Forrest Home Christian Conference Center, where hundreds of thousands experienced new life in Christ. But she had to be patient and obedient as God worked out His perfect will for her.

Step by step, God lays out His special plan for each of us. In His perfect time, God shows us what He wants us to see. We may be interested in the details of the plan, but He is always interested in the details of the relationship as we depend on Him daily. In our souls we may be saying, "Just tell me, Lord! I cannot wait---I want to know now!" But the gentle voice of the Spirit replies, Be patient. Know Me well, and the future will take care of itself, if you will simply trust Me.

Your View of God Really Matters …

Do you need wisdom for the future? He knows the answers. Ask Him for guidance then start moving in faith, trusting Him to lead your steps.



"The Patriot Post"

"On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?" --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 12, 1782

"The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex." --James Madison, Federalist No. 48



Editorial Exegesis - Slaughter House Rules

"We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely 'deem' that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway. Under the 'reconciliation' process that began [Monday] afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate's Christmas Eve bill and then use 'sidecar' amendments to fix the things it doesn't like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process. But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates. So at the Speaker's command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what's known as a 'self-executing rule,' also known as a 'hereby rule.' Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House -- even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill. Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote. Even John Kerry never went that far with his Iraq war machinations. ... This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a 'Bill' to 'become a Law,' it 'shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.' This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. ... If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of [James] Madison's core checks and balances." --The Wall Street Journal



Upright

"It speaks to the sturdiness of the system our founders installed that it is, as intended, so resistant to passing major legal and cultural changes against the overwhelming will of the public. So resistant that, in frustration, the Democratic speaker of the House has been driven to consider breaking her oath of office and violate the Constitution in order to get her way." --columnist Tony Blankley

"The debate over health care reform has been messy and often chaotic, but here we are a year later and Barack Obama and his radical agenda might yet win. If it does, he will have put in place the structure for taking over everything else." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"Though the two issues may seem utterly unrelated, they do have this in common -- both health care and higher education are realms of American life in which government has undermined the operation of market forces and caused artificially high prices. These are two arenas in which the Democrats now propose to do exactly the wrong thing. Their reform reinforces old errors and will infinitely compound the problem of rising prices." --columnist Mona Charen

"In his book 'Dreams From My Father' Obama gives the distinct impression that his gifts are too great for the smallness of our political stage. He regrets not having been born during the civil rights era when the grandness of the cause would have measured up to the grandness of his ambition. He is in search of something big that will allow him to make his mark on the world as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King did. Hence, the defeat of ObamaCare would not just be par for the course in the rough-and-tumble world of politics for him. It would be sign of his ordinariness, his mortality, and that, to him, is unendurable." --Forbes columnist Shikha Dalmia



Insight

"A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." --former England Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please." --American lawyer and patriot James Otis (1725-1783)



The Demo-gogues

Just words, just politics ... just the Constitution: "We have debated this issue now for more than a year. Every proposal has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. I know a lot of people view this as a partisan issue, but, look, the fact is both parties have a lot of areas where we agree -- it's just politics are getting in the way of actually getting it done." --Barack Obama

Arrogance: "The American people want to know if it's still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don't know about the politics. But I know what's right." --Barack Obama (We're waiting for you to get out of the way so we can look out for our own interests, not have you do whatever you "know" is right whether we want it done to us or not.)

Big Brother: "You know what? It's been such a long time since we made government on the side of ordinary working folks, where we did something for them that relieved some of their struggles." --BO

Non Compos Mentis: "Well, a lot of those folks, your employer it's estimated would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent [sic], which means they could give you a raise." --Barack Obama

Glass half empty: "I have no intention of not passing this bill. Let me say it in a positive way: I have faith in my members that we will be passing this legislation." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

She may be a dreamer: "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance." --Nancy Pelosi (So the rest of us can pay for these unemployed artists and photographers to have insurance?)

Democrats to defeat death! "Today, 70 Americans will die for lack of health insurance, 70." --Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) (So why don't most provisions in this bill kick in for four years?)



Village Idiots

Never mind the cost: "Senator Brown comes from a state that has a health care plan that's similar to the one we're trying to enact here. We're just trying to give the rest of America the same opportunities that the people of Massachusetts have." --White House adviser David Axelrod

Shut up, she explained: "[I]nstead of spending your energy attacking the parts of the president's [health care] proposal you don't like, you can use it to strengthen the parts you do." --Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

He blames global warming: "The odds have shifted toward much larger downpours. And we have seen that happen in the Northeast, we've seen it happen in the Northwest -- in both of those regions are among those that scientists have predicted for a long time would begin to experience much larger downpours." --Al Gore

Hollywood chimes in: "I think the people running climate change denial campaigns are sociopaths." --actress Lucy Lawless, a.k.a. "Xena: Warrior Princess"



Short Cuts
"House Democrats conjured a strategy Monday that would allow the House to avoid a vote on the health care bill. Instead they would deem the bill passed and send it to the president. We ordered Iraq not to look, this is for mature democracies only." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Last year, the House was passing bills without reading them. This year, they're passing bills without voting on them." --former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

"What kind of leader sends congressmen out on a kamikaze mission in an election year and right before a recess? The kind of leader whose followers are diminishing in number." --Human Events editor Jed Babbin

"Democrats, though, continue to close their eyes and cover their ears while loudly singing the la la song." --The Washington Times' Kerry Picket

"President Obama would like the House to vote on his health care plan on either St. Patrick's Day or the day after. That means Congress will be voting on health care either when they're drunk, or when they're hung over." --comedian Jay Leno



"The Web"

Citizens Against Government Waste - Give The Stimulus Back To The Taxpayers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ols9kk37A



After America, There is No Place to Go

I don't believe I am the only one to see frightening similarities.

America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World.

Don't Let Freedom Slip Away.

By: Kitty Werthmann

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/after-america-there-is-no-place-to-go/blog-254691/

What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books.

I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide 98% of the vote. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people, about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz, and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group -- Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.
Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

Hitler Targets Education Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles, and had physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.
The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

Equal Rights Hits Home:

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business.

If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

Mercy Killing Redefined:

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

The Final Steps - Gun Laws:

Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles.

The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.

After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn't, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account.

Its true those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.

America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World.

Don't Let Freedom Slip Away!

"After America, There is No Place to Go."



Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being 'over-taxed'
by Anne E. Kornblut

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-word-res.html

CHARLOTTE - Even by President Obama's loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.

Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care" package.

"We are over-taxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.

Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have," the president said.

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer - more than 2,500 words long -- wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, "F-Map"). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as "FICA").

Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care -- twice. "Number one is that we are the only -- we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance," he said.

A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. "Number two, you don't know who might end up being in that situation," he said, then carried on explaining further still.

"Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if you've got health insurance you don't always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you're not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then what's happening is, is you're going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you're covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it," Obama continued, winding on with the answer.

Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned.

But Obama wasn't finished. He had a "final point," before starting again with another list -- of three points.

"What we said is, number one, we'll have the basic principle that everybody gets coverage," he said, before launching into the next two points, for a grand total of seven.

His wandering approach might not matter if Obama weren't being billed as the chief salesman of the health-care overhaul. Public opinion on the bill remains divided, and Democratic officials are planning to send Obama into the country to persuade wary citizens that it will work for them in the long run.

It was not evident that he changed any minds at Friday's event. The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.

Even Obama seemed to recognize that he had gone on too long. He apologized -- in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice. "Boy, that was a long answer. I'm sorry," he said, drawing nervous laughter that sounded somewhat like relief as he wrapped up.

But, he said: "I hope I answered your question."



Connect the Dots on CAIR’s Foreign Funding and Lobbying at CAIRObservatory.org

by Frank Gaffney

http://biggovernment.com/fgaffney/2010/04/03/connect-the-dots-on-cairs-foreign-funding-and-lobbying-at-cairobservatory-org/

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), claims to be “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group.” But that’s a myth. As we reported here on BigGovernment.com last fall, only 1% of CAIR’s latest reported revenues actually came from Muslim American members.

Meanwhile foreign donors have given CAIR over $6,000,000 in cash and loans, and over $50,000,000 in pledges. That’s 1% from American members; tens of millions from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Shouldn’t there be a law to let the American public know the truth about CAIR and their foreign donors? Of course, and there is one. CAIR just doesn’t follow it.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), enacted just before World War Two, still requires foreign agents spreading propaganda to register so Americans can know what they are up to. Back then the problem was foreign agents working for the Nazis. Today the problem is foreign agents like CAIR, defending Jihadists in the media and pushing Muslim Brotherhood values in America.

The Center for Security Policy recently unveiled a unique new tool to expose CAIR as a foreign agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and several of its member states. The CAIR Observatory website (http://www.cairobservatory.org) presents comprehensive open-source evidence and analysis alleging that CAIR has acted as a foreign agent on behalf of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

The centerpiece of the website is the report “CAIR and the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” which details the foreign funding, foreign direction and domestic political influence operations of CAIR in the United States.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) requires any agent of a foreign principal — not just foreign governments but foreign political parties, corporations, non-governmental organizations and even individuals — to register with the U.S. Department of Justice as a foreign agent.

The report documents these CAIR activities as a foreign agent:

CAIR received at least $2,192,203 in Contributions, Income and Money from foreign principals in the form of 10 distinct transactions

CAIR received a $2,106,251 mortgage loan from a foreign principal for their Washington, D.C. headquarters
CAIR secured the promise of at least $54,500,000 in pledges from foreign principals

CAIR met and coordinated with foreign principals on at least 30 occasions

CAIR engaged in at least 50 political influence operations on behalf of foreign principals in the United States And the Center for Security Policy has additional evidence that cannot be made public at this time documenting another $2.4 million in foreign donations and loans given to CAIR since 2000.

The goal of the CAIR Observatory website (http://www.cairobservatory.org/) is to build a model for researching and compiling evidence of illegal behavior by Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, with a focus on organizations operating in the United States as unregistered foreign agents for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and its member states. The website’s name — “CAIR Observatory” — is a direct counter to the so-called “Islamophobia Observatory” maintained by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The Jeddah, Saudi Arabia-based OIC has been a contributor to CAIR, and the two have a history of coordinated meetings, tactics and goals.

CAIRObservatory.org will regularly feature new reports and short documentaries spotlighting specific examples of CAIR’s FARA violations, and will be frequently updated with new evidence on CAIR’s ongoing activities as a currently unregistered foreign agent.

Starting next week we’ll begin to expose specific CAIR political operations targeting the U.S. Congress.

For more information contact CAIRObservatory.org Editor Adam Savit (savit@securefreedom.org).



Morning Bell: Red Tape Rising

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/05/morning-bell-red-tape-rising/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Just three days after President Barack Obama’s health plan was signed into law, AT&T announced that due to an obscure tax change in the bill, the nation’s largest telephone company would take a $1 billion hit to its bottom line this quarter. According to health benefits analysts this tax law modification would shave as much as $14 billion from U.S. corporate profits. While it would have been better had these tax losses been made more public before Congress voted, at least these tax charges are transparent and easily quantifiable enough to get noticed by the American people. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the hundreds of new regulations that the federal government will enforce as it tries to implement Obama’s redistributionist health agenda.

In addition to the federal government’s explicit taxes and spending, Americans are also burdened with a slew of hidden taxes imposed by an ever-increasing number of regulations. More than 50 agencies have a hand in federal regulatory policy, enforcing more than 150,000 pages of rules. Many of these regulations provide needed benefits. Most Americans would agree on the need for security regulations to protect citizens from terrorist attacks, although the extent and scope of those rules may be subject to debate. But each regulation comes at a cost–a “regulatory tax” imposed on all Americans. According to a 2005 study commissioned by the Small Business Administration, the cost of all regulations then on the books was some $1.1 trillion per year.

Worse than the existing size of our country’s regulatory burden, is the pace at which it has been growing. Contrary to what most liberals and media elites would have you believe, President George Bush had a decidedly mixed record on regulation. While he should be praised for strengthening the role of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in screening new regulations, by every objectively measurable metric the size and scope of the regulatory state grew significantly under his tenure. And President Bush’s last years in office were his worst. In 2008 36 major regulations were enacted by the Bush administration, and in 2009 some $15 billion in new regulatory costs were imposed on the American people.

President Bush doesn’t deserve all the blame for that $15 billion in new costs for 2009. About $4.4 billion is attributable to regulations approved by the Obama administration. While that may seem like a significant decrease, it is actually an ominous sign when put in context. Regulatory activity always increases near the end of a presidency and is slower at the beginning. So in President Bush’s first year, he enacted only one major rule and he was in his third year in office before the new regulatory costs he inflicted on the American people hit President Obama’s one-year $4 billion mark. And that $4 billion does not yet include all the regulations for Obamacare. Or all of the regulations Obama’s EPA wants to pass under the Clean Air Act. Or any of the new financial regulations that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) want to inflict on the American people.

There are some things Congress can do now to help better manage the onslaught of federal regulations. First the authority and scope of OIRA should be protected. Establishing a sunset date for all new regulations would also help. But ultimately things will not change for the better until policymakers exercise the will and resolve to guard against the deluge. As Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked last week: “If Congress can’t control what a few mortgage finance bureaucrats do with your dollars, why would anyone trust Congress to control what tens of thousands of bureaucrats will do with your health? … Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power … or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?”



Congressman: 'I don't worry about the Constitution'

'I believe it says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=135553

A Democrat congressman from Illinois says when it comes to the health-care reform plan adopted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama, he just doesn't concern himself with what the Constitution requires.

The comment came in a heated exchange recorded recently between Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., and constituents.

While being pressed on the complications of the "Obamacare" plan, as critics have dubbed it, he was asked, "Where in the Constitution?"

"I don't worry about the Constitution on this to be honest," Hare said.

Instead, he said, he worries about peoples' lives:

"It's people's lives. It's people's children. It's when you take your child to the hospital and you think it's really bad and your heart is thumping, thumping, thumping while you're waiting for the doctor to tell you what it is and then the doctor comes out and says it's going to be ok, except you don't have insurance and you're stuck with a $10 or $15,000 bill. …"

When the congressman stated he doesn't concern himself with the Constitution, one of the constituents muttered, "Jackpot, brother."

"I care more about the people that are dying every day that don't have health insurance," Hare said.

"You care more about that than the U.S. Constitution, which you swore to uphold," a constituent challenged.

"I believe it says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Hare responded.

Another constituent pointed out those words come from the Declaration of Independence.

"Doesn't matter to me," Hare stated. "Either one."

The question about the constitutionality of health care was repeated later, specifically challenging where in the document such action is authorized.

"I don't know. I don't know," the congressman said.

A constituent later called the congressman a liar for claiming he had read the 2,700-page health care plan three times, and the congressman walked out of the meeting, ending it.

Commenters on the YouTube page where the video was posted were incensed:

I cannot WAIT to get these Socialist (sic) out of office.

Someone needs to bring a huge bucket o' tar and a couple truckloads of feathers to Capitol Hill, and that right soon.

I am so tired of seeing these hypocrites shedding all these crocodile tears for those "30 million poor uninsured." Give me a break already! They could care less about your health. This is all about control. Once they can force you to buy health insurance, then they can force you to buy anything. The bottom line to this health-control debate can be summed by by asking a very simple question: "If this is such a great and wonderful plan, why did Congress and the president exempt themselves?"

This man is a lawless thug. His oath means nothing that he swore to. He plays o[n] emotion instead of dealing in facts. Typical, he justifies his actions based on emotion instead of rule of law and the Constitution. When you no longer follow the law, there is tyranny, not matter what the justification is.
In a commentary at the Dakota Voice, the author suggested, "Isn't it refreshing when liberals actually come out and say what they mean? It's such a rare treat, it deserves to be celebrated when it happens."

The author pointed out that while Hare "says he cares more about these mysterious people who are 'dying without health care,'" the facts are that "genuinely poor people have had access to Medicaid and other government health care programs for years, and no one is turned away from emergency room when life-saving treatment is needed … not even illegal aliens."

"But again, let's not be too hard on Rep. Hare. This kind of honesty from a socialist Democrat is priceless."



What Obamacare will cost doctors

Chris Link, MD

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/what_obamacare_will_cost_docto.html

One of the most interesting, if unanticipated, effects of posting YouTube videos is managing the "comments" section. I have a serie s of politically oriented song parodies that I have posted over the past eight months. The first, "One Single Payer System", has more than one million views (thanks to links posted in blogs such as The American Thinker). However, I did not realize I would be taking up the job of de facto moderator for a running debate with more than 1,200 entries in the case of "Single Payer".

One post asked a very good question: "Why can't we just put everyone in the country on Medicare?" Aside from the problem of a huge expansion in the unfunded obligations for the Medicare program, currently estimated to be $89 trillion, my immediate thought was that you can't stay in business as a physician at Medicare reimbursement rates.

I used my specialty, anesthesiology, to illustrate the problem. Using the best information I could find and the example of my own solo practice, I came up with some sobering figures.

Anesthesiologists bill for most surgical cases with a combination of base units depending on the particular surgery (e.g. cardiac bypass has a higher base value than a hernia repair), plus one time unit for every 15 minutes. The average anesthesiologist bills 10,198 units in a year. Medicare pays, on average, $20.925 per unit. Now $213,393 a year sounds like a pretty decent living for most of us and it certainly would be until you start backing out expenses.

A billing service is in the neighborhood of 6% ($12,804) and average malpractice is about $23,000. I'm paying around $15,000 a year for health insurance for a family of four. Various expenses for continuing education, computers, cell phone, office supplies, etc. adds up to around $5,000. AMA, state and local medical society and American Society of Anesthesiologists dues add up to $1,700, if one chooses to join. I'd like to retire someday, so I put away 10% for retirement. Self-employment taxes take $17,154. And I have no employees or office. Most medical practices have a much higher overhead both in real terms and as a percent of revenue.

So what's left?

$117,753, but without the "doctor fix" it would be $85,770. All that in exchange for 50-60 hours a week (including being on-call), coming out of school with an average student loan debt of $156,000 with a payment of over $1,000 per month, and putting your life on hold until at least age thirty. Suddenly it doesn't look like such an attractive option.

And then there's the guy you knew in college who coasted through studying sociology and went to work for the US Department of Health and Human Services right after graduation. He's had eight years to climb through the bureaucratic ranks and is now one of the 19% of the federal workforce that makes over $100,000 and that's before bonuses and overtime. And you always thought he was kind of an idiot.

The average pay of a federal worker in now $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector. Excellent fringe benefits widen the gap even more.

Most of my colleagues are similar to me in coming from middle class backgrounds. I worked to go to school and probably paid for half of my education at a state university. I borrowed money for medical school. Another significant number of doctors are second or third generation physicians, but very few come from well-to-do non-medical backgrounds. And what will happen when medicine is no longer an attractive option for bright motivated youth to move up the socioeconomic ladder?

See that assistant supervisor at your local DMV? The guy sitting in the office drinking coffee, shuffling reports and playing solitaire on the computer?

Meet your heart surgeon.



"The e-mail Bag"

Old Sea Story

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2300699/posts

There's an old sea story in the Navy about a ship's Captain who inspected His sailors, and afterward told the Chief Boson that his men smelled bad.

The Captain suggested perhaps it would help if the sailors would change underwear occasionally. The Chief responded, "Aye, aye sir, I'll see to it immediately!

The Chief went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced, "The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear.

Pittman, you change with Jones, McCarthy, you change with Kwiatkowski, and Brown you change with Schultz. Now get to it!!!"

THE MORAL:

Someone may be promising "Change" in Washington; but don't count on things smelling any better!