Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
"Daily Motivations"
You never know when one kind act, or one word of encouragement, can change a life forever. -- Zig Ziglar
"The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium." -- Norbet Platt
"Great men are they who see that spiritual thought is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9)
Are you discouraged? God tells us not to be. God will help you conquer every discouragement! And when you come through the valleys of discouragement, you will find that God was there all the time. He was waiting patiently for you to exhaust your means and energy and turn to Him for His help. What a tremendous encouragement!
Are you lonely? Some of our most lonely moments can be when we are in a crowd, and yet no one notices us. Our heart aches when we think no one cares. But Jesus is our ever-present friend. He promises, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5, NIV).
He is also with us as we face lonely tasks. When David Livingstone sailed to Africa for the first time as a missionary, a group of his friends accompanied him to the pier to wish him bon voyage. They were concerned for his safety and reminded him of the dangers. One man even tried to convince him to remain in England. But Livingstone opened his Bible and read Jesus' words from Matthew 28:20: "Lo, I am with you always." He turned to the man and smiled. "That, my friend, is the word of a gentleman...So let us be going."
No person or circumstance can ever remove us from the presence of our loving God. Paul writes, "I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from His love." (Romans 8:38).
He is here with us right now and forever---because He is our ever-present God. He is our guide for life and for eternity. What an incredible truth!
Your View of God Really Matters …
Are you discouraged or lonely? Read Romans 8:38-39. Thank God for his constant love and presence in the midst of your pain. Then, as soon as you are able, share this truth with someone else in need of encouragement.
"The Patriot Post"
"The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 48
"But they have two other Rights; those of sitting when they please, and as long as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together." -- Benjamin Franklin, letter to William Strahan, 1784
When Debating a Liberal, Start With First Principles
By Mark Alexander, Publisher, PatriotPost.US
"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson
There are only two rules you need to know when debating a liberal.
Rule Number One: You must define the debate in terms of First Principles, which is to say, you must be able to articulate those principles. (Read Essential Liberty for more.)
Conservatives subscribe to the fundamental doctrine of Essential Liberty as enumerated by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We understand that individual responsibility is the foundation of a free society. We advocate for the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary. We promote free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values.
In short, conservatives endeavor to conserve Rule of Law as our guiding principle, and any legitimate policy debate must start there.
Liberals, on the other hand, subscribe to principles du jour; whatever solution feels best for the day's most popular, fashionable, or prominent cause célèbre.
In short, they believe that the feel-good solution (a.k..a. "rule of man") supersedes Rule of Law.
For the most part, today's liberals are a case study in hypocrisy, the antithesis of the once noble Democrat Party, the party of Thomas Jefferson.
Liberals speak of unity, but they incessantly foment disunity, appealing to the worst in human nature by dividing Americans into constituent dependencies. They speak of freedom of thought -- except when your thought doesn't comport with theirs. They assert First Amendment rights -- except when it comes to religion or speech that doesn't agree with theirs. They promote tolerance -- except while practicing intolerance and seeking to silence dissenters.
Liberals deride moral clarity because they can't survive its scrutiny. They protest for the preservation of natural order while advocating homosexuality. They denounce capital punishment for the most heinous of criminals while ardently supporting the killing of the most helpless and innocent among us -- the unborn, the infirm and the aged.
Liberals loathe individual responsibility and advocate statism. They eschew private initiative and enterprise while promoting all manner of government control and regulation.
Now, I'm not suggesting that everything liberals believe or support is wrong, but their underlying philosophical doctrine surely undermines our "unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," as established by "the laws of nature and nature's God."
As Ronald Reagan observed, "The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
Thus, don't be snookered into defending or denouncing the merits of any issue as framed in liberal terms. Such deliberations are rarely resolved and tend to end in gridlock, or worse, deadlock. (If congressional Republicans really want to end gridlock, they too need to control the debate in terms of First Principles.)
One means of taking control of a debate is to inquire whether an opponent has ever taken an oath to "support and defend" our Constitution. (If you have not, or wish to reaffirm your oath, then we invite you to do so by registering with The Essential Liberty Project.
If your opponent answers "yes," then inquire as to which constitution -- the one upon which our nation was founded, or the so-called "living constitution" adulterated by generations of legislative and judicial diktat.
Of course, you must be prepared to explain the difference -- to explain that only one of these constitutions exists in written form, while the other is a mere fabrication. This can be best accomplished by presenting your copy of the Essential Liberty Guide.
Another means of framing the debate is to ask your opponent to articulate the difference between constitutional Rule of Law and the rule of men. Again, you must be prepared to explain the difference.
You may also start by asking your opponent what "liberal" means. Most liberals will define "liberal" in terms of the issues they support, so ask your opponent if those issues comport with our Constitution.
Once you've framed the debate in terms of First Principles, give your liberal opponent a recess, and a copy of the Essential Liberty Guide.
Principled liberals (admittedly an oxymoron) will remain satisfied that what they feel is equivalent to, or even supersedes, Rule of Law. These poor souls are on their way to becoming über liberals, or Leftists, and are probably beyond any logical redemption.
But if you use your Essential Liberty Guide as an education tool rather than a hammer, some liberals may actually start to come around, and this conversion should be your primary objective.
Further, if confronted by your opponent with a challenge to provide a constitutional defense for some Republican legislation, don't bite. Most Republican legislation, though it may be more in line with our Constitution, rarely comports with the plain language of Rule of Law. Don't let your opponent frame you as a hypocrite. Remember: You are, first and foremost, a constitutional conservative, not a tool of any political party.
Alas, selective interpretation of our Constitution has expanded its meaning beyond any semblance of its original intent, and it will take time and discipline to contract its meaning through due process to restore its original intent.
Finally...
Rule Number Two: You must distinguish between liberals and Leftists. The former subscribe to a plethora of contemporaneous solutions, while the latter are bona fide "useful idiots," those Western apologists for socialist political and economic agendas that terminate with the institution of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism masquerading as regulation and taxation.
When it comes to debating Leftists, the outcome is utterly dependent on who has superior firepower.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
"The Web"
No Treats From Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XivhwO_zWWg
Jesus and the Folded Napkin (email) Examined
By Jeff Kluttz
http://www.returningking.com/?p=78
Many of us have received an email concerning Jesus’ folding of his napkin upon his resurrection. As a pastor, I’ve received it dozens of times, myself. At first, I – like many people- found the story fascinating and was actually moved at the thought of it. But, a bit of internet wisdom compelled me to investigate further.
The Email
The email heading asks this question, “Why Did Jesus Fold the Napkin?” And, the answer (with some variations, of course) is contained in the text below, a condensed version of the original email, usually beginning with: “I’VE NEVER HEARD OF THIS!!!”
Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after His resurrection? I never
noticed this… .
The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over
the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes.
The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.
Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the
tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.
She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus
loved. She said, ‘They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and I don’t know where they have put him!’
Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see.. The other disciple
outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in.
Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen
wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying to the side.
Was that important? Absolutely!
Is it really significant? Yes!
In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to
understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded
napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this
tradition.
When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it.
The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just
out of sight, until the master had finished eating, and the servant would not dare touch that table, until the master was finished.
Now if the master were done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe
his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard, and would wad up that
napkin and toss it onto the table.
The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, ‘I’m done’.
But if the master got up from the table, and folded his napkin, and laid
it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table,
because……….
The folded napkin meant, ‘I’m coming back!’
A Magdalene of Our Times
Written by Gary Isbell
http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/articles/a-magdalene-of-our-times.html
Eve Lavallière, the stage name of Eugénie Fenoglio, was born in Toulon, France, on April 1, 1866. The second child and only daughter of Emile and Albanie Fenoglio, she later described her painful youth. “As a child, I knew not what the love and care of a mother was. My life was tears and suffering from the time I reached the age of reason.” Her father, a tailor, alcoholic and libertine, often gave himself over to jealous brooding and fits of rage. Her mother often had to flee with the children, seeking refuge in relatives’ homes, until her husband had calmed down. This continued until one day, he shot and killed his wife, pointed the pistol at his daughter but did not shoot, and then shot himself.
Eve Lavallière
Eve lived a life of privation and suffering until entering a theater company. Her beauty, voice and poise took her to the best theaters in Paris. She became the foremost actress in France and the idol of the multitudes. The entire world viewed her coiffures and clothing as models and ran after perfumes, soaps and cosmetics “à la Lavallière.”
King Carlos of Portugal, King Leopold II of Belgium, King Edward VII of England, Henry of Bavaria, diplomats, magnates, and princes all came to hear and applaud her. Dazzled by glory, she threw herself “into the vast sea of sin.
“Gold ran through my hands,” Eve confessed. “I had everything the world could offer, everything I could desire. Nevertheless, I regarded myself the unhappiest of souls.” Despite living in a rich palace in Paris, surrounded by luxury, with a carriage and even an automobile—then very rare—at her disposal, she felt tortured by remorse. More than once she attempted suicide, even once after a magnificent performance in London.
On Her Way to Damascus
In June 1917, Eve wanted to rest far from the world’s agitation to prepare the repertoire of songs and pieces she was to perform in the United States. So she rented the palace of Porcherie in Chanceux, near Tours. She retired there with Leonia, a young Belgian refugee she had met in Paris in 1915 and who accompanied her as a lifelong confidante. The trustee of this palace was the parish priest, Father Chasteigner, a simple, austere and pious man, genuinely solicitous for his parishioners’ souls.
The day following Eve’s arrival was a Sunday. Father Chasteigner, noting her absence from Mass, called upon her to express his concern. Eve promised him she would not miss Mass again, and on the following Sunday, when the good pastor preached on the great converted sinners, she attended the Mass with a frivolous attitude.
Eve Lavallière dressed for stage.
Returning to the palace that afternoon, the pastor commented to Eve, “What a pity that you have no faith!”
“But what is faith?” replied Eve, in the tone of one who has permanently lost it.
She then told him of her experiences with spiritism, in which, she said, the devil took part. “I took advantage of the occasion to ask him to restore my youth, which was what I most desired, and to cure me of enteritis. Satan promised he would do so on the condition that I would become his. I accepted, adding that my lifestyle was perfect for gaining him many adepts. Obviously quite content, he disappeared.
“Some days later I was at another session, with a new presence of the devil. I denounced him for failing to fulfill his promise. In reply, he guaranteed that he would grant what I asked, but under one more condition: that I not bless myself when I encountered a funeral. That was the only vestige of religiosity that remained in me.
“But Satan still did nothing for me. In the following session, filled with indignation, I called him an impostor and a cheat. By then I had concluded that spiritism was nothing but a farce and that the devil did not exist.”
“Well, I assure you that he exists,” the good priest said, and with that, he mounted his bicycle and left without further ceremony.
Eve, struck by his conviction, began to think. “If the devil exists, God also exists. And if God exists, what am I doing in this world? What am I doing with my life?”
“On the following morning,” Leonia recalls, “we were walking in front of the castle when the pastor appeared.”
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “what you told me yesterday disturbed me. I confess that I spent the better part of the night in prayer, asking God to inspire me in your regard. I also celebrated Holy Mass for the same intention. Here, I brought you The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene, by Father Henri Lacordaire. Read this book on your knees and you will see what God can do with a soul such as yours.”
“After lunch,” Leonia continues, “Eve settled down near the kitchen and, opening the doors so that the servants might hear, began to read in a loud voice. Enthusiasm seized her. Never had I heard her read with such conviction. Sitting at her feet, I began to cry. The servants were likewise moved. Eve continued reading, her voice broken by sobs.”
Eve and Leonia spent the rest of the week in piety and recollection.
“And I, Reverend Father?”
“Sunday arrived, the tenth of June,” says Leonia. “We went to Mass, but Eve’s disposition differed completely from that of the previous Sunday. It was on this day, during lunch, that I ventured to say to her, ‘I would like to make my first Communion. I have reached 23 years of age without ever receiving, but I want to do so.’”
Eve was quite moved. Not only did she encourage Leonia, but offered to make the necessary arrangements and affirmed that she too would receive Holy Communion with her. At the same time, she told her, “From now on do not address me as ‘my lady.’ Simply call me ‘Eve,’ for you are my sister and I am yours.”
When the pastor arrived later and learned of Leonia’s resolve, he promised to assist her. Since she first needed instructions, he said he would provide her a catechism. The priest then prepared to leave, but Eve detained him.
“And I, Reverend Father?”
“You?”
“Yes, me! I promised this little one that I would help her, be her sponsor, and receive Holy Communion with her.”
“But...”
“Yes, I know well. I am a sinner and have not lived as a Christian, but even so, I hope I still have the right to return to God.”
Leonia writes, “I can still see Eve on the main avenue of the palace, walking decisively at the pastor’s side and, in a loud voice, accusing herself publicly of her sins. The good priest seemed embarrassed.”
“Wait! Wait a moment!” he protested. “And above all, don’t shout so loud!”
“Wait? Wait for what? Can Leonia’s happiness not also be mine?”
“It’s just that... it’s that, compared to you, Leonia is a child. Her case is simple. You, you are Eve Lavallière... you are well known... your life is public. I cannot treat you in the same manner. Moreover, you gave yourself over to spiritism. We are talking about a reserved sin.”1
“Oh, my God! How unhappy I am! God does not concern Himself with me because I am such a sinner.”
“Be calm, Mademoiselle! God does love you, and to prove that, I shall leave immediately for Tours, to request the necessary permission.”
“And if they do not wish to grant it?”
“They will. What motive would they have for refusing? Mademoiselle, I will be back in less than a hour, and I will come with all the powers.” With that, the good priest disappeared on his bicycle. Eve remained in a state of anxiety, lamenting and weeping.
Eve’s sole consolation amid her sorrow, from Leonia’s account, was her confidence in Our Lady! “How good it now feels to think of her. In times past I used to love her, and I never completely forgot her. I used to send her the flowers they offered me. She will have pity on me!”
Nevertheless, as she waited, Eve’s anxiety grew. Despair nearly took hold of her. Falling upon her knees, she raised her hands to Heaven. Bathed in tears, she exclaimed, “Lord, take me! Send me death, I can endure no more!”
Just then, Leonia, peering through the window, shouted, “Good news! I see him, I see him at last! He is pedaling with all his strength!” Eve rushed out to meet him.
“For the rest of my life,” writes Leonia, “I will never forget her great cry of joy. I will ever see her there, kneeling on the grass, expressing to God her happiness and gratitude.”
“The peace of the Lord be with you, my daughter!” said the priest, leaping from his bicycle. “The Vicar-General immediately gave me all the authorizations requested.” Eve stood up, calmed, transfigured. With what attention and gratitude she heard those words of peace!
For an entire week the two friends prepared themselves for confession and Holy Communion. They walked through the wheat-covered fields each morning to the rectory. There they sat side-by-side on the old sofa in the parlor and, like two well-behaved children, recited their catechism lesson. In the afternoon, Father Chasteigner would go to the palace to speak of Heaven and the things of God. Father Chasteigner gave each of them a Rosary, and it was Eve who taught Leonia how to pray it. Preparing for their general confessions, “We wrote out our sins on sheets of paper so as not to forget anything,” said Leonia.
On the afternoon before the important day, the two were in Eve’s room saying their prayers aloud. Eve said, “When I was a child, on the day before first Communion day, we used to ask forgiveness of our parents for the faults we committed against them.” Then, throwing herself on her knees at Leonia’s feet, she implored, “Forgive me, Leonia, for the bad example I have given you and all the affliction I have caused you.” Leonia, in turn, did the same, and afterwards they retired to await the great day.
The château of La Porcherie where Eve Lavalière converted on June 7, 1917.
Dead to the World
Morning finally dawned. It was overcast and raining. “Naturally,” said Eve, “today you have precedence, for you are making your first Communion. Confess and receive Holy Communion ahead of me.”
They found the church draped in mourning, for a Mass was going to be offered later for a soldier killed in the war. “They are preparing for a funeral,” declared Eve. “And on this day, Leonia, we will also bury our life of sin.”
Eve right after her conversion.
"Father Chasteigner was waiting for us in the deserted church,” Leonia recalls. “He lit a candle before the image of the Most Holy Virgin and entered the confessional. I went in first and knelt down. After I had confessed, Eve took her turn. After her confession I had the impression that she had already received Holy Communion, such was the purity of her countenance and so great her recollection.”
The Happiness That Can Only Come From God
Father Chasteigner returned to the sanctuary. Eve and Leonia knelt expectantly at the Communion rail. “While lighting the altar candles, the Reverend Father’s eyes were bathed in tears. As it had been agreed, I received Communion first and Eve right after. The priest’s hand trembled upon giving her the Sacred Host. She was white, as if dead, upon receiving her God. Returning to my place, I remained only a short time in recollection, for prolonged prayer was not for my temperament. But Eve seemed in another world.
“We had been invited to have brunch in the rectory. At a sign from the Reverend Father, I called Eve several times. But she, deeply absorbed, heard nothing. Finally, Father Chasteigner went and roused her himself and she returned to earth.
“What a joyful and radiant celebration! Afterwards, we returned on foot through the sun-drenched fields, the sun having overcome the clouds and rain. Eve was exultant with joy. ‘Does it not seem to you, Leonia, that the fields have prettier tones and that the flowers today are more beautiful than ever?’ We felt ourselves as delicate as shadows.
“Eve always considered that day, June 19, 1917, as the most special day of her life. She considered it the day her life really began. She renounced the theater forever, canceled her contracts, rid herself of her jewels, and repudiated all that reminded her of her worldly life. After her conversion, she was to affirm, ‘It was the devil that led me to God!’
“‘My resolution is made,’ Eve wrote. ‘From now on, only Jesus has a right to my life, for He alone gave me happiness and peace.’”
A True Repentance
“She left Paris in order to be safe from its dangers, distributing her immense fortune to the poor, the missions, and religious houses, and went to live in remote locales. She asked of God much suffering in order to atone for her past sins and ascend to the heights of contemplation, virtue and sanctity.”
The Divine Majesty granted her request for suffering in a variety of ways. For example, she desired to enter a convent to expiate her sins and to labor for the conversion of sinners. Notwithstanding her great ability to love and her purity of heart, she was repeatedly rejected on account of her poor health and notoriety. It was a trial that she fully accepted, realizing it to be God’s will.
For four years she devoted seven months a year serving on a lay-missionary nursing team in Tunisia, but poor health and periods of depression forced her to give up this work and return to France. There, with Leonia, she led a life of prayer, meditation, almsgiving and much suffering from illnesses.
She, who had been the toast of Paris, faced extreme suffering at the end of her life. There was not one of her once-beautiful features that did not become a means of expiation, sanctification and apostolate. Rendering gratitude to God, Eve herself said, “I have sinned through these faculties, good Lord. Now I thank Thee for permitting me to expiate my sins through this suffering.”
In 1929, a large Parisian newspaper published an interview of the former celebrity.
“Do you suffer a lot?”
“Yes, horribly,” she responded.
“Have you any hope of being cured?”
“None. But I am so happy! You cannot imagine how great my happiness is.”
“Even with so much suffering?”
“Yes, and because of it. I am in God’s hands. Tell my friends of days gone by that you met the happiest person on earth.”
In her last letter she wrote, “All my being and all my will are turned toward this last end: to love God, Who loves me so much in spite of my past and present miseries.”
She died on July 10, 1929, at the age of 63. On her grave was placed a simple cross with these words, engraved according to her request:
I left everything for God;
He alone is enough.
O Thou Who didst create me,
Have pity on me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: 1. “Reserved sins” are those that a confessor cannot absolve without special authorization of the bishop or the Pope. This permission is always granted when requested.
Rep. Bachmann: Do We Want ‘To Watch Ourselves Collapse From Our Own Welfare State?’
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=63559
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told CNSNews.com that "expensive entitlement programs" are "bringing our country down," and Americans will have to choose between surviving as a country or collapsing "from our own welfare state."
In an exclusive interview, CNSNews.com asked Bachmann if she supported, for example, phasing out Medicare Part D, a program enacted in 2003 by President George W. Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress that subsidizes the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries. (The program is currently estimated to cost $16.6 trillion over the next 75 years.)
“I think that program needs tremendous reform, because we're now at a precipice here in our nation where we can't afford all of the entitlement programs,” said Bachmann. “Just like you saw with GM and Chrysler, the very weighty, expensive benefit-heavy packages rendered those companies uncompetitive with Toyota and other companies. We're seeing the same thing in the federal government.”
Bachmann continued: “These very expensive wage-and-benefit packages that we're paying to federal employees, but also very expensive entitlement programs are frankly bringing our country down and we have to make a decision: ‘Do we want to survive as a country or are we going to watch ourselves collapse from our own welfare state?’ It's really up to us to make the decision.”
Rep. Bachmann, elected to Congress in the 2006 mid-term election, blamed Democrats for making entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare “unworkable” today.
“They (Democrats) like to act as though they want to save them (entitlement programs) and we want to end them when, in fact, it's been just the opposite,” said Bachmann. “The Democrats unfortunately have been in a situation where they have made those programs unworkable, which means vulnerable people who are dependent on those programs may not have them to take care of the needs that they need.”
“That's what we are trying to do,” she said. “We're trying to help those who are the most vulnerable in the United States to make sure that they can have benefits that they are hoping for and that they worked for but that won't be the case.”
She also warned that the United States is close to losing its AAA bond rating.
“This year, not into the future, but this year is the first year that Social Security is putting more money out than what it’s taking in,” said Bachmann. “Well, that's called being overdrawn at the bank.”
“That’s happening this year, seven years ahead of schedule,” she said. “Medicare is dead broke within seven years, and it could happen sooner than that. In the midst of that, we're seeing a brand new entitlement (the new health care law) waking up that is being forced upon us? When the boat is already sinking financially? Remember, Moodys is coming out saying the United States in all likelihood will lose our triple-A bond rating. This isn't a game anymore, this isn't a political sound-bite anymore. This is reality.”
In a previous interview with CNSNews.com, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) echoed Bachmann’s concerns about entitlement programs. Ryan cited a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that says the federal government already faces a “fiscal gap” of $76 trillion, meaning that over the next 75 years the cost of the benefits promised in federal entitlement programs exceeds the tax revenues expected to pay for them. This amounts to almost $250,000 for every single American and about $650,000 for every American household.
“All those unfunded liabilities, all that debt I’ve been telling you about, is before you pass this budget,” said Ryan. “That’s if we don’t pass the budget. If we pass the Obama budget, it just gets worse. He doubles the debt in five years and triples it in 10.”
A transcript of CNSNews.com’s interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) follows below:
CNSNews.com’s Nicholas Ballasy: “Every House Republican voted against the health care bill. Are you partaking in any efforts to repeal the legislation?”
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.): “Oh, absolutely. The bill passed near midnight on Sunday night. I instructed my staff on Sunday night, ‘We have to repeal this thing.’ I spoke with Mike Pence on the floor and said we've got to repeal, we have to have a discharge petition. At the same time my colleague, Steve King, went to Eric Cantor and gave the same exact message and so that morning, on Monday morning, we independently had bills drawn up for repeal, dropped them, and introduced them first thing in the morning. So did Sen. Jim DeMint [R-S.C.] on the Senate side.
Bachmann: “We're urging all of our colleagues, both in the House and in the Senate, everyone should file repeal bills of Obama-care and we should all get on each others’ bills to let the American public know that we are unanimous in wanting to repeal this unconstitutional bill and replace it with true, good, honest health care reform that will actually benefit the American people and not break the bank.”
Ballasy: “Thirteen state attorneys so far are suing the federal government over the individual mandate in the health care bill. Do you agree with those lawsuits and what do you think the end result will be?”
Bachmann: “Oh, I believe that we're going to see challenges at every level. I was just, as a matter of fact this morning, with the Virginia attorney general, and he is going to be the first one in the country to file his claim. He's in the ‘rocket-docket,’ which is the fastest legal court system in the United States, and he anticipates in about a year and a half, this case should be before the United States Supreme Court.
Ballasy: “Do you think they have the grounds for a repeal, overturning it?”
Bachmann: “I believe, he, I know that the attorney general in Virginia is basing his claim on the individual mandate and I think that there is merit in this claim, because never before in the history of our country has the federal government forced an American to do something pro-actively, forcing an American as a mandate of citizenship to purchase a product or service against their will. And again, this is a government- mandated product and government essentially will set the price on that product.
Bachmann: “So, there’s no way out. The American people will be forced to purchase it. This is the grounds for redistribution of wealth. This is how President Obama will achieve his objective of redistribution of wealth. When you force an American -- as a condition of citizenship -- to purchase a product or service against their will and the federal government essentially sets the price for that product, then there's no freedom left for the individual. It is a different matter when a state makes a mandate -- the federal government is limited. The federal government, Article 1, Section 8, has limited enumerated powers. The federal government is without power to force an American citizen to purchase a product or service against their will. So yes, I do believe there's strong grounds for the unconstitutionality of this individual mandate in Obamacare.”
Ballasy: “I interviewed Delaware Senator Tom Carper (D) who is also a former governor of the state. He said it's not likely that this is ultimately going to be overturned, and he knows some pretty good lawyers who would agree.”
Bachmann: “I would disagree. I think it has a very strong chance of being overturned and I hope that it is, and I think you'll see challenges immediately in the court system, challenges immediately here in the legislature – you've already seen them. We've already seen the lawsuits filed, we've already seen the legislation filed. What's interesting is President Obama campaigned, when he was running for president as being a ‘uniter.’ Unfortunately, the president has proven to be one of the biggest dividers of this nation that we've ever had in the presidency.”
Ballasy: “When looking at the tea party movement, the last rally, we've seen some stories that have come out: Representative [John] Lewis and Representative [James] Clyburn have said there were racial incidents at the tea party. Did you see anything like that, that was consistent with their stories?”
Bachmann: “I did not. We had over 30,000 people here on Saturday [March 20] at the west side of the Capitol, a tremendous group of individuals trying to get the attention of Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and the Democrats saying, ‘Don't take away my health care from me.’ I met with – the media tends to portray the people who are in the tea party movement as toothless hillbillies, as rubes from the backwater who don't know what they're talking about.”
Bachmann: “Do you know who I met on Saturday? I met surgeons, anesthesiologists, family practice guys, interns, I met pharmacists, I met business owners, lawyers. I met people from all walks of life – apolitical people, 75-year-old women who came out. I didn't see any indication of racial tensions. I didn't see any indication of being personal, against personal members of Congress. What I saw were people that were fighting for their constitutional liberties and fighting for our country. And I think it's a tremendous affront trying to castigate people who are fighting for our country as somehow being racially motivated. I didn't see that at all.”
Ballasy: “You, during your time in Congress, have been critical of excessive government spending and social programs. Can you point to any social program that the Republican Party has dissolved and shut down over the last 50 years?”
Bachmann: “Well, let me go to the first part of your question. President George Bush spent way too much money as president and he did that with the help of a Republican Congress. But in his worst year, he spent something over $450 billion dollars. In just his first year alone, President Obama spent over $1.4 trillion in deficit. There's no comparison. There’s no moral equivalency. George Bush's worst year was $458 billion or more in debt as compared to Barack Obama, $1.4 trillion in debt.”
Bachmann: “This year President Obama is going to break even his own record. He's going to quadruple that amount of debt; that's more than -- if you take all the presidents from the first day George Washington came into office as president through George W. Bush leaving office, President Obama in his first year accumulated more debt than all of those presidents combined. So there's just no comparison in the amount of debt that was accumulated.”
Bachmann: “Now, the second part of your question had to do with spending programs, and I'm without knowledge as to what programs they did or didn’t do away with. I was here during the last two years of President George W. Bush, but that was under Democrat rule in the Congress. Speaker Pelosi dominated the House and [Sen.] Harry Reid [D-Nev.] dominated the Senate, and so I was never here when the Republicans were in control in the House.”
Ballasy: “Do you think programs like Medicare Part D, which had a lot of Republican support, with a Republican-controlled Congress -- and I understand you were not in Congress at that time – but do you think a program like that, specifically Medicare Part D, should that program be dissolved?”
Bachmann: “I think that program needs tremendous reform because we're now at a precipice here in our nation where we can't afford all of the entitlement programs. Just like you saw with GM and Chrysler, the very weighty, expensive benefit-heavy packages rendered those companies uncompetitive with Toyota and other companies. We're seeing the same thing in the federal government. These very expensive wage and benefit packages that we're paying to federal employees, but also very expensive entitlement programs are, frankly, bringing our country down, and we have to make a decision: ‘Do we want to survive as a country or are we going to watch ourselves collapse from our own welfare state?’ It's really up to us to make the decision.”
Ballasy: “You see some Democrats who say, ‘Okay, if Republicans are so concerned about the cost of our social programs that we started, let's see them try to end them, politically. Let's see them try to get out there and tell the American people we're going to end Medicare, we're going to end Social Security over time.’ Do you think those kind of programs could be ended at this time and we could begin to phase those programs out?”
Bachmann: “Well, that's the scare tactics that the Democrats like to bring up every year. They like to act as though they want to save them and we want to end them when, in fact, it's been just the opposite. The Democrats unfortunately have been in a situation where they have made those programs unworkable, which means vulnerable people who are dependent on those programs may not have them to take care of the needs that they need.”
Bachmann: “That's what we are trying to do. We're trying to help those who are the most vulnerable in the United States to make sure that they can have benefits that they are hoping for and that they worked for but that won't be the case because, remember, this year, not into the future, but this year is the first year that Social Security is putting more money out than what it is taking in.
Bachmann: “Well, that's called being overdrawn at the bank. That’s happening this year, seven years ahead of schedule. Medicare is dead broke within seven years and it could happen sooner than that. In the midst of that, we're seeing a brand new entitlement waking up that is being forced upon us? When the boat is already sinking financially? Remember, Moodys is coming out saying the United States in all likelihood will lose our triple-A bond rating. This isn't a game anymore, this isn't a political sound-bite anymore. This is reality. What this means is all of our interest rates will go up if you're buying a home, if you're buying a business, if you're buying a car, student loan, interest rates are going up. Plus for the United States, our interest rates will go up too and that's the biggest problem we have in the United States today is all of the welfare payments we're paying out, the entitlement payments – that, coupled together with interest on the debt, those two alone have the potential of wiping out all other spending at the federal level. It's really about spending. At the end of the day, that's America's problem.”
Ballasy: “The ‘Contract with America’ released by the Republican Party in the 1994 congressional elections called for the following departments to be shut down: Commerce, Education, Agriculture and Energy. Do you think any of these should be closed today?”
Bachmann: “I think that the contract that was made in 1994 was one where, I think it was 10 items -- I wasn't here at the time, I was at home having babies at the time -- but I think that was one where the Republicans promised that they would have a vote on a certain number of bills within the first 100 days. I think the current Republican Congress needs to also come up with a vision for the American people -- how we're going to right the ship. And this is a different time than 1994, and we have to come up with an agenda that gives the best path forward for the United States, and I believe we will.”
Help the American Legion support family of fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder Updated
By Michelle Malkin
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/30/help-the-american-legion-support-family-of-fallen-marine-lance-cpl-matthew-snyder/
My stalwart friends at the American Legion have stepped up to raise funds to cover the legal expenses of fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder’s family. As you all know, Snyder’s funeral was targeted by the evil miscreants of the bogus Westboro Baptist Church. The Snyders took the protesters to court. In October 2007, a jury awarded the Snyders $2.9 million in compensatory damages, $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress. It was thrown out on appeal by the Fourth Circuit. Federal judges have now ordered the family to pay $16,510 to ringleader Fred Phelps as they pursue a Supreme Court case. SCOTUS agreed earlier this month to hear the Snyders’ appeal.
Regardless of how you feel about the merits of the Snyders’ suit, the Snyders deserve to know that Americans are forever grateful for their son’s heroism and for the family’s sacrifice. We shouldn’t stand by and watch them bankrupted.
MOTHAX at The American Legion Burnpit tells me the group’s National Adjutant is seeding a fund-raising effort for the Sndyers with his own funds. The group will also be submitting an amicus brief in the Snyders’ case and intends to raise enough money to cover the court-ordered legal expenses and any other expenses incurred by the Supreme Court appeal.
They need your help.
Go here to donate now — and spread the word.
More from Cassy Fiano in the Green Room at Hot Air.
Allahpundit has more and the Baltimore Sun, which broke the story, has a follow-up on the outpouring of generosity and support the Synder family has received:
As news of the order to pay Westboro’s court costs spread through the media and online, strangers were moved to send money and set up funds to support Snyder’s court battle.
On Tuesday, Mark C. Seavey, new media director for the American Legion, posted a message on his Legion-affiliated blog, The Burn Pit, urging readers to donate to the Albert Snyder Fund. The American Legion’s message was picked up by conservative political blogger Michelle Malkin, who called the Westboro protesters “evil miscreants” and urged readers to donate.
“Regardless of how you feel about the merits of the Snyders’ suit, the Snyders deserve to know that Americans are forever grateful for their son’s heroism and for the family’s sacrifice. We shouldn’t stand by and watch them bankrupted,” Malkin wrote.
Money from donations will go toward covering the money owed to Phelps, and beyond that, toward preparing further appeals, Seavey said.
“As soon as we heard this we just knew that it was going to go through the roof, and people were going to be upset. We seized on it,” Seavey said. “On an issue like this that cuts across political lines, it’s relatively easy, and it’s the kind of fight we want to wade into because it’s not right or left, it’s right or wrong. We’re going to do the best we can to make sure that Mr. Snyder doesn’t have to deal with this. We’re going to make sure he doesn’t have to pay a red cent.”
In a phone interview Tuesday, Snyder said he was “exhausted” by the long legal ordeal, but heartened by the outpouring of support. He said he has received about 3,000 e-mail messages from people across the country who wanted to show their support and planned to contribute.
“It kind of restores your faith in mankind after dealing with this wacko church,” Snyder said. “Win or lose, I’ll know that I did everything I could for Matt, and for all the soldiers and Marines who are still coming home dying.”
Morning Bell: One Nation Under Arrest
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/31/morning-bell-one-nation-under-arrest/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented. The income tax doesn’t kick in until an American earns income. Auto liability insurance doesn’t become mandated until an American chooses to drive (and even then it’s only by the state). And farmers must first grow food before they are subject to the regulations of the Department of Agriculture. But facing federal government sanction for simply breathing? That is a troubling assault on American liberty.
Unfortunately, Obamacare is just the latest example of the growing reach of the federal government into all aspects of our lives. While the final bill passed by Congress specifically made the noncompliance with an IRS individual mandate penalty not a crime, far too often when the spotlight of American attention is not focused on an issue, Congress has gone ahead and criminalized what was once before perfectly normal behavior. Consider, for example, small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, whose story is recounted by Heritage fellows Brian Walsh and Hans von Spakovsky:
In May 2004, FBI agents driving a black Suburban and wearing SWAT gear ran Evertson off the road near his mother’s home in Wasilla, Alaska. When Evertson was face down on the pavement with automatic weapons trained on him, an FBI agent told him he was being arrested because he hadn’t put a federally mandated sticker on a UPS package.
A jury in federal court in Alaska acquitted Evertson, but the feds weren’t finished. They reached into their bag of over 4,500 federal crimes and found another ridiculous crime they could use to prosecute him: supposedly “abandoning” hazardous waste (actually storing, in appropriate containers, valuable materials he was using for the clean-fuel technology he was developing). A second jury convicted him, and he spent 21 months in an Oregon federal prison.
Putting the wrong stamp on a package. Storing your own property own your own land. When did these actions become federal crimes? Why? How can we stop them? A new book launched yesterday and published by The Heritage Foundation answers these questions. One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty documents how over the past 50 years the politicization of American criminal law and practice has created traps for millions of innocent and unwary Americans and threatens to make criminals out of those who are just doing their best to be respectable, law abiding citizens.
In 1998, an American Bar Association task force estimated that there were over 3,000 federal criminal offenses scattered throughout the 50 titles of the United States Code. Just six years later, that number is estimated to be over 4,000 and Columbia law professor John Coffee estimates that the federal government could use the criminal process to enforce as many as 300,000 federal regulations.
Lavrentiy Beria, the chief of the Soviet security and secret police under Stalin reputedly said, “Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime.” Our country is by no means a Soviet police state yet, but a federal government empowered with a sprawling code that makes all of us potential criminals is more than just an existential threat to American Liberty. This overcriminalization trend must end. Become informed. Learn the issues. Buy the book. And fight back.
From the front lines: Ranchers speak out on border chaos
By Michelle Malkin
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/30/from-the-front-lines-ranchers-speak-out-on-border-choas/
I will continue to keep you updated on the investigation into Arizona rancher Rob Krentz’s brutal murder. The latest:
*Funeral services have been set for April 9-10 in Douglas.
*Police are working on theories about the shooter possibly belonging to “a drug cartel scout or a band of thieves terrorizing Arizona ranches.”
*Open-borders Sen. Johnny Come Lately McCain, in the political battle of his life, is now calling for the National Guard. Don’t read his lips. Read his border security-undermining, law enforcement-abandoning record.
*The Arizona Farm Bureau sends the following statement:
“The murder of Cochise County rancher Rob Krentz this last weekend should not have happened and was preventable,” said Arizona Farm Bureau President Kevin Rogers. He and his organization send their deepest sympathy to the Krentz family for their loss.
According to Rogers, the ranching and farming community along the border, have been asking for a secure border for many years. “Our members are the ones who see the illegal traffic including drug and human cargo smuggling coming across their farms and ranches.” Rogers explained that over the last several years, his members have reported coming face to face with these smugglers that are well armed and menacing. “It is time for the federal government to fix this problem before another one of our ranch or farm families are injured or killed. No family should have to endure what the Krentz family is experiencing.”
Rogers said inaction by Congress can no longer be tolerated. “The border needs to be secured,” said Rogers. His organization has long called for securing the border and fixing the worker visa program so we know who is coming into the U.S. and who is overstaying their permission to be here. “Fixing the worker visa program becomes part of securing the border,” he emphasized.
If this tragedy is connected to smuggling from Mexico, swift action is needed to make sure this will not lead to an escalation in Arizona of the violence associated with the drug cartel brutality now just south of our border. “Until Congress addresses securing the border, all necessary resources should be focused on Arizona’s border,” concluded Rogers.
"The e-mail Bag"
You Might Be A Redneck
Thank you Jeff Foxworthy!
You take a fishing pole into Sea World.
You think a turtleneck is key ingredient for soup.
You've ever stood in line to have your picture taken with a freak of nature.
You think the French Riviera is foreign car.
You go to a stock car race and don't need a program.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Cleanse the RNC
Is there a majority of the RNC Executive Committee membership who has the courage to clean up the Republican National Committee? This means starting with the National Chairman. The GOP Platform is the foundation of our party which starts in each community at the precinct level, and advancing through each level, to be approved with the RNC Executive Committee. Our GOP Platform is an entity which we should govern from. Hiring the Chairman to the RNC who doesn’t believe in the basics of our platform is comparable to employing a minister, whom upon leaving the pulpit, stops by the brothel to spend the afternoon with the ladies.
Ronald Reagan, in 1975, said “A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.” When Ronald Reagan said to build a “big tent”, so many fail to understand that President Reagan was saying was to build on a firm rock based on a resolved foundation of fiscal and social values. Others mistakenly seem to believe that President Reagan was allowing anyone with any radical left-wing issues to be part of the GOP leadership. Candidates and elected officials must live by the GOP Platform if they want support from the Republican Party. The GOP as a political organization is not a social club for all to believe in, live by, or support.
There are many Conservative Republicans all across America crying out for good solid GOP leadership at the top who supports fiscal and moral issues. There are many GOP leaders across America who fit this description. Why does the RNC Executive Committee neglect to employ these? With good solid moral leadership who support the GOP Platform, the money will come in. You, as members of the Executive Committee, have a responsibility to make sure each and every contributor resources are spent on solid RNC Platform issues and/or supporting candidates with fiscal and moral issue candidates.
So often, we criticize the Democrat Party for their left-wing radical issues and doing so is justified. It often appears there are others within the RNC bureaucracies who are just as doubtful as some of the Democrat Party.
Please, for the GOP and for a sound fiscal and social America, clean up the Republican National Committee. Make all Americans proud to be a member of the GOP. American voters are depending on the GOP to compose some corrective measures in support of fiscal and moral issues. Americans are waiting! Please act now!
Ronald Reagan, in 1975, said “A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.” When Ronald Reagan said to build a “big tent”, so many fail to understand that President Reagan was saying was to build on a firm rock based on a resolved foundation of fiscal and social values. Others mistakenly seem to believe that President Reagan was allowing anyone with any radical left-wing issues to be part of the GOP leadership. Candidates and elected officials must live by the GOP Platform if they want support from the Republican Party. The GOP as a political organization is not a social club for all to believe in, live by, or support.
There are many Conservative Republicans all across America crying out for good solid GOP leadership at the top who supports fiscal and moral issues. There are many GOP leaders across America who fit this description. Why does the RNC Executive Committee neglect to employ these? With good solid moral leadership who support the GOP Platform, the money will come in. You, as members of the Executive Committee, have a responsibility to make sure each and every contributor resources are spent on solid RNC Platform issues and/or supporting candidates with fiscal and moral issue candidates.
So often, we criticize the Democrat Party for their left-wing radical issues and doing so is justified. It often appears there are others within the RNC bureaucracies who are just as doubtful as some of the Democrat Party.
Please, for the GOP and for a sound fiscal and social America, clean up the Republican National Committee. Make all Americans proud to be a member of the GOP. American voters are depending on the GOP to compose some corrective measures in support of fiscal and moral issues. Americans are waiting! Please act now!
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100331
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100331
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
This is all about "Salvation": The "Son Rising" at "Sunday Sunrise".
"Daily Motivations"
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make
them otherwise." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Failure lies not in falling down. Failure lies in not getting up." -- Chinese proverb
Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. -- Napoleon Hill
People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily. -- Zig Ziglar
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. (Romans 16:20)
God is more powerful than all the rulers on earth. Do the nuclear capabilities, chemical weapons, and military strength of other countries frighten you? We do not need to fear. The prophet Isaiah writes, "All the nations of the world are nothing in comparison with Him. They are but a drop in the bucket, dust on the scales." (Isaiah 40:15)
We need not fear that any one person or nation will put God to the test. He is so far above our earthly governments that they can do nothing outside His power. No ruler or army can change any plan that God has made.
God is also infinitely more powerful than Satan and his evil legions. God is not intimidated by the devil's rebellious hatred. God is the Creator; Satan is a created being who can operate only within the prescribed limits God places on him.
The Book of Matthew records Jesus' encounter with two men who were demon-possessed. The demons immediately recognized the Son of God's power by saying, "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" They requested that He let them go into a nearby herd of pigs. He said one powerful word---"Go!" And they did. In response, the pigs ran over a cliff to their deaths. (Matthew 8:28-32, NIV).
As Christians, sometimes we feel that the forces of evil have the upper hand. But our almighty God fights for us. How encouraging it is to know that God is all-powerful!
Your View of God Really Matters …
What do you fear most? Where has evil touched your life? If you really believed God was all-powerful, what impact would it have in this area? Today, choose to find true freedom as you rely on God's power rather than your own.
"The Patriot Post"
"It would reduce the whole instrument 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 they would be the 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. It [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." --Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791
"We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge." --Fisher Ames, speech in the United States House of Representatives, 1789
"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters." --Samuel Adams
Upright
"The more we come to rely on government, the fewer freedoms we will enjoy. Government will start dictating what we can own, eat and drive, how much of our money they will let us keep, how we run our businesses, how many -- if any -- guns we can own, and what we may and may not say. Oh, wait! They are already doing that. To preserve freedom we must fight for it." --columnist Cal Thomas
"True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another." --economist Walter E. Williams
"With their backs to the wall, Democratic leaders are preparing a complicated plan to pass their national health care bill. Standing in the way are Democrats who oppose the bill, whether on principle or out of fear that voting for a wildly unpopular measure will spell defeat for them in November. If you think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to let them off easy, allowing them to kill the party's top policy priority in more than a generation -- well, that's not gonna happen. Democrats who are considering voting against the bill are about to experience arm-twisting, threats, and pressure like they've never experienced." --columnist Byron York
"In my entire career, I have never been as confounded as I am over President Obama and the Democratic leadership's obsession with a piece of legislation that not one major national poll has shown to be popular. ... So I have to ask, why are the president and the leaders of Congress willing to see their entire party and a multitude of other policy proposals go down in flames over something that the public can't stand? ... Folks, this is nothing more than a power grab. It's an effort to take one of the most essential elements of every person's life -- their health -- and put it under the control of government." --columnist Matt Towery
"The president cannot show us he is looking out for our interests and our future by forcing a quick, partisan vote on an issue that will impact not only this time but generations to come. This is especially true since he was so adamant in his opposition to using this very parliamentary measure in governance during his campaign. And he cannot show us that he is listening when polls show that only 35-40 percent of Americans support this bill." --radio talk-show host Michael Reagan
Dezinformatsia
Delusions from a parallel universe: "Campaign promises are about getting elected; once there, they are quickly forgotten. Courage is not a word you hear very often in discussions about politics. Not Barack Obama. Whether or not you support or even understand his health care plan -- and the polls suggest that right now most Americans don't -- you must admit this: Obama is a man who does everything humanly possible to keep his promises. He promised health care reform, and he is risking his presidency to deliver it. If that's not courage, what is?" --political commentator Susan Estrich (Try blind ideology.)
Oh no! "Now that we have finally arrived at the do-or-die moment for Obama's signature issue, we face the alarming prospect that his presidency could be toast if he doesn't make good on a year's worth of false starts. And it won't even be the opposition's fault. If too many Democrats in the House defect, health care will be dead." --New York Times columnist Frank Rich
Propaganda FAIL: "John Patrick Bedell, whom authorities identified as the gunman in the Pentagon shooting on Thursday, appears to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent antigovernment feelings." --Christian Science Monitor staff writer Peter Grier (Oops, Bedell was a registered Democrat and an anti-Bush 9/11 "truther.")
Rather racist: "One, part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama's leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. 'Listen he just hasn't been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.' And a version of, 'Listen he's a nice person, he's very articulate' -- this is what's been used against him -- 'but he couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.'" --HDNet's Dan Rather trying to put words in Republicans' mouths
Village Idiots
You don't say: "I have thus far failed, and our world has thus fair failed to respond adequately to this crisis." --Algore on his efforts to educate the world about climate change
Unsolicited advice: "I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff. I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement. I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp. And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do." --from an open letter to BO from crockumentarian Michael Moore
Useful idiot: "Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. ... [T]ruly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies." --actor Sean Penn on his buddy Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan dictator (No wonder they get along so well!)
In need of remedial history: "Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?" --actor Tom Hanks promoting his upcoming HBO miniseries "The Pacific"
Somehow not comforting: "Believe me, if we were charting this administration as a political exercise, the first thing we would have done would not have been a massive recovery act, stabilizing the banks and helping to keep the auto companies from collapsing. Those would not even be the first hundred things he would want to do." --White House adviser David Axelrod
Short Cuts
"Nancy Pelosi, the speaker and leader of the San Francisco Democrats, says her members 'are very excited about what comes next.' For many of them, that's 'excited' as in 'hysterical.'" --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden
"So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that 'now is the hour when we must seize the moment,' the same moment he's been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats." --columnist Mark Steyn
"President Obama met with ten House Democrats opposed to the health care bill. He did all he could to get their votes. He promised to campaign for them in their districts and when that didn't work, he threatened to campaign for them in their districts." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"These self-anointed intellectuals are people who think that those who believe in God and Jesus Christ, those who 'cling to their guns and their religion,' are a lower form of animal life, while they, themselves, have no problem whatever accepting Obama as a messiah and, in the past, deifying the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Let's face it, when you kneel in a church, you're accepting that there is something greater and wiser than yourself in the universe. When, on the other hand, you kneel to a left-wing politician, you're merely emulating Monica Lewinsky." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"ACU"
ACORN is playing dead.
Since ACU began taking on ACORN we have scored a number of victories.
We have helped expose their federal funding, to the tune of millions of taxpayer dollars. We exposed their connection to the mortgage meltdown that led our nation into financial crisis and their connection to Barack Obama's campaign - remember our ACU videos?
It didn't take long before other brave people stepped forward to expose them for what they had been up to: criminal enterprises masked as community efforts.
So when Congress finally had the will power to start removing their federal funding we cheered, and we supported their efforts.
Now our newspapers are reporting that ACORN is dead.
But, it is critical that as ACU activists you know ACORN is not gone, they are merely rolling over and playing dead like a dog in our nation's backyard.
They are trying to hide under other names so they can come back stronger than ever.
We need to keep the pressure on Congress and the liberal Democrats who supported them to not fund any ACORN spin offs. Tax dollars do not belong with ACORN related subsidiaries!
TELL CONGRESS: DO NOT FUND ANY ACORN-RELATED GROUPS. WE DO NOT WANT OUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT WITH ACORN OR THEIR SPIN-OFFS. WE ARE WATCHING!
Shakespeare wrote, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." However, every rose has its thorn we know ACORN, and their related groups, for who they are.
The Metro section of the Washington post recently wrote, "ACORN's Capitol Hill office is shutting down... National group making broad closures but it hasn't dissolved."
The story continued that, "The Capitol Hill office which had become an increasingly important location for ACORN is shutting down... after the organization was hammered by scandal." However, Michael McCray, a member of a breakaway group of ACORN leaders said, "they're looking forward to replacing ACORN with something that is an effective advocate."
The key words are "it hasn't dissolved." ACORN is claiming to some they are going away, while telling others they are staying put if even operating under a different name.
We need to nip them in the bud.
TELL CONGRESS: DO NOT FUND ANY ACORN-RELATED GROUPS. WE DO NOT WANT OUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT WITH ACORN OR THEIR SPIN-OFFS. WE ARE WATCHING!
Time is of the essence.
Another election is approaching. Their leaders will try to corrupt this election process just like they did in the past. Our economy is just beginning to recover from the disastrous policies they pushed for subprime mortgages. The criminal enterprises they encouraged will look for an outlet.
As USA Today's headline recently screamed: "Vows to pick up where ACORN left off are made," and quoting critic Matthew Vadum who said he truly "believes it will re-emerge."
Call your local talk radio and tell them that ACORN isn't dead. Write on blogs to tell people that ACORN isn't dead. Send letters to the editor exposing the group's leaders and keep the pressure on to tell people that ACORN isn't dead.
And help ACU tell Congress: DO NOT FUND ANY ACORN-RELATED GROUPS. WE DO NOT WANT OUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT WITH ACORN OR THEIR SPIN-OFFS. WE ARE WATCHING!
Sincerely,
Dennis Whitfield
Executive Vice President, ACU
Former Reagan Deputy Secretary of Labor
P.S. FOXNews recently reported, "The Chicago office for the community activist group, known as ACORN, seems to have disappeared. (BUT) In its place; a company called Affordable Housing Centers of America, [is] located in the same office, with apparently many of the same employees. Like we said, ACORN isn't dead. Help keep the pressure on Congress to stop any funding of ACORN or ACORN-related groups. Sign the Petition Letter effort here!
"The Web"
RecallCongressNow.org
http://www.theacru.org/acru/mark_levin_on_recallcongressnoworg_328/
Our long national ObamaCare nightmare is just beginning
Conn Carroll - Guest Columnist
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=955292
If you are tired of our nation's year-long healthcare debate and you were hoping that the passage of President Barack Obama's healthcare bill would settle anything, then Politico has some bad news for you: the real fight is just getting started.
This week, a coalition of leftist groups began to sink millions of dollars into television advertising and astroturf events selling the plan to the American people. But as a Washington Post poll conducted after passage last week shows, the Obama administration and their leftist allies face a steep climb.
The top line numbers are bad but not daunting for the pro-ObamaCare forces: 50 percent of Americans oppose the changes in the new law while 46 percent support them. But the numbers also show that most Americans believe the new law will cause "the overall healthcare system in this country" to get worse, "the quality of the healthcare you receive" to get worse, and "your health insurance coverage" to get worse. The poll also shows that most Americans believe the law will weaken Medicare and that there is "too much government involvement in the nation's healthcare system." And strong majorities of Americans believe ObamaCare will increase the federal budget deficit (65%), increase "your healthcare costs" (55%), and increase "overall costs of healthcare in this country" (60%). The American people are right on all counts. And if the events of last week are any indication, these beliefs will only harden over time.
Pitching his failed stimulus plan back in February of last year, President Obama told a factory in East Peoria, Illinois, "So what's happening at this company tells us a larger story about what's happening with our nation's economy, because, in many ways, you can measure America's bottom line by looking at Caterpillar's bottom line."
Well, Caterpillar was quick to inform the markets exactly what ObamaCare meant for its bottom line. Caterpillar announced that ObamaCare would raise its insurance costs by at least 20 percent -- or more than $100 million -- just in the first year of the healthcare overhaul program. And Caterpillar was not alone. Other Fortune 500 firms quickly followed suit announcing ObamaCare hits to their bottom line including: Deere & Co., $150 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; Valero Energy, $20 million; and AT&T, $1 billion. The consulting firm Towers Watson tells the Wall Street Journal that the total hit this year will reach nearly $14 billion. America's employers simply can't sustain losses like these, so many of these companies, including Verizon, have informed their employees to expect significant changes to their current healthcare benefits.
The leftist majorities in Congress were incensed that America's employers would dare warn their investors about the costs of ObamaCare at the same time as the Obama administration's national sales pitch was set to begin. So using the full force of the federal government to bully and harass America's job creators, House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-California) sent letters to the CEOs of Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon, and AT&T demanding all documents "from January 1, 2009, through the present" regarding "any analyses related to the projected impact of healthcare reform" and "any documents, including e-mail messages, sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials related to the projected impact of healthcare reform." Waxman intends to haul these CEOs in front of the Subcommitte on Oversight and Investigations, which just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), for a hearing on April 21.
While it is unfortunate that the left in Congress believes our nation's business leaders' time is best spent being browbeaten by congressmen for not doing more to support their policy preferences, the American public should look forward to these hearings. The more information the American public is given about ObamaCare, the more they will oppose it. The more they oppose it, the easier it will be to repeal it. We have a long road ahead of us, but eventually the ObamaCare nightmare will end.
Conn Carroll is the assistant director for The Heritage Foundation's Strategic Communications and he serves as editor of The Foundry, the think tank's rapid-response policy blog. This column is posted with permission.
Steele Takes Fire for RNC Sex Club, High-End Expenses
http://newsmax.com/Headline/sex-club-republican-expenses/2010/03/29/id/354165?s=al&promo_code=9A97-1
WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee spent $1,946 last month at a sex-themed Hollywood club that features topless dancers and bondage outfits. Now the GOP wants its money back.
Listed in a monthly financial report, the amount is itemized as expenses for meals at Voyeur West Hollywood.
RNC spokesman Doug Heye said Monday the committee doesn't know the details of how the money was spent, all who may have attended or the nature of the outing, except to say it was an unauthorized event and that the expenditure was inappropriate.
The RNC will be reimbursed by Erik Brown of Orange, Calif., the donor-vendor who billed the committee for the club visit, Heye said.
Brown did not respond to an e-mail and phone message seeking comment.
Since November, the RNC has paid Brown's company, Dynamic Marketing Inc., about $19,000 for printing and direct-mail services, campaign spending reports show. He has contributed several thousand dollars to the party.
The most recent financial disclosure report said the RNC spent more than $17,000 for private planes in February and nearly $13,000 for car services. Heye said such services are used only when needed.
The $1,946 for meals at Voyeur West Hollywood was the most eye-catching item in the monthly report. RNC Chairman Michael Steele, whose spending decisions have angered some donors in this midterm election year, had nothing to do with the nightclub expenditure, Heye said.
The conservative group Concerned Women for America said the RNC should disclose more about the episode.
"Did they really agree to reimburse nearly $2,000 for a bondage-themed night club?" group president Penny Nance asked in a statement. "Why would a staffer believe that this is acceptable, and has this kind of thing been approved in the past?"
Much of the most lavish spending by the major political parties is associated with fundraisers, which often target wealthy people.
The RNC spent $144,549 for rooms at the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 2009. On March 19, 2009, it spent $31,980 for catering by the Breakers Palm Beach in Florida.
The RNC paid $18,361 over the past several months to the "Tiny Jewel Box" in Washington for "office supplies," which may have included trinkets or gifts for big donors. It spent $13,622 at Dylan's Candy Bar in New York City.
Some Republican officials and donors have complained about Steele's spending decisions, saying the party should devote every available dollar to trying to win House and Senate races this fall. He held this year's four-day winter meeting at a beachfront hotel in Hawaii, although it often takes place in Washington.
Some donors grumbled when Steele spent more than $18,000 to redecorate his office. Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor, also has received substantial fees for making speeches, even though the RNC pays him a full-time salary.
The expenses were first brought to light by the Web site Daily Caller. The article led with Steele's expenses on charter aircraft and the suggestion by an unnamed source that he was looking for the RNC to buy an airplane to accommodate his travel.
Heye told Fox News the article was misleading because it did not distinguish Steele's expenses from finance and fundraising expenses associated with the purpose of the travel. He added that the story "willfully and erroneously suggests" that Steele was at the club.
"The chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable. ... Good reporting would make that distinction crystal clear," Heye said in his statement.
After the rebuke, Jonathan Strong, the reporter who wrote the Daily Caller article, told MSNBC that he never said Steele was at Voyeur, but "I hope to find out whether that's the case in the coming days."
Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson also offered a statement. "To be clear: We did not claim that Michael Steele personally visited Voyeur West Hollywood. In fact, and unfortunately, we still know almost nothing about that trip, including its purpose. If the RNC provides details, we’ll put them on the site immediately."
Steele's supporters say he has brought a refreshing frankness and energy to the party's leadership.
Obama Ignores Senate Republicans, Uses Recess Appointment to Place Embattled Union Lawyer Craig Becker on NLRB
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63503
(CNSNews.com) – Flouting Senate Republicans, President Obama used his constitutional authority to make recess appointments on Saurday and placed two Democratic nominees -- union lawyer Craig Becker and labor attorney Mark Pearce -- on the National Labor Relations Board.
Becker, the associate general counsel for both the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, had been blocked for confirmation on Feb. 9, when all 41 Senate Republicans and two Senate Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), voted against removing a filibuster against his nomination.
The Pearce nomination was considered less controversial, and Senate Republicans had offered to approve Pearce, a former union attorney in private practice, if Becker’s name was withdrawn. A third nominee, a Republican, was not appointed.
“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis,” Obama said in a statement released Saturday by the White House.
Becker and Pearce were two of 15 recess appointments the president made Saturday, the day after Congress left Washington for its Easter recess.
But the Becker appointment was widely seen as a slap in the face to the entire Senate Republican Conference, which sent a letter last week to the president calling on him not to circumvent the Senate by making an appointment while Congress was away on Easter recess.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), led Senate opposition to Becker, said he was “very disappointed” that the president chose to appoint Becker to the NLRB post while Congress was in recess.
“The U.S. Senate rejected this highly controversial and partisan nominee, and once again the administration showed that it had little respect for the time-honored constitutional roles and procedures of Congress,” McCain said in a statement issued Saturday. “This is clear payback by the administration to organized labor.”
Organized labor lauded the president for doing an end-run around the Senate.
“The appointment of Becker and Pearce to the NLRB is a major step towards renewing access to justice for America's workers,” AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein told CNSNews.com.
“For more than two years, the NLRB has been crippled by its unnecessary vacancies, leaving working families at a major disadvantage. The hardworking people who make this country run deserve better.”
Employers groups, who opposed Becker’s nomination, warned of the repercussions.
“This recess appointment disregards the Senate’s bipartisan rejection of Craig Becker’s nomination to the NLRB,” Katie Packer, president of the Workforce Fairness Institute, told CNSNews.com.
“Overriding the will of the Senate and providing this special interest payback contradicts the President’s claim to change the tone in Washington. The business community should be on red alert for radical changes that could significantly impair the ability of America’s job creators to compete.”
Biased or Well-Qualified?
Becker is the first attorney to be appointed to the board while still working directly for a union. He currently serves as associate general counsel to both the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
A summa cum laude graduate of Yale, Becker has practiced and taught labor law for 27 years, serving as a law professor at UCLA, University of Chicago and Georgetown law schools.
But in their letter, the GOP senators said Becker never sufficiently answered questions posed to him by Republican members of the Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee – especially Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.)
“Time and again questions have been raised over Mr. Becker's ability to serve in an honest and impartial manner on the NLRB, yet this administration chose to ignore the questions and concerns and instead forced their will on the American people," McCain said.
McCain and Hatch say that Becker won’t give clear answers about whether, as a member of the president’s transition team, he helped draft President Obama’s pro-union executive orders shortly after the inauguration -- even though he was still an employee of the SEIU.
When asked by Sen. Hatch during his confirmation hearing if he was “involved or responsible in any way” for the executive orders, Becker responded: “As a member of the Presidential Transition Team, I was asked to provide advice and information concerning a possible executive order of the sort described. I was involved in researching, analyzing, preliminary drafting, and consulting with other members of the Transition team.”
Becker is also known for writing that employers should be barred from placing observers at the polls to challenge union ballots -- and should have no right to be heard in unfair labor practices cases.
In a 1993 article in the University of Minnesota Law Review, “Democracy In The Workplace: Union Representation. Elections And Federal Labor Law,” the then-UCLA professor wrote (pages 451-453): “On these latter issues employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practices case, even though Board rulings might indirectly affect their duty to bargain.”
He also wrote. “(E)mployers should neither have legal standing as parties to the representation proceeding nor have rights tantamount to those of candidates in union elections”
The abstract for the article states: "(T)his Article illuminates fundamental differences between the systems of political and labor representation. In light of these differences, it concludes that employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees' election of representatives."
Becker has also stated that his opinion that the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to form a union, simply by signing a union card -- could be implemented as an administrative matter by the NLRB.
“Craig Becker stands far outside the mainstream of NLRB nominees,” Hatch said. “There is no place on this powerful board for someone who believes that card-check legislation – getting rid of the secret union ballot – can be enacted surreptitiously through regulation.”
The AFL-CIO’s Goldstein dismissed the Senate Republican response.
“Cynical attempts to paint them as biased or radical could not be more dishonest. They are both highly qualified and respected experts,” Goldstein said.
“For eight months the Republican minority blocked these nominations and hypocritically condemned the use of recess appointments ignoring the fact that Bush did so seven times to the NLRB. Putting the NLRB back on track to being a fully functioning Board is a big win for working families,” he added.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Council say they are filing motions in 12 pending cases they are involved in seeking Becker to step aside and "recuse" himself from participating in the decisions because of his public advocacy of union positions on those issues.
The Vat Cometh
by Charles Krauthammer
http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2010/03/26/the_vat_cometh?page=full&comments=true
WASHINGTON -- As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh.
With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.
We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that another $12 trillion will be added over the next decade. Obamacare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks -- the unfunded $200 billion-plus doctor fix, the double counting of Medicare cuts, the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only 6 years of outflows) -- is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement.
It will vastly increase the debt. But even if it were revenue-neutral, Obamacare pre-empts and appropriates for itself the best and easiest means of reducing the existing deficit. Obamacare's $500 billion of cuts in Medicare and $600 billion in tax hikes are no longer available for deficit reduction. They are siphoned off for the new entitlement of insuring the uninsured.
This is fiscally disastrous because, as President Obama himself explained last year in unveiling his grand transformational policies, our unsustainable fiscal path requires control of entitlement spending, the most ruinous of which is out-of-control health care costs.
Obamacare was sold on the premise that, as Nancy Pelosi put it, "health care reform is entitlement reform. Our budget cannot take this upward spiral of cost." But the bill enacted on Tuesday accelerates the spiral: It radically expands Medicaid (adding 15 million new recipients/dependents) and shamelessly raids Medicare by spending on a new entitlement the $500 billion in cuts and the yield from the Medicare tax hikes.
Obama knows that the debt bomb is looming, that Moody's is warning that the Treasury's AAA rating is in jeopardy, that we are headed for a run on the dollar and/or hyperinflation if nothing is done.
Hence his deficit reduction commission. It will report (surprise!) after the November elections.
What will it recommend? What can it recommend? Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation.
But this won't be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs -- which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates.
That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).
It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent.
American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation.
Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama's triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan's strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it: First, cut taxes -- then ultimately you have to reduce government spending.
Obama's strategy is exactly the opposite: Expand the beast, and then feed it. Spend first -- which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.
And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.
As a substitute for the income tax, the VAT would be a splendid idea. Taxing consumption makes infinitely more sense than taxing work. But to feed the liberal social-democratic project, the VAT must be added on top of the income tax.
Ultimately, even that won't be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health care rationing.
It will take a while to break the American populace to that idea. In the meantime, get ready for the VAT. Or start fighting it.
Vote Democrats out of Congress
Lisa Miller
545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=25403709686&topic=6590
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, *if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?*
Have you ever wondered why, *if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes,
WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?*
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices, 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi.
She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them
con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you.
The e-mail Bag"
You Might Be A Redneck
Thank you Jeff Foxworthy!
You've ever stolen toilet paper.
You think a hot tub is a stolen bathroom fixture.
People hear your car a long time before they see it.
The gas pedal on your car is shaped like a bare foot.
You prefer car keys to Q-tips.
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
This is all about "Salvation": The "Son Rising" at "Sunday Sunrise".
"Daily Motivations"
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make
them otherwise." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Failure lies not in falling down. Failure lies in not getting up." -- Chinese proverb
Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. -- Napoleon Hill
People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily. -- Zig Ziglar
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. (Romans 16:20)
God is more powerful than all the rulers on earth. Do the nuclear capabilities, chemical weapons, and military strength of other countries frighten you? We do not need to fear. The prophet Isaiah writes, "All the nations of the world are nothing in comparison with Him. They are but a drop in the bucket, dust on the scales." (Isaiah 40:15)
We need not fear that any one person or nation will put God to the test. He is so far above our earthly governments that they can do nothing outside His power. No ruler or army can change any plan that God has made.
God is also infinitely more powerful than Satan and his evil legions. God is not intimidated by the devil's rebellious hatred. God is the Creator; Satan is a created being who can operate only within the prescribed limits God places on him.
The Book of Matthew records Jesus' encounter with two men who were demon-possessed. The demons immediately recognized the Son of God's power by saying, "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" They requested that He let them go into a nearby herd of pigs. He said one powerful word---"Go!" And they did. In response, the pigs ran over a cliff to their deaths. (Matthew 8:28-32, NIV).
As Christians, sometimes we feel that the forces of evil have the upper hand. But our almighty God fights for us. How encouraging it is to know that God is all-powerful!
Your View of God Really Matters …
What do you fear most? Where has evil touched your life? If you really believed God was all-powerful, what impact would it have in this area? Today, choose to find true freedom as you rely on God's power rather than your own.
"The Patriot Post"
"It would reduce the whole instrument 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 they would be the 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. It [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." --Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791
"We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge." --Fisher Ames, speech in the United States House of Representatives, 1789
"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters." --Samuel Adams
Upright
"The more we come to rely on government, the fewer freedoms we will enjoy. Government will start dictating what we can own, eat and drive, how much of our money they will let us keep, how we run our businesses, how many -- if any -- guns we can own, and what we may and may not say. Oh, wait! They are already doing that. To preserve freedom we must fight for it." --columnist Cal Thomas
"True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another." --economist Walter E. Williams
"With their backs to the wall, Democratic leaders are preparing a complicated plan to pass their national health care bill. Standing in the way are Democrats who oppose the bill, whether on principle or out of fear that voting for a wildly unpopular measure will spell defeat for them in November. If you think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to let them off easy, allowing them to kill the party's top policy priority in more than a generation -- well, that's not gonna happen. Democrats who are considering voting against the bill are about to experience arm-twisting, threats, and pressure like they've never experienced." --columnist Byron York
"In my entire career, I have never been as confounded as I am over President Obama and the Democratic leadership's obsession with a piece of legislation that not one major national poll has shown to be popular. ... So I have to ask, why are the president and the leaders of Congress willing to see their entire party and a multitude of other policy proposals go down in flames over something that the public can't stand? ... Folks, this is nothing more than a power grab. It's an effort to take one of the most essential elements of every person's life -- their health -- and put it under the control of government." --columnist Matt Towery
"The president cannot show us he is looking out for our interests and our future by forcing a quick, partisan vote on an issue that will impact not only this time but generations to come. This is especially true since he was so adamant in his opposition to using this very parliamentary measure in governance during his campaign. And he cannot show us that he is listening when polls show that only 35-40 percent of Americans support this bill." --radio talk-show host Michael Reagan
Dezinformatsia
Delusions from a parallel universe: "Campaign promises are about getting elected; once there, they are quickly forgotten. Courage is not a word you hear very often in discussions about politics. Not Barack Obama. Whether or not you support or even understand his health care plan -- and the polls suggest that right now most Americans don't -- you must admit this: Obama is a man who does everything humanly possible to keep his promises. He promised health care reform, and he is risking his presidency to deliver it. If that's not courage, what is?" --political commentator Susan Estrich (Try blind ideology.)
Oh no! "Now that we have finally arrived at the do-or-die moment for Obama's signature issue, we face the alarming prospect that his presidency could be toast if he doesn't make good on a year's worth of false starts. And it won't even be the opposition's fault. If too many Democrats in the House defect, health care will be dead." --New York Times columnist Frank Rich
Propaganda FAIL: "John Patrick Bedell, whom authorities identified as the gunman in the Pentagon shooting on Thursday, appears to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent antigovernment feelings." --Christian Science Monitor staff writer Peter Grier (Oops, Bedell was a registered Democrat and an anti-Bush 9/11 "truther.")
Rather racist: "One, part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama's leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. 'Listen he just hasn't been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.' And a version of, 'Listen he's a nice person, he's very articulate' -- this is what's been used against him -- 'but he couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.'" --HDNet's Dan Rather trying to put words in Republicans' mouths
Village Idiots
You don't say: "I have thus far failed, and our world has thus fair failed to respond adequately to this crisis." --Algore on his efforts to educate the world about climate change
Unsolicited advice: "I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff. I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement. I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp. And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do." --from an open letter to BO from crockumentarian Michael Moore
Useful idiot: "Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. ... [T]ruly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies." --actor Sean Penn on his buddy Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan dictator (No wonder they get along so well!)
In need of remedial history: "Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?" --actor Tom Hanks promoting his upcoming HBO miniseries "The Pacific"
Somehow not comforting: "Believe me, if we were charting this administration as a political exercise, the first thing we would have done would not have been a massive recovery act, stabilizing the banks and helping to keep the auto companies from collapsing. Those would not even be the first hundred things he would want to do." --White House adviser David Axelrod
Short Cuts
"Nancy Pelosi, the speaker and leader of the San Francisco Democrats, says her members 'are very excited about what comes next.' For many of them, that's 'excited' as in 'hysterical.'" --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden
"So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that 'now is the hour when we must seize the moment,' the same moment he's been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats." --columnist Mark Steyn
"President Obama met with ten House Democrats opposed to the health care bill. He did all he could to get their votes. He promised to campaign for them in their districts and when that didn't work, he threatened to campaign for them in their districts." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"These self-anointed intellectuals are people who think that those who believe in God and Jesus Christ, those who 'cling to their guns and their religion,' are a lower form of animal life, while they, themselves, have no problem whatever accepting Obama as a messiah and, in the past, deifying the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Let's face it, when you kneel in a church, you're accepting that there is something greater and wiser than yourself in the universe. When, on the other hand, you kneel to a left-wing politician, you're merely emulating Monica Lewinsky." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"ACU"
ACORN is playing dead.
Since ACU began taking on ACORN we have scored a number of victories.
We have helped expose their federal funding, to the tune of millions of taxpayer dollars. We exposed their connection to the mortgage meltdown that led our nation into financial crisis and their connection to Barack Obama's campaign - remember our ACU videos?
It didn't take long before other brave people stepped forward to expose them for what they had been up to: criminal enterprises masked as community efforts.
So when Congress finally had the will power to start removing their federal funding we cheered, and we supported their efforts.
Now our newspapers are reporting that ACORN is dead.
But, it is critical that as ACU activists you know ACORN is not gone, they are merely rolling over and playing dead like a dog in our nation's backyard.
They are trying to hide under other names so they can come back stronger than ever.
We need to keep the pressure on Congress and the liberal Democrats who supported them to not fund any ACORN spin offs. Tax dollars do not belong with ACORN related subsidiaries!
TELL CONGRESS: DO NOT FUND ANY ACORN-RELATED GROUPS. WE DO NOT WANT OUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT WITH ACORN OR THEIR SPIN-OFFS. WE ARE WATCHING!
Shakespeare wrote, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." However, every rose has its thorn we know ACORN, and their related groups, for who they are.
The Metro section of the Washington post recently wrote, "ACORN's Capitol Hill office is shutting down... National group making broad closures but it hasn't dissolved."
The story continued that, "The Capitol Hill office which had become an increasingly important location for ACORN is shutting down... after the organization was hammered by scandal." However, Michael McCray, a member of a breakaway group of ACORN leaders said, "they're looking forward to replacing ACORN with something that is an effective advocate."
The key words are "it hasn't dissolved." ACORN is claiming to some they are going away, while telling others they are staying put if even operating under a different name.
We need to nip them in the bud.
TELL CONGRESS: DO NOT FUND ANY ACORN-RELATED GROUPS. WE DO NOT WANT OUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT WITH ACORN OR THEIR SPIN-OFFS. WE ARE WATCHING!
Time is of the essence.
Another election is approaching. Their leaders will try to corrupt this election process just like they did in the past. Our economy is just beginning to recover from the disastrous policies they pushed for subprime mortgages. The criminal enterprises they encouraged will look for an outlet.
As USA Today's headline recently screamed: "Vows to pick up where ACORN left off are made," and quoting critic Matthew Vadum who said he truly "believes it will re-emerge."
Call your local talk radio and tell them that ACORN isn't dead. Write on blogs to tell people that ACORN isn't dead. Send letters to the editor exposing the group's leaders and keep the pressure on to tell people that ACORN isn't dead.
And help ACU tell Congress: DO NOT FUND ANY ACORN-RELATED GROUPS. WE DO NOT WANT OUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT WITH ACORN OR THEIR SPIN-OFFS. WE ARE WATCHING!
Sincerely,
Dennis Whitfield
Executive Vice President, ACU
Former Reagan Deputy Secretary of Labor
P.S. FOXNews recently reported, "The Chicago office for the community activist group, known as ACORN, seems to have disappeared. (BUT) In its place; a company called Affordable Housing Centers of America, [is] located in the same office, with apparently many of the same employees. Like we said, ACORN isn't dead. Help keep the pressure on Congress to stop any funding of ACORN or ACORN-related groups. Sign the Petition Letter effort here!
"The Web"
RecallCongressNow.org
http://www.theacru.org/acru/mark_levin_on_recallcongressnoworg_328/
Our long national ObamaCare nightmare is just beginning
Conn Carroll - Guest Columnist
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=955292
If you are tired of our nation's year-long healthcare debate and you were hoping that the passage of President Barack Obama's healthcare bill would settle anything, then Politico has some bad news for you: the real fight is just getting started.
This week, a coalition of leftist groups began to sink millions of dollars into television advertising and astroturf events selling the plan to the American people. But as a Washington Post poll conducted after passage last week shows, the Obama administration and their leftist allies face a steep climb.
The top line numbers are bad but not daunting for the pro-ObamaCare forces: 50 percent of Americans oppose the changes in the new law while 46 percent support them. But the numbers also show that most Americans believe the new law will cause "the overall healthcare system in this country" to get worse, "the quality of the healthcare you receive" to get worse, and "your health insurance coverage" to get worse. The poll also shows that most Americans believe the law will weaken Medicare and that there is "too much government involvement in the nation's healthcare system." And strong majorities of Americans believe ObamaCare will increase the federal budget deficit (65%), increase "your healthcare costs" (55%), and increase "overall costs of healthcare in this country" (60%). The American people are right on all counts. And if the events of last week are any indication, these beliefs will only harden over time.
Pitching his failed stimulus plan back in February of last year, President Obama told a factory in East Peoria, Illinois, "So what's happening at this company tells us a larger story about what's happening with our nation's economy, because, in many ways, you can measure America's bottom line by looking at Caterpillar's bottom line."
Well, Caterpillar was quick to inform the markets exactly what ObamaCare meant for its bottom line. Caterpillar announced that ObamaCare would raise its insurance costs by at least 20 percent -- or more than $100 million -- just in the first year of the healthcare overhaul program. And Caterpillar was not alone. Other Fortune 500 firms quickly followed suit announcing ObamaCare hits to their bottom line including: Deere & Co., $150 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; Valero Energy, $20 million; and AT&T, $1 billion. The consulting firm Towers Watson tells the Wall Street Journal that the total hit this year will reach nearly $14 billion. America's employers simply can't sustain losses like these, so many of these companies, including Verizon, have informed their employees to expect significant changes to their current healthcare benefits.
The leftist majorities in Congress were incensed that America's employers would dare warn their investors about the costs of ObamaCare at the same time as the Obama administration's national sales pitch was set to begin. So using the full force of the federal government to bully and harass America's job creators, House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-California) sent letters to the CEOs of Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon, and AT&T demanding all documents "from January 1, 2009, through the present" regarding "any analyses related to the projected impact of healthcare reform" and "any documents, including e-mail messages, sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials related to the projected impact of healthcare reform." Waxman intends to haul these CEOs in front of the Subcommitte on Oversight and Investigations, which just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), for a hearing on April 21.
While it is unfortunate that the left in Congress believes our nation's business leaders' time is best spent being browbeaten by congressmen for not doing more to support their policy preferences, the American public should look forward to these hearings. The more information the American public is given about ObamaCare, the more they will oppose it. The more they oppose it, the easier it will be to repeal it. We have a long road ahead of us, but eventually the ObamaCare nightmare will end.
Conn Carroll is the assistant director for The Heritage Foundation's Strategic Communications and he serves as editor of The Foundry, the think tank's rapid-response policy blog. This column is posted with permission.
Steele Takes Fire for RNC Sex Club, High-End Expenses
http://newsmax.com/Headline/sex-club-republican-expenses/2010/03/29/id/354165?s=al&promo_code=9A97-1
WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee spent $1,946 last month at a sex-themed Hollywood club that features topless dancers and bondage outfits. Now the GOP wants its money back.
Listed in a monthly financial report, the amount is itemized as expenses for meals at Voyeur West Hollywood.
RNC spokesman Doug Heye said Monday the committee doesn't know the details of how the money was spent, all who may have attended or the nature of the outing, except to say it was an unauthorized event and that the expenditure was inappropriate.
The RNC will be reimbursed by Erik Brown of Orange, Calif., the donor-vendor who billed the committee for the club visit, Heye said.
Brown did not respond to an e-mail and phone message seeking comment.
Since November, the RNC has paid Brown's company, Dynamic Marketing Inc., about $19,000 for printing and direct-mail services, campaign spending reports show. He has contributed several thousand dollars to the party.
The most recent financial disclosure report said the RNC spent more than $17,000 for private planes in February and nearly $13,000 for car services. Heye said such services are used only when needed.
The $1,946 for meals at Voyeur West Hollywood was the most eye-catching item in the monthly report. RNC Chairman Michael Steele, whose spending decisions have angered some donors in this midterm election year, had nothing to do with the nightclub expenditure, Heye said.
The conservative group Concerned Women for America said the RNC should disclose more about the episode.
"Did they really agree to reimburse nearly $2,000 for a bondage-themed night club?" group president Penny Nance asked in a statement. "Why would a staffer believe that this is acceptable, and has this kind of thing been approved in the past?"
Much of the most lavish spending by the major political parties is associated with fundraisers, which often target wealthy people.
The RNC spent $144,549 for rooms at the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 2009. On March 19, 2009, it spent $31,980 for catering by the Breakers Palm Beach in Florida.
The RNC paid $18,361 over the past several months to the "Tiny Jewel Box" in Washington for "office supplies," which may have included trinkets or gifts for big donors. It spent $13,622 at Dylan's Candy Bar in New York City.
Some Republican officials and donors have complained about Steele's spending decisions, saying the party should devote every available dollar to trying to win House and Senate races this fall. He held this year's four-day winter meeting at a beachfront hotel in Hawaii, although it often takes place in Washington.
Some donors grumbled when Steele spent more than $18,000 to redecorate his office. Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor, also has received substantial fees for making speeches, even though the RNC pays him a full-time salary.
The expenses were first brought to light by the Web site Daily Caller. The article led with Steele's expenses on charter aircraft and the suggestion by an unnamed source that he was looking for the RNC to buy an airplane to accommodate his travel.
Heye told Fox News the article was misleading because it did not distinguish Steele's expenses from finance and fundraising expenses associated with the purpose of the travel. He added that the story "willfully and erroneously suggests" that Steele was at the club.
"The chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable. ... Good reporting would make that distinction crystal clear," Heye said in his statement.
After the rebuke, Jonathan Strong, the reporter who wrote the Daily Caller article, told MSNBC that he never said Steele was at Voyeur, but "I hope to find out whether that's the case in the coming days."
Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson also offered a statement. "To be clear: We did not claim that Michael Steele personally visited Voyeur West Hollywood. In fact, and unfortunately, we still know almost nothing about that trip, including its purpose. If the RNC provides details, we’ll put them on the site immediately."
Steele's supporters say he has brought a refreshing frankness and energy to the party's leadership.
Obama Ignores Senate Republicans, Uses Recess Appointment to Place Embattled Union Lawyer Craig Becker on NLRB
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63503
(CNSNews.com) – Flouting Senate Republicans, President Obama used his constitutional authority to make recess appointments on Saurday and placed two Democratic nominees -- union lawyer Craig Becker and labor attorney Mark Pearce -- on the National Labor Relations Board.
Becker, the associate general counsel for both the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, had been blocked for confirmation on Feb. 9, when all 41 Senate Republicans and two Senate Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), voted against removing a filibuster against his nomination.
The Pearce nomination was considered less controversial, and Senate Republicans had offered to approve Pearce, a former union attorney in private practice, if Becker’s name was withdrawn. A third nominee, a Republican, was not appointed.
“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis,” Obama said in a statement released Saturday by the White House.
Becker and Pearce were two of 15 recess appointments the president made Saturday, the day after Congress left Washington for its Easter recess.
But the Becker appointment was widely seen as a slap in the face to the entire Senate Republican Conference, which sent a letter last week to the president calling on him not to circumvent the Senate by making an appointment while Congress was away on Easter recess.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), led Senate opposition to Becker, said he was “very disappointed” that the president chose to appoint Becker to the NLRB post while Congress was in recess.
“The U.S. Senate rejected this highly controversial and partisan nominee, and once again the administration showed that it had little respect for the time-honored constitutional roles and procedures of Congress,” McCain said in a statement issued Saturday. “This is clear payback by the administration to organized labor.”
Organized labor lauded the president for doing an end-run around the Senate.
“The appointment of Becker and Pearce to the NLRB is a major step towards renewing access to justice for America's workers,” AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein told CNSNews.com.
“For more than two years, the NLRB has been crippled by its unnecessary vacancies, leaving working families at a major disadvantage. The hardworking people who make this country run deserve better.”
Employers groups, who opposed Becker’s nomination, warned of the repercussions.
“This recess appointment disregards the Senate’s bipartisan rejection of Craig Becker’s nomination to the NLRB,” Katie Packer, president of the Workforce Fairness Institute, told CNSNews.com.
“Overriding the will of the Senate and providing this special interest payback contradicts the President’s claim to change the tone in Washington. The business community should be on red alert for radical changes that could significantly impair the ability of America’s job creators to compete.”
Biased or Well-Qualified?
Becker is the first attorney to be appointed to the board while still working directly for a union. He currently serves as associate general counsel to both the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
A summa cum laude graduate of Yale, Becker has practiced and taught labor law for 27 years, serving as a law professor at UCLA, University of Chicago and Georgetown law schools.
But in their letter, the GOP senators said Becker never sufficiently answered questions posed to him by Republican members of the Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee – especially Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.)
“Time and again questions have been raised over Mr. Becker's ability to serve in an honest and impartial manner on the NLRB, yet this administration chose to ignore the questions and concerns and instead forced their will on the American people," McCain said.
McCain and Hatch say that Becker won’t give clear answers about whether, as a member of the president’s transition team, he helped draft President Obama’s pro-union executive orders shortly after the inauguration -- even though he was still an employee of the SEIU.
When asked by Sen. Hatch during his confirmation hearing if he was “involved or responsible in any way” for the executive orders, Becker responded: “As a member of the Presidential Transition Team, I was asked to provide advice and information concerning a possible executive order of the sort described. I was involved in researching, analyzing, preliminary drafting, and consulting with other members of the Transition team.”
Becker is also known for writing that employers should be barred from placing observers at the polls to challenge union ballots -- and should have no right to be heard in unfair labor practices cases.
In a 1993 article in the University of Minnesota Law Review, “Democracy In The Workplace: Union Representation. Elections And Federal Labor Law,” the then-UCLA professor wrote (pages 451-453): “On these latter issues employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practices case, even though Board rulings might indirectly affect their duty to bargain.”
He also wrote. “(E)mployers should neither have legal standing as parties to the representation proceeding nor have rights tantamount to those of candidates in union elections”
The abstract for the article states: "(T)his Article illuminates fundamental differences between the systems of political and labor representation. In light of these differences, it concludes that employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees' election of representatives."
Becker has also stated that his opinion that the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to form a union, simply by signing a union card -- could be implemented as an administrative matter by the NLRB.
“Craig Becker stands far outside the mainstream of NLRB nominees,” Hatch said. “There is no place on this powerful board for someone who believes that card-check legislation – getting rid of the secret union ballot – can be enacted surreptitiously through regulation.”
The AFL-CIO’s Goldstein dismissed the Senate Republican response.
“Cynical attempts to paint them as biased or radical could not be more dishonest. They are both highly qualified and respected experts,” Goldstein said.
“For eight months the Republican minority blocked these nominations and hypocritically condemned the use of recess appointments ignoring the fact that Bush did so seven times to the NLRB. Putting the NLRB back on track to being a fully functioning Board is a big win for working families,” he added.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Council say they are filing motions in 12 pending cases they are involved in seeking Becker to step aside and "recuse" himself from participating in the decisions because of his public advocacy of union positions on those issues.
The Vat Cometh
by Charles Krauthammer
http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2010/03/26/the_vat_cometh?page=full&comments=true
WASHINGTON -- As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh.
With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.
We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that another $12 trillion will be added over the next decade. Obamacare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks -- the unfunded $200 billion-plus doctor fix, the double counting of Medicare cuts, the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only 6 years of outflows) -- is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement.
It will vastly increase the debt. But even if it were revenue-neutral, Obamacare pre-empts and appropriates for itself the best and easiest means of reducing the existing deficit. Obamacare's $500 billion of cuts in Medicare and $600 billion in tax hikes are no longer available for deficit reduction. They are siphoned off for the new entitlement of insuring the uninsured.
This is fiscally disastrous because, as President Obama himself explained last year in unveiling his grand transformational policies, our unsustainable fiscal path requires control of entitlement spending, the most ruinous of which is out-of-control health care costs.
Obamacare was sold on the premise that, as Nancy Pelosi put it, "health care reform is entitlement reform. Our budget cannot take this upward spiral of cost." But the bill enacted on Tuesday accelerates the spiral: It radically expands Medicaid (adding 15 million new recipients/dependents) and shamelessly raids Medicare by spending on a new entitlement the $500 billion in cuts and the yield from the Medicare tax hikes.
Obama knows that the debt bomb is looming, that Moody's is warning that the Treasury's AAA rating is in jeopardy, that we are headed for a run on the dollar and/or hyperinflation if nothing is done.
Hence his deficit reduction commission. It will report (surprise!) after the November elections.
What will it recommend? What can it recommend? Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation.
But this won't be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs -- which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates.
That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).
It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent.
American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation.
Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama's triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan's strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it: First, cut taxes -- then ultimately you have to reduce government spending.
Obama's strategy is exactly the opposite: Expand the beast, and then feed it. Spend first -- which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.
And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.
As a substitute for the income tax, the VAT would be a splendid idea. Taxing consumption makes infinitely more sense than taxing work. But to feed the liberal social-democratic project, the VAT must be added on top of the income tax.
Ultimately, even that won't be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health care rationing.
It will take a while to break the American populace to that idea. In the meantime, get ready for the VAT. Or start fighting it.
Vote Democrats out of Congress
Lisa Miller
545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=25403709686&topic=6590
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, *if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?*
Have you ever wondered why, *if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes,
WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?*
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices, 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi.
She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them
con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you.
The e-mail Bag"
You Might Be A Redneck
Thank you Jeff Foxworthy!
You've ever stolen toilet paper.
You think a hot tub is a stolen bathroom fixture.
People hear your car a long time before they see it.
The gas pedal on your car is shaped like a bare foot.
You prefer car keys to Q-tips.
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