Global Warming and NASA - and the EPA

Popular Science reports:  In 1985, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey found a giant hole in the ozone layer of Earth's atmosphere over the South Pole. This discovery prompted a largely successful international effort to ban CFCs, the chemicals largely responsible for man-made thinning of the ozone layer.
Unfortunately, a new analysis from Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) suggests that stopping ozone depletion may actually increase global warming and speed up sea level rise. This discovery pits two important environmental missions against each other, while highlighting the complexity of our effect on the planet.
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New Scientist reports: ...GOODBYE air pollution and smoky chimneys, hello brighter days. That's been the trend in Europe for the past three decades - but unfortunately cleaning up the skies has allowed more of the sun's rays to pierce the atmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred.
Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland and colleagues took aerosol concentrations from six locations in northern Europe, measured between 1986 and 2005, and compared them with solar-radiation measurements over the same period.
"The decrease in aerosols probably accounts for at least half of the warming over Europe in the last 30 years," says Rolf Philipona, a co-author of the study at MeteoSwiss, Switzerland's national weather service.

The latest climate models are built on the assumption that aerosols have their biggest influence by seeding natural clouds, which reflect sunlight. However, the team found that radiation dropped only slightly on cloudy days, suggesting that the main impact of aerosols is to block sunlight directly.   [Oops - does this mean we need to beginning using aerosols with CFC's once again?  I'm confused.]

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Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano is emitting between 150,000 and 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, a figure placing it in the same emissions league as a small-to-medium European economy, experts said on Monday.  
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This week’s Obama NASA speech stirred up controversy in more ways than one. There’s the fact that he said he plans to ditch going back to the moon in favor of landing on asteroids. There’s also his stated plan to privatize space exploration. Add to that the usual grand plans with little if any detail or idea as to how to make those plans come into fruition, and you have controversy. One person sees it one way, another sees it another way. The Obama NASA speech in Florida this week even got a commentator on MSNBC a little vexed. It seems that no NASA employees allowed to hear the president’s plans for the future of American exploration into space.
Obama took a trip down to Florida to give a speech to NASA about is vision for the future of U.S. space travel. The problem is, the whole this was apparently staged. I know, I know, staging Obama is not news. However, this one was not just the ever-present teleprompters we’ve grown so accustomed to that we don’t even comment on them any more. It wasn’t even just the planted questions or the invitation only audience. This one went so far that it even caught the attention of long-time NBC science correspondent Jay Barbree. It seems that Obama’s speech to NASA didn’t include NASA. NASA was simply not invited.
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Proving once again that weather and Mother Earth cannot be easily predicted comes this news from Brussels: The computer models that guided decisions to impose a no-fly zone across most of Europe in recent days are based on incomplete science and limited data, according to European officials. As a result, they may have over-stated the risks to the public, needlessly grounding flights and damaging businesses.
“It is a black box in certain areas,” Matthias Ruete, the EU’s director-general for mobility and transport, said on Monday, noting that many of the assumptions in the computer models were not backed by scientific evidence.
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 CNX News reports:  President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length.

In the current contest, each video must include the slogan “Let your voice be heard,” and it must direct viewers to the government’s regulatory website www.Regulations.gov. The winning video will then be used by the entire federal government to promote the regulatory process and enhance the public’s participation in it.
[I am not knowledgeable enough to do it, but if I could, I would send in a video about why overreaching federal regulations are NOT good. This is particularly true for regulations for which Congress is not allowed to vote, a usurpation of our Constitutional three branches of government.  To my knowledge, the EPA is not one of those branches.  It would include the questions I pose below, by the way.]
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From the Little Traverse Conservancy news:  Just a few mile southeast of Petoskey, MI lies a high glacial moraine, deposited onto the land when the ice masses retreated more than 11,000 years ago.  From atop this hill are sweeping views of Little Traverse Bay.  [What I've always wanted the global warming crowd and EPA to answer is this: what caused the glaciers to "retreat" 11,000 years ago?  Or what caused Greenland (so called because it was verdant and green at one time) to become a land of ice? If they could answer that it was mankind, then I might begin to believe that we actually have the capacity to stem what Planet Earth has been up to for millions of years.]  
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Obama quote

"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Oh, yeah, and just for good measure, he's now in the process of healing the racial divide.
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(CNNMoney.com) -- The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government's stimulus package and jobs bill had little to do with the rebound, according to a survey released Monday.
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ABC News reports: Fulfilling his commitment made last year in Cairo to help deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world, President Obama today kicked off a two-day Entrepreneurship Summit in Washington, DC. (Snip) “We will bring business and social entrepreneurs from Muslim-majority countries to the United States and send their American counterparts to learn from your countries. Women in technology fields will have the opportunity to come to the United States for internships and professional development. And since innovation is central to entrepreneurship, we’re creating new exchanges for science teachers.” 
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From the New York Post comes the following description of the new Financial  Regulatory Bill: The financial-regulatory bill now before the Senate is so filled with special-interest loopholes and exclusions that it makes the health-care "reform" bill, with its "Cornhusker Kickback" and "Louisiana Purchase," look like a model of rectitude.
The Senate bill, sponsored by Democrat Chris Dodd, claims to subject all "too big to fail" institutions to greater federal supervision, but in fact it only mandates such regulation for bank-holding companies. Regulators would have to make a case-by-case decision on whether to apply it to other financial companies.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/chris_dodd_carve_outs_for_cronies_MT1U7GBEPvzX3QXProqC9L#ixzz0mIsl9hVA

The Senate financial-regulation bill offers a stark choice: Do we aspire to be a country where everyone is subject to the same rules? Or do we accept a system where power, influence and money can buy exclusions and exemptions?
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Obama's Debt Committee Panel has been asked to figure out what to do with our government debt.  Isn't it interesting that the panel is not to give us their findings until after the November elections?
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Michelle Malkin rightly questions the timing of Obama administration’s supposed new toughness on Goldman Sachs (just months before the November elections). It’s clear that not only the Obama administration but the Gordon Brown government in the U.K. realize that average citizens overwhelmingly are disgusted with big, predatory banks and their practices and that both Brown and now Obama want to steal some of that fire to use it in upcoming elections. The Democrats are even trying to raise money off of their new found toughness as Malkin documents:While considering the current efforts to pass a new financial regulatory bill, think about the following:
Malkin  lists some of the top people in the Obama administration with deep ties to Goldman Sachs. They include:
*Gary Gensler, a Goldman Sachs partner who is Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission head. Gensler is the guy who as a former Treasury official exempted the $58 trillion credit default market from oversight. Those financial instrumentals played a key role in the global economic downturn and led to billions of dollars in profits for banks like Goldman Sachs.
*Rahm Emanuel (see above), Mr. Sleeze personified who made millions as an investment banker.
*Mark Patterson, former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs who serves under Timothy Geithner as his top deputy and overseer of TARP bailout funds, $10 billion of which went to Goldman.
*Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser and head of the National Economic Counsel. Summers’s boss at Goldman was non other than Robert Rubin, former co-Chairman of Goldman and also former head of Citicorp (and I believe, the real POTUS while Obama is merely his spokesman). Summers has reaped nearly $2.8 million in speaking fees to banks and institutions he is now supposed to be regulating. Goldman Sachs paid him $135,000 for a single speech he gave in April, 2008, a very good investment repaid many times to Goldman.
*Timothy Geithner is also a Robert Rubin protoge. Geithner, of course, headed the New York Fed prior to the crisis and not only saw no storm clouds on the horizon, he also in 2008 ordered the bailed out AIG not to disclose its sweetheart payments to big banks including, you guessed it, Goldman Sachs.
But as good as Malkin’s article is, she doesn’t provide the full details of what has been called "Government Sachs". As of June, 2009, for instance, Goldman had more than 30 ex-government officials working as registered lobbyists including former Democratic House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) to represent its interests on issues related to TARP.
[I have to admit: it is mind-boggling to think that former Goldman Sachs employees and board members are so entrenched in this Administration.  And I must ask if maybe, since Goldman Sachs is being castigated for amoral actions, and perhaps legal ones as well, if any of these Obama Administration folks will be prosecuted for their actions while at GS.]
And there are others, according to seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/42475:
Stephen Friedman, Chairman of Obama’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. According to Wikipedia, Friedman worked for much of his career with Goldman Sachs, holding numerous executive roles. He served as the company’s co-chief operating officer from 1987 to 1990, was the company’s co-chairman from 1990 to 1992, and the sole chairman from 1992 to 1994; he still serves on the company board.
Friedman was involved in controversy, as many of the Goldies have been in government service, involving his former employer. Wikipedia notes:

On May 7, 2009 Friedman resigned as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in response to criticism of his December 2008 purchase of $3 million of stock in Goldman Sachs.Friedman, who remains a member of Goldman Sachs’ board, came into violation of Federal Reserve policy when Goldman was converted to a bank holding company in September 2008, thereby placing it under the regulatory authority of the New York Fed. Friedman requested a waiver from this violation when the conversion occurred, which was granted roughly two and a half months later.

*Neel Kashkari, former Vice President of Goldman Sachs in San Francisco where he where he led Goldman’s Information Technology Security Investment Banking practice. Kashkari served under Treasury Secretary Paulson and was kept on by Obama after his inauguration for a limited period to work on TARP oversight.
*Diana Farrell, Diana Farrell is a Deputy Director of the National Economic Council in the administration of President Barack Obama. She formerly worked for Goldman Sachs in New York.
*Karen Kornbluh, sometimes called "Obama’s brain" is Obama’s Ambassador to the OECD. Kornbluh was Deputy Chief of Staff to Mr. Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin.
*Adam Storch, who worked for Goldman Sachs for 5 years reaching the position of Vice President in the Business Intelligence Group , is Obama’s Managing Executive of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.
*Robert Hormats, the top economics official at Obama’s State Department, who spent the prior 27 years at Goldman Sachs, including as the Vice Chairman of Goldman’s international arm.
*Gene Sperling, prior to advising Timothy Geithner on bailouts, Sperling was paid the paltry sum of $887,727 by Goldman Sachs for one year of consulting work. Sperling, another acolyte of Robert Rubin’s raked in even more that year, according to William Grieder at the Nation:

[he was paid in addition] $480,051 as a director of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, plus $250,000 for his quarterly briefings to two hedge funds, plus the speaking gigs [$158,000] (including an appearance before the Stanford Group in Houston subsequently charged with running a Ponzi scheme). Meantime, his day job at the Council on Foreign Relations paid $116,653. A busy, busy wonk.

*Peter Orszag, Obama’s Budget Director was the founding director of the Hamilton Project, funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. Wikipedia indicates that Robert Rubin, Goldman’s ex-head, was one of Orszag’s mentors.
*Jason Furman served as the second Director of the Hamilton Project after Peter Orszag’s departure for the Obama administration and he in turn left the Hamilton Project in June 2008 to direct economic policy for the Obama Presidential Campaign.

Clinton, Reno and Morris, An Obama Birth Certificate, Goldman Sachs

 The fight is still on...and it's a fight worth having.

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From Fox News: in response to Bill Clinton’s highly publicized linking of the Tea Party movement to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing former Clinton adviser Dick Morris appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox Show disclosing that it was Clinton himself, and not Attorney General Janet Reno, who called the shots during the 1993 botched FBI action that led to the death of seventy-six people.

“Let’s understand what was Timothy McVeigh’s motivation …he himself had said that it was the reaction to the Waco takeover. Bill Clinton orchestrated that takeover.”

“Clinton in fact was so ashamed about what he did in Waco that he was not going to appoint Janet Reno to a second four-year term. She told him in a meeting right before the inauguration day … ‘If you don’t appoint me I’m going to tell the truth about Waco.’ And that forced Clinton’s hand … It’s never been said  before.”

Morris ended up by saying that he never knew what Reno's secret was. It certainly appears that Clinton is covering something up.
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PHOENIX -- The Arizona House on Monday voted for a provision that would require President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate if he hopes to be on the state's ballot when he runs for reelection.
The House voted 31-22 to add the provision to a separate bill. The measure still faces a formal vote.It would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president.Phoenix Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema said the bill is one of several measures that are making Arizona "the laughing stock of the nation."Mesa Republican Rep. Cecil Ash said he has no reason to doubt Obama's citizenship but supports the measure because it could help end doubt.
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The Washington Examiner opines:  Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers, according to numbers on OpenSecrets.org.
President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for Bush was worse than Whitewater for Clinton.
It's not even just campaign contributions. There's quite the revolving door. According to our own Tim Carney:

Greg Craig, Obama's first White House counsel, has joined Goldman, we learned this week. He may not have too much pull in the West Wing, which drove him out for hewing too close to Obama's campaign promises, but as a former insider he will provide valuable intelligence to the world's largest investment bank.

Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, was paid $35,000 as a consultant to Goldman while also working as Bill Clinton's top fundraiser. Obama's fundraiser and economic adviser Warren Buffett is very long on Goldman, having bet on them in 2008 in the expectation of a bailout. Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was a Goldman Sachs lobbyist until months before joining Team Obama. [Though some Republicans are giving their money back to Goldman, we cannot expect for Obama to return his nearly 1 million in donations to his campaign.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html#ixzz0ljsX0xSN

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Fox News reports:  The United Nations has quietly upped this year's peacekeeping budget for earthquake-shattered Haiti to $732.4 million, with two-thirds of that amount going for the salary, perks and upkeep of its own personnel, not residents of the devastated island.

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CNN reports: President Obama called Sen. Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, on Tuesday afternoon to try to get him on board with Democrats hoping to pass immigration reform, Brown's spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told CNN. Gitcho said Brown told the president he would review the proposal, but made no commitment. (Snip) Currently, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, is the only GOP Senator on board with moving on immigration reform, but he has told Democrats they will lose his support unless they find another Republican.
[I have to have to say so, but it's time to start writing and calling our Congressmen once again.....  Obama is trying to get his agenda passed while he still can.]
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With immigration laws in mind, this is being reported by the Los Angeles Times:  In a bold predawn attack, gunmen stormed a hotel Wednesday in the heart of the northern city of Monterrey, CA and kidnapped at least three people, officials said.

Mexican media said up to 50 hooded gunmen arrived in a convoy and burst into the downtown Holiday Inn, seizing guests and employees. 
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Appeals Court Decision to Temporarily Reinstate ACORN Funding Ban is a step in the right direction.  Taxpayer money should not be going to such a corrupt agency, and one whose CEO has call the Tea Party movement a bowel movement.  That simply shows that our efforts are working!
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The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN's request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group's federal funding.The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge's determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group's funding.

Government Propagana, Sedition, and Ft. Hood Subpoena

Can't we all just get along?  No, I didn't think so...

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From Politico:  Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight committee, is demanding a slew of documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission, asserting that the timing of civil charges against Goldman Sachs raises “serious questions about the commission’s independence and impartiality.”

Issa’s letter, addressed to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro and signed by eight other House Republicans, asks whether the commission had any contact about the case, prior to its public release, with White House aides, Democratic Party committee officials, or members of Congress or their staff.

“[W]e are concerned that politics have unduly influenced the decision and timing of the commission’s controversial enforcement action against Goldman,” Issa writes.

Issa implied that the timing was a bit too convenient, saying President Barack Obama’s push on Wall Street reform “neatly coincided with the commission’s announcement of the suit.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36097.html#ixzz0ljqMvSgO

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AARP reports:  Cass Sunstein has favored the government using outside parties as government propaganda agents to paint their opposition as fringe and undermine their credibility.”  [Think Tea Party put-downs and disruptions.]
Astroturf is the act of professional interest groups designing campaigns that appear to be grassroots efforts, but are not. It is what the left has accused the tea parties of being. Only more and more it looks like the anti-tea party movement is truly astroturfing.
Writing on January 15, 2010, Glenn Greenwald at Salon noted Barack Obama’s new head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein , had championed creating fake websites and using outside 501(c)(3) interest groups to act as alleged independent champions of government policy and to “cognitively infiltrate” opposition websites, etc.
In other words, Cass Sunstein has favored the government using outside parties as government propaganda agents to paint their opposition as fringe and undermine their credibility. Kind of like what has been happening with the tea party movement – lots of SEIU members pretending to be tea party activists causing violence in front of TV cameras.

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging

Considering Sunstein’s recommendations, it is not far removed to speculate the Obama administration is behind a new anti-tea party website called The Other 95 , which defends the government from tea party criticisms and attacks the tea party movement as fringe.
The website purports to be authentically grassroots, though one must wonder when the last time was any grassroots activist took the time to defend the government.
The designer is affilated with MoveOn.org and other leftwing sites and causes.
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On NBC's April 18 "The Chris Matthews Show," Time columnist Joe Klein all but accused former GOP vice-presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, along with Fox News host Glenn Beck of sedition.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2010/04/18/time-s-klein-beck-palin-potentially-committing-sedition-against-u-s-gover#ixzz0ldf6xFfk

"I did a little bit of research just before this show - it's on this little napkin here. I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious."
[Proving that he is oh, so in touch with the values of Tea Party citizens], New York magazine's John Heilemann also suggested that the alleged up tick in militia activity is a result of the Obama presidency. Klein said it was not only the Obama presidency, but that he was "African-American," and had "Hussein" as a middle name, along with the "scary" economic crisis. [And I assume he thinks there is nothing inflammatory about these lies....]

It was suggested at the same time that Rush Limbaugh should be added to that list, for calling the Obama Administration a "Regime".  Among other problems with this is the fact that Heilemann himself called the Obama Presidency a regime. As the Washington Examiner has pointed out:  A quick search of the Nexis database revealed more than 6,500 uses of the word "regime" to refer to the Bush administration since January 20, 2001, in the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, and, yes, by Chris Matthews himself.
So now John Heilemann has spoken up. Which leads to an obvious question. Has Heilemann himself ever used that word, with its "connotations of tyranny"?
A search of the Nexis database shows four recent examples of Heilemann using "regime" to refer not to tyrannies but to American domestic politics. He even used the phrase "Obama regime." For the record:
In the January 19, 2009 issue of New York, Heilemann wrote that Barack Obama had no particular expertise in economics, "So it's ironic, to say the least, that the first defining moment of the Obama regime happens to revolve around matters macroeconomic -- dealing not just with a nasty and potentially prolonged downturn, but with a wrenching, epochal crisis of capitalism on a global scale."
In the January 5, 2009 issue of New York, Heilemann wrote of "the power troika of Bob Gates, Jim Jones, and Hillary Clinton, each of whom plausibly could have filled the very same jobs in a John McCain regime."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/An-alarming-epidemic-of-regime-amnesia-91459559.html#ixzz0ldhbFbfG

[We must not expect the liberal media "regime" to halt their assault on conservatives any time soon, for they obviously fear our power.  The more they unfairly denigrate us, the more we know how important our efforts are.]

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Senate Subpoenas Obama on Ft. Hood
By J. Taylor Rushing and Roxana Tiron, The Hill Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Monday issued the first congressional subpoena of the Obama administration. It’s rare for Congress to subpoena an administration controlled by the same party and, in doing so, Lieberman followed through on a threat he made last week. The senator, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, has increasingly become a thorn in the side of the administration. He has accused the administration of stalling a congressional probe into the November shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, saying the departments of Defense and Justice have turned down four requests for documents over the course of five months. Last week Lieberman said he would take the White House to court over the issue of whether to share information about the murders, allegedly committed by Maj. Nidal Hasan.
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Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America's ills, a survey found. The survey illustrates the ominous situation President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall's elections.
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This Friday Senate Bill 3217, also known as the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010, introduced by Democrat Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, is scheduled to hit the floor of the US Senate where it must wait 72 hours before it comes up for a full vote. [Since when do Senate rules need to be followed?]   CLICK HERE to read the actual 1,421 page bill.
Some who have studied it say this: in short it grants permanent, unlimited bailout authority to the Federal Reserve.  It's like TARP forever without the nasty, unpopular debates and votes in Congress.  Beyond that it gives the Fed the power to takeover vaguely defined "nonbank financial companies".  And the Fed has the power to decide what constitutes a "nonbank financial company" on a case by case basis.
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Wednesday, April 21, 2010 Acorn CEO Bertha Lewis "Tea Party is a Bowel Movement", speaking at the Winter Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists on March 25, 2010.

The world now knows that ACORN is a dirty corrupt organization willing to break laws to make a buck by now but here is a video showing how Bertha Lewis (CEO of ACORN) really feels about Conservatives and the Tea Party Movement. If this doesn't give you an understanding of how our President feels about our Country nothing can turn you around. ACORN was Obama's family until he got into politics.  Part of her statements: "If any of you can say I'm young, I'm a Democrat, and I'm a Socialist" - Here she ardently claps... She added, "You’ve got to know, actually, we are living in a time that’s going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It is going to dwarf the internment of World War II. We are right now in a time that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation.
They are coming. And they are coming after you. And they are going to be brutal and oppressive. They’ve already shown it. … This is not rhetoric or hyperbole — this is real. … This tea party so-called movement — a bowel-movement in my estimation — and this blatant uncovering and ripping off the mask of racism." [I believe that any fair-minded person will see this as inflammatory speech, and none of it true.  I have heard black men and gays on the radio saying they have never been anywhere else where they are so warmly accepted and embraced as at Tea Parties - except for insults from black and gay anti-Tea Party protesters, of course.]

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/22/acorn-ceo-compares-tea-party-to-bowel-movement-video/#ixzz0lpuQnBwK

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Health Care Fines for Congress & Other Health Care Issues

From Reason Magazine: Not only will members of Congress and their staffs lose their health care plans under ObamaCare, it now looks like they'll be fined millions for doing so: Congress may be fined tens of millions of dollars a year under its own health-care law, in part because the bill dumps members of Congress and their staffs from their current health-care plans. But no one really knows for sure what the bill does, not even the experts. For instance, exactly who qualifies as an “employer”—and therefore is subject to fines up to $3,000 per employee—is undefined in the bill.
If Congress were subject to a $3,000 fine for each of its employees, it would need to shell out approximately $50 million each year to Uncle Sam. Congress’s research arm, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), informally confirmed the possibility to Republican aides.
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Front Page Magazine reports: The UK Department of Health recently announced that it would loosen hygiene rules for Muslim and Sikh doctors and nurses. From now on, Muslim female staff will not need to wash their hands before procedures as it compromises their modesty. Instead, they will have the admittedly less sanitary option of wearing disposable plastic over-sleeves. Acknowledging the danger of microbes and death, a Department of Health spokesman said, “The guidance is intended to . . . balance infection control measures with cultural beliefs.” [Coming to a hospital in the USA someday?]
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Think tank analysts usually brim with pride when the president of the United States goes around claiming that his policies are based on their work. But when President Obama tries to sell his health-care law as a moderate approach that borrows ideas developed by the Heritage Foundation, we get incensed. (Snip) This is why we at the Heritage Foundation respectfully ask President Obama and his acolytes to stop misrepresenting our research. We think this massive health law is abominable and should be repealed. And until Congress repeals it, lawmakers should starve this monstrosity of taxpayer funds.
It began when President Obama told "Today" show host Matt Lauer on March 30 that "a lot of ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market, that originated from the Heritage Foundation."
First, Heritage did not originate the concept of the health insurance exchange. Furthermore, the version of the exchange we did develop couldn't be more different than that embodied in this law.
For us, the health insurance exchange is to be designed by the states. It is conceived as a market mechanism that allows individuals and families to choose among a wide range of health plans and benefit options for those best suited to their personal needs and circumstances. People would have a property right in their health policy, just like auto or homeowners' policies, and be able to take it with them from job to job.
Under the Heritage design, individuals could choose the health plan they want without losing the tax benefits of employer-sponsored coverage. The exchange we propose would be open to all state residents and -- very importantly -- be free of federal regulation.
The other charge -- repeated on this page and elsewhere -- is that the federal individual mandate in Obama's health-care plan came from us.
For the record, we think that the law's federal mandate is unconstitutional. Our legal center, led by former attorney general Edwin Meese III, notes that Congress has no authority to force an American to buy any good or service merely as a requirement of being alive.
Yes, in the early 1990s, we, along with other prominent conservative economists, supported the idea of such a mandate. It seemed the only way to solve the "free-rider" problem, in which individuals can, under federal law, walk into any hospital emergency room nationwide and rack up big bills at taxpayer expense.
Our research in the ensuing two decades has led us to realize our initial idea was operationally ineffective and legally defective. Well before Obama was elected, we dropped it. In the spring 2008 edition of the Harvard Health Policy Review, I advanced far better alternatives to the individual mandate to expand coverage, relying on positive tax incentives and other mechanisms to facilitate enrollment in private health insurance. This is what researchers and fact-based policymakers do when they discover new facts or conduct deeper analysis.
The president and his supporters invoke the Heritage Foundation to convince the American people that his health bill is somehow a middle-of-the-road approach. It isn't. So please, Mr. President, stop it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041802727_pf.html
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In an election year dominated by health care, dozens of candidates for Congress have a catchy campaign slogan at their disposal: Send a doctor to the House.

Forty-seven physicians — 41 Republicans and six Democrats— are running for the House or Senate this year, three times the number of doctors serving in Congress today, according to a USA TODAY review.
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On the most recent "Two Guys Named Joe" podcast from political consultants Joe DiSano and Joe Munem, U.S. Representative John Conyers, D-Detroit, repeatedly referred to tea party activists as "tea baggers" [Do you readers even know what a "tea bagger" is?  Suffice it to say, it is highly derogatory and lewd, and a misuse of tea party principles] and said that their "rational abilities" are "compromised" because of their anger.
"We are here now to understand the frustration of the tea baggers and the people who are angry," said Conyers. "Many times when you're angry, your rational abilities are compromised."
The comments came at the Michigan Democratic Party endorsement convention.
Conyers, who is Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, turned the conversation towards the tea parties and the recent health care bill after being asked how Democrats could remain in contention in Michigan.
"The facts are, many of the tea baggers that were hollering and being profane and screaming and using profanity...guess what?  They are going to be beneficiaries [of the health care bill]."  [Here's a news flash for Conyers - we actually put our country and our grandchildren before ourselves.  Imagine that!  Sound to me like something JFK once asked of us. We don't want his health care!]

Abe Lincoln, The Right to Peaceably Assemble, A History Lesson, & Our Last Best Chance

 Abe Lincoln:

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

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In February, President Obama signed a new Executive Order.  Although 88% of construction workers in America are NOT in a union, it requires contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects.The union workers are certainly getting their money's worth from this administration, and private enterprise is getting the short shrift.   The Card Check bill is the only step left, which mandates that workers must vote for or against unionization in public, not with a private ballot. Andy Stern, the most frequent visitor to the White House and the retiring President of SEIU must be so proud to be Obama's friend....
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 From the NYT: With the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing approaching, former President Bill Clinton last week drew parallels between the anti-government tone that preceded that devastating attack and the political tumult of today, saying government critics must be mindful that angry words can stir violent actions.  Mr. Clinton, who was in his first term at the time of the bombing, warned that attempts to incite opposition by demonizing the government can provoke responses beyond what political figures intend. “There can be real consequences when what you say animates people who do things you would never do"

My response to this is that our government should remember the Constitution and remember that they are our servants, not our dictators. If they actually govern in reasonable ways, the public would have no need to be so reactive. The Administration is now working full tilt on Cap and Tax, Amnesty for Illegals, and anything else they can pass before they lose the November elections. The fact that Obama has quadrupled the deficit in just one year, and the result will most likely be a VAT tax on top of all our other taxes, gives us reason to proclaim, as did a screaming Hillary Clinton during the last administration, "I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration."

President Clinton said about political disagreement:  "You can attack the politics. Criticize their policies. Don’t demonize them, and don’t say things that will encourage violent opposition.” Mr. Clinton called America a nation born out of protests, and said that he had no interest in reducing productive civic dialogue. Now that's a good thing.  We shall plead for a non-violent change in our government this November.

I would like to ask President Clinton if he was equally worried when Democrats to this day try to say that in spite of 3 or 4 recounts in Florida, George Bush was not a legitimate President.  Did he have a press conference or speech in which he decried the book and movie about President George Bush's death?  I know, you probably think I'm making this up.  However, here it is described: 
Bush's Assassination, a novella by Alien Cultist, was published in 2004 by Fiction Press and was listed as Fiction: Adventure/Parody:

I moved my aiming reticles back on Bush's head. Ugly little bugger. Then there was one click of the flashlight slowly, then a second, and a third, from which I then pulled the trigger. The noise of the shot was completely muffled by the crowd's applause for an idiot son of an asshole. Applause was quickly shifted to screams as the bullet rippled through his eye, and out the back of his head. He laid sprawled, and slightly twitching in his left leg, in his own pool of blood and brain tissue…."Pawn down," I smiled.

I wonder if President Clinton thought this to be inflammatory?
Or what about Harry Reid's proclamation that Bush was a liar?  Has he complained that from the very start, our government has repeatedly reported that Tea Party goers might be terrorists - or that we are dumb or racist or homophobic?  No, I didn't think so.
On NBC News last night a black man attending a Tea Party was asked by the reporter if he didn't feel rather lonely there.  His answer:  "No - these are my people.  They are Americans."


By the way, President Clinton, I imagine that what might have incited Timothy McVeigh 15 years ago were the debacles of your Administration, a show of awesome federal power over people: Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Elian Gonzalez......and it was a far left loon who went over the edge.  Keep in mind that conservatives like to keep things non-violent.  It was President Obama himself who said,  “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”  And yet Clinton finds Sarah Palin's pledge to "reload" as dangerous....

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For those of you who don't remember, here's a bit of history about both events, each occurring during this
 President Clinton's time in office:
The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 1995, p. A14.
Ruby Ridge: The Justice Report
By James Bovard
The 1992 confrontation between federal agents and the Randy Weaver family in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, has become one of the most controversial and widely discussed examples of the abuse of federal power. The Justice Department completed a 542-page investigation on the case last year but has not yet made the report public. However, the report was acquired by Legal Times newspaper, which this week placed the text on the Internet. The report reveals that federal officials may have acted worse than even some of their harshest critics imagined.  http://www.stormfront.org/ruby.htm
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  

The Waco Siege^[3] began on February 28, 1993, when the United States ATM attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located nine miles (14 km) east-northeast of Waco, Texas. An exchange of gunfire resulted in the deaths of four agents and six followers of David Koresh. A subsequent 51-day siege by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ended on April 19 when fire destroyed the compound. Seventy-six people (24 of them British nationals)^[4] died in the fire, including more than 20 children, two pregnant women, and Koresh himself.

Before the raid, Rick Ross advised the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that arresting Koresh at Mt. Carmel in the presence of his followers would likely provoke a violent response. Joyce Sparks, an investigator from the Texas agency responsible for child protective services also advised ATF against such action.

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And who can forget Janet Reno, Attorney General to Clinton, and Elian Gonzalez?   I do wonder if any of these government oversteps are noted in current history books.  And we don't need to wonder if these actions might have upset some of those on the fringe.  What President Clinton might have said is that government overreach is once again inflammatory - this time in a grassroots peaceful way.
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Attorney general Janet Reno ordered the return of Elián to his father and set a deadline of April 13, 2000, but the Miami relatives defied the order. Negotiations continued for several days as the house was surrounded by protesters as well as police. The relatives insisted on guarantees that they could live with the child for several months and retain custody, and that Elián would not be returned to Cuba. Negotiations carried on throughout the night, but Reno stated that the relatives rejected all workable solutions. A Florida family court judge revoked Lázaro's temporary custody, clearing the way for Elián to be returned to his father's custody. On April 20, Reno made the decision to remove Elián González from the house and instructed law enforcement officials to determine the best time to obtain the boy. After being informed of the decision, Marisleysis said to a Justice Department community relations officer, "You think we just have cameras in the house? If people try to come in, they could be hurt."^[12][13]
In the pre-dawn hours of April 22, pursuant to an order i issued by a federal magistrate, eight SWAT-equipped agents of the Border Patrol's elite BORTAC unit as part of an operation in which more than 130 INS personnel took part^[14] approached the house; they knocked, and identified themselves. When no one responded from within, they entered the house. Pepper-spray and mace were employed against those outside the house who attempted to interfere. Nonetheless, a stool, rocks, and bottles were thrown at the agents.^[15] In the confusion Armando Gutierrez called in Alan Diaz, of the Associated Press, to enter the house and entered a room with Elián, his great uncle's wife Angela Lázaro, her niece, the niece's young son, and Donato Dalrym ple (one of the fishermen who had rescued him from the ocean). They waited in the room listening to agents search the house. It was later falsely claimed by Marisleysis Gonzalez, that once they found the locked door to the room, agents kicked it down; however, photos taken by Alan Diaz prove that the door was intact and the damage to it, as well as damage that Marisleysis claimed was done to the room and to Elián's bed, had all been done after the INS agents had left, most likely by the residents of the house.^{[16]
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I am deeply offended by this Administrations' attempts to diminish what is truly an American right - to peacefully assemble and to disagree with our government.  Words like Obama's, Pelosi's and Clinton's will not quell our vigor to defend what is America's greatness!  It is Obama's friend William Ayers (who actually bombed buildings in rebellion against government) whom President Clinton should have referenced, perhaps.
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Following is what I wrote to the local newspaper.  I am surprised they printed it.
We deserve to hear the truth.  The people who attend Tea Party functions are not violent – they are trying to get their words heard by a Congress who doesn’t seem to care what they think.  Many are taking a peaceful, energetic stand for the first time in their lives.  The reason there is such high “rage” against this health care bill is that this law was passed by flaunting the precedents set by Social Security with yeas and nays of both houses at 449 to 39, and Medicare passage with yeas and nays of 377-130.  Whenever Congress forces onto us a bill of this magnitude with absolutely no bi-partisanship, the Founding Fathers are being ignored and the citizens are entitled to be outraged – and energized. 
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Democrats will make fun of us, marginalize us, demonize us, ignore us, and underestimate us - at their own peril - come November.  We are not giving up because they want us to, or because they threaten us in various ways to quell our influence.  For there is nothing so powerful as the Silent Majority finally deciding they've had enough!
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Please!  We now have less than 7 months to make a difference. I truly believe that this is our last best time to right what is wrong with government, to prevent a VAT tax, to defund or repeal the healthcare bill, to stave off Cap and Tax, amnesty for illegals (along with their always democrat votes), and perhaps even the government take-over of our (401)Ks (yes, that is now being considered).  It is time for  most Americans to once again be engaged by paying at least a small income tax (currently only less than 50% actually pay taxes, with some getting money because they don't pay taxes).  Please send my blogs on to your email lists.  You are MY group of possible influence.  Please consider developing your own group by informing your contacts of the truth. With apologies to my family for not having as much time with them til November - I am redoubling my efforts.  What can you do?
 

Obama's Power

Just so you know, the day after the Tax Day Tea Parties: The Washington Examiner reports: President Barack Obama said Thursday he's amused by the anti-tax tea party protests that have been taking place around Tax Day.
Obama told a fundraiser in Miami that he's cut taxes, contrary to the claims of protesters.
"You would think they'd be saying thank you," he said.  [This statement depends on the meaning of  the words "tax" and "cut".  Even he can't really believe his own words, or can he?]
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Obama bowed again.

Mon Apr 12, 6:49 PM ET

President Barack Obama greets Chinese President Hu Jintao during the official arrivals for the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, Monday April 12, 2010.

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)  [Bowing again to a head of state.......]

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Obama, honoring our Canadian ally......?

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"He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue [not it's failings as Obama does], and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves."  Samuel Adams  1865

• The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. — Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom." It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.
  
  
  • Essay, written under the pseudonym "Candidus," in The Boston Gazette (14 October 1771)
  • --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
    

The AP reports: Gov. Bobby Jindal's chief campaign fund-raiser is recovering from injuries she suffered in a Friday night altercation with a group of people in the French Quarter, the governor's office said Monday.
Allee Bautsch suffered a broken leg and her boyfriend suffered a concussion and a fractured nose and jaw in the incident, which happened after a fundraising event at Brennan's Restaurant on behalf of the Louisiana Republican Party on Friday evening.
Jindal was at the fund-raising event at the restaurant, but was not present when the incident occurred.
Kyle Plotkin, a Jindal spokesman, said Bautsch had surgery during the weekend and is facing a recovery time of two to three months.  [Is this perhaps just a little more violent than the angry words of Tea Party attendees whose words are not being heard by this Administration and Congress?]
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While Congress considers sweeping new legislation to permanently institutionalize the bailouts and federal control of our financial system (right on the heels of their health care takeover, of course) several other sweeping power grabs are going on outside the spotlight of legislative debate. Indeed President Obama seems to believe that most of his sweeping agenda to transform the country can be accomplished without even a vote of Congress. The chart seen above and found here shows what the administration is up to.
As I’ve previously noted here in the Fox Forum, the the EPA is pursuing an aggressive global warming power grab under the direction of White House Climate czar Carol Browner (who was not subject to Senate confirmation), and the FCC is pursuing a regulatory takeover of the Internet.
Both of those efforts are now escalating. The EPA has now finalized its vehicle emissions rule, for the first time regulating global warming under the 1970 Clean Air

Act. While EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is trying to calm a political backlash by promising the delay the onslaught of regulations (the overall blueprint is over 18,000 pages and regulates almost everything that moves and lots of things that stay put) she remains committed to them. The Senate will have a key vote on S.J. Res. 26, which would stop the EPA, some time in May.
The FCC was smacked down in court last week in Comcast v. FCC, which held that the Commission has no jurisdiction to regulate the Internet. Yet FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a close friend of Obama’s, is now considering Internet regulations of an even more extreme nature and by an even more dubious mechanism—reclassifying the Internet as a phone system to regulate it like an old-fashioned public utility.
Obama has a pattern of sidestepping Congress that will only get worse in the aftermath of the health care fight and the pending financial “reform” legislation. For a full explanation of all of these threats as well as action items on how to stop them, please check out the interactive version of the chart on www.ObamaChart.com.
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The Hill reports:
If the financial regulation bill that passed the House last year becomes law, President Obama and his Treasury Secretary will acquire the right to take over any financial institution they wish to, provided that, in their sole opinion, it is both "too big to fail" and on the brink of insolvency. The House bill provides for no judicial review and does not require any objective evidence of imminent failure to trigger the takeover provisions.

Once the government takes over such a company, it will acquire the right to replace the entire board of directors, fire the management of the company, wipe out stockholder equity and even sell off divisions of the company.
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Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern, (the most frequent visitor to the White House) and one of America's most prominent labor leaders, is set to resign, according to a member of the union's board and another SEIU official.
The SEIU has emerged as a central political player and has grown rapidly under Stern's tenure, and some close to him had expected him to resign during the first term of the president he helped elect, and after the achievement he'd spent years focusing on, widening access to health care. But he's also waged a series of bitter battles inside the labor movement, one of the nastiest of which turned in SEIU's favor with a California court ruling last week. Stern also won a victory when Obama named his union's lawyer, Craig Becker, to the National Labor Relations board over Republican objections in a recess appointment last month.
Stern, even without the union presidency, would remain on, among other things, the board of President Obama's deficit commission, to which he was appointed in February. [It's the "among other things" that concerns me.  I won't be surprised if he turns up as an appointee of the President."  Either that, or we will be told that it doesn't matter what terrible things he has done - he is gone, let's just move forward.]
Stern’s operating philosophy: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.”

“It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.” — President-Elect Barack Obama [said of Stern], November 4, 2008
“It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.” Ayn Rand, The Soul of a Collectivist, For the New Intellectual
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Jennifer Rubin of Commentary Magazine writes:  At times Obama seems to embody the worst characteristics of the Left — near comical moral equivalence, indifference to human rights, and a willingness to disregard America’s stature as the world’s leading democracy. Add in some jaw-dropping egotism and you have a scene like this:
President Obama said Sunday that the United States is still “working on” democracy and a top aide said he has taken “historic steps” to improve democracy in the United States during his time in office. The remarks came as Obama met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev — one of the U.S. president’s many meetings with world leaders ahead of this week’s nuclear summit.
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The Heritage Foundation reports: Is the Federal Communications Commission building a case for government-subsidized news? It’s not hard to imagine that will be the outcome of the Commission’s “Future of Media” inquiry. The digital age has produced a “democratic shortfall,” according to one source cited in the inquiry’s public notice. Another scholar working on the project for the FCC has said that today’s media abundance calls for “public media entities” that will serve “as both a filter to reduce information overload and a megaphone to give voice to the unheard.” 
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Obama has told state governments that in the event of a nuclear attack on America, they should not expect any federal response for 24-72 hours.

Henry Waxman and CEO Testimony

News Flash -
CEOs had been asked to testify before a U.S. House subcommittee investigating the companies' claims that the new health care bill will affect their ability to provide coverage for its retirees, and will therefore cost the companies millions of dollars.
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations also wanted Caterpillar and other companies to document the claims and explain how they arrived at the amounts they claim the new law will cost them.  Representative Henry Waxman, who called for the grilling of those CEOs,  has called off the testimony.   Someone actually read the legal requirements for companies to actually show their expenses, and found that they were only following the law.  It must be so disappointing to not be able to rail against big companies as evil doers.

Obama's Health Care Bill Has Passed - Now We See What's In It!

The Washington Examiner writes: Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — because of healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’ official scorekeeper for legislation.
The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older.
Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be allowed to deducted expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers are hit by this threshold increase in 2017.

This is worse than a tax on the middle class. It’s a tax on the middle class who are seriously ill. And what’s the over/under on how may times Obama is going to break that “no taxes on anyone earning under $250,000 a year” pledge, anyway?
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From Human Events comes the following: In 1798, long before the “Nullification Crisis” arose, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions, contending that states not only had the right to decide the constitutionality of federal legislation but to leave the Union if unconstitutional legislation was not rescinded. One year later, James Madison took an identical position in the Virginia Resolutions.  (Both sets of resolutions were written in the belief that President John Adams had violated the Constitution via the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.)

Three decades later, southerners viewed the “Tariff of Abominations” as Jefferson and Madison had viewed Adams’ legislation. And sharing Jefferson’s view that the federal government was a compact created by the states, and therefore one the states had a right to dismantle should tyranny arise, South Carolina pushed the doctrine of nullification coupled with the threat of secession.
And the demarcation between supporters of a burgeoning government and supporters of states’ rights is as clear (and important) in 2010 as it was in 1828 and 1832. For within days after the passage of Obamacare, Utah, Texas, Virgnia, Alabama, Michigan, Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Washington, North Dakota, and South Dakota, positioned themselves to file suit against it on grounds that portions of the legislation were unconstitutional: And before the legislation was even signed into law Idaho and Minnesota were taking their stand.

Within weeks, these first fourteen states were joined by six more, and now the National Conference of State Legislatures reports that “members of at least 39 state legislatures have proposed legislation” which, in one way or another, is aimed at stopping Obamacare in its tracks.

In short, the race is on to nullify this legislation before the citizens of the states fall prey to the greedy, overreaching paws of those who put government first, and liberty second.

May it ever be the theme of Conservatism that regardless of the stakes involved, we hold liberty, above all else, “most dear.”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36481
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[It's not as if those with functioning minds didn't predict this, but the Wall St. Journal reports]:  Experts warn there won't be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law. At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
That shortfall is predicted despite a push by teaching hospitals and medical schools to boost the number of U.S. doctors, which now totals about 954,000. 
A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.  [Sounds like Canada.  Might this be what we call rationing, in effect leading to "death panels"?]
Proponents of the new health-care law say it does attempt to address the physician shortage. The law offers sweeteners to encourage more people to enter medical professions, and a 10% Medicare pay boost for primary-care doctors.
Meanwhile, a number of new medical schools have opened around the country recently. As of last October, four new medical schools enrolled a total of about 190 students, and 12 medical schools raised the enrollment of first-year students by a total of 150 slots, according to the AAMC. Some 18,000 students entered U.S. medical schools in the fall of 2009, the AAMC says.
But medical colleges and hospitals warn that these efforts will hit a big bottleneck: There is a shortage of medical resident positions. The residency is the minimum three-year period when medical-school graduates train in hospitals and clinics.  [Yes indeed, we are beginning to see the effects of Obamacare already.]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304506904575180331528424238.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhats
NewsSecond
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The NYT, on the new health care bill: The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.
But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.
The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.
Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law. The law was enacted when President Obama signed it three weeks ago.
“It is unclear whether members of Congress and Congressional staff who are currently participating in F.E.H.B.P. may be able to retain this coverage,” the research service said in an 8,100-word memorandum.
And even if current members of Congress can stay in the popular program for federal employees, that option will probably not be available to newly elected lawmakers, the report says.
Moreover, it says, the strictures of the new law will apply to staff members who work in the personal office of a member of Congress. But they may or may not apply to people who work on the staff of Congressional committees and in “leadership offices” like those of the House speaker and the Democratic and Republican leaders and whips in the two chambers.
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From Human Events: 58 percent of American voters support the repeal of Obamacare just three weeks after Congress passed it, and that's probably without even realizing the extent of the tainted cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office or the tax consequences of the bill.