Michelle Breaks Election Law; Tea Parties

First lady Michelle Obama appears to have violated Illinois law -- when she engaged in political discussion at a polling place! A top Ilinois State Board of Elections official tells the DRUDGE REPORT that Mrs. Obama -- a Harvard-educated lawyer -- may have simply been ignorant of the law and thus violated it unintentionally.

"You kind of have to drop the standard for the first lady, right?" the official explained late Thursday. "I mean, she's pretty well liked and probably doesn't know what she's doing."
[Typical of Illinois politics - and very telling about how dumb this Harvard educated lawyer is if the official is right.]  http://drudgereport.com/flash2.htm
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A soldier who recorded the terror of last year's deadly shooting rampage in Fort Hood using his cell phone was ordered by an officer to delete both videos, a military court heard Friday.
Under cross examination, Pfc. Lance Aviles told an Article 32 hearing that his noncommissioned officer ordered him to destroy the two videos on Nov. 5, the same day that a gunman unleashed a volley of bullets inside a processing center at the Texas Army post.
The footage could have been vital evidence at the military hearing to decide if Maj. Nidal Hasan should stand trial in the shootings. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101015/ap_on_re_us/us_fort_hood_shooting
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Enough Tea Party-supported candidates are running strongly in competitive and Republican-leaning Congressional races that the movement stands a good chance of establishing a sizable caucus to push its agenda in the House and the Senate, according to a New York Times analysis.  [This could be true - but only if we all actually vote!]  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/politics/15teaparty.html?_r=1
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Not that we needed a study to tell us this, but according to one conducted by a UCLA grad student, media coverage of Tea Party rallies has dramatically overrepresented the presence of racist or other offensive signs there

There were uglier messages, too - including "Obama Bin Lyin' - Impeach Now" and "Somewhere in Kenya a Village is Missing its Idiot." But Ekins's analysis showed that only about a quarter of all signs reflected direct anger with Obama. Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president's race or religion, and slightly more than 1 percent questioned his American citizenship.

Ekins's conclusion is not that the racially charged messages are unimportant but that media coverage of tea party rallies over the past year have focused so heavily on the more controversial signs that it has contributed to the perception that such content dominates the tea party movement.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/10/14/study-media-significantly-exaggerate-racism-tea-party-rallies#ixzz12Rw1Y3Am

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Doctor Shortage; Medicaid Enrollees Strain State Budgets; Mini-Med Insurance Laws; Some Companies Leaving Medical Insurance Business

The group's Center for Workforce Studies released new estimates that showed shortages would be 50 percent worse in 2015 than forecast.
"While previous projections showed a baseline shortage of 39,600 doctors in 2015, current estimates bring that number closer to 63,000, with a worsening of shortages through 2025," the group said in a statement.
"The United States already was struggling with a critical physician shortage and the problem will only be exacerbated as 32 million Americans acquire health care coverage, and an additional 36 million people enter Medicare." [And recently Obama told a young crowd not to forget what "change" feel like.....] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68T67120100930
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Washington - - More people signed up for Medicaid last year than at any time since the program's inception, as the recession wiped out jobs and workplace health coverage. A report released Thursday by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that enrollment in the low-income medical insurance program jumped to more than 48 million. With the economy barely improving, states are forecasting a 6 percent increase in the rolls next year, meaning another strain on their cash-depleted budgets. "Looking ahead, states will face new challenges as the federal aid winds down and they prepare for health reform." http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/76018
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Obama administration said Thursday that its top health official will "exercise her discretion" in enforcing a new health-law requirement, a move that could help McDonald's Corp. and other employers from disrupting their health-care policies for hourly workers.The announcement Thursday followed a report in The Wall Street Journal that McDonald's warned federal regulators it could drop its health-insurance plan for nearly 30,000 restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the health overhaul. The requirement, known as the minimum medical loss ratio, concerns the percentage of revenue received from premiums that must be spent on benefits. [As one commenter said, "Wasn't the whole point of passing the law to make sure that companies comply with it? This is ridiculous. Why do we even have the law if it's going to be applied with "discretion"?] http://online.wsj.com/article
/SB10001424052748704789404575524502131067836.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5
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 Principal Financial Group said Thursday that it will leave the medical insurance business, further reducing competition among health insurers in Iowa. Principal will transfer the renewal rights for its health insurance customers in Iowa and 30 other states to United Healthcare over the next 36 months.  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20101001/BUSINESS/10010350/1001/NEWS/Principal-cuts-1-500-jobs-exiting-health-business. [Isn't the Democrat plan for total government control working well?  As each story here presents, the particulars of the healthcare bill ends up leading folks to the government for insurance, slowly but surely - or fast as can be.  This was the plan all along.....]
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Paul wrote here and Scott here about the Democrats' effort to smear, baselessly, the Chamber of Commerce. The Democrats speculate that the Chamber might be funneling money received from overseas into its political spending during this election cycle. The Chamber raises hardly any money in foreign countries and vociferously denies that any such money has gone toward its political spending, and the Democrats have no evidence to the contrary.
Today David Axelrod asserted on CBS that it is up to the Chamber to disprove the Democrats' charge:
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has the burden of proving false the charge by Democrats that the business group is funneling foreign money to Republican campaigns. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/10/027431.php
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WHAT DO you call a Supreme Court that within the last few terms has ruled that carbon dioxide can be regulated as “air pollution’’ by the Environmental Protection Agency? That gave captured terrorists and enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay the right to petition for release in federal court? That has relied on foreign law when defining provisions of the Constitution? How would you characterize a Supreme Court that said local governments can seize people’s property by eminent domain and turn it over to private developers in order to generate more taxes? That declared it unconstitutional to impose http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/10/10/the_most_conservative_court_hardly/
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Medicare & Medicaid; Hostile Government Takeover; Not Able To Keep Current Insurance; Indiana Health Insurance Costs Rising; University of Washington study that established "web-based sex diaries" for gay males as young as 16

Here's a warning!  New projections from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid paint a stark picture of the impact of the ObamaCare law: We're in for a massive redistribution of health resources.
When the projections were released this month, news reports stressed that the president's "reform" utterly fails to slow the growth of health-care spending. Every year through 2019, employers and consumers will face higher premiums than if the law hadn't passed.
But worse news is how radically the Obama law spreads the health wealth around.
In 2014, a staggering 85.2 million people -- 31 percent of all nonelderly Americans -- will be on Medicaid and CHIP (the Medicaid-like children's health program). This accounts for the majority of those who'd gain health coverage. Amazingly, only 3 percent more people will have private insurance.

President Obama pledged to reduce the number of uninsured by making health plans affordable -- but that's not how his law actually does it. Rather, it loosens Medicaid eligibility by raising the income ceiling and barring asset tests.
In short, it pushes our country toward a welfare state.

Often, workers put up with low salaries to get good health benefits for their families. But the new law stipulates that Medicaid recipients get the same benefits that employers are required to provide workers. That will diminish the incentive to work -- another step toward reversing welfare reform. Why stick it out on the job if the benefits are just as good in Medicaid?
ObamaCare is the health component of an overall move to make more people dependent on government. 

Figures don't lie. The projections from the Obama administration's own agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, depict the truth in stark terms.
Higher premiums are bad enough, but to see the older generation victimized in order to expand a welfare culture is a total reversal of American values.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/obamacare_redistribution_of_health_TMnDtf46D3hnBOKYee7oGL?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=#ixzz10jJj4ZbG

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The Anatomy of a Hostile Government Takeover, from National Review Online: 
Obamacare at six months.  It’s now been six months since Congress passed Obamacare — not a long time given the sweeping nature of the legislation and the long phase-in schedule for its most significant provisions. Even so, it is already abundantly clear that Obamacare’s critics were dead right: The new health law has set in motion a government takeover of American health care, and a very hostile one at that. The Obama administration’s clumsy and overbearing behavior since its passage proves the point.
Two weeks ago, HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to the nation’s insurers with a plainly stated threat: Either the insurers conform to the political agenda of the administration and describe the reasons for premium increases in terms acceptable to the Democratic party, or they will be shut out entirely from the government-managed insurance marketplace. What could possibly have provoked a cabinet secretary to launch such an indiscriminate broadside against an entire industry? Simple: A handful of insurers had dared to utter the truth, noting that the new law has imposed costly insurance mandates that will raise premiums for everyone. For that offense, the federal government has essentially threatened to put the truth-telling insurers out of business. And what’s truly astonishing, and telling, is that the new law almost certainly gives the HHS secretary the power to do so if she really wants to.
For the next year and a half, Dr. Berwick, [Obama appointed with not one Congress hearing or vote],  is free to use the Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s enormous new powers to force doctors and hospitals to conform to his vision of effective health care, and he is essentially accountable to no one but the president.
HHS sent a letter to the nation’s Medicare beneficiaries supposedly explaining what the new law will mean for them. Somehow, it failed to mention that the law will cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars over a decade, and cut the value of Medicare Advantage by an average of 27 percent by 2017.  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/247929/anatomy-hostile-government-takeover-james-c-capretta
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President Obama's most frequently repeated health care reform claim -- "If you like your present health insurance, you can keep it" -- sounds about as credible these days as the finger-wagging Bill Clinton did when he said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." On Tuesday, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Massachusetts dropped its Medicare Advantage program, leaving 22,000 senior citizens to find other coverage to take care of expenses not paid by Medicare. Harvard Pilgrim said the decision to drop its Medicare Advantage program resulted from the company's concern for "the long-term viability of Medicare Advantage programs. ... 

We know that cuts in Medicare are being used to fund national health care reform." In fact, the $145 billion in Medicare Advantage cuts are routinely used by Obama and his spinmeisters to pay for yet another Obamacare fiction, that their masterpiece will reduce the federal budget deficit.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/If-you-like-your-health-insurance_-too-bad-1034707-103958293.html#ixzz10v1nspMY

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IndyStar writes: In what has become as much a part of autumn as falling leaves, Indiana workers and their employers are bracing for an even heftier round of increases in health insurance costs this open-enrollment season. Nationally, workers are expected to pay average premiums of $2,209 in 2011. That's an increase of 12.4 percent, the biggest increase in four years, according to a report this week by Hewitt Associates, an Illinois-based human resource consulting firm. Helping drive up premiums a little more than usual is uncertainty over the costs of coverage mandated by heath-care legislation, some analysts say.  He attributes higher costs to a lack of large employers in the state -- bigger groups can sometimes better control costs by spreading risk among more people -- and Indiana's high rates of smoking and obesity. .http://www.indystar.com/article/20100930/BUSINESS03/9300428/Prognosis-worsens-for-employee-health-  posts?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com
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(CNSNews.com) - The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded $126,000 over the past two years to a University of Washington study that established "web-based sex diaries" for gay males as young as 16.
By the time the grants end in 2011, taxpayers will have spent more than $250,000 for the study.
“The study's second aim is to assess the feasibility of using web-based sex diaries to collect sexual behavior data and to identify the appropriate diary schedule. MSM [men who have sex with men] will be randomly assigned diary schedules and we will compare the frequency of reported behaviors across diary schedules and against the retrospective questionnaire data,” the grant abstract states. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75992
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More Climate Matters; Loss of Presidential Seal

Breitbart reveals: Scientists on Wednesday unveiled a spectacular array of more than 200 new species discovered in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, including a white-tailed mouse and a tiny, long-snouted frog. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.1e1a9fce48fee772c40344d3f21d3cc9.31&show_article=1
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Yahoo writes: BANGKOK (AFP) – Dracula fish, a bald songbird and a seven-metre (23 feet) tall carnivorous plant are among several unusual new species found in the Greater Mekong region last year, researchers said Wednesday.
Other new finds among the 145 new species include a frog that sounds like a cricket and a "sucker fish", which uses its body to stick to rocks in fast flowing waters to move upstream, according to conservation group WWF.  [Could this possibly mean that throughout Earth's millenniums it is a natural process that some species become extinct while others are discovered?  Just as Ice Ages and Global Warming are part of Earth's cycle?  You mean mankind is not the killer of species? Just wondering.]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101006/wl_asia_afp/wildlifeenvironmentseasiamekong
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News from Russia: After the record heat wave this summer, Russia's weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.
Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.
The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe. [Oh!  Is this an admission that there have been other Ice Ages?]  http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-10-04/coldest-winter-emergency-measures.html
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Scientists found that a decline in the Sun's activity did not lead as expected to a cooling of the Earth, a surprise finding that could have repercussions for computer models on climate change."These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun's effect on our climate," said lead author Joanna Haigh, a professor at Imperial College London where she is also a member of the Grantham Institute for Climate change. [She hastened to add that they can't jump to any conclusions, even thought it might look as if they have been wrong all along, that man is NOT the culprit or the possible savior.]    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.6f90940f6d9bb44d73f1c586d3a44fbb.8c1&show_article=1
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California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean-air standards, and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation, The Chronicle has found.
The pollution estimate in question was too high - by 340 percent, according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/07/BAOF1FDMRV.DTL#ixzz11mwp1Mol

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My Debate With Local Liberal Newspaper Editor

Here is my newest Guest Commentary for my local paper:

THE COMING LAME DUCK SESSION OF CONGRESS

A lame-duck Session of Congress is one called back into session between the elections this November and the swearing-in of the 112th Congress next January.  If Democrats should lose their majority in the House and/or Senate this November, this will give the “losers” and retirees one last chance to muscle through, without fear of voter retaliation, the legislation they can’t defend prior to the elections. 

Look for the same tactics used to get the Healthcare Bill passed to be used once again: bribes, promises, reconciliation, deem-and-pass, etc.  This could be Democrats’ last chance to get what they dearly want, so they are working hard to prepare their strategy.   As Harry Reid said, “Remember, we still are going to be in Congress, working, after the election. There are things that we have to do. There is a lot of mopping up to do when we come back after the election.”  Perhaps they should have the courage to put these laws forward prior to the elections, but that would be too dangerous for their reelection prospects.  Indeed, many Democrats are running away from their votes on healthcare.

So just what laws would be on the table for the Lame Duck Session? 

Democrats have discussed, promised and/or planned for the following:

1)    Card check – according to Arizona Representative Raul Grjalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who said this would be the last chance for the foreseeable future.  Card Check forces employees voting for or against having a union to cast their vote in public. As Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin said, “to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." "We're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.

2)    Raise taxes - according to Senator Jay Rockefeller, who said “It could be a huge deal.” They would use Obama’s Deficit Commission suggestions, due on December 1, as their rationale.  Notice that the due date was not prior to the elections, when actual votes might affect the outcome.

3)    The  New Start nuclear treaty with Russia, which restricts America’s strategic missile defenses

4)      Federally mandated Universal Voting Registration, whereby all state election laws will be overridden by a federal mandate to register to vote all those on welfare, and all property owners and drivers license holders, whether they ask to be registered or not. Those lists include illegals and felons, and will create an opportunity for massive voter fraud nationwide.

5)    Budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.

6)    Lots of Pork.  A Senate aide has revealed that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending.

7)    A VAT tax, in addition to current taxes, added to a product or material at each stage of its manufacture or distribution, ultimately passed on to the consumer.

8)    Cap and Tax , according to John Kerry – redistributing wealth, destroying jobs, and lowering Earth’s temperature by a mere 1/10 of one percent – a meaningless amount.

9)     Nancy Pelosi has said that the financial transactions tax (HR4191) currently before Congress would have to be a “global transaction tax” involving all the G20 countries in order to keep U.S. investors from taking their business overseas and out of taxable reach.”  This 1% tax on stock transactions would affect every single person who owns and invests in stocks or mutual funds, from small business owners to senior citizens.

Is this the change we seek?

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From: Jeremy McBain Petoskey News-Review <petoskeynews@petoskeynews.com>

Most of this is nothing but guesses and partisan scare tactics before the election, Karen. I am denying your request for publication on this one. You know better than this. Give me a real issue column if you want it published.

Jeremy McBain

Editor

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On Oct 6, 2010, at 3:14 PM, Karen Peters wrote:

Jeremy, these are not just guesses, they are stated goals of Democrats, supported by their quotes. If they are scary they need to be known by voters even more.  I am now sending the websites which you intimated I need not send.  {They are further below...}  But they do prove to you that I am not making it up, that the words are straight from Democrat mouths, and Americans should not be kept in the dark about what this or any government would like to do.  Because I research 3-4 hrs. a day for at least 5 years, and have provided a news service for almost two years, I am a self taught expert on National politics.  One has to work hard to know what is really going on in Washington, and these are times where it is necessary to be informed.  And yes, their hopes and plans ARE scary...  Karen

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From: Jeremy McBain Petoskey News-Review
 

Since you and I have had conversations in the past and you are not just another guest columnist, I will tell you partisan media sites and blogs are hardly dependable sources, Karen, and reading them does not make you an expert. I would say this very same thing — and have — to those on the left. 

Frankly, I am getting tired of all this hyper-partisan ship on both sides ....

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-Jeremy, you and I must agree to disagree.  I feel that quotes, no matter the source, are valid.  Since most newspapers lean decidedly left, where else can Americans learn the full story?  Politico, which I used, is not a right-leaning paper......for instance.  It's story was on Pelosi's idea for a global transaction tax, which she is on video supporting.  The Human Events story QUOTED the liberal  "Meet The Press" Show.  The Wall St. Journal quoted Democrats, and the START Treaty issue was written by Hillary Clinton herself.  This is a free country still, and words and actions of our government should not be hidden just so that we have no partisanship in our country.  Heaven help us if we should keep a blind eye when our country is in grave danger, and I am not talking about this time in our history, but anytime.  We will have freedom only if we are willing to defend it.

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From Jeremy:

We will agree to disagree, and I disagree very much with your statement newspapers lean left. I have been called a conservative many times in the past week. It's just very easy for partisans to say newspapers are biased to try and make an argument. Sometimes I thing partisans would vote against Jesus if he came back and ran for office on the opposing ticket.

If you feel so strongly about your issue, you are free to take out an ad. Thank you.
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So, he has been pressured for his decision to let me have a guest commentary every two weeks, instead of the normal every month.  And, the only way he will let me get my word out is being paid to do so thru an ad.  This is what it is coming to.  I'm considering taking out an ad along with my blogsite, just to see if he will deny it......WRITE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR TO GET OUT THE TRUTH!

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HERE ARE THE FACTS IN THE WEBSITES< WHICH I SENT TO HIM>>>>>>-----------

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) suggested Thursday that Democrats might attempt to move "card-check" legislation this year, perhaps during a lame-duck session. 

Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, strongly disputed that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card-check") was dead in the Senate.

"To those who think it's dead, I say think again," Harkin said on the liberal Bill Press radio show. 

"We're still trying to maneuver," the Iowa Democrat added, explaining that if Democrats can't move the bill in its entirety, they might try to pass key parts of the union-organizing legislation individually.      http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/105223-harkin-hints-card-check-could-move-during-lame-duck-congress

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START treaty must be ratified in lame duck session (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton)

By Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - 09/30/10 03:22 PM ET

Thank you very much, Senator Kerry, and thank you for your strong leadership that produced the 14-4 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I’m very grateful that Chairman Kerry and Ranking Member Lugar were at the forefront of making the case why the treaty is so much in America’s national security interests.
I also applaud the continuous resolution that included money that will be spent in order to modernize our nuclear facilities and begin the process of updating not only our technology, but training of personnel that are necessary in order to ensure that we are providing good stewardship of America’s nuclear programs. 

This vote that was in the committee demonstrates unequivocally that national security is a bipartisan commitment. As we have seen with every arms control agreement, going back to the original START 1 treaty that was passed, ratified by the Senate 18 years ago tomorrow, this is an obligation and responsibility that senators addressed without regard for the day-to-day politics. In fact, that last treaty, as John will know by doing the arithmetic, occurred in another election year, but that does not in any way undermine the bipartisan acknowledgment of the importance of continuing this critical work.

We have had excellent conversations with senators on both sides of the aisle and we will continue to answer questions and work with the Senate broadly beyond the committee in preparation for the vote that we are hoping will occur in the lame duck session, because we ran out of time here during the Senate before it went out prior to the election.

But the support for new START by our entire military leadership, our intelligence community, six former secretaries of state, five former secretaries of defense, three former national security advisors, and seven former commanders of U.S. Strategic Command is an extraordinary endorsement of why this treaty needs to be passed, and passed in the lame duck session.

So again, I thank the chairman for his leadership, for the great vote that we got from the committee, and I look forward to the vote in the lame duck session that will once again demonstrate the Senate joining all of its predecessors in years past to continue to support arms control treaty. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/121943-start-treaty-must-be-ratified-in-lame-duck-session-secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton
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Article of Interest: The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy 
Union 'card-check,' cap and trade, and so much more. 

Washington, Jul 9 -

By JOHN FUND

Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they're leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won't return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal's Charlie Cook, the Beltway's leading political handicapper, predicted last month "the House is gone," meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.

The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That's why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.

"I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. "It could be a huge deal," he told Roll Call last month. "We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path." By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.

In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like "card check"—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—"the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future."

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." He told Mr. Press "we're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.

Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.

Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress's "favor factory," such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.

Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks are alarmed at the potential damage, and they are demanding that everyone in Congress pledge not to take up substantive legislation in a post-election session. "Members of Congress are supposed to represent their constituents, not override them like sore losers in a lame-duck session," Rep. Tom Price, head of the Republican Study Committee, told me.

It's been almost 30 years since anything remotely contentious was handled in a lame-duck session, but that doesn't faze Democrats who have jammed through ObamaCare and are determined to bring the financial system under greater federal control.

Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers, than moderate "Blue Dogs" in the House would support on the campaign trail. "We have a lot of wiggle room in conference," a House Democratic aide told the trade publication Environment & Energy Daily last month.

Many Democrats insist there will be no dramatic lame-duck agenda. But a few months ago they also insisted the extraordinary maneuvers used to pass health care wouldn't be used. Desperate times may be seen as calling for desperate measures, and this November the election results may well make Democrats desperate   http://hoekstra.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=197320

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Liberals in Congress have a plan to raise your taxes after the elections this fall, something they must do to continue feeding the Obama Administration’s spending addiction.  Watch for them to act after the midterm elections under the cover of the report from the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.  Obama was smart in the way he set up his commission.  It reports to Congress on December 1.  Congressmen who were voted out of office in November for excessive government spending will be allowed to stick it to the taxpayers one more time by voting for massive tax increases, and, since they’re already unemployed, they’ll face no electoral consequences.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38344
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Obama Energy Czar Carol Browner appeared on NBC’s "Meet the Press" Sunday with host David Gregory touting a lame duck session of Congress after the November elections as a means to pass elements of the unpopular Obama agenda.
The new Congress would not be sworn in until January.
Gregory asked Browner about the failure of Democrats to pass Obama’s cap and trade national energy tax.

ENERGY SECRETARY CAROL BROWNER:  We're deeply disappointed that we were not able to get clean energy legislation.  There's a tremendous opportunity for our country to lead the global clean energy revolution.  But that requires us to put in place the, the right laws, the right signals so that we build the wind turbines here, we build the solar panels, then we can ship them to China.  We're in danger of losing out.

GREGORY:  I understand the arguments.  The president drew a line in the sand there.  Is he conceding defeat on this?

BROWNER:  Not yet.  The Congress is coming back.  We will continue to see if we can get legislation.  We passed it in the House.  We'll continue to work in the Senate.

GREGORY:  Lame duck session, they could do it potentially there.

BROWNER:  Potentially.

House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) appeared on the same program and said Democrats from “the White House to Capitol Hill” just don’t get it.
“You just heard Carol Browner here on the show say that they're intending, I think she said, possibly to use the lame duck session to pass a national energy tax,” Pence said. “That is outrageous. What the American people know is necessary to get this economy moving again is to get federal spending under control, and preserve and promote the kind of policies and tax cuts that will create jobs.”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38467
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Pelosi, like Brown, has argued that any such fee must be imposed on transactions around the globe in order to protect the competitiveness of major exchanges such as those in New York and London.

The speaker's insistence on a global approach has frustrated some in her caucus and contributed to some misreporting of her stance. As if wanting to set the record straight, Thursday's comments were much more declarative and forceful in support of action than any in the past.

“I believe the transaction tax still has a great deal of merit,” Pelosi said, and if agreement can be reached among the G-20 nations, “It is really a source of revenue that has really minimal impact on the transaction but a tremendous impact on helping us meet our needs.http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30200.html

Yes, We Know Who You Are; Government Fiat; Climate Action Partnerships Receive Stimulus Funds; Republicans Drink Slurpees

UTube provides a video: The presidential seal fell off President Barack Obama's lectern and clattered to the stage as he delivered a speech to a women's conference."That's all right, all of you know who I am," the president joked to laughter from the audience when he realized what had happened.  [I will remind you that this is the same man who, after being elected and before being sworn in, actually had a President-elect seal made just for him, which he used at every speech.  In case you are wondering, I don't think that had ever been done before....]
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zu8D05ECY
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Floyd Reports this: This morning, political commentators are paying a great deal of attention to one of the Los Angeles Times’ stories about Barack Obama’s plans for a Republican takeover of Congress.
The evidence comes buried elsewhere in today’s L.A. Times in a piece by Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons under the hum-drum headline, “Obama Reshapes Administration for a Fresh Strategy.” The story makes clear the “fresh strategy” borders on government by executive fiat. It begins, “As President Obama remakes his senior staff, he is also shaping a new approach for the second half of his term: to advance his agenda through executive actions he can take on his own, rather than pushing plans through an increasingly hostile Congress.” This rule by divine right of kings is confirmed by no less an Obama insider than David Axelrod, who said, “It’s fair to say that the next phase is going to be less about legislative action than it is about managing the change that we’ve brought.” The Times states candidly: http://floydreports.com/?p=2425&utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=3c75edf548-EO_10_08_201010_8_2010&utm_medium=email
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Expose Obama exposes this: On Thursday, policy experts from the National Center for Public Policy Research are calling attention to corporate special interest groups receiving stimulus money that also are lobbying for Obama’s energy policy.
“It’s alarming that many of the remaining corporate members of the United States Climate Action Partnership – a cap-and-trade lobbying group – such as General Electric, Duke Energy, NextEra Energy, Exelon, and Honeywell all received economic stimulus funds. It seems pushing Obama’s agenda has financial rewards. The coordinated effort between big government and big business threatens our free enterprise system,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project. http://www.exposeobama.com/2010/10/08/obama-rewards-companies-pushing-his-energy-policy/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=3c75edf548-EO_10_08_201010_8_2010&utm_medium=email
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CBS News reports: To hear President Obama tell it, Slurpees are the beverage of choice of obstructionist Republicans.

In each of 20 political speeches over the last two months, Mr. Obama has included a riff in which he portrays GOP leaders as sipping Slurpees while hard-working Democrats struggle to pull the economy out of a ditch.

"We're down there. It's hot. We were sweating. Bugs everywhere. We're down there pushing, pushing, pushing on the car. Every once in a while we'd look up and see the Republicans standing there. They're just standing there fanning themselves -- sipping on a Slurpee."

The line never fails to get a laugh, as it did Thursday afternoon at a Democratic rally at Bowie State University in Maryland. His audience laughs and Mr. Obama does too. He clearly gets a kick out of the image of GOP leaders sipping a slushy, ice-cold Slurpee while Democrats like himself nearly kill themselves to pull the economy out of the ditch of the GOP's making. [Our President pictures himself as the long lost twin of David Letterman, I presume.  He's oh so funny.]   http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20019115-503544.html
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"Hand-to-Hand Combat"; Stimulus Payments to Dead and Incarcerated People; Equal Protection Rights; Cash Poor Democrats?

The LA times, Reporting from Washington —

A Republican majority in Congress would mean "hand-to-hand combat" on Capitol Hill for the next two years, threatening policies Democrats have enacted to stabilize the economy, President Obama warned Wednesday.   [This is the same President, he who will heal our wounds and be the post-partisan President, who once said, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”]  http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-base-20101008,0,3160644.story
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The Wall Street Journal reveals: The Social Security Administration sent  about 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each to dead and incarcerated people — but almost half of them were returned, a new inspector-general’s report has found.
The agency was charged with distributing the one-time payments, worth about $13 billion in total, as part of the economic-stimulus package passed in February 2009. Most of the payments were made in May 2009. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/10/07/maybe-you-can-take-it-with-you-stimulus-checks-sent-to-the-dead/
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[The Obama administration gave health care law waivers to 30 companies who could not afford the regulations in the health care law, thus allowing them to continue to offer mini-med insurance policies. Can't all companies not given this waiver claim that they are not receiving equal protection rights under the law?  Therefore, can't they sue the government on these grounds?]
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Dems cash-poor tale of woe ignores
$250 million coming from unions, liberal groups - from the Daily Caller

So while it is true that the rise of the Republican rainmakers has markedly altered the political campaign landscape, the Democrats’ cries of helplessness are a significant exaggeration.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/08/dems-cash-poor-tale-of-woe-ignores-250-million-coming-from-unions-liberal-groups/#ixzz11lbUFQ15

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[According to Nancy Pelosi, we get the "biggest bang for the buck" by doling out food stamps (41.8 million people) and unemployment insurance (9 million people).  She claims that for every one dollar we taxpayers provide, $1.79 goes back into the economy.  I do wish she would explain this form of economics....   Would this mean that if 50% of Americans were on these two hand-outs, our economy would absolutely soar? Now there's an idea only a Democrat could love. See for yourselves at] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t-eycEKXNs&feature=player_embedded

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Townhall asks: Do you think any of the young adults in this video feel entitled?

These days, it seems as though unless young people are on their parents' plan, on their employers plan, or on the government/taxpayer plan, they cannot get health insurance. This is false and only true due to laziness and an entitlement attitude.

Young adults who get kicked off of their parents plan because they, you know, grew up and aren't children anymore (at least not in age anyway, maturity level is a whole other story), can get an individual health care plan for about the same price as they would pay under an employer plan. 

But apparently because filling out a few forms and checking a few boxes takes more effort than getting dressed in the morning, the entitlement generation, my generation, just can't do it unless someone else is paying for it. http://townhall.com/tipsheet/KatiePavlich/2010/10/07/entitlement_generation

US Allowing Eleven Foreign Governments To Join US Lawsuit Against Arizona;Sale of Wyoming Uranium Processing Facility to Russians; McDonald's and Their Denied Request For Health Insurance Waiver

Politico reveals this shocker: In a new twist in the fight over Arizona’s immigration law, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday asked a federal court to disallow foreign governments from joining the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to overturn the law.
The move comes in response to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued Monday, allowing nearly a dozen Latin American countries — Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Chile — to submit friend-of-the-court briefs in Justice’s challenge to SB 1070, which Brewer signed into law in April and is considered one of the nation’s toughest immigration-enforcement measures.

“As do many citizens, I find it incredibly offensive that these foreign governments are using our court system to meddle in a domestic legal dispute and to oppose the rule of law,” the Republican governor said in a statement shortly after the state’s motion was filed Tuesday evening. 

“What’s even more offensive is that this effort has been supported by the U.S. Department of Justice. American sovereignty begins in the U.S. Constitution and at the border,” she added. “I am confident the 9th Circuit will do the right thing and recognize foreign interference in U.S. legal proceedings and allow the State of Arizona to respond to their brief.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43199.html#ixzz11cMMl9db

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Expose Obama writes: Four leading House Republicans, citing national security concerns, are urging Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to block the sale of a Wyoming-based uranium mine to an arm of the Russian government’s main nuclear agency.
The lawmakers are raising alarm over the proposed sale of a Powder River Basin, Wyoming-based uranium processing facility operated by Uranium One USA, a Canadian-based company, to Atomredmetzoloto, a subsidiary of the Russian government agency Rosatom, according to a letter obtained Tuesday by The Washington Times.
The sale was first announced on Aug. 31, and the lawmakers claim that it could give Moscow control of up to 20 percent of the U.S. national uranium extraction capability and a controlling interest in one of the country’s largest uranium mining sites. http://www.exposeobama.com/2010/10/06/gop-to-obama-dont-give-russians-20-percent-of-u-s-uranium/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=e64bc2e139-EO_10_06_201010_6_2010&utm_medium=email
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[Do you recall McDonald's and our government denying that McDonald's wrote to the government to indicate that without a waiver exempting them from part of the new health care bill, they might have to drop mini-med insurance for their workers?]  Nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers.

Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's (MCD) and Jack in the Box (JACK), won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees.

The biggest single waiver, for 351,000 people, was for the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York union providing coverage for city teachers. The waivers are effective for a year and were granted to insurance plans and companies that showed that employee premiums would rise or that workers would lose coverage without them, Santillo says. [Just as Nancy Pelosi said, we have to pass that bill in order to see what is in it!]  http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm 

 

Michelle Quote; Obama's Book Quotes; Obama's Classmate Explains Him

"Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed." Michelle Obama told us on the campaign trail in 2008. [ I guess that's why his Vice President Joe Biden is telling Democrats to "quit whining", and Barack is telling his voters that it would be“just irresponsible” and “inexcusable” for his supporters to sit on their hands this election. 
The advice by Mr. Biden followed President Obama’s remarks a week ago, in which he chided Democrats, in his famous "am I a great comedian, or what" sneer, for “griping and groaning” about not having achieved exactly what they wanted on health care or financial reform or the Iraq war.
“I say, folks, wake up,” the president said, prompting laughter in the crowd at the Pyramid Club in Philadelphia. “This is not some academic exercise.” [And here I was thinking that to Barack Obama the Presidency itself is all about an academic exercise, and community organizing, only.]
Mr. Obama added: “As Joe Biden put it, don’t compare us to the Almighty; compare us to the alternative. That’s what’s at stake in this election.”  Now THAT is something with which I can heartily agree.
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And now some telling quotes from Barack Obama himself, explaining to a large degree the man we watch today:

From Dreams of My Father:  'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'
 

From Dreams of My Father :  'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race."

From Dreams of My Father:  'There was something about her that made me wary, a little too sure of herself, maybe and white..
 

From Dreams of My Father:  'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'
 

From Dreams of My Father:  'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself: the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'
 

From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

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WAYNE ALLYN ROOT [Obama's Columbia University classmate, and Libertarian candidate for Vice President] has written an internet letter listing the "accomplishments of Barack Hussein Obama, and finishes with: Overwhelm the system!]
Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan [devoted to overwhelming the American system so that we citizens are ready for government to do everything for us]. With the acts [he outlined early in his letter] Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.
Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.